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“Instead he tortured them to find out what the book was worth and then killed ’em to cut down on the number of potential partners in the crime.” I was flying by then.
“Now you know what I do,” Bradford said. “Can you help get the book?”
“I believe I can, my man. I believe I can.”
“How?”
“I’m pretty sure that Timmerman got the book somewhere on the way. When Fearless knocked him down I got his address and the key to his door. Fearless is there right now, lookin’ for the book. When he gets it I might consider sellin’ it to you.”
“Why?” Craighton asked suspiciously. “You could go to Maestro or Miss Fine yourself.”
“Oh yeah,” I said. “I could tie the noose for the hangman too. No, no, brother. You find twenty-five thousand dollars and I’ll let you decide how to make money on the book.”
The light of hope was shining in Bradford Craighton’s eyes.
“That’s a lot of money,” he said.
“I bet you could pick it up in that pantry you paid me from,” I said. “Sell the book to whoever pays the most, return the loan, and fly off to gay Paree.”
“I’ll tell you the same thing I told Mitchell,” the private secretary said. “I can raise seventy-five hundred dollars. That’s all I can lay my hands on.”
“I’ll meet you halfway and take twelve thousand five hundred.”
“Mr. Minton,” Bradford said with great reserve. “I have what I said. Take it and you will be safe and quite a bit richer. . . . Or take your chances with Mr. Wexler and his thugs.”
I stayed silent for a long moment to make him think that I was considering the options he presented. I wanted him to believe I might leave him hanging.
“Okay,” I said. “All right. I’ll take the seventy-five hundred, but you got to promise to keep my name out of it.”
“You have my word.”
Words: from the Emancipation Proclamation to the names on the ballots every election day, they had a life of their own and precious little to do with the truth.
43
IT’S FUNNY HOW YOU START OUT trying to help somebody else and end up in business for yourself. Fearless had come to me to find out why the cops were after him and what was going on with Leora and Son. That was all behind us, but there I was, still hanging in there, trying to make money out of thin air.
Bradford Craighton had gone into business for himself. Minna and Lance had come to him, the trusted family employee, and asked him to help make Maestro pay them for their crime. Bradford saw his chance. All those years working for the big man made him hungry for the real thing.
Paris is even more beautiful when you don’t have to walk to work every morning of your life.
But Kit took the book and called asking for more money than the down-at-heel secretary could raise. When Kit said that he’d go directly to the Fine family, Craighton thought that he’d lost his one chance. Then came Teddy Timmerman. But Timmerman also betrayed him. He killed the kids, killed Kit, and now Bradford was out on a limb. But there was the slight hope that he could still get the book.
The last two threats to my security were Maestro Wexler and the weasel Bradford. The master wanted to find the killer of his children and he looked to me as a guide. Of course I couldn’t very well turn over his secretary, because then I could be implicated in the secretary’s crime. And Bradford would need me out of the way sooner or later because I knew about his crimes.
I called the Seventy-seventh Street Precinct from a phone booth on Central Avenue.
“Police department,” a white woman answered.
“Sergeant Rawlway, please.”
“One moment.”
I waited through a series of clicks and buzzes. Finally there came another ring.
“Sergeant Rawlway speaking.”
“Good morning, sergeant. This is Paris Minton.”
“Oh. Hello, Mr. Minton. You’re a little late if you wanted to turn in your friend. We already found him.”
“It’s not that, sir. I know you talked to Fearless because he told me about it. He said that you were looking for a man named Kit Mitchell.”
“Mr. Jones really shouldn’t be discussing police business.”
“Maybe not, sir, but do you think it’s a coincidence that another man showed up at my door just yesterday asking me if I knew the whereabouts of Fearless or Kit?”
“What man?”
“A guy named Theodore Timmerman. At least that’s what he said his name was. He gave me a card with a number on it. Do you think that’s important?”
FEARLESS WAS AT MY HOUSE when I got there, shuffling a deck of cards. He was stretched out on the front room sofa—playing solitaire in a room full of books.
“Hey, Fearless —”
“I got bad news, Paris,” he said. “Somebody stole our money, man.”
“What money?”
“That we had in the trunk’a her car.”
“What about the book?”
“Book? Who cares about a book when we lost almost three thousand dollars and that emerald necklace?”
