“What’s good today?” I asked the warlord of Watts.
“Chicken with walnuts, snow peas, and my extra-fancy white rice. Each grain inch long.”
“I’ll take it.”
“You like it.”
Ha went away to let me consider the next part of our talk.
Most people thought that I was harmless at best. I read books and stayed in most of the time. I didn’t have any kind of reputation except in the sex category, and even there I was no Fearless Jones. Women would leave their date to be with Fearless.
As I said, most people didn’t pay me any attention. Not so with Ha Tsu. His eyes were nearly shut all the time, but he saw everything. He heard everything too. When I came nosing around he realized that my questions and actions had purpose. He had heard the stories about people I looked for.
Don’t get me wrong. On the whole I was innocuous. But now and then I did work for Milo and helped Fearless when he got into a jam. And when I did, and Ha Tsu saw me, he knew that I had something going on.
I didn’t want be out in the streets looking for Useless. I didn’t want to find thousands of stolen dollars or moldering bodies. But there I was.
Ha brought my afternoon repast. It was delicious. He poured us both cups of fragrant jasmine tea and sat with me, as there were few other patrons at that hour.
“You look for Al Rive?” Ha Tsu asked.
“No. Why?”
“I hear Milo want him.” Ha hunched his shoulders and opened his mouth. He was missing some teeth.
“No. For my cousin,” I said. “Useless Grant.”
“He your cousin?”
“Uh-huh. And I have never been thankful for that fact.”
Again Ha laughed.
“You should come work for me, Paris,” he said.
“Why’s that?”
“Then I laugh all times.”
“Have you seen Useless?”
“Five days.”
“Really? How was he?”
“He okay, I guess,” Ha said. “Talking ’bout how he gonna get rich.”
“How?”
“Off of white devils.” Ha smiled a smile that would frighten a child of any age.
“How’s he gonna do that?”
“I don’t know. But he tell me that if you got a man by his dick, even if he white he gonna go where you say. Your cousin funny too.”
At the end of the counter was a doorway covered by a black-and-white-checkered curtain. Behind the curtain was a steel-bound door to some stairs that led up to Jerry Twist’s pool parlor. Only certain people were allowed up into Jerry’s place. If you were Van Cleave or Fearless Jones, or with somebody of that stature, you could go up any time you wanted to. But a schlub like me didn’t have a chance without an invitation.
“You think I could go up that way?” I asked my host.
Ha grimaced at the fabric. His left eye enlarged and he said, “It’s a magic carpet. Only open for men with power.”
“Open sesame,” I said.
Neither the curtain nor the restaurant owner moved.
Abracadabra, Shazam, hail hail. I said all these words, but the fabric did not flutter.
Ha shrugged and walked away from me.
I went into my pocket and came out with a dollar.
“Hey, Mum,” I called to the waitress.
She came over to me with a dazed and innocent look on her face. Mum was dressed in the black-and-white uniform of half the waitresses in America. But she carried it off with more elegance and beauty than Jayne Mansfield could have imagined.
“Yes, Paris?” she asked, but I heard another question.
“You got change for a dollar?”
“For you.”
When I think back on my youth, remembering moments like those, I realize that I have squandered my life.
19
I USED MY FIRST DIME to call Milo’s office. When Loretta answered, I felt the hole in my heart.
“Hey, Loretta. It’s Paris.”
“Hello, Paris,” she said in a friendly but professional voice. I could tell that she was going to wait for me to bring up the conversation we’d started the night before—and also that there was no pressure for me to hurry.
“Lookin’ for Fearless,” I said.
“Milo went home to study an argument he’s going to present,” she said. “He’s trying to be readmitted to the bar.”
“Fearless say where he was going?”
“No. He just drove Milo.”
“Thanks.”
“Sure, Paris. Is that all?”
“I had a great time last night,” I said.
She hummed her agreement and then said, “One day you’ll come to understand what a wonderful man you are, Paris Minton.”
