Walter Mosley - Fear Itself

There was no more information on Craighton. A new player with no face or even a race. He had to be rich, that’s all I knew for sure.

Later entries were about Fearless and me. I ripped out those pages and returned the book to its place in the drawer.

I spent another hour searching the garage-office. Under a loose tile I found a rusty metal toolbox that had stacks of twenty- and fifty-dollar bills in it. It was a lot of money but I didn’t have my usual sticky-fingered reaction. When I looked at that money all I could think of was those pictures of perverts and corpses. Blood money was one thing but Ted Timmerman’s money was drenched in filth. Try as I might, I couldn’t bring myself to touch it.

I left the house of evil at about eight forty-five.

41

WHEN I GOT BACK HOME Icleaned my place from top to bottom. I washed the floors and windows and walls. I dusted and scrubbed until the whole place smelled of cleaning fluid. By four that afternoon I was exhausted.

It might seem that I had wasted the day on trivial matters, but that’s not true. While I mopped and swept I was thinking and plotting. The murder of the Wexler kids was ordered by an enemy of Maestro Wexler, of that much I was sure. This faceless foe, named only Craighton, had hired Timmerman to take out the kids and steal the book. With the book this new player—also a millionaire, I surmised—would shake down Winifred and get control of the prime property in Compton.

All I had to do was figure out who it was that stood to gain from the loss of both Wexler and Fine. That might have been an impossible task, but I had one advantage: Bradford, the personal secretary and self-styled mother hen of the Wexler clan.

I had to wait until nine that evening to use the number the personal secretary had given me, but that was fine. I spent a couple of hours rereading the poem “Little Gidding” from the Four Quartets by T. S. Eliot. The language swept me away until six, when the phone rang.

“Hello,” I said, with a fair certainty that it would be Fearless on the other end of the line.

“Paris?” she asked. “Have you heard from Fearless?”

“Hey, Ambrosia. No, I ain’t seen ’im since early this morning.”

“What you call him for anyway? You know he ain’t been back here since then.”

“He said that he had some business with a man he wanted me to introduce him to. Probably they got down to some work.” I was pleased being obscure with the taciturn Ambrosia.

“I’m worried about him, Paris. He said that we were gonna go to Big Mama’s Bar-B-Q Pit tonight.”

“It’s okay, honey. You know Fearless is the last man on earth you gotta worry about. John D. Rockefeller got more to worry about than Fearless Jones.”

“I know you right,” she said. “But I just get worried and I can’t stop myself.”

“Well all right then,” I said. “I’ll go out and see if I can find him. The minute I see him I’ll make sure he calls your number.”

“Thank you, Paris,” she said sweetly. “I’m sorry I cussed at you before. You know I get kinda surly when people mess up my plans.”

“And I’m sorry I bothered you, baby. But you got to know that I just called ’cause Fearless wanted me to help him.”

“With what?”

“I’d like to tell ya, Ambrosia. I truly would, but you know Fearless don’t like his business out the box.”

“Okay then,” she said. “You tell him to call me, though.”

“I will.”

I also wondered where Fearless could be. Had he been found with the corpse? I turned on the radio and listened to three newscasts, but none of them said anything about a gold Chrysler, a black man named Tristan, or the recently deceased Theodore Timmerman.

BY NINE NO ONE ELSE had called or dropped by. I dialed Bradford’s number and he answered a quarter of the way into the first ring.

“Yes?”

“Bradford, it’s Paris Minton calling.”

“Mr. Minton. How can I be of service?”

“It’s me can help you,” I said. “I think I have some information that you might want to have. It has to do with your boss, his kids, and some fellah that’s been pulling the strings from behind the scene.”

“Who is that?”

“Why don’t we get together?” I suggested. “Then maybe we can share information and come to some kind of agreement that will make everybody as happy as they can be.”

“All right. There’s a little park off Lucile Avenue near Hoover,” Bradford said. “Do you know it?”

“No. But I can find it.”

“Why don’t we meet there now?”

“No thanks,” I said. “You know my score on nighttime meetings ain’t too good.”

“I can promise you that Louis won’t be there.”

“Promise me that you’ll meet me at nine tomorrow morning and I’ll be a happy man.”

“All right,” Bradford said in a resigned tone. “Tomorrow at nine. There’s a bench near the sidewalk, across from a French café.”

“I’ll be there.”

I WENT TO BED but not to sleep. I just lay there in the dark thinking about how I’d almost died and how I took a man’s life. I had never killed before. Many a time I had been in the room where people had expired violently, but I never pulled the trigger or drove the blade. Theodore Timmerman’s files and his own rank breath clung to me in the darkened room. The depravity and certainty of death created a sad conviction in my heart.

At ten minutes to four Fearless knocked at the door. I knew it was him because I was awake and when I’m conscious I know Fearless’s knock.

“Hey, Paris,” was all he said when I admitted him.

“How are you?” I asked. “Ambrosia was so worried that she called me.”

