“Grass salad and earthworm steak, is that what you gonna eat?” I taunted.
“Excuse me,” Fanny Tannenbaum said in a small voice.
Fearless and I both turned our heads toward her. It was an odd thing to realize that we had begun to ignore her the same way that her nephew-in-law had ignored us earlier, the same way that white people had been ignoring us our entire lives.
“Yes, Fanny?” Fearless said.
“You gentlemen can stay here for a few days if you wish.”
I was stunned by that. I had done some traveling in my life. Fearless had been on three continents and then some, but neither one of us had ever experienced that kind of generosity. White people didn’t open their doors to questionable young black men. Hell, there weren’t many black folks I knew that would be so brave, or foolish.
“It’s the least I can do,” Fanny said. “You saved Solly’s life and… and…” — she hesitated and then drew a deep breath — “… and I am afraid to stay here alone.”
“You got your niece and nephew a couple’a blocks away,” I said. I was surprised that she offered us a place to stay, but that didn’t mean I wanted to take her up on the offer.
“That putz couldn’t save himself from walking down a hill,” she said disdainfully.
It wasn’t that funny, but Fearless laughed loud and long.
“What’s that you say, Fanny?” he crooned. “He can’t walk wit’out fallin’ down?”
The old lady started laughing too. She laughed so hard that she doubled over in the chair with her head on her knees. She forced herself to stand, still laughing, and went to a cupboard where she located a pint bottle of peach schnapps. She poured all three of us generous shots in squat glasses. The liquor was strong, and good. We finished off the first pint and put a serious dent in a second.
I was smiling with them after a while, feeling pretty good. So when Fearless said, “Sure, Fanny, we’ll stay here with you,” I didn’t see anything wrong with it. After all, we were already there, and it was after nine; we didn’t have a home to go to, and I still had some questions to ask about Elana Love.
I made a little nod and said, “Well, if we got to go, we might as well be eatin’ good and feelin’ high.”
FEARLESS GOT IT into his head to wash the dishes. Fanny offered to help, but he said that he missed simple chores after his twelve weeks in jail. He’d already explained to her that he’d gotten into an altercation with three mechanics that tried to cheat him. I thought that that would turn the sweet old lady against us, but instead she said, “My Sol was in jail. It’s a bad place where many good men go.”
SHE AND I RETIRED to the sitting room while Fearless hummed and played in the soapy water. Sol had a glass box filled with English Ovals, an imported cigarette. I smoked a few of these while we talked.
“I take it you don’t like Gella’s old man,” I said.
She made a quizzical face that suddenly became bright. “Oh,” she said, “you mean the putz.”
“Yeah.”
“He’s a coarse man,” Fanny said. “Not rude or foul-mouthed but unfinished, without manners, like a pig farmer or a policeman.”
“You don’t like the cops either?”
The schnapps made conversation easy.
“When I was a child,” she said, “the police, the army, and the pig farmers were our enemies. Morris isn’t bad, he’s just stupid about things. He’s always coming around offering to work on the house, to cut the grass. He’s telling me that he wants to help when Sol” — she sighed and looked to the ceiling — “when Sol was in prison. He’s always telling me he wants to help, but I tell him no. He thinks I’m too old to be bothered with a checkbook or the plumber, but I’m not.”
“What was that he said just before he stomped off?”
“I don’t remember,” Fanny said, but she did.
“Swatted?” I prodded. “Swear?”
“Svartza,” she whispered.
“What’s that mean?”
“It means black, but not in a nice way,” she admitted.
“Oh.”
“I would never be bothered with him, but Gella loves him — because he’s fat.”
“Huh?”
“That’s true,” she said, widening her eyes as much as she could. “She loves him because he’s so big and fat she thinks that he can protect her.”
“Protect her from what?”
“Her family was from Estonia, like us. Only they moved to Germany after the First World War. Her father, Schmoil, Solly’s brother’s son, was a rich man and smart.” Fanny pointed at her temple to show me the degree of his intelligence. I realized then that she also had had a good share of schnapps. “We left Europe after they moved. Schmoil stayed on and did business. He owned three newspapers but sold them when he saw what was coming. He put all of his money into his art collection and moved it to Switzerland. Then he moved his wife and kinder to Vienna. He thought that they would be safe there.”
“That don’t sound too safe.”
“A wife, a grandmother, three uncles, and seven children,” Fanny said, “and only him and Gella survived. They were all betrayed by a Jew, but my Solly saved Schmoil and Gella.”
“He did?” I said. I found it hard to believe that the little old man I’d seen could have saved anybody.
“When Schmoil and Gella ran, my Sol hired smugglers in Italy to put them in barrels and take them to Africa. Then he bought them passports and brought them here.” Fanny had been whispering, and I could see why. Whatever he did, it didn’t sound legal.
“Wow,” I said. “Damn. That’s a great thing. That why they put him in jail?”
“No. They said he was a thief,” Fanny said sadly. “I don’t know. He sold his tailor’s shop and went to work for those goy accountants.”
“Who?”
“Lawson and Widlow. He went to work for them.”
