cousin.
“This guy Motley,” I said. “What’s he do?”
“He works for an oil company now. Tiger Oil. For the past few years he’s been a liaison between the charitable arm of his corporation and our service.”
“What were you doing at the track?” I asked.
“I gamble. Not a lot. It relaxes me. I put aside a hundred dollars a month and either I go out to Gardena for poker or to the track. Once a year I blow five hundred in Las Vegas.”
“And Motley knew all this?”
“We’d seen each other now and again at the track,” Friar said. “I liked to go on Saturday afternoons.”
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Walter Mosley
“How long ago was it that you saw him with the black lady?”
“Three years . . . no, four.”
“So he knew you liked to gamble and he knew you liked black women,” I said.
“I don’t see what you’re trying to make out of it,” Friar said.
“I mean, do you think that Brian’s been trying to set me up for years? That’s ridiculous.”
“Maybe Mr. Motley likes gambling a little more than you,” I speculated. “Maybe he got into somebody who knew what you felt about women like Monique.”
“That’s pretty far-fetched, don’t you think?” Friar said.
“We could check it out,” I suggested.
“How?”
“Let’s go talk to him.”
“He’ll be at work.”
“Call him there. Ask to see him for lunch or after work if he can’t make it.”
My words were falling together for Friar a few moments after they were spoken. He stared at me for quite a while and then he nodded.
“Excuse me,” he said. “I’ll make a call from the bedroom.”
I smiled. Fearless made a silent toast with his snifter.
“This is some racket,” Fearless said when Friar closed the bedroom door. “He got his own little place to go to if he need a shower or a shave. That’s nice.”
“I wonder how many times he was here with Angel?” I said.
“You know I’d be up in here with some lady at least once a week,” Fearless said with a rare lascivious smile. “You cain’t have sumpin’ like this here an’ not take advantage.”
214
FEAR OF THE DARK
We both took drinks then and appreciated the quiet and calmness of our surroundings.
“You see the way them cops bowed down to him?” Fearless asked after some time had passed.
“Yeah,” I said. “White people.”
“Uh-uh, Paris,” Fearless said. “No, man. It ain’t just that.
It’s the way he thinks too. Mr. Friar know he in charge. He know it. He know it so well that them cops know it too. An’
he so sure about who he is that here he bring us up in here an’ he ain’t even scared or nuthin’.”
“Why he wanna be scared of two Negro men, anyway?” I asked.
“You see that, man?” Fearless said. “You see? You think them cops stopped us ’cause they can, ’cause they don’t like colored people.”
“Well, didn’t they?”
“Naw, man. They stopped us ’cause they scared. An’ if they ain’t scared, the people pay ’em is. That’s the on’y reason they wanna keep you from readin’ yo’ book. That’s the on’y reason they asked that white man were we botherin’ him. They wanna keep on our ass ’cause if they don’t, they worried we might start fightin’ back.”
Fearless did that every once in a while. He’d open his mind to let me see his deft perceptions of the human heart. It’s no wonder that women and children loved him so much. He was a natural man in a synthetic world. He had to be as tough as he was to survive the danger that truth brought.
While I was having these thoughts, Martin Friar came through the bedroom door. His eyes were once again glazed over with doubts.
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“He was fired four months ago,” the vice president said.
“His home phone has been disconnected.”
“Why was he fired?” I asked.