“I was doin’ things that we don’t need to talk about, man. But you don’t have to worry about Teddy no more.”

I told Fearless about the killer’s house and the obscure notes on the murders.

“Damn that’s cold,” Fearless said after taking it all in. “Sometime people get like that. I seen boys in the war would line up prisoners for target practice. Sometimes they raped and killed more than they fought the enemy. And it wasn’t just the Germans or the Russians. Sometimes you had blue-blood American rich boys rollin’ in the blood. I think there’s just some kinda men made for killin’ and hurtin’. Just one little scratch and they like to go off.”

“Well at least we don’t have to worry about Timmerman anymore,” I said, and then I told Fearless that I was going to meet Bradford, to find out who our friend Mr. Craighton might be.

“Hey,” Fearless said. “That’s a helluva lot easier than makin’ a man disappear from the face of the earth.”

I didn’t ask about what he meant. I didn’t want to know.

“You know I gave you up to him, Fearless.”

“And then you beat him to death. That’s okay.”

“No, man. You shouldn’t put your trust in me. I was so scared when he grabbed me that I told him where you were in a second. Even Milo lied to the man when asked to give up Winifred Fine.”

“Milo lied to save his chance at kissin’ millionaire butt,” Fearless said.

“That doesn’t absolve me.”

“Paris, when I got in trouble I came to you. And you agreed to help me. Now if while you helpin’ me some man says he’s gonna take your life, you should give me up. Don’t worry, baby. You’n me is tight.”

42

I GOT TO THE PARK on Lucile Avenue at eight-fifteen. I like to be early to potentially clandestine meetings. That way I can scout out all the exits and escape routes before it’s too late.

There was a French café across the street. Instead of a name there was the picture of a fat chicken wearing a beret as the sign. I moved over toward an alley and took out a newspaper that I pretended to read while waiting for the private secretary to arrive.

I wasn’t worried about Bradford. He seemed like a good guy, a concerned employee. We were the same kind, he and I, thinkers. I would have bet that he was a reader. He was satisfied with his position in life. So was I.

At least I had been until people started talking about hundred-thousand-dollar books. At first I wanted the Fine family diary for myself, but as time had gone by I had begun to crave the money. I had never known a Negro who had a hundred thousand dollars before the day I met Winifred Fine. That kind of money could make a whole new life for me. Even if I had to share it with Fearless I’d still be rich. I could open a bookstore down by the ocean and have the two things I loved most in life: reading and the sea.

Bradford arrived at ten to nine. He wore a simple gray suit that had seen its day of wear. He looked around and then sat on a park bench perched at the edge of the grassy lawn and facing out across the street. Bradford was erect and expectant. He was my doorway to riches. He would know the identity of Maestro Wexler’s nemesis. Wexler’s enemy was mine because he was after the book that was going to make me a rich man. After dealing with him I could sell the book back to Oscar or, if he couldn’t make the grade, I could sell it to Maestro and he could close the deal with Winifred Fine directly. Either way I’d get paid for my services and the world of Theodore Timmerman would slowly fade from my mind.

At three minutes after nine I crossed the street to Bradford. Looking both ways many times before reaching the opposite side, I noticed the French café twice. The second view of the silhouetted chicken set off a bell in my head.

“Mr. Minton,” Bradford said, rising as I approached him.

“Mr. Bradford.” I stuck out my hand.

We shook and sat down side by side on the park bench.

There was the café again.

“So, Mr. Minton,” Bradford said. “You have information for me.”

“It’s a nice morning, isn’t it?” I said.

“Why yes,” he replied with a friendly smile.

I’m sure he thought that I wanted to impose some decorum on our meeting, when really I was stalling for time. The café disturbed me, though I had no idea why. I had never been on that street as far as I remembered. But still there was a vague apprehension.

“I like this spot,” Bradford continued. “It reminds me of my younger days in Paris, before the war.”

It was him saying my name, that’s what did it. My name, the capital of France, the country where people spoke French, where the term chicken would be translated poulet —or to the unenlightened, pull lay.

“You lived in Europe?” I asked.

“Yes. I was the assistant to Parnell Wexler, Maestro’s uncle, in the thirties. I had a small apartment on the Left Bank and walked down the Seine to work every morning.”

“I hear that the weather is terrible in Paris,” I said. “My friend Fearless spent six months there, on and off, after they threw out the Germans. He said that he didn’t see the sunshine again until he was back in the U.S.”

“It’s a glorious town,” Bradford said, the nostalgia in his voice deepening his Australian accent. “Beyond weather concerns. The art and architecture, the people and the language, are the very top of human potential.”

He was a white man and he had an accent. Maybe Charlotta didn’t know any accents but the ones that Mexicans had. Maybe the word Mexican meant accent to her.

“What’s your first name, Bradford? You know, if we’re going to be working together. We might as well be on a first-name basis. You can call me Paris.”

“Bradford is my first name, Paris,” he said easily. “Bradford Craighton.”