A Red Death Read Online Free PDF Page A

’cause they wasn’t you sayin’ it. Every time I hear them I hear you talkin’ ’bout Mouse.”
    Etta shook her head sadly. “That ain’t me, Easy. I loved you, I did, as a friend. An’ I think you’s a beautiful man too. I mean, yeah, I shouldn’ta had you over like that. But you came t’me, honey. I was mad ’cause Raymond was out ho’in just a couple a days after I said I’d marry him. I used you t’try an’ hurt him, but you knew what I was doin’. You knew it, Easy. You knew what I was givin’ you was his. That’s why you liked it so much.
    “But that was a long time ago, an’ you should be over it by this time. But, you know, it’s just that some men be wantin’ sumpin’ from women; sumpin’ like a woman shouldn’t have no mind of her own. It’s like when LaMarque want me t’tell’im that he’s the strongest man in the world if I let him carry my pocketbook. I tell’im what he wants t’hear ’cause he just a baby. But you’s a man, Easy. If I lied t’you it would be a insult.”
    “I know, I know,” I said. “I knew it then. I never said nuthin’, but now here you are again. An’ here I am wit’ my nose open.
    “You know somebody saw you get on that bus, Etta. Somebody told somebody else that they heard you went to California. And Mouse could be outside that door at this very minute. Or maybe he be here tomorrah. He’s comin’, though, you could bet on that. An’ if he finds you been in my bed we gonna have it out.” I didn’t add that I knew Mouse well enough to be afraid. I didn’t need to.
    “Raymond don’t care ’bout if I got boyfriends, Easy. He don’t care ’bout that.”
    “Maybe not. But if Mouse think I done taken his wife an’ child fo’ my own he see red. And now here you are talkin’ ’bout him bein’ crazy—how I know what he might do?”
    Etta didn’t say anything to that.
    Mouse was a small, rodent-featured man who believed in himself without question. He only cared about what was his. He’d go against a man bigger than I was with no fear because he knew that nobody was better than him. He might have been right.
    “And here I am again,” I said. “Tryin’ to keep offa you when I got so many problems I shouldn’t even think about it.”
    Etta leaned forward in the chair, resting her elbows on her knees, revealing the dark cleft of her breasts. “So what you wanna do, Easy?”
    “I …”
    “Yeah?” she asked after I stalled.
    “I know a man named Mofass.”
    “Who’s he?”
    “He manages some units up here and I work fo’im.”
    When Etta shifted, her gown slid and tremors went down my back.
    “Yeah?” she asked.
    “I think I could get him to find a place for you and LaMarque. You know, some place fo’ you t’live. Without no rent, I mean.” I was talking but I didn’t want to say it: I wanted her for myself.
    Etta sat up and her gown rose over her breasts. Her nipples were hard dimes against the slick material.
    “So that’s it? I come all this way an’ now you gonna put us out.” She stuck her lower lip out and shrugged, ever so slightly. “LaMarque an’ me be ready by noon.”
    “You don’t have t’rush, Etta …”
    “No, no,” she said, rising and waving her hand at me. “We gotta settle in someplace, and the sooner the better. You know chirren need a home.”
    “I’ll give you money, Etta. I got lotsa money.”
    “I’ll pay you back soon as I find work.”
    We looked at each other awhile after that.
    Etta was the most beautiful woman I’d ever known. I’d wanted her more than life itself, once. And the fact that I had let that go was worse than the fear of the penitentiary.
    “’Night, Easy,” she whispered.
    I made to get up, to kiss her good night, but she held her hand against me.
    “Don’t kiss me, honey,” she said. “ ’Cause you know I been thinkin’ ’bout you long as you been thinkin’ ’bout me.”
    Then she went off to bed.
    I didn’t sleep that night. I didn’t worry or