I shouldn’t let whatever Solly’s done get me in trouble. I should tell someone if I know something is wrong. I think he’d give Gella over to the police if he saw her walking on a red light.”
“You don’t like the police, Fanny?” Fearless asked.
“I have seen the soldiers. I have seen them kill. I saw what they did to you. The police are swine.” The vehemence in her voice left no room for argument.
Not that I wanted to argue with her. The best cop I ever saw was the cop who wasn’t there.
The doorbell was three quick high notes, a pause, and then a long tone.
Blood jumped up and started barking. Worry knitted itself in Fanny’s face. I shared her emotion, but Fearless just walked to the front door in his blue boxers and opened it. I went to the kitchen door, Fanny came up behind me.
I couldn’t see who it was, but Fearless knew him.
“Hello,” he said, then he paused and called out, “Fanny, do you want to talk to Sergeant Latham?”
“Uh… um… oh… uh—what does he want?” Fanny asked.
Fearless turned and said something and then turned again. “He just wants to talk, ma’am. I think he wants to know more about what happened yesterday.”
“I guess,” Fanny said.
She and I came into the living room.
Big, blocky, and blond Bernard Latham walked in. He wore a light tan suit that was a bit large even on his frame, designed for quick movement. When I saw him I took a half step backward. That was the fear I’d inherited from his interrogation.
“Did you find out who attacked my husband?” Fanny asked.
“Yeah,” the sergeant replied. “You and your two darkies here.”
Fearless’s greatest strength is also his greatest weakness; his fists had a mind of their own. Given the right circumstances Fearless could hit a man so fast that later on, when the man recovered, he couldn’t remember what had happened.
Reluctantly I moved to stand between Fearless and Latham.
“If you have come to my house to insult my friends, you can leave now,” Fanny said.
I liked her more every minute.
“I thought you said that you just met these boys yesterday?” Latham asked.
“They have no place to stay, they saved my husband’s life, and for that you beat them. What else could I do but offer them a bed?”
Latham grinned and chortled. “Maybe they’re in that bed with you.”
“In what?” I asked, me, a man without a paddle or rudder.
“Her husband’s a convicted embezzler,” Latham told me. “He’s all mixed up with the underworld. A real Jew. Good enough that he took the money and covered the trail so well that they could only get him for the tip of the iceberg. But there’s millions missing. They just have to find out how he made it disappear.”
Millions. My brain became a fine screen, filtering out everything but the notion of money.
“That’s a lie, and you’re a liar,” Fanny said in that tone of hers. “Solly told me that he never stole anything, and he wouldn’t lie to me.”
I’d’ve lied to Saint Peter for just a hundred thousand dollars.
“Is that all you have to say?” the cop replied.
Fanny was too angry to speak.
“Maybe you think you can get away with it. But I’m watching you.” He expanded his hands to include me and Fearless. “All of you.”
“Every cop I ever seen been watchin’ me, officer,” Fearless offered. “I once spent three months on a Texas chain gang for spittin’ on the sidewalk instead’a the street.”
“If you could do that, I guess you’d kill for some good money, eh, son?” Latham asked.
“I wouldn’t rob ya,” Fearless replied. “But I would spit on you after you was dead.”
That was the line right there, the line that should never be crossed with a cop. Once you stood straight up and looked him in the eye he had to knock you down, or the whole system would stop working.
