Six Easy Pieces (2003) by Walter Mosley

Author:Walter Mosley
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Mystery & Detective, Short Stories (Single Author), Fiction, American, Literary Criticism, African American, General, Short Stories
ISBN: 9780743451611
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Published: 2003-10-01T07:00:00+00:00

* * *

THE MAN WHO CAME to the apartment door was not

big at all. As a matter of fact he was rather tiny.

“Art?” I asked.

“No,” he said.

“Does Art Farman live here?”

“Do you know what time it is, man?”

I pulled a wad of cash from my pocket.

“It’s never too late for a hundred bucks,” I said.

The small man had big eyes.

“Wha, what, what do you want?”

“I come to buy somethin’ off’a Art. He know

what it is.” I could be vague as long as the money

was real.

“I could give it to him when he comes in,” the

little man offered.

“You tell him that Lenny Charles got somethin’

for him if he come in in the next two hours.”

“Why just two hours? What if he don’t come in

before then?”

“If he don’t then somebody else gonna have to

sell me what I need.”

“What’s that?” the little man asked. His coloring

was uneven, running from a dark tan to light

brown. He had freckles that looked like a rash and

had hardly any eyebrow hair at all.

“I need to find a white girl called Sinestra.”

“What for?” The greedy eyes turned suspicious.

“Her daddy asked his maid, my cousin, to ask

me to ask her to come back home. He’s willin’ to

pay Art a century if he can help me out.”

“What’s your name again?”

“Len,” I lied. “Yours?”

“Norbert.” He was staring at my wad. “What

you pay me to find Art?”

“Where is he?”

“No. Uh-uh. I get paid first.”

“How much you want?”

“Fifty?” he squeaked.

“Shit,” I said.

I turned away.

“Hold up. Hold up. What you wanna pay?”

“Thirty.”

“Thirty? That’s all? Thirty for me and a hundred

for Art?”

“Art can give me the girl, can you?”

“I can give you Art. And she’s with him. That’s

for sure.”

I considered taking out my gun but then thought

better of it. Sometimes the threat of death makes

small men into heros.

“Forty,” I said.

“You got to bring it higher than that, man. Forty

ain’t worth my time.”

“I’ll go find Willis myself then,” I said.

“You mean that skinny little kid?” Norbert

laughed. “Art kicked his ass and took his girlfriend

from him.”

“He did?”

“Yeah,” Norbert bragged. “Kicked his ass and

dragged that white girl away. ’Course she wanted

to go.”

“She did?”

“’Course she did. Why she want that skinny

guitar man when she could have Big Art in her

bed?”

I handed Norbert a twenty dollar bill.

“Where was it that Art did this?”

“Next to that big ’partment buildin’ down on

Avalon. Near the Chevron station with the big

truck for a sign.”

I handed him another twenty.

“It was the only blue house on the block.”

“How do you know all that?” I asked.

“I drove him over there.”

“Did Sinestra mind Art beating up her

boyfriend?”

“Didn’t seem to,” Norbert shrugged.

I handed him another twenty dollar bill.

“Where’s Art now?”

“At Havelock’s Motel on Santa Barbara. That’s

where we go when we got a woman, you know, to

let the other man get some sleep. I mean we ain’t

got but two rooms up in here.”

I handed over another leaf of Sheila Merchant’s

money and went away.

ONCE IN MY CAR I had a small dilemma. Should I

go after the girl or Willis? It seemed to me that no

one really cared about her, except maybe her

father.

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