Fear Itself - Walter Mosley

“Your what?”

“The collection I just started. This is the first book.”

IF CHARLOTTA’S INFORMATION WAS RIGHT, then Bartholomew was staying in a room above a drugstore on Jefferson. Fearless and I went to the address and sat out front in Ambrosia’s Chrysler. We didn’t have much to talk about on the ride over. Fearless had spent all his time in bed with Ambrosia and I had spent the night worried about somebody stealing the book I had stolen.

“What now, Paris?” Fearless asked.

“I guess we should go up there.”

“Okay.”

“You got a gun, Fearless?”

“Yeah. In the glove compartment.”

“Maybe you better pull it out, then.”

“You scared’a Bartholomew Perry?”

“Somebody’s been killin’ people, man,” I said. “The Wexlers got killed and Timmerman almost wasted us. It would just make me more comfortable to know that we had some firepower on our side.”

“Why don’t you take it then?”

That was Fearless’s way of teasing. He knew that I was useless with guns. I couldn’t shoot straight and just holding a gun made me nervous. I had been disarmed more than once by men I had drawn down on.

Fearless laughed and pocketed the pistol.

We crossed the street and went through a side entrance, climbed three flights of stairs, and came to a door with the number eight stenciled on it.

“Friendly?” Fearless asked.

“Neutral, I think,” was my response.

I knocked on the door. We could hear a heavy man’s footsteps. He approached the door and then remained silent for a full five seconds.

“Who is it?” Bartholomew called out.

“Plumber,” I said in a loud voice I rarely use.

“I ain’t called no plumber,” came the reply.

“There’s a leak in the walls,” I said reasonably. “Landlord wants me to check every floor until we find it.”

“I don’t see no water.”

“It’s in the walls,” I said again. “If it goes on, he’s gonna have to spend a whole lotta money tearing out the side of the building.”

The lock clicked and the door came open four inches, held fast by the security chain. That was my cue to stand back.

“Let me see you,” Bartholomew said.

Fearless rammed his shoulder against the door. BB shrieked and the chain broke. The door flew inward, throwing the bulbous occupant to the floor. Fearless rushed in and grabbed Bartholomew by the neck as I hurried the door shut.

“Don’t say a word,” Fearless warned BB, and then he let go of the young man’s throat.

“What you want with me, Fearless Jones? I ain’t done nuthin’ to you.”

“Where’s Kit Mitchell?” I asked.

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t wanna lie to us, son,” I said. “This is serious business and a man could die takin’ the wrong stand.”

“I don’t know where he is. I ain’t seen him in almost a week.”

“What about that girlfriend’a yours?” I asked.

“What girlfriend?”

“That white girl, that Minna Wexler.”

It was the only way it all made sense to me. BB had a few dollars and he liked white girls. A white girl and her brother had been killed and now BB was on the run.

“I don’t know anybody by that name,” BB said. Then he let out a loud belch.

“It’d be easy enough for us to find out if anybody saw you with her,” I said.

He belched again, frowning as if this one hurt him on the inside. He let himself down into a wooden chair that sat at a small maple table.

It was a room of single items. He had a couch that was folded out into a bed, the chair he sat in, and the table it sat at. There was also a chest of drawers upon which perched a butt-ugly pink ceramic lamp made into the shape of a melting rooster.

“Why you men messin’ wit’ me?” BB asked us. “I ain’t done nuthin’ to you.”

“Yes you have,” I said. “You just don’t know it. Because of you the cops ran down Fearless. Because of you a man shot at us for no reason. Because of you I can’t go to my own home because men are lookin’ for me to do me harm.”

“I didn’t do none’a that.”

“Where’s Kit?” I asked again. “And why does your auntie want me and Fearless to bring you to her house?”

Bartholomew’s eyes widened and his left arm began to quiver. “Aunt Winnie?” he said in a trembling voice. Then he stood straight up and took a swing at Fearless!

I was amazed. BB knew that throwing down on Fearless Jones was tantamount to suicide. Why would he do such a thing?

Fearless moved his head, easily avoiding the blow. But BB swung again, catching him in the ribs.

“Slow down, Barty,” Fearless said. “You know I don’t wanna hurt you.”

Instead of listening the crazed fat man threw a wild uppercut. Fearless sidestepped the haymaker and caught his attacker with a straight right hand. Bartholomew Perry was unconscious before he hit the floor.

