Walter Mosley talks about how his fictional hero frees himself from wage labor through America’s favorite side hustle: landlording.According to The New York Times, about a third of the way through “Farewell, Amethystine,” the latest novel in Walter Mosley’s series about private investigator Ezekiel (Easy) Rawlins, Easy prepares for a late-night meeting armed with a gun and a hunch. The story is at a critical point where Easy and the reader both know that the seemingly simple missing-person case from Chapter 2 is about to turn violent. However, before the action unfolds, Easy makes a surprising statement: he doesn’t need this job. He actually makes enough money from his real estate investments.
Easy is a Black World War II veteran who left the Jim Crow South for a better life in Los Angeles. In Mosley’s 1990 classic “Devil in a Blue Dress,” which launched both the series and Mosley’s career, Easy takes on his first case to pay his mortgage and uses a windfall to invest in rental properties. Real estate continues to be a recurring theme and driving force in the early books, where solving mysteries often leads to resolving financial issues such as tax liens and mortgages.
Now, after two decades of buying and holding properties, Easy is financially secure. As he explains in “Farewell, Amethystine,” his 12 buildings with a total of 101 rental units are managed by a friend for a 0.8 percent fee. After subtracting the commission, mortgage payments, and upkeep costs, Easy’s take-home income is $26,000 a year in 1970 (the year the novel takes place), which would be equivalent to about $217,000 today.
“I wasn’t rich,” Easy admits. “But I certainly didn’t need to be out among the rough crowd in the middle of the night.”
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