A Red Death: Featuring an Original Easy Rawlins Short Story "Si (Easy Rawlins Mysteries) by Walter Mosley
Authors: Walter Mosley
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folder was soiled, creased, and pleated down the center. He smoothed it out in front of me. The block red letters across the top said: “LAPD Special Subject.” And below that: “subj—Ezekiel P. Rawlins, aka—Easy Rawlins.”
“Everything we need to know in here, Easy. War record, criminal associations, job history. One police detective wrote a letter in 1949 saying that he suspected you of being involved in a series of homicides the previous year. Then in 1950 you turn around and help the police find a rapist working the Watts community.
“I’d been looking for a Negro to work for us. Somebody who might have a little trouble but nothing so bad that we couldn’t smooth it over if somebody showed a little initiative and some patriotism. Then Clyde Wadsworth called about you.”
“Who?”
“Wadsworth, he’s Lawrence’s head. Clyde saw an inquiry for your file go across his desk a few weeks back. He knew the neighborhood you lived in and gave me a call. Lucky for everybody.”
He tapped the folder with a clean, evenly manicured fingernail.
“We need you to get to know this Wenzler, Easy. We need to know if it’s the left or right leg he puts into his pants first in the morning.”
“How could I do that and the whole FBI cain’t do it?”
“This is a sly Jew. We know that he’s up to his shoulders in something bad, but damned if we can do anything about it. You see, Wenzler never really gets involved with the place he’sorganizing. He won’t work there. But he finds his fair-haired boy and grooms him to be his mouthpiece. That’s what he did with Andre Lavender. Know him?”
Craxton stared me straight in the eye awaiting the answer.
I remembered Andre. A big, sloppy man. But he had the energy of ten men for all his weight. He always had a plan to get rich quick. For a while he sold frozen steaks and then, later on, he tried construction. Andre was a good man but he was too excitable; even if he made a couple of bucks he’d spend them just that quick. “Rich an’ important men gotta spend money, Easy,” he told me once. He was driving a leased Cadillac at the time, delivering frozen steaks from door to door.
“I don’t remember him,” I said to Special Agent Craxton.
“Well, maybe he wasn’t so loud when you were at Champion, but now he’s a union man. Chaim Wenzler’s boy.”
Craxton sat back for a moment and appraised me. He put his hand flat against my file like a man swearing on a sacred text. Then he leaned across the table and began to whisper, “You see, Easy, in many ways the Bureau is a last line of defense. There are all sorts of enemies we have these days. We’ve got enemies all over the world; in Europe, in Asia, everywhere. But the real enemies, the ones we really have to watch out for, are people right here at home. People who aren’t Americans on the inside. No, not really.”
He drifted off into a kind of reverie. The confusion must have shown on my face, because he added, “And we have to stop these people. We have to bring them to the attention of the courts and the Congress. So even if I have to overlook some lesser crimes …” He paused and stared at me again. “… like petty tax theft, I will do that in order to get the bigger job done.”
“Listen, man,” I said. “You got me by the nuts on this one, so I’ma do what you want. But get to it, alright? I’m a little nervous with all this talk an’ these files an’ shit.”
“Okay,” he said, and then he took a deep breath. “Chaim Wenzler has been organizing people through the unions. He’s been giving them ideas about this country that are lies and unpatriotic. There’s more to it, but I can’t tell you what because we can’t get anybody close enough to him to really find out what it is that he’s up to.”
“Why don’t you just arrest him? Cain’t you do that?”
“He’s not what we want, Easy. It’s what he represents, the people he works with—that’s what we need to
“Everything we need to know in here, Easy. War record, criminal associations, job history. One police detective wrote a letter in 1949 saying that he suspected you of being involved in a series of homicides the previous year. Then in 1950 you turn around and help the police find a rapist working the Watts community.
“I’d been looking for a Negro to work for us. Somebody who might have a little trouble but nothing so bad that we couldn’t smooth it over if somebody showed a little initiative and some patriotism. Then Clyde Wadsworth called about you.”
“Who?”
“Wadsworth, he’s Lawrence’s head. Clyde saw an inquiry for your file go across his desk a few weeks back. He knew the neighborhood you lived in and gave me a call. Lucky for everybody.”
He tapped the folder with a clean, evenly manicured fingernail.
“We need you to get to know this Wenzler, Easy. We need to know if it’s the left or right leg he puts into his pants first in the morning.”
“How could I do that and the whole FBI cain’t do it?”
“This is a sly Jew. We know that he’s up to his shoulders in something bad, but damned if we can do anything about it. You see, Wenzler never really gets involved with the place he’sorganizing. He won’t work there. But he finds his fair-haired boy and grooms him to be his mouthpiece. That’s what he did with Andre Lavender. Know him?”
Craxton stared me straight in the eye awaiting the answer.
I remembered Andre. A big, sloppy man. But he had the energy of ten men for all his weight. He always had a plan to get rich quick. For a while he sold frozen steaks and then, later on, he tried construction. Andre was a good man but he was too excitable; even if he made a couple of bucks he’d spend them just that quick. “Rich an’ important men gotta spend money, Easy,” he told me once. He was driving a leased Cadillac at the time, delivering frozen steaks from door to door.
“I don’t remember him,” I said to Special Agent Craxton.
“Well, maybe he wasn’t so loud when you were at Champion, but now he’s a union man. Chaim Wenzler’s boy.”
Craxton sat back for a moment and appraised me. He put his hand flat against my file like a man swearing on a sacred text. Then he leaned across the table and began to whisper, “You see, Easy, in many ways the Bureau is a last line of defense. There are all sorts of enemies we have these days. We’ve got enemies all over the world; in Europe, in Asia, everywhere. But the real enemies, the ones we really have to watch out for, are people right here at home. People who aren’t Americans on the inside. No, not really.”
He drifted off into a kind of reverie. The confusion must have shown on my face, because he added, “And we have to stop these people. We have to bring them to the attention of the courts and the Congress. So even if I have to overlook some lesser crimes …” He paused and stared at me again. “… like petty tax theft, I will do that in order to get the bigger job done.”
“Listen, man,” I said. “You got me by the nuts on this one, so I’ma do what you want. But get to it, alright? I’m a little nervous with all this talk an’ these files an’ shit.”
“Okay,” he said, and then he took a deep breath. “Chaim Wenzler has been organizing people through the unions. He’s been giving them ideas about this country that are lies and unpatriotic. There’s more to it, but I can’t tell you what because we can’t get anybody close enough to him to really find out what it is that he’s up to.”
“Why don’t you just arrest him? Cain’t you do that?”
“He’s not what we want, Easy. It’s what he represents, the people he works with—that’s what we need to
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