“Did they leave the book?”
“It was in the same bag as the money, man,” Fearless said. “They took it all.”
I sat down. If there hadn’t been a chair behind me I would have fallen to the floor.
“No,” was all I said.
“I know, Paris,” Fearless said. “I know.”
“Who would have known to take the money?”
“Ambrosia took the car to Tito’s Car Wash. I had driven it up into the Santa Monica mountains and it got kinda streaked. She was just gettin’ it clean if I wanted to drive around some more. You know at Tito’s they do the whole car. The trunk was wide open the whole time. They got at least twenty people workin’ there. And there’s a big sign sayin’ not to leave no valuables in the trunk.”
Up to that moment the loss of the Fine family chronicle was the worst defeat in my life. I forgot about the man who died at my hands and even the danger still posed by Maestro and his scheming secretary. I forgot about the police and their constant threat to my liberty. All that was left was the loss of more money than most Negro families made in an entire life of labor.
“Paris?”
“I’m goin’ to bed, Fearless,” I said.
He said something but I didn’t hear it. I scaled the stairs to my illegal loft. I don’t even remember getting into the bed. And I didn’t have one dream that I can remember. It was just as if I had died. That’s how far I’d fallen.
I DIDN’T FEEL HIM SHAKE ME but he must have. He’d stayed downstairs for nearly twenty hours, standing guard over my despair. When I opened my eyes Fearless was just sitting there in a chair beside my bed. He’d undressed me and covered me with blankets and a sheet.
“Hey, Paris. Feel better?”
“Ungh,” I said. “Ugh.”
A wave of nausea went through me and I got out of the bed and rushed down to the toilet. My head was aching and one of my nostrils was clogged. I’d lost a fortune because of a car wash attendant who would never know the value of the book he stole.
Fearless was at the kitchen table when I got there. He’d made pancakes with hot maple syrup and country sausage.
“Anybody call?” I asked.
“I took the phone off the hook, man. You needed your sleep.”
“Well, I better put it back. I got work to do.”
My first job was to read the morning paper.
Kit Mitchell had been found. He’d been dead for at least a week. There were signs that he’d been tortured before he died, but the cause of death was not immediately known.
Maybe, after I died and if I went to heaven, the celestial host would give me a medal for ending Theodore Timmerman’s rampage on earth.
RAWLWAY AND MORRAIN CAME BY at about five. Fearless went upstairs before I answered the door.
“Sergeant, officer,” I said in greeting at the door.
“May we come in, Mr. Minton?” Sergeant Rawlway asked.
“Sure can.”
They took seats this time and sat forward with clasped hands and elbows on their knees.
“We found some suspicious evidence at the house of the man you called us about,” Rawlway said.
“Oh yeah? What about him?”
The hairy cop just shook his head.
“Well,” I said, hesitating, “was there something else I could do for you?”
“What did you say his name was again?” Morrain asked in a surprisingly deferential tone.
“Timmerman,” I said. “Theodore Timmerman. Why?”
“His phone records and other papers seem to be a bit confused.”
“How do you mean?”
“He went by half a dozen names. And there were some very incriminating materials in his garage.”
“Really?”
“Just what did he say to you when he was here?” Rawlway asked. He took out the tiny notebook and small ballpoint pen made to scale.
“He asked if I knew a man named Fearless,” I said, looking up at the ceiling as if I had to think about my answer. “Then he asked about Kit. I told him that I didn’t know but I heard that Fearless worked for a man named Kit for a while but that was over now. He wanted to know Fearless’s address and I told him that I didn’t know. That’s when it got kinda strange.”
“How do you mean strange?”
“He put his hand on my forearm and squeezed it hard. Then he asked about Fearless again. It was as if he was testin’ me. You know his eyes were scary, and so I was happy that I passed.”
“Did he say anything else?” Morrain asked.
“No. He let me go and left.”
“How long ago was that?”
“Day before yesterday.”
“And you waited a whole day to call?” Rawlway asked.
“Yeah. Well, you know I didn’t wanna get involved. But then I woke up yesterday morning and I got worried. I tried to get in touch with Fearless but he’d gone somewhere. So then I called you guys because I don’t want my friend to get hurt.”
