I pulled up to the curb a block from the accident to compose myself. Sirens were wailing from somewhere far off. People streamed toward the scene of the crash. I sat in the car massaging my temples and thinking of reasons that Kit Mitchell would have easy access to a white car salesman’s penthouse. I also wondered how a car salesman, regardless of his race, could afford such a nice house.
ESAU HAD AN UNPAVED LOT down on a dirt street off of Aprilla in the county. There was no sign or flagpole to mark it. There wasn’t even a fence, just twenty or so cars parked every which way, with an unpainted hut set somewhere near the middle.
When I got there Fearless was already at the hut, talking to Esau.
“Hey, Paris,” he hailed. “What took you?”
“Mr. Perry,” I said. I held out my hand to the elder man. “My name’s Paris Minton.”
“What’s up, Mr. Minton? Your friend Fearless said that you wanted to talk to me. You wanna buy a car?”
“No sir. I’ve been hired by your ex-sister-in-law, Miss Winifred L. Fine, to locate your son, and I was wondering why she didn’t ask you.” I decided on the direct approach partly because I didn’t trust anyone I was dealing with and partly because I liked the way Esau looked.
He had shiny black skin and tight eyes. His hands were thick but he was a lightweight. At sixty he probably could wear the same pants he put on when he was a twenty-year-old. He wore a gray pair of coveralls that had an emblem for the defunct Oklahoma Star Oil Company over the left breast. He was the kind of man who lived in my New Iberia neighborhood in Louisiana; the kind of man who could make a living with just two sticks and a cupful of spit.
“She hired you to find him, huh?” Esau said. “She tell you why?”
“No sir, she didn’t. And so I wanted to make sure that there wasn’t some bad blood between the two families that I was gettin’ mixed up with.”
“Well,” Esau said. “Winnie never liked me too much. When her sister and me got married she refused to come to the wedding. Then, after Honey left me and went back to Winnie, they didn’t even tell me she was sick until after she died.”
“Your wife died and they didn’t even tell you about it?” Fearless asked.
“By that time we was already divorced. Honey had moved back with Winnie and I kept BB.”
“Why would Miss Fine want to see Bartholomew now?”
“She always liked the boy. More because he was blood than anything he did, I think. Every now and then they’d get together at her place out in the desert. She got what she call a cabin outside of A Thousand Palms.”
“But you’ve never seen her?” I asked.
“She used to invite me and BB for a Thanksgivin’ dinner. I’d go when BB was a boy, for family, you know. But now he’s grown I stay home.” Esau shrugged and pulled a pack of cigarettes from the pocket of a T-shirt under his coveralls. “Want one?”
Fearless shook his head but I accepted the cigarette, and the light that came after.
“But you’re not bothered that she hired me to look for him?”
“Naw. She wanna find him, that’s okay by me.”
“Why didn’t she just call you?”
“She did. At least that Oscar did.”
“When?”
“Week ago. ’Bout that. Maybe eight days.”
“And what you tell him?”
“That I don’t know where BB is. He met some girl a few months ago. They go off together all the time. The two of ’em.”
“White girl?” I asked.
“I see you know my Bartholomew.”
“You know her name?”
“Me an’ BB didn’t talk all that much about his personal life. I didn’t ask an’ he didn’t say.”
“You know somebody who might know?” I asked.
“Them peoples down at Hoochie’s might could know,” Esau speculated.
“That place on Hoover?” I asked, just to be sure. “The dance club?”
Esau nodded.
“Did he ever say anything about a man named Kit Mitchell?”
“No,” Esau said, a little too fast and a little too sure.
“You got any cars for fifty bucks, Mr. Perry?” Fearless asked.
“Couple’a Fords like your friend’s the cheapest I got. Lowest price is two twenty-five, though.”
“Lemme think about that for a while.” Fearless put his hand on my shoulder then and I nodded.
“Guess it’s time to go.”
“Mr. Minton,” Esau said.
