Free The Further Tales of Tempest Landry by Walter Mosley

bright sun behind.
    “This is where it all happens,” he said.
    “How did you get Tempest here with no guard and in civilian clothes?” I asked.
    Tempest was wearing dark green slacks and a yellow, square-cut sports shirt.
    “We’re all civilized up here, Mr. Angel. The court knows that when we make a promise we keep it.”
    “What promise? And what does the court have to do with our meeting?” I asked. “I thought that I came here to be introduced to Stuart Noble?”
    Billings’s helium smile brought him up out of the chair like a grotesque and weighted balloon float in a small-town parade.
    “I have to be going,” he said. “Another meeting on the fortieth floor.”
    “But—” I said.
    He cut me off with a hand gesture and replied, “Your answers will come in a few moments, Mr. Angel.”
    With these words he moved the rough-silk-wrapped bulk of his body toward the slate door and out.
    I stood up to watch him go.
    Tempest sat back and smiled.
    “What are you grinning at?” I said peevishly.
    “You treat a brother right, Angel,” he said. “Assistant Warden Lumpin came to my cell at four thirty this mornin’ and said that they were transferring me for a new trial. They brought me these civvies and even took me out for a breakfast at IHOP. You know I had six orders of sausage.”
    “I don’t understand,” I said. “I just delivered the money yesterday afternoon.”
    “Money talks,” Tempest said with fake sagacity. “It walks at a good clip too.”
    “The love of money—” I began.
    A voice finished the sentence for me, “Is the root of all evil.”
    We hadn’t heard the slate door open but there in its frame stood a man, tall and slender. His suit was black and so was his skin. He looked more like an African than an African American, the features were so pure—maybe Nigerian or Malian. He was a young man with old, dead eyes. His smile was uplifting, however, and the grace he showed walking into the room was that of human perfection.
    Tempest rose to meet our host.
    “Mr. Angel, Mr. Walcott,” he said in greeting. “My name is Stuart Noble.”
    He shook both our hands and then took the seat that his brutish minion had vacated.
    Tempest and I both sat. I stared into Noble’s expressionless eyes and speculated.
    “You gentlemen have met your side of the bargain and I will now meet mine.”
    “How did you get Tempest out of prison?” I asked.
    He hunched his shoulders and smiled easily.
    “I asked that he be released into my custody while we do the paperwork,” he said. “This isn’t a high-profile case. None of it has made the news. Why not release him?”
    “He’s a convicted felon,” I pointed out.
    “An innocent convicted felon,” Tempest insisted.
    Noble smiled. There was something about that smile that reminded me of…Tempest.
    A muffled knock came on the stone door.
    “Come in,” Stuart Noble said.
    The raven-haired aide came through, leading state prosecutor Darryl Cruickshank and sitting judge Jasmine Beam into the room.
    Noble leapt up and moved chairs for the two state officials to join our circle. He pushed the stone chairs along with remarkable ease. Maybe, I thought, they had wheels or some kind of sliding mechanism underneath.
    After a few bland pleasantries Noble said, “Now that we’re all here we can see to justice.”
    Seated in an arc around the settee, the representatives of the legal system smiled and nodded.
    Noble began the dialogue.
    “Let me begin by saying that we are all in agreement that Mr. Walcott did not kill F. Anthony Chambers.”
    The judge and prosecutor made small head motions that might have been assent.
    “And,” Noble continued, “that the only reason he fled was to avoid a punishment unearned.”
    “But he did flee,” Judge Beam, a smallish woman, said.
    “Certainly,” the lawyer I’d hired said with a nod, “and he has paid enough, I would say. One night in prison for an innocent man is like an eternity in hell. Wouldn’t