Fear of the Dark fjm-3

by Walter Mosley

  Along the way I didn’t think about anything bad or threatening. I had come to the dead end of my abilities and that had led to a blank wall. There was nothing else I could do. I was actually too afraid to consider doing anything more. The blood down Hector’s chest made me blind and deaf. I wasn’t built for that kind of confrontation.

  I made it to my place in the sand and sat down with no blanket or bottle of beer. It was just me sitting on hot silicon under a brutal sun. The heat moved around me, that and the cacophonous music of the waves.

  I didn’t even have a hat; nor did I desire one. I wanted the sun to beat down on me; I wanted the waves to crash senselessly. I was an innocent man, but no one would believe it. The 150

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  only solace I had was the pulse of an ocean that had been there before there was even a fish to befoul it.

  A c l o u d c o v e r e d t h e s u n for a moment, and my head felt a momentary coolness.

  “Hey, Paris,” the cloud said.

  Fearless sat down next to me on the hot bed of sand.

  “Hey, man,” I replied. “How’d you get here?”

  “Amos taxi.”

  “I’ll pay you for the fare.”

  “Your mother ain’t sick, is she?” he asked.

  I shook my head no.

  “You ain’t bleedin’, broken, or dyin’ as far as I can see. So don’t be too sad.”

  I laughed and threw a play punch at him. He blocked me out of reflex, and I almost began to cry.

  “Tell me what happened,” Fearless said, and I unburdened myself about the dead man and the white girl and my feelings of helplessness.

  “Damn,” Fearless said at the end of my tale. “Somebody sneaked up on him and cut his th’oat like that? That’s serious bidness there. That’s a assassin doin’ his job right. An’ what was the white girl doin’ wit’ ’im?”

  “Hector musta killed Tiny,” I said. “That’s all I can think.

  And then, and then . . . And then either he grabbed Jessa or she ran with him.”

  “Why she wanna run with the man kilt her man?” Fearless asked.

  “I don’t know. Maybe Tiny started takin’ it out on her when I got away. Maybe Hector came in and didn’t like seein’ a 151

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  woman bein’ beat by a man. If that’s the way it came down, then she might’a run with him because he saved her. On the other hand, he might’a killed Tiny out of self-defense and then took the girl to keep her from talkin’. For that matter, Jessa might have snuck up on Hector an’ cut his throat to get away.

  “I ain’t worried about any’a that. It’s Useless’s part in it that bothers me.”

  “I don’t even see how Useless comes in,” Fearless agreed.

  “I see how it might happen,” I said. “It’s just that I don’t know why.”

  I realized that in the presence of Fearless Jones I had the courage to think again. It was a fleeting thought.

  “How so?” Fearless said.

  Two young white women wearing one-piece bathing suits walked near us. One of them looked at Fearless and smiled.

  He smiled and waved, and the two women scurried away laughing, throwing him sideways glances.

  “Hector and Useless were in business getting money from white men over some kind of blackmail or threat,” I said.

  “Useless was cheating Hector — that goes without sayin’. . . .”

  Fearless chuckled and I went on. “Hector’s after Useless and somehow Useless decides to use me for his shill. Either he gonna leave somethin’ with me or tell Hector, or somebody Hector knows, that he did. That way he have Hector comin’

  after me while he gets away with his plans.”

  “What plans?”

  “He’s been movin’ money through Jerry Twist. Maybe he wants to go where the money is.”

  “And Hector comes up on you but finds Tiny and the white girl,” Fearless said.

  “Yeah. And then, when I’m down in the basement with the 152

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  body, he comes back and searches for whatever it is Useless said he gave me.”

  “And then he comes back again lookin’ for the dictionary,”

  Fearless said.

  “Yeah.”

  “But why didn’t he pull out a gun or somethin’ then?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe enough time had passed that he knew where whatever he was looking for was.”

  “But then why come to you at all?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I don’t know.”

