A Red Death: Featuring an Original Easy Rawlins Short Story "Si (Easy Rawlins Mysteries)

BOOK: A Red Death: Featuring an Original Easy Rawlins Short Story "Si (Easy Rawlins Mysteries)
10.14Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

C
RITICAL
A
CCLAIM FOR
W
ALTER
M
OSLEY’S
E
ASY
R
AWLINS
N
OVELS

A R
ED
D
EATH

“The thriller or detective story, raised to a higher level … action, suspense, a well-crafted plot … fast-moving [and] enjoyable.”


New York Newsday

“This is a master at work: we would be well advised to seek everything Walter Mosley writes.”


The Indianapolis News


A Red Death
is a straightforward, cleanly nasty treat. The writing is funky and knowing, with a no-fools cast.”


Mirabella

“Mosley … is here to stay and not to be missed.”


Los Angeles Times Book Review

G
ONE
F
ISHIN

“It is, in some respects, the best of Mosley’s novels…. Mosley displays a pitch-perfect gift for capturing the cadences of black speech that rivals the dialogue in Ralph Ellison’s
Invisible Man
.”


Time

“Mosley delivers the goods every time … Easy fans are going to eat this up.”


Library Journal

“A powerfully raw, lyrical coming-of-age story.”


Publishers Weekly

D
EVIL IN A
B
LUE
D
RESS

“I read
Devil in a Blue Dress
in one sitting and didn’t want it to end. An astonishing first novel.”

—Jonathan Kellerman

“The social commentary is sly, the dialogue fabulous, the noir atmosphere so real you could touch it. A first novel? That’s what they say. Amazing. Smashing.”


Cosmopolitan

“Richly atmospheric …
Devil in a Blue Dress
honors the hard-boiled tradition of Hammett/Chandler/Cain in its story line and attitude, but Mosley takes us down some mean streets that his spiritual predecessors never could have…. A fast-moving, entertaining story written with impressive style.”


Los Angeles Times Book Review

“A sparkling debut novel … [A] rich storytelling legacy is constantly and wonderfully present in
Devil in a Blue Dress
.”


Chicago Tribune

“A beautifully realized homage to hard-boiled fiction…. Mosley has given American crime fiction another unique hero and a solid mystery, all the way to the brilliant, existential last page.”


San Francisco Chronicle

“This guy has the magic.
Devil in a Blue Dress
is, without question, the most self-assured, uniquely voiced first novel I’ve ever read. Mosley’s going to be compared with Chandler, but he has a clarity and precision that Chandler never achieved—and a relevance.”

—Andrew Vachss

“Mosley has a lot of fun upending our preconceptions…. Best of all is Mosley’s main creation, Easy Rawlins, a man as hard-nosed as he needs to be, yet still capable of relishing decency when he finds it.”

Newsweek

W
HITE
B
UTTERFLY

“Rawlins … might be the best American character to appear in quite some time.”


Entertainment Weekly

“As rich as the best Chandler and Ross MacDonald…. Grabs you by the elbow from the get-go.”


Chicago Tribune

“Compelling…. In all of American fiction, only Richard Wright treats America’s race problem more savagely.”

Village Voice Literary Supplement

B
LACK
B
ETTY

“Detective fiction at its best—bold, breathtaking, and brutal.”


Chicago Sun-Times

“As always, Mosley’s grip on character is compelling.”


People

A L
ITTLE
Y
ELLOW
D
OG

“The best book yet in this fine series. Easy Rawlins [is] one of the most distinctive voices in crime fiction.”


Seattle Times

“[A] well-energized and crafty volume.”


The New York Times Book Review

 

B
OOKS BY
W
ALTER
M
OSLEY
PUBLISHED BY
POCKET BOOKS

Devil in a Blue Dress

A Red Death

White Butterfly

Black Betty

A Little Yellow Dog

Gone Fishin’

 

WALTER MOSLEY

A RED DEATH

A
N
E
ASY
R
AWLINS
M
YSTERY

WASHINGTON SQUARE PRESS
NEW YORK   LONDON   TORONTO   SYDNEY   SINGAPORE

 

The sale of this book without its cover is unauthorized. If you purchased this book without a cover, you should be aware that it was reported to the publisher as “unsold and destroyed.” Neither the author nor the publisher has received payment for the sale of this “stripped book.”

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and
incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used
fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons,
living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

A Washington Square Press Publication of
POCKET BOOKS, a division of Simon & Schuster, Inc.
1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020
www.SimonandSchuster.com

Copyright © 1991 by Walter Mosley

“Silver Lining” copyright © 2002 by Walter Mosley

Published by arrangement with W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce
this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.

