I guided the car in that direction.
“You got a cigarette, Mr. Minton?”
I fished out two and handed them to her.
“Light me one too,” I said.
There’s nothing quite like a woman lighting your cigarette for the immediate feeling of intimacy. Putting the filtered tip in my mouth she touched my lower lip with her fingertips.
“What you and Fearless doin’ in Miss Moore’s house?” she asked me.
“Gettin’ into trouble I guess.”
“I guess if you gonna get into trouble you might as well do it with Fearless Jones,” she said and then giggled. “He sure did make that fat man sweat.”
“What were
“Maybe I live there.”
“Maybe,” I said. “But you don’t.”
“How you know I don’t?”
“Because I took a room there a few days ago and I had dinner with the whole houseful. You weren’t there. And if you did live there, then why am I driving you home?”
DeLois’s face wasn’t small but it was petite. She pouted and then brought the cigarette to her lips.
“You know,” she said.
“Somebody send you in there to Melvin?”
“Naw. It’s just this bar I go to sometimes where he go too. He always tryin’ to mess wit’ me, but you know I always tell ’im to go on.”
“But not tonight.”
DeLois took another drag and turned to the window.
“How do you know Fearless?” I asked to ease her discomfort.
“He used to live in the apartment upstairs from me. He’s a real nice man. One time I had this boyfriend wanna try and beat on me. Fearless come down and asked him if he wanted to leave. It was funny. Richard started blusterin’ about how he was gonna kick Fearless’ ass. But the whole time he was talkin’ he was movin’ backwards and pickin’ up his things. Finally he shouted some curse or sumpin’ when he was at the door and then he ran.” DeLois laughed. I did too.
We drove a few more blocks.
“So what were you doin’ at Miss Moore’s?” I asked again.
“I cain’t make my rent and I got my little sister wit’ me. I got fifteen dollars but they want thirty.”
“You could slide a week or two.”
“I done slid a month already.”
We came to the small aqua-colored building on a street named Orchard. I stopped the car but neither of us moved or said anything.
I was closer to Fearless than to anyone except my mother. He had expectations of me that he never had to put into words. The fact that he took DeLois out of that rooming house was him saying that he wanted me to finish the job.
“So how come you left wit’ us?” I asked.
“I didn’t wanna fuck that man,” she said. “I don’t wanna fuck the landlord neither, but at least he don’t weigh five hundred pounds.”
I reached into my pocket and peeled off four twenty-dollar bills. I handed the money over. She didn’t take it at first. Instead she looked me up and down.
“What?” I asked.
“Nuthin’. It’s just that you even skinnier than my landlord and you the right color too.”
I took her hand and folded it around the money.
“No, DeLois. It ain’t like that. People been throwin’ money at me and Fearless the last couple’a days now. And my mama always told me to keep what I earn but to share good fortune. This is just for you and your sister.”
DeLois’s jaw dropped. “You mean you just givin’ me this money?”
“That’s right.”
“And you don’t want nuthin’?”
“I want you to have it.”
The young woman’s face turned serious then. In some other circumstance I might have been afraid of her pulling out a razor. When she put her free hand on my wrist I believe that she meant to give it a gentle caress, but her feelings made it like a vise.
“You could come upstairs, Paris,” she said. “I want you to.”