  “Well, you bettah know sumpin’ soon, man. Old Three Hearts not gonna wait forever. I dropped by Nadine’s house just to see how your auntie was doin’, and Nadine told me that Hearts was out day and night tryin’ to get a line on her son.

  You know that’s gonna be trouble for somebody.”

  “Shit,” I said. “Damn.” And with those two epithets my paralysis was completely over. “We need to look into these white businesses Useless was fleecin’,” I said. “We need to get in someplace and find out what he was up to.”

  “Yeah, Paris. Yeah, man. Let’s do it.”

  “Or maybe,” I said, “maybe I could sell my bookstore and take my savings and move to China. They speak English in Hong Kong. I could sell books there.”

  “One night with Mum don’t make you a Chin’ee, man,”

  Fearless said.

  “How you know about her?”

  “I saw her lookin’ at you,” he said. “I know that look.”

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  Wh e n e v e r F e a r l e s s c a m e to the beach he wanted fish and chips at Briny’s down 24 in Venice. Briny was an older white gentleman who had lost his left leg below the knee and his right eye during his years at sea. The one eye he had left was gray; so was his hair and the pallor under his tanned white skin.

  The first time we ate at the dive, Briny was being harassed by an angry white guy. The guy, his name was Lux, had a torso that was as big as half a keg of beer. He looked as strong as any man I ever met. Lux had decided, for some unknown reason, to make Briny the object of all his hatred.

  When we got to the restaurant that first time, Briny had seated us and served us without any strange looks or hesitance.

  Negroes at that time appreciated fair service of that type in white establishments. But his acceptance went further than that. When he’d been whole he was a merchant marine and had spent some time down in New Orleans. We swapped stories about that city, even knew a name or two in common.

  Fearless and Briny were getting pretty friendly when Lux came in.

  “Hey you, Riley,” the big white man shouted. “Come over 154

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  here and make me some whitefish and eggs. I’m hungry and I’m horny as a toad. I got some pussy waitin’ down the street.

  It’s old pussy, so I need eggs t’get it up and fish to cut the smell.”

  No one could read Fearless like I could. His face darkened almost imperceptibly. His eyes shifted a thousandth of an inch.

  Fearless didn’t abide rudeness, and there was no room in his heart for a man bad-mouthing a woman, whether she was there or not. Add that to the fact that he’d become fond of Briny in the hour we’d been in the dingy restaurant and you had a recipe for trouble.

  Neither one of us liked it when Briny cowered and scuttled over to Lux saying, “Yes, sir, Mr. Lux.”

  But still, Fearless would have probably let it ride. Then Lux had to go and throw his plate on the floor when he didn’t like his eggs. He slapped our host and unleashed a string of curses and threats that one usually only heard in prison.

  Lux was in the middle of a complex description of Briny’s mother when Fearless tapped the big man’s shoulder.

  There were seven other customers in Briny’s that late afternoon. They were all witnesses to the spectacle.

  Lux turned his head slowly to regard my friend. Fearless is tall, but Lux was too. The white demon
had at least twenty more pounds of muscle than did my friend. And Lux was fifty pounds heavier. All of those other customers must have thought that the foolish Negro was about to get his head torn off.

  “What, boy?” Lux asked.

  “Let’s step outside,” Fearless said, gesturing at a window that showed a small backyard Briny used as a kind of dump for large appliances gone bad.

  Briny rubbed his sore jaw and gaped at Fearless.

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  Lux nodded and gestured for Fearless to go first.

  “You first,” Fearless told him. “You go out first and then I’ll come number two.”

