Fear Itself Read online

  “Hey, Fearless,” I said. “How’s it goin’?”

  He was wearing a black T-shirt, black trousers, and black cloth shoes. Looking at him, you might have thought he was a weak sister being so thin. But, as I’ve already said, I had never met a stronger man in my life.

  He took out a pink envelope and handed it to me.

  I opened the letter already knowing, or at least thinking I knew, what it would say.

  Dear Fearless:

  I do not want to write these words but there is no other way. I cannot look you in the face and tell you the terrible thing that I have done. You are a good and sweet man and I am no kind of woman for you. I have been with another man while wearing your engagement ring. I have slept with him. Paris came to me. He took me to the Emerald Lounge and bought me drinks, saying that we were celebrating my marriage. But we got so drunk that when he took me home I brought him inside to make some coffee. I did not mean to sleep with him. I do not think he meant it either. And maybe I would not ever have said about it, but now I think I am pregnant and I could not be with you not knowing if it was your child we was raising. I am going back down to Tennessee now.

  I am sorry.

  I will always love you,

  Brenda

  Upon finishing the letter I was certain that I wouldn’t live to walk out of Marie’s. Fearless would kill me with his bare hands before I could rise.

  I put the letter on the table and looked Fearless in the eye. I wanted to say something but the fear Brenda’s letter instilled made me mute.

  “I went to Orrin’s,” Fearless said.

  I made a choking sound and held up my left hand.

  “What were you doin’ there, Paris?”

  “She tricked me, man. She said that she wanted me to take her to meet you over there. I thought you were coming but, but you didn’t.”

  “And then you took her home?”

  “All I did was wait to see that she got in the door. I swear. I swear.”

  Fearless’s face was drawn. He grabbed my left forearm. The pain shot up into my shoulder. I didn’t make a move though. I just stared into his intense eyes.

  As the seconds passed my arm went numb. Fearless blinked and then a tear escaped. He let me go and hung his head.

  “I know,” he said. “I know you wouldn’t do me like that. And even if you would, you wouldn’t go to my favorite place. No. I figure there’s somethin’ down there in Tennessee she wants. An’ she just point me at you ’cause she worried I’ma mess it up for her.”

  “Fearless —”

  “You don’t have to say nuthin’, Paris. I know you know sumpin’, but that’s okay. If she wanna end this with a lie then I’ll let her. ’Cause the only thing that matter is that she don’t want me.”

  He looked up at me and smiled then. It was a deep, hurting smile. After shedding that tear his life would go on. Before the bruise on my arm was gone he had buried his pain.

  13

  THE FIFTH SYMPHONY WAS PLAYING when I entered the Emerald Lounge that afternoon. Fearless sat at the same table where Brenda had cried on my shoulder. His face was tilted upward, taking in the deep percussion of that long-ago music. I was sure that he was thinking about Brenda.

  “Fearless.”

  “Paris.”

  I sat down and he brought his gaze back down to earth.

  “We got deep trouble,” I said.

  “Let’s hear it.”

  I told him about Hercules Wexler first. Then I went into Bartholomew Perry, Milo Sweet, and Winifred L. Fine. After that I told him about the cops’ visit, and finally I mentioned the dead woman in the park who had the same last name as Hercules.

  “Damn, Paris. What’s it all about?”

  “I don’t know. I mean, some parts make sense. BB and his father sell used cars, and so did the Wexlers, at least Hercules. Winifred must have heard something, and so she’s looking for BB. The cops lookin’ for Bartholomew because of Minna Wexler.”

  “Why you say that?”

  “What?”

  “About BB and the dead white girl.”

  “You ever see BB when he wasn’t with a girl either white or look like she was?” I asked.

  “No . . . but that don’t mean he was with her.”

  “I’d lay odds that he was, though.”

  “But even so, what’s that got to do with me?” Fearless asked.

