Bad Boy Brawly Brown

by Walter Mosley

  “I love the man,” she said. “Not the man who saved me, but the one who cared that I was okay.”

  I looked into her eyes but her heart was too vast for me to comprehend.

  WHEN THE PHONE RANG I was deep in a dreamless sleep. I heard it jangling but there didn’t seem to be any reason to answer. My left foot was hanging out of the bed, feeling a slight chill, and my right thigh was pressed against Bonnie’s butt, warm as toast. Everything was right with the world.

  “Easy. Easy.”

  “Hm.”

  “Easy.”

  “Yeah, babe?”

  “It’s the phone. A woman named Tina.”

  I remembered the ringing. It seemed like many years ago. The only thing that mattered was my cold foot and warm thigh.

  “Easy.”

  And then I was awake, craving cigarettes and aware of the danger I’d crossed over into.

  “Hello,” I said.

  “Mr. Rawlins?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “This is Tina Montes. We met the other night at the First Men.”

  “I remember. Your people pulled a gun on me and threw me out of the car.”

  I could feel Bonnie stiffen against my leg.

  “I didn’t want that. Conrad and Mr. Strong get kinda rough sometimes.”

  “What can I do for you, Miss Montes?”

  “Miss Latour said that I could trust you.”

  “You sure can do that,” I said. “On one condition, that is.”

  “What’s that?”

  “You can trust me if you don’t lie to me.”

  “Okay.”

  “What time is it?”

  “One,” she said.

  “In the morning?” I said with a sigh. “Tell Liselle to get the parlor ready. I’ll be over in less than an hour.”

  I put down the phone and sat up in one motion.

  Bonnie didn’t say anything until I was dressed and ready to leave.

  “Easy?”

  “Yeah, babe?”

  She stood up all naked and womanly. From her purse she took a Camel cigarette. She always carried a pack because she sometimes smoked with her girlfriends. She lit the cigarette, took a drag, and then put it between my lips.

  She kissed my cheek and said, “You need to be calm out there, Mr. Rawlins. Give up smoking some other time.”

  “Aren’t you upset about some woman calling me in the middle of the night?”

  “No,” she said. “You wouldn’t give our number to some bird you took a fancy to. You wouldn’t hurt me like that. I am worried about someone pulling a gun on you, though.”

  “He wasn’t serious,” I said. “Just tryin’ to show me who was boss.”

  27

  LISELLE MET ME at the front door. She looked even older late at night. The flesh under her eyes hung down and her shoulders did, too.

  But, weak and tired as she was, she grilled me before allowing me to set foot past the threshold.

  “I don’t want you worrying her now, Easy,” Liselle said. “You know that girl has enough problems. And I don’t want you bringing her down just because you wanna help that broodin’ Brawly boy.”

  “You know Brawly?” I asked.

  “He been here. Yes, he has.”

  “What do you know about him?”

  “Just that he’s sullen and childish. Start talkin’ to anybody like they supposed to care how he feels. Told me that he liked me ’cause I wasn’t cold like his mother. I told him that it’s much easier for a stranger to be nice than a mother who got to listen to a boy’s boasting he’s a man while she washin’ the shit stains outta his drawers.”

  I laughed. “What he say to that?”

  “Just frowned an’ never even said hello to me again.”

  “I won’t hurt Tina,” I said. “I promise you that.”

  Liselle held my gaze with her drooping, watery eyes for a good five seconds before leading me into the old-fashioned parlor, where Tina was seated on a straight-backed walnut chair.

  The young radical was wearing baggy blue slacks and a coral-colored top that was also loose-fitting. Tina had a small nose and medium brown skin. She was pretty because she was twenty, more or less. By thirty she’d be no more than handsome, and by forty she’d be considered plain.

  But right then she held the strong attraction of vulnerability. She looked up at Liselle and me like some condemned prisoner hoping for a reprieve but expecting the worst.

