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“We might could work that together,” I said. “We take a little less money and Miss Fine gets her prized possession.”
“I don’t know,” Brown said. “I don’t think I could go along with that. I mean, what if Miss Fine does business with you and then give us the shaft?”
“What if we find the book and you didn’t wanna work with us?” I replied. “This way we both got coverage. Me and Fearless get some money and peace’a mind and you get a happy family.”
“But how do we trust each other, man?”
“You can trust me,” Fearless said. “Whatever it is Paris says, I’ll make sure that it’s true.”
Brown’s smile made it to his eyes for the first time.
“Okay, Brother Fearless. All right. You give me your word and I’ll take it. But you know I don’t know a whole lot. Oscar called me a week ago and said that he needed my help. Leora was already out here to get Son back from Winifred. At first I was worried that somethin’ happened to her or Son, but then Oscar told me that Bartholomew had sent some man in to kidnap Son, that he knew about it because he was in it with Leora. But then the man took Son also stoled their family book. Now he was callin’ and sayin’ that he wanted fifty thousand dollars for it.”
“Kit?”
“Yeah. BB had been in it but Kit cut him out.”
“What about the Wexlers?”
“Kit told Oscar that he had a white man wanted to buy the book already. He was ready to spend almost fifty. He told Oscar that he had to have the money in three days or the white man was gonna get the book and Winifred would come down on everybody.”
“What’d he mean by that?”
“Oscar was in it with BB and Kit in the first place. He set it up so that Kit could take Son. But he didn’t know about the rest.”
“And you run down here from Chi?” Fearless asked.
“Yeah. I was waitin’ for Leora and Son. But she didn’t come because Oscar had called her too. I took the train and started lookin’ for Kit. I heard that he was at this rooming house, so I came here. They told me about him and Charlotta, so I kept my eye on her.”
“Don’t make no sense,” I said.
“What?”
“Why would Kit waste his time on Oscar if there was somebody wanted to buy the book already? I mean, the white man had to be Maestro Wexler or his son. They got almost fifty thousand dollars layin’ around in the closet. Why give Oscar time to raise the money?”
“Maybe because he killed the kids,” Fearless said.
“Kit’s been dead too long for that,” I said. “Same man killed him probably killed them too.”
“You right, Thad—I mean Paris,” Brown said. “Why would Kit waste time with Oscar? I mean, Winifred had already went to the police because’a the necklace.”
“She didn’t tell the cops about Son?” I asked our new ally.
“No. She was afraid that the cops would wanna know where his parents were.”
“I don’t get it,” Fearless said. “If this book is the big thing, why Kit wanna mess around with a hot necklace?”
It was a good question, reminding me that Fearless was a thinker too.
“Oscar let Kit take the necklace. That was what they agreed on to pay Kit for his taking Son.”
“So Kit had to take the choker in order to keep Oscar and Leora from suspecting about the book,” I said.
“Yeah. Oscar promised to pretend that the emerald got misplaced,” Brown added. “But once he realized about the book, he told Winifred that Kit stole the necklace.”
“Somethin’ must’a gone wrong on Kit’s side,” I said. “Somehow Lance was in trouble and Kit needed to get his money fast. He leaned on Oscar but instead Oscar put you and Leora on the case. Maybe he was thinkin’ that Leora could set him up and then he’d send you in to take him down.”
“Yeah,” Brown said. “That was it. And Oscar told Winnie what he wanted her to know. That way she could get after them without knowing about the book.”
“And that’s where Milo comes in,” I said.
“Who?” asked Brown.
“A man we know that Winifred hired.”
“Who do you think it was beat up Charlotta?” Brown asked me.
“He doesn’t sound like one of Wexler’s men,” I said. “But I don’t know. Wexler could have a hundred men workin’ for him. I guess it could be that Oscar is lyin’ to us. He lied to his sister.”
“So you think he took the book?”
“Naw. That wouldn’t make any sense,” I said, knowing that I had the book in the trunk of Fearless’s car.
“You guys finished yammerin’?” Fearless asked with a yawn. “’Cause you know I’m tired.”
We broke up then. Brown went to his room and we went down to the car.
DeLois was asleep in the backseat.
She looked so peaceful there with her hands folded together under her cheek, her breath coming slowly and deep. She might have been a troubled child but sleep came to her, a gift from a milder deity than the one that governed my fitful world.