  “Kit bought his used trucks hot from BB. I got that from Milo, who heard it from that man lookin’ for you—Timmerman. Kit also knew Hercules, and he’d been to a rich black woman’s house. That woman is BB’s auntie and she’s the one hired Milo in the first place.”

  “But does that tell us why the cops are after me?”

  “You looked for Kit. Maybe somebody mentioned it somewhere along the way when them cops was lookin’.”

  “Damn, Paris. You know I have broke the law a time or two and the cops never got me. Wouldn’t be a kick in the head if I went down for somethin’ I don’t even know about?”

  “Did Kit have any partners in the business?” I asked. “I mean, leasin’ the land and gettin’ those trucks must’a cost somethin’.”

  “Maybe Maynard’d know.”

  “That’s the guy used to ride Kit in?”

  “Uh-huh. He might know sumpin’ ’bout that Hercules too.”

  “I don’t know, Fearless. If he didn’t tell you I don’t see why he’d tell Maynard. Were they good friends?”

  “Not really.”

  “What about that big payday Kit was braggin’ on?” I asked. “Did he say anything more about that?”

  Fearless pulled his lips into his mouth and shook his head.

  I sat back then, letting the brass horns wash over my recent memories. I remembered being scared awake by Fearless and then by the white man.

  “And then there’s Teddy Timmerman,” I said.

  “What about him?”

  “Milo is the one that sent him after you. So it just stands to reason that Milo knows more about you than you do.”

  “So then we got to go ask Milo some hard questions,” Fearless said.

  “But he ain’t gonna open up unless we have the right words.”

  “What’s them, Paris?”

  “First we got to get a little closer to BB. Best way to do that is to go out and see Esau.”

  “Who’s that?” Fearless asked.

  “That’s BB’s father. He’s the man owns that used car lot down near Compton.”

  “Your car or mine?” Fearless asked me.

  “You got a car now?”

  “I took Ambrosia’s Chrysler.”

  “I thought she was mad at you.”

  “No, Paris, she’s mad at you.” Fearless grinned.

  “Let’s each of us drive,” I said. “’Cause if the cops drop down on you, at least I’ll be free to get you out.”

  “Okay.”

  “So let’s get goin’,” I said.

  “Hold up, Paris. Ludwig is playin’. Might as well let him finish the number.”

  So we sat through the movements of Beethoven’s Fifth in Watts, California, 1955. While listening I smiled thinking about the balding Officer Morrain. If he had come into the lounge, he would have suspected it as a front for some devilment because of that music. That’s why the police had so much trouble with the Negro community: they refused to see us as we appeared right there before their eyes.

  ON THE DRIVE OVER I WAS BEHIND A BEAT-UP DODGE that didn’t have much pickup. The Dodge pulled out as the light turned amber, entering the intersection. The driver obviously thought he could make it before the crossing traffic made its move. Maybe he was used to driving a car with more pickup. But an oncoming Pontiac was already into a left turn and a Ford had come to the light moving fast. Between those two automobiles the Dodge was bent nearly into an L. I stopped but a few pedestrians got to the accident first. They dragged the body of the driver out and then his passenger, a middle-aged white woman. Blood covered her face and she was speaki
ng rapidly.

  I wanted to help but the sight of blood repelled me. I don’t have a strong stomach or a brave heart. One of the reasons I remained friends with Fearless was that he never looked down on me for being scared.

  “Scared as you are,” he’d tell me, “you still get up every day just like men think they brave.”

  I pulled up to the curb a block from the accident to compose myself. Sirens were wailing from somewhere far off. People streamed toward the scene of the crash. I sat in the car massaging my temples and thinking of reasons that Kit Mitchell would have easy access to a white car salesman’s penthouse. I also wondered how a car salesman, regardless of his race, could afford such a nice house.

  ESAU HAD AN UNPAVED LOT down on a dirt street off of Aprilla in the county. There was no sign or flagpole to mark it. There wasn’t even a fence, just twenty or so cars parked every which way, with an unpainted hut set somewhere near the middle.

