“My sister’s kids is nine an’ eleven,” I said, as if those facts should have cleared up everything.
“So?”
“They fount some bills and was playin’ with ’em like they was money.” I’ve found that talking in a way that sounds ignorant makes arrogant people like Landry feel like they are in charge.
“Let me see,” he commanded, opening the door three inches.
I handed him the envelopes I had stolen from his glove compartment.
“Where did your nephews find these?”
“Niece and nephew,” I corrected.
“Where did they find them?” he asked with greater volume.
A light-skinned young woman with a baby in her arms appeared behind Landry/Laval.
“Somethin’ wrong, Lal?” she asked.
“Go back in the other room, Kyla. Go on now.”
The baby started yowling and Kyla faded beyond the range of the screen.
“Now will you answer my question?” Lal asked.
“They just said that they fount ’em in the street,” I said.
He wanted their address, and I made up a 23rd Street location. He wanted to go over there right then, but I told him that they were at church.
“On Wednesday?” he asked.
“God don’t take no days off, Mr. Beendoo,” I replied piously.
After that he said thanks, that he would go talk to the parents later that day.
I didn’t leave when he said good-bye.
“Is there something else?” he asked.
“Well,” I hesitated. “Wasn’t there some kind of reward?”
Laval/Landry regarded me with disgust. He looked around and reached for a coin that was on a lamp stand next to the door. Fifty cents! He deserved the trouble I represented.
Fearless told Landry to drop the charges or else he’d have to tell somebody about the bigamy. Milo got involved, leading Landry through how he could make sure that Lucas wasn’t charged with a crime.
Some months later Fearless told me that Landry had offered him a thousand dollars to keep quiet.
“And you didn’t take it?” I said.
“That would’a been wrong, Paris,” Fearless told me. “You know I just wanted to do right by the boy.”
FEARLESS AND I DROVE over to a small house on Ninety-second Place. That was Elbert’s house. I knew that all the comic book kids congregated there when they weren’t at my bookstore. I knocked on the front door, but no one answered. We went around the side driveway. In the back was a red garage. The carport door was pulled down, but there was a side door that was open. We walked in on seven little boys and a full-grown man handing comic books back and forth.
“Hey, Mr. Minton, Fearless,” one of the boys droned.
The man stood up and looked at us angrily.
“Hey, Elbert,” I said to the lanky eight-year-old who had greeted us.
The man squatted back down and started putting his comic books into a brown paper bag.
“Where you goin’, Luke?” one of the boys asked.
“Home,” the man said petulantly.
He was a beautiful young man, tall and muscular with large eyes and lips that belonged on a sculpture entitled Negro Perfection. Even his white T-shirt and torn jeans didn’t take away from the image. Lucas North was made for trouble. But that wasn’t my problem.
“You got to go with us, Luke,” Fearless said.
The young man’s face broke into tears.
“Why?”
“’Cause if you don’t go to court, then Milo’s gonna have to get the cops after your momma for the bail money.”
The little boys started snickering. I could hardly blame them.
“I don’t want my momma to go to jail,” Lucas whimpered.
“Then come with us,” I said.
Lucas was just one of the kids when it came to the comic books at my store. He dropped by as much as the little ones, wanting to trade old ones for ones he hadn’t read yet.
Most of those comics were torn and tattered. But the ones on the floor were brand-new.
“Where’d you boys get new comics?” I asked Elbert.
“Mr. Wally from the market give ’em ’cause he said he was sorry that our store burned down,” the gawky, fish-eyed boy said.
“Maybe he buy you a new store,” Fearless said.
“Yeah,” I said. “Yeah, when his boss giv ’im a little raise.”
20
WE MADE the courthouse before Milo. When he came up to us sitting there with Lucas, he didn’t even give the boy a glance.
“Officer of the court been here?” he asked me.
“Yeah.”
“He sign the boy in?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Then let’s get outta here.”
I got up off the bench.
“Wait up,” Fearless complained. “I wanna know what’s gonna happen with Lucas.”
Milo took a mangled cigarette from his breast pocket and a match from his vest. He lit the cigarette with deliberation. Then he said, “We don’t have the time for that.”
“You go on then,” Fearless said. “I brought Luke down here and I’m gonna stand by ’im.”