I CALLED TWO BARS and three restaurants that Fearless frequented, with no luck. I left messages for him, but no one had any idea when he’d show up.
I could have called Mona. Maybe I should have called her. If you woke her in her bed from a deep sleep and asked her where Fearless might be, she would probably know. That man was on her mind twenty-four hours a day.
But I hesitated. One day I might really need Mona’s help and if I called all the time she could begin to resent me. It’s always a delicate thing dealing with your friends’ girlfriends.
So instead I dialed a Ludlow number. He answered on the first ring.
“Yeh?”
“Bobby?”
“You know it is, Paris. What you want?”
Bobby Frank was known as the Two Dollar Man. He’d perform any errand for the discreet payment of two George Washington notes.
If someone wanted to get word to his mother that he was in jail and needed bail, Bobby would take the message to her door for two bills. If you wanted your mother and your cousin to know, then that was four—unless the cousin and the mother lived under the same roof.
Bobby lived in a studio apartment with a portable Zenith TV, a mini-refrigerator filled with cheap beer, a perpetual carton of Kools, and a big black telephone. He kept a ledger sheet that had three live columns: name, estimated cost, and paid. Cost was always a multiple of two, and you had to have an X in the rightmost column or Bobby wouldn’t work for you again.
“I need Fearless to meet me down at Ha Tsu’s ASAP,” I said.
“You ain’t paid me for that thing I did last month, man.”
“I ain’t seen ya.”
“Well, you coulda come by,” Bobby said.
“Yeah. You right, man. I’ll tell ya what, you tell Fearless when you see ’im to give ya the four dollars. Tell him that I said to settle my bill.” This accomplished two ends. It meant that Bobby would definitely get paid, and it let him know that Fearless wanted the information Bobby had. Either detail was enough to get him up and out.
“I was gonna call him,” Bobby complained. He liked to complain.
“Milo’s only three blocks from you, B,” I said. “And anyway, Fearless ain’t there.”
The Two Dollar Man sighed on his end of the line.
“I hear Milo got trouble wit’ Albert Rive,” the Two Dollar Man said. This was often the case with Bobby. He stayed at home to get his business calls, but being at home most of the time made him lonely. On top of the two dollars, I had to pay a little interest in conversation.
“It’s Al got trouble,” I said. “He got Whisper and Fearless on him. He be lucky to make it to jail.”
“I hear you got trouble too, Paris.”
I wondered how he could have known about Three Hearts and her evil eye.
“What kinda trouble?” I asked.
“Mad Anthony says he gonna kill your cousin and he got some choice words about you too.”
“Where you hear that?”
“Around. People be sayin’ that Useless better keep his butt indoors.”
“You know where Useless is right now?” I asked.
“I’ll tell you what I told Tony’s cousin.”
“What’s that?”
“Use
less ain’t gone be found he don’t want it.”
“You think you can find Fearless?” I asked then. “Could you find him?”
“Oh, yeah. I think I know where he’s at.”
He probably did. For a man who stayed inside 90 percent of the time, Bobby had more knowledge about the comings and goings of Watts personalities than a station full of cops.
WHEN I GOT BACK TO GOOD NEWS the evening clientele had begun to arrive. My plate was still at the bar, but Ha had moved to the back in order to work with his immigrant kitchen help.
There were four waitresses on duty, two more than he needed at that hour, but the trade would be brisk soon.
Mum came up to my station and smiled, not that she needed to; she would have been beautiful frowning or crying or bemoaning the dead. Her skin was olive with a hint of lemon therein, and her dark eyes were both wise and youthful—I never really knew how old she was. Unlike the common impression that most people had of Asian women, Mum was full of good humor, quite forward, and blessed with a great figure.
I was appreciating this last quality when she asked, “So how are you, Mr. Paris?”
“Quite fine, Miss Mum. Quite fine. I got money in my pocket and someplace to be in the morning. I don’t have a job, which is a good thing, and nobody’s trying to get me put outta my house.”