For information address W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.,
500 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10110

ISBN: 0-7434-5176-7
eISBN: 978-1-4516-1250-9

First Washington Square Press trade paperback printing October 2002

10  9  8  7  6  5  4  3  2  1

WASHINGTON SQUARE PRESS and colophon are
registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

Cover art by Don Kilpatrick III

Printed in the U.S.A.

For information regarding special discounts for bulk purchases,
please contact Simon & Schuster Special Sales at 1-800-456-6798 or
[email protected]

 

D
EDICATED TO THE MEMORY OF
A
LBERTA
J
ACKSON AND
L
ILLIAN
K
ELLER
WITH SPECIAL THANKS TO
D
ANIEL AND
E
LIZABETH
R
USSELL

F
ROM
W
ALTER
M
OSLEY’S
S
IX
E
ASY
P
IECES
S
ILVER
L
INING

M
RS. MASTERS,
I’d like you to meet Mr. Ezekiel Rawlins,” Kathy Langer said. “He’s our senior head custodian.”

I had just entered the secretary’s office. Masters was standing there next to Kathy’s desk.

“Nice to meet you,” I said to the new principal of Sojourner Truth Junior High School. “I hope you’re going to like it here at Truth.”

“Oh, yes,” Ada Masters replied. “I already love it. It’s a beautiful school. And it’s so good to meet you at last, Mr. Rawlins. Are you feeling better?”

I had missed a few days of work looking for the photograph of a man I might have known. It turned out to be the picture of a stranger. I had squandered my sick days and made a bad impression on the new boss. The worst thing about it was, I didn’t give a damn.

“Okay now,” I said. “One’a those seventy-two hour viruses. Woke up this morning and it was gone.”

Mrs. Masters’s pale blue eyes concentrated on me. She was at the midway point between fifty and sixty, petite and well dressed. The gray suit she wore was elegant, made from cashmere. The light gray blouse showing at the V of her jacket had the high sheen of silk. Her sapphire ring was real and her
glasses were lined with nacre cut from a single shell. For all that expense her clothes weren’t showy; a careless eye might miss the finer touches and think that Masters was dressed according to a city employee’s salary.

The secretary, Kathy Langer, was an interesting contrast to her new boss. She was young, pert, and ready to make babies. Her coarse, nut-brown hair was almost shiny, her clothes came from the May Company bargain table or maybe JCPenny’s. A vegetarian could have eaten her blunt-toed brown shoes with a clear conscience. Her face wasn’t pretty but it was hungry, a thing most working-class men like. And she had a habit of lifting her chin to bare her throat, at least when I was in the room with her.

There I was, a big black man, in the room with two white women who would never meet traveling in their own social circles. It seemed odd to me and I wanted to say something about it. But I didn’t think that either one of them would understand or appreciate my views.

“Will you take a walk with me, Mr. Rawlins?” Mrs. Masters asked.

“Easy,” I said. “That’s the name I go by.”

I saw Kathy mouth the name. When she saw me regarding her she smiled and moved her shoulder like a lounging cat getting comfortable in a new corner.

“I’d like you to walk me around the lower campus,” Principal Masters said.

W
E VISITED SEVERAL CLASSROOMS.
The teachers looked wary until they saw Mrs. Masters smile at them and wave. She wasn’t like the previous principal, Hiram Newgate, who only dropped in to see what infractions he might find.

We also spent a while in the garden: the biology and agrarian
science department of the school. Out there the students grew radishes and studied elementary anatomy.

Finally we came to the custodians’ bungalow. The rest of my crew was out working by then so we had the room to ourselves. It was a big rectangular space with a large table down the center of it. Along the walls were shelves crowded with cartons of paper towels, toilet tissue, and boxes filled with bottles of ammonia, window cleaner, and bleach. There were five-gallon cans of wax piled in one corner and an entire wall of pegboard hung with dozens of sets of keys next to the door. The table was strewn with newspapers, overflowing ashtrays, empty paper coffee cups, and plates with half-eaten cakes on them.

“Nice place,” Mrs. Masters said. “The kind of place where the job gets done.”

“Sorry about the mess. But, you know, if I want ’em to keep the school clean I can’t complain about this room until Friday after lunch.”

“I understand,” she said. “May I have a seat?”

“Please do.” I was thinking that Newgate never asked permission for anything. He’d stand up if you didn’t offer a seat and nurse a grudge against you from then on.

“Can I get you a cup of coffee?” I asked.

BOOK: A Red Death: Featuring an Original Easy Rawlins Short Story "Si (Easy Rawlins Mysteries)
10.14Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

Other books

To Win Her Heart by Karen Witemeyer
The Theory of Moral Sentiments by Adam Smith, Ryan Patrick Hanley, Amartya Sen
Hope by Lori Copeland
Too Charming by Kathryn Freeman
Sweet Carolina Morning by Susan Schild
Don't Touch by Wilson,Rachel M.
Murder in the Cotswolds by Nancy Buckingham