When the voice speaks, I listen.
15
There was another car parked in front of my house when I got home. A white Cadillac. No one was in it but this time it was my front door that was open.
Manny and Shariff were loitering just inside the door. Shariff grinned at me. Manny looked at the floor so I still couldn't tell about his eyes.
Mr. Albright was standing in the kitchen, looking out over the backyards through the window. The smell of coffee filled the house. When I came in he turned to me, a porcelain cup cradled in his right hand. He wore white cotton pants and a cream sweater, white golf shoes, and a captain's cap with a black brim.
'Easy.' His smile was loose and friendly.
'What you doin' in my house, man?'
'I had to talk to you. You know I expected you to be home.'
There was the slightest hint of threat in his voice. 'So Manny used a screwdriver on the door, just to be comfortable. Coffee's made.'
'You got no excuse to be breakin' into my house, Mr. Albright. What would you do if I broke into your place?'
'I'd tear your nigger head out by its root.' His smile didn't alter in the least.
I looked at him a minute. Somewhere in the back of my mind I thought, Bide your time, Easy.
'So what you want?' I asked him. I went to the counter and poured a cup of coffee.
'Where have you been this time of morning, Easy?'
'Nowhere got to do with your business.'
'Where?'
I turned to him saying, 'I went to see a girl. Don't you git none, Mr. Albright?'
His dead eyes turned colder and the smile left his face. I was trying to say something that would get under his skin and then I was sorry I had.
'I didn't come here to play with you, boy,' he said evenly. 'You got my money in your pocket and all I got is an earful of smartass.'
'What do you mean?' I stopped myself from taking a step backward.
'I mean, Frank Green hasn't been home in two days. I mean that the superintendent at the Skyler Arms tells me that the police have been around his place asking about a colored girl that was seen with Green a few days before she died. I want to know, Easy. I want to know where the white girl is.'
'You don't think I did my job? Shit, I give you the money back.'
'Too late for that, Mr. Rawlins. You take my money and you belong to me.'
'I don't belong to anybody.'
'We all owe out something, Easy. When you owe out then you're in debt and when you're in debt then you can't be your own man. That's capitalism.'
'I got your money right here, Mr. Albright.' I reached for my pocket.
'Do you believe in God, Mr. Rawlins?'
'What do ya want, man?'
'I want to know if you believe in God.'
'This here is bullshit. I gotta go to bed.' I made like I was going to turn away but I didn't. I would have never knowingly turned my back on DeWitt Albright.
'Because you see,' he continued, leaning slightly toward me, 'I like to look very close at a man I kill if he believes in God. I want to see if death is different for a religious man.'
'Bide your time,' the voice whispered.
'I seen her,' I said.
I went to the chair in the living room. Sitting down took a great weight off me.
Albright's henchmen moved close to me. They were roused, like hunting dogs expecting blood.
'Where?' DeWitt smiled. His eyes looked like those of the undead.
'She called me. Said that if I didn't help her she'd tell the police about Coretta …'
'Coretta?'
'A dead girl, friend'a mine. She prob'ly the one that the police askin' 'bout. She the one was with Frank an' your girl,' I said. 'Daphne gave me an address over on Dinker and I went there. Then she had me drive up in the Hollywood Hills to a dude's house.'
'When was all this?'
'I just got back.'
