Devil In A Blue Dress

“I loved going home. Maybe it was that I was raised on a sharecropper’s farm or that I never owned anything until I bought that house, but I loved my little home. […] That house meant more to me than any woman I ever knew. I loved her and I was jealous of her and if the bank sent the county marshal to take her from me I might have come at him with a rifle rather than to give her up.”

Here, Easy personifies his home, comparing it to a romantic partner, to emphasize how much value he places on it. Easy’s infatuation with the idea of home ownership symbolizes his larger desire to be allowed to live a peaceable, independent life. His personal version of prosperity can be considered within the context of the American Dream, as well as the barriers that impede his progress toward his desired outcome.

“Easy, walk out your door in the morning and you’re mixed up in something. The only thing you can really worry about is if you get mixed up to the top or not.”

In contrast with Easy’s live-and-let-live philosophy, Albright presents a more cutthroat outlook. Albright’s comment about walking out the door becomes ironic, given his later invasion of Easy’s home and privacy, showing that not even staying home can protect Easy from the chaos that ensues. Though Albright’s philosophy repulses Easy, he ends up acting in similar ways as he protects himself and his friends, even at the expense of others, such as Junior.

“In Houston and Galveston, and way down in Louisiana, life was a little more aimless. People worked a little job but they couldn’t make any real money no matter what they did. But in Los Angeles you could make a hundred dollars in a week if you pushed. The promise of getting rich pushed people to work two jobs in the week and do a little plumbing on the weekend.”

Historically, those, like Easy, who migrated to California viewed it as a land of opportunity, particularly compared to the laidback locales of Easy’s childhood. Here, financial opportunities come at a non-monetary price, as life in LA is hectic and competitive. The draw of money thus brings people to the city and induces them to do unpleasant things. Easy is no exception: He accepts Albright’s job offer despite misgivings because he needs to make a mortgage payment.

“I want you to remember something, Easy. I want you to think about when Frank took his knife and stabbed that man. […] Before he went at him, did he hesitate? Even for a second?”

Albright reserves his respect for those who, like him, are capable of killing decisively and remorselessly. Though Easy has a more sensitive and conflicted nature, he comes to rely on Mouse, who reminds him of Albright, to do the things Easy refrains from doing, including killing Joppy and Albright. In this way, Easy seeks to distance himself from the guilt of killing, though he is responsible for Mouse’s involvement in the first place.

“A job in a factory is an awful lot like working on a plantation in the south. The bosses see all the workers like they’re children, and everyone knows how lazy children are.”

Easy’s narration reveals an awareness of how the not-so-distant past of slavery has given way to other forms of oppression, including in his work, where his boss is particularly dismissive of Black employees. Easy’s observation that his boss sees them as children hints at the paternalistic, infantilizing attitudes that accompany some forms of racism.

“It’s hard acting innocent when you are but the cops know that you aren’t.”

Here, Easy comments on the circular logic employed by the police who question him: His professions of innocence are taken as evidence of his guilt. Since his guilt is a foregone conclusion, there’s nothing Easy can do or say to prove his innocence, apart from finding powerful white allies and providing other scapegoats, both of which he does by the novel’s conclusion.

“The next thing I knew I was down on one knee but I kept myself from being sick. […] All the dead men that I’d ever known came back to me in that instant. […] Death wasn’t new to me and I was to be damned if I’d let one more dead white man break me down.”

Unlike some literary detectives, particularly in the hardboiled genre, Easy is not desensitized to violence and its consequences. Instead, he suffers from trauma related to his war experience. Even in observing death, however, he notes the race of the victim in his determination not to let the situation disturb him.

“The voice only comes to me at the worst times, when everything seems so bad that I want to take my car and drive it into a wall. Then this voice comes to me and gives me the best advice I ever get. The voice is hard. It never cares if I’m scared or in danger. It just looks at all the facts and tells me what I need to do.”

