Fear Itself

31

THE KITCHEN WAS A BIG SQUARE ROOM with a small stove and an icebox set in the corner next to a big-basin sink. The rest of the room was dominated by a large square table with a yellow linoleum top. There were more than enough chrome chairs with red vinyl cushions for Gina’s guests. After hefty meatloaf sandwiches she served us lemonade and pound cake with marmalade and strawberry preserves.

Milo brought out a flask of vodka for the men to lace their drinks. Rose and Gina spoke for a long time about things like silver thread and salad spoons, rhubarb pie and quilting circles. Every time Milo or I tried to bring up business we were gently shushed by Fearless’s mother.

After forty-five minutes or so Rose asked if she could take a short nap. Gina led the millionaire off to her bedroom and stayed with her for a while.

“What you boys got?” Milo said as soon as they were gone.

I told him almost everything except about the money we’d been paid already. Milo hadn’t really hired us and so I didn’t see why he should be cut in on our gain.

“So all you got to do is get the pendant and Miss Fine will be happy,” Milo said, finishing our story with his own happy ending.

“Milo,” I said. “People are dead here. Big-time people. People who don’t give a shit about some Negro farmer’s treasure. It don’t make sense.”

“Who cares?” he said. “We didn’t kill anybody. We weren’t anywhere near it. All we got to worry about is keepin’ Winifred Fine happy.”

“That’s all you got to care about, man,” I said. “I’m worried about sleepin’ in my bed without somebody waitin’ outside in the street with a pistol in his hand.”

“Don’t be a fool, Paris. Nobody cares about some niggah own a used-book bookstore. They worried about property and money. White-people money, not your little change.”

“Maybe that man beatin’ on your ass didn’t get through to you, Miles,” I said. “But these people serious out here. They will hurt anybody that might even be a little bit in the way. That white man lost his children. I wouldn’t be too quick to mess in with the man he think killed ’em.”

Milo’s eyes were glazed over by the hope for money and power. He wasn’t listening to me. Neither was Fearless as far as I could see. The World War II killer was leaning back in his chair with a smile on his face.

“What you grinnin’ at, fool?” I asked him.

“It’s nice to see Mama with a lady her own age. They could sit and talk all day long, I bet. That’s real nice.”

“Fearless, we got trouble here.”

“What you want to do about it, Paris?” He wasn’t being negative. It was just a question. If I said to go out and roll a stone up a hill he would have pushed up his sleeves and done so, smiling about his mother all the way.

“Milo, you could help,” I said.

“How?” he asked.

“Me and Fearless got a spy might know a guy knows Kit. His name is Honeyboy, and we told him to call your answerin’ service to tell us where we could catch up with him.”

Milo called his service. Honeyboy had left a message earlier in the day. He said that we could find him at an address on Downey Road in East L.A.

Milo had no idea that Honeyboy was really Bartholomew Perry, the man he was looking for. It gave me a great deal of pleasure fooling him like that.

THE ADDRESS THAT BB LEFT FOR US was across the street from the New Calvary Cemetery, a fairly big graveyard in the middle of East L.A. By the time we got there it was closing in on five-thirty. The house was large and painted blue-green with a dark green trim. There were eighteen stairs to a front porch that ran the whole length of the front of the house.

Fearless took the stairs three at a time, so I lagged behind him. At least that’s what I pretended. New places in serious times always slowed my pace.

Fearless was knocking by the time I had reached him. With all those strange stairs and a graveyard at my back, I felt a shiver as I caught up. So I wasn’t surprised when the door opened and a man pointed a gun at us.

I wasn’t surprised, but I was terrified enough to lose my senses.

I fell hard to the floor, rolled, and then tried to rise to my feet. But the fear in my heart was like in one of those dreams where you try to run but you can’t do it, you can’t run because the fear is an anchor in your chest. I rolled on my back and put up my hands, hoping that somehow I could survive the barrage. But what I saw was that Fearless had moved in the opposite direction, grabbed hold of Theodore Timmerman’s gun hand, and delivered a devastating right hook to the jaw of the man who had tried to kill us two times in three days.

Timmerman went down and Fearless disarmed him. Then my friend turned to me, smiling and holding out a helping hand.

“I, I’m sorry, Fearless,” I said.

“For what, boy?”

“I didn’t mean to run. I didn’t even know that I was doin’ it till I was on my back.”

“Lucky you did, Paris. Teddy here thought you had somethin’, so he turned your way. And you know, baby, you better not ever turn away from me if you wanna live.”

TIMMERMAN WASN’T DEAD—at least not quite. His shirt was open, so we could see the nasty bruise on his chest from the brick Fearless had thrown. His jaw was swelling now too.

The house had a professional look to it. There was a living room to the left that might well have been an office. There were dark-stained oak furnishings and white curtains that were closed. Fearless set Timmerman down in a padded oak chair.

“Why ain’t you in a hospital, man?” he asked Ted.