I would have left Fearless, but Milo was not so inclined. A few minutes later the boy’s court-appointed lawyer, a white man named Todd, shuffled in and took the boy in for the sentencing. Fearless followed, but Milo and I stayed out.
Milo led me up five flights of stairs to a large and empty, granite-floored hall. We sat together on a polished mahogany bench, and Milo moved close to me like a man who was just about to get serious on a date.
“What you boys into?” he whispered. His breath was so rank that I had to swallow twice before speaking.
“What did you find?”
“Waverly, Brightwater, and Hoffman,” he replied.
“Who are they?”
“People you don’t wanna know. Lawyers that spend all their time with the mob. The kinda lawyers know where the bodies are buried.”
“So?”
Milo peered into my face. He took a deep breath and I leaned back before he could exhale. He put a hand on my neck and squeezed slightly.
“What, Milo?”
“I went down to the state courthouse and fount out that the bailbondsman for your boy is Les Haverford, a white guy work outta Santa Monica.”
I didn’t ask him anything because I wasn’t sure that I wanted to hear the answer.
“I asked him about Leon Douglas like you asked me to,” he said at last. “Had to lie and tell him that I had a man runnin’ around with Leon and that he just jumped his bond. Give him fifty bucks for an address, but that can come outta your ten percent for Lucas.”
“Is that why you brought me up here? To talk about my fee?”
“Douglas was in jail for robbery and attempted murder. He was guilty but he was railroaded too. He did it all right, but they never got the right goods.”
“That’s what Fearless said,” I said, to fill in Milo’s suspicious silence.
“He the one told me about the mob lawyer and whatnot.” Milo stalled again, giving me that questioning stare.
“Come on, Milo. Finish what you got to say or let’s go. This ain’t no interrogation.”
“No?”
“Did you find out where Douglas lives?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s all I want.”
“No it ain’t. Least it better not be.”
“What, Milo?”
“Waverly and them are bad news. And they’re your boy Douglas’s lawyers. They don’t walk into court without ten thousand dollars in their pockets. They the kind if you a witness against ’em, you might just end up dead. I never heard’a Waverly comin’ in on no colored case. They do the Jewish mob and the old money when they cross the line. Niggahs don’t mean a thing to them.”
I was clenching my hands together. My nails were biting into the skin, but I couldn’t let go.
“What you an’ Fearless into, Paris?” Milo Sweet asked.
“I don’t know, Milo,” I said. “I don’t know. I was just sittin’ in my bookstore, that’s all.”
“That innocent act ain’t gonna save you, boy. You got to know where you steppin’ on somethin’ like this.”
I told Milo everything I knew. About Fanny and Sol, about Elana Love and Reverend Grove. I told him about the car chase where they were shooting at me and about them burning down my bookstore. Some of it he already knew, but I laid out everything so he’d know exactly where I stood.
“So you see,” I explained. “I didn’t start nuthin’. I mean, a man got to seek out some justice if he been done wrong, right?”
“Not if justice gonna be your own hangin’.”
The words bore down into my mind. I pulled my hands apart and rubbed them down my chest. It wasn’t that Milo had let me know something so much more terrible than I already knew. But his point of view let me stand back and see how frightening my situation was.
“But there is one thing,” Milo suggested.
“What’s that?”
“If Waverly’s in it, then there’s a whole lotta money involved for sure. I ain’t talkin’ ’bout no colored money now, Paris. I ain’t talkin’ ’bout six months’ rent or new-car kinda money. I’m talkin’ Swiss ski chalet. I’m talkin’ luxury for life.”
Or death, I thought.
“So what you sayin’, Miles?”
“Let’s work together. Let’s find out where the money’s comin’ from. Let’s skim a little luxury off ’a the top.”
“I thought you was so scared’a these boys?” I asked.
“I am,” he agreed vigorously. “Them boys scare me. They should scare you too. Shit. These boys is serious.”
“But you still want in with me an’ Fearless?”
“Just ’cause I’m scared don’t make me no coward,” Milo claimed. “I don’t want them white boys feelin’ that just ’cause they walk in the room that I’m’a scurry out like I’m some kinda rat or cockroach. Naw, baby, scared keep ya sharp.”
