Walter Mosley - Fear of the Dark

Milo had a running tab at Apollo’s, but I started my own. I lit Loretta’s cigarette and ordered good champagne. She was hungry and so we had them bring out a basket of battered and fried shrimp with two salads.

The Winston Marks Trio was playing that night. They were one of the most important components in those early days of the new jazz. Winston could be anything from a lonely whale to a hummingbird’s wing with his trumpet. He would have probably been world renowned if he hadn’t had an eye for every lady he met. One of those ladies was his bass player’s wife. Three weeks after that performance, Billy Stiles shot Winston in the brain, ending the trio’s career.

I spent most of my time talking to Loretta. At one point I went up to the bartender, Silver Martin. I showed him the picture of Angel and he admitted seeing her before. I handed him a picture of Andrew Jackson and he promised to send over anyone who knew something about her.

The music was great. Maybe Winston sensed his death that night because he played like I never heard anyone play before. There was one number where I knew instinctively that he was tracing the cracks of a broken heart that could never be mended. Fool that I was, I even shed a tear.

Loretta placed a hand on mine.

“You’re a sweet man, Paris Minton.”

“And you’re twice the woman of anybody else in this place,” I said.

She smiled and let her head loll a bit to the side.

“What?” I asked.

“Are we going to do something about all these fine compliments?”

Loretta liked black men. She liked us because we knew how she felt on the inside. She shared our rage and our impotence; she strained with us at the edges.

“Well?” she asked.

I was frozen in place. I didn’t know what to say. It was as though I had just been in my house talking loud and bragging about what I’d do with some movie queen, and then she strolled in and said, “Let’s get it on, son.”

Loretta grinned. She was not the kind of woman who would belittle the man she was with.

“It’s okay,” she said.

“No.”

“No?”

“You don’t get it,” I said. “You couldn’t understand because I’m just gettin’ to it right now myself.”

“What?”

Loretta’s eyes shimmered and her presence was absolutely assured. She felt more at home in my world than I did.

“I love you,” I said, and her smile was replaced with astonishment.

“What?” It was a whole different question this time.

“I see you sitting there with Milo. I see you loving him and caring for him and everybody he cares for. You’re beautiful and strong and hurt, but you never complain. That man tried to humiliate me, and you shot him right down. And I’m not even thinkin’ that you’re askin’ me to share your bed. Even if you just wonder if we’ll have another date, I’m scared to death about it. You know the girls I hang with might forget my name in the mornin’. And here you are looking into me like I was this glass’a water.”

The smile returned to Loretta’s mouth after a moment.

“Maybe later, then?” she said.

“Excuse me. Mr. Minton?”

I looked up and saw a short brown man with pockmarks on his skin that made him seem to be made of leather. He had a flat head and snake eyes but wasn’t at all threatening or even off-putting.

“Yeah?” I said, angered by the interruption of one of the few purely honest moments I’d had with a woman.

“Silver said you wanted to know about Angel.”

“Excuse me,” Loretta said, standing. “I have to go to the powder room.”

She left, taking the best part of me with her.

“What you got?” I asked the man, whose name I never knew.

“Angel live with a dude named Useless at Man’s Barn.”

“I got that already,” I said, taking a small fold of cash from my pocket.

The man eyed my money and actually licked his lips.

“What you need, then?”

“You seen her in the last week or so?”

“Naw.”

“You know where she work at?”

“Naw.” He bit his lip, seeing the possibility of a tip fade.

“What about anybody she’s tight wit’ other than Useless? Maybe some white dude?”

“I seen her with some white men but not with anyone more than a couple’a times. But she used to know this one guy, an’ it seemed like they stayed friends.”

“Who?”

“Guy name’a Tommy Hoag.”

“You wouldn’t have a number for ’im?” I asked.

“Don’t need it,” the leather man said. “Tommy is the only Negro agent for the Schuyler Real Estate office on Hooper.”

Andrew Jackson leaped happily from my hand, and just as happily the nameless leather man jogged away from my table.

I saw Loretta approach from across the room. The men all gave her glances. The women looked to make sure that she kept on going.

Loretta kissed me when we stopped in front of her parents’ home. It was a long, juicy kiss. I was working with her, but she was definitely the captain of that boat. She licked my throat and nipped my ears, caressed the side of my neck in a way no mother had ever done a child’s. Two of her fingers found their way into a small opening between the buttons of my shirt. When she pressed against my nipple, I jumped a little.

“I’m not finished yet,” she whispered, just in case my flinching meant that I was ready to walk her to the door.

There was no hurry to Loretta’s passion, but my heart was thumping like a lonely puppy’s heart does when his master returns after leaving him tied up for hours.

When we finally separated, I felt as if I had spent a lifetime with her.

“I understood what you were saying,” Loretta whispered. “I do love Milo, but we aren’t like that. And you know, Paris, I need a man to make me whole.”

I had nothing to say but I opened my mouth anyway. Loretta put two fingers to my lips and said, “Let’s go.”

Before we got to her front porch, the door flew open. Loretta’s parents were huddled there — a two-headed warden. Loretta kissed me again and then was enveloped in the frightened arms of their love.

I went to my trunk and brought out the whiskey and soda. I sat there smoldering cigarettes and imbibing alcohol until the fervor abated and the swelling went down.

I didn’t make it home until after four.

Sometime in the early afternoon I headed out looking for Tommy Hoag. Schuyler Real Estate was a small office wedged in between a hardware store and a barber’s shop on Hooper. The office was red of color and less than six feet in width. There were three desks along the crimson aisle. The first was at the window on the right, the second was just behind that on the left, and the third was against the back wall, removed from the other two by at least seven feet.

For years Schuyler’s had had three white agents sitting in that crooked line. The head man was always the one at the back of the room. You had to get past the first two barriers to reach him. These first two agents dealt with colored people wanting apartments and storefronts, churches, and small garages. The last agent always dealt with white businesspeople coming down to open big businesses like supermarkets and lumberyards.

Knowing the system, I was surprised to see the one colored face manning the hindmost desk.

It was one fifteen and I was dressed in my blue suit. Where I had been feeling cursed and oppressed for the past few days, I now was blessed with thoughts of Loretta and her amazing understanding of my heart. I kept moving forward because that was all I could do. But she was at the back of my mind, kissing my neck and making sounds of whoopee.

“Yes, sir?” the half-bald white man in the green jacket and black trousers asked. He had risen either to greet or to expel me.