  When I got there Fearless was already at the hut, talking to Esau.

  “Hey, Paris,” he hailed. “What took you?”

  “Mr. Perry,” I said. I held out my hand to the elder man. “My name’s Paris Minton.”

  “What’s up, Mr. Minton? Your friend Fearless said that you wanted to talk to me. You wanna buy a car?”

  “No sir. I’ve been hired by your ex-sister-in-law, Miss Winifred L. Fine, to locate your son, and I was wondering why she didn’t ask you.” I decided on the direct approach partly because I didn’t trust anyone I was dealing with and partly because I liked the way Esau looked.

  He had shiny black skin and tight eyes. His hands were thick but he was a lightweight. At sixty he probably could wear the same pants he put on when he was a twenty-year-old. He wore a gray pair of coveralls that had an emblem for the defunct Oklahoma Star Oil Company over the left breast. He was the kind of man who lived in my New Iberia neighborhood in Louisiana; the kind of man who could make a living with just two sticks and a cupful of spit.

  “She hired you to find him, huh?” Esau said. “She tell you why?”

  “No sir, she didn’t. And so I wanted to make sure that there wasn’t some bad blood between the two families that I was gettin’ mixed up with.”

  “Well,” Esau said. “Winnie never liked me too much. When her sister and me got married she refused to come to the wedding. Then, after Honey left me and went back to Winnie, they didn’t even tell me she was sick until after she died.”

  “Your wife died and they didn’t even tell you about it?” Fearless asked.

  “By that time we was already divorced. Honey had moved back with Winnie and I kept BB.”

  “Why would Miss Fine want to see Bartholomew now?”

  “She always liked the boy. More because he was blood than anything he did, I think. Every now and then they’d get together at her place out in the desert. She got what she call a cabin outside of A Thousand Palms.”

  “But you’ve never seen her?” I asked.

  “She used to invite me and BB for a Thanksgivin’ dinner. I’d go when BB was a boy, for family, you know. But now he’s grown I stay home.” Esau shrugged and pulled a pack of cigarettes from the pocket of a T-shirt under his coveralls. “Want one?”

  Fearless shook his head but I accepted the cigarette, and the light that came after.

  “But you’re not bothered that she hired me to look for him?”

  “Naw. She wanna find him, that’s okay by me.”

  “Why didn’t she just call you?”

  “She did. At least that Oscar did.”

  “When?”

  “Week ago. ’Bout that. Maybe eight days.”

  “And what you tell him?”

  “That I don’t know where BB is. He met some girl a few months ago. They go off together all the time. The two of ’em.”

  “White girl?” I asked.

  “I see you know my Bartholomew.”

  “You know her name?”

  “Me an’ BB didn’t talk all that much about his personal life. I didn’t ask an’ he didn’t say.”

  “You know somebody who might know?” I asked.

  “Them peoples down at Hoochie’s might could know,” Esau speculated.

  “That place on Hoover?” I asked, just to be sure. “The dance club?”

  Esau nodded.

  “Did he ever say anything about a man named Kit Mitchell?”

  “No,” Esau said, a little too fast and a little too sure.

  “You got any cars for fifty bucks, Mr. Perry?” Fearless asked.

  “Couple’a Fords like your friend’s the cheapest I got. Lowest price is two twenty-five, though.”

  “Lemme think about that for a while.” Fearless put his hand on my shoulder then and I nodded.

  “Guess it’s time to go.”

  “Mr. Minton,” Esau said.

  “Yes sir?”

  “Tell BB I’d like to talk to him before he sees Winifred. Tell him, well, just tell him that I’d like to talk.”

  14

  “WHAT YOU THINK ABOUT MR. PERRY?” I asked Fearless.

  We were a few blocks away at a small park that was like an island at the intersection of Slater Avenue and 127th Street. There was a picnic table with the benches attached under a shady oak tree. The grass was dead. One lone sparrow eyed us sidewise from the nearest bough. He was waiting for a crumb to drop and so was I.

