“Uh-huh.”
“Then let’s get outta here.”
I got up off the bench.
“Wait up,” Fearless complained. “I wanna know what’s gonna happen with Lucas.”
Milo took a mangled cigarette from his breast pocket and a match from his vest. He lit the cigarette with deliberation. Then he said, “We don’t have the time for that.”
“You go on then,” Fearless said. “I brought Luke down here and I’m gonna stand by ’im.”
I would have left Fearless, but Milo was not so inclined. A few minutes later the boy’s court-appointed lawyer, a white man named Todd, shuffled in and took the boy in for the sentencing. Fearless followed, but Milo and I stayed out.
Milo led me up five flights of stairs to a large and empty, granite-floored hall. We sat together on a polished mahogany bench, and Milo moved close to me like a man who was just about to get serious on a date.
“What you boys into?” he whispered. His breath was so rank that I had to swallow twice before speaking.
“What did you find?”
“Waverly, Brightwater, and Hoffman,” he replied.
“Who are they?”
“People you don’t wanna know. Lawyers that spend all their time with the mob. The kinda lawyers know where the bodies are buried.”
“So?”
Milo peered into my face. He took a deep breath and I leaned back before he could exhale. He put a hand on my neck and squeezed slightly.
“What, Milo?”
“I went down to the state courthouse and fount out that the bailbondsman for your boy is Les Haverford, a white guy work outta Santa Monica.”
I didn’t ask him anything because I wasn’t sure that I wanted to hear the answer.
“I asked him about Leon Douglas like you asked me to,” he said at last. “Had to lie and tell him that I had a man runnin’ around with Leon and that he just jumped his bond. Give him fifty bucks for an address, but that can come outta your ten percent for Lucas.”
“Is that why you brought me up here? To talk about my fee?”
“Douglas was in jail for robbery and attempted murder. He was guilty but he was railroaded too. He did it all right, but they never got the right goods.”
“That’s what Fearless said,” I said, to fill in Milo’s suspicious silence.
“He the one told me about the mob lawyer and whatnot.” Milo stalled again, giving me that questioning stare.
“Come on, Milo. Finish what you got to say or let’s go. This ain’t no interrogation.”
“No?”
“Did you find out where Douglas lives?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s all I want.”
“No it ain’t. Least it better not be.”
“What, Milo?”
“Waverly and them are bad news. And they’re your boy Douglas’s lawyers. They don’t walk into court without ten thousand dollars in their pockets. They the kind if you a witness against ’em, you might just end up dead. I never heard’a Waverly comin’ in on no colored case. They do the Jewish mob and the old money when they cross the line. Niggahs don’t mean a thing to them.”
I was clenching my hands together. My nails were biting into the skin, but I couldn’t let go.
“What you an’ Fearless into, Paris?” Milo Sweet asked.
“I don’t know, Milo,” I said. “I don’t know. I was just sittin’ in my bookstore, that’s all.”
“That innocent act ain’t gonna save you, boy. You got to know where you steppin’ on somethin’ like this.”
