“How?” I asked.
“She didn’t tell you?” A wily look came into the playboy’s eyes.
“Tell me what?”
“Why she lookin’ for me and Kit?”
“You can tell me that.”
“If I did, then you could cut me out right here.”
“I could cut you out anytime I wanted to, son,” Fearless said in an impartial tone.
“I’ll give you guys a thousand dollars,” BB said. “A thousand, and five each if you get me to Kit and Kit give me what I want.”
“Let’s see the cash,” I said.
“I got your word you’ll help me find Kit?” BB asked. Then he looked at Fearless. “And that you’ll take my deal and leave the rest of the money to me?”
I looked to Fearless for direction, knowing that any deal I made without him was subject to revision anyway.
“Why not?” he said, answering my wordless question. “Maybe you could hold on to the cash for me and I wouldn’t have to sleep on the street no more.”
“You said it now, Mr. Jones,” I said. “I’ma keep you to it.”
“Okay, Paris.”
“Then it’s a deal?” BB asked me.
“You got to come up with a thousand dollars first,” I said. “Do that and we’ll work wit’ you. That is unless you killed one’a the Wexlers.”
“I ain’t killed nobody, man.”
“But you did know her, right?”
“Yeah.”
“And she and her brother got somethin’ to do with all this mess?”
“They, they did, yeah. But I cain’t tell you about how until you find Kit.”
“We gave you our word, BB,” I said.
“I know,” he said. “But I just wanna keep my secret until we got Kit here with us.”
“Who killed Minna and Lance Wexler?”
“I don’t know, brother. That’s why I’m hidin’ here. Somebody’s out to kill us.”
“Kill who?”
“Me and Kit and anybody else messed up in this.”
The chill returned to my gut then. I was messed up in BB’s business. I didn’t even know what was going on and I was still on a hit list somewhere.
“Where’s the thousand?” Fearless asked BB.
The young man went to the ugly pink lamp and unscrewed the bottom. A thick roll of twenty-dollar bills fell out. He handed the wad to me. The moment the money changed hands a fearful shudder went through BB. He’d given us the money, now we could kill him or turn him over to his auntie. Why should he have trusted us?
“Why you so scared’a your auntie?” I asked BB.
“Who said I’m scared?” he asked, trying to achieve some approximation of bravery.
“You goin’ up against me to keep away from her tell us you scared,” Fearless said.
“I cain’t tell ya what we lookin’ for,” BB said. “But believe this: my auntie would see me dead before she’d let me get away wit’ what Kit done did.”
I could see that BB wasn’t going to let up on his secret, but that didn’t matter right then. At least I knew that Winifred Fine’s problem went deep enough to make her own blood afraid of her.
“You better find a new place to hide out, Bart,” I said. “’Cause you know if we could find you then somebody else can too.”
“Where?”
“Wherever,” I said. “But don’t call nobody. Don’t tell nobody where you are. Don’t go out the door. Make sure you don’t order no chicken from Sister Sue’s. And when you light, call Milo Sweet’s office, he’s in the Yellow Pages under bail bonds. You’ll get an answering service. Tell them where Paris can find Honeyboy.”
“Who’s that?” BB asked.
“I’m Paris. You’re Honeyboy.”
“Oh. Okay. You guys ain’t gonna turn on me, right?”
“Not unless you do it first,” I said.
“WHAT NOW, PARIS?” Fearless asked when we got to the car.
“I got to eat, man. Let’s go over to that gumbo house you love so much.”
