I slid over to the passenger’s side and Fearless got behind the wheel.
“Did Hector have a car he kept at Bubba Lateman’s?” I asked Useless.
“Yeah. Sho did. Pink-an’-chrome Cadillac. Kep’ it so neat it woulda passed a military inspection.”
“Would Bubba let you pick it up?”
“Prob’ly. I went there wit’ Hector a few times. You know I’d drive ovah there with him. An’ then take him back home after he dropped it off.”
“So you been to his place before?”
Fearless turned the key and the car started.
“Not for a month or two, but yeah.”
Useless was getting wary. Maybe he knew what the next question might have been.
Fearless pulled away from the curb and we started our drive southward.
278
FEAR OF THE DARK
“So why you still lookin’ into Hector an’ them?” Useless asked, partly to prevent me from asking more questions.
“Because someone killed him,” I said. “Because’a that suitcase you had and some things we found at Lionel Sterling’s place.”
Useless was silent.
“Where’d you get that bag, Useless?” I asked into the void of the backseat.
“Um.”
“Come on, man,” I said. “You ain’t got time to make up no lie.”
“I took it.”
“Took it from where?”
“From, from Hector’s place.”
“When?”
“A few days ago.”
“You just walked in an’ took it?” I asked sarcastically. “He just let you walk all ovah him?”
“He, he was dead.”
Fearless turned his head for a moment.
“You killed him?”
“No, man. No. He was dead. Somebody cut his th’oat. I saw the suitcase, grabbed it, and ran.”
“Did you see who killed him?”
“Uh-uh. No. I just grabbed the suitcase ’cause I knew it was important. I grabbed it and hustled out the back.”
“What about the girl?”
“She wasn’t there.”
“The white girl wasn’t there?” I asked.
“What white girl? I thought you was askin’ ’bout Angel.”
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Walter Mosley
“Hector’s girl. Jessa.”
“I didn’t even know ’bout no girlfriend, man. I walked in, saw he was murdered, grabbed the suitcase, an’ run.”
He was lying — had to be. The man who had murdered Hector was certainly in on the blackmailing scheme. That man wouldn’t have left all that evidence behind.
280
Th e o n l y e n t r a n c e to Bubba’s Yard was an eight-foot-high wrought-iron gate. He had 43 four snapping and slavering feral dogs that came out to greet us with their canine threats and promises.
Fearless pressed the buzzer while Useless and I stood a few feet away. The dogs were wolflike, maybe they were wolves, with dense pelts and yellow fangs. They wanted to look us in the eye, like bullies on a street corner. They wanted to kill us.
The dogs prowled the inside of the gate, lunging at it now and then. A man approached from the house that sat at the back end of the lot.
Bubba Lateman was a huge man. Six six or more and weighing three fifty at least. His head was bald and his hands too big even for a body his size. He had a smile on his face, but I knew how mean Bubba could be.
He was wearing overalls and railroad gloves. His skin was black and that day streaked with sweat.
“Fearless Jones,” he said amid the yowling and barking of his dogs.
It was both a greeting and a threat. Powerful men who had never tested him always felt a little disdainful of