“It’s unusual for Negroes to willingly give up information to the cops,” Morrain speculated.
“Maybe about other Negroes, but Timmerman or whatever his name is is a white man.” Who died three feet from where you’re sitting, went through my mind.
“If Timmerman calls you again you should call us,” Rawlway was saying.
“You mean you didn’t catch him yet?” I said, putting a little fear in my voice. “I mean, what if he figures to come back here?”
“Don’t worry,” Morrain said. “We got his house covered. We’ll get him.”
“How can we get in touch with Fearless?” Rawlway wanted to know.
I gave them Ambrosia’s phone number and address. Fearless would call her and make sure she wasn’t helpful. Sooner or later he’d have to talk to the cops, but not before we finished our business.
AT NINE EXACTLY I called Bradford Craighton. He answered even before I heard the ring.
“Mr. Minton?”
“Hello, Bradford. I got what you wanted. I got even more than that.”
“Where?”
“Right here at Timmerman’s house. Fearless found the book and left it. He said that he didn’t see any reason to go runnin’ around with Timmerman in the hospital and the police lookin’ into three murders. You just bring my money here. Bring it and we’ll turn over the book to you.”
I never expected to see that money or anything else that was promised to me, but I had to act like I did. I gave him the Ogden address and he hung up the phone without even a good-bye.
44
THINGS FELL INTO PLACE QUICKLY after that. Bradford Craighton was arrested at Timmerman’s house on charges of attempted breaking and entering. Maestro Wexler had him out of jail before noon. The private secretary immediately fled the state, which set off a nationwide search. Over the next days there were a series of articles about the conspiracy between Minna Wexler, her brother, and Bradford Craighton to extort money from an unnamed millionaire. It was also believed that, with the help of an as yet unnamed accomplice, Bradford ordered the deaths of the brother and sister.
Three days later it all came to naught. Bradford Craighton hung himself in a three-dollar-a-night room in Toledo, Ohio.
A long way from the Left Bank.
Maybe a week after that a couple camping in the Santa Monica mountain range found the desiccated body of a tall white man. The corpse had no hands and had also been beheaded. Nearby there had been a fire that contained the remains of human bone.
I PUT IT ALL OUT OF MY MIND: the one unbroken thread of African history as it bled into the world of slavery; the possibility of being a rich man with a house near the shore; the first, and hopefully the last, killing my hands would ever commit. I forgot about everything and went back to my spotty life of book sales and reading.
Rose Fine moved in with Fearless’s mother. Son, Brown, and Leora decided to stay in L.A. to be near her. The cops picked up Fearless but he played ignorant and they soon let him go. The information I found in Timmerman’s files never made it to the news. Neither did the money he had in that rusty box.
A few weeks later I was lamenting not taking at least a few dollars for the trouble Timmerman had caused me. The dread of his evil files and photographs had worn off but the mailman was still delivering the bills. I was having those thoughts when my telephone rang.
“Mr. Minton?”
“Oscar?”
“My sister would appreciate it if you could come to the house this afternoon. Shall we say four-thirty?”
***
THE HOUSE WAS GOING THROUGH a major renovation. The lawn had been cleared of the junk that had been rusting there. The façade was being painted. Hard-muscled men of every race were straining and struggling to make the Fine house into the mansion it could be.
I felt guilty as I approached the front door. I’d lost the greatest fortune this family owned, maybe the greatest treasure for American Negroes. Maybe, I thought, Winifred now knew about the loss and she wanted to hire me to search down the book. I had decided that I wouldn’t take her money. It would just be the wrong thing to do.
SHE WAS SITTING AT HER DESK with the curtains open on the Eden behind her. She wore a pink dress that was cut low enough to show the pendant against her chest. It was a large emerald surrounded by white stones that looked like diamonds but which were really white sapphires.
“You got it back,” I said.
“As if you didn’t know,” she replied. “Have a seat, Mr. Minton.”
“What do you mean?”
“Do I have to explain the word seat?”
“I mean about the pendant.”
“It’s okay, Mr. Minton. Your friend Fearless brought it back to me of his own free will.”
“Oh,” I said as I lowered into the soft chair. “I see.”
“He also returned my family book. When I spoke to you I didn’t even know that it was missing. With Son being taken from me and the pendant too I was distracted.”
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