“Fuck you,” the would-be killer replied.

“No, really, man,” Fearless went on. “You got somethin’ wrong there. It ain’t gonna heal without some help.”

The white man’s sallow chest was bruised blue, green, and black. It was like a large dark cloud hovering under his pale skin.

“What you doin’ here?” I asked.

“Fuck you.”

“Where’s BB?”

Timmerman said nothing.

There came a rumble that might have been pounding and a voice that made sounds but no discernible words.

“Go on, Paris,” Fearless said. “I’ll stay with your friend.”

There was a hallway at the back of the room. It was long and also more professional looking than homey. There were no paintings or any sign of somebody living there. After going twenty feet or so I came to a door. The sounds were coming from there.

Still it was just muffled pounding and a muffled voice.

I turned to go back to Fearless. I was going to tell him that I found the door where the noise was coming from. But I stopped halfway. Looking back at the door, I finally convinced myself to do something to redeem my pride after panicking on the front porch.

I went to the door and quickly pulled it open so as not to lose heart.

Opening doors wasn’t lucky for me during that period.

I thought it was the Mummy who fell out on top of me—if the Mummy weighed two hundred and twenty-five pounds. All tied up in sheets, bleeding, and yelling through the gag he wore. It took me a few moments to realize that the monster wasn’t attacking me but struggling to get free from the bonds. It took a moment more to recognize Bartholomew thrashing and screaming under the knots of gauze.

Before I grasped the situation I yelped. It wasn’t a scream of terror or even a shout. At least I could be proud of my reserve.

Regardless of the dignity I maintained in my mind, Fearless came running with the wounded white man in tow. I looked up at him, on my back for the second time in less than ten minutes, and said, “I found him.”

“MOTHAHFUCKAH COME UP TO MY DOOR and pointed his gun at me,” Bartholomew was telling us.

The skin over both eyes was so swollen from the beatings that he was barely recognizable. He was bleeding and had lost a tooth. Timmerman might have been hurting but he was still dangerous.

“He kept askin’ who was lookin’ for me. I didn’t say nuthin’ and he just started beatin’ on my ass.”

“And so you give us up so he could beat on us too,” I added.

“No I didn’t. I had already called that number, all I said was that you was gonna call me. That’s all,” BB said. “You know he had me so tied up I couldn’t even breathe in there.”

I wanted to sneer but then I remembered choking in the trunk of Louis’s car. I would have given up the secrets of the atom bomb to get out of there.

***

“WHAT ELSE YOU TELL HIM?” Fearless asked.

We were back in the sterile living room. Ted was tied up with the same sheets that had bound BB.

“I, I told him I didn’t know why you were lookin’ for me,” BB said. “And then he beat me so bad that I had to give him something. I had to.”

The expression on my friend’s face was impossible to read. BB saw something there that scared him, because he shrank in his chair.

“Who you tell about bein’ here?” Fearless asked at last.

“Nobody.”

“You already give us up to a killer, brother. Don’t lie too.”

“I just told him that you was gonna call. If I didn’t he would’a killed me.”

“That’s what you told him,” Fearless said. “Who did you tell that you’d be here?”

“Nobody, man. Nobody at all.”

“Uh-uh.” Fearless shook his head. “And you know how I know that?”

BB shook his head too.

“Because this white man come up in here after you. He wasn’t goin’ door to door lookin’. He knew right where you were.”

“What is this place?” I asked.

“It’s a house my father’s church bought as a home for some of its old people. It’s a church house.”

“And how’d you get here?”

“I went to my father after you found me. I told him that I needed to hide. He had the keys and gave them to me.”

Fearless glanced at me and smirked. There was too much blood and pain in the room for me to share his humor, but I knew what he meant. We had a path to follow now. And following was always better than being stalked.

“What about you?” Fearless asked Theodore Timmerman.

“Fuck you.”

“That’s all right, brother. Yeah. You just keep on sayin’ that. But I’m sure your mama don’t want them to be the last words on your lips before you die.”

“You’re not gonna kill me,” Teddy said, I thought rather hopefully.

“No,” Fearless agreed.

He crouched down next to the chair Teddy was tied to. Then he took a long finger and jabbed it lightly in the center of that dark cloud in Timmerman’s chest. The pain shuddered through Milo’s ex-agent like a quake through a dying engine. He tried to inhale but his lungs stalled and a dribble of blood appeared at the corner of his mouth.

“You taste that?” Fearless asked. “That’s the end comin’ up outta you. All I got to do is leave you here, man. That’s all, and you’ll be dead before sunrise.”

Timmerman was still trying to recover from the deep hurt that Fearless had pointed out. He took small breaths, jammed his eyes closed, and clenched his jaw tightly.

After a few moments of this agony he looked up and said, “Fuck you.”

My friend laughed and shook his head.

Ted Timmerman had won Fearless Jones’s respect.