Excerpt from the novel A Red Death by Walter Mosley

     “Name?”
     “Ezekiel Porterhouse Rawlins,” I answered.
     “Date of birth.”
     “Let’s see now,” I said. “That would be November third, nineteen hundred and twenty.”
     “Height.”
     “Close to six feet, almost six-one.”
     “Weight.”
     “One eighty-five, except at Christmas. Then I’m about one ninety.”
     He asked more questions like that and I answered freely. I trusted a Negro, I don’t know why. I’d been beaten, robbed, shot at, and generally mistreated by more colored brothers than I’d ever been by whites, but I trusted a black man before I’d even think about a white one. That’s just the way things were for me.
     “Okay, Ezekiel, tell me about Poinsettia, Reverend Towne, and that woman.”
     “They all dead, man. Dead as mackerel.”
     “Who killed them?”
     He had an educated way of talking. I could have talked like him if I’d wanted to, but I never did like it when a man stopped using the language of his upbringing. If you were to talk like a white man you might forget who you were.

Excerpt from the novel A Red Death by Walter Mosley

     Jackson had morphine tablets. He said all I needed was one, but I took four against the bright red hurt in my mouth. I was doubled over in pain.
     “How long ‘fore it kicks in, Jackson?”
     “If you ain’t et nuthin’, ’bout a hour.”
     “An hour!”
     “Yeah, man. But listen,” he said. He had a fifth of Jim Beam by the neck. “We sit here and drink an’ talk an’ fo’ long you will have fo’gotten you even had a tooth.”
     So we passed the bottle back and forth. Because he was drinking, Jackson loosened up to the point where he’d tell me anything. He told stories that many a man would have killed him for. He told me about armed robberies and knifings and adulteries. He named names and gave proofs. Jackson wasn’t an evil man like Mouse, but he didn’t care what happened as long as he could tell the tale.
     “Jackson,” I said after a while.
     “Yeah, Ease?”
     “What you think ’bout them Migration people?”
     “They all right. You know it could get pretty lonely if you think ’bout how hard we got it ’round here. Some people just cain’t get it outta they head.”
     “What?”
     “All the stuff you cain’t do, all the stuff you cain’t have. An’ all the things you see happen an’ they ain’t a damn thing you could do.”
     He passed the bottle to me.
     “You ever feel like doin’ sumpin’?” I asked the little cowardly genius.
     “Pussy ain’t too bad. Sometime I get drunk an’ take a shit on a white man’s doorstep. Big ole stinky crap!”
     We laughed at that.
     When everything was quiet again I asked, “What about these communists? What you think about them?”
     “Well, Easy, that’s easy,” he said and laughed at how it sounded. “You know it’s always the same ole shit. You got yo’ people already got a hold on sumpin’, like money. An’ you got yo’ people ain’t got nuthin’ but they want sumpin’ in the worst way. So the banker and the corporation man gots it all, an’ the workin’ man ain’t got shit. Now the workin’ man have a union to say that it’s the worker makes stuff so he should be gettin’ the money. That’s like com’unism. But the rich man don’t like it so he gonna break the worker’s back.”
     I was amazed at how simple Jackson made it sound.
     “So,” I said. “We’re on the communist side.”
     “Naw, Easy.”
     “What you mean, no? I sure in hell ain’t no banker.”
     “You ever hear ’bout the blacklist?” Jackson asked.
     I had but I said, “Not really,” in order to hear what Jackson had to say.
     “It’s a list that the rich people got. All kindsa names on it. White people names. They movie stars and writers and scientists on that list. An’ if they name on it they cain’t work.”
     “Because they’re communist?”
     Jackson nodded. “They even got the guy invented the atomic bomb on that paper, Easy. Big ole important man like that.”
     “So? What you sayin’?”
     “Yo’ name ain’t on that list, Easy. My name ain’t neither. You know why?”
     I shook my head.
     “They don’t need yo’ name to know you black, Easy. All they gotta do is look at you an’ they know that.”
     “So what, Jackson?” I didn’t understand and I was so drunk and high that it made me almost in a rage.
     “One day they gonna th’ow that list out, man. They gonna need some movie star or some new bomb an’ they gonna th’ow that list away. Mosta these guys gonna have work again,” he said, then winked at me. “But you still gonna be a black niggah, Easy. An’ niggah ain’t got no union he could count on, an’ niggah ain’t got no politician gonna work fo’ him. All he got is a do’step t’shit in and a black hand t’wipe his black ass.”

