stuffing and at least one spring. The wood floor was uncovered, unpainted, and un-swept. There was a console radio against the wall and a boarded-up window that allowed a few shafts of sunlight to poke through. The room was longer than it was wide, and it wasn’t that long. There were two chairs and a table with a hot plate and various dirty dishes thereupon. But there was also a tall glass vase holding three long-stemmed white roses that were as big as apples and lovelier than summer clouds. They released an odd but still sweet odor that seemed familiar but not like roses.
“What you want, Mr. Minton?”
“Call me Paris,” I said.
“Okay.”
“Call me Paris.”
“Okay… Paris.”
“Now talk to me about my store,” I said.
“What you mean?” The clerk hunched up one shoulder and listed to that side. He smiled like a fool who couldn’t possibly know anything. But that act wasn’t going to work on me.
Fearless strolled over to one of the chairs and sat down. The movement seemed to alarm Wally.
“What you talkin’ ’bout Mr. — I mean, Paris?”
“I mean that dude beat on me didn’t burn down my store. He said he didn’t, and he had no reason to lie. So somebody else must’a did it.”
“I don’t know who did it,” Wally claimed.
“Now that’s a lie.”
He was trembling there in front of us, looking around as if he expected some accomplice to jump out and save his life. But no one jumped, and we were still there.
Wally belched loudly. His face contorted with nausea.
“Why you quit that market?” I asked.
Theodore tried to look me in the eye, but he couldn’t. He struggled against tears and was mostly successful.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered. And then, when he’d gained more of a mastery over his tears, “I’m sorry,” in a surer tone.
“That’s okay, man,” I said. “That’s okay. Just tell me what you know. ’Cause you know I plan to get my due.”
Theodore Wally was as scared a man as I had ever seen. He was trembling, near tears and full of gas, but still he managed to maintain the semblance of a man standing his ground. I couldn’t understand why he was so afraid.
“I’m sorry I burned down your bookstore, Paris,” he said.
“What!
“He told me to, and I did it ’cause I always did what he said. Mr. Antonio was like my father, you know. I been with him fourteen years, since I was a kid.”
“
“I told him about the man, the man who hit you. I told him that I saw you drive off, and then I saw that man go after you in his car with bull horns. He said to wait till late, an’ if you didn’t come back to burn down your store. He paid me, but I couldn’t stand it, so I quit. He gave me eight hundred dollars. But you can have it, Mr. Minton.” With that he fell on his knees and reached under the sofa, coming out with a manila envelope. He ripped the paper pouch open and grabbed at the tens and twenties as they fell. He went down on his knees again, gathering the money up. When he had gotten it in two fistfuls, he held them up to me and said, “Take it. Please take it and forgive me.”
“Damn,” Fearless said.
I knew what he was thinking, that I had gotten into more trouble in one day than he had in a lifetime. It made me mad, so mad that I slapped the clerk with the back of my hand.
It wasn’t a hard slap, but it caused Theodore to bleed from the corner of his mouth.
“Take it,” he said again.
“How could you do that to me, man?”
“He told me that you’d get the insurance. He said that his lease was up and that he needed to buy the lot next door or he was gonna go outta business. He said you’d get the insurance and that nobody’d get hurt if you was gone. It