Easy’s conception of a voice that instructs him in difficult situations highlights the harsh and uncompromising nature of the world he lives in. The voice first surfaced during his time as a soldier; the fact that it persists after the war shows that life in LA is similarly fraught with danger. Mosley draws attention to the factors that make it so, including structural racism and economic turbulence.

“I never minded that those white boys hated me, but if they didn’t respect me I was ready to fight.”

Easy differentiates between hate and disrespect. Both can be symptoms of racism, but Easy finds disrespect more objectionable, perhaps because it involves belittling a subject rather than mere opposition. Easy’s desire for respect from white others leads him to act and think in carefully calculated ways, though his by-the-rules behavior isn’t always enough to bring about the outcomes he desires, which is why he turns to Mouse.

“Mr. Todd Carter was so rich that he didn’t even consider me in human terms. […] I could have been a prized dog that he knelt to and hugged when he felt low. It was the worst kind of racism. The fact that he didn’t even recognize our difference showed that he didn’t care one damn about me.”

Easy identifies a unique type of racism in his interactions with Carter. Because Mr. Carter is so far removed from Easy’s socioeconomic stratum, it doesn’t even occur to Carter to be racist in the ways Easy usually observes. Instead, Carter sees Easy as something less than human, a pawn he can use as he pleases.

“Money isn’t a sure bet but it’s the closest to God that I’ve ever seen in this world.”

The pursuit of money drives much of the plot forward, and various characters demonstrate diverse attitudes about money. Albright seeks money above all else, while Easy sees it as a means to an end (home ownership). Carter has so much money that he takes it for granted, even as he uses it to induce others to do what he wants. Mosley’s attention to the primacy of money reveals both the promise of a better life embedded in American capitalism and the drudgery that is a daily reality for many.

“I’ll never forget thinking how those Germans had hurt that poor boy so terribly that he couldn’t even take in anything good. That was why so many Jews back then understood the American Negro; in Europe the Jew had been a Negro for more than a thousand years.”

Easy finds parallels between historic discrimination against Jews in Europe and that against Black people in the United States. In the story of the Jewish boy who died because his body can no longer absorb nutrients, Easy emphasizes the boy’s woundedness, which left him unable to enjoy anything good. In the same way, the legacy of racism and slavery leaves Easy and his peers at a disadvantage.

“Maybe you gonna show me how a poor man can live wit’out blood.”

Here, Mouse suggests that disadvantaged people sometimes must commit violent acts to compensate for their lack of privilege. Before accepting his help, Easy commits Mouse to follow his instructions, hoping to contain Mouse’s propensity for violence. By the end of the novel, Mouse kills more people, despite Easy’s objections. Easy’s hope for a life without violence proves unrealistic under the circumstances.

“He disgusted me. He was brave enough to take on a smaller man, he was brave enough to stab an unarmed man, but Junior couldn’t stand up to answer for his crimes.”

Whatever physical bravery Junior possesses, Easy finds him lacking in moral courage. Easy’s harsh evaluation of Junior becomes somewhat hypocritical in light of Easy’s subsequent decision not to make Mouse face the consequences of his actions. In fact, Easy’s decision to ask Mouse for help in the first place places him in morally questionable territory, since he relies on Mouse to do things he is unwilling to do himself.

“I wished that my life was still so simple that all I was after was a wild night with a white girl.”

Easy takes Daphne to a secluded location, supposedly to confer together and plan their next move. Before doing so, however, they spend a day engaged in romantic pleasures. The gap between Easy’s intent (solving the case and protecting Daphne) and his actions, which delay Daphne’s escape and lead to her capture, enriches his characterization as a task-driven, morally-aware individual who nevertheless sometimes gives in to contradictory urges.

“I felt something deep down in me, something dark like jazz when it reminds you that death is waiting.” 

Easy feels a growing sense of dread as he allows himself to be swept away in his passion for Daphne. To him, Daphne is literally a femme fatale, or “fatal woman.” Adopting jazz music as a metaphor for the threat of death highlights his simultaneous fear and attraction to her. 

