Walter Mosley - Fear of the Dark

Where I was satisfied, Three Hearts was seething. I could feel her evil orb roving in the backseat, looking for just the right calamity to befall the slut-Jezebel who had led her pure and innocent son down the path of wickedness.

I would have felt good if it weren’t for my auntie. Her anger would get in the way of my getting her out of California and back to the superstitious boondocks of the Creoles and Cajuns. Her anger was the promise of a great explosion that would rip open the crime her son had most definitely committed. And in the aftermath of that detonation, the police might come and drag me away for extortion, theft, and multiple murders.

But I couldn’t get too lost in the dangerous atmosphere in which I found myself. We were about to get to Useless’s girlfriend. And if Fearless could daunt Three Hearts just enough, I might get in there and figure a way to placate her and send her and her son far away.

Compton was a nice little town at that time. The houses were almost all one-story single-family dwellings. The yards were wide and green. The sidewalks were newly laid concrete, white and unmarred by the passage of workingmen’s feet. If there were trees along the curbs they were imported, because there hadn’t been enough time for them to grow.

All in all, Angel’s neighborhood was like a brand-new Christmas present given by a king to his patient and penitent peasants.

Angel lived at 12033/4 Snyder. Number 1203 was a large salmon pink house with a friendly family window that had the drapes pulled. At the side of the driveway was a bank of mailboxes, four of them to coincide with the addresses up to 3/4.

Number 12031/4 was an emerald green place, half the size of the front building. There was a gnarled oak on one side (obviously from a time before the area was subdivided) and ten rows of corn on the other. Behind that house was a long flat building painted white and divided into two separate addresses. The one on the right was 12033/4.

Even though Three Hearts rushed forward, Fearless got there first and knocked. Three Hearts was muttering hateful curses to herself, and darkness had fallen. There was a quarter moon to our right and crickets could be heard everywhere.

The door opened and we were flooded with yellow light.

She was much more beautiful than even her photograph had promised. The medium brown skin was closer to burnished copper. The straightened hair seemed to flow so naturally that you would have thought that she was an American Indian. The surprise in her eyes and the goddess’s lips’ parting were for Three Hearts. You would have thought that my auntie was Angel’s long-lost sister instead of the instrument of her doom.

“I love your son, Mrs. Grant,” the epitome of beauty uttered.

And to my eternally enduring surprise, Three Hearts broke down crying.

Not whimpering or sobs but deep, soul-wrenching howls came from Three Hearts’s chest. She made the sounds that women made when they heard that a child or a husband had died. It was a funeral cry.

Fearless put his arms around my auntie, and she fell into the embrace. He supported her across the threshold while she bawled and shrieked.

For her part, Angel was dismayed at the elder woman’s desolate abandon. She clasped her hands together and guided Fearless to a broad black couch in the center of a very modern room. In front of the couch was a console that had a TV and a record player inside the red-stained maple box. There were copies of abstract paintings on the walls that seemed to be influenced by a jazz sensibility. There was one bookcase and various chairs that went together but did not match. The wood floor was bright white pine and the walls were also white. There were a dozen lamps placed haphazardly around the large space. Some were standing posts, others table lamps. All of them were on.

I liked a brightly lit room; made me feel that nothing underhanded was going on. Of course I knew brightness and honesty weren’t necessarily friends.

Three Hearts moaned and shouted for some time. There could have been bloody murder being committed in that bungalow, but no neighbor called the cops. I was glad that they didn’t, but then again, it bothered me too.

Angel, who was wearing a pink dress that would have been a shirt had it been any shorter, brought ice water and knelt down in front of Three Hearts.

“Here, baby,” the boundless beauty said. “Take some water. Drink it down. Let it cool you.”

Then Angel put her hand to Three Hearts’s forehead as if she were the older woman’s mother feeling for fever.

And my auntie accepted the attention. Here I would have told you that Three Hearts would have bitten that hand if it got too close. Instead she let her head loll back and her eyes close, allowing the Jezebel to minister to her.

Fearless found a bottle of whiskey and some ice and poured us both a draft. That liquor was just what I needed.

“I’m so sorry, Mrs. Grant,” Angel said just as soon as Three Hearts settled down. “I know how much pain you must be in. Ulysses got in a whole mess of trouble, and I didn’t know what to do.”

As I have said, Three Hearts is my blood. I have known that woman since I could speak my own name. Never in all the time before that moment had I witnessed her allow man, woman, or child to lay blame at her son’s feet.

“What did he do to you, child?” Three Hearts asked Angel. “I see it stitched in your face. What did he do?”

“It wasn’t him,” Angel said. “He couldn’t help it. He got mixed up with those men and before he knew it we were in too deep.”

“He tries so hard,” Three Hearts sobbed.

The women hugged over their love. It was almost as if they were competing over who could love the little rat more.

I drained my glass. Fearless refilled it. I drained it again and Fearless was right on the job.

Half the way through my third glass of bourbon I looked around me. There I was, a mortal man flanked by Venus, Mars, and Juno. I wondered if Fate was standing outside the door, if he would allow me to stand up and walk away, just walk away from all that craziness. Maybe if I asked her right, Mum would take me in. We could discuss Spinoza and Karl Marx over dumplings and white rice.

That was a beautiful thought. I allowed myself fifteen seconds to wallow in it. I’d go to college and teach English at a boarding school in Jamaica.

“Excuse me,” I said when the daydream was done.

Angel and Three Hearts turned to me.

Fearless refilled my glass for the fourth time.

“What is it, Paris?” my auntie asked. She didn’t like her grief being interrupted.

“I know you ladies can read each other’s minds and all,” I said. “You seein’ invisible scars and like that. But for the menfolk here who don’t have your powers, could somebody please tell me where Ulysses has gone to?”

“I don’t know where he is,” Angel said. She rose up from her knees as if there were no gravity at her feet.

I felt some consternation because when I looked at her the rest of the room got fuzzy. At first I told myself that it was the whiskey, but then I looked at Fearless — the world around him was clear.

So I tried not to look directly into Angel’s eyes. That way I could converse with her without falling into some kind of crazy enchantment.

“But you an’ him was in business,” I said, all business myself.

“No,” she replied.

“What about Mr. Katz and Reverend Drummund?” I said. “Mad Anthony and Hector LaTiara?”

“You know about them?” Angel asked, seeking but not finding my eyes.

“I know about thirteen churches, banks, insurance companies, and investment firms,” I said. “I know about at least seventy thousand dollars that you and Use... Ulysses had in your apartment at Man’s Barn.”