Fear Itself

33

WHERE TWEEDY BOULEVARD MEETS Santa Fe there was a garage that specialized in all problems associated with car tires. Inner tubes, retreads, patches, and even axles—they had everything. Their insignia was a gigantic transport plane landing tire. It must have been fifteen feet in diameter. Add that to the fact that it stood upon a twenty-foot pylon and you had a strong symbol of your business. It made sense that that tire would dominate Son’s imagination. It also made sense that Fearless would have known immediately what Son had meant, because he had a deep affinity with the wonder of children.

“But suppose it was some other big tire?” I asked. “They got one out in the valley.”

“I don’t think Kit would be hidin’ in the valley, would you, Paris?”

“Might not even be a wheel,” I said. “Maybe it’s something else.”

“Like what?”

“Like a Ferris wheel for instance,” I said.

“Ain’t no circus or carnival down around Watts right now, Paris. And Watts is all Kit knows. Uh-uh, man. We might as well look here.”

I hated when Fearless’s logic defeated me.

“Where we gonna look?” I asked.

There were three apartment buildings and half a dozen small homes across the street from the garage. Behind there was a very large apartment structure, like a lodge, and there were various other domiciles up and down the block.

“He could be anywhere around here,” I said.

“Let’s go get some wine,” Fearless replied.

Diagonally across from the garage was a small banana-colored bodega. The sign above the front door read BRUCE’S STORE.

The Mexican behind the counter had sad eyes and a drooping mustache. But he was smiling still and all. It wasn’t a friendly smile, more like the secure sneer of a man who’s got a shotgun under the counter.

“You Bruce?” Fearless asked right off.

“No. Brucey owns the store. He don’t work at night.”

“He a white guy?”

“No. Like me.”

“Then how he gonna have a name like Bruce?”

“His name was Guillermo when he was born in Ensenada. But he came here to pick lemons and stayed to open this store. He said he didn’t want just our people to come here, that he wanted everybody to be welcome, so he changed his name to Bruce.”

The shopkeeper’s smile warmed while he spoke.

“Legally?” I asked.

“Yes. It’s on his driver’s license. Do you need something?”

The little market was set up like a California liquor store. At the back was a coffin-shaped, glass-doored refrigerator filled with juices, milk, sodas, and beer. The aisles had mostly snack food. Behind the counter were rows of cheap wine.

“Gimme a bottle’a that Thunderbird, will ya?” Fearless said.

The clerk, who was trim and fifty, pulled down a pint bottle, slipping it into a brown paper bag that seemed fitted to our purchase.

“Forty-nine cents,” the clerk said.

Fearless paid with a five-dollar bill. While he was receiving the change he said, “Maybe you could help me out.”

The chill returned to the man’s smile.

“Oh?”

“Yeah. I’m lookin’ for my cousin Kit. Brown like Paris here and he got a silver tooth up front.” Fearless pointed at one of his own teeth with a baby finger. “And he drink this here Thunderbird like it was orange juice.”

“Oh yes. I know him. Kit? He never said his name. But I seen him go into that big gray building behind the garage.”

WE CROSSED THE STREET and went up the block to the front of the big building. I was wondering as we went how we could search for Kit while keeping a low profile. After all, the police rousted Fearless for just knowing the Watermelon Man.

As we neared the double doors that gave entrée to the monolithic building, Fearless touched my shoulder.

“Look over there,” he said, pointing to the street.

“At what?” I asked.

“That gray Rambler over there.”

“What about it?”

“That there is Leora Hartman’s car, I bet.”

Not only was it her car but she was in it, laid up against the steering wheel and crying like her own son.

Fearless opened the driver’s door and helped her out. She fell into his arms and cried in utter despair.

I looked around, hoping that no one saw us. In my experience people always remember a woman’s tears. But no one was out on their porches or strolling down the street. L.A. has never been a pedestrian’s town, I thanked the Lord for that.

“He’s dead,” Leora whimpered. “He’s dead. He’s dead. He’s dead.”

“Who?” Fearless asked.

“I think it’s Kit Mitchell.”

“Don’t you know?”

“I never met him before.” She took in a large gulp of air and made a strangled sound.

“Take us to him,” Fearless said. It was an order and not a request.

