252
S h e b r o u g h t m y ja s m i n e t e a to the bed. The night before she had bathed me and 39 loved me andeven sung a Chinese lullaby while I drifted off to sleep in her arms. But Mum’s greatest gift to me was that cup of fragrant tea. I sat up, realizing that her bed was positioned to receive the morning sun through a high window on the far wall.
Even in that overbuilt part of town you could hear birds chirping. I took a deep breath and a sip; Mum kissed me and said, “Your mustache tickle.”
“I’ll cut it off.”
“No. I like it when a man tickle me.”
It was a moment that I never wanted to end. We made love again, but the seconds were ticking at the back of my mind while she laughed at my mustache against her thighs.
She asked me if I had really read
But even Homer couldn’t save me that morning.
253
Walter Mosley
I kissed the young waitress good-bye and walked out into the sultry morning — two parts serenity and three parts terror.
“ G o o d m o r n i n g , Pa r i s , ” Loretta Kuroko said with a humorous and playful suspicion in her eye.
I felt guilty under that gaze.
“Paris,” Milo shouted. “I hear I owe you a favor, boy.”
“You get Fearless outta jail, Miles?” I asked the bail bondsman.
“Come on over here an’ sit with me,” he said.
I turned to Loretta.
“Why are you looking at me?” she asked.
“Can I go?”
Her smile lost its insinuation, and we were friends again.
She nodded graciously, and I went to Milo’s spindly visitor’s chair, my favorite piece of furniture in the whole wide world, and sat down hard.
“I need information, Mr. Sweet.”
“Shoot.”
I wasn’t ready yet. I had relied on the habit Milo had of resisting sharing what he knew. He usually got coy and then cagey before getting up off of information. And so, because he hadn’t, I took on his evasive role.
“Where’s Fearless?” I asked.
“That’s what you wanna know?”
“That’s the first thing.”
“He went off wit’ that girlfriend Mona. She was already at the police station when I got there at two.”
254
FEAR OF THE DARK
“Who was the third man?” I asked then. “The one with the rifle.”
“Steven Borell,” Milo said. “I don’t know how Al Rive managed to fool him into that.”
“Rive is in jail?” I asked, just to make sure.
“For a long time,” Milo promised.
“You know a big ugly brother with a scar run up the center’a his face?”
“That’s the information?” Milo asked.
“Yeah.”
“What for?”
“Milo, I got problems. You know that. I helped Whisper and Fearless with your mess, now please just tell me who he is.”
“Lonnie Mannheim,” Milo said.
“Mannheim?”
“Yeah. I guess the Germans had slaves too.”
“Does he have a gang?”
“Uh-huh. Sure do,” Milo said. “Bobo and Gregory Handsome. Two Arkansas brothers who need to go home. All of ’em have worked for me at one time or another.”
“Trackin’ down bail jumpers?”
“That and other things.”
“You know where I can find them?” I asked.
