Six Easy Pieces

“Yeah.”

“You know the Du-Parr’s restaurant up there?”

“Sure.”

“Meet me there at six tomorrow with the money in a paper bag.”

“You bet.”

He tried to turn around but I cuffed him again.

“You’ll see my face tomorrow,” I said. “When the job’s over.”

“But how will I know it’s you?”

“I’ll be reading a book,” I said. “War and Peace by Tolstoy. You can read, can’t you?”

“Sure I can,” he said, but I wasn’t convinced.

“Then get your ass outta here. Go on, run!”

I pushed Alan Tremont out onto the curb and he ran. He was good at running. Most thieves are.

WHEN I GOT BACK to the gas station Tilly Monroe’s big blue Buick was the only car left. I stood across the street for a good ten minutes weighing my luck in life up to that moment. I had been shot before, and stabbed and sapped and kicked. I’d been on a few hit lists. There were still a few people around who would have liked to see me dead.

But Tilly had no reason to want to hurt me. He didn’t even know my real name.

I DIDN’T NEED TO WORRY. Tilly Monroe was slumped down dead over a scattering of playing cards and cash. His hands were up at the sides of his head as if he were trying to surrender before he was slaughtered.

Five twenty-dollar bills had been dropped on the side of his face. They were old, 1934 issue, silver certificates from a time when the government backed up its currency.

My watch said four A.M.

I took the twenties and left for work.

IT WAS ALL IN THE AFTERNOONExaminer. Tilly Monroe shot dead, Eggersly Oliphant mysteriously missing, an argument over a poker game was the suspected cause of the falling out between cousins. But there was also evidence that there had been illegal activities surrounding the garage. Police detective Benjamin Suffolk told the press that Eggersly had been suspected of moving stolen cars for the past eleven months.

“Yeah,” I muttered. “And they’d’a gone on suspecting him for eleven years if not for those twenty dollar bills.”

“What’s that, Mr. Rawlins?” Willis Long, my newest janitor and pet project, asked.

“Nuthin’, Willie,” I said. “It’s just that some people in this world bigger fools than even young men like you.”

“The fool fool himself that he’s happy is better off than the smart man foolin’ that happy don’t mean a thing.”

“That gonna be your new song?”

“Maybe it is. Maybe.”

*   *   *

AT TEN-THIRTY I decided to ring the doorbell. The last visitor left the Sea Breeze Lane home at about nine- fifteen. I’d spent the time yawning and napping in the front seat of my car. I hadn’t gotten a good sleep for two nights. An old white woman opened the door.

“Yes?” she asked.

“Is Amiee in?”

“She’s not seeing anyone.”

“I’m not anyone, ma’am. I’m Easy Larry.”

“That’s all right, Myra,” Amiee said from about twenty feet away. She was wearing a long-sleeved blousy white dress that went all the way to the floor. Her hair was brushed out but not styled. Her nose was still wayward and sexy.

“But, Amiee,” Myra complained. “How would this look?”

“Go into some other room and close your eyes, dear,” Amiee said as she approached.

Myra huffed off through a doorway and I never saw her again.

“There you are again,” Amiee said.

There was fire in her eyes and my gut. But I wasn’t there for kisses.

“And there you are, the grieving wife abandoned by a faithless husband, cheated of her domestic bliss.”

“Why, Easy Larry, I do believe that you have read a book or two.”

“Where’s Ed?” I asked.

Amiee’s brash smile disappeared then. She looked down and shook her head.