“Where y’all goin’?” the little scout shouted.
TAKING FEARLESS’S QUESTION into account, the first thing we did was knock on the front door. I didn’t think that there was anybody there, but it was always good to be certain.
To my surprise the door swung open.
Elana Love looked better every time I saw her. She was wearing a short brown bathrobe that barely covered the tops of her brown thighs. Her hair was wrapped in a towel. That lovely flat face considered us a moment and then smiled.
“Hi, Paris. Who’s your friend?”
I walked past her into the house. Fearless followed my lead, closing the door behind him.
“Elana,” I said. “We got to talk.”
“Do you mind if I put on some clothes first?”
“Go right ahead,” I said. “It ain’t nuthin’ I ain’t already seen, and I don’t think it’ll come as any surprise to my friend neither.”
Elana put on a petulant look for a second, but she didn’t really care. She dropped the bathrobe and squatted down to pull a floral-patterned dress out of a satchel next to the couch. She stepped into the brightly colored shift and buttoned up the front. I stole a glance at Fearless while she was dressing. He didn’t seem to be concerned at all. As long as I had known Fearless he proved at least once every day that he was a better man than I.
The room we had entered was almost the entire house. There was one door at the back, which I suspected was to the toilet. That was the only thing missing. There was a stove, a couch, a bed, and a bathtub in the room where we stood, making the house reminiscent of many a country home I had seen. We were standing near a table covered with dirty dishes, crumbs, newspapers, and other, less recognizable, trash. A line of tiny black ants had crossed the floor and then scattered across the table, foraging among the treasures they found there.
“How’d you find me?” Elana asked.
“We didn’t,” I said.
At first she was confused by my answer, but then a little twinkle told me she understood.
“You found Leon,” she said.
Her intelligence did not set my mind at ease.
“I came back to see you the same day I took your car, you know,” she said with a smile that made me wish it were true.
“What for? You tasted my gold fillin’ when you was kissin’ me and you wanted that too?”
“Don’t be like that, Paris. I came back to give you your car and say I was sorry, but the store was burned down and nobody knew where you were.”
There was something easy about Elana Love. All you had to do was talk to her a minute or two and a whole new life appeared before you. Maybe everything could be different, I thought. But then I remembered that Leon might be back any minute.
“We want the bond, Elana,” I said.
She sighed and went to the couch, seating herself squarely in the middle.
“You got a cigarette, honey?” she asked Fearless.
He just stared at her, a soldier on reconnaissance duty.
I gave her a cigarette and lit it.
“You were lookin’ for me and found Leon instead?” I asked.
“Yeah,” she said, crossing the right leg over the left.
I sat down on the wooden arm of the calico couch and nodded for her to continue.
“Leon came back around your place just before I did. He thought you an’ me were together and figured if he waited long enough, one or the other of us’d show up. It was just about the only smart thing he ever did in his life, and that was just a stupid mistake.”
“Was he with Conrad Till then?” I asked.
“Naw, he had already taken Conrad to my apartment, lookin’ for me. I guess I must’a shot Conrad when they was comin’ after you and me in your car —”
Fearless grunted at that. I couldn’t tell if it was admiration or commiseration with the dumb luck of the dead man.
“Conrad was afraid to go to his own house at first because he was on parole. He thought he could get cleaned up enough so that he could say he was sick without bleedin’ all over whoever came to the door.”
“So then you took Conrad to his place…,” I prompted.
“They made me. They said they was gonna kill me if I didn’t do what they said. At first it was just to take care’a Conrad’s wound.”
“They didn’t mind that you were the one who shot him?”
“I told ’em that it was you shootin’ out the windah,” she said.
“So now Douglas thinks it was me killed his friend?”
“I’ont know what he’s thinkin’,” Elana protested. “Anyways, I worked on Conrad’s wounds, and then Leon forgot how mad he was and started lookin’ at me like a man looks at a woman.”
“Yeah, I know,” I said.
