Fear Itself

16

I ANSWERED THE PHONE as if I had never been asleep.

“Yes?”

“That you, Paris?” Fearless asked.

“What time is it?”

“Mornin’ sometime, but I don’t know when exactly.”

I was fully dressed. The empty bottle of brandy was on the stool I used for a night table. I could see the last of the morning stars through the one window set in the middle of my slanted roof.

“You still in jail?” I asked.

“Yeah, man.”

“They still questioning you?”

“No. They gave up a few hours ago, but they still holdin’ me on a parking ticket fine I never paid. I ain’t got it.”

I took a deep breath. The fear and laughter of the dream still crowded my chest.

“Let me find my shoes and I’ll be right down there,” I said. “You at the Seventy-seventh?”

“Yes sir, Mr. Minton. I sure am.”

I put the phone back in the cradle and sat up. That’s when the brandy made its return. My head started spinning and I had to lie back on the bed. The dizziness subsided, but then the roof began a slow turn to the right. When I closed my eyes I could feel the bed shifting under me.

Shift. The word echoed in my mind. I remembered the production line and the would-be entrepreneur’s chant.

The phone rang again. How long had it been since Fearless called?

“Hello,” I said, the bed moving under me like a river under a lily pad.

“Paris,” a bail bondsman I knew said.

“Good mornin’, Mr. Sweet. I was just thinkin’ about you. It wasn’t a kind thought. No sir. It was more like why do you wanna be messin’ with me an’ Fearless and here we supposed to be friends?” The words flowed out of my mouth just like me going down that river.

“I’m sorry, Paris.”

I opened my eyes. Now it was my thoughts’ turn to take a spin. Milo never apologized unless he wanted something. Never. If he bumped into you and you stumbled and fell, he’d more likely say, You shoulda got out my way, than to proffer an apology. That’s because Milo had been a lawyer, and all lawyers know that an apology is tantamount to an admission of guilt. And admitting guilt was the only cardinal sin in the lawyer’s bible.

I made it once more to a sitting position. If I sat sideways, with my head down below my shoulders, the room stopped revolving and merely shook.

“What is it, Milo?”

“What is what?” he asked.

“Don’t fool with me, man. It’s too early and I’m way too hung over to be played with.”

“I made a mistake, Paris,” Milo said. “I should have shared what I knew about Miss Fine with you.”

“You scarin’ me, Milo man.”

“I’m tryin’ to apologize.”

“Spit it out, brother,” I said. “I got to go get Fearless out of jail.”

“What’s he in jail for?”

“What all people are in jail for—not havin’ the money it takes to keep from gettin’ there in the first place.”

“Will you come to the office after you get him?”

“What for?”

“I got a phone call last night that disturbed me,” he said.

“From who?”

“Just come on over, Paris. I’ll pay you.”

“All right,” I said.

It wasn’t the money he offered but the fact that he offered it that made me acquiesce to his request. If Milo offered to put up cash, the situation had to be dire indeed.

I hung up the phone and propelled myself into a standing position. I found that the trick here was also in the shoulders; if I kept shifting them I could stay upright.

I wanted to go back to bed, to take off my clothes, and put my head under the covers. But I knew that was a fool’s move. Things were happening without my knowledge or control, and people knew where I lived. Two people named Wexler were dead, and lawyers were calling me before banking hours to admit their guilt.

I went to the stairs even though I believed there was a good chance I’d stumble on tangled feet and break my neck for the effort.

IT WASN’T YET SIX O’CLOCK. Fearless was oblivious of the time. They’d probably questioned him all night. They might have beaten him. He called so early because time for him was just one long day. Milo called because he was scared. He’d probably been up all night fretting over the grief that only greed can bring on a man.

Thinking about Milo brought up a question. How was it that he had involved himself in a problem that Fearless stumbled into on his own? What did Milo have to do with Kit Mitchell? I took a sip of reheated coffee, hoping that the answer was in my sober mind.

There came a knock on the door.

The chill reentered my intestines. The last four times someone had come to my front door my problems had gotten worse. A dog would have stayed away from that trouble after the first time. A stupid dog would have waited for the second bane to start avoiding distress.

I was fully dressed and shod, so I stepped quietly through the screen door at the back of my house. I tiptoed down the wood stairs, hopped the fence into the alley, and ran like a six-year-old.

I didn’t slow down for three blocks.

Maybe it was childish to run away from my own home but, I reasoned, who but Trouble could be knocking at my door that early in the morning? Like I said before, I’m a small man. I’ve been chased, caught, and beaten by big-boned women.

“Runnin’ ain’t a bad thing, baby,” my mother used to tell me. “When you’re dead you’ll wish you had the legs for it.”

THE SUN WASN’T UP and there was still a chill in the desert air. There’s a system of alleyways in L.A. that make the streets in some southern towns look like country paths. The alley behind my building was wide and well paved, and it went on for twelve city blocks. There were no rats or cats, not even much trash strewn about. Just one long strip of asphalt with a ribbon of concrete down the middle, a permanent divider line.

After my initial sprint I slowed to a walk. A few streets down from there and I even began to feel safe. Whoever it was at my house had probably gone away. And even if they broke in, there was nothing to steal but books. (One of the books on my bedroom shelf had been hollowed out. That’s where I put Miss Fine’s five-dollar bills.) For a moment I worried about the fate of my last bookstore. The store owner next door burned me down to get the lot. That had been the worst experience of my life. After a little time fretting I stopped worrying about it. Lightning couldn’t strike twice, not even on my unlucky head.