  “Here he is, baby,” Liselle said. “But if you don’t want to talk no more, just stand up and come in to me. Just come in to me.”

  “Thank you, Miss Latour,” Tina said.

  Liselle walked into her small apartment, leaving her door slightly ajar. I waited a moment before walking over and pushing the door closed. Then I came back to the chair across from Christina Montes.

  “How are you doing?” I asked.

  “Okay. But you know three of our brothers are still in jail. One’s in the hospital.”

  “Why’d the cops break in on you like that?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “Thanks for helping me get away.”

  “No problem.”

  “Conrad shouldn’t have put that gun in your face. Xavier says it’s because people think he looks white that he always feels he has to prove himself.”

  “I’m not worried about him,” I said. “Liselle told you that I’m tryin’ t’help Brawly, right?”

  “You told us that you were lookin’ for him in the car the other night.”

  “Yeah, I forgot. Well, she told you that I’m all right, I guess.”

  “She said that you could help people out if they’re in trouble but that I should be careful because you move with dangerous people.”

  “I can’t argue about that,” I said. “But you put me to shame.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “You got Conrad and Brawly stackin’ up guns with Brawly’s girlfriend —”

  “Clarissa?” Tina was really surprised.

  “No, the white one, BobbiAnne.”

  “You got that wrong, Mr. Rawlins. Clarissa is Brawly’s girl,” Tina said. “He loves her.”

  “I don’t know what the word is that he does to BobbiAnne, but she’s his girl, too,” I said with a great deal of authority in my voice.

  “I don’t know anything about that or any guns, either. All I know is that Henry Strong is dead and I’m scared, scared for Xavier and the others.”

  “What about Aldridge Brown?” I asked.

  “What about him?”

  “Did you know him?”

  “Sure I know him. He’s Brawly’s father. A couple of times he bought us dinner at Egbert’s Coffee Shop.”

  “So Aldridge was in the Party, too?” I asked.

  “No. Really I don’t think he cared about politics. But he had a lot of trouble with Brawly when Brawly was a boy, and they were tryin’ to make up for it.”

  “Do you think whoever killed Strong killed Brawly’s father?”

  “The police killed Henry, but what do you mean about Mr. Brown?” If she was lying, she was a master at it.

  “He was killed two days ago at a house owned by a woman named Isolda Moore.”

  Tina shook her head slowly.

  “Don’t you read the newspaper?” I asked.

  “Why would I? It’s all lies anyway,” she said. “Why be blinded by white men’s lies?”

  “Because you might read something that has something to do with you,” I said. “That’s why.”

  “I don’t know what to tell you, Mr. Rawlins. I’ve been staying at different friends’ houses since the night the cops busted up our meeting. Mr. Strong said that we should keep moving because the police had us all on a list and the leaders might be killed. I only came here tonight to get my stuff and move away. Miss Latour has always been kind and friendly. She told me I should talk with you, but really I don’t know anything about guns and murderers.”

  “Why do you think the cops killed St
rong?” I asked her.

  “Because he’s so important to the movement. He told us that the police would try to eliminate our elite either by framing them or by assassination.”

  Before I visited with Colonel Lakeland I would have sneered at the possibility of such a conspiracy; now, I didn’t know.

  “What about Aldridge?” I asked. “Why would the cops kill him?”

  “I don’t know. He never went to our meetings or anything. He just picked up Brawly sometimes and took us out for coffee.”

  “But him and Brawly got along okay?”

  “Yeah,” she said. “I mean, they had a bad history, like I said. But that was all worked out. You could tell that Brawly was still a little distant, though.”

  I tucked her words away. It was a puzzle with too many pieces. Even if one thing seemed to fit, something else was left to the side.

  “What about you and Strong?” I asked.

  “What do you mean?”

  “You know what I mean. Did he ever come by here without Xavier knowin’ it?”

