Black Betty by Walter Mosley Page A

fight.”
    Judge Mellon. He was on the state supreme court. An outspoken critic of racism and champion of the rights of the poor. I’d read about him in the paper now and then.
    The judge was silent for a few heartbeats.
    “There’s no paper on him, your honor,” Faye said. “There’s no reason he should be in here.”
    “What’s your name?” the judge asked Connor.
    “Connor, sir.”
    “Do you have a record of this man’s arrest?”
    “It doesn’t appear so, sir.”
    “Do you know who brought this man in here?”
    “I came on at six, sir. He was already in his cell,” Connor lied.
    The judge waited for his heart to beat some more and then said, “Let him go. And I want a report from your commander in the morning.”
    I could tell by Connor’s hard gaze that he rued letting me use the phone. I hoped he could see in my eyes how sorry I was that he got into trouble.
     
     
    “YOU SHOULD PRESS CHARGES,” Faye Rabinowitz was telling me outside Beverly Hills City Hall. “The only way we can get some attention to this kind of thing is if we can take it to court.”
    “Maybe later,” I said. “Right now I got too much already to do.”
    “That’s why the next man they bring in here will be killed. Because you have things to do.”
    “Listen, honey,” I said in my deepest voice. I took her hand but she tugged it away from me.
    “Get your hand off of me.”
    “Okay. Hey. That man up there is a stone killer. You can’t stop him with a writ and lawsuit.”
    “I’m not afraid of any man,” Faye Rabinowitz said. She was rubbing her hand as if to wipe off the residue I had left there.
    “I know you aren’t,” I said. And then, “I was gonna call you even if I hadn’t gotten arrested.”
    “Why?”
    “I want to find out how it was the cops got on to Mouse.”
    “Why?”
    “Because if I don’t figure somethin’ out quick, Raymond gonna be callin’ soon and even you won’t be able to help him out.”
    She gave me a quizzical look. Not friendly but opened up enough for me to talk.
    “I need to find out about how the cops knew to go to his house that night. He thinks that it was the people in the bar that told. I wanna prove that it wasn’t them.”
    “I don’t work with the prosecutor’s office. They won’t tell me anything.”
    “The case is over. There gotta be somebody down there who’d talk to you.”
    Her stare was mean. A lawyer’s loveless gaze combined with the stare of a woman who had no use for a man. She took a small address book and a golden mechanical pencil from her purse.
    “What’s your number?” she asked.
    I told her.
    “Call me in a couple of days if you haven’t heard from me yet.”
     
     
     

— 13 —
     
     
    WHEN CONNOR EMPTIED out my pouch of belongings I found that the check was missing. I didn’t say anything about it, though. I was afraid that Faye would keep me there arguing until Styles showed up.
    And Styles wanted to kill me. That was my working hypothesis.
     
     
    THE HORNS WERE happy to see me. They wanted to keep Feather and Jesus overnight but when I looked in on the children I could see by their furrowed foreheads that they were having bad dreams, so I got them up and walked them in their underwear and blankets back to our house.
    We had hot chocolate and bread and jam. At least Jesus and I did. Feather sat down on my lap, and after crying and showing me a three-day-old bruise on her knee, she fell fast asleep.
    “Don’t worry, Juice,” I said to my son. “Everything’s fine.”
    He gave me the thumbs-up.
     
* * *
     
    WE WERE LATE getting off to school. Feather just couldn’t seem to get her clothes together and Jesus was no help for once. But by ten I’d dropped them both off and was on my way down to Avalon Boulevard, to a hole in the wall called Herford’s gym.
    On the way a hot wind blew into my face through the open window. It was strong and oppressive and made me think of hot days in the south. And that made me think about