Free Bad Boy Brawly Brown by Walter Mosley

in her face melted away when she saw the way I 5
    looked at her.
    6
    “Come on in.”
    7
    The room could have been a hotel flop in a frontier town in the 8
    Old West. The walls had never felt a coat of paint and a splinter from 9
    that rough floor could have sent you to the hospital with lockjaw. But 10
    Isolda had moved whatever furniture there was next to the window 11
    and covered it all with white and pastel-colored sheets. There were 12
    fresh-picked flowering weeds in a milk bottle on the sill. The arrange-13
    ment would have put a downtown florist to shame.
    14
    “Do you drink tea, Mr. Rawlins?” she asked.
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    “Whatever you got,” I said.
    16
    She smiled and led me toward the cloth-covered furniture.
    17
    It was a medium-sized room and mostly unfinished, as I said. But 18
    Isolda’s design had created a small island of style there by the win-19
    dow. The tea she poured was ice-cold even though there was no evi-20
    dence of a refrigerator in the room.
    21
    “I keep the pitcher in a bucket full’a ice I got from the liquor 22
    store,” she said, seeing the question on my face.
    23
    “You should be an interior designer,” I said.
    24
    “Thank you.”
    25
    Isolda swiveled on the chair she was in, and I felt my heart catch.
    26
    She had all the skill and beauty of a woman who hooks up with a big-27
    time minister or gangster, the kind of woman who needs a powerful 28
    man for her own skills to flower.
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    She had positioned herself so that the sun came down on her S 30
    head, making her eyes glisten. I must have been staring a little too R 31
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    hard because she shifted again and asked, “Alva and John send you 2
    to find Brawly?”
    3
    “That they did. But really I think Alva wants me to find him.”
    4
    I mentioned Alva to see if Isolda had hard feelings about her 5
    cousin.
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    “She must be worried sick,” Isolda said, leaving me with no clue.
    7
    “John told me that Alva’s ex-husband was found murdered at 8
    your house.”
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    Isolda nodded, looking down at my hands.
    10
    “Who killed him?” I asked, again trying to shake her up.
    11
    “I really wouldn’t know, Mr. Rawlins.”
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    “John said that you thought it was Brawly.”
    13
    The sun on her face made her pained expression seem unbear-14
    able.
    15
    “Brawly and Aldridge had been quarreling for years ever 16
    since . . . ever since Brawly ran away from home. I was trying to get 17
    them back together but . . . but there was never gonna be any peace 18
    between them.”
    19
    “What did they fall out over originally?”
    20
    “I never knew,” she said, but I didn’t believe it. “That was years 21
    ago. When I went to pick him up after the fight, his jaw was all swole 22
    up and he begged me to let him come stay at my house. When I 23
    asked him about his father he showed me a bloody tooth that 24
    Aldridge had knocked out of his head.”
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    “Why didn’t he go to his mother?” I asked.
    26
    “Didn’t John tell you?”
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    “We were with Alva. She was kind of emotional at the time.”
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    “She is . . . very emotional. That was back around the time that 29
    her brother Leonard was killed. She took it so hard that she had a 30 S
    nervous breakdown and they had to put her in Camarillo.”
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    Isolda turned her lips toward me and I had to concentrate to hear 6 6
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    what she was saying. Her eyes looked deeply into mine, and I 1
    thought that if she wasn’t a good person in her heart, many a man 2
    would have hit some jagged rocks while being distracted by her 3
    charms.
    4
    Maybe that was why Alva disliked her so much.
    5
    “That’s why Brawly had to come to you?” I asked. “Because his 6
    mother was hospitalized?”
    7
    Isolda nodded. “She was really gone. When Brawly went to see 8
    her, before his fight with Aldridge, she