38
FEARLESS DROVE US to Ambrosia’s house. DeLois slept the whole way. I told Fearless that I’d drive her home because he’d been nodding at the wheel. But when he wanted me to take my car I balked.
“Why bother taking my car outta the garage?” I reasoned. “I could just hold on to yours.”
“Not mine, Paris—Ambrosia’s. Don’t worry, man. I ain’t gonna lose the money. And sure as hell ain’t nobody gonna take it from me.”
He was right. The money and the book would be safer with him.
I woke DeLois up and led her to my car. She was groggy but trusting. Fearless kissed her on the cheek and told her that I’d drive her home.
In my car again I opened the window so that DeLois would wake up with the fresh air.
“Where you live exactly?” I asked her when she finally sat upright.
“Over near Adams and Hoover.”
I guided the car in that direction.
“You got a cigarette, Mr. Minton?”
I fished out two and handed them to her.
“Light me one too,” I said.
There’s nothing quite like a woman lighting your cigarette for the immediate feeling of intimacy. Putting the filtered tip in my mouth she touched my lower lip with her fingertips.
“What you and Fearless doin’ in Miss Moore’s house?” she asked me.
“Gettin’ into trouble I guess.”
“I guess if you gonna get into trouble you might as well do it with Fearless Jones,” she said and then giggled. “He sure did make that fat man sweat.”
“What were you doin’ in Miss Moore’s place?”
“Maybe I live there.”
“Maybe,” I said. “But you don’t.”
“How you know I don’t?”
“Because I took a room there a few days ago and I had dinner with the whole houseful. You weren’t there. And if you did live there, then why am I driving you home?”
DeLois’s face wasn’t small but it was petite. She pouted and then brought the cigarette to her lips.
“You know,” she said.
“Somebody send you in there to Melvin?”
“Naw. It’s just this bar I go to sometimes where he go too. He always tryin’ to mess wit’ me, but you know I always tell ’im to go on.”
“But not tonight.”
DeLois took another drag and turned to the window.
“How do you know Fearless?” I asked to ease her discomfort.
“He used to live in the apartment upstairs from me. He’s a real nice man. One time I had this boyfriend wanna try and beat on me. Fearless come down and asked him if he wanted to leave. It was funny. Richard started blusterin’ about how he was gonna kick Fearless’ ass. But the whole time he was talkin’ he was movin’ backwards and pickin’ up his things. Finally he shouted some curse or sumpin’ when he was at the door and then he ran.” DeLois laughed. I did too.
We drove a few more blocks.
“So what were you doin’ at Miss Moore’s?” I asked again.
“I cain’t make my rent and I got my little sister wit’ me. I got fifteen dollars but they want thirty.”
“You could slide a week or two.”
“I done slid a month already.”
We came to the small aqua-colored building on a street named Orchard. I stopped the car but neither of us moved or said anything.
I was closer to Fearless than to anyone except my mother. He had expectations of me that he never had to put into words. The fact that he took DeLois out of that rooming house was him saying that he wanted me to finish the job.
“So how come you left wit’ us?” I asked.
“I didn’t wanna fuck that man,” she said. “I don’t wanna fuck the landlord neither, but at least he don’t weigh five hundred pounds.”
I reached into my pocket and peeled off four twenty-dollar bills. I handed the money over. She didn’t take it at first. Instead she looked me up and down.
“What?” I asked.
“Nuthin’. It’s just that you even skinnier than my landlord and you the right color too.”
I took her hand and folded it around the money.
“No, DeLois. It ain’t like that. People been throwin’ money at me and Fearless the last couple’a days now. And my mama always told me to keep what I earn but to share good fortune. This is just for you and your sister.”
DeLois’s jaw dropped. “You mean you just givin’ me this money?”
“That’s right.”
“And you don’t want nuthin’?”
“I want you to have it.”
The young woman’s face turned serious then. In some other circumstance I might have been afraid of her pulling out a razor. When she put her free hand on my wrist I believe that she meant to give it a gentle caress, but her feelings made it like a vise.
“You could come upstairs, Paris,” she said. “I want you to.”
And there it was again: that moment of anticipation. That offer of something I wanted—and deserved too.
“No, baby. You take that money, pay your rent, buy some breakfast, and go out and find a good job. After you do all that and you been workin’ a month or two, if you still wanna see me ask Fearless for my number.”