“You cain’t blame me,” Elana said as if we had a relationship that had gone bad. “I’m alone out here. Men all gruff and mean, lookin’ at me like I’m a piece’a meat.”
“Look how you dressed,” I said.
“Look how you just pushed your way into my house,” was her retort.
I didn’t have anything to say to that.
“You see,” Elana said. “There’s people out there kill me in a second. Sure I took your money and your car. But I left the five dollars in your shoe. And if you weren’t out after me now, you’d be safe while my life is still on the line.”
“I wouldn’t be here if your boyfriend didn’t burn down my motherfuckin’ store,” I said, getting hot.
“Leon didn’t burn down your store.”
“If he didn’t, then who did?”
“I don’t know. But he asked me the same question when he grabbed me off the street.”
“That could just be a lie,” I said.
“Why he wanna lie about that? Why he wanna burn your place down anyway?”
“So what happened with you and Leon?” I asked.
“We went to see William. Leon fount out where he was through a fence he knew.”
“Leon the one messed up his face like that?”
“What are you, a cop?”
“Just talk, sister,” Fearless said.
The timbre of his voice drew a strange stare from Elana.
“Yeah,” she said, answering my question. “Leon slapped him around a little but —”
“But then he realized that the good William was tellin’ the truth and you still had the bond,” I said to cut off whatever lie she was going to tell.
“If you know so fuckin’ much, then why you askin’ me?”
“Does Leon have the bond?”
Elana’s nod was as subtle as a first kiss.
“What’s he plan to do with it?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” she lied.
“Is the bond here?”
“No,” she said. “He like me, but he don’t trust me.”
“Smart kid,” I said.
“So we got to get the bond from this Douglas,” Fearless said to me.
Elana Love was beautiful, but she had an ugly laugh, cruel and cold. “You’re pretty, Paris’s friend, but you don’t have the stuff to take Leon Douglas down.”
Fearless gave her a smile and a salute.
“What did you do after you braced Grove?” I wanted to get the conversation back to business.
“We went to my place, but the cops were there. I guess somebody found somethin’a mines at Conrad’s.”
“Why did your boyfriend kill Fanny Tannenbaum?” Fearless asked.
For the first time Elana lost her poise. “What?”
“Don’t act like you don’t know what he’s talkin’ about,” I said. “Somebody killed her. I’m almost sure that Leon and his friend the cowboy went to Fanny’s house after we got away. He stabbed Sol and ran. Cowboy or Leon just went back to finish the job.”
“I don’t know about Tricks, but I been wit’ Leon almost every minute,” Elana said uncertainly. “An’ why go after her if we already had the bond?”
“Maybe he wanted more,” Fea
rless suggested.
“No,” she said.
“Why not?”
“Because. Because Leon knows a man who’ll pay a lotta money for just one bond. He thinks that if he can follow down one, then all the rest’a the money that the old Jew stole will be easy to find.”
“I don’t get it,” I said.
“Sol took money from somebody he worked for.”
“Who?” I asked, just to see what she would say.
“I don’t know. Leon says that there’s this guy wanna get that bond ’cause he thinks that the serial numbers will lead them to a lot more money.”
“When does this guy pay off?” I wanted to know.
“Leon’s the only one who knows him. We have to wait for Leon to make the deal.” Elana didn’t sound satisfied with Leon having control.
“You know Leon might remember how you tricked him and tried to cheat him after he gets his hands on all that money,” I suggested.
Elana thought over the possibility.
“But he’s the only one could get the money,” she said.
“No,” I said. “Your friend Grove knows how too. He’d be a lot easier to deal with.”
I was sure that Elana was thinking of how to get the bond and go to her old lover. If Fearless and I had walked out right then, Leon would have been bondless and dead by sunset.
“You wanna throw in with me and Fearless?” I asked.
Elana was wondering about the offer when I heard a familiar-sounding motor drive up almost to the front door. A car door slammed. Four seconds later the front door flew open. Leon Douglas, gaudy as a butterfly and ugly as a stump, filled the doorway with an instantaneous murderous rage.
