Free Rose Gold by Walter Mosley Page A

mind toomuch about Alana but her older sister Mona, who brought the family out here, was sad to see Fred go—especially with a white woman.”
    “You think she has the boy?”
    “The woman they described at the kindergarten didn’t look like her,” Etta said. “I send Peter over to Mathilda’s house with some flowers. I told him to pretend that he was deliverin’ to somebody else. He did but he didn’t see any children or children’s things in the house.”
    “Peter still at your place?”
    “That poor white boy ain’t got no place to go, Easy. And he gives me a lotta help when Raymond’s outta town.”
    “Fred have any other family?”
    “Lots of brothers, sisters, cousins, grandchildren, and great-grandbabies, and then there’s Mona Martin. Mona raised Fred’s mother and all her brothers and sisters. She’s the head of the clan.”
    “Anything else you could tell me?” I asked.
    “No,” she said, shaking her head and sneering at her ignorance. “Just that Alton’s gone and my heart goes out to his mama.”
    In the country we traded favors for survival. When we moved up north we packed our country customs in with the pots and old photographs.
    “I don’t know when I’ll be home, Etta, but I’m sure to be there after midnight.”
    “I’ll tell Raymond,” she said. Then she looked at her sleeping friend. “You know, I hate to wake her up. She haven’t slept two hours since her boy been gone.”
    “You can stay here,” I said. “Just lock up when you go.”
    “Thanks, baby. You be careful now.”

13
    I was walking down the western staircase of my building as a man was walking up. It was Percy Bidwell. At that moment he looked up, saw me, and reminded himself to smile.
    “Mr. Rawlins.”
    We stopped there in the stairwell upon reaching a common stair.
    He was wearing dark brown pants and a light brown shirt with buff-colored pointy-toed shoes. His processed curls were a little tighter and he smelled of cologne, just that much too sweet. There was a heart-shaped curve to his pursed lips.
    I fought down the urge to slap him.
    “Percy. I thought Jewelle said that you were going to call.”
    “She told me that I should come by and apologize in person.”
    “You’re lucky you found me,” I said, pointlessly. “I’m hardly ever even here.”
    “I dropped by your house first. Nobody was there and Jewelle had given me this address.”
    “I’m pretty busy, Percy. What do you need?”
    “I already told you that.”
    The Goldsmith case along with Alana Atman’s missing boy had cut my temper pretty short. I was about to go on my way, leaving the young man to consider his lack of proper civility.
    “Look, Mr. Rawlins,” he said before I could put my thoughts into action. “I’m sorry, okay? It’s just that I’m kinda desperate. You know I got a business degree from UCLA, graduated magna cum laude. I been workin’ for Jewelle at the real estate office but I’m educated for a job in high finance. You know most’a these investment firms won’t even give me an interview. Jewelle told me that you could help set upa meeting with Mr. Middleton and maybe even ask him to consider me for a job. All I need is for him to take a look at me. My grades speak for themselves.”
    “So what?”
    Percy could have had many responses to my two-word offensive. He might have been confused or hurt, maybe stunned. But the only emotion I saw in his eyes was indignation. How dare I, a dark-skinned, middle-aged black man, hardly removed from being a sharecropper, dismiss a young Negro who was educated at university and, with just a little help, was about to conquer the world?
    “Wh-what?” he stammered.
    “You studied business, right?”
    “Yes.” He actually sneered. “My degree covers accounting, economics, and investment finance.”
    “What does a business education tell you about a man giving away his property?”
    “I don’t understand what you’re saying,” he said in such a way as to make