  “A few times. But there’s nothing wrong with that. Men and women are free to know each other and see each other and —”

  “How much did you show to Mr. Strong?” I asked.

  “What business is that of yours?”

  “Because after this talk here I’m gonna ask you to go with me to see Xavier. I don’t wanna say anything that will make him so mad that he loses reason.”

  “Why would I take you to Xavier, anyway?”

  “I didn’t say I wanted you to take me to him. I know where he lives. On Hoover.” I told her the address. “What I need is for you to pave the way for a calm conversation. Now how are we going to be calm if in the middle of it, it turns out that you’ve been beddin’ the master?”

  The intensity of Tina’s eyes told me that Liselle’s suspicions were right.

  “It wasn’t nuthin’,” Tina said. “He was lonely down here and we liked to talk. One day he put his hand on the back of my neck.…”

  I didn’t care about the details. I didn’t care that they had been together at all.

  “Where?” I asked.

  “My neck.”

  “No. Where were you when you first… um… kissed him?”

  “At his place.”

  “The Colorado Hotel?”

  “No.” She gave me a Watts address, not far from Central Avenue.

  “Okay,” I said. “We don’t have to talk about that with Xavier. But did Henry say anything other than he thought he was gonna be assassinated? Killed?”

  “No.”

  “He was shot over by some tract houses goin’ up over in Compton,” I said. “You ever go there with him, or he ever talk about it?”

  “Brawly was out there,” she said, hesitating over the memory. “I think Henry went out there with him once, maybe more times.”

  “Why?”

  “Henry liked Brawly. He said that he was a revolutionary in the rough. He told me that he was cultivating him for the movement.”

  Like he was doing with you, I thought.

  “You wanna go see Xavier?” I asked.

  “Why?”

  “Because I know things that he should know. Because somebody’s killin’ people close to you and it would be good to find out who.”

  “I know who it is,” she said.

  “You think you know,” I said. “But you can’t put a face on ’em. You think you know, but why would the cops kill Aldridge Brown? Why kill Strong? He’s from Oakland. Xavier’s the head man. Why not him or you — or Anton Breland?”

  “How can I trust you?” Her question cut all the way down to my core. I thought of Mouse and how he went out with me and never came back. And he was my friend.

  “You can’t,” I said. “How could you? You don’t know me. You don’t know who I know. All you know is that I knew where to look for you and that I know where to find Xavier. Come with me, watch me, and maybe you’ll find out if you can trust me or not.”

  28

  JASPER XAVIER BODAN lived on the third floor of a rooming house on Hoover. He was at the end of a long hall lit by a single bulb.

  There was a strip of light showing at the foot of his door.

  “Who is it?” he asked after Tina knocked.

  “Tina,” she said. “And the man who pulled me out of the storefront the other night. Easy Rawlins.”

  The door opened inward. The room beyond seemed to be empty. I followed Tina with my hands visible at waist level. Xavier was standing behind the door with an extremely small pistol in his hand.

  He pushed the door shut and glowered at us.

  “Why you bring him here?” he asked Tina.

  “He already knew your address,” she said. “He invited me to come with him.”

  “Why you talk to him in the first place?”

  “He found my address, and Miss Latour said that he was good at helpin’ black folks out when they’re in trouble,” Tina said. She was another young woman pleading for her black man to listen to reason. “I brought him because he says that he wants to help.”

  “I don’t need your help,” he said to me. “I should have let Conrad shoot you the other night.”

  When he held the pistol up in my face, it didn’t seem so small anymore. The proximity of the muzzle affected my lungs. I could breathe in just fine, but my exhaling ability seemed to be paralyzed.

  “Put that gun down, Xavier,” Tina said. “He came here to talk to you.”

  “I don’t need to talk.”

  “Yes, you do,” I said. Forcing the air out of my lungs was one of the most difficult physical tasks I’d ever performed. I was dying for a cigarette. “There’s things you don’t know. Things that will put all of this in a different light.”

