“Hello, Mr. Rawlins,” Hiram T. Newgate bellowed. “I see that you’re still at home.”
“What do you want, Hiram?”
“What do you think? You’ve decided not to come in to work anymore. The police are investigating you for theft—maybe worse. I’m calling to ask for your resignation.”
“My what? Are you crazy?”
“I have a school to run,” he said. “A school. I can’t have the people working for me disappearing without a word.”
“Didn’t Stowe call you?”
“This isn’t his school. He can’t just take my people. And anyway, you aren’t even working. You’re at home.”
I moved the receiver from my ear, intent on slamming it down, but I checked myself.
“Mr. Newgate, listen to me.” I breathed through the sentence so that he could hear the hiss in my throat. “I’m doin’ a job for the area office. Mr. Stowe is my boss—not you. I work for him. He provides my services to you. If you have a complaint then call the grievance office—and lodge it.”
“I won’t have you working for me, Rawlins.”
“Good-bye,” I said. And we both hung up.
“Mr. Rawlins?” She was standing at the door to the kitchen.
“Yeah?” I let my eye settle on that small stain.
“I don’t want you to think I’m flirting with you,” she said.
“If this was you flirtin’, then love would strike me dead.”
She smiled and said, “Will you come lie next to me?”
“What?”
“You’re right, I’m very tired, but I’m scared in the bed alone. When I get up the room starts spinning. Just lie next to me—until I fall asleep.”
I SAT UP AGAINST the head of the bed while Bonnie lay curled toward me. We weren’t touching.
“Is she really dead?” Bonnie asked.
I didn’t answer her.
“I couldn’t go to sleep for thinking about it. I was afraid for her. I was afraid something would happen while I was gone.”
“You thought Holland or Roman would do something?” I asked.
Bonnie sat up and looked me in the eye. “Tell me what happened,” she said.
I told almost all of it. Not the lovemaking, I was shy about that, but I told her about meeting Idabell and taking her to Bonnie’s street. I told her what we talked about and about the man running through the rain. I told her about the park and Pharaoh’s cries.
“She deserved better,” Bonnie said.
“I know.”
She looked at me as closely as Sanchez had. And when I said my last words she nodded and allowed her eyes to fill with tears. Her intuition told her that I was telling the truth.
I’d never felt closer to another soul.
BONNIE LAY ON HER SIDE, facing me, a peaceful look on her sleeping face. I wanted to touch her, to run my hand down the curve of her breast. But instead I stayed on my back with my hands behind my head.
Most people say that a man loses his rational abilities when he gets sexually aroused. I’ve often found the opposite to be true. My mind is sometimes clearest when there’s no doubt about how I’m feeling.
The tiles began to fall together in my mind. The characters of my little play, living and dead, picked up their parts and rehearsed their lines. I started with a happy ending and then worked backwards from there.
“MR. RAWLINS?” I was down in Louisiana again working my hoe on a row of snap beans. “Mr. Rawlins?”
Bonnie was standing over me but she wasn’t looking at my face.
My hand was down over my crotch.
“It’s noon, Mr. Rawlins.”
“Easy.”
“What?”
“That’s my name. Call me Easy.”
She had a nice smile. “You should get up.”
CHAPTER 30
THERE WERE BUTTER-GRILLED ham and cheese sandwiches and lemonade, made from the lemons in my yard, waiting on the kitchen table. A raven was stalking around outside the back window, searching the lawn for seed.
