Fear of the Dark fjm-3

by Walter Mosley

  “When we have important visitors from out of town, we often put them up here,” Friar explained.

  Fearless and I were sitting on a wooden-legged violet couch built for two and a half, and Friar sat across from us on a chair that completed the set. He’d poured us a very good cognac in large snifters.

  I nursed my liquor, remembering that I had to keep my mind sharp in order not to be trapped by the sins of my cousin.

  “This guy Motley,” I said. “What’s he do?”

  “He works for an oil company now. Tiger Oil. For the past few years he’s been a liaison between the charitable arm of his corporation and our service.”

  “What were you doing at the track?” I asked.

  “I gamble. Not a lot. It relaxes me. I put aside a hundred dollars a month and either I go out to Gardena for poker or to the track. Once a year I blow five hundred in Las Vegas.”

  “And Motley knew all this?”

  “We’d seen each other now and again at the track,” Friar said. “I liked to go on Saturday afternoons.”

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  “How long ago was it that you saw him with the black lady?”

  “Three years . . . no, four.”

  “So he knew you liked to gamble and he knew you liked black women,” I said.

  “I don’t see what you’re trying to make out of it,” Friar said.

  “I mean, do you think that Brian’s been trying to set me up for years? That’s ridiculous.”

  “Maybe Mr. Motley likes gambling a little more than you,” I speculated. “Maybe he got into somebody who knew what you felt about women like Monique.”

  “That’s pretty far-fetched, don’t you think?” Friar said.

  “We could check it out,” I suggested.

  “How?”

  “Let’s go talk to him.”

  “He’ll be at work.”

  “Call him there. Ask to see him for lunch or after work if he can’t make it.”

  My words were falling together for Friar a few moments after they were spoken. He stared at me for quite a while and then he nodded.

  “Excuse me,” he said. “I’ll make a call from the bedroom.”

  I smiled. Fearless made a silent toast with his snifter.

  “This is some racket,” Fearless said when Friar closed the bedroom door. “He got his own little place to go to if he need a shower or a shave. That’s nice.”

  “I wonder how many times he was here with Angel?” I said.

  “You know I’d be up in here with some lady at least once a week,” Fearless said with a rare lascivious smile. “You cain’t have sumpin’ like this here an’ not take advantage.”

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  We both took drinks then and appreciated the quiet and calmness of our surroundings.

  “You see the way them cops bowed down to him?” Fearless asked after some time had passed.

  “Yeah,” I said. “White people.”

  “Uh-uh, Paris,” Fearless said. “No, man. It ain’t just that.

  It’s the way he thinks too. Mr. Friar know he in charge. He know it. He know it so well that them cops know it too. An’

  he so sure about who he is that here he bring us up in here an’ he ain’t even scared or nuthin’.”

  “Why he wanna be scared of two Negro men, anyway?” I asked.

  “You see that, man?” Fearless said. “You see? You think them cops stopped us ’cause they can, ’cause they don’t like colored people.”

  “Well, didn’t they?”

  “Naw, man. They stopped us ’cause they scared. An’ if they ain’t scared, the people pay ’em is. That’s the on’y reason they wanna keep you from readin’ yo’ book. That’s the on’y reason they asked that white man were we botherin’ him. They wanna keep on our ass ’cause if they don’t, they worried we might start fightin’ back.”

  Fearless did that every once in a while. He’d open his mind to let me see his deft perceptions of the human heart. It’s no wonder that women and children loved him so much. He was a natural man in a synthetic world. He had to be as tough as he was to survive the danger that truth brought.

  While I was having these thoughts, Martin Friar came through the bedroom door. His eyes were once again glazed over with doubts.

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  “He was fired four months ago,” the vice president said.

  “His home phone has been disconnected.”

  “Why was he fired?” I asked.

  “They didn’t say why. Only that he’d been let go and they didn’t know where he’d gone.”

  “Did you look up his name in the phone book?”

  “Yes. I called information too, just in case he’d gotten a new number recently.”

  “What about any friends?” I asked. “Or family.”

  “I don’t know any of his girlfriends’ numbers, and he was divorced two years ago.”

  “Maybe his ex-wife knows how to get in touch with him,” I suggested.

  “I don’t know her maiden name.”

  “Does she have kids?”

  “Three.”

  “Then maybe she’s using their last name.”

  Friar went back into the bedroom, closing the door behind him.

  “You plenty smart, Paris,” Fearless said, pouring himself another shot of cognac. “It’s like you look at everything like one’a them books you read.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “I know enough to jump in the Pacific but I don’t know how to swim.”

  Fearless brightened at that.

  “That’s where I come in,” he said. “You know I can swim like a dolphin. Yes, I can.”

  When Friar returned, he told us that Mrs. Irene Motley was indeed listed. She’d known Friar from a happier time and so was willing to tell him where her ex-husband had moved. He 216

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  had no phone, but that was okay because I had no intention of calling the man.

  “Let’s go over there,” I said to Friar and Fearless.