  It was like watching a fight on a television with the volume control broken. I have never seen my friend more vicious, accurate, or sadistic in battle. After he’d knocked Lux down for the fourth time, the big man stayed on the dirt. But Fearless wouldn’t have it; he beat the man on the ground until he got up and fought again. Fearless knocked out teeth and opened cuts all over the brutal bully’s face. He broke a whole rack of ribs and caused deep bruising that would follow Lux all the days of his life. When Fearless was finished, he removed Lux’s wallet from his pocket and took something from it (later I found out that this was Lux’s driver’s license). He said something to Lux and then slapped the man until he nodded. Then he pulled Lux to his feet. The big white man pleaded with Fearless not to hit him again; that was the only thing we heard through the closed window. But Fearless didn’t hit him. He merely pushed him toward the door. Lux lumbered through the room with his eyes on the floor and pain in every step.

  When he went out the front, Fearless came in the back.

  “You got a pencil?” he asked Briny.

  The ex-seaman nodded and pulled a yellow number two from his pocket. Then he handed Fearless the receipt pad he used for his patrons’ bills.

  “This my mother’s phone numbah,” Fearless said, scribbling at the counter. “If that motherfucker ever even look in yo’ windah again, I want you to call this numbah an’ tell her to tell me about it.”

  And so we became semiregulars at Briny’s. Lux, who had 156

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  hectored Briny for two years, never returned, and we always had to force Briny to take our money.

  “Fearless. Paris,” Briny hailed.

  He served us fried clams and talked about Louisiana. He bought our beers, but we paid for the food.

  “Briny,” Fearless said after the restaurateur brought us our change.

  “What, my friend?”

  “Paris an’ me need a phone and some privacy for a hour or two.”

  “My office is yours,” he said. He might have said the same thing even if Fearless hadn’t broken Lux almost in two.

  “ Wy n a n t I n v e s t m e n t G r o u p , ” a young woman said, answering my call.

  I was looking out onto the backyard where Fearless had demolished Lux.

  “Yes,” I said. “I’m looking for a Mr. Katz.”

  “No Katz here,” she replied in a friendly tone.

  “Oh,” I said. “I see. Mr. Drummund, then.”

  “Sorry, sir. No Mr. Drummund either. If you can tell me the nature of your call, I might be able to pass you on to someone else.”

  “You know,” I replied. “I think I must have the wrong number. You said Haversham Investments, right?”

  “No. Wynant. Wynant Investments.”

  “I’m so sorry,” I said. “Excuse me.”

  I made half a dozen calls like that while Fearless sat back on a walnut chair, smoking one of my Lucky Strikes and staring 157

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  up into space. He wasn’t listening to me or worrying about anything. I’m sure he was the same in the lull between battles during the war.

  There was a V.P. named Katz at Casualty and Life Insurance Company of St. Louis. I got as far as his assistant.

  “He’s tied up at the moment,” the man said. “May I tell him what your business is?”

  “My name is LaTiara,” I said. “Hector LaTiara. I’ve recently come into a great deal of money. Seventy thousand dollars that I’ve inherited from my uncle Anthony.”

  “Yes?”

  “I don’t know anything about investing and so I wondered if we could set up an appointment or something.”

  “I’m sure one of the junior agents at the firm would be happy to advise you, Mr. LaTiara. Mr. Katz, however, only deals with portfolios of a million dollars or more.”

  “You mean my money’s not good enough for him?” I said.

  For some reason I really was insulted.

  “It’s good,” the snooty young man replied. “It’s just not enough money.”

  I knew the type. It had nothing to do with race, even though he must have been a white man. He was the sort that identified with his master so closely that he believed he was the arbiter of those million-dollar investors. Here he probably didn’t make seventy dollars a week, but he still sneered at my paltry seventy grand.

  I hung up on him.

  Three calls later, at Holy Cross Episcopal, I found a rector named Drummund — or least I got a woman who answered using his name.

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  “Reverend Drummund’s office,” she said in a well-worn but not world-weary voice.

  “Hector LaTiara,” I said, but there was a hesitation in my tone.

  “Yes?”

  She didn’t know the name, hadn’t heard it before — I could tell. I could have come up with a story, but I held back.

  “Hello?” she said.

