Fear of the Dark

Chapter 24

Whenever fearless came to the beach he wanted fish and chips at Briny’s down in Venice. Briny was an older white gentleman who had lost his left leg below the knee and his right eye during his years at sea. The one eye he had left was gray; so was his hair and the pallor under his tanned white skin.

The first time we ate at the dive, Briny was being harassed by an angry white guy. The guy, his name was Lux, had a torso that was as big as half a keg of beer. He looked as strong as any man I ever met. Lux had decided, for some unknown reason, to make Briny the object of all his hatred.

When we got to the restaurant that first time, Briny had seated us and served us without any strange looks or hesitance. Negroes at that time appreciated fair service of that type in white establishments. But his acceptance went further than that. When he’d been whole he was a merchant marine and had spent some time down in New Orleans. We swapped stories about that city, even knew a name or two in common.

Fearless and Briny were getting pretty friendly when Lux came in.

“Hey you, Riley,” the big white man shouted. “Come over here and make me some whitefish and eggs. I’m hungry and I’m horny as a toad. I got some pussy waitin’ down the street. It’s old pussy, so I need eggs t’get it up and fish to cut the smell.”

No one could read Fearless like I could. His face darkened almost imperceptibly. His eyes shifted a thousandth of an inch. Fearless didn’t abide rudeness, and there was no room in his heart for a man bad-mouthing a woman, whether she was there or not. Add that to the fact that he’d become fond of Briny in the hour we’d been in the dingy restaurant and you had a recipe for trouble.

Neither one of us liked it when Briny cowered and scuttled over to Lux saying, “Yes, sir, Mr. Lux.”

But still, Fearless would have probably let it ride. Then Lux had to go and throw his plate on the floor when he didn’t like his eggs. He slapped our host and unleashed a string of curses and threats that one usually only heard in prison.

Lux was in the middle of a complex description of Briny’s mother when Fearless tapped the big man’s shoulder.

There were seven other customers in Briny’s that late afternoon. They were all witnesses to the spectacle.

Lux turned his head slowly to regard my friend. Fearless is tall, but Lux was too. The white demon had at least twenty more pounds of muscle than did my friend. And Lux was fifty pounds heavier. All of those other customers must have thought that the foolish Negro was about to get his head torn off.

“What, boy?” Lux asked.

“Let’s step outside,” Fearless said, gesturing at a window that showed a small backyard Briny used as a kind of dump for large appliances gone bad.

Briny rubbed his sore jaw and gaped at Fearless.

Lux nodded and gestured for Fearless to go first.

“You first,” Fearless told him. “You go out first and then I’ll come number two.”

It was like watching a fight on a television with the volume control broken. I have never seen my friend more vicious, accurate, or sadistic in battle. After he’d knocked Lux down for the fourth time, the big man stayed on the dirt. But Fearless wouldn’t have it; he beat the man on the ground until he got up and fought again. Fearless knocked out teeth and opened cuts all over the brutal bully’s face. He broke a whole rack of ribs and caused deep bruising that would follow Lux all the days of his life. When Fearless was finished, he removed Lux’s wallet from his pocket and took something from it (later I found out that this was Lux’s driver’s license). He said something to Lux and then slapped the man until he nodded. Then he pulled Lux to his feet. The big white man pleaded with Fearless not to hit him again; that was the only thing we heard through the closed window. But Fearless didn’t hit him. He merely pushed him toward the door. Lux lumbered through the room with his eyes on the floor and pain in every step. When he went out the front, Fearless came in the back.

“You got a pencil?” he asked Briny.

The ex-seaman nodded and pulled a yellow number two from his pocket. Then he handed Fearless the receipt pad he used for his patrons’ bills.

“This my mother’s phone numbah,” Fearless said, scribbling at the counter. “If that motherfucker ever even look in yo’ windah again, I want you to call this numbah an’ tell her to tell me about it.”

And so we became semiregulars at Briny’s. Lux, who had hectored Briny for two years, never returned, and we always had to force Briny to take our money.

“Fearless. Paris,” Briny hailed.

He served us fried clams and talked about Louisiana. He bought our beers, but we paid for the food.

“Briny,” Fearless said after the restaurateur brought us our change.

