will do whatever I can.”
“Where’d you say you knew Sol from?” I asked in a bushwhack sort of way.
“We were from the same town, like I told you,” he said in a whispery tone, “but that was long ago.”
“And he introduced you to Morris?”
“No,” Zev said. “That’s what’s funny. I met Morris only in the last year. We were doing business together, and while we were talking I found out that he was married to Sol’s niece.”
“I thought that Morris worked for a bank?” I asked.
“That’s right.” The tiny man reached out for my hand.
His skin was dry and papery, a little cool.
A few minutes after he left I shuddered, recalling the feel of his onionskin hand on my fingers.
17
ZEV MINOR’S VISIT faded quickly from my thoughts. I felt sluggish once alone again. The death of Fanny Tannenbaum had hit me hard. She was just an old white woman, that’s what I thought, but she reminded me of the women in my own family. She was strong and brave in the face of people much more powerful than she. She was sweet and comfortable in the company of strange men. Maybe she even sparkled a little while cooking for us and ironing our clothes.
I knew that I should be doing something, but I didn’t remember what.
I went through the library in the den, finally resting my eyes on a book, the title of which I had never seen before.
For a moment or so I forgot about my problems and started to read the words of the long-dead Russian.
I suppose that the lock on the front door had been wedged open by the cops, because he just walked on in without rousing me from my reverie. When I sensed a shadow passing somewhere at the edge of my peripheral vision I jumped, screamed, and threw my book all at the same time. Luckily my aim was bad and Fearless had stayed back, knowing how jumpy I could be sometimes.
“Hey, Paris,” he said, holding his hands up in mock surrender. “I give.”
He wore black jeans and a denim jacket of the same color over a gray shirt. There was a watch with a gold band on his wrist and a pair of sunglasses stuffed in the breast pocket of his new jacket.
I wanted to crack wise about his new wardrobe, but the fear that made me jump was deeper than just edginess.
“What’s wrong, Paris?”
“They killed Fanny.”
Fearless and I hadn’t met until we were both full-grown men, but I felt that I knew him as a child, because every once in a while the boy would come out in his face. Loss and disbelief erased any swagger from the sex he had had with Dorthea the night before.
“No.”
Blood padded in from the doorway and regarded his newfound master.
“Somebody came in and choked her.”
“Where were you, Paris?”
“I was out lookin’ for them Messenger people. Didn’t come in till about eleven. I went over her niece’s house to get her, but Fanny’d already come here.”
Fearless hunkered down on the floor, elbows on his knees, hands propped on either side of his face. Blood licked a hand, but Fearless pushed him away.
“Who did it, man?”
He wasn’t looking at me, but still I only shook my head.
Fearless stood up all at once.
“Muthahfuckah,” he said, and then he grabbed me by the front of my shirt and lifted me from the floor.
He raised his fist, but I didn’t resist. Fearless was one of the kindest men I ever met, but the devil lived in him too. In a rage he was capable of murder. But he had never killed any friend that I knew of.