  Still I remained silent.

  “Is anyone there?”

  I put the receiver down softly, this time because of caution rather than petty anger. I took a deep breath and let it out slowly.

  “What’s wrong?” Fearless asked me.

  “I don’t know what to say.”

  “What you mean?”

  “So far,” I said, “you an’ me been outside the place where Useless an’ them been workin’. Nobody knows us and nobody can tie us up with the crimes.”

  “If there is a crime.”

  “There’s two dead men, Fearless,” I said. “How much more crime do you want?”

  “I mean about the money,” my friend replied. “We don’t even know if there ever was any money in them wrappers.”

  “You think Jerry Twist woulda lied about that?”

  “Go on,” Fearless said. “Tell me why you cain’t talk to them but you can chatter all ovah me.”

  “Drummund don’t know us,” I said. “Katz neither. I cain’t just walk in on ’em, ’cause they’re important men. They ain’t gonna have nobody like you or me walk in their offices, not unless we tell ’em about LaTiara or Useless.”

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  “Cain’t tell ’em ’bout Ulysses,” Fearless said. “Hearts wouldn’t like that.”

  “That don’t even mattah,” I said. “ ’Cause if we call ’em an’

  tell ’em ’bout how we know about them bein’ blackmailed or whatevah, they might just call the cops. They don’t know Hector’s real name, I’m sure’a that, and so when the police ask us and then find Hector dead, where will we be?”

  Fearless smiled. Smiled. Here I was explaining how our whole enterprise was stalled in the water, and he just grinned as if I had told a half-funny joke.

  “You’ll figure it out, Paris,” he told me.

  “Aren’t you listening to me, man?” I asked. “I’m sayin’ I don’t know what to do.”

  “That’s okay,” he said. “That’s how everything start. First you don’t know an’ then you do.”

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  Th e d ay wa s w e n d i n g into evening while Fearless and I walked along the shore.

  25 We were friends, there was no doubt about that, but our relationship was also hard to define. Sometimes I was like the big brother who could read complex documents and decipher the logical knots that faced my simpleminded friend.r />
  At other times he was like the ideal father that had never abandoned me, protecting me from danger. On that particular evening he was this selfsame father who saw my troubles and only said that he believed in me and that I would see my way through in time.

  Maybe all true friendships are like that: like rolling rivers rather than edifices of stone. I don’t know. All I had on my mind was how I could get information from Katz and Drummund without them calling the cops on me.

  “You tired, Paris?” Fearless asked, as the setting sun ignited the pollutants in the evening sky, making a fiery red sunset that had all of the ecstasy and terror of a heart attack.

  “Naw, man. I couldn’t sleep if I wanted to.”

  “That’s good. ’Cause you know I think we gonna have to work hard tonight.”

  “Why’s that?”

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  “Al Rive’s in town.”

  “Really? He really came back?” I asked.

  “Yeah, brother. First he put his mother in the soup an’ now he wanna hurt Milo for turnin’ on the heat. Whisper fount him out, but before we could get there he was gone. Tomorrow I be full-time either chasin’ Al or bodyguardin’ Milo’s butt.”

  “You a good friend, Fearless.”

  “Why not? Friendship is free.”

  We d r o v e f r o m t h e b e a c h down to Nadine Grant’s many-flowered home.

  As we were walking through the gated fence toward the front door, Three Hearts was coming out. She was wearing all white, which was never a good sign. White was what Three Hearts wore when she was bringing God with her on her mission, whatever that mission was. It was lore in our family that Three Hearts wearing white meant that she was going to someone’s funeral — and that someone didn’t need to be dead yet.

  “Hey, Hearts,” Fearless said, holding out hands of greeting and restraint.

  “Out of my way, Fearless,” she commanded. “I got places to be.”

  “Who’s drivin’ you?” he asked, both friendly and stern.

  “Toby Battrell,” she said, waving a white-gloved hand at the street.