alone and there’s no one waiting or gone.”
16
“So then why are you talking about love then?”
17
“Because that’s the closest thing to what forced me into 18
this cage. Everything else is immediate and measurable, 19
pretty much. Fear, desperation, greed. I’m fifty-six years 20
old, Charles. My first job was as an accountant in Saigon 21
at the age of twenty-one. From there, on a forged Swiss 22
passport, I got a job doing the same work for higher pay 23
in Hanoi. My employers worried after accepting me that 24
I was a spy. In order to test my loyalty, they brought me 25
to a holding cell where there was an American sergeant 26
held captive. They told me to kill him. They said that he S 27
R 28
3rd Pass Pages
ManInMyBasemnt_HCtext3P.qxd 10/24/03 8:16 PM Page 172
Walter Mosley
1
had been sentenced to death anyway and that this was my 2
first duty. And I shot him. I didn’t hesitate or flinch. I 3
didn’t enjoy it or feel remorse. I just shot him.”
4
“Killed him?”
5
“Scared the shit out of the officer who brought me 6
down there. He expected me to balk. But I took the pis-7
tol and shot the man in the head. I saw the lay of the 8
board immediately. The man had been tortured. He was 9
skinny and bloody and miserable. They would have killed 10
him anyway.”
11
“Was it a black man?” I asked, wondering at the words 12
even as I spoke them.
13
“I don’t know” was his reply.
14
“How can you not know?”
15
“It was a dark cell and he was filthy. His skin wasn’t 16
black, but whether it was tanned or negroid I don’t know.
17
I didn’t spend any time wondering about him. I took the 18
pistol and shot. Then I left. The next seven years I worked 19
back and forth across the borders of Communism and the 20
West. That’s where I made my nest egg. I had two million 21
dollars by the time I came back home. On top of that I 22
had connections with millionaires, intelligence agencies, 23
and political leaders. I even had a code name. They called 24
