Fear Itself

24

I FELL ASLEEP WITH THE SUNRISE, amid the sounds of the tenants getting ready to go off to work. The smell of coffee wafted up into my room, but I was too tired to climb down the stairs. And even if I hadn’t been so weary I wouldn’t have left my book. It was the most precious thing I had ever seen or touched.

I slept until after nine o’clock. When I had to go to the bathroom I took the book with me, wrapped in a pillowcase. I didn’t go out of the room except for that one time.

Thieves are the people most afraid of being robbed.

I put the book under the bed and sat at the window, waiting and planning. I figured out how I was going to smuggle my treasure out of Miss Moore’s rooming house, and where I could hide it until Fearless’s problems had been solved.

After that I started to think about Bartholomew Perry. If I could find him what should I do? Milo would want me to report to him. Winifred L. Fine would also expect an accounting. Of course, there was Leora Hartman, Kit Mitchell, and, most of all, the Los Angeles Police Department that I had to be concerned with.

I needed BB to talk to me, and that meant I needed Fearless. Fearless to keep BB from running away and Fearless to help me understand. That was because even though I knew the majority of words in the English dictionary, it was Fearless who understood the twists and turns of the human heart.

But before any of that came to pass I needed Charlotta.

She came to my door at three. I gave her a weak kiss. That’s because my passions weren’t under the covers but under the bed with my book at that particular moment.

“Did you find out where he is?” I asked her.

“Don’t you wanna kiss me some more, baby?” she replied.

“After I get my fifty dollars I’ll kiss you from your toes to your ears and everywhere in between,” I said. “But let me get this pistol from out my back first.”

“You promise?” she asked.

“You got skin like honey,” I said, “only it taste better’n that. I just need to make sure I live long enough to enjoy it.”

She gave me a small piece of paper that had an address and phone number on it.

“I had to lie to a man to get that,” she said.

“To whom?” I asked, falling a little bit out of character with my language.

“Well, you know Kit told me that BB loves Sister Sue’s Chicken and Ribs. An’ they deliver. I went over there an’ told Rooney, the delivery man, that BB had made me pregnant and I had to get to him to help me fix it before it was too late.”

“And he believed that?”

“You got his numbers in your hand.”

“Well, it’s gonna be worth it,” I replied. “But can you do me one more favor?”

“What?”

“You got a suitcase in your room? Just a small one, or maybe a hatbox?”

“Yeah. How come?”

“I’ll make your cut twenty dollars if you let me borrow it.”

I once read a book that claimed mathematics is the universal language of mankind—but I never believed it. Money is the talk of the world. Charlotta ran down to her room and got back with a small powder blue suitcase that had red heart decals along the side.

I kissed her and hurried her off. Then I packed my bound booty under one of Miss Moore’s spare sheets.

MY EFFORTS WERE NOT WASTED. The landlady was waiting at the front door when I got there.

“Are you just getting out of bed, Mr. Hendricks?” She used a sweet voice to ask her question, but I could tell from the way she spaced her words that it was a test of my moral fiber.

“I spent the whole day writing wedding invitations on paper I borrowed from that nice Charlotta Netters,” I said, “one hundred and nineteen. She let me use her suitcase to take ’em down to the post office.”

“She already started her mess on you, huh?” Miss Moore asked and answered.

I knew that bringing up Charlotta would keep the landlady from questioning my suitcase. No older woman would ever like Charlotta. She was like an overripe peach on your favorite tablecloth—bound to leave a stain.

I CALLED AMBROSIA’S HOUSE from a phone booth a few blocks away and got Fearless after only a few curses. I told him where to pick me up. He was there in less than ten minutes.

“Open up the trunk, Fearless.”

“What for?”

“I need to keep this suitcase back there while we runnin’ the streets.”

“What you got in there?” Fearless asked.

“A book I picked up for my antiquarian collection.”

“Your what?”

“The collection I just started. This is the first book.”

IF CHARLOTTA’S INFORMATION WAS RIGHT, then Bartholomew was staying in a room above a drugstore on Jefferson. Fearless and I went to the address and sat out front in Ambrosia’s Chrysler. We didn’t have much to talk about on the ride over. Fearless had spent all his time in bed with Ambrosia and I had spent the night worried about somebody stealing the book I had stolen.

