Walter Mosley - Fear Itself

“What are you talking about?”

“Can we go out in your garden, Miss Fine?” I asked. “I mean, I like your room here, but I want to make sure that there aren’t any ears to catch me in my report.”

She cut her eyes at the far door and then toward the book- case.

“Yes,” she said. “That might be a good idea.”

THE AIR IN HER GARDEN smelled richer than your everyday atmosphere. Big monarch butterflies and half a dozen other varieties wafted above our heads. There were two stone benches at the far side of the fountain. Miss Fine sat down and Fearless and I parked ourselves on either side of her.

“What do you have to say, Mr. Minton?”

“Do you know a man named Maestro Wexler?” I asked.

“Yes,” she said. At first her expression was neutral, almost bland. But then a stitch of anxiety showed through.

“Do you have any business dealings with Wexler?”

“No. I mean . . . I don’t have any dealings with him but . . .”

“But what?”

“Five years ago I began buying up corner lots in Compton, through a company owned by my cosmetics corporation. That way the people I bought from thought that I was the same color as the lawyer who brokered the purchases.”

“And now Wexler wants those lots?”

“He wants to put in gas stations. He has a big contract for stations in Compton.”

“You can’t own all the corners of the whole town.”

“I own enough to compete with him. I could put in forty or fifty stations myself.”

Forty or fifty. I could see why Milo salivated whenever he spoke her name.

“You refused to sell?”

“I offered to go into business with him but he was too greedy. I decided to hold on to my property. Why not? I don’t need him.”

“Have you heard from him lately?”

“No. What is this about?”

“Two of his children have been murdered.”

“Oh my God. That’s terrible.”

She seemed actually horrified. And I didn’t believe that a woman of her caliber would put on an act for people like Fearless and me.

“Didn’t you hear about it on the news?” I asked.

“I don’t listen to the radio. Nor do I watch television.”

“What about the papers?”

“I have Oscar read to me those stories that are salient to our concerns.”

She was like a child. Completely cut off from the world, so that all that was important was her needs and her desires. In her world me and mine had never drawn a breath. The drama and tragedy of everyday people was invisible to her. In a way she was like Maestro Wexler sitting on his throne. I could see where money affected both of them more than race. It was the first time I had ever actually witnessed the power of money and class in forming character.

“I think his children’s deaths have to do with something they were hatching up with BB,” I said. “Him and Kit Mitchell.”

Winifred had a poker face that could have broken the confidence of the most seasoned dealer. She might have been isolated but she knew how to play the game.

“I don’t see what you mean, Mr. Minton.”

“BB offered us ten thousand dollars to find Kit. He put a thousand down on that offer. Maestro offered me ten thousand to find BB. He also plunked down a grand. You already gave me near a thousand in five-dollar bills. That’s three thousand that two poor black men have collected, and we haven’t done a thing but ask questions and survive the answers.”

“You want more money,” Winifred Fine said.

“A white man says his name is Theodore Timmerman open fire on me and Fearless two mornings ago. All we did was call his name. He was willing to kill us and all he wanted to know was your identity.”

“Me?”

“Yes ma’am,” I said.

“And he was shooting at you?”

“Like it was the Fourth of July,” Fearless said.

I glanced at my friend then. It was an unspoken rule we had that he would stay quiet when I was asking questions. He never understood the verbal nuances of complex discussions. I wondered why he wanted to be a part of our talk.

“What did he want with me?” Winifred asked.

“Milo sent him out lookin’ for the man BB was workin’ with. You know—Kit Mitchell. Somewhere out there he found out that he could make more money on his own. It’s my bet that he figured the money would come from you but he didn’t know your name. Fearless and me was just crows in the road.”

“I, I, I’m sorry,” she said.

“Sorry’s all good and well,” I replied. “But what I would like to know is what’s goin’ on?”

Miss Fine stood up. She walked toward a large rosebush until her face was in among the leaves.

She said something that only the flowers heard.

“What?” I asked.

“It was just a piece of colored crystal,” she said, turning back to us. “Green. An emerald surrounded by white sapphires. Have you ever seen a white sapphire, Mr. Minton?”

“I can’t say that I have.”

“They look like diamonds only the glow is softer. They’re beautiful. In the old days they used to give them for weddings. It meant good fortune and a happy life. My father got me a necklace with a single emerald surrounded by those sapphires.”

“He must’a been rich as you,” Fearless said.

“No. Not really. He had a farm. It was pretty large. But he sold a quarter of his acreage when he saw that pendant in a New Orleans jewelry store window.” Winifred was far away in a dream of days gone by. “He loved me and he was superstitious too. He believed that if he made a sacrifice and gave me that gift that I would have a blessed life. He never saw that the real blessing was his love.”

“So BB stole your father’s dowry?”

“He got Oscar to hire this Kit Mitchell. Mr. Mitchell worked for three weeks and then he left—at our request. A few days after that, Oscar realized that the pendant was missing.”

