who died at my hands and even the danger still posed by Maestro and his scheming secretary. I forgot about the police and their constant threat to my liberty. All that was left was the loss of more money than most Negro families made in an entire life of labor.
“Paris?”
“I’m goin’ to bed, Fearless,” I said.
He said something but I didn’t hear it. I scaled the stairs to my illegal loft. I don’t even remember getting into the bed. And I didn’t have one dream that I can remember. It was just as if I had died. That’s how far I’d fallen.
I DIDN’T FEEL HIM SHAKE ME but he must have. He’d stayed downstairs for nearly twenty hours, standing guard over my despair. When I opened my eyes Fearless was just sitting there in a chair beside my bed. He’d undressed me and covered me with blankets and a sheet.
“Hey, Paris. Feel better?”
“Ungh,” I said. “Ugh.”
A wave of nausea went through me and I got out of the bed and rushed down to the toilet. My head was aching and one of my nostrils was clogged. I’d lost a fortune because of a car wash attendant who would never know the value of the book he stole.
Fearless was at the kitchen table when I got there. He’d made pancakes with hot maple syrup and country sausage.
“Anybody call?” I asked.
“I took the phone off the hook, man. You needed your sleep.”
“Well, I better put it back. I got work to do.”
My first job was to read the morning paper.
Kit Mitchell had been found. He’d been dead for at least a week. There were signs that he’d been tortured before he died, but the cause of death was not immediately known.
Maybe, after I died and if I went to heaven, the celestial host would give me a medal for ending Theodore Timmerman’s rampage on earth.
RAWLWAY AND MORRAIN CAME BY at about five. Fearless went upstairs before I answered the door.
“Sergeant, officer,” I said in greeting at the door.
“May we come in, Mr. Minton?” Sergeant Rawlway asked.
“Sure can.”
They took seats this time and sat forward with clasped hands and elbows on their knees.
“We found some suspicious evidence at the house of the man you called us about,” Rawlway said.
“Oh yeah? What about him?”
The hairy cop just shook his head.
“Well,” I said, hesitating, “was there something else I could do for you?”
“What did you say his name was again?” Morrain asked in a surprisingly deferential tone.
“Timmerman,” I said. “Theodore Timmerman. Why?”
“His phone records and other papers seem to be a bit confused.”
“How do you mean?”
“He went by half a dozen names. And there were some very incriminating materials in his garage.”
“Really?”
“Just what did he say to you when he was here?” Rawlway asked. He took out the tiny notebook and small ballpoint pen made to scale.
“He asked if I knew a man named Fearless,” I said, looking up at the ceiling as if I had to think about my answer. “Then he asked about Kit. I told him that I didn’t know but I heard that Fearless worked for a man named Kit for a while but that was over now. He wanted to know Fearless’s address and I told him that I didn’t know. That’s when it got kinda strange.”
“How do you mean strange?”
“He put his hand on my forearm and squeezed it hard. Then he asked about Fearless again. It was as if he was testin’ me. You know his eyes were scary, and so I was happy that I passed.”
“Did he say anything else?” Morrain asked.
“No. He let me go and left.”
“How long ago was that?”
“Day before yesterday.”
“And you waited a whole day to call?” Rawlway asked.
“Yeah. Well, you know I didn’t wanna get involved. But then I woke up yesterday morning and I got worried. I tried to get in touch with Fearless but he’d gone somewhere. So then I called you guys because I don’t want my friend to get hurt.”
“It’s unusual for Negroes to willingly give up information to the cops,” Morrain speculated.
“Maybe about other Negroes, but Timmerman or whatever his name is is a white man.”
