Fearless grinned. Blue crab gumbo was his reason for living.
Henrietta’s Gumbo House was on Slauson just down the street from Paloma. Henrietta’s served three kinds of gumbo, jambalaya, and red beans and rice. She also offered vodka drinks flavored with sugary lime and always had sweet potato pie for dessert. I was so hungry that I had it all—twice.
We started eating at about eight o’clock.
“So what now?” Fearless asked me.
“You said that that man, that Maynard Latrell would drive Kit in to work every morning?”
“Just about,” Fearless said. “Maynard always tryin’ to get on the good side of whoever he’s workin’ for. I wouldn’t go so far as to say he was kissin’ butt. But you know he gets close enough for a good whiff.”
“Maybe he got close enough to know something that will let us on to where Kit went to.”
“I guess,” Fearless said. “But you know I already asked him if he knew where Kit had gone.”
“Yeah,” I said. “But sometimes people know things they don’t think they know. Sometimes you need what they call a fresh perspective. So maybe you find him and we’ll all talk together.”
“And where you goin’?” Fearless asked.
“This address I found in BB’s pocket. Maybe I can see who else these boys is messed up wit’.”
Fearless shook his head.
“What?” I asked him.
“I’ont know, Paris. It’s just that I’m used to you tellin’ me how we should back up and stay away from trouble, and here you are jumpin’ in wit’ both feet.”
Maybe drinking those sweet lime cocktails is what set my anger free.
“Listen here, asshole. I don’t wanna be out here. I don’t wanna be thinkin’ about dead people and killers and stolen money. I don’t wanna be runnin’ out my back door when I hear a knock on the front. But I can’t help it. I’m in trouble and never did nuthin’ to cause it. It was you did it.”
“Me?” Fearless protested.
“You. It was you came to me and asked for help. It was you that white man shot at us was lookin’ for. It was you sent me lookin’ for a man dead in his living room. This all started because you couldn’t resist a pretty woman with a cryin’ child askin’ you for a favor. And now all I can do is try and keep my head above water.” I remembered my dream of drowning in money.
“I’m sorry, Paris,” Fearless and I said at the same time.
“That’s what you always say when I’m under the gun,” I added. “You’re always sorry and I’m always up shit’s creek. You’re sorry and I’m in jail. You’re sorry and, and . . .”
“You got a thousand dollars in your pocket,” Fearless said, finishing my sentence.
I laughed then. What else could I do?
26
FEARLESS DROVE ME to the bookstore and stood guard while I checked the place out. When I came back I put the thousand dollars that BB paid us plus seven of the nine hundred thirty I got from Miss Fine into the suitcase with my handmade book. I split the money left over with Fearless. After that I got into my car and Fearless followed me to make sure there was nobody else on our tail. After a few blocks he veered off to find Maynard Latrell. We’d made a plan to meet at Rob’s All-Night Chili Burgers on Avalon at one in the morning. Rob’s was a busy place after midnight and so our meeting wouldn’t cause any suspicion. Neither Fearless nor I was ever late for meetings. His punctuality came from the military, while my nervousness kept me prompt.
I hit Olympic at San Pedro downtown and followed it westward, looking for the address I took from BB’s pocket. I went past Vermont and Western, La Brea and Fairfax, beyond La Cienega and Robertson. I was four blocks west of Doheny when the number came up. It was a two-story stucco home in the Spanish style with a tiled roof and an eight-foot white plaster wall around it. The gate to the driveway was open and there was no car to be seen. Of course the garage door was closed, so someone might still be inside. But no lights were on in the house and there were six or seven newspapers on the other side of the wrought iron fence that guarded the path to the front door.
All of this I could see from the window of my car. It was just after ten. The street was almost empty of traffic. Now and then a car would rush past. But there was nothing to look at. My lights were off.
The leaves on the walkway to the front were in an undisturbed, haphazard pattern. Here and there in the iron fence there were delivery menus and supermarket ads that had been shoved in. No one was home, I was fairly sure of that. But who was that no one and why was this address in the pocket of a man who had just offered me and my friend eleven thousand dollars?
The eleven thousand dollars BB promised us had blood on it already. Anybody who wanted to earn it had to be ready to bleed. I didn’t covet that money. I didn’t care if it ever came my way. But I had to play along with the young Prince Perry, because as long as he thought I was in thrall to his riches he’d try to keep me in the game.
It was going on fifteen minutes that I had been watching the house. I had come all that way. It would be childish of me to leave empty-handed when all I had to do was walk up to the gate, at worst the door, and see whose name it was on the mailbox. There was no one home. Nobody had been there for days. I could trust my own logic on that score.