22
ELANA LOVE MOVED to a neutral corner where she could wait to see which side would win. I could hardly blame her.
Leon scanned the room quickly. He registered Elana, now in a dress, passed over me without a pause, and then looked at Fearless. He may have recognized his former cell-block neighbor, or maybe not.
The fireplug gangster moved even faster than the first time I saw him. He went straight at Fearless and clocked him on the jaw with a blow that sounded like a twenty-pound hammer on stone. Fearless almost flew backward, hit the wall, and slid to the ground. Douglas turned toward me then.
“I remember you,” he said.
I reached for Sol’s pistol, then remembered that I’d left it under the front seat of Layla’s car.
Leon Douglas saw my futile gesture and smiled a smile as cruel as Elana Love’s laugh.
Elana gasped. I looked at her, and so did Douglas.
She was looking toward the wall where Fearless had regained his feet.
The grunt of amazement that issued from Douglas’s deep chest was probably the closest thing to a compliment that he ever gave. He closed on Fearless again and connected with a left hook that even Rocky Marciano would have feared. Fearless went down halfway, but this time he was up before Douglas regained his balance.
Again Douglas lunged, but this time it was with the intention of catching Fearless in a bear hug. Before the thug could get his arms into position Fearless connected with a one-two to the head. The gangster leapt again. This time he got his arms around Fearless and squeezed. He would have certainly broken Fearless’s back except that my friend had his left hand free. With that mighty mace he landed body blows to Douglas’s right side. One, two, three — and there was no effect — four, five, six — Leon went down on one knee. By seven and eight Douglas let go and fell back with his fists up but his speed greatly diminished.
Fearless smiled.
That was the exact moment of the greatest elation that I had ever experienced. Leon Douglas had already beaten me. He had defeated my heart and my spirit. I couldn’t imagine anyone standing up to his murderous brutality.
And then Fearless smiled.
Leon came at Fearless again. But Fearless was connecting with his own hands of steel. He hit Douglas again and again. You could see the ugly man’s body shake under the power of the war hero’s blows. In a final act of courage Douglas raised both arms and came after Fearless. The latter opened up with a barrage of blows to the rib cage. Douglas crumbled, tried to rise, fell to the floor again, and began to shake as if he were entering the throes of death.
“Where he got the bond?” Fearless demanded of Elana as he flipped Leon over on his back.
The loser had his arms clenched tightly around his ribs and he was talking to himself, though I couldn’t understand what he was saying.
“In his, in the back of his pants,” Elana stuttered.
Fearless tossed Douglas back over on his stomach and pulled up his gaudy shirt. There was a brown envelope stuffed halfway down the back of his pants.
Fearless took the envelope, jammed his hand into Leon’s pocket and came out with my key ring, and said, “Let’s go.”
“Hold up,” I said. I took the envelope from Fearless and ripped it open.
The bond was no larger than a dollar bill. It was printed on high-quality paper in blue ink. On the left side of the bill there was the image of a hatless, bearded, and mustachioed man who wore a monocle and some kind of jacket that was buttoned up to his throat. On the right side was the denomination — 2500 Fr. With a lot of blue curlicues around it. The opposite side of the bond was written all over in German. All I could make out was Wetterling Bank and the name David Tannenbaum, which had been written by hand. It didn’t look like it was worth killing over or dying for.
“Okay,” I said. “Let’s get outta here.” I handed the bond and its envelope back to Fearless. I figured that if it needed protecting, he was a better guard than I.
“Take me,” Elana cried.
Fearless and I looked at each other then. He gave no inkling of what he felt, but I guess I seemed unsure.
“Let’s take her if you want, man,” Fearless said. “But hurry. ’Cause if he get up again, I’m’a have to kill ’im.”
Fearless took Elana in my car, and I followed in Layla’s pink Packard.
