A woman was sitting next to him, leaning toward him like a sailboat under a squall.
“Reverend Grove?” I said in greeting. There was only a faint light of recognition in his eyes for me, but I knew him. The minister was the cock of the walk down around Central and 101 when the Messenger had its doors open.
“Get yourself another fizz and park it at the bar, babe. I’ll be there in a minute,” the reverend told the girl.
He handed her a two-dollar bill. She kissed his fingers before taking the money with her teeth. I think she was a pretty girl. She might have been a knockout. But I couldn’t tell. My mind was going over and over the lies and questions I had for the holy man.
His suit was three-button, maroon, and silk. He was a hair shorter than Fearless and more substantial but not portly or fat. He had a full face that was medium brown and diabolical in a mild way. Everything turned up: the almond eyes, the slightly receding hairline, the corners of his smile; all like small horns on a masquerade devil or, more likely, a minister who had studied sin for too long and who was finally overwhelmed by its beauty. The left side of his jaw was a little larger than the right, and that eye was bloodshot, and not from lack of sleep.
“Tyrell Lockwood?” the devil inquired of either of us.
“Me,” I said. “This is my friend.”
Grove motioned for us to join him. A waitress wearing a black T-shirt and a tight white skirt came up. There was a nasty-looking scar that came from the bottom of her chin to the middle of her generous lower lip. On that lip the scar took a left turn and went all the way to the corner of her mouth. It made her look vulnerable, so I looked away.
“Drinks?” the waitress asked in a husky voice.
Fearless looked to Grove, who shook his head slightly. Fearless showed two fingers and said, “Beers.” The waitress went off.
“Where is she?” Grove asked.
“Didn’t Vincent tell you what I said?”
“He said some nonsense about her paying you to find me.”
“Well I found you now, didn’t I?”
The waitress came back. She tried to look me in the eye while serving the drinks, but I looked away again. Fearless gave her something and then tapped the table for her to bring more when the time came. She said thanks, so I supposed he had tipped her nicely.
When the waitress had gone Grove lowered his voice and said, “Don’t try and fool with me, niggah.”
“Don’t fool yourself,” Fearless interjected, his cool certainty bringing doubt to the reverend’s eye.
He gazed over toward the door. Maybe he thought it was foolish to come alone to meet two strangers in that dangerous business. Maybe he recognized that his arrogance didn’t carry any weight outside of his red-draped storefront church.
“You lookin’ for Elana. Elana lookin’ for you. Why?” I asked.
Grove didn’t respond. He was trying to figure out what to do. He spent as much time looking at the door as he did at us. Louis Armstrong was singing duets with Billie Holiday on the box. Fearless stretched out on his chair like a cat. I think he was just enjoying being free.
“She promised me five hundred dollars,” I told Grove. “I already put in my time.”
“I don’t believe you,” the Holy Roller replied.
Fearless straightened up in his chair.
“Leon Douglas.” I spoke Elana’s ex-con boyfriend’s name as if it were a complete sentence. “And a bearer bond. How about that?”
“Do you know where she is?” Grove asked, no longer looking for a way out.
“I might know how to find her,” I said. “But I wanna know what I’m gettin’ into before I take another step.”
“Tell me where she is.”
“No, uh-uh. I put my money on the table, man,” I said. “Now it’s your turn. If you got somethin’ I could use, then maybe we could do somethin’ together.”
“The bond,” he said, his voice changing this time to a breath of air. “It’s worth a lot more than she said.”
“She lied?”
“Sister Love was made to lie. Prob’ly half’a everything she told you was a lie,” Grove said. “But she didn’t lie about the