FEARLESS, LUCAS, AND INEZ were waiting out in front of the courthouse when Milo and I came down. Inez was grinning at Fearless, holding his hand. He took it all in good spirit, but I could tell that Inez wanted something more tangible.
“Thank you, Mr. Minton,” Lucas said. “They makin’ me do community service with the county park department, but you know that’s good. The judge said that if I learned somethin’ they might just give me a real job there.”
“Thank you, Paris,” Inez said. “And thank you for believing in us, Mr. Sweet.”
“Uh-huh,” the ex-lawyer grunted. “Fearless, you, me, an’ Paris gotta talk.”
“Okay, Milo,” the war hero said.
Inez didn’t want to let go at first. But Fearless finally managed to disentangle himself.
“You gonna call me, Fearless?” she asked.
“Just as soon as I get me a phone, baby. Just as soon as I get me a phone.”
“WE WORK IT together and split whatever profit three ways,” Milo said to us at his office after sending Loretta out for sandwiches.
“Not that I wanna insult you, Milo,” Fearless said, “but what you gonna do for us to deserve a third?”
“I found out about Douglas and his lawyers, didn’t I?” Milo whined.
“We agreed to find Lucas in trade,” I said.
“I let you sleep in my office.”
“That’s about two percent,” I said. “Where’s the other thirty-one and a third?”
“You’ll definitely need professional help if it comes to making bonds into money,” Milo suggested.
“That could work on a percentage,” I replied. “And not nowhere near the kind you want. I mean, you can’t even practice law, Miles. If we needed someone in a courtroom, we’d have to hire somebody else.”
It was a ritual dance. The conclusion was foregone. Fearless and I wanted Milo in it with us. He was smart and he knew things we didn’t, and he was less likely to turn us over than some other men we knew. But the problem we had — the problem we always had — was money.
“How much?” Milo asked.
“The same amount you was gonna lose on Lucas,” I said.
“Six hundred dollars!”
“That’s it,” Fearless chimed.
“In cash, in our hands, right now,” I added.
“This come back on the other end,” Milo amended.
“Uh-uh,” I said. “Our blood, your money, that’s the fuel and the investment.”
When Mr. Sweet put those thirty twenty-dollar bills on the desk I knew that he believed in us. I was a young man then. His faith would only mean something to a young fool.
21
THE FIRST THING Fearless and I did was to drive over to Merrydale Circle, a single-story court of apartments on Ninety-fifth Street. Fontanelle Roberts was the superintendent of the nine units there. She rented to tenants by the week and paid the owners based on a monthly rent schedule. Monthly rent was forty dollars, but she charged eleven bucks a week.
Fontanelle was also a bookie, a fence, and a go-between when somebody needed the services of a criminal or a shady doctor or lawyer, all of whom she held in the same low esteem. She was a small woman with dark red skin, Negro features, and black eyes. She always wore a dress and hat. She carried a purse too. In that purse was a dull gray .45. I knew about the gun because she once showed it to me and said that she celebrated every January 1 by firing off the old bullets and then reloading with fresh ammunition for the new year.
“Hi, Fearless,” the older woman cried, honestly happy to see my friend. “Paris.”
“Hey, Fell,” I said. Fearless echoed my greeting.
“What happent to yo bookstore, Paris? I seen it all burned down. They was clearin’ off the lot.”
“Who was?”
“Workmen. Had a fancy truck with writin’ on it, but I didn’t stop to read.”
I wanted to know more about the lot I’d left behind, but there was no time for nostalgia with the tasks before me and Fearless Jones.
“You got a place for us?” Fearless asked.
“How long you boys wanna stay?”
“We’ll pay for the month,” I said, knowing that the price went up if you didn’t pay four and a half weeks in advance.
“You got furniture?” the ebony-eyed businesswoman wanted to know.
We didn’t answer.
“I had Florence Landis move out real quick last week. She left one adult bed and another one for her boy. There’s a table and chairs and some kitchen supplies. Two dollars more a week and you can have it.”
“Okay,” I said, going for my pocket.
Fontanelle reached out to stay my hand.
“Is this just livin’, or is it bidness?” she asked.
“Livin’,” I said.
Fontanelle didn’t have anything against me. We had done bidness in the past and I never gave her any reason to question me, but she turned to Fearless, the same question in her glance.
