Little Scarlet by WALTER MOSLEY

Author:WALTER MOSLEY [MOSLEY, WALTER]
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780759511668
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company

25

I entered the Seventy-seventh Street police station not fifteen minutes after leaving Newell. I’d gotten out of the car with the tire iron in my hand but when a woman passing by jerked her head and skipped away from me I realized that I should put my weapon down.

Walking back to the car, I felt every step like I was walking through water. I was wasting time. What I needed to do was find Harold and kill him. I opened the trunk and threw the tire iron in and then I sprinted for the police station.

I ran up to the front door breathing hard and sweating. Anyone looking at me would have thought that I was a man in trouble. I’m sure that’s what the desk sergeant thought.

“Yes?” he asked, scrutinizing me from head to toe.

“Detective Suggs, please,” I said.

“And who are you?”

The only feature I remember about that white man was that he had red hair. Red hair like Nola Payne had. Little Scarlet murdered by Harold the tramp. If thoughts could kill, people would have fallen dead for a mile all around me.

“Easy Rawlins,” I said. “Easy Rawlins.”

“And what’s your problem, Mr. Rawlins?”

“Murder,” I said. “He asked me about a murder and I found out something he wants to know.”

I could see the cop trying to block me with some unspoken logic in his mind. The man looks crazy, he seemed to be thinking, but then again Suggs was only visiting the Seventy-seventh. I probably did know him.

There were quite a few policemen in the station. I suppose they were on overtime, making sure the people in the neighborhood didn’t burn them down.

“Have a seat,” Red said.

I went over near the bench across from his desk but stayed on my feet.

“I said sit down,” the desk sergeant commanded.

“Don’t wanna sit,” I said.

“You heard the man,” a voice to my right said.

It was from a tall uniformed cop standing nearby. He had gray hair, a young face, and a hand on his baton. I didn’t say anything to him, just stood there and stared.

“Do you want me to sit you down?” the gray-haired, boy-faced man asked.

“Fuck you.”

“Corless,” a voice I recognized said. “Stand down.”

“But, Lieutenant —”

“Stand down,” Detective Suggs said again.

He came in between me and the angry uniform.

“Fuck you,” I said again.

The gray head lunged at me but he was met by a surprisingly quick left hook thrown by the sloppy detective. Corless went down quickly and though he tried to jump back up he couldn’t find his legs.

Suggs took me by the arm and led me down a hall behind the sergeant’s desk and to an office that was a storage room not three days before. A dozen reams of paper were piled on the table he used for a desk and a three-foot pile of first-aid kits was stacked against the wall. There was a rack of shotguns on the floor and a gaping file cabinet filled with parking tickets and other traffic citations that kept the door from fully opening.

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