Excerpt from the novel A Red Death by Walter Mosley

     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 know.”
     “An’ you cain’t make him tell you all this stuff?” I was well aware of the persuasive powers of the law.
     “Not this man.” There was a hint of admiration in Craxton’s tone. “And it’s worth our time to find out who he’s working with, without him knowing it, that is. You see, Wenzler is bad, but where you can see someone like him you know that there’s serious rot underneath.”
     “Uh-huh.” I nodded, trying to look like I was right up there with him. “So what do you need me for if you already know that this guy is the center of the problem? I mean, what could I do?”
     “Wenzler is small potatoes. He’s a fanatic, thinks that America isn’t free and the Reds are. All by himself he’s nothing, just a malcontent with a dull ax to grind. But it’s just that kind of man that gets duped into doing the worst harm.”
     “But I don’t even know this guy, how you expect me to get next to him?”
     “Wenzler works in the Negro churches. We figure that he’s making his contacts down there.”
     “Yeah?”
     “He’s working three places right now. One of them is the First African Baptist Church and Day School. That’s your neighborhood, right? You probably know some of that flock.”
     “So what does he do at the church?”
     “Charity,” Agent Craxton sneered. “But that’s just a front. He’s looking for others who are like him; people who feel that this country has given them a raw deal. He feels like that, doesn’t hardly trust a soul. But the thing is, he’ll trust you. He’s got a soft spot for Negroes.”
     It was at that moment I decided not to trust Agent Craxton.
     “I still don’t see why you need me. If the FBI wants something on him why don’t you just make it up?” I was serious.
     Agent Craxton took my meaning and laughed. It sounded like an asthmatic’s cough.
     “I don’t have a partner, Easy. Did you notice that?”
     I nodded.
     “There’s no crime here, Mr. Rawlins. We’re not trying to put somebody in jail for tax evasion. What we are doing is shedding light on a group of people who use the very freedom we give them in order to burn down what we believe.”
     I wondered if Agent Craxton had political aspirations. He sounded like a man running for office.
     “There is no crime to arrest him for. No crime that we know of, that is. But if you get next to him you might find out something. You might see where we could come in and arrest him for a crime the courts would recognize. You might be our means to his end.”
     “Uh-huh,” I grunted. “But what do you mean about not havin’ no partner?”
     “I’m a special kind of agent, Easy. I don’t just look for evidence. Some agents are in the business of solving crimes. My job is to avoid the damage before it’s done.”
     “Yeah,” I said, nodding. “But now lemme get this straight. You want me to get to know this Wenzler guy, then get him to trust me so I find out if he’s a spy?”
     “And then you find out all you can, Easy. We let you pay your taxes and go back home.”
     “And what if I don’t find out somethin’ that you could use? What if it’s just that he complains a lot but he don’t do nuthin’ really?”
     “You just report to me. Say once a week. I’ll know how to read it. And when you’re through the IRS will let you alone.”
     “All that sounds good, but I need to know somethin’ first.”
     “What’s that?”
     “Well, you talkin’ ’bout my own people with this conspiracy stuff. An’ if you want my opinion, all that is just some mistake. You know I live down there an’ I ain’t never heard that we some kinda communist conspiracy or whatever.”
     Craxton just smiled.
     “But if you wanna believe that,” I continued, “I guess you can. But you cain’t get me t’ go after my own people. I mean, if these guys broke the law like you say, I don’t mind that, but I don’t wanna hurt the people at First African just ’cause they run a charity drive or something’.”
     “We see eye to eye, Easy,” Craxton said. “I just want the Jew, and whatever it is he’s up to. You won’t even know I was there.”
     “So what’s this stuff about this other guy, Lavender?”
     “You remember him?”
     “No.”
     “We need to find Lavender. He’s worked closer with Wenzler than anyone. If we could get him into custody I’m sure that he’d be able to help.”
     “You sound like he’s missin’?”
     “He quit Champion three weeks ago, and nobody has seen him since. We’d appreciate a line on him, Easy. Finding Lavender would go a long way toward settling your taxes.”
     “But you just wanna talk to ‘im?”
     “That’s right.” Craxton was leaning so far across the table that he could have jumped down my throat.
     I knew that he was lying to me, but I needed him, so I said, “Okay,” and we shook hands.
     The orange juice in my screwdriver was canned; it left a bitter metallic taste in my mouth. But I drank it anyway. Screwdriver was what I asked for; I guess I asked for Craxton too.