Fear Itself

32

FEARLESS REMOVED TIMMERMAN’S shoes and pants, gagged him, and bound his hands behind his back. I drove Ambrosia’s Chrysler up the driveway next to the big impersonal house and Fearless took our captive and pushed him on the floor of the backseat.

“You better not let nobody but Jesus know where you light next time, Barty,” Fearless suggested at the back door.

“What you gonna do wit’ him?” BB asked.

“Don’t worry ’bout him. Worry ’bout yo’self, man.”

I opened the door to the car but then I closed it again.

“BB.”

“Yeah, Paris?”

“Tell me about Rikki Faison’s house.”

“What?” he asked with a weak grin and slight shrug.

“Don’t fuck with us, BB. Tell me about that house and what you were doin’ there.”

“You got to go, Paris,” Bartholomew complained.

“Fearless,” I said.

“Uh-huh,” he replied. He got in behind the wheel and I ushered young Prince Perry back inside the church house.

“Tell me about Minna, man,” I said after the door was closed behind us.

“She was my girlfriend, that’s all. We been messin’ around for three, four months.”

“And?”

“And . . . well. One night she said that her brother heard that I was related to Aunt Winnie. She said that we could get a hold on her that we’d be able to make a big payday. Big.”

“So what you do?”

“I got together with Kit and we hatched up a plan.”

“What plan?”

Bartholomew stared into my eyes. His visage was a rueful one. I think he wanted to unburden his heart.

He shook his head instead.

“No, man. You might find out along the way, but if Aunt Winnie ask you you tell her you ain’t heard it from me.”

“I hope you know what you doin’, brother,” I said. “Call Milo’s number when you know where you gonna be. And don’t forget to use the name Honeyboy. Don’t use your own name.”

You could see that he didn’t want me to leave him alone there. Being tortured will bring out the communal spirit in most men. But he didn’t want to beg. At least he had that much pride.

***

WE DROVE TO GENERAL HOSPITAL and pulled into an alley across the street. It was closing in on seven-thirty by then and so the alley was empty. Fearless untied Timmerman, took him out of the car, and set him up against a wall.

“You can come after us or sign yourself into the emergency room across the street,” my friend advised.

Then he climbed back into the car and we drove off. Through the back window I could see the white man struggling down the alley. I wondered what his decision would be.

“That boy got some nuts on him,” Fearless said as we cruised down State Street.

“In his head.”

“Well,” Fearless opined. “Yeah. Most’a your brave men is a little bit crazy. Either that or they pushed up against a wall. But I got to hand it to your boy there—he not backin’ down for nuthin’.”

We got the home address of Esau Perry from his son. We told BB that it would be better if we found out from his father that night who he had spoken to about his whereabouts.

Esau’s house was on Piru Street, not far from his car lot. It was a rare brick home, with a fireplace and patch of lawn not even big enough to sun on.

Fearless knocked on the door and we heard a young child squealing from inside. A few moments went by. It was almost fully night by then. The last shreds of daylight were far off on the western horizon, a jarring combination of ember-orange and deep blue.

The door opened and Esau stood there, still in his coveralls. The child chirped out a glad note from somewhere in the house.

“Yes?”

“Mr. Perry,” I said. “Sorry to bother you at night, sir. But we have a problem that we thought you might want to know about.”

He knew something was up. He knew that he was involved too. That’s why he didn’t slam the door on us or at least ask me more about what I meant. Instead of a challenge he stood aside for us to enter.

He led us into a kitchen that was painted and furnished all in yellow, under a yellow light. There was a large young Mexican woman sitting on a small chair playing with a little brown boy who resembled Henry from the comic strips.

“Hey, Son,” Fearless said.

The boy looked up at my friend with a sense of confusion and wonder and said, “Hi.”

“Take him up to his bed, Trini,” Esau said to the woman.

“Okay, baby,” she replied, speaking volumes about their relationship with two small words.

The boy protested verbally but he let Trini pick him up and carry him out of a back doorway. As they left, Son held out his arms toward Esau. The older man’s arms moved toward the boy, saying good-bye and reaching too.

“How’s BB?” Esau asked after Trini and Son were gone.

“He might be dead if Fearless here wasn’t faster than Jesse Owens at a Nazi barbecue.”

“That white man hurt him?”

“Oh yeah,” I said. “He installed a sun visor over his eyes.”

