“Open it up,” the farmer said. “Open it up and you will have all the money you’ll need for the rest of your natural-born days.”
I was trembling, scared to death.
“No,” I said. “No.”
“But you’re right here, Paris,” he said, “next to the gold mine. You don’t even need a key. Just turn the knob and push it open.”
I didn’t want to do it but still my hand reached out. When I grasped the doorknob I thought it would burn me but instead it was chilly. The refreshing coolness washed over my body. Feeling more confident I pushed the door open. Green light flooded the hallway. The room was full of money, piles of it. And on the biggest pile sat Lana Tandy, naked and spread-legged, smiling at me.
“Come on, baby,” she said. “It’s all yours.”
My fears melted away and I ran toward her. The door slammed behind me but I didn’t care. It wasn’t until the money rose up like a wave behind Lana that I realized I was trapped. She screamed as the wave of green slapped against me. I was submerged in millions of dollars, suffocating under the weight of that great wealth.
I struggled wildly against the heavy cash, but it was too much for me. Lana let out a strangled cry. She grabbed me by my shoulders and said, “Paris, help me. Help.” She pounded against my chest, but instead of feeling the concussions of her fists I heard a hollow knocking. Even when we were separated by the crashing waves of money, I could still hear the echo of her knocking against my chest. A tide of bills washed over me and I couldn’t breathe. I struggled and screamed, realizing that I was about to die. When I stroked down with both hands to propel my head toward the surface, I came awake sitting upright on the couch, gulping air and trembling.
Lana was still knocking on my chest. Knocking on my chest?
The sun was shining into the store through a window set high on the wall. Someone was rapping on the front door for the second time that morning and, also for a second time, I was afraid for my life.
4
“PARIS MINTON?” a white man in a brown jacket asked.
His pants were brown too, but they clashed with the hue of his sports coat. He had spaces between his teeth and freckles on his forehead. His black hair looked like it was painted on and his eyes were both too low and too close together. He should have been a short man, with those goofy features, but he was at least six foot four, two inches taller than Fearless.
Something was missing. At first I thought it was something about my visitor, but then I realized that it was a sound. Fearless was no longer snoring.
“Yeah, that’s me,” I said.
“My name is Theodore Timmerman. I’m looking for Fearless Jones.”
“Last I heard Fearless was somewhere up near Oxnard, workin’ on a farm.”
Theodore frowned and I realized that I should have asked him why he was nosing around about my friend. I wasn’t fully awake. I tried to cover my mistake by yawning and asking, “What you want him for?”
“Can I come in?” he replied.
“I don’t even know you, man,” I said. “The bookstore don’t open till ten, and I already answered your question.”
“I need to find Fearless Jones. Maybe you have some idea about how I can locate him.”
“No. I mean you might try cruisin’ up and down Central. Fearless is workin’ for a guy sells watermelons off the back of a fleet of Texas trucks around that way. If you see one’a them, they’d prob’ly have an idea of where he is.”
“You don’t have a number?” Timmerman asked.
“He don’t have a phone.”
“Oh.”
“What’s this all about?” I asked.
“Mr. Jones has come into an inheritance,” he said, masking the lie with a foolish grin. “I’m representing the estate.”
“Oh? Who died?”
“That’s confidential, Mr. Minton. Only to be revealed to Mr. Jones himself. But I can tell you that it would be well worth his while to contact me.”
“Maybe if you gave me a way to get in touch with you,” I suggested. “Then if I ran into Fearless I could tell him where to call you.”
The tall white man looked up over my head into the bookstore. For a moment I think he was considering pushing me aside and looking around for himself. At any other time I would have been afraid that he would harm me or my stock. But I knew that Fearless was upstairs and Fearless, at least in my mind, was proof against any danger.
Timmerman pulled out his wallet and shuffled a small stack of cards until he produced one that read,
Theodore T. Timmerman
