“Why ain’t you in a hospital, man?” he asked Ted.
“Fuck you,” the would-be killer replied.
“No, really, man,” Fearless went on. “You got somethin’ wrong there. It ain’t gonna heal without some help.”
The white man’s sallow chest was bruised blue, green, and black. It was like a large dark cloud hovering under his pale skin.
“What you doin’ here?” I asked.
“Fuck you.”
“Where’s BB?”
Timmerman said nothing.
There came a rumble that might have been pounding and a voice that made sounds but no discernible words.
“Go on, Paris,” Fearless said. “I’ll stay with your friend.”
There was a hallway at the back of the room. It was long and also more professional looking than homey. There were no paintings or any sign of somebody living there. After going twenty feet or so I came to a door. The sounds were coming from there.
Still it was just muffled pounding and a muffled voice.
I turned to go back to Fearless. I was going to tell him that I found the door where the noise was coming from. But I stopped halfway. Looking back at the door, I finally convinced myself to do something to redeem my pride after panicking on the front porch.
I went to the door and quickly pulled it open so as not to lose heart.
Opening doors wasn’t lucky for me during that period.
I thought it was the Mummy who fell out on top of me—if the Mummy weighed two hundred and twenty-five pounds. All tied up in sheets, bleeding, and yelling through the gag he wore. It took me a few moments to realize that the monster wasn’t attacking me but struggling to get free from the bonds. It took a moment more to recognize Bartholomew thrashing and screaming under the knots of gauze.
Before I grasped the situation I yelped. It wasn’t a scream of terror or even a shout. At least I could be proud of my reserve.
Regardless of the dignity I maintained in my mind, Fearless came running with the wounded white man in tow. I looked up at him, on my back for the second time in less than ten minutes, and said, “I found him.”
“MOTHAHFUCKAH COME UP TO MY DOOR and pointed his gun at me,” Bartholomew was telling us.
The skin over both eyes was so swollen from the beatings that he was barely recognizable. He was bleeding and had lost a tooth. Timmerman might have been hurting but he was still dangerous.
“He kept askin’ who was lookin’ for me. I didn’t say nuthin’ and he just started beatin’ on my ass.”
“And so you give us up so he could beat on us too,” I added.
“No I didn’t. I had already called that number, all I said was that you was gonna call me. That’s all,” BB said. “You know he had me so tied up I couldn’t even breathe in there.”
I wanted to sneer but then I remembered choking in the trunk of Louis’s car. I would have given up the secrets of the atom bomb to get out of there.
***
“WHAT ELSE YOU TELL HIM?” Fearless asked.
We were back in the sterile living room. Ted was tied up with the same sheets that had bound BB.
“I, I told him I didn’t know why you were lookin’ for me,” BB said. “And then he beat me so bad that I had to give him something. I had to.”
The expression on my friend’s face was impossible to read. BB saw something there that scared him, because he shrank in his chair.
“Who you tell about bein’ here?” Fearless asked at last.
“Nobody.”
“You already give us up to a killer, brother. Don’t lie too.”
“I just told him that you was gonna call. If I didn’t he would’a killed me.”
“That’s what you told him,” Fearless said. “Who did you tell that you’d be here?”
“Nobody, man. Nobody at all.”
“Uh-uh.” Fearless shook his head. “And you know how I know that?”
BB shook his head too.
“Because this white man come up in here after you. He wasn’t goin’ door to door lookin’. He knew right where you were.”
“What is this place?” I asked.
“It’s a house my father’s church bought as a home for some of its old people. It’s a church house.”
“And how’d you get here?”
“I went to my father after you found me. I told him that I needed to hide. He had the keys and gave them to