Leora led us into the big building and up to the sixth floor. The door to 6R was unlocked.

When I got into the room I closed the door quickly. Mainly because of the breaking and entering and because the man lying on the floor was at a most uncomfortable angle.

Leora Hartman cried on Fearless’s shoulder.

I went to the man. He was definitely dead. He’d been dead for a while, probably as long as the Wexlers.

“We’ve got to get out of here,” Leora was saying.

“Is it him?” I asked.

“Yeah,” Fearless said. “Damn.”

“I didn’t kill him,” Leora said as if we were cops.

His face was brutalized, his left arm likely broken.

“No,” I said. “Not unless you Superman under that dress and you like livin’ with the dead for a few days.”

Leora began to cry harder. Fearless embraced her as a father would his child. From around the corner of his shoulder she stared at the Watermelon Man’s corpse. There was terror in her eyes.

“What were you doing here?” I asked.

She couldn’t tear her eyes away from Death.

I put my head between her and eternity and asked my question again.

“Oscar told me he was here.”

“How did he know?”

“There’s a woman on the first floor who has a cousin that works for Madame Ethel’s Beauty Supply. Oscar had sent out the word to all the people work for us to look for Kit Mitchell. The employee, her name’s Bell Britton, asked her cousin if she knew Kit, and she finally got the word today.”

“And why did Oscar tell you?”

“So I could come by and talk to him.” Leora’s eyes widened and she began to cry again.

“Why would he —”

“Paris,” Fearless said. “Let her get it out first, will ya?”

“I came here,” she continued, “the door was unlocked.”

“What were you looking for?”

“I, I . . .”

“Leave her alone, Paris.”

“Shut up, Fearless.”

It was one of the few times I told Fearless to be quiet. He knew enough to listen.

“Talk to me, Leora.”

“He kidnapped my son.”

“Son is with Esau. You already knew that. What did Kit have that you wanted?”

Leora started gasping and then panting. She was at some early stage of shock. I knew that Fearless wouldn’t let me continue, so I said, “Damn!”

“We better get outta here, Paris,” Fearless said. The worry in his voice was for Leora.

“In a minute,” I said.

I launched into a quick search of the apartment. I went through drawers, closets, bedclothes, cereal boxes, the refrigerator and icebox, and the medicine cabinet in the bathroom.

Following my lead, Fearless searched the dead man.

“Here it is,” he said.

Next to the Watermelon Man’s right ankle, under the sock, was the emerald pendant. Kit must have hidden it before answering the door for the last time.

“I’ll put it with the money,” Fearless said.

I wondered if I’d be toting that bag on my journey down into hell.

WE MADE IT OUT of the building without too many people marking our passage. But every eye turned my way felt like a gun sight following me across an open field.

“I can drive myself,” Leora said when we tried to guide her to Fearless’s ride.

“I’ll drive her,” I said.

“No, Paris. You have her jumpin’ out the window with all your questions and shit.” With that Fearless handed me the keys to Ambrosia’s car.

“Okay,” I said. “You right. But where do we meet? Your mother’s?”

“Naw. I don’t wanna be talkin’ ’bout no murders in my mama’s house. No. You know where Milo leave his key, right?”

“Yeah, in a hole in the wall behind his mailbox. But what about Timmerman?”

“I ain’t worried about him. He ain’t got no pants, no shoes, no money, no car keys. Anyway, he admitted himself to the hospital.”

“You don’t know that.”

“Sure I do. Remember when I made that call from Esau’s?”

“You called the hospital?”

“Yeah, man. I knew he’d probably come after you so I wanted to make sure his butt was in the sling.”

“Why come after me?” I asked. “You the one that hurt him.”

“Yeah,” Fearless said, nodding. “That’s why he gonna leave me alone.”

ON THE RIDE BACK TOWARD MILO’S OFFICE I tried to make sense out of death. Anybody I’d come across could have killed Kit or the Wexlers. Even Timmerman had been in the mix long enough. And what was Leora after? I didn’t doubt that she was innocent of Kit’s murder, but why come after him if she already had her son?

And why wouldn’t the man who killed Kit have searched him? Because he was looking for something particular, something that could not be hidden in a sock.