“If he was a tailor, why’d they need him?”
“He did his own bookkeeping for years, and he went to work for almost nothing. He stayed late every night finishing everything they gave him. He stopped laughing with me, and then one day the police came and take him away.”
“And then,” I said, seeing my opening, “after he was in jail a while, a woman named Elana Love came to your door.”
“You know her?” There was surprise and anger in the old woman’s voice.
“You see, Fanny,” I said, “Fearless an’ me aren’t really gardeners…” I related, more or less, the story of me and Elana Love.
“And this man, her boyfriend,” Fanny asked when I was through, “he’s the one that hurt Sol?”
“I don’t think it was him in the cowboy hat, but he was probably the other one. I’d bet on it.”
“But you will find out because you want the money back for your store,” she said.
“I’d like my store back,” I agreed. “At least I’d like a new place. But like I said, Leon is three kinds of bad. It might not be worth —”
“I will pay you.” It was the kind of interruption that I didn’t mind.
“What?”
“You don’t have money, Mr. Minton. You will need something.” She got everything right, right down to calling me mister. “Now that Solly’s in the hospital, I have to do something. My nephew is a fool, and Gella is just a girl. I don’t trust the police.… All I have is you and your friend. I heard those men shouting at Solly too. They said they wanted the money he stole.”
“I thought you said he didn’t steal anything?”
“He told those men that they were the thieves. He told them they were gonif and they worked for thieves.”
“You tell the cops that?” I asked.
“I was afraid to tell them anything.”
“So what can I do?”
“You said they were looking for a bond. I gave a bond to that woman. Sol had given it to me. I asked him if it was stolen, and he told me no.”
“And you believe that even after those men came in here
after him?”
“Solly would never lie to me,” Fanny said with dignity. “He’s in trouble, but he wants to protect me. I want you to help me find out what kind of trouble he’s in.”
“But I could tell you that right now,” I said. “It’s that bond.”
“No,” she said. “It is more than that.”
“What?”
“I don’t know. He told me the bond was nothing but in a way that I knew there was something he wouldn’t say.”
“You don’t think Leon came here after the money Sol owed him?”
“He wanted money stolen,” Fanny said stubbornly, “not money owed.”
“How much money we talkin’ about here?” I said. “I mean, what will you pay me?”
“I have one hundred dollars. I will give that to you and then, when you tell me what she says, I’ll give a hundred more.”
“And all you wanna know is why are they coming back after Sol?”
Fanny nodded.
“There’s just one thing,” I said.
“What?”
“Fearless thinks he can live on air, but we need that money. After what he told Sol, he won’t let you pay us a dime.”
Fanny nodded again and patted the back of my hand.
“Leave me your pants and shirt,” she said.
“Say what?”
“Leave your clothes out here when you go to bed. I’ll wash them and iron them in the morning and then I’ll put the money in your pockets.”
Fearless came in only a few moments after the deal was sealed.
“All clean and dry,” he announced. “I stacked ’em in the dryin’ tray though, ’cause I didn’t want to put ’em away wrong.”
“That’s okay.” Fanny was beaming. “I can do that.”
I jumped up then. “But it better wait till tomorrow.”
“Why?” both Fearless and Fanny asked.
“If we wanna protect Fanny, then we got to find out what they came here for,” I said. “And one thing about crooks, they don’t stay in one place too long.”
8
WE DROPPED FANNY OFF at her niece’s house, which was only three blocks away on Marianna Avenue. It made sense not to leave her at home with Leon Douglas on the loose.
Fanny gave us the keys to her house.
“We’ll call you in the mornin’, Mrs. Tannenbaum, ’cause you know we’ll probably come in late at night,” Fearless told her at the front door. Fearless was a gentleman and would never just leave a woman off at the curb. I wandered up there with him.
Morris Greenspan answered the door.
“What do you want?” he asked us.
“They’re my houseguests, Morris,” Fanny said.
“You can’t come in my house,” he said, somehow taking Fanny’s explanation as a request.
“Then we’ll leave you here,” I said to Fanny.
“No,” Fanny said. “Morris, apologize to my friends.”
“You don’t even know them, Aunt Fanny. They aren’t family.”
“We better be goin’, Mrs. Tannenbaum,” Fearless said. He hated seeing any man get humiliated.
“These men are my guests,” Fanny repeated, looking up at her nephew-in-law.
The glower on the young man’s face was the same when he was eight, I was sure. Sullen and on the verge of a pout, he might have stood there for half an hour before saying hello like a good boy.
“Mr. Minton. Mr. Jones,” Gella Greenspan said as she appeared at her husband’s side. The homely girl and her bearish, sullen husband made an ungainly pair. She took the big baby’s arm. “Would you like to come in for coffee?”
It wasn’t that Gella was any less afraid of us. She was just raised better.
“We have to go,” I said. “Thanks anyway. See ya, Fanny, Morris.”
The sloppy bowling pin grimaced.
“Call me if you need anything,” Fanny said.
“We’ll pick you up in the morning,” Fearless promised.
Then we left the unmatched set of relatives to argue manners and race over coffee and rolls.