  “I should go alone,” Friar said flatly. “Brian doesn’t know you guys, and I’m the one in trouble.”

  “Hector LaTiara,” I said, “the man you know as Paul Dempsey, is dead.”

  “Dead?”

  “Murdered. Angel, who you know as Monique, has disappeared and so have Maurice and his mother. They blackmailed you and done worse. It is in your best interest to have somebody backin’ you up when you go to see this guy.”

  “Brian’s harmless. He wouldn’t have anything to do with people like that,” Friar said, dismissing my worries.

  “Did he introduce you to Monique?” I asked.

  “Yes.”

  “He’s been involved with black people and gambling, and once you were in the same situation you got blackmailed. He’s the connection between you and the trouble you’re in.”

  Martin was quiet then, contemplative.

  “He’s been fired and he can’t even afford a phone. You know there’s something wrong there.”

  Friar maintained his silence.

  “Look, man,” I said. “They got you on embezzlement. You can’t go to the cops and you’d be a fool to go it alone. Let us go wit’ you. That way we go in strength.”

  “Why should I trust you?” Friar asked. “I don’t even know your name.”

  “Robert,” I said, holding out my hand for him to shake.

  “Robert Butler, and this is Mr. Tiding. Frank.”

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  “Why should I trust you, Mr. Butler?”

  “Because I came to you,” I said. “Because I didn’t ask you for any money. Because I know the trouble you’re in and you haven’t told me a thing about it.”

  Friar’s eyes were alive with thoughts and ideas but they hadn’t, as yet, settled on a verdict.

  “Because you’re in trouble and Monique might be too. And maybe, if we’re lucky, we might pull your fat out of t
he fire along with hers.”

  Finally the self-important white man nodded.

  I let out a big sigh and Fearless rose to his feet.

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  B r i a n M o t l e y l i v e d in a residence hotel called Leontine Court on the other side of 34 downtown. The building was made from bricks that hadn’t been cleaned since the day they were laid and edged in once-white marble. The sidewalk leading to the door was so soiled and marked that it was almost as dark as the asphalt of the street. There were eighteen stairs rising to the front door. The climb told me that this hotel had been a fancy place that had come down with the neighborhood. Years ago you could have ordered sirloin steak with red wine from room service. Now the men hanging out around the entrance carried their day-old wine in back pockets. The only steak they ate had gone through the grinder.

  There was a solitary figure at the front desk sitting under a sign that read rooms $2. The gatekeeper was a small white man with large square-framed glasses. The thick lenses threw reflections around the dingy room.

  “May I help you?” he asked Mr. Friar.

  “Brian Motley, please.”

  “He’s in four-A,” the man, who was somewhere between thirty and fifty, said. “Across the courtyard and up the stairs to your left.

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  “And what about you?” the down-at-the-heels concierge asked Fearless.

  “We wit’ the white man, boss,” Fearless said with a grin.

  Th e L e o n t i n e c o u r t y a r d must have been beautiful at one time. The marble walkways ran through great planters walled in by granite bricks. But the palm trees and elephant’s ears had all died away. The huge gardens were now used for cigarette butts and broken bottles. The men and women who perched out there on stone benches were young and old, beaten down and broken.

  The sun glared pitilessly on the wide square, but the people still looked to be in shadow.

  Th e o n l y l i g h t o n the stairway leading to the fourth floor came through paneless windows open to the yard. Dirt was caked in the corners and long-legged spiders scrambled out of our path. There were big roaches too, and flies, and one pigeon that couldn’t seem to find its way out of that hell.

  F r i a r k n o c k e d o n the crayon blue door. The man who answered wore shapeless maroon pants and a strap-shouldered undershirt. The shirt, once white, was now equal parts yellow and gray.

  Brian Motley was unshaven but prebeard, five six exactly, and worn down to fit perfectly among the other residents of that slum.

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  made a slight shrug of resignation and said, “Killing me won’t help you, Marty.”

  With that he backed away from the door and shambled down a very long, very narrow hall to a small room that wasn’t worth the buildup.

  Motley’s floor hadn’t been finished or sealed in many years.

  The wood was pale and fibrous. His wooden bench and chairs had been built for outside use. There was nothing on the walls —

  hardly even paint. The only good thing about that room was a small window that looked upon downtown with its high-rises and blue skies.

  I had been in many rooms like this one since coming to L.A., but I had never seen a white man living in one. That was a real eye-opener for me. In America anyone could be poor and downtrodden. I would have spent more time thinking about that, but I was worried about someone deciding to cut my throat for finding out.

  “What’s happened to you, Brian?” Martin Friar asked his supplier of black women.

  “Who’re your friends?” Motley replied, sitting heavily on a wooden lawn chair.

  “Robert,” I said, holding out a hand. “And this is my friend Frank.”

  When Brian Motley grinned, you could see that he’d recently lost most of an upper front tooth.

  “Bob, Frankie,” he said. “Sit, sit. I found this couch three blocks from here. Can you imagine somebody throwing out something so sturdy? You know, there’s people in China take somethin’ home like this an’ pay for their kids’ education with it.”

