Fear Itself

38

FEARLESS DROVE US to Ambrosia’s house. DeLois slept the whole way. I told Fearless that I’d drive her home because he’d been nodding at the wheel. But when he wanted me to take my car I balked.

“Why bother taking my car outta the garage?” I reasoned. “I could just hold on to yours.”

“Not mine, Paris—Ambrosia’s. Don’t worry, man. I ain’t gonna lose the money. And sure as hell ain’t nobody gonna take it from me.”

He was right. The money and the book would be safer with him.

I woke DeLois up and led her to my car. She was groggy but trusting. Fearless kissed her on the cheek and told her that I’d drive her home.

In my car again I opened the window so that DeLois would wake up with the fresh air.

“Where you live exactly?” I asked her when she finally sat upright.

“Over near Adams and Hoover.”

I guided the car in that direction.

“You got a cigarette, Mr. Minton?”

I fished out two and handed them to her.

“Light me one too,” I said.

There’s nothing quite like a woman lighting your cigarette for the immediate feeling of intimacy. Putting the filtered tip in my mouth she touched my lower lip with her fingertips.

“What you and Fearless doin’ in Miss Moore’s house?” she asked me.

“Gettin’ into trouble I guess.”

“I guess if you gonna get into trouble you might as well do it with Fearless Jones,” she said and then giggled. “He sure did make that fat man sweat.”

“What were you doin’ in Miss Moore’s place?”

“Maybe I live there.”

“Maybe,” I said. “But you don’t.”

“How you know I don’t?”

“Because I took a room there a few days ago and I had dinner with the whole houseful. You weren’t there. And if you did live there, then why am I driving you home?”

DeLois’s face wasn’t small but it was petite. She pouted and then brought the cigarette to her lips.

“You know,” she said.

“Somebody send you in there to Melvin?”

“Naw. It’s just this bar I go to sometimes where he go too. He always tryin’ to mess wit’ me, but you know I always tell ’im to go on.”

“But not tonight.”

DeLois took another drag and turned to the window.

“How do you know Fearless?” I asked to ease her discomfort.

“He used to live in the apartment upstairs from me. He’s a real nice man. One time I had this boyfriend wanna try and beat on me. Fearless come down and asked him if he wanted to leave. It was funny. Richard started blusterin’ about how he was gonna kick Fearless’ ass. But the whole time he was talkin’ he was movin’ backwards and pickin’ up his things. Finally he shouted some curse or sumpin’ when he was at the door and then he ran.” DeLois laughed. I did too.

We drove a few more blocks.

“So what were you doin’ at Miss Moore’s?” I asked again.

“I cain’t make my rent and I got my little sister wit’ me. I got fifteen dollars but they want thirty.”

“You could slide a week or two.”

“I done slid a month already.”

We came to the small aqua-colored building on a street named Orchard. I stopped the car but neither of us moved or said anything.

I was closer to Fearless than to anyone except my mother. He had expectations of me that he never had to put into words. The fact that he took DeLois out of that rooming house was him saying that he wanted me to finish the job.

“So how come you left wit’ us?” I asked.

“I didn’t wanna fuck that man,” she said. “I don’t wanna fuck the landlord neither, but at least he don’t weigh five hundred pounds.”

I reached into my pocket and peeled off four twenty-dollar bills. I handed the money over. She didn’t take it at first. Instead she looked me up and down.

“What?” I asked.

“Nuthin’. It’s just that you even skinnier than my landlord and you the right color too.”

I took her hand and folded it around the money.

“No, DeLois. It ain’t like that. People been throwin’ money at me and Fearless the last couple’a days now. And my mama always told me to keep what I earn but to share good fortune. This is just for you and your sister.”

DeLois’s jaw dropped. “You mean you just givin’ me this money?”

“That’s right.”

“And you don’t want nuthin’?”

“I want you to have it.”

The young woman’s face turned serious then. In some other circumstance I might have been afraid of her pulling out a razor. When she put her free hand on my wrist I believe that she meant to give it a gentle caress, but her feelings made it like a vise.

“You could come upstairs, Paris,” she said. “I want you to.”

And there it was again: that moment of anticipation. That offer of something I wanted—and deserved too.

“No, baby. You take that money, pay your rent, buy some breakfast, and go out and find a good job. After you do all that and you been workin’ a month or two, if you still wanna see me ask Fearless for my number.”

She smiled and kissed me twice. The first kiss was a thank you, the second was a promise.

I drove off thinking that I had done the right thing for the first time since Fearless came banging on my door.

***

I GOT TO MY HOUSE at about one, still happy over those two wet kisses. I was still in a good position. Wexler thought I was working for him and Timmerman was in a hospital bed. Brown seemed to be on our side and Oscar wasn’t any threat. BB was in hiding somewhere, but he thought that I was on his side too. I parked in front of my place and skipped up the front stairs. In a week or two I’d begin to wonder if DeLois would ever call me. In a month I’d worry that she had moved on. But at least that one night I was a knight in shining armor and the princess had only me in her thoughts.

I opened the front door and received what seemed to be my nightly knock in the head. I fell to the floor and heard the door slam. A light came on simultaneously with the sudden deep ache in my head.

I turned on my back and looked up but all I could see for the moment was a looming shadow.

“Surprised to see me, nigger?” the shadow asked.

Nigger? Louis? I had a dozen one-word questions but neither my mind nor my ears were clear enough to provide an answer. The man lifted me by the lapels of my shirt. His breath was rank but unfamiliar. His skin, where it touched mine, was hot.

“Wake up!” he shouted.

The stinging slap across my cheek brought Theodore Timmerman’s face into clarity. He still wore the brown jacket he’d had on the first day he showed up at my door. But now he was wearing green trousers that didn’t cover his ankles. He had the beginnings of a beard around his chin. And his breath smelled like a disease.

“What you want, man?”

“Where’s the book?”

“Fearless got it.”

He slapped me again.

“You think you can fool me? Where is it, bastard?”

“Fearless got it. He does. I’m not lyin’.”

He threw me against the wall. My feet actually left the floor before I struck. I felt the pain in my lungs.

“Where is he?” Timmerman bellowed.

I gave up Ambrosia’s address without even a second’s hesitation. Everything I did for DeLois was washed away in one cowardly moment. Deep in my mind, though, I didn’t believe that Timmerman would ever get the upper hand on my friend.

Then he fell on me. His hands wrapped around my throat and my eyes felt as if they were going to pop out of my head. The pressure increased, and for the first time in the thirty years I had been alive fear left me. I was dying and there were no words to dissuade my killer. There was no Fearless Jones to break in at the last moment. There was nothing but death yawning out under me.

My ears were on fire and my heart was exploding. I started pounding with both of my fists at the point Fearless had tapped Theodore in the chest. There were bandages there now but I was striking him with strength I’d never known before or since. Timmerman released me and fell backwards. I went after him, hitting that bull’s eye again and again until finally I collapsed.

My foeman fell on top of me and I knew that I’d soon be dead. I struggled for a moment, trying to breathe, hurting from my throat. And then I faded into unconsciousness, knowing that I would never awaken again.