The ignition had a bunch of taped wires hanging from it. Some other time I might have been mad but all I could do then was laugh.
'I was startin' t'think that I'd have t'come in after you, Ease,' Mouse said. He patted the pistol that sat between us on the front seat.
'They don't have enough to hold me, yet. But if something don't happen fo' them real soon they might just take it in their heads to fo'get ev'rybody else an' drag me down.'
'Well,' Mouse said, 'I found out where Dupree is holed up. We could go stay with him and figger what's next.'
I wanted to talk to Dupree but there was something that was more important.
'We go over there a little later, but first I want you to drive somewhere.'
'Where's that?'
'Go up here to the corner and take a left,' I said.
23
Portland Court was a horseshoe of tiny apartments not far from Joppy's place, near 107th and Central. There were sixteen little porches and doorways staggered in a semicircle around a small yard that had seven stunted magnolia trees growing in brick pots. It was early evening and the tenants, mostly old people, were sitting inside the screened doorways, eating their dinners off of portable aluminum stands. Radios played from every house. Mouse and I waved to folks and said hello as we made it back to number eight.
That door was closed.
I knocked on it and then I knocked again. After a few minutes we heard something crash and then heavy footsteps toward the door.
'Who's that?' an angry voice that might have had some fear in it called out.
'It's Easy!' I shouted.
The door opened and Junior Fornay stood there, in the gray haze of the screen door, wearing blue boxer shorts and a white tee-shirt.
'What you want?'
'I wanna talk about your call the other night, Junior. I gotta couple'a things I wanna ask.'
I reached to pull the door open but Junior threw the latch from the inside.
'If you wanted t'talk you should'a done it then. Right now I gotta get some sleep.'
'Why'ont you open the do', Junior, fo' I have t'shoot it down,' Mouse said. He had been standing to the side of the door, where Junior couldn't see, but then he stood out in plain sight.
'Mouse,' Junior said.
I wondered if he was still anxious to see my friend again.
'Open up, Junior, Easy an' me ain't got all night.'
We went in and Junior smiled as if he wanted to make us feel at home.
'Wanna beer, boys? I gotta couple'a quarts in the box.'
We got drinks and lit up cigarettes that Junior offered. He seated us on folding chairs he had placed around a card table.
'What you need?' he asked after a while.
I took a handkerchief from my pocket. It was the same handkerchief that I used to pick up something from the floor at Richard McGee's.
'Recognize this?' I asked Junior as I opened it on his table.
'What's a cigarette butt gotta do with me?'
'It's yours, Junior, Zapatas. You the only one I know cheap enough to smoke this shit. And you see how somebody just let it drop to the floor and burn so that the paper on the bottom is just charred but not ash?'
'So what? So what if it's mine?'
'I found this here on the floor of a dead man's house. Richard McGee was his name. Somebody had just given him Coretta James' name; somebody who knew that Coretta was with that white girl.'
'So what?' Like magic, sweat appeared on Junior's brow.
'Why'd you kill Richard McGee?'
'Huh?'
'Ain't no time to play, Junior. I know you the one killed him.'
'Whas wrong wit' Easy, Mouse? Somebody hit him in the head?'
'This ain't no time to play, Junior. You killed him and I need to know why.'
'You crazy, Easy. You crazy!'
Junior jumped up out of his chair and made like he was about to leave.
'Sit down, Junior,' Mouse said.