25

FEARLESS LIFTED BB onto the sofa bed and I searched the room. He was on the run but managed to bring five shirts, six pairs of socks, three pairs of trousers, two suits, and twelve changes of underwear. He even had an extra pair of shoes. He was like a young prince in flight. All that was missing was his retinue of guardian Beefeaters.

He had no weapons, one hundred and nineteen dollars in a wallet on the bureau, and a tiny phone book—mostly containing the phone numbers of women. No books or papers in Bartholomew’s room. No TV or radio. He didn’t even have a newspaper. There certainly wasn’t any information about Kit Mitchell.

Going through his pockets was my last hope. In the secretary wallet of his dark green suit I found a wrinkled slip of paper that had an address on Olympic Boulevard. The single word Tonight was written below the address.

“Let’s wake him up,” I said.

Fearless went into the bathroom and came back with a glass of water, which he poured on the young prince’s face.

BB didn’t sputter or jump up like they do in the movies. He put his hand to his head and moaned. When he opened his eyes I could see the string of thoughts run across his buff-colored face. At first he didn’t recognize us, then he remembered who we were from running into us around town, then he remembered our breaking in, and finally the fear of his auntie came into his eyes.

“Throw down again and we gonna tie you up like a Christmas goose and leave you on your auntie’s doorstep,” I said.

“No, man. Don’t call Aunt Winnie. Don’t. I’ll pay you.”

“Where’s Kit?” I asked.

“I ain’t seen him,” BB said. “I got money, man. Money enough for all three of us.”

“How much?”

“A thousand dollars.”

Fearless grunted. “That’s a whole lotta change,” he said.

“If you guys could find Kit we could make it fifty.”

“Thousand?”

“Yeah, brother. Fifty thousand dollars American.” BB was shivering, burping, and trying to smile. It was a sickening display.

“How?” I asked.

“She didn’t tell you?” A wily look came into the playboy’s eyes.

“Tell me what?”

“Why she lookin’ for me and Kit?”

“You can tell me that.”

“If I did, then you could cut me out right here.”

“I could cut you out anytime I wanted to, son,” Fearless said in an impartial tone.

“I’ll give you guys a thousand dollars,” BB said. “A thousand, and five each if you get me to Kit and Kit give me what I want.”

“Let’s see the cash,” I said.

“I got your word you’ll help me find Kit?” BB asked. Then he looked at Fearless. “And that you’ll take my deal and leave the rest of the money to me?”

I looked to Fearless for direction, knowing that any deal I made without him was subject to revision anyway.

“Why not?” he said, answering my wordless question. “Maybe you could hold on to the cash for me and I wouldn’t have to sleep on the street no more.”

“You said it now, Mr. Jones,” I said. “I’ma keep you to it.”

“Okay, Paris.”

“Then it’s a deal?” BB asked me.

“You got to come up with a thousand dollars first,” I said. “Do that and we’ll work wit’ you. That is unless you killed one’a the Wexlers.”

“I ain’t killed nobody, man.”

“But you did know her, right?”

“Yeah.”

“And she and her brother got somethin’ to do with all this mess?”

“They, they did, yeah. But I cain’t tell you about how until you find Kit.”

“We gave you our word, BB,” I said.

“I know,” he said. “But I just wanna keep my secret until we got Kit here with us.”

“Who killed Minna and Lance Wexler?”

“I don’t know, brother. That’s why I’m hidin’ here. Somebody’s out to kill us.”

“Kill who?”

“Me and Kit and anybody else messed up in this.”

The chill returned to my gut then. I was messed up in BB’s business. I didn’t even know what was going on and I was still on a hit list somewhere.

“Where’s the thousand?” Fearless asked BB.

The young man went to the ugly pink lamp and unscrewed the bottom. A thick roll of twenty-dollar bills fell out. He handed the wad to me. The moment the money changed hands a fearful shudder went through BB. He’d given us the money, now we could kill him or turn him over to his auntie. Why should he have trusted us?

“Why you so scared’a your auntie?” I asked BB.

“Who said I’m scared?” he asked, trying to achieve some approximation of bravery.

“You goin’ up against me to keep away from her tell us you scared,” Fearless said.

“I cain’t tell ya what we lookin’ for,” BB said. “But believe this: my auntie would see me dead before she’d let me get away wit’ what Kit done did.”

I could see that BB wasn’t going to let up on his secret, but that didn’t matter right then. At least I knew that Winifred Fine’s problem went deep enough to make her own blood afraid of her.