I HAD THE ADDRESS of E. E. Love written down on a scrap of paper. Fearless drove us to the Twenty-eighth Street abode. The small, single-story gray house was surrounded by sagging trellises that were heavy with vines of golden roses. There was no light on, no car in the driveway, but still we knocked at the front door.
No answer.
A big dog came strolling down the street. It was a light-colored, short-haired and meaty mutt that nearly shimmered under a granite streetlamp. I saw him before he saw us. He did an almost human double take and then started barking for all he was worth.
“We better get outta here,” I said.
“We ain’t even got here yet.” Fearless went down on one knee and held out his hand.
The barking dog got braver and braver. Growling and gurgling murder he advanced on Fearless, who for his part looked like a modern-day African saint. The dog snapped and then he sniffed. He pushed his nose against Fearless’s hand, then plopped down on the ground, turning over onto his back to show his belly.
Fearless scratched the dog and then stood up, his new best friend at his side.
There was a black, lift-top mailbox attached to the wall next to the front door. It was stuffed with mail. I pulled out an envelope wedged in at the side. By match light I read the name Miss Elana Love scrawled in purple ink.
“This is the right place,” I said.
Fearless’s dog growled in anticipation. Fearless pushed him by the neck toward the front walk, and the mutt seemed to understand the command. He padded his way to the curb and stood there daring some phantom intruder to try and go by.
I went around the side of the house, testing windows. On the third try I was successful. Once inside I went straight through the gloom to where the front door should have been. It was there. Fearless snaked in, closing the door behind him. I found a lamp on a table and turned it on.
After making sure that the house was empty we decided to separate to make our search. The whole front of the house was the living room. It was just a couch and two chairs with a stand-up maple bar on top of two mismatched blue throw rugs. The rugs were ugly. One had a diamond pattern, and the other was covered in small white dots.
At either end of the living room was a door. One led to the kitchen, the other to her bedroom. Between these two rooms was the toilet.
Elana’s bedroom was simple enough. A single bed with pink sheets and a dresser with a mirror and chair. The window looked out on a fence cordoning off her three-foot-deep backyard. I went through the drawers of the dresser, the closet, the pockets of her clothes. I checked under the sheets and between the mattresses, on the window ledge and under the bed. There was nothing there. Nothing. She had three dresses in the closet and only one pair of shoes.
Fearless and I met in the bathroom. Two towels on a chrome rack, a half-used bar of white soap, and no floor mat. In the trash can there were a towel and a wad of cotton bandages clotted with a good deal of partially dried blood. I poked at the dressing with a handy toothbrush, but Fearless reached in and pulled out the bloody rags.
“Somebody been wounded pretty good,” he said.
“No shit,” I replied.
I went over the kitchen again because Fearless didn’t have the patience to search for anything smaller than an elephant. There wasn’t much to see there either. A jar of instant coffee, white bread, and an open can of condensed milk.
“I bet she only stays here now and then,” I said. “She probably only keeps the place in case her boyfriend of the week has a change of heart.”
“You think?”
“No clothes to speak of, no food,” I said. “And even a blind man wouldn’t have carpet like that under his feet.”
Fearless laughed at that. He was slender, but he had a fat man’s laugh. For a moment there I realized how much I had missed my friend.
“Come on,” I said. “Let’s get outta here.” I led the way through the kitchen door
back into the living room. We were almost out of the door when I stopped.
“What is it, Paris?”
“I didn’t look under the kitchen sink. Did you?”
“No.”
“I better look.”
“You think she under there?” I couldn’t tell if he was serious or joking.
I FOUND a tin wastebasket beneath the sink drain and dumped the contents out on the kitchen table. There were tiny bits of paper, coated with once-wet coffee grounds, torn from several notes and at least one letter. I pulled up a chair and started sifting through the mess.
I had been working for all of five minutes when Fearless started yawning. “What you doin’, Paris?” he whined.
The letter was impossible to reconstruct in the time I had. It would have probably taken two or three hours, seeing that it was scrawled in small pale blue letters on both sides of at least three pages. To make it even more difficult, the words had blurred from the moisture of the coffee grounds.
The notes were written in black ink on white paper except for one that was written in pencil and another that was written on yellow paper. I concentrated on these two.
Fearless opened the front door and whistled for the dog, who came bounding in like the loyal family pet.
“Hey, boy. Hey, boy,” Fearless chanted from the living room.
I didn’t have to go far to see that the penciled note was a shopping list — scouring powder and Modess napkins were all I needed for that.
The yellow note had San Quentin Prison printed across the bottom. Above that, in black letters, the initials C.T. were printed slantways, along with a phone number that had an Axminster exchange.
There was a phone in Elana’s bedroom, but it was dead, so we let Fearless’s new pet into the backseat and drove toward a gas station on Slauson. I didn’t want to bring the dog, but I didn’t have the time to argue with Fearless either.
I did say, “Don’t you think somebody’s gonna miss his pet?”
“If he had a collar or license I’d take him home right this minute,” Fearless replied. “You know a dog catcher could be givin’ him cyanide tomorrow if we just let him go.”
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