“I never felt drawn to a woman the way I was to Daphne Monet. Most beautiful women make me feel like I want to touch them, own them. But Daphne made me look inside myself. She’d whisper a sweet word and I was brought back to the first time I felt love and loss.”

Easy feels something for Daphne beyond mere sexual desire. She becomes a muse who moves him to melancholy and introspection. Though it’s not immediately clear why she affects him this way, Mouse later asserts that Easy and Daphne are similar, in that they deny their Black heritage in favor of white culture or thinking. The implication is that Easy connects with Daphne so deeply because he sees her as a mirror image of himself.

“I love it when you hurt, Easy. For us. […] I mean us here, like we aren’t who they want us to be. […] They don’t have names. They’re just the ones who won’t let us be ourselves. They never want us to feel this good or close like this. That’s why I wanted to get away with you.

Daphne craves Easy’s company because she feels that she can be herself with him. Her later insistence, as Ruby, that Daphne is a different person shows that she really felt or believed herself to be Daphne, not Ruby, in this moment of intimacy. Whether one identity or the other is her so-called “real” self is beside the point: Instead, this passage shows who Daphne becomes when she is secluded and separated from the outside forces that seek to shape and use her.

“Ain’t no reason t’die in no white man’s war! […] You win this one and they have you back on the plantation ‘fore Labor Day.”

Easy dreams that he is a soldier fighting for “freedom,” leading Mouse to make this pointed response. Mouse’s comment reflects the cognitive dissonance Easy feels as simultaneously a veteran and as a second-class citizen in the society he fought to protect. The same contradictions appear in his civilian life as well: Though he follows the law and works hard, he is treated like a criminal and fired from his job.

“There were no outside lights except on the front porch so I couldn’t make out the color. I wanted to know what color the house was. I wanted to know what made jets fly and how long sharks lived. There was a lot I wanted to know before I died.”

This snippet of commentary from the moment Easy approaches Albright’s house represents a humorous intrusion of the narrator upon the narrative. Easy’s dark humor, here weighed down with an acknowledgment of his eventual death, offers momentary reprieve from the grim story, while adding insight into Easy’s character. His interest in what makes jets fly seems particularly ironic given that he works in an airplane factory, suggesting that he finds his role as a technician limiting.

“You just like Ruby. […] She wanna be white. All them years people be tellin’ her how she light-skinned and beautiful but all the time she knows that she can’t have what white people have. So she pretend and then she lose it all. She can love a white man but all he can love is the white girl he think she is.”

Tempted by circumstance, Ruby changes her name and passes as white in order to enjoy the privileges associated with whiteness. While her scheme works for a while, her situation remains precarious, since the secret of her identity risks exposure. As knowledge of her identity spreads, she is forced to retreat and abandon her new life, showing it to be ultimately unattainable.

“That’s just like you, Easy. You learn stuff and you be thinkin’ like white men be thinkin’. You be thinkin’ that what’s right fo’ them is right fo’ you. She look like she white and you think like you white. But brother you don’t know that you both poor n*****s. And a n****r ain’t never gonna be happy less he accept what he is.”

Mouse compares Easy to Daphne, suggesting that both yearn for privileges exclusive to white people in 1948 because of structural racism. Both also live in denial, thinking they can attain those privileges through various means. The question of whether Easy can be truly happy without abandoning some of his ambitions remains unresolved, since he moves on to embrace his clever thinking, which Mouse apparently objects to, as a detective. Still, Easy remains wary.

“It didn’t sound any worse than a parking ticket if you listened to him.”

Carter’s lawyer minimizes the significance of an upcoming inquest. His nonchalance strikes Easy, since the lawyer’s confidence speaks to the imbalance of treatment under the law. Whereas Mason and Miller threaten to arrest and prosecute Easy for small crimes, punishing him more than he deserves, powerful white men like Carter can easily deal with even the most serious crimes, such as murder.