I said. “I thought that Anthony might be bankrollin’ him.”
“And you say this Fearless broke his jaw?”
“Yeah. But that was just a fight in a cafe. Anthony left after that an’ everything was peaceful.”
Green Suit laughed at my choice of words, and I knew that Anthony was dead.
190
H a v i n g r e c e i v e d j u s t o n e slap made me a nonloser. Someday I’d tell my grandchil-30 dren about that evening in jail. By that time there’d be racism on Mars and jails for black men up there.
They took Fearless in for questioning after me. He wouldn’t tell them anything either. And Fearless was the kind of man that policemen didn’t batter around needlessly. They could tell right off that he’d die before saying something he didn’t want to say, and despite popular belief, the police needed good reason to beat a man to death under interrogation.
Finally I got to sleep. By then I was used to the sour smell of the cell. Chapman Grey asked for a doctor. They took him away and he never returned. I didn’t miss him.
I don’t know what time it was when I woke up, but it felt like early morning. There was no window, so I couldn’t tell for sure.
I bummed a cigarette off an old guy named Joshua who was in there for stabbing his wife. He didn’t understand why they had arrested him.
“Me an’ Gladys be fightin’ all the time,” he told me. “Damn, she shot me one time in ’forty-eight. The police asked me if I was okay an’ that was that.”
191
Walter Mosley
Soon after he said this, I found myself thinking about Jamaica again.
An hour or so later a policeman called out, “Minton and Jones.”
We were brought to a processing room where all of our property, including Fearless’s .45, was returned.
When we walked out into the waiting room, I expected to see Milo or at least Loretta, and maybe Whisper. But instead, Jerry Twist, the African frog, was squatting on the bench.
“Fearless,” he said, breaking convention with familiarity,
“Paris.”
“What are you doin’ here, Jerry?” I asked.
“That all the thanks I get for goin’ yo’ bail?”
“What are you doing here?” I asked again.
“Let’s go outside,” the master stickman suggested.
It was the best idea. He might have had something to say that one wouldn’t want the police to overhear. But I was loath to go out of that jailhouse.
On the street it was maybe 6:00 or 7:00 a.m. Cars were cruising past. Twist led us to a big blue Chrysler parked across the street.
“Where you want me to drive ya?” he asked.
Fearless gave him an address three blocks down from Nadine and we drove away.
“What’s it like on the inside’a that jail?” Twist asked me as we went down Central. “You know I have never been arrested in my life.”
Only the best and worst of men could make that claim.
“How did you come to bail us out of jail, Mr. Twist?” I asked again.
“Answer up this time, Jerry,” Fearless added.
192
FEAR OF THE DARK
He gave a slight shrug and said, “Ulysses called me and asked me to do it.”
“Ulysses?” That was both of us.
“Yeah. He called and said that he saw his mama an’ them an’ they told him that you was arrested. I called cop houses till I fount you.”
“Why?” I asked.
“Because Ulysses axed me to, that’s why. I done told you all that I’m doin’ business wit’ him.”
“Where is he?”
“I don’t know. He called from a phone booth, said that he was with his mama an’ that girl, that Angel.” Jerry smiled at the thought of her. There was something obscene about a man that ugly lusting after a goddess.
He made a turn on a block three numbers lower than Nadine’s.
“You could stop anywhere around here,” Fearless said.
“I’ll take you to the do’, man,” our driver offered.
“Here’s fine.”
“Whatevah you say.” Jerry pulled to the curb, and I jumped out, followed by Fearless.