“What, my friend?”

“Paris an’ me need a phone and some privacy for a hour or two.”

“My office is yours,” he said. He might have said the same thing even if Fearless hadn’t broken Lux almost in two.

“Wynant Investment group,” a young woman said, answering my call.

I was looking out onto the backyard where Fearless had demolished Lux.

“Yes,” I said. “I’m looking for a Mr. Katz.”

“No Katz here,” she replied in a friendly tone.

“Oh,” I said. “I see. Mr. Drummund, then.”

“Sorry, sir. No Mr. Drummund either. If you can tell me the nature of your call, I might be able to pass you on to someone else.”

“You know,” I replied. “I think I must have the wrong number. You said Haversham Investments, right?”

“No. Wynant. Wynant Investments.”

“I’m so sorry,” I said. “Excuse me.”

I made half a dozen calls like that while Fearless sat back on a walnut chair, smoking one of my Lucky Strikes and staring up into space. He wasn’t listening to me or worrying about anything. I’m sure he was the same in the lull between battles during the war.

There was a V.P. named Katz at Casualty and Life Insurance Company of St. Louis. I got as far as his assistant.

“He’s tied up at the moment,” the man said. “May I tell him what your business is?”

“My name is LaTiara,” I said. “Hector LaTiara. I’ve recently come into a great deal of money. Seventy thousand dollars that I’ve inherited from my uncle Anthony.”

“Yes?”

“I don’t know anything about investing and so I wondered if we could set up an appointment or something.”

“I’m sure one of the junior agents at the firm would be happy to advise you, Mr. LaTiara. Mr. Katz, however, only deals with portfolios of a million dollars or more.”

“You mean my money’s not good enough for him?” I said. For some reason I really was insulted.

“It’s good,” the snooty young man replied. “It’s just not enough money.”

I knew the type. It had nothing to do with race, even though he must have been a white man. He was the sort that identified with his master so closely that he believed he was the arbiter of those million-dollar investors. Here he probably didn’t make seventy dollars a week, but he still sneered at my paltry seventy grand.

I hung up on him.

Three calls later, at Holy Cross Episcopal, I found a rector named Drummund — or least I got a woman who answered using his name.

“Reverend Drummund’s office,” she said in a well-worn but not world-weary voice.

“Hector LaTiara,” I said, but there was a hesitation in my tone.

“Yes?”

She didn’t know the name, hadn’t heard it before — I could tell. I could have come up with a story, but I held back.

“Hello?” she said.

Still I remained silent.

“Is anyone there?”

I put the receiver down softly, this time because of caution rather than petty anger. I took a deep breath and let it out slowly.

“What’s wrong?” Fearless asked me.

“I don’t know what to say.”

“What you mean?”

“So far,” I said, “you an’ me been outside the place where Useless an’ them been workin’. Nobody knows us and nobody can tie us up with the crimes.”

“If there is a crime.”

“There’s two dead men, Fearless,” I said. “How much more crime do you want?”

“I mean about the money,” my friend replied. “We don’t even know if there ever was any money in them wrappers.”

“You think Jerry Twist woulda lied about that?”

“Go on,” Fearless said. “Tell me why you cain’t talk to them but you can chatter all ovah me.”

“Drummund don’t know us,” I said. “Katz neither. I cain’t just walk in on ’em, ’cause they’re important men. They ain’t gonna have nobody like you or me walk in their offices, not unless we tell ’em about LaTiara or Useless.”

“Cain’t tell ’em ’bout Ulysses,” Fearless said. “Hearts wouldn’t like that.”

“That don’t even mattah,” I said. “’Cause if we call ’em an’ tell ’em ’bout how we know about them bein’ blackmailed or whatevah, they might just call the cops. They don’t know Hector’s real name, I’m sure’a that, and so when the police ask us and then find Hector dead, where will we be?”

Fearless smiled. Smiled. Here I was explaining how our whole enterprise was stalled in the water, and he just grinned as if I had told a half-funny joke.

“You’ll figure it out, Paris,” he told me.

“Aren’t you listening to me, man?” I asked. “I’m sayin’ I don’t know what to do.”

“That’s okay,” he said. “That’s how everything start. First you don’t know an’ then you do.”