“Shut up, Paris,” Fearless said.

“No. No. I wanna know why a father would send a man like that out to kill his own son.”

Esau went to the kitchen counter and poured himself a shot from a quart bottle there. He downed the drink and poured another.

“He took Son.”

“What?”

“He come out here and took Son.”

“Kidnapped him?” Fearless asked.

“Yes sir. Took him right off the front lawn when Trini’s back was turned. Called me up and said that he wanted to know where BB was.”

“And you turned him over,” I said in a voice that I didn’t mean to be so damning.

“Yes I did. Really he did it to himself. He got himself into all this trouble.”

“What trouble?” I asked. “You mean that pendant?”

“Pendant?”

“Yeah. Emerald job that Winifred’s father bought for her.”

“That piece’a green glass?” Esau said. “No. That’s a trinket compared to what BB and his friend did.”

“You mean Kit?”

“Yeah. That’s who I mean.”

“You got a phone, Mr. Perry?” Fearless asked.

“Right through this door,” Esau said. “Right on the right.”

Fearless walked out and I continued my interrogation.

“Do you know where we can find Kit?”

“No,” Esau said. “I don’t wanna have nuthin’ to do wit’ that man. Him and BB likely to bring that whole family to misery.”

“How’s that?”

Esau gauged me for a moment. I have no idea what he saw but he said, “Son used to stay with his auntie.”

“Winifred?” I asked, and then I remembered the toy gyroscope in her drawing room.

“Yeah. She got him from his mother when she was havin’ problems with her husband, but when Leora wanted him back Winifred said that he’d be better off there with her. She wanted to bring him up herself.”

“Could she get away with that?”

“She did,” Esau said. “That is, until BB got that Kit Mitchell to go up in there pretendin’ he worked with fancy gardens and shit. He took the boy and give him to his mother, but then he told some rich white man that he could tell Winifred that he kidnapped the boy and that she either had to play ball wit’ him or Son would die.”

I liked the shape of the scheme. There was no real crime, at least not that could be proven. The boy was with his mother and safe, the threat would have been vague enough that a prosecutor might not even be able to prove extortion.

“That was the Wexler kids did that?”

“Yes sir.”

“You know they’re dead, right?”

Fearless walked back in then. I wondered who he could have called so quickly.

“Yeah,” Esau said. “That’s why when that white man gave me the choice between Son and BB, I made up my mind on the innocent. He wanted to trade BB’s hidin’ place for Son and I agreed.”

“What’s Son to you?” Fearless asked.

“He’s Leora’s boy. My nephew by law and by love. She brought him here to me while she tried to fix the damage that Kit and BB had done.”

“What damage?” I asked. “She got her boy. What’s wrong with that?”

“BB and Kit took somethin’ else,” Esau said.

“Necklace?” asked Fearless.

“Naw. I don’t know what it was, but Leora was real upset about it. That’s why she said that she had to find Kit.”

“Why didn’t you just call the cops?” I asked.

“Because this is beyond the police. White man came here to me. White man got his kids killed. Rich white man. All I could do was hope that BB could dig his own way out the hole he dug.”

The pain in Esau’s words was almost a physical thing.

“So,” I said, “Kit took Son out from Winifred’s house.”

“That’s right.”

“Is he in bed yet?”

Esau glanced at the back wall and cocked his ear. At that moment I heard the weak cry of water running through pipes in the wall.

“He’s in the tub by now,” Esau said.

LITTLE CHILDREN IN BATHTUBS must be the same all over the world. More like tadpoles than humans, they kick and slide and laugh at the pleasure of warm water and their own nakedness. Trini was smiling down on her little charge.

“Hey, Son,” Fearless said as we three men entered the bathroom.

When he stared up at us his mouth fell open.

“We need to find somebody,” Fearless continued.

“My daddy?” the child asked.

“No, uh-uh. Not right now. But do you remember a man name of Kit?”

The boy shook his head no.

“One of his teeth is silver like.”

“Oh yeah. That’s the man took me out from my auntie’s house and give me to my mama.”

“Do you know where we could find him?”

“Where the big wheel is,” Son said with a nod.

I was ready to jump in and ask as many questions as necessary to find Kit but Fearless just said, “Thanks, boy,” and turned to walk away.

I put a hand on his arm and asked, “Where you goin’?”

“To get Kit. You comin’?”