Fearless Jones

23

I PUT UP the hood on Layla’s pink Packard and stood behind it, pretending to be working on the engine. From there I could watch the front of the hotel without causing too much concern in the staff or the chance police cruiser. I had to wait about an hour before Latham and Love came out. They were escorted by a tall white man in a gray suit.

They all spoke at the curb while the valet ran to retrieve Latham’s car. Latham and the man clasped hands, then the man took both of Elana’s hands in his and said something that was meant to be sincere. It was odd to see a black woman so well treated at a fancy Hollywood hotel. I didn’t even think that a police detective had the clout to make a place like that serve a Negro. That made me wonder about the man they were talking to. But there was no time for thinking. I jumped in my car and made a U-turn. By the time Latham and Elana were ready to go, I was too.

The ride wasn’t very far. They drove toward the south side of downtown; a rougher neighborhood with motels instead of hotels, hot dog stands instead of fine restaurants.

They pulled into a motel call Las Palmas on Adams. Latham and Elana went into the main office together. He didn’t want to let her out of his reach. I wondered if he knew about the bond in her purse.

After they took room 12B on the second floor of the open-air two-tiered motel, I went to call Fearless at a pay phone next to a pop machine in the parking lot.

“Paris?” Fearless said, answering Milo’s phone.

I gave him the address.

“Milo wants to know what’s happenin’.”

“Tell ’im that we’re looking for the money. That should make him happy.”

“See you soon,” Fearless said.

THERE WAS an all-night coffee shop down the block where I loaded up on pork sandwiches and beer. Milo sent Fearless down with a pint of rye whiskey. It was the friendly gesture of an insecure business partner. I think he knew that if Fearless took the gift, he wouldn’t let me cut the ex-lawyer out. He was right about that.

We watched the motel from my car parked across the street. I was in the front seat, and Fearless was in back. We sat low so as not to be seen if the cops cruised by.

“Paris?” Fearless said at a little after one.

“What?”

“You think she in there lovin’ him?”

“How should I know?”

“I didn’t ask if you knew,” Fearless pointed out. “I just wondered what you thought.”

“Why?”

“It ain’t like she’s your girlfriend or nuthin’. Damn, she just laid you so she could get your money and your car.”

“Thank you, Fearless. I didn’t know that until you told me.”

“You don’t have to get all mad, Paris. It’s just that I been thinkin’ about her.”

“Thinkin’ what?”

“She’s definitely smart. Smart like you, you know? And she’s in deep. Now what’s she gonna do? Woman cain’t run around like a man. I mean, I know she shot Conrad Till, but more times than not she be in a situation where the man has the more muscle. So she got to use bein’ a woman to fight her way through, like she said at that shack.”

“This the first time you ever thought that a woman use sex to get what she want?” I said.

“ ’Course not. But I never thought of it like fightin’. I never thought that a kiss could be like a loaded gun.”

I had never thought of that either.

BY FOUR A.M. Fearless had fallen asleep in the backseat. It was cold again, and I could see the steam of my breath in the darkness. I closed my eyes, trying not to think about what Elana and Latham were up to.

In the dream I was standing at a corner flirting with a woman, Elana Love. I had a long key chain, and I was twirling it while telling her lies about my riches and exploits. There were children playing on the street and a fat man sitting on a wooden crate. The man was winded and asking for help. I thought that he might have been having a heart attack, but I kept talking to Elana anyway. In mid-swing of my key chain I felt something like a nibble on the bait of a fishing line. I looked and saw three of the children from the day before running away. They were rounding the corner into an alley.

“Stop him!” the fat man yelled. “Stop!”

I realized that the smallest boy had taken my keys. I took off after them. It was the opposite of the dream I usually have. Usually I’m running hard trying to get away from some attacker; I’m running hard but I make no progress. In this dream I was running at full speed unable to close the gap. The children were scurrying like little kids do while I barreled down on them, getting no closer. The fat man was laboring behind me, yelling, “Stop! Stop!”

“Paris!” Fearless said.

I was just gaining on the kids, but then someone grabbed my shoulder. Three loud gunshots blasted through my dream.

I opened my eyes. Fearless was rushing out of the passenger’s door from the backseat.

“What?” I said, and then there was a fourth report.

Fearless was running toward an alley down the block from the motel. I turned the engine over and nosed the car to follow. Before I reached the alley I heard a car screeching in the motel lot. I looked back and saw Latham’s sedan race off in the opposite direction.

Under the neon glow of the motel sign I caught a glimpse of Elana Love at the wheel. I couldn’t follow though, because Fearless needed me. It was just like old times, times that I wished were over and forgotten.

Lights were coming on in the windows of an apartment building that bordered the alley. Two men were down. Fearless was moving from the first body and going to the second. I jumped out of the car.

“We got to go, man!” I shouted through a whisper.

The soldier ignored me. The second body was still moving. The first man, who was sprawled out on his belly, was Reverend Grove. His left temple was gone, and grim dark liquid had leaked out next to his amazed eye.

The other man was Latham. Fearless squatted down next to him. The wound in his chest looked bad even in that weak light. His breathing was labored and liquid. There was no mistaking his gurgling. The rest of his life would be measured in seconds.

He said something, and then he said something else that resembled the first sound but was even less comprehensible.

“Come on, man,” I said to Fearless.

Latham faded out then. I think that was the moment he died, but the final end might have come a moment or two later.

Fearless stood. He nodded and said, “There was somebody else.”

“What?”

“When I got here, there was somebody way up the alley — runnin’.”

“Come on, Fearless. We gotta get outta here.”

“What about the runner?”

I noticed a purse on the ground a few feet farther down the alley. Fearless saw it too.

As he went to pick it up, I said, “Probably some tramp didn’t wanna get his ass shot off.”

Fearless picked up the purse, and then we were both running for my car. I backed into the street and drove away from the motel. Through the rearview mirror I could see that there were people standing outside of the windowed office, talking and pointing toward my car.

After a block or two Fearless began laughing. He laughed full out.

“What’s wrong with you, fool?” I said, afraid that he had cracked under the strain.

“Nuthin’,” was all Fearless could say for a moment. He had to take a deep breath to keep the mirth down.

“Nuthin’? Have you gone crazy?”

“Naw, Paris. Naw, man. It’s you.”

“Me what?”

“You know I promised myself a long time ago that I wasn’t gonna put myself back in a war for nuthin’, not even America.”

“So?”

“This right here is war, baby,” he said, suddenly serious. “And where my own country couldn’t make me — you did.”

He made another short bark, but this time there was no humor behind it.