  We all sat.

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  Martin was visibly shaken by the condition of his friend.

  There was a half-empty pint of Thunderbird wine on the tree-fiber floor. Brian took a swig from it, considered offering us some, and then decided that his generosity would be wasted.

  “What can I do for you, Marty?” he asked.

  “What has happened to you, Brian?”

  “Same thing happening to you,” the wine-soaked white man said. “Only you haven’t got to this stop yet.”

  “What are you talking about?” Friar asked. “What do you mean?”

  “They got fifteen thousand out of me before they cut me loose,” he said. “All I had to do was give ’em you and three others.”

  He giggled.

  Then he took a swig of wine.

  “Was that Sterling?” I asked, and for the first time Brian Motley’s eyes showed something akin to fear.

  “I didn’t tell you that,” he said.

  “No, but I’ll tell him you did when I find him.”

  “That’s a lie!” Brian shrieked. He jumped up from his chair, but Fearless pushed him back down with enough muscle that he decided to stay put.

  “It’s a lie,” he said again.

  “Yes,” I admitted. “And I’d be happy to omit that prevari-cation if you would tell us how we could get to the man.”

  From rage to suspicion is a long jump. Mr. Motley’s head bounced like a child’s rubber ball running out of steam. Then he said, “What?”

  “We know about Angel, or Monique,” I said. “We also know about Hector LaTiara. . . .”

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  That name struck home. Motley’s head now made a viper-like motion: serpentine without the fangs.

  “He’s dead,” I said. “Killed in his own apartment.”

  At this point Motley began breathing through his mouth. I didn’t know what that meant. Was he frightened that someone might kill him too or was he excited that a dark cloud over his head had gone away?

  “What do you want from me?”

  “Sterling.”

  “Why should I help you?”

  “Because if you don’t, I’m still going to be looking for the man. And when I do find him, I will tell him that it was you who sent me. That is unless you really do.”

  The wine garbled my words in Motley’s ears. He had to think about what I’d said for a moment or two.

  “I need much money,” he said at last.

  “How much?” I asked.

  “Two hundred,” he said. “No. No. Three, three hundred.

  Three hundred dollars in fives and tens.”

  “Can you do that, Mr. Friar?” I asked.

  “I don’t have it on me, and my bank will be closed by the time we get there.”

  “I got it if the man take twenties,” Fearless offered.

  He pulled a large wad of cash from his back pocket. This didn’t surprise me. Fearless often carried large amounts of cash. He never trusted banks.

  “Bank ain’t nuthin’ but a robbery waitin’ t’happen,” he always said.

  While Fearless peeled off the bills, I said, “Sterling.”

  “What do you want to know about him?” Motley asked, licking his lips for every third twenty Fearless thumbed.

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  “I wanna know the scam, his address, and his full name.”

  Fearless had finished counting.

  Motley looked at the money like it was a glass of water and he’d spent seven dry days in the Gobi Desert.

  “Lionel Charlemagne Sterling,” he said. “He was once a member of the Santa Anita racing commission. He also belongs to the Greenwood Golf Club.”

  “He’s the one you gave Mr. Friar’s name?” I asked.

  �
��First I met Monique,” Motley admitted. “She brought me to a few card games and showed that she was always a winner.

  I put some money with her, and she won a few times. Then she told me about a big game. I put up six thousand dollars. . . .

  Only one of it was mine. She lost and Hector came to me. He made me take more, ten thousand more. Then, when I told him I couldn’t take anything else without getting caught, he said he wanted other names. What else could I do?”

  “You could have been a man,” Martin Friar suggested.

  I wondered what the righteous Mr. Friar would have done if gangsters had threatened his lifestyle and his family for the cost of a few names.

  “Where does Sterling come in?” I asked Motley instead.

  “Hector brought me to him when I said I couldn’t steal anymore. He told me that they’d cut me loose if I played along. I gave them what they wanted, but my superiors found out about the money I took. They didn’t want a scandal, but they fired me and blackballed me. I can’t work. I can’t live. My wife won’t have me after those women. All I can do now is get on a bus and go back to Sacramento to my family.”

  He reached for the money, but I put my hand in the way.

  “Write down the list of names you gave to Sterling and his address,” I said.

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  “I don’t know where he lives,” Motley said, his voice quavering.

  “I can find him,” Friar said in that man-in-charge voice of his.

  “Okay,” I said. “Get a pencil and write down the names.”

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  We l e f t M o t l e y t o p a c k his tooth-brush and wine bottles. I had no doubt that he’d 35 return to a previous life of white poverty in central California. There he’d live out his days, drinking rotgut and jumping at bumps in the night.

  Friar had us drive him to a phone booth. There he called the Greenwood Golf Club and simply asked for the address and phone number of Lionel Charlemagne Sterling. The whole transaction took less than three minutes. They would never have let me in on those numbers. Then again, they wouldn’t have let me play golf there either. But a man like Friar, even though he was not a member, was well-known to them.