She didn’t have to smile to maintain her beauty, but it didn’t hurt.
“How are you, honey?” I asked.
“Getting better.”
“Better? Was something wrong?”
“All kinds of things,” she said, pushing a shoulder forward deliciously.
“Like what?”
“I move outta my place on Grand Court over to Peters Lane. I got a nice green door with a red lantern over it.”
“You like the new place better?”
“Yeah. It’s closer, and you know I don’t get off till ten and so I like to get home before the news.”
“It’s closer but is it nicer?”
“It’s nicer because I don’t have stupid Vincent in there anymore,” she said with a sneer.
“Who’s Vincent?”
“He call himself my boyfriend but he wasn’t no friend to me. Don’t have a job, don’t do a thing. When my mothah get sick he won’t even go with me to the hospital.”
“How’s your mom?” I asked, following my cue. “Is she okay?”
Mum smiled and put her hand on mine.
“You’re sweet, Mr. Paris. She much bettah now I have free time to come see her every day.”
“Sometimes gettin’ rid of a boyfriend is better than gettin’ one,” I said.
She laughed and laughed. At Ha Tsu’s Good News I was a laugh riot.
I SAT ON MY STOOL watching the devotees of Ha Tsu’s cuisine come in. It was a loud establishment when it was in full swing. Some people recognized me and came my way, but after a while I pulled out a paperback copy of The Stranger by Albert Camus. My mother died today, or maybe it was yesterday . . . I liked reading about the heat of North Africa combined with the oppression of European culture.
NOW AND THEN a well-dressed man or two would show up and speak to one of the waitstaff. They’d linger around the checkered curtain until Ha would come out and admit them to the stairway to Jerry Twist’s.
Mum came by every fifteen minutes or so to touch my hand and ask if I needed anything.
The Stranger, Meursault, found himself getting deeper and deeper into trouble just for living a life in the world.
“HEY, FEARLESS!” someone shouted. “What’s happenin’, man?”
My friend was wearing a loose white shirt with big red flowers patterned on it and dark brown pants. Fearless’s hair was always close cut, and he had a slight limp from one time when he saved my life by taking two others.
He slapped hands and kissed women all the way to the counter. Fearless was popular, and unlike Van, no one felt that he was about to go crazy on them.
“Paris,” he announced. “What you need?”
“I got a hankerin’ to see some pool bein’ played,” I said.
“Well, let’s go there, then, my man,” he said.
I must say that no one in my life elated me like Fearless did.
Ha had appeared next to the snooker entrance before we reached the curtain.
“Boo!” Fearless said to the curtain, and it was pulled away. The door opened onto a dark passage lit by only one weak blue bulb.
As we ascended the narrow staircase I wondered about magic: those who had it, and those who did not.
20
WE ONLY HAD ONE FLIGHT of stairs to make a plan. After that we’d be in enemy territory. Fearless was used to that kind of pressure. He’d been a hair-trigger killer all through Europe for the U.S. army. They’d whisper a sentence or two into his ear, and he’d go out among Aryans, shooting and slaying and burning down.
“What’s the thing, man?” he asked me on the first step.
“Useless been hangin’ around Twist’s for some time now,” I said. “He told Ha that he been takin’ money from white men, that he had ’em by the dick.”
“The dick?” Fearless echoed. “Damn.”
We were halfway to the second floor.
“You know what we need,” I said. “Where is Useless and, failing that, what does Twist know about Useless that we don’t know?”
“Beats a knife in the ribs,” Fearless said.
For some reason, that caused me to grin.
The door to Jerry Twist’s was red. Dark red in a dark stairway. The faint light imbued the portal with a throbbing quality.
I let Fearless do the knocking.
He only rapped one time before the blood-colored door swung inward. Framed in the darkness of that doorway and lit by the weak light from the stairs stood K. C. Littell, one of the many mysteries of Watts.
