I counted out five wrinkled one-dollar bills followed by a five.
“They was in Compton three weeks ago, down on Alameda somewhere. At least that’s what I heard.”
“You know the address?”
“Uh-uh. But you could find it if you looked.”
“When do they have meetings?”
“Every night they can.”
Fearless pulled up in front of The Beauty Shop and parked.
“Is that it?” Dorthea asked.
“You know how we can find Elana Love?”
“That bitch? No.”
She grabbed the handle and opened the door, but before she could exit, Fearless reached out for her shoulder.
“You wanna go to Rackman’s tonight?”
Looking at his hand, Dorthea said, “Yeah.”
“Paris and me gotta do somethin’ at eight, but I could be down to get you by ten-thirty.”
“You could pick me up at the Charles Diner on Eighty-ninth. I’m supposed to see my sister there.”
They lingered for a moment, him looking at her and her looking at his fingers, and then she climbed out. Fearless watched her Chinese shuffle into the shop before he drove off.
“Man, don’t we have enough to do without you makin’ dates in the middle?” I asked.
“I been in jail for three months, Paris. You know I’m starvin’ for what Dorthea can feed me.”
“Oh,” I said. “Oh, yeah.”
“Paris?”
“Yeah?”
“Where’d you get that money?”
“What money?”
“That money you give Dorthea.”
“Borrowed it from Milo.”
I could see in Fearless’s eyes that he knew I was lying, but he didn’t press it. That’s the kind of friends we were.
12
RYA MCKENZIE WAS a stern young woman with close-cropped hair and walnut-colored eyes. Her skin was the color of forest shadows, and her judgment was swift. If she didn’t like you, you knew it and stayed away, but if she was your friend, you’d never want for anything that she could provide.
She kissed Fearless and shook my hand, greeted us both with brief hellos, and then led us from the nurses’ station for pediatrics to a small room furnished with a long, rickety table that supported a coffee urn, three boxes of sugar-glazed doughnuts, and a small stack of paper cups and plates next to a jumble of disposable utensils made from wood.
“When did you get out of jail?” Rya asked Fearless when we were all seated on folding chairs.
“Yesterday. Paris paid my fine.”
“So what kinda trouble you in then?” she asked me.
“Conrad Till,” I said, as blandly as I could manage. It was nice to see her disapproval turn into something wary.
She half rose from her squeaky chair and looked around for spies.
“What you got to do with that?”
“Conrad was a friend of a woman I need to find. His name came up when I was lookin’ for her, and then I heard he’d died.”
Fearless nodded, going along with my half-lie. He had a philosophy about lying.
“I don’t know nuthin’ ’bout no foul-mouthed murdered man,” Rya said.
“You say he’s foul-mouthed,” I said. “But the evenin’ papers said that he never regained consciousness.”
