I hunkered down on the coffee table that sat before the couch.
“How you all doin’?” I asked.
“We ready to party tonight — right, girls?” Mouse said.
They both laughed. Pinky leaned over and gave Raymond a deep soul kiss. Georgette smiled at me and moved her butt around on the cushion.
“What you up to, Easy?” Mouse asked.
He planned to have a party with just him and the two women.
At any other time I would have given some excuse and beaten a hasty retreat. But I didn’t have the time to waste. And I knew that I had to explain to Mouse why I didn’t go on the heist with him before I could ask for help.
“I need to talk to you, Ray,” I said, expecting him to tell me I had to wait till tomorrow.
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“Okay,” he said. “Girls, we should have some good liquor for this party. Why’ont you two go to Victory Liquors over on Santa Barbara and get us some champagne?”
He reached into his pocket and came out with two hundred-dollar bills.
“Why we gotta go way ovah there?” Pinky complained.
“There’s a package sto’ right down the street.”
“C’mon, Pinky,” Georgette said as she rose again. “These men gotta do some business before we party.”
When she walked past me Georgette held her hand out —
palm upward. I kissed that palm as if it were my mother’s hand reaching out to me from long ago. She shuddered. I did too.
Mouse had killed men for lesser offenses but I was in the frame of mind where danger was a foregone conclusion.
After the women were gone I turned to Raymond.
He was smiling at me.
“You dog,” he said.
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Sorry ’bout the job, Ray.”
I moved over to the couch. He slid to the side to give me room.
“That’s okay, Ease. I knew it wasn’t your thing. But you wanted money an’ that Chicago syndicate’s been my cash cow.”
“Did I cause you a problem with them?”
“They ain’t gonna fuck wit’ me,” Mouse said with a sneer.
He sat back and blew a cloud of smoke at the ceiling. He wore a burgundy satin shirt and yellow trousers.
“What’s wrong then?” I asked.
“What you mean?”
“I don’t know. Why you send those girls off?”
“I was tired anyway. You wanna get outta here?”
“What about Pinky and Georgette?”
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“I’ont know. Shit . . . all they wanna do is laugh an’ drink up my liquor.”
“An’ you wanna talk?”
“I ain’t got nuthin’ t’ laugh about.”
Living my life I’ve come to realize that everybody has different jobs to do. There’s your wage job, your responsibility to your children, your sexual urges, and then there are the special duties that every man and woman takes on. Some people are artists or have political interests, some are obsessed with collecting sea-shells or pictures of movie stars. One of my special duties was to keep Raymond Alexander from falling into a dark humor. Because whenever he lost interest in having a good time someone, somewhere, was likely to die. And even though I had pressing business of my own, I asked a question.
“What’s goin’ on, Ray?”
“You have dreams, Easy?”
I laughed partly because of the dreams I did have and partly to put him at ease.
“Sure I do. Matter’a fact dreams been kickin’ my butt this last week.”
“Yeah? Me too.” He shook his head and reached for a fifth of scotch that sat at the side of the red sofa.
“What kinda dreams?”
“I was glass,” he said after taking a deep draft.
