Silence saved his life.
I washed my hands in cold water and then doused my face.
“WHAT YOU WANT, MAN?” Bartlett asked me. I was sitting in a chair next to his bed.
“My hands hurt,” he said. “I cain’t breathe through my nose.”
“You ain’t gonna be breathin’ at all you don’t talk to me,” I said softly.
“Talk about what?”
“You know who I am?” I asked. “My name is Easy Rawlins.”
“I thought you said your name was Koogan?”
“You know who I am?” I asked again.
“Yeah, yeah.”
“Then talk to me.”
“What you wanna know?”
I just slapped him—that’s all. Knocking him around, tying him up. That wasn’t much considering what he had done to me.
“Hey, man!” he cried. “Lemme up.”
“Talk to me, Billy,” I said. “Talk to me.”
“You wanna know ’bout the schools? Is that what you want?”
I didn’t reply.
“It was Sallie Monroe, not me. It was Sallie. I met Roman at Idabell’s house, at a party they had. We got friendly and I introduced him to Sallie. Next thing I know Roman’s with Grace an’ she’s on junk. Roman got the job and then Sallie got me to go in to help him ’cause I knew the school setups and how things worked. You know, alarms and electric systems, where stuff might be stored.”
“What about Holland?”
“What about him?”
“How was he in it?”
“Roman cut him in ’cause we could use his paper shack to hold stuff sometimes.”
“What did Idabell want wit’ you that night she came to Whitehead’s?”
“She wanted some money. She knew I was in it with Holly and she wanted three hunnert dollars.”
“What did she say to you?”
“Nuthin’. Just that she was goin’ outta town.”
“Is that all?”
“No. I mean I asked if she needed a place to stay but she said that she was going to stay with a girlfriend.”
“Who’d you tell?” I asked the flesh and bones.
He saw my face and realized what Joey Beam must have done.
“I didn’t know, man,” he pleaded. “I swear I didn’t know.”
“That ain’t gonna save your life, Billy.” I didn’t even know if I intended to kill him, but I certainly was on the edge.
“I’ll turn myself in, man. It was Sallie wanted to call cop on you. Roman was dead and he thought you could take the fall. It was Sallie.”
“No,” I said.
“What you mean—no!”
“I mean no, Billy. I mean whoever called knew Roman was dead before the cops or anybody else did. The man who called the cops called the principal at Sojourner Truth first. That man already knew that Roman was dead and he wanted them to be lookin’ at me for his killer. You sayin’ that Sallie killed Roman?”
For a moment there I thought that Billy had died. His eyes were opened wide and his mouth was too. Then I heard the high-pitched whine of his breathing.
“I don’t know nuthin’ about that,” he said. “I don’t know a thing.”
“Who killed’im, Billy? I ain’t gonna ask you twice.”
At first I thought he was coughing; that the blood from his nose had gone down his throat. But then I saw the tears. His lips were pushing in and out and his head bobbed in a steady beat with the barks.
“That does it!” I shouted.
I ran into the living room and looked around until I found the long knife on the floor. Then I stalked back to the coffin-shaped bed. I’d run out intending to kill Billy. But standing up and going from one room to the other, bending down to get the knife, made me remember the jailhouse bully whose name wasn’t Jones and Felix Wren. By the time I got back to Bartlett I had lost my desire for his blood.
But Billy didn’t know that.
