Not only was it her car but she was in it, laid up against the steering wheel and crying like her own son.
Fearless opened the driver’s door and helped her out. She fell into his arms and cried in utter despair.
I looked around, hoping that no one saw us. In my experience people always remember a woman’s tears. But no one was out on their porches or strolling down the street. L.A. has never been a pedestrian’s town, I thanked the Lord for that.
“He’s dead,” Leora whimpered. “He’s dead. He’s dead. He’s dead.”
“Who?” Fearless asked.
“I think it’s Kit Mitchell.”
“Don’t you know?”
“I never met him before.” She took in a large gulp of air and made a strangled sound.
“Take us to him,” Fearless said. It was an order and not a request.
Leora led us into the big building and up to the sixth floor. The door to 6R was unlocked.
When I got into the room I closed the door quickly. Mainly because of the breaking and entering and because the man lying on the floor was at a most uncomfortable angle.
Leora Hartman cried on Fearless’s shoulder.
I went to the man. He was definitely dead. He’d been dead for a while, probably as long as the Wexlers.
“We’ve got to get out of here,” Leora was saying.
“Is it him?” I asked.
“Yeah,” Fearless said. “Damn.”
“I didn’t kill him,” Leora said as if we were cops.
His face was brutalized, his left arm likely broken.
“No,” I said. “Not unless you Superman under that dress and you like livin’ with the dead for a few days.”
Leora began to cry harder. Fearless embraced her as a father would his child. From around the corner of his shoulder she stared at the Watermelon Man’s corpse. There was terror in her eyes.
“What were you doing here?” I asked.
She couldn’t tear her eyes away from Death.
I put my head between her and eternity and asked my question again.
“Oscar told me he was here.”
“How did he know?”
“There’s a woman on the first floor who has a cousin that works for Madame Ethel’s Beauty Supply. Oscar had sent out the word to all the people work for us to look for Kit Mitchell. The employee, her name’s Bell Britton, asked her cousin if she knew Kit, and she finally got the word today.”
“And why did Oscar tell you?”
“So I could come by and talk to him.” Leora’s eyes widened and she began to cry again.
“Why would he —”
“Paris,” Fearless said. “Let her get it out first, will ya?”
“I came here,” she continued, “the door was unlocked.”
“What were you looking for?”
“I, I . . .”
“Leave her alone, Paris.”
“Shut up, Fearless.”
It was one of the few times I told Fearless to be quiet. He knew enough to listen.
“Talk to me, Leora.”
“He kidnapped my son.”
“Son is with Esau. You already knew that. What did Kit have that you wanted?”
Leora started gasping and then panting. She was at some early stage of shock. I knew that Fearless wouldn’t let me continue, so I said, “Damn!”
“We better get outta here, Paris,” Fearless said. The worry in his voice was for Leora.
“In a minute,” I said.
I launched into a quick search of the apartment. I went through drawers, closets, bedclothes, cereal boxes, the refrigerator and icebox, and the medicine cabinet in the bathroom.
Following my lead, Fearless searched the dead man.
“Here it is,” he said.
