Walter Mosley - Fear of the Dark

“Paris,” Three Hearts called.

“I don’t know,” I whispered. I’m sure she didn’t hear me through that heavy door.

A woman sighed.

I jumped three feet.

It was Fearless on the top stair.

The heart attack tensed inside me, wondering if this was the moment to end my days.

Then Fearless was standing there in front of me. He had a big crowbar in his hand.

“Hold on, Paris,” he told me. “Hold on, man.”

He put a hand on my shoulder, and I grabbed his forearm the way Sterling had grabbed my thigh. I put my head against his shoulder and shivered.

“Paris,” Three Hearts called.

“It’s okay, Hearts,” Fearless answered. “I got me a crowbar.”

I let go and took a deep breath. The dread had gone from me, and I was ready to do what we had to.

“Gimme your gun,” I said to Fearless. “I’ll stand guard while you work on that lock.”

It took five minutes for Fearless to pry that door loose. It was a very good cell. Down in a basement and in the back of a walled mansion; even if the women had screamed, no one would have heard them. And there was no way they could have broken down that door.

Three Hearts and Angel hugged the both of us. They didn’t cry or lose their composure. After a minute of greeting, they both said that they needed a bathroom.

Fearless led them upstairs and turned on the lights in the house.

“What if somebody in the front house sees us?” I asked while the women went about their toilet.

“Ain’t nobody up there,” he said.

“How you know that?”

“I just do,” he replied.

I had been so traumatized that even this lame assurance didn’t bother me. It was as if I had died and now nothing else could happen.

“When they come out, we got to go,” I said.

“Okay, man. You know I got to call Milo anyway. I’m a day late for him as it is.”

“They was layin’ for Ulysses when we got there,” Three Hearts Grant said from the backseat. “There was four of ’em.”

We were in the canyon, coming from the valley back to L.A.

Angel sat close to my auntie, holding her hand. The women were completely bonded now.

“There was blood on the floor,” I said, wondering about the union between the mother and the lover of a fool.

“When they made to grab us, I shot the fat one,” Three Hearts said. “But then the bald one, the one with the scar across his face, took my gun an’ slapped me down. Angel tried to stop him, but he was too big and mean.”

There was the knot. Angel’s trying to save Three Hearts had assured their undying union.

“He died in the car,” my aunt said almost casually.

“The fat one?” I asked.

“Yeah. He told ’em he was okay, but I hit sumpin’ in his belly. It’s like he got sadder an’ tireder until he was gone.”

I turned around to see what my aunt looked like when she uttered these words. She had a sneer on her lips, as if she had just tasted something bitter. There was no remorse or discomfort, just a distasteful task that was only one-third done.

Angel didn’t speak at all. She was the younger woman and therefore left the speaking to her elder.

I didn’t push either woman because I was hoping that the whole thing would soon be over. Hector was dead, Sterling too. The men who had kidnapped Three Hearts and Angel were looking for Useless, so he was probably alive somewhere. All I had to do was leave the job up to Angel and Three Hearts. They could go on looking and I could go back to my life.

I figured that I could repay Friar and split the rest of the cash with Fearless. That way at least I’d have a nest egg if I needed to run. For a while then I wondered what a berth to China would cost.

It was late when the four of us got back to my bookstore-home. From the street we could see the shadow of a man hovering near my door.

“Who’s up there?” I called.

“Paris?” he said, and all of the pains and bruises I’d collected in the last weeks came back to me.

“Ulysses?” Three Hearts called.

“Baby?” Angel echoed.

Fearless chuckled while the women rushed up the stairs, the soles of their shoes clattering on the hardwood.

In the kitchen at the back of my place, the women sat sentry in chairs on either side of Ulysses S. Grant IV’s stool. He was grinning and holding hands with both women, while Fearless sat on my counter and I boiled water for tea on one of my three hot plates.

Sitting in front of Useless was a brown leather suitcase with two straps and three latches. It was old and weathered, but that just proved that it was stolen. Useless didn’t own a suitcase. Never had. He was always out the door one step ahead of the law or some other man or woman seeking revenge. He didn’t have time to pack, had no use for luggage. And so I was pretty sure that that traveling bag contained the reason why at least four men were dead.

“I knew you’d come here to see Paris, Ma,” Useless was saying. “I knew it.”

“What about all these things they sayin’ ’bout you, Ulysses?” Three Hearts asked.

“What things?” Useless glanced at Angel with a sudden look of fear.

“Blackmailers, thugs, and murderers,” my aunt said. “That’s what.”

“It wasn’t my fault, Mama,” he whined then.

It was the first time I had ever heard her cross with him. I wondered if it was his first time too.

“Is that what you’re gonna tell the police when they arrest you?” she asked. “Is that what you’re gonna tell the judge?”

“The po-lice ain’t after me, Mama. They don’t know about me.”

“What about this girl here?” Three Hearts asked. “What about this sweet, innocent young thing that you done dragged down in the mud? I done read in her diary how much she loves you and how much you mean to her. How can a son of mine treat a woman’s love like that?”

I wondered, then and now, if Angel was devious enough to lie in her own journal on the off chance that someone might read it and judge her.

“I tried to save her, Mama. Ask her. Ask her if it isn’t true.”

His entreaty was so compelling that I found myself looking to Angel for an answer. For her part, she was staring into her lap.

“It’s true, Mrs. Grant,” she said. “I was already messed up with Hector and them when they brought your son into the business. Ulysses was just supposed to drive me around and pick me up when I needed it. He helped to fix a few poker games we played. Ulysses wanted to take me away from them. He wanted me to stop.”

I bet. He wanted her to stop, all right, but not before the coffers were full; I knew my cousin that well.

Three Hearts’s face filled with love. She put her arms around her son and kissed his brow.

“Baby,” she said. “I’m so sorry. I thought it was you did all that.”

It was him, I thought. Didn’t she know that he was up to his neck in extortion, blackmail, and now murder? Couldn’t she see that everything had fallen apart because of him?

“Why were you runnin’, Cousin?” I asked when I couldn’t take the lies anymore.

“I ran because after Angel took off, I realized that I wanted her more than the money they paid me.”

Angel took that cue to put her arm around her man’s shoulder. Three Hearts nodded at the gesture as if it proved the bald-faced lie he was perpetrating.

“What about the man with the scar?” I asked. “The man that kidnapped your mother and your girlfriend. Who is he?”

“I don’t know,” Useless said, shaking his head and looking pitiful.

“How did you know to call Twist to get us out of jail?”

A liar’s desperation spread across Useless’s face, and I knew that I had him.