WE DECIDED ON the lawn to make it to Milo’s office, but as soon as Fearless took the lead, I knew it was a mistake. He cut over to Central, which was a cruising street at that time. Everybody you knew turned up on Central sooner or later. There were churches, nightclubs, liquor stores, and open-lot bazaars up and down the street. Fearless had been in jail and he had just bested a warrior in battle. He was feeling cocky and sure of himself. And even though he showed no interest in Love, she was still a beautiful woman that he could show off. The flowery dress she’d put on was revealing and festive.
Now and then Fearless would toot the horn at someone he’d recognize. People waved and said hello. I followed along, worried about something going wrong, not knowing what that wrong might be, and helpless, at any rate, to make any difference in the outcome.
After a mile or two on Central, Elana Love looked back at me and then said something to Fearless. Two blocks past Gage, Fearless took a left. I was going to follow, but a car sped up on my right, hitting its siren as it did. Automatically I hit the brakes. The police car was joined by a second one that veered and bounced over the curb on my right side.
The cruisers cut Fearless off on the side street. Four cops raced out with their guns drawn, yelling and moving toward the car. I drove past the turn and pulled to the curb just beyond the street’s line of sight. I jumped out and crossed over to the other side of the street just in time to see Fearless thrown over the hood of my car and Elana being relieved of her purse.
I had been so concerned that trouble was coming that I didn’t look out for it. The police came up behind me using my car to hide from Fearless. I wanted to curse out loud, but instead I bit my tongue and moved behind a group of three men who had witnessed the arrest from the street.
They searched Fearless and then they searched the car. They cuffed Fearless and put him in the backseat of one cruiser and Elana in the front seat of the other. That was strange right there. Elana was being treated differently
.
I walked back and forth, up and down the avenue, putting on a baseball cap that was in the backseat of Layla’s car. I took the hat off, turned up a collar. I don’t know if my disguises were working or if the police weren’t worried about anybody watching them in broad daylight while they made an arrest. That was still a time when white policemen handled blacks in public with impunity. They were, after all, the law.
I had crossed the street maybe a dozen times when Bernard Latham pulled around the corner. He drove right past me.
He got out of his deep blue Chevrolet and sauntered over to the cops who had been waiting. He looked into the backseat that contained Fearless. He asked Fearless a question, then moved toward Elana Love.
Something was wrong, I was sure of that. I ran to my car and started it up, then did a U-turn on Central and came back to turn down the street. I drove past the cops, my best friend, and that woman, pretending to be a commuter coming home from work. None of them registered my passage, so I picked an empty-looking house halfway down the block and backed deep into the driveway.
By the time I was crouched down into position Elana was walking toward Latham’s car. Fearless was out too, his hands free. Latham put Elana in the front seat and then leisurely walked around to his side. He drove down past my hiding place.
I had to make a decision then. Actually I had to make three decisions. The first was whether or not to leave Fearless in the hands of the cops. It didn’t look like they were about to arrest him, and it was unlikely that they’d shoot him in broad daylight. And even if they were going to shoot him, there was little I could do to stop it. The second decision was whether or not to follow Latham. He was a cop and there was something crooked about him; even his fellow cop Lieutenant Binder thought so. A gun license for a policeman was like a permit to kill Negroes, and for a crooked cop that permit was just a formality.
The first two decisions were simple. Of course I had to leave Fearless and follow the girl. Latham might have taken the bond. If he was dirty, maybe there was still a chance to steal it back. But the final resolve, to actually drive the car out of that driveway, that was the hardest decision of all.
When Latham’s car drove by me I decided to count to eight before following, telling myself it was to keep from being seen. I had gotten to fifteen before I got the courage to move. Down in the street I was panting, driving not more than ten miles an hour. My car sped up and then slowed. There was a lump in my throat and spots before my eyes. I had faced death earlier that day in the shape of Leon Douglas, but Leon didn’t scare me nearly as much as Latham’s taillights.
Fearless Jones Page 15
