Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
FICTION BY WALTER MOSLEY
____________________________________________________________
Fear Itself
Six Easy Pieces
Bad Boy Brawly Brown
Futureland
Fearless Jones
Walkin’ the Dog
Blue Light
Always Outnumbered, Always Outgunned
Gone Fishin’
A Little Yellow Dog
RL’s Dream
Black Betty
White Butterfly
A Red Death
Devil in a Blue Dress
This book is dedicated to the
memory of H. Roberts Bagwell
1
A SUDDEN BANGING ON THE FRONT DOOR sent a chill down my neck and into my chest. It was two thirty- nine in the morning. I was up and out of my bed immediately, though still more than half asleep.
I had to go to the bathroom but the knocking was insistent; seven quick raps, then a pause, and then seven more. It reminded me of something but I was too confused to remember what.
“All right,” I called out.
I considered staying quiet until the unwanted visitor gave up and left. But what if it was a thief? Maybe he was knocking to see if there was anybody home. If I stayed quiet he might just break the two-dollar lock and come in on me. I’m a small man, so even if he was just your run-of-the-mill sneak thief he might have broken my neck before realizing that Paris Minton’s Florence Avenue Book Shop didn’t have any money in the cash box.
I slept in an illegal loft space above the bookstore. It was the only way my little business could stay in the black. Selling used books doesn’t have a very high profit margin, except for the reading pleasure. Some days the only customers brought in books to sell or barter. Other days I was the only patron, reading
Mostly I sold westerns and mysteries and romances. But I rarely read those books. The women’s genre wasn’t written for a man’s sensibilities and popular men’s books were too violent.
“Let me in there, Paris,” a voice I knew better than any other called out.
“Fearless?”
“Yeah, man. Let me in.”
I hesitated a moment and a moment more.
“Paris.”
I opened the door and Fearless Jones strode in, wearing a green suit with a white shirt, no tie, no hat, and dark shoes. The tip of the baby finger on his left hand was missing, shot off in a gunfight that almost got us both killed, and he had the slightest limp from a knife wound he’d received saving my life in San Francisco many years