“You better find a new place to hide out, Bart,” I said. “’Cause you know if we could find you then somebody else can too.”

“Where?”

“Wherever,” I said. “But don’t call nobody. Don’t tell nobody where you are. Don’t go out the door. Make sure you don’t order no chicken from Sister Sue’s. And when you light, call Milo Sweet’s office, he’s in the Yellow Pages under bail bonds. You’ll get an answering service. Tell them where Paris can find Honeyboy.”

“Who’s that?” BB asked.

“I’m Paris. You’re Honeyboy.”

“Oh. Okay. You guys ain’t gonna turn on me, right?”

“Not unless you do it first,” I said.

“WHAT NOW, PARIS?” Fearless asked when we got to the car.

“I got to eat, man. Let’s go over to that gumbo house you love so much.”

Fearless grinned. Blue crab gumbo was his reason for living.

Henrietta’s Gumbo House was on Slauson just down the street from Paloma. Henrietta’s served three kinds of gumbo, jambalaya, and red beans and rice. She also offered vodka drinks flavored with sugary lime and always had sweet potato pie for dessert. I was so hungry that I had it all—twice.

We started eating at about eight o’clock.

“So what now?” Fearless asked me.

“You said that that man, that Maynard Latrell would drive Kit in to work every morning?”

“Just about,” Fearless said. “Maynard always tryin’ to get on the good side of whoever he’s workin’ for. I wouldn’t go so far as to say he was kissin’ butt. But you know he gets close enough for a good whiff.”

“Maybe he got close enough to know something that will let us on to where Kit went to.”

“I guess,” Fearless said. “But you know I already asked him if he knew where Kit had gone.”

“Yeah,” I said. “But sometimes people know things they don’t think they know. Sometimes you need what they call a fresh perspective. So maybe you find him and we’ll all talk together.”

“And where you goin’?” Fearless asked.

“This address I found in BB’s pocket. Maybe I can see who else these boys is messed up wit’.”

Fearless shook his head.

“What?” I asked him.

“I’ont know, Paris. It’s just that I’m used to you tellin’ me how we should back up and stay away from trouble, and here you are jumpin’ in wit’ both feet.”

Maybe drinking those sweet lime cocktails is what set my anger free.

“Listen here, asshole. I don’t wanna be out here. I don’t wanna be thinkin’ about dead people and killers and stolen money. I don’t wanna be runnin’ out my back door when I hear a knock on the front. But I can’t help it. I’m in trouble and never did nuthin’ to cause it. It was you did it.”

“Me?” Fearless protested.

“You. It was you came to me and asked for help. It was you that white man shot at us was lookin’ for. It was you sent me lookin’ for a man dead in his living room. This all started because you couldn’t resist a pretty woman with a cryin’ child askin’ you for a favor. And now all I can do is try and keep my head above water.” I remembered my dream of drowning in money.

“I’m sorry, Paris,” Fearless and I said at the same time.

“That’s what you always say when I’m under the gun,” I added. “You’re always sorry and I’m always up shit’s creek. You’re sorry and I’m in jail. You’re sorry and, and . . .”

“You got a thousand dollars in your pocket,” Fearless said, finishing my sentence.

I laughed then. What else could I do?

26

FEARLESS DROVE ME to the bookstore and stood guard while I checked the place out. When I came back I put the thousand dollars that BB paid us plus seven of the nine hundred thirty I got from Miss Fine into the suitcase with my handmade book. I split the money left over with Fearless. After that I got into my car and Fearless followed me to make sure there was nobody else on our tail. After a few blocks he veered off to find Maynard Latrell. We’d made a plan to meet at Rob’s All-Night Chili Burgers on Avalon at one in the morning. Rob’s was a busy place after midnight and so our meeting wouldn’t cause any suspicion. Neither Fearless nor I was ever late for meetings. His punctuality came from the military, while my nervousness kept me prompt.

I hit Olympic at San Pedro downtown and followed it westward, looking for the address I took from BB’s pocket. I went past Vermont and Western, La Brea and Fairfax, beyond La Cienega and Robertson. I was four blocks west of Doheny when the number came up. It was a two-story stucco home in the Spanish style with a tiled roof and an eight-foot white plaster wall around it. The gate to the driveway was open and there was no car to be seen. Of course the garage door was closed, so someone might still be inside. But no lights were on in the house and there were six or seven newspapers on the other side of the wrought iron fence that guarded the path to the front door.