It wasn’t a total loss. I had found out some things.
“Tell me something, Jessa.”
“What?”
“Hector came here one day asking for a French dictionary.
Why he do that? Did Useless tell him that I had something of his?”
“No,” Jessa said, her fingers jittering nervously. “Hector asked me about you. I told him that all you did was sell books.
But he, he wanted to see you and for you to see him. He said that if you blinked he’d kill you like he had Tiny —”
“Like he thought he killed Tiny,” I reminded her.
“Yeah.”
“So I guess he didn’t think I knew anything,” I said.
“No. He said that you were nothing.”
It’s funny the things that make us mad. I was angry at the dead killer for thinking I wasn’t worth a bullet.
“Do you hate me, Paris?” Jessa asked.
“No. Why?”
“Do you think I’m a whore?”
“No, I do not. I think you’re a young woman got in way over her head, but it wasn’t your fault — at least not all your fault. You might’a been messin’ with Tiny, but he left you first.
And there wasn’t a damn thing you could’a done about Hector. Not a damn thing.”
She tried to smile, which was more meaningful than if she had actually managed it.
272
FEAR OF THE DARK
“I’m’a give ya two hundred dollars and a ride to the downtown YWCA,” I said. “In a couple or few days I’ll come by and tell you what I think.”
“Can’t I stay with you?”
“Stayin’ here just about as dangerous as stayin’ with Hector.”
I didn’t have to say any more.
A f t e r I p u t J e s s a into a taxi I took the suitcase to my incinerator in the backyard. There I applied lighter fluid and set it afire. As the flames rose I tried to imagine Useless sneak-ing up behind a man and cutting his throat.
It wasn’t a nice thought. But he just didn’t have the nerve to kill a man like that.
Or did he?
273
F e a r l e s s ’ s f r o n t d o o r was wide open.
This detail made me hesitate. It was a warm 42 day and an open door was the best way to cool down. But maybe the killer had knocked and Fearless had answered and got shot. Maybe Fearless was dead.
I couldn’t take a step forward or back until those maybes were resolved. It’s not that I expected a moment of brilliance to strike where I’d be suddenly aware of the reason behind that open door. I hoped that Fearless would appear or, failing that, he’d speak out.
But as I waited I began to wonder. If some killer had struck at Fearless he would only leave the door open if he’d left. If he was in there waiting for me, the door would be closed so that no one would suspect his presence.
That got me far enough to consider moving, but it was hearing Fearless laugh out loud that brought on the locomo-tion in my legs.
He was sitting on the sofa with Mona at his side. I thought that she might have just snagged a kiss before I appeared because there was a lascivious look in her lovely grayish eyes.
“There he is,” Fearless said aloud. “Paris. He done saved my life an’ made me fi’e hundred dollars.”
274
FEAR OF THE DARK
The sexual expectation was replaced by disappointment on Mona’s face, disappointment but not anger. Later I would find out that Mona had a great deal of sisterly love and respect for me.
She was a much more complex woman than I could have known back then, when all of her senses were besotted by the Hero.
“That’s all Milo paid you to risk yo’ life like that?” I asked.
“You wanna drink, Paris?” Mona offered.
I nodded, and she went into the tiny kitchen that was through the door next to Fearless’s one room for living, sleeping, and paying his bills.
“That was a bonus,” Fearless said. “On top’a what he paid me for bodyguardin’.”
“Did you hear that window openin’ up over your head?” I asked as I lowered into the broken-down stuffed chair next to his small sofa.
