Fear Itself Part 10

"You know somebody who might know?" I asked.

"Them peoples down at Hoochie's might could know," Esau speculated.

"That place on Hoover?" I asked, just to be sure. "The dance club?"

Esau nodded.

"Did he ever say anything about a man named Kit Mitch.e.l.l?"

"No," Esau said, a little too fast and a little too sure.

"You got any cars for fifty bucks, Mr. Perry?" Fearless asked.

"Couple'a Fords like your friend's the cheapest I got. Lowest price is two twenty-five, though."

"Lemme think about that for a while." Fearless put his hand on my shoulder then and I nodded.

"Guess it's time to go."

"Mr. Minton," Esau said.

"Yes sir?"

"Tell BB I'd like to talk to him before he sees Winifred. Tell him, well, just tell him that I'd like to talk."

14.

"WHAT YOU THINK ABOUT MR. PERRY?" I asked Fearless. I asked Fearless.

We were a few blocks away at a small park that was like an island at the intersection of Slater Avenue and 127 127th Street. There was a picnic table with the benches attached under a shady oak tree. The gra.s.s was dead. One lone sparrow eyed us sidewise from the nearest bough. He was waiting for a crumb to drop and so was I.

"He's lyin' about Kit."

"You sure'a that?"

"No question there."

Fearless Jones could have been Buck Rogers's lie detector. He could tell if someone was lying even if he didn't understand the language they spoke.

"What about the rest?" I asked.

"Cain't tell. But I'm sure that he wants to talk to BB. He wants to talk to him bad."

I could read Esau for myself. Still it was good to have Fearless confirm my conclusions. But what difference did it make? I could go out looking for BB, but there was no promise that I would find him. And even if I did find him, it was a dangerous game turning a man over to somebody with the police breathing down your neck. If I confronted him, Milo would lie, and so would the white man he sent to my house to find Fearless.

I shared these pessimistic thoughts with my friend.

He took it all in and nodded.

"Then maybe I better go down to them cops questioned you," he said.

"Turn yourself in?"

"Why not? They gonna get me sooner or later-that is, unless I skip town. And you know that little taste of Ambrosia reminded me of just how sweet she is."

"You don't know why they after you, Fearless. They might could put you in jail for months."

"I didn't do nuthin' except sit out with those gourds in Oxnard for weeks. They mad, but what they gonna charge me wit'? Why shouldn't I go?"

"Because we don't know what they want."

"And we ain't gonna know unless I turn myself in." Fearless grinned at me. I knew that grin. It said, Sometimes you have to be a fool if you want to make it in this world. Sometimes you have to be a fool if you want to make it in this world.

I knew that I couldn't talk Fearless out of his decision, so I asked, "What should I do?"

"Go on home and wait for my one phone call," he said. "It may not come for a while, but you be there and I'll get what we need."

WE SEPARATED THERE. Me going back to my bookshop and Fearless following his name. Me going back to my bookshop and Fearless following his name.

My store was hot from the brutal summer sun beating down on it. I opened the front door to let a breeze bring the temperature down into the eighties. I was too jumpy even to read, so I picked up a folio of photographs taken by the New York photographer Weegee. I took this to the front room and sat there perusing the strange and revealing images of a New York that few tourists ever saw, even though it was right there under their toes and noses. Weegee treated the whole city as if it were his backyard. I imagined that he knew ten thousand people by name and that they were so familiar with him that they never had their guard up against his lenses. He roamed from Park Avenue to Harlem with his camera, mostly at night, getting behind all of the lies we tell and showing just how ugly people can be when no one else is around.

"h.e.l.lo?"

If I could have jumped out of my skin I would have. As it was, I leapt out of the chair and threw out my hands, letting the book fly somewhere back into the store.

"What!" I shouted.

It took a few seconds for me to focus on the young woman framed inside the gray rectangle of the screen door.

If she had a gun you'd be dead right now. If she had a gun you'd be dead right now. Those words repeated themselves over and over in my mind. My heart was thumping. I was rubbing both thumbs against my fingertips, trying to look normal. Those words repeated themselves over and over in my mind. My heart was thumping. I was rubbing both thumbs against my fingertips, trying to look normal.

The Negro woman smiled.

"I didn't mean to sneak up on you like that," she said. "I thought that you must have heard me coming up the stairs."

"No." It was the only syllable I could manage without stumbling over my tongue.

"Can I come in?"

"Come on." I was getting better.

She tried the screen door, but it was latched. Did I think that I could keep someone from getting at me with a slender latch and a paper-thin screen?

"Let me," I said.

She was wearing a tan dress with a pink scarf. At first it looked kind of like a uniform, but on inspection you could see that the material of both articles was of a finer make than any employer or service would spend. She carried a woven straw purse. This too was a higher quality than it at first seemed.

"Are you Paris Minton?"

She had medium brown skin and eyes a brown so light that they were disconcerting. Those orbs seemed to belong not simply to some other race but to a whole other species of animal.

"Are you?" she asked again.

"Who are you?"

"Leora. Leora Hartman."

"Where's Son?"

"He's with his great-uncle," she said, at once answering my question and telling me that my secret knowledge wasn't of the least concern to her.

"Would that be Kit's uncle or yours?"

"Son is not related to Kit Mitch.e.l.l."

We were still standing in the doorway. Leora's figure was slight but her bones weren't thin or fragile. She wore tan shoes that were exactly the same hue as her dress.

"Can I have a seat?"

"Sure. Why not?"

We sat across from each other. She put her knees together and let them recline to the side. Her calf was very presentable. She was as composed and elegant as the wife of a diplomat, except for those eyes; they were wild and fearful, watching for the slightest aggression.

"Fearless tell you about me?" I asked.

"He said if I needed to get in touch with him that I should come here."

"Hot day, huh?" I asked this to put her off some, but it didn't seem to work, at least not at first.

"Yes it is," she said. "But at least it's dry. It's the humidity I can't stand."

I smiled and nodded but didn't say anything.

"Aren't you going to ask me why I'm here?" she asked, finally.

"You like my store?" I replied.

She stood up and walked down the right aisle. Looking over the shorter center shelf to the books on the wall, she said, "I see you have a lot of the Balzac oeuvre."

"Eighty-one of his books," I said, coming up next to her. "I got them from a woman in Tarzana. She advertised in a book-buyers' newsletter I subscribe to."

"It really is a lovely store." She looked around a bit more.

"Thanks," I said.

"Do you have a science section?"

"Down there, in the far corner."

Our eyes locked on each other.

"I'm very interested in physics."

"Really? What kind?"

"Theoretical. Theoretical physics, theology, and theater. My mother always says that it's only the first three letters that get to me." Her laugh was nice.

"Why'd you lie to Fearless?"

"It was the only way I could think of to be sure that he'd look for Kit for me."

"What do you want with Kit Mitch.e.l.l?"

Leora walked back to the front, reclaiming her seat and her composure.

I followed.

"Where is Fearless?" she asked.

"In jail."

"What for?" She didn't even blink.

"I don't even know. Do you?"

This time she didn't respond.

"Two cops, Morrain and Rawlway, were after him. So he turned himself in. They were looking for a young man named Bartholomew Perry." I was wondering if she knew BB too.

There was a momentary tightening of Leora's face.

"Maybe you know what those cops wanted," I suggested.

"No. Why would I?"

"I don't know. Why are you here?"

"Fearless gave me an address for Kit. I went there but they said that he skipped out without paying the rent."

"Really? Did they have any idea where he got to?"