K.C., from almost any perspective, was a white man. He had pale skin, wavy brown hair, and eyes that hadn’t seemed to decide on which shade of brown they actually were. His features, however—lips and nose—were small but not quite Caucasian. A white man might have been fooled by K.C.’s appearance. Many Negroes like him had disappeared into the white world. They lived there, married to white spouses, raising white children, belonging to white PTAs. But not K.C. He was a virulent Negro. Something in his upbringing, something about his appearance made him want to bathe himself in the color he’d been denied.
“Happenin’, Fearless, Paris,” he sang.
“Nuthin’ to it, brother,” I said.
“We wanna come in a minute, K.C.,” Fearless said. “That okay?”
The pale guardian pretended to think for a moment. But he knew that he didn’t have the authority to bar Mr. Jones’s way. No. There wasn’t a president or king worth his salt who couldn’t see the royalty in my friend.
K.C. nodded and stepped aside. We entered the vast room, assailed by darkness and light.
There was enough room for fifteen tables in Twist’s enormous poolroom—but he only kept six. They were spaced out like islands of light on a sea of black. Each table, handmade and imported from Copenhagen, was under three hanging lamps delivering rich and buttery radiance. Every table was occupied by professional pool men from all over the country. If you were a black man and you played pool, gaining entrée to Twist’s was the highest accolade you would ever receive.
The only sound coming from the room was the clacking of billiard balls. There were at least a dozen men in there playing, but I never even heard a murmur.
Somewhere in the darkness was our quarry. Jerry’s desk was against one of the walls. He never had his lamp turned on and kept a penlight for the few times he had to read or sign something.
Each player paid a hundred dollars a night for the privilege of playing at Twist’s. The winners left a 10 percent tip for the host if they ever wanted to play there again.
If someone needed water or whiskey or both, K.C. called down to Ha Tsu and he had one of his waitresses bring up the order.
It wasn’t known what the relationship between Ha and Jerry was. No one even knew who owned the building they occupied. Were they partners or did such brilliant and unusual men just happen to come together in that place at that time?
“Mr. Jones,” came Jerry’s moderate alto. “Paris.”
Over to our left Jerry materialized out of night.
Mr. Twist looked nothing like his name. He was short and stout with googly, watery eyes that most often seemed to be gazing somewhere above your head. His lips were like those I’d imagine on Edward G. Robinson’s grandfather. All in all he looked like an uncomfortable cross between a man and a frog. He was good with a stick, better at business, and had the air of danger about him. He was one of those men—like Cleave and Fearless—who lived outside the rule of law.
Jerry was from Louisiana too. He’d grown up not seven miles from the hovel I called home. He was my senior by a decade, but I remembered him—ugly and gawking, different from the rest. I used to think that we had something in common. But years later I realized that the only experience we shared was our separateness from the people around us.
“Hey, Jerry,” Fearless replied.
I nodded, noticing that I didn’t deserve a mister.
“What you all doin’ here?” he asked, peering at a spot both above and between us.
“As you know,” I began. “Useless Grant’s my cousin. . . .”
I told an edited version of the story. There was no reason to mention Tiny or Jessa, stolen money, or the particulars of my meeting with Mad Anthony. I didn’t even tell Jerry that Useless’s mother was the one who had initiated our search.
When I’d finished talking, Jerry was quiet for quite some time. Finally he sighed and glanced at Fearless.
“You in this, Mr. Jones?” he asked.
“All the way up to my elbows.”
“Come on, then,” he said, turning toward the depths of his establishment.
He guided us along an invisible path, between tables, to the wall opposite the entrance. There he opened a door and admitted us to his office.
I had expected dazzling light, crystal chandeliers, mirrors on every wall. But instead Jerry’s office was almost as dim as the poolroom. There was a red lamp on the desk and weak blue radiance coming from the wall on my left, enough light for us to see the chairs we were meant to sit in.
Fear of the Dark Page 10