“And so,” I said, “they intended to use that to make you give up on the property.”

“I can’t see how,” she said. “I loved my father, not that piece of crystal. It’s worth no more than ten or twelve thousand dollars. Maybe because BB knew the story he thought that I would be swayed. But I can assure you that nothing would make me give up on my Compton properties.”

“Do you know a man named Brown?” I asked then.

“What is his first name?”

“I don’t know. He calls himself Brown, and when he wanted someone to call him he gave out Oscar’s number.”

“Maybe he worked here,” she said. “I wouldn’t know.”

“How about Oscar? Would he know?”

“Ask him.”

“Why are you looking for your nephew?” It was my last attempt to decipher this straight-faced woman.

“When I found out that Bartholomew had suggested this Kit Mitchell for the job, I assumed that he would know where to find my necklace. That’s why I need to talk to Bartholomew, to tell him to have my property returned.”

“How would BB know where you kept the necklace?”

“He and my niece, Leora, used to play with it when they were children. They both knew where all my jewelry was.”

“So what you want is the necklace and not your nephew at all.”

“That’s right. But I want to speak to Bartholomew, to tell him that I no longer consider him a member of our family.”

“Uh-huh. So if me and Fearless get the necklace and make it so you have your chat with BB, then we’re clear?”

“Certainly, Mr. Minton.”

“BB seemed to think that you would be willing to commit violence against him if he didn’t return your property,” I said as a primer for further discussion.

“That is ridiculous,” Winifred L. Fine said. “Violence is the last resort of the desperate.”

“Okay,” I said. “Let us go out there and see what we can see.”

I touched Fearless’s arm to indicate that it was time for our departure.

“One more thing,” Winifred Fine said. “What about the man who shot at you? Is he still after me?”

“Don’t you worry about him, ma’am,” Fearless said. “He came down with a chest cold and now he’s laid up for the season.”

30

FEARLESS DROVE US DOWN the dirt road toward the street.

“Where to now, Paris?” he asked me.

“I don’t know. We could wait for BB to call us and then ask him how a twelve-thousand-dollar piece of jewelry’s gonna be fifty thousand, or maybe what the Wexler kids had to do with it.”

“You think he’d tell us that?”

“Maybe,” I said. “Maybe if we threatened to drag him out here if he didn’t.”

We were approaching Baloona Creek when a woman dressed in a long formal gown and carrying a small brown bag ran in front of Ambrosia’s car. Fearless hit the brakes and swerved to miss her. When she came up to the window I couldn’t speak for a moment because of the shock of almost running Rose Fine down.

“You okay?” Fearless asked.

“Yeah,” I said before realizing that he was talking to the crazy woman.

“Help me get away from here,” she cried desperately.

“Hop in,” Fearless said.

He jumped out and ushered her in through the rear door. Then he got back in the driver’s seat and drove off as if he were a chauffeur and I was his assistant.

“Fearless?”

“Yeah, Paris?”

“What are we doin’?”

“I don’t know. Where you wanna go, Miss Fine?”

“Anyplace not near that house, young man,” she said. “Anywhere I can get away from them crazy people.”

Fearless nodded slightly and continued on. I guess he figured that no matter which way he drove he’d be meeting her request.

“Miss Fine,” I said.

“Yes, young man.”

“I’m Paris. And I’d like to know why you want to run away from your own home.”

“Because it’s all gonna come out now. All of it. Winifred won’t be able to stop the walls of Jericho. No she won’t. But she’s just willful enough to believe that she can.”

“What’s going to happen?”

“Everything we have will be squandered, stolen, and burned in hell,” she said. “Too many secrets, too many lies.”

“What kind of secrets?” I asked.

“I was a prisoner in there. No money and no car. And now not even no love.”

I had very little confidence in the mad-eyed woman’s ability to understand or communicate the truth. I had no idea what Fearless planned to do with her. But there we were, so I played the game as if I were privy to the rules.

“Who was Bartholomew’s mother?” I asked.

“That would be Ethel,” Rose said. She was staring out of the window, smiling at the passing strawberry farms as if they were strange new sights in a distant land.

“She’s the one that started the beauty business?”

“No,” Rose said, turning her cracked grin on me. “Our mother started the beauty product company. She named it after Ethel because Ethel was her firstborn and her favored girl. Ethel was the oldest, then came me, and then Winnie.”

“And so you all owned the business equally?”

“Oh yes,” Rose said. “Mama made sure that we were always equal. She had her favorites, but blood is blood.”

“And Ethel was the favorite child?”

“Oh no,” Rose assured me. “It’s always a boy that has his mother’s heart.”

“You have a brother?”

“Of course we do. I thought you knew. Oscar is our brother.”

“The butler?” Fearless asked.

“It’s his own fault,” she said, reciting a well-rehearsed speech. “When he was a young man he insisted to be paid for his part of the beauty supply company. We bought him out and he lost it all inside of three years. Winnie told him if he wanted to come back he had to work for us.”