Fear of the Dark

Chapter 21

On the way out we were distracted by a pool game. A man made an exceptionally good shot, sinking two balls and putting his shooter in prime position. Fearless put a hand on my arm and we waited until the player — a dark-skinned, elegantly dressed man — finished his run and the game. I was about to go when Fearless whispered, “Let’s see what this other dude could do.”

The other player was light-skinned, fat, and sweating. He wore a flouncy Bermuda shirt with big purple and green patterns printed on it. He was smoking and drinking and seemed a little pixilated. But when he leaned over to shoot, he was all business.

It was some match. If either guy got a clear shot the game was over. It was pool on a whole other plane than the one where I lived. These men were masters.

We probably watched for two hours before I made to leave. Those men were going to play until sunrise, and I had things on my mind. Fearless could have stayed but he followed me out.

Mum was gone by the time we got downstairs. So was the bulk of Ha’s crowd. I took a phone book from behind the cash register and looked up Hector LaTiara. He lived on a street called Saturn.

Harold Crier wished us good night at the door. Fearless and I wandered down the street. He had parked next to me in an empty lot there.

“What you think about what Jerry said?” I asked Fearless.

He shook his head. “You cain’t evah tell wit’ Jerry, man. He might be lyin’. He might be straight. I mean, I believe it about this Hector dude ’cause you knew his name anyway.”

Fearless couldn’t read the newspaper without help, but he knew people. He could tell what a man felt by watching him blow his nose.

“Yeah. But he called Useless Ulysses,” I said. “That means he got somethin’ goin’ with him.”

“Doin’ business, like he said,” Fearless reasoned.

“Naw. It’s more than that.”

“Maybe. But maybe it don’t mattah. I mean, unless he killed Ulysses, why we wanna bother with him?”

It was true.

“You wanna go roust this Hector dude?” Fearless offered.

It was maybe midnight.

“I got my gun.”

“Naw, man. We don’t know who’s up in the house with him, an’ there’s no reason to get on his bad side right off. Anyway, I’m tired. Ain’t got much sleep in the last few days.” Everything I was saying was true, but I had an ulterior motive.

Fearless could see the deception on my face, but he didn’t challenge me.

“Okay, man,” he said. “You know where I be in the mornin’. Call me when you need me.”

He jumped into Milo’s red Caddy and drove off in a great swoosh.

I stood in that empty dirt-floored lot wondering how I got there. I looked down the street at Good News. The lights were still on, but the restaurant was closing down.

There was no visible light from upstairs, but I knew that the men up there would be playing until six or seven. Somewhere Useless was either breathing or not breathing and Three Hearts was awake in her bed, fretting about her wayward son.

And there I was: one kind of man in another kind of world.

I drove around for a while because I didn’t know the neighborhood very well and because the street I was looking for was only one block long. It took me five minutes just to find it on the gas station map.

When I finally got there I realized that the street was little more than an alley — I couldn’t park on it without blocking the road. So I put my auto on the cross street and walked down one side of the alley and back up the other. By then it was almost one thirty in the morning. My heart was pumping with anticipation and trepidation. The streets were empty, which made them perfect for a crime. I was alone, which made me the perfect crime victim.

I saw no doorway that had what I wanted. I should have gone home, but I walked up and down the alley/lane again.

Finally, in frustration I looked up and saw a crimson glow from a third-floor apartment.

It was a lantern.

I climbed the stairs. Reaching the red light, I came upon a green door.

I knocked and the door came open almost immediately.

Mum had been lovely in her waitress getup but she was a knockout in her orange silk gown.

“I wondered if you were going to come,” she said.

“Not me,” I replied. “I been thinkin’ about this for a long time.”

Mum had nothing on under the thin material. I wanted to take her in my arms right then, but I could tell by the way she held herself that she needed a different approach.

She ushered me into a large room that was sumptuous; there was really no other word for it. The light was low but unlike Jerry Twist’s — you could still see. On one side there was a large bed covered by a canopy with gossamer violet-colored silk hanging down on three sides. Next to the bed stood an eight-foot mirror in a cherrywood frame. A red hassock sat before the mirror; to its side was a small table covered with makeup containers, cream pots, brushes, and perfumes. I could imagine Mum sitting before her mirror, preparing herself for our rendezvous.

The other side of the room had a low couch and table. The couch was golden with red pillows and the table was blond, set for drinks.

Mum shut the door and came up close to me. She reached into my breast pocket and retrieved my cigarettes and matches. She put a cigarette between my lips and lit it. Then she guided me to the sofa and pressed until I sat.

While she poured me a drink in a deep bowl of a glass, she said, “I’ve been waiting for a man to make me laugh.”

She passed me the glass. Cognac. Good cognac.

“You just moved in here?” I asked.

“I know how I like things,” she said.

“I can see that.”

“I want to give you pleasure, Paris,” she said.

Why was in my chest, but he refused to make himself known.

Mum sat next to me and gave me a kiss. It wasn’t as passionate as Loretta’s had been, but it was nice. We did that for a while: kiss and then sip fine liquor from the big glasses, then kiss some more. My hands wanted to feel her orange fabric, but she kept them down.

After our third drink she lifted me by the elbows and brought me to another room. It was a bathroom with a huge freestanding, high-collared tub. It was filled with water. She tested it with a bare foot up to the ankle and then turned on the hot.

“I’m going to undress you,” she told me. “Just let me do it. Don’t help or touch me.”

I didn’t.

The water was hot and the liquor did exactly what it was supposed to. I was very excited sexually, but I would have been happy going to sleep while Mum cleaned me with a sea sponge scrubber.

I closed my eyes and let my mind wander. Somewhere between here and there a thought came to me in the form of a question: Why would Hector LaTiara want a French dictionary?

But even that didn’t disturb me.

When I opened my eyes Mum had disrobed and was stepping into the tub with me.

“You’re a nice man, Paris,” Mum said. She had one arm behind my head and the other across my chest. We were in her big bed, enveloped in silk and soft, soft cotton. I was clean and completely satisfied.

“What a man wants to hear is that he’s big and strong and almost scary,” I replied, though I was thinking about a door that had opened in my mind.

Mum giggled.

“I’m stronger than you are,” she said.

“We’ll never find out now, will we?”

“Why were you at Jerry’s with Fearless Jones?” she asked then, and I wondered again why she had lured me over.

“Lookin’ for my cousin Useless.”

“Useless Grant is your cousin?”

“Everybody says that in the same way,” I said. “And I know why. Useless is a motherfucker. Have you seen him?”

“Every once in a while he talks to Ha Tsu. They like to laugh together.”

“They do business together?”

“I don’t know Ha’s business. I’m just a waitress.” She was getting nervous.

“And I’m just a bookseller,” I said. “What can you do?”

“You sell books?” Mum seemed shocked.

“Yeah. Why?”

She jumped up and pulled back the red fabric at the head of the bed. There were eight bookshelves filled with hardbound Chinese texts. I perused them. Most were complete ciphers to me. But on the bottom shelf I saw the names Aristotle, Plato, Marx, Spinoza, and Hegel printed over Chinese cuneiforms.

“I like some’a these guys,” I said. “But I prefer the older generation. Herodotus, Homer, and Sophocles.”

“You have read them?”

“Sure.”

“I used to study ancient thinkers. My father sent me to New York to study. But then the Japs came and killed my family. They destroyed everything and made my country crazy. I came here and Ha Tsu took me in.”

I put my arms around her, and after a while she fell into a deep sleep. I was soon to follow, but before I nodded off I thought about the man looking for the French dictionary, the man who was after Useless.

My dreams were darker than Jerry Twist’s office.