Walter Mosley - Fear of the Dark

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Fear of the Dark: краткое содержание, описание и аннотация

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Fearless Jones and Paris Minton, stars of the bestsellers Fearless Jones and Fear Itself, return in a fast-paced thriller about family and revenge.
For Paris Minton, a knock on his door is often the first sign of trouble. So when he finds his lowlife cousin, Ulysses S. Grant, or Useless, on the other side of his front door, Paris keeps it firmly closed.
With family like Useless, who needs enemies? Yet trouble always finds an open window, and when Useless's mother, Three Hearts, shows up to look for her son, Paris has no choice but to track down his wayward cousin.
Turns out that Useless is involved in some high-stakes blackmailing. Now, he and a briefcase full of money and incriminating photos are missing, and Paris is not the only one looking for him. Paris enlists the help of his invincible friend Fearless Jones, but mysterious women, desperate blackmail victims, and cheating business partners are all they encounter-not to mention the dead bodies found along the way.
With the sheer-nerve plotting and brilliant characterizations that have made him one of the great stars of crime fiction, Fear of the Dark is masterful Mosley.

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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?”

“Useless 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.

Chapter 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.

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