31
THE KITCHEN WAS A BIG SQUARE ROOM with a small stove and an icebox set in the corner next to a big- basin sink. The rest of the room was dominated by a large square table with a yellow linoleum top. There were more than enough chrome chairs with red vinyl cushions for Gina’s guests. After hefty meatloaf sandwiches she served us lemonade and pound cake with marmalade and strawberry preserves.
Milo brought out a flask of vodka for the men to lace their drinks. Rose and Gina spoke for a long time about things like silver thread and salad spoons, rhubarb pie and quilting circles. Every time Milo or I tried to bring up business we were gently shushed by Fearless’s mother.
After forty-five minutes or so Rose asked if she could take a short nap. Gina led the millionaire off to her bedroom and stayed with her for a while.
“What you boys got?” Milo said as soon as they were gone.
I told him almost everything except about the money we’d been paid already. Milo hadn’t really hired us and so I didn’t see why he should be cut in on our gain.
“So all you got to do is get the pendant and Miss Fine will be happy,” Milo said, finishing our story with his own happy ending.
“Milo,” I said. “People are dead here. Big-time people. People who don’t give a shit about some Negro farmer’s treasure. It don’t make sense.”
“Who cares?” he said. “We didn’t kill anybody. We weren’t anywhere near it. All we got to worry about is keepin’ Winifred Fine happy.”
“That’s all
“Don’t be a fool, Paris. Nobody cares about some niggah own a used-book bookstore. They worried about property and money. White-people money, not your little change.”
“Maybe that man beatin’ on your ass didn’t get through to you, Miles,” I said. “But these people serious out here. They will hurt anybody that might even be a little bit in the way. That white man lost his children. I wouldn’t be too quick to mess in with the man he think killed ’em.”
Milo’s eyes were glazed over by the hope for money and power. He wasn’t listening to me. Neither was Fearless as far as I could see. The World War II killer was leaning back in his chair with a smile on his face.
“What you grinnin’ at, fool?” I asked him.
“It’s nice to see Mama with a lady her own age. They could sit and talk all day long, I bet. That’s real nice.”
“Fearless, we got trouble here.”
“What you want to do about it, Paris?” He wasn’t being negative. It was just a question. If I said to go out and roll a stone up a hill he would have pushed up his sleeves and done so, smiling about his mother all the way.
“Milo, you could help,” I said.
“How?” he asked.
“Me and Fearless got a spy might know a guy knows Kit. His name is Honeyboy, and we told him to call your answerin’ service to tell us where we could catch up with him.”
Milo called his service. Honeyboy had left a message earlier in the day. He said that we could find him at an address on Downey Road in East L.A.
Milo had no idea that Honeyboy was really Bartholomew Perry, the man he was looking for. It gave me a great deal of pleasure fooling him like that.
THE ADDRESS THAT BB LEFT FOR US was across the street from the New Calvary Cemetery, a fairly big graveyard in the middle of East L.A. By the time we got there it was closing in on five-thirty. The house was large and painted blue-green with a dark green trim. There were eighteen stairs to a front porch that ran the whole length of the front of the house.
Fearless took the stairs three at a time, so I lagged behind him. At least that’s what I pretended. New places in serious times always slowed my pace.
Fearless was knocking by the time I had reached him. With all those strange stairs and a graveyard at my back, I felt a shiver as I caught up. So I wasn’t surprised when the door opened and a man pointed a gun at us.
I wasn’t surprised, but I was terrified enough to lose my senses.
I fell hard to the floor, rolled, and then tried to rise to my feet. But the fear in my heart was like in one of those dreams where you try to run but you can’t do it, you can’t run because the fear is an anchor in your chest. I rolled on my back and put up my hands, hoping that somehow I could survive the barrage. But what I saw was that Fearless had moved in the opposite direction, grabbed hold of Theodore Timmerman’s gun hand, and delivered a devastating right hook to the jaw of the man who had tried to kill us two times in three days.
Timmerman went down and Fearless disarmed him. Then my friend turned to me, smiling and holding out a helping hand.
“I, I’m sorry, Fearless,” I said.
“For what, boy?”
“I didn’t mean to run. I didn’t even know that I was doin’ it till I was on my back.”
“Lucky you did, Paris. Teddy here thought you had somethin’, so he turned your way. And you know, baby, you better not ever turn away from me if you wanna live.”
TIMMERMAN WASN’T DEAD—at least not quite. His shirt was open, so we could see the nasty bruise on his chest from the brick Fearless had thrown. His jaw was swelling now too.
The house had a professional look to it. There was a living room to the left that might well have been an office. There were dark-stained oak furnishings and white curtains that were closed. Fearless set Timmerman down in a padded oak chair.
