Walter Mosley - Easy Rawlins 11 by Blonde Faith

Author:Blonde Faith [Faith, Blonde]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2012-06-08T19:26:28+00:00

Pericles Tarr

I read the letter three times, wondering what Meredith would think when she read it. It was the truth, but how could she know that? Pericles’ leaving her had nothing to do with Pretty Smart. He just couldn’t take it anymore. It was a house filled with noise and ugliness that only a mother could love. It’s a wonder that she didn’t understand what her man was going through. But then I thought, what would understanding have done for her? He would still have left. She would still have been set adrift with a dozen kids in a paper boat.

But none of that was my concern. I’d bring Meredith her money, and she would make it into their life preserver.

We all just make up life as we go along. At some point Pericles must have loved Meredith. He wanted a big family, or at least he wanted what she wanted and believed that she understood the consequences. And when the life he’d made turned out not to be the life he was making, Perry made up Pretty, robbed a payroll in Washington state, and bought two tickets for New York.

It was all make-believe, their lives and mine.

I PULLED UP in front of the Tarr home a little after four-thirty. The front door was open, and there were children ripping and running in and out of the house. There were more than twenty kids crying out loud and going crazy. The Tarr children had friends whose parents would never let them run wild like that.

I stepped over two wrestling eight-year-old boys to get past the threshold. In the kitchen I found Leafa making peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches for smaller kids who needed fuel for their disasters.

When the perfect child saw me, she smiled. She had her father’s nose.

“She’s in the back room, Mr. Rawlins,” Leafa shouted, pointing with the jelly knife.

I went past the line of preschoolers to a closed door that I opened without knocking.

Meredith was there in a straight-back chair, sitting at an odd, distinctly unfeminine angle and staring at the wall.

“Mrs. Tarr.”

No response.

“Mrs. Tarr,” I said again, moving closer to her corner.

She turned her frozen gaze to me and frowned slightly.

“Have you fount his body?” she asked.

I handed her the pillowcase and the page Pericles had penned. She put the bag on her lap and unfolded the note.

Either she was a slow reader or Meredith Tarr read Perry’s last words to her many times over. I stood there because there was no other chair in that malleable room. After a long time, Meredith took up the pillowcase and looked inside. After that she turned her attention to me.

“What does this mean?”

“I found Perry in a house in Compton,” I said. “He was leaving for New York and said that he was going to send you this money. I told him you were just about to get evicted and offered to deliver it.”

“Did you read his letter?” she asked, ignoring my subtle lies.

“No.”

“It says he don’t love me no mo‘.”

I had no reply.

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