Little Scarlet by Walter Mosley

But the coin box is broke out so you get your money right back. I been callin’ people all over the country from the phones down here.”
    He took a cigarette from his white coveralls pocket, lit up, and then leaned against the junkyard fence.
    “What are we waitin’ for?” I asked when he lit a second smoke.
    “Magic.”
    “Come on, Ray. Who did you call?”
    “What you had in that note you showed the cops?”
    Mouse’s revenge ran a slow third but it always crossed the finish line.
    I laughed and said, “Okay, Ray. I’ll wait for your magic trick.”
    And so we stood there at 1:15, smoking cigarettes and watching the single lit window on the block. No one was out; not the army or the police force or people in the neighborhood. When we had stood around for about five minutes or so one of the doors to the garage came open and a car drove out. A red Galaxie 500. It came across the street and parked in front of us. The door opened and a big black man with a weathered, angry face got out.
    He walked up to Raymond and said, “This what you wanted?”
    Mouse turned to me and asked, “This the car you lookin’ for, Easy?”
    “Is it the one stolen from a white man bein’ beat on the second day of the riots?”
    Mouse looked at the ugly man.
    “Yeah,” the man said.
    “Then that’s the car.”
    “You got the papers, Nate?” Raymond asked Loverboy.
    “Glove compartment.”
    “Did you see what happened that night?” I asked then.
    “Who you, mothahfuckah?” Nate replied.
    “All you need to do is answer him,” Raymond said. “You see him standin’ here with me, don’t you?”
    “Crazy motherfuckin’ white man drivin’ around lookin’ out the window with people burnin’ and breakin’ and throwin’ rocks,” Nate said. “They grabbed and beat him good. Tore his clothes all up. He ran away screamin’ like a baby. Shit.”
    “You see where he went to?” I asked.
    “Naw, man. I just wanted the car. You lucky I still got it. We so backed up right now that we couldn’t chop it till Monday.”
    Mouse flashed his eyes at me and I shrugged.
    “Thanks, Nate,” Mouse said in dismissal.
    “What about my money?” the car thief asked.
    “You
do
want trouble, don’t you, son?” Mouse said.
    While Loverboy was screwing up the courage to die I opened the car door and took whatever papers there were in the glove compartment. I made a quick search under the front and back seats but found nothing.
    I took the keys from the ignition and opened the trunk. That was empty too.
    “You can keep the car, man,” I said. “All I need is this here.”
    I returned the keys to Loverboy. He took them from me and then turned to Mouse.
    “Is that all?”
    “Okay,” my friend, the self-appointed sovereign of Watts, said.
    We all stood there for a moment, wondering what the exact etiquette was in a situation like that. Was somebody supposed to say thank you or even good-bye?
    Nate made a quick move for the car.
    When he drove off, Mouse asked me, “Even, Easy?”
    “Maybe right now but I believe I’ll be in your debt before it’s all through.”
     
     
    RAYMOND DROVE ME home. We had a good time on the way, chatting about people we knew. It wasn’t until he stopped at the curb in front of my house that I remembered my message.
    “I ran into Benita Flag at Cox Bar,” I said.
    “You did?”
    “Yeah. Didn’t Ginny tell you?”
    “Ginny don’t talk to me about women too much.”
    “Benita was worried about you.”
    “I bet she was.”
    It was almost three and I wasn’t Benita’s lawyer, so I opened my door.
    “What you do about your girlfriends, Ease?”
    “Say what?”
    “Your girlfriends,” he repeated. “When they get all cow-eyed and hungry for you.”
    Juanda popped into my mind but I pushed her away.
    “I don’t have any girlfriends, Ray. It’s just me and Bonnie, that’s all.”
    “You don’t get you no pussy on the side?”
    “Not lately.”
    “I cain’t live without it. I gots to