She smiled and kissed me twice. The first kiss was a thank you, the second was a promise.
I drove off thinking that I had done the right thing for the first time since Fearless came banging on my door.
***
I GOT TO MY HOUSE at about one, still happy over those two wet kisses. I was still in a good position. Wexler thought I was working for him and Timmerman was in a hospital bed. Brown seemed to be on our side and Oscar wasn’t any threat. BB was in hiding somewhere, but he thought that I was on his side too. I parked in front of my place and skipped up the front stairs. In a week or two I’d begin to wonder if DeLois would ever call me. In a month I’d worry that she had moved on. But at least that one night I was a knight in shining armor and the princess had only me in her thoughts.
I opened the front door and received what seemed to be my nightly knock in the head. I fell to the floor and heard the door slam. A light came on simultaneously with the sudden deep ache in my head.
I turned on my back and looked up but all I could see for the moment was a looming shadow.
“Surprised to see me, nigger?” the shadow asked.
Nigger? Louis? I had a dozen one-word questions but neither my mind nor my ears were clear enough to provide an answer. The man lifted me by the lapels of my shirt. His breath was rank but unfamiliar. His skin, where it touched mine, was hot.
“Wake up!” he shouted.
The stinging slap across my cheek brought Theodore Timmerman’s face into clarity. He still wore the brown jacket he’d had on the first day he showed up at my door. But now he was wearing green trousers that didn’t cover his ankles. He had the beginnings of a beard around his chin. And his breath smelled like a disease.
“What you want, man?”
“Where’s the book?”
“Fearless got it.”
He slapped me again.
“You think you can fool me? Where is it, bastard?”
“Fearless got it. He does. I’m not lyin’.”
He threw me against the wall. My feet actually left the floor before I struck. I felt the pain in my lungs.
“Where is he?” Timmerman bellowed.
I gave up Ambrosia’s address without even a second’s hesitation. Everything I did for DeLois was washed away in one cowardly moment. Deep in my mind, though, I didn’t believe that Timmerman would ever get the upper hand on my friend.
Then he fell on me. His hands wrapped around my throat and my eyes felt as if they were going to pop out of my head. The pressure increased, and for the first time in the thirty years I had been alive fear left me. I was dying and there were no words to dissuade my killer. There was no Fearless Jones to break in at the last moment. There was nothing but death yawning out under me.
My ears were on fire and my heart was exploding. I started pounding with both of my fists at the point Fearless had tapped Theodore in the chest. There were bandages there now but I was striking him with strength I’d never known before or since. Timmerman released me and fell backwards. I went after him, hitting that bull’s eye again and again until finally I collapsed.
My foeman fell on top of me and I knew that I’d soon be dead. I struggled for a moment, trying to breathe, hurting from my throat. And then I faded into unconsciousness, knowing that I would never awaken again.
39
FEELING AS IF I HAD BEEN TRAMPLED by some prehistoric wooly rhino, I tried to look around. I couldn’t open my eyes all the way, and the light I managed to see was a dingy blue-brown glow. I could barely breathe, feeling as though there was a great stone on my chest. I tried to pry my eyes wider. The world was small and crazy. It was as if maybe a lead blanket had been draped over me and it was slowly pressing the life from my lungs.
Suddenly I came fully awake. I yelled and bucked, rolling the body from on top of me.
Theodore Timmerman, who probably never worked for an insurance company, was lying next to me on his back—wide-eyed and dead. I was on my side thinking about standing up but unable to make the right moves in order to achieve that goal. All I could do was lie there next to a dead man who had come close to killing me. My bones were jelly and my mind was a dull thud. All sensation had fled my body. Only breath remained. Sweet, sweet breath. Breath and death and every once in a while some sound like the house settling or the waterlike whoosh of a car passing down Jefferson.
There were also gurgling sounds emanating from within the corpse that lay mere inches from my ear. The body fluids settling down, headed back for the ground that they rose from. A motor started humming somewhere on the side of the building. A cat yowled and I felt a sharp pain in my left hand.
The fingernail of my ring finger was bleeding, half torn off in the struggle with the big white man. I concentrated on that pain, realizing somehow that if I didn’t I might lose consciousness again or I might even lose my senses completely and lie there until someone found me and called the police, who would then cart me off to prison.
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