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FEAR OF THE DARK
Ha had appeared next to the snooker entrance before we reached the curtain.
“Boo!” Fearless said to the curtain, and it was pulled away.
The door opened onto a dark passage lit by only one weak blue bulb.
As we ascended the narrow staircase I wondered about magic: those who had it, and those who did not.
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We o n l y h a d o n e f l i g h t of stairs to make a plan. After that we’d be in enemy terri-20 tory. Fearless was used to that kind of pressure.
He’d been a hair-trigger killer all through Europe for the U.S.
army. They’d whisper a sentence or two into his ear, and he’d go out among Aryans, shooting and slaying and burning down.
“What’s the thing, man?” he asked me on the first step.
“Useless been hangin’ around Twist’s for some time now,” I said. “He told Ha that he been takin’ money from white men, that he had ’em by the dick.”
“The dick?” Fearless echoed. “Damn.”
We were halfway to the second floor.
“You know what we need,” I said. “Where is Useless and, failing that, what does Twist know about Useless that we don’t know?”
“Beats a knife in the ribs,” Fearless said.
For some reason, that caused me to grin.
The door to Jerry Twist’s was red. Dark red in a dark stairway. The faint light imbued the portal with a throbbing quality.
I let Fearless do the knocking.
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FEAR OF THE DARK
He only rapped one time before the blood-colored door swung inward. Framed in the darkness of that doorway and lit by the weak light from the stairs stood K. C. Littell, one of the many mysteries of Watts.
K.C., from almost any perspective, was a white man. He had pale skin, wavy brown hair, and eyes that hadn’t seemed to decide on which shade of brown they actually were. His features, however — lips and nose — were small but not quite Caucasian. A white man might have been fooled by K.C.’s appearance. Many Negroes like him had disappeared into the white world. They lived there, married to white spouses, raising white children, belonging to white PTAs. But not K.C. He was a virulent Negro. Something in his upbringing, something about his appearance made him want to bathe himself in the color he’d been denied.
“Happenin’, Fearless, Paris,” he sang.
“Nuthin’ to it, brother,” I said.
“We wanna come in a minute, K.C.,” Fearless said. “That okay?”
The pale guardian pretended to think for a moment. But he knew that he didn’t have the authority to bar Mr. Jones’s way.
No. There wasn’t a president or king worth his salt who couldn’t see the royalty in my friend.
K.C. nodded and stepped aside. We entered the vast room, assailed by darkness and light.
There was enough room for fifteen tables in Twist’s enor-mous poolroom — but he only kept six. They were spaced out like islands of light on a sea of black. Each table, handmade and imported from Copenhagen, was under three hanging lamps delivering rich and buttery radiance. Every table was 127
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occupied by professional pool men from all over the country. If you were a black man and you played pool, gaining entree to Twist’s was the highest accolade you would ever receive.
The only sound coming from the room was the clacking of billiard balls. There were at least a dozen men in there playing, but I never even heard a murmur.
Somewhere in the darkness was our quarry. Jerry’s desk was against one of the walls. He never had his lamp turned on and kept a penlight for the few times he had to read or sign something.
Each player paid a hundred dollars a night for the privilege of playing at Twist’s. The winners left a 10 percent tip for the host if they ever wanted to play there again.
If someone needed water or whiskey or both, K.C. called down to Ha Tsu and he had one of his waitresses bring up the order.
It wasn’t known what the relationship between Ha and Jerry was. No one even knew who owned the building they occupied. Were they partners or did such brilliant and unusual men just happen to come together in that place at that time?
“Mr. Jones,” came Jerry’s moderate alto. “Paris.”
Over to our left Jerry materialized out of night.
Mr. Twist looked nothing like his name. He was short and stout with googly, watery eyes that most often seemed to be gazing somewhere above your head. His lips were like those I’d imagine on Edward G. Robinson’s grandfather. All in all he looked like an uncomfortable cross between a man and a frog. He was good with a stick, better at business, and had the air of danger about him. He was one of those men — like Cleave and Fearless — who lived outside the rule of law.
