“Light-colored man name of Pete,” I said. “You know, he has a hot dog cart downtown. He said that he’d seen Kit in here more than once.”
“Kit who?”
“Mitchell,” Fearless said. “Kit Mitchell. Sometimes they call him Mitch. One’a his front teeth is capped in silver.”
It was always good to ask questions when in the company of Fearless Jones. Women liked answering him because of his raw power and sleek appearance. Men stopped at the power. They didn’t know that a man as dangerous as Fearless would never bully his way through life. All they knew was that if they had that kind of strength and skill they’d never take no for an answer again.
“I don’t know really anything,” Hampton James said. “I mean, Kit ain’t been in here since he started that watermelon business. But I heard from one of the bar girls that he took her up to a room he had at the Bernard Arms over on Fountain.”
“Sounds like a white place,” I said.
“Yeah,” the bar owner said. “That’s why she was talkin’ about it. She said that he went in an’ asked for Hercules and they showed him up to a penthouse apartment that was all nice with a stocked bar and everything.”
“Hercules?”
“That’s what she said.”
The bartender glanced at the porter and moved in that direction. He seemed worried. Looking at him, that all but perfect sampling of humanity sidling away fearfully, gave me my third chill of the day. It was as if he were scuttling away from some danger that was coming up from behind me. The feeling was so strong that I turned around.
There sat Fearless Jones, staring up innocently at the skylight.
6
MY EYES WERE WATERING and I couldn’t stop yawning by the time Fearless and I got to Ambrosia Childress’s house. We went to the front door together because I needed her phone number to stay in touch with my friend.
She answered in a bathrobe that was open just enough to snap me out of my lethargy. She had deep chocolate skin, dark red lips, and bright brown eyes. When she looked at Fearless her lips parted.
“Hi,” she said.
I might just as well have been a tree.
“Hey, Ambrosia. I’m sorry to drop in on you like this but I need a place to stay for a day or two.”
“Okay,” she said. No question why. No coy hesitation. I do believe that her nostrils widened and her chest swelled.
“Thank you, honey,” Fearless said.
He was swallowed up whole by her doorway and I was left at the threshold with a scrap of paper in my hand.
We’d decided that it would be dangerous for Fearless to travel the streets with so many people looking for him. I could make the rounds asking questions while he suffered the four walls of Ambrosia’s protective custody.
“GOOD AFTERNOON. BERNARD ARMS,” a friendly young woman said in my ear.
I was down the street from the residence hotel, closeted in a sidewalk phone booth.
“Brian Letterman,” I said in a tone completely drained of my Louisiana upbringing. “Pasternak Deliveries. With whom am I speaking?”
“Susan Seaborne. Yes, Mr. Letterman. What can I do for you?”
“I got a new guy at the front desk here, Sue. You know how it goes. Some guy in a hundred-dollar suit came in and dropped off a parcel without leaving the proper information. Lenny didn’t know. And now I have a problem.”
“Oh,” Susan Seaborne said. “I see.”
“I’m glad you do, because my boss wants to fire me. Can you believe that? Lenny takes down two lines for an address and Pasternak wants to put it on me.”
“I really don’t see what we have to do with your trouble at work,” the young woman said.
“Oh, yeah. I’m sorry. It’s just that my wife’s pregnant, and if I lose this job —”
“Are you looking for a new job?” the operator asked, trying to urge me toward clarity.
“I got two lines here,” I said. “Actually three words. Hercules and Bernard Arms. That’s all the address that the suit gave Lenny. If I don’t get a proper address my new baby will be suckling cheap wine on Skid Row.”
“Lance Wexler,” the woman said brightly. “You’re looking for Lance Wexler. He’s got a penthouse suite.”
“Is there a number on that suite, dear?” I asked in the wake of a deep sigh.
“P-four. That’s his apartment.”
“P-four,” I said, pretending to write it down. “Can you connect me to his room, please? I need to see when he
