A Red Death: Featuring an Original Easy Rawlins Short Story "Si (Easy Rawlins Mysteries) by Walter Mosley Read Free Book Online Page B

rent?”
    “Kick her ass out if she don’t pay.”
    “You know that gal is really sick up there. Ever since that car crash she done wasted away.”
    “That don’t mean I got to pay her rent.”
    “It’s me gonna be payin’ it, Mofass.”
    “Uh-uh, Mr. Rawlins. I collect it and until I put it in yo’ hands it’s mine. If that gal go down and tell them other folks that I don’t take her money they gonna take advantage.”
    “She’s sick.”
    “She got a momma, a sister, that boy Willie she always be talkin’ ’bout. She got somebody. Let them pay the rent. We in business, Mr. Rawlins. Business is the hardest thing they make. Harder than diamonds.”
    “What if nobody pays for her?”“You will done fo’got her name in six months, Mr. Rawlins. You won’t even know who she is.”
    Before I could say anything more a young Mexican girl came up to us. She had thick black hair and dark eyes without very much white around them. She looked at Mofass and I got the feeling that she didn’t speak English.
    He held up two fat fingers and said, “Beer, chili, burrito,” pronouncing each syllable slowly so that you could read his lips.
    She gave him a quick smile and went away.
    I took the letter from my breast pocket and handed it across the table.
    “I want your opinion on this,” I said with a confidence I did not feel.
    While I watched Mofass’s hard face I remembered the words he was reading.
    Reginald Arnold Lawrence
Investigating Agent
Internal Revenue Service
    July 14, 1953
    Mr. Ezekiel Rawlins:
    It has come my attention, sir, that between August 1948 and September of 1952 you came into the possession of at least three real estate properties.
    I have reviewed your tax records back to 1945 and you show no large income, in any year. This would suggest that you could not legally afford such expenditures.
    I am, therefore, beginning an investigation into your tax history and request your appearance within seven days of the date of this letter. Please bring all tax formsfor the time period indicated and an
accurate
record of all income during that time.
    As I remembered the letter I could feel ice water leaking in my bowels again. All the warmth I had soaked up in that hallway was gone.
    “They got you by the nuts, Mr. Rawlins,” Mofass said, putting the letter back down between us.
    I looked down and saw that a beer was there in front of me. The girl must’ve brought it while I was concentrating on Mofass.
    “If they could prove you made some money and didn’t tell them about it, yo’ ass be in a cast-iron sling,” Mofass said.
    “Shit! I just pay ’em, that’s all.”
    He shook his head, and I felt my heart wrench.
    “Naw, Mr. Rawlins. Government wants you t’tell ’em what you make. You don’t do that and they put you in the fed’ral penitentiary. And you know the judge don’t even start thinkin’ ’bout no sentence till he come up with a nice round number—like five or ten.”
    “But you know, man, my name ain’t even on them deeds. I set up what they call a dummy corporation, John McKenzie helped me to do it. Them papers say that them buildin’s ’long to a Jason Weil.”
    Mofass curled his lip and said, “IRS smell a dummy corporation in a minute.”
    “Well then I just tell ’em I didn’t know. I didn’t.”
    “Com’on, man.” Mofass leaned back and waved his cigar at me. “They just tell ya that ignorance of the law ain’t no excuse, thas all. They don’t care. Say you go shoot some dude been with your girl, kill ’im. You gonna tell ’em you didn’t know ’bout that killin’ was wrong? Anyway, if you went to all thattrouble t’hide yo’ money they could tell that you was tryin’ t’cheat ’em.”
    “It ain’t like I killed somebody. It ain’t right if they don’t even give me a chance t’pay.”
    “On’y right is what you get away wit’, Mr. Rawlins. And if they find out about some money, and they think you didn’t declare it …” Mofass shook his