  “Listen to him, baby,” Tina said. She moved next to the skinny kid. When she put her hand on his gun arm, I flinched, afraid that he might clench up and shoot me by mistake.

  When Xavier let his pistol down to his side, my whole body relaxed. I realized that I had to use the bathroom but decided that it wasn’t a good time to ask where the facilities were.

  “Can I sit?” I asked.

  “Over there.” He pointed to a solitary wooden chair.

  I sat down and reached for my pocket, remembering again that I’d thrown my cigarettes away.

  “You got a cigarette?”

  Tina reached into her purse and came out with a filter-tipped smoke.

  “What you got to tell me?” Xavier said as Tina lit a match for me.

  I inhaled deeply and my throat and lungs felt a strange cold burning all the way down. For a second I was afraid that I’d been poisoned but then I realized that it was a mentholated cigarette.

  “The cops,” I said, choking on the strange smoke.

  “What about ’em?”

  “They came to me and asked me to spy on you,” I said.

  “Why they want to put a spy on me?” Xavier asked.

  I shrugged.

  “Then why come tell me about it?” Xavier asked.

  “You the one thinks the cops killed Strong,” I said.

  “He says that Brawly’s father is dead, too,” Tina added.

  “Aldridge? Why’d anybody wanna kill Aldridge?”

  “That’s a good question,” I said. “But I got even a better one for you.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I went down to the cops and told them that I was willing to help them, to share information —”

  “You what?” When Xavier’s gun came up again I was less afraid, but not foolish.

  “Hold on, man,” I said. “I already told you that I’m tryin’ to help Brawly. When the cops came to me and started talkin’ ’bout the Urban Party, I wanted to find out what they had on him.”

  “That’s what you say.” Xavier kept the gun leveled at my chest. “But I don’t know you. You might be planning to turn me over.”

  “He already knew your address, baby,” Tina said. “I told you that. He did
n’t need to come here to get you arrested.”

  “Then maybe it’s something else.”

  There was sweat on Xavier’s upper lip. He was no more than twenty-two years old but he was standing up pretty well under the pressure of the situation. I glanced around the place while he considered my possible duplicities. You could have called it a compartment rather than an apartment. The most outstanding feature was a small window looking out on a club’s red neon sign — merrian’s. There was an aqua-colored vinyl couch that I’m sure he slept on and a table with stacks of books and papers on it.

  “There is a special squad assigned to you,” I said. “D Squad they call it. It’s headed up by a man named Lakeland. He’s from the army, but they tapped him to watch you.”

  It was too much for him to come back at me with doubts or challenges.

  “Oh no,” Tina said, looking at her man.

  “We don’t know if what he’s sayin’ is true,” Xavier said.

  I was proud of him for trying to stay on top of the growing problem.

  “But Henry said that they were trying to kill us,” Tina reasoned.

  If I were planning to overpower them, that would have been the moment. Xavier turned his eyes on Tina. Maybe it was because she called Strong by his first name. Maybe it was his anger that she wanted to believe what I was saying.

  “They didn’t kill Henry,” I said.

  “Now how the hell you gonna know that?” he said.

  “Because I was there, in their office, when they found out about it. They were surprised. For cops, they were even upset.”

  “Where’s their office?” Xavier asked.

  “I got to urinate,” I replied.

  Tina giggled. She was close to hysteria.

  “What?” Xavier asked me.

  “I got to go, man.”

  “No,” Xavier said. There was power in his voice and even the trace of an evil smile on his sweaty lip. He moved closer to me and said, “You sit here till I get the answers I want.”

  That was too much.

  I slapped his gun hand with my left and socked him at half strength with my right. I grabbed his wrist, twisted, and pulled the gun away from his loosened fingers.

  “Stop!” Tina shouted.

  I turned toward her with my hands in the air.

  “I’m just goin’ to the toilet,” I said. “Fuck a niggah keep me from my bodily functions. Where is it?”