Walter Mosley - The Long Fall

“YOU LOOK TIRED, Pops,” Twill said later that morning at the breakfast table.

Katrina had made the family buckwheat cakes along with broiled thick-cut applewood-smoked bacon.

“So that you might sleep peacefully, my son. How’s Mardi?” After they arrested her father, her uncle sent for her and her sister. They went to Dublin.

“She says she’s happy,” he said. And then, “I was thinkin’ about what you said that day. And I promise that I will come to you with any more problems like that. At least till I’m twenty-one.”

THE HOUSE WAS empty by noon.

I went down the hall to my den and sat down behind the desk, across from the little painting where a squiggle’s face had abandoned him to become the sun. It was a lovely thing, beautiful.

I took out my cell phone and entered a code.

“Hello,” she answered knowingly.

“Can we meet for a late lunch?” I asked Aura Ullman.

“A restaurant or my place?”

“I need to talk,” I said. “But I think it should be in a public space for now.”

“Okay,” she said and I felt once more that I was falling, but I didn’t mind at all.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Walter Mosley is one of America’s most celebrated and best-known writers. His mystery novels, including the now classic Easy Rawlins series, are routinely on the New York Times Bestseller List, and his books have been translated into more than tÆ€nclwenty languages. He has won numerous awards, including the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award (given to work that increases the appreciation and understanding of race in America), a Grammy, the Sundance Risk-Takers Award, and the PEN Center USA’s Lifetime Achievement Award. Mosley served on the board of directors of the National Book Awards and is past president of the Mystery Writers of America. Born and raised in Los Angeles, he lives in New York City.

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