  “He’s lyin’ about Kit.”

  “You sure’a that?”

  “No question there.”

  Fearless Jones could have been Buck Rogers’s lie detector. He could tell if someone was lying even if he didn’t understand the language they spoke.

  “What about the rest?” I asked.

  “Cain’t tell. But I’m sure that he wants to talk to BB. He wants to talk to him bad.”

  I could read Esau for myself. Still it was good to have Fearless confirm my conclusions. But what difference did it make? I could go out looking for BB, but there was no promise that I would find him. And even if I did find him, it was a dangerous game turning a man over to somebody with the police breathing down your neck. If I confronted him, Milo would lie, and so would the white man he sent to my house to find Fearless.

  I shared these pessimistic thoughts with my friend.

  He took it all in and nodded.

  “Then maybe I better go down to them cops questioned you,” he said.

  “Turn yourself in?”

  “Why not? They gonna get me sooner or later—that is, unless I skip town. And you know that little taste of Ambrosia reminded me of just how sweet she is.”

  “You don’t know why they after you, Fearless. They might could put you in jail for months.”

  “I didn’t do nuthin’ except sit out with those gourds in Oxnard for weeks. They mad, but what they gonna charge me wit’? Why shouldn’t I go?”

  “Because we don’t know what they want.”

  “And we ain’t gonna know unless I turn myself in.” Fearless grinned at me. I knew that grin. It said, Sometimes you have to be a fool if you want to make it in this world.

  I knew that I couldn’t talk Fearless out of his decision, so I asked, “What should I do?”

  “Go on home and wait for my one phone call,” he said. “It may not come for a while, but you be there and I’ll get what we need.”

  ***

  WE SEPARATED THERE. Me going back to my bookshop and Fearless following his name.

  My store was hot from the brutal summer sun beating down on it. I opened the front door to let a breeze bring the temperature down into the eighties. I was too jumpy even to read, so I picked up a folio of photographs taken by the New York photographer Weegee. I took this to the front room and sat there perusing the strange and revealing images of a New York that few tourists ever saw, even though it was right there under their toes and noses. Weegee treated the whole city as if it were his backyard. I imagined that he knew ten thousand people by name and that they were so familiar with him that they never had their guard up a
gainst his lenses. He roamed from Park Avenue to Harlem with his camera, mostly at night, getting behind all of the lies we tell and showing just how ugly people can be when no one else is around.

  “Hello?”

  If I could have jumped out of my skin I would have. As it was, I leapt out of the chair and threw out my hands, letting the book fly somewhere back into the store.

  “What!” I shouted.

  It took a few seconds for me to focus on the young woman framed inside the gray rectangle of the screen door.

  If she had a gun you’d be dead right now. If she had a gun you’d be dead right now. Those words repeated themselves over and over in my mind. My heart was thumping. I was rubbing both thumbs against my fingertips, trying to look normal.

  The Negro woman smiled.

  “I didn’t mean to sneak up on you like that,” she said. “I thought that you must have heard me coming up the stairs.”

  “No.” It was the only syllable I could manage without stumbling over my tongue.

  “Can I come in?”

  “Come on.” I was getting better.

  She tried the screen door, but it was latched. Did I think that I could keep someone from getting at me with a slender latch and a paper-thin screen?

  “Let me,” I said.

  She was wearing a tan dress with a pink scarf. At first it looked kind of like a uniform, but on inspection you could see that the material of both articles was of a finer make than any employer or service would spend. She carried a woven straw purse. This too was a higher quality than it at first seemed.

  “Are you Paris Minton?”

  She had medium brown skin and eyes a brown so light that they were disconcerting. Those orbs seemed to belong not simply to some other race but to a whole other species of animal.

  “Are you?” she asked again.

  “Who are you?”

  “Leora. Leora Hartman.”

  “Where’s Son?”

  “He’s with his great-uncle,” she said, at once answering my question and telling me that my secret knowledge wasn’t of the least concern to her.