Six Easy Pieces by Walter Mosley Read Free Book Online Page A

Medgar was sixty-one and still going strong. He might have been the richest black man in Los Angeles, but he still wore homemade suits and shined his own shoes every morning. The old market had become the school, and the storefront was now the church business office.
    I got to the business office a few minutes shy of one o’clock.
    The woman sitting behind the long desk at the back of the room was over sixty. She wore glasses with white frames and a green blouse with a pink sweater draped over her shoulders. Six of eight fingers had gold rings on them and, when she opened her mouth, you could see that three of her teeth were edged in gold. She was buxom but otherwise slender. She seemed unhappy to see me, but maybe that was her reaction to anyone coming in the door.
    “Hi,” I said. “My name is Rawlins. I’m looking for someone.”
    She peered over the rim of her spectacles but didn’t say a word.
    “She’s one of your congregation.”
    Again the silent treatment.
    “Etheline Teaman,” I said as a final effort.
    “We don’t give out information on our members, Rawlins,” she said.
    “I understand, ma’am. That makes sense. You don’t know who I could be or what I’m after.”
    The woman’s eyes tightened a little, trying to divine if there was some kind of threat in my words.
    “But,” I continued, “I have a serious problem. I’m very upset. You see, my cousin, Raymond, moved up to Oakland last year to work for these people clearin’ forest up north of San Francisco. Nine months ago his mother gets a letter sayin’ that there was an accident, that Raymond fell into the Russian River where they were movin’ logs, and he was lost. You can imagine the grief she must have felt. Here some white man writes her a letter sayin’ that her blood was gone and there wasn’t even a body for her to cry over and put in the ground with a few words from her minister.”
    The woman behind the desk gave a little. Maybe she had a son or nephew.
    “A few weeks ago I found out that a woman here in your congregation had seen Raymond at some services up in Richmond. She might know him, something about how he died. You know my auntie would love to hear anything.”
    “I’m sorry—” the church bureaucrat said, but I cut her off.
    “Now I know you can’t break the rules, but maybe you could give her a note from me. Then if she wants to she can give me a call.”
    “I guess that would be okay. I mean it wouldn’t be breaking any rules.”
    “Can I use a piece of your note paper?”
    My note was simple. I told her my name and number, saying that I needed some information, that my friend Jackson Blue suggested I talk to her. I also added that I didn’t want to bother her at church and that I would pay her expenses if there was trouble with making time to meet me. The church lady frowned momentarily when she read it over, but then she seemed to accept it.
    “I’ll try and get it to her by Sunday, Mr. Rawlins,” she said. “I sure will.”
     
     
    I COOKED DINNER that night. Fried chicken, macaroni with real yellow cheddar, collard greens, and unsweetened lemonade. The lemonade was for Jesus, who didn’t like anything sweet. Feather put sugar in hers and mixed it happily as we sat at the dinette table.
    “When Bonnie comin’ home, Daddy?” she asked.
    “Two or three weeks still. You know she got a heavy schedule for a month and then she can stay with us for a long time.”
    “Then can we go to Knott’s Berry Farm?”
    “Uh-huh.”
    “And, and the tar pits again?”
    “You bet.”
    “I wish she was home already so we could go this weekend,” Feather said.
    “I’ll take you Saturday if you want, baby sister,” Jesus said.
    He was working on his fourth piece of chicken. I didn’t use a batter on my chicken the way many Southerners did. I just dredged it in flour seasoned with salt, pepper, and garlic powder. That way the skin got crispy and you didn’t have to feel like you had to eat through bread