“What now, Paris?” Fearless asked.

“I guess we should go up there.”

“Okay.”

“You got a gun, Fearless?”

“Yeah. In the glove compartment.”

“Maybe you better pull it out, then.”

“You scared’a Bartholomew Perry?”

“Somebody’s been killin’ people, man,” I said. “The Wexlers got killed and Timmerman almost wasted us. It would just make me more comfortable to know that we had some firepower on our side.”

“Why don’t you take it then?”

That was Fearless’s way of teasing. He knew that I was useless with guns. I couldn’t shoot straight and just holding a gun made me nervous. I had been disarmed more than once by men I had drawn down on.

Fearless laughed and pocketed the pistol.

We crossed the street and went through a side entrance, climbed three flights of stairs, and came to a door with the number eight stenciled on it.

“Friendly?” Fearless asked.

“Neutral, I think,” was my response.

I knocked on the door. We could hear a heavy man’s footsteps. He approached the door and then remained silent for a full five seconds.

“Who is it?” Bartholomew called out.

“Plumber,” I said in a loud voice I rarely use.

“I ain’t called no plumber,” came the reply.

“There’s a leak in the walls,” I said reasonably. “Landlord wants me to check every floor until we find it.”

“I don’t see no water.”

“It’s in the walls,” I said again. “If it goes on, he’s gonna have to spend a whole lotta money tearing out the side of the building.”

The lock clicked and the door came open four inches, held fast by the security chain. That was my cue to stand back.

“Let me see you,” Bartholomew said.

Fearless rammed his shoulder against the door. BB shrieked and the chain broke. The door flew inward, throwing the bulbous occupant to the floor. Fearless rushed in and grabbed Bartholomew by the neck as I hurried the door shut.

“Don’t say a word,” Fearless warned BB, and then he let go of the young man’s throat.

“What you want with me, Fearless Jones? I ain’t done nuthin’ to you.”

“Where’s Kit Mitchell?” I asked.

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t wanna lie to us, son,” I said. “This is serious business and a man could die takin’ the wrong stand.”

“I don’t know where he is. I ain’t seen him in almost a week.”

“What about that girlfriend’a yours?” I asked.

“What girlfriend?”

“That white girl, that Minna Wexler.”

It was the only way it all made sense to me. BB had a few dollars and he liked white girls. A white girl and her brother had been killed and now BB was on the run.

“I don’t know anybody by that name,” BB said. Then he let out a loud belch.

“It’d be easy enough for us to find out if anybody saw you with her,” I said.

He belched again, frowning as if this one hurt him on the inside. He let himself down into a wooden chair that sat at a small maple table.

It was a room of single items. He had a couch that was folded out into a bed, the chair he sat in, and the table it sat at. There was also a chest of drawers upon which perched a butt-ugly pink ceramic lamp made into the shape of a melting rooster.

“Why you men messin’ wit’ me?” BB asked us. “I ain’t done nuthin’ to you.”

“Yes you have,” I said. “You just don’t know it. Because of you the cops ran down Fearless. Because of you a man shot at us for no reason. Because of you I can’t go to my own home because men are lookin’ for me to do me harm.”

“I didn’t do none’a that.”

“Where’s Kit?” I asked again. “And why does your auntie want me and Fearless to bring you to her house?”

Bartholomew’s eyes widened and his left arm began to quiver. “Aunt Winnie?” he said in a trembling voice. Then he stood straight up and took a swing at Fearless!

I was amazed. BB knew that throwing down on Fearless Jones was tantamount to suicide. Why would he do such a thing?

Fearless moved his head, easily avoiding the blow. But BB swung again, catching him in the ribs.

“Slow down, Barty,” Fearless said. “You know I don’t wanna hurt you.”

Instead of listening the crazed fat man threw a wild uppercut. Fearless sidestepped the haymaker and caught his attacker with a straight right hand. Bartholomew Perry was unconscious before he hit the floor.