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“Mr. Blakey?” the small white man asked.
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I had answered the door expecting big Clarance May-15
hew and his cousin Ricky. The three of us had a standing 16
date to play cards on Thursday nights. I was surprised even 17
to hear the doorbell because it was too early for my friends 18
to have made it home from work and neither one of them 19
would have rung the bell anyway. We’d been friends since 20
childhood, since my grandparents owned the house.
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“My house is your house,” I always said to Clarance 22
and Ricky. I never locked the door because we lived in a 23
secluded colored neighborhood way back from the high-24
way. Everybody knows everybody in my neighborhood, 25
so strangers don’t go unnoticed. If somebody stole some-26
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Walter Mosley
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car he drove, and the numbers on his license plate before 2
he was halfway to Southampton.
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“Yes,” I said to the small, bald-headed white man in the 4
dark-green suit. “I’m Blakey.”
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“You have a stand-up basement, Mr. Blakey,” the white 6
man told me.
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