Walter Mosley - Fear of the Dark

It cost two dollars a day, which was steep in 1956, but if you had a fine Cadillac and you didn’t want it damaged or stolen, you just might pay Bubba before you paid the rent.

Bubba had a capacity of twenty-five cars, Milo’s red Caddy usually being one of them.

“So you thinkin’ that they keepin’ somethin’ in the car at Bubba’s,” Fearless said.

“I think that’s where the rest’a the money is.”

“Damn,” Fearless said. “That’s pretty smart. You know Ulysses might think of it, but he wouldn’t have the car to make it real.”

Nor, I thought, would he be able to run a blackmail operation.

“You ready t’face that evil eye again?” Fearless asked me.

“No,” I said. “Could you do it?”

“Sure thing, man. That’s the least I could do.”

We parked down the block from Nadine Grant’s home. I sat in the car waiting while Fearless braced the family. Nadine would put up with them for a while; Useless, after all, was blood to her. But it had to be running rather hot in there. Useless was a slob and Angel was a stranger. It shouldn’t have been too hard for Fearless to pry my cousin free.

The more I thought about it, the less likely it seemed that Useless would have killed Hector. The risk wouldn’t have been worth it. And even if it made sense, Useless would have gone after the man with a gun. A knife is a brave man’s weapon. And even though Useless wasn’t as cowardly as I, he wasn’t what you’d have called brave.

I sat in that car with the windows rolled up and the sun beating down. It was getting hot, but I was afraid even to open a window. Just that thin barrier of glass was better than nothing.

I got a little light-headed from the heat but I was only aware of the drowsiness, not its cause. So when Fearless opened the door and said my name, I was surprised. I think maybe I had passed out from all of the exhaustion, peach schnapps, hot sun, and fear.

“Hey, Cousin,” Useless said as he climbed into the backseat.

I slid over to the passenger’s side and Fearless got behind the wheel.

“Did Hector have a car he kept at Bubba Lateman’s?” I asked Useless.

“Yeah. Sho did. Pink-an’-chrome Cadillac. Kep’ it so neat it woulda passed a military inspection.”

“Would Bubba let you pick it up?”

“Prob’ly. I went there wit’ Hector a few times. You know I’d drive ovah there with him. An’ then take him back home after he dropped it off.”

“So you been to his place before?”

Fearless turned the key and the car started.

“Not for a month or two, but yeah.”

Useless was getting wary. Maybe he knew what the next question might have been.

Fearless pulled away from the curb and we started our drive southward.

“So why you still lookin’ into Hector an’ them?” Useless asked, partly to prevent me from asking more questions.

“Because someone killed him,” I said. “Because’a that suitcase you had and some things we found at Lionel Sterling’s place.”

Useless was silent.

“Where’d you get that bag, Useless?” I asked into the void of the backseat.

“Um.”

“Come on, man,” I said. “You ain’t got time to make up no lie.”

“I took it.”

“Took it from where?”

“From, from Hector’s place.”

“When?”

“A few days ago.”

“You just walked in an’ took it?” I asked sarcastically. “He just let you walk all ovah him?”

“He, he was dead.”

Fearless turned his head for a moment.

“You killed him?”

“No, man. No. He was dead. Somebody cut his th’oat. I saw the suitcase, grabbed it, and ran.”

“Did you see who killed him?”

“Uh-uh. No. I just grabbed the suitcase ’cause I knew it was important. I grabbed it and hustled out the back.”

“What about the girl?”

“She wasn’t there.”

“The white girl wasn’t there?” I asked.

“What white girl? I thought you was askin’ ’bout Angel.”

“Hector’s girl. Jessa.”

“I didn’t even know ’bout no girlfriend, man. I walked in, saw he was murdered, grabbed the suitcase, an’ run.”

He was lying — had to be. The man who had murdered Hector was certainly in on the blackmailing scheme. That man wouldn’t have left all that evidence behind.

The only entrance to Bubba’s Yard was an eight-foot-high wrought-iron gate. He had four snapping and slavering feral dogs that came out to greet us with their canine threats and promises.

Fearless pressed the buzzer while Useless and I stood a few feet away. The dogs were wolflike, maybe they were wolves, with dense pelts and yellow fangs. They wanted to look us in the eye, like bullies on a street corner. They wanted to kill us.

The dogs prowled the inside of the gate, lunging at it now and then. A man approached from the house that sat at the back end of the lot.

Bubba Lateman was a huge man. Six six or more and weighing three fifty at least. His head was bald and his hands too big even for a body his size. He had a smile on his face, but I knew how mean Bubba could be.

He was wearing overalls and railroad gloves. His skin was black and that day streaked with sweat.

“Fearless Jones,” he said amid the yowling and barking of his dogs.

It was both a greeting and a threat. Powerful men who had never tested him always felt a little disdainful of Fearless’s reputation.

“Mornin’, Bubba,” my friend hailed. “We come with Ulysses here to pick up Hector LaTiara’s car... for his widow.”

Fearless could lie if he had to. Usually it was to save some poor soul from an ass-whupping. I think that day he was also worried about having to kill those dogs.

“Hector didn’t say nuthin’ ’bout no wife,” Bubba said.

“White girl,” Fearless assured him. “Jessa is what they call her.”

Bubba’s eyes were tiny for his big, bald black head. When he blinked it was almost as if he were being coquettish, flirting with the object of his confusion.

“What you say about that, Useless?” Bubba asked.

There was a moment in which Useless faltered. I believed that he was wondering if maybe he could enlist the aid of this giant standing before him. Maybe Bubba could block us from getting Hector’s Cadillac.

“They just drove me down, Bubba,” he said. “Paris my cousin, an’ Fearless his friend.”

The dogs sensed something and began snarling in a different key.

“Get on back there!” Bubba commanded his curs. They whimpered and obeyed, skulking to some kennel on the far side of the property.

Bubba brought a big ring of keys out of the inside of his work overalls. He used a jagged-looking piece of brass to unlock the gate.

After we entered, and he locked up again, Bubba led us to the right, where the yard part of his business was. The largest of the wolf-dogs came to walk with him. She was a big gray creature, between seventy-five and eighty-five pounds. For all her weight, she looked starved and hungry for fresh flesh and revenge.

I had never been inside Bubba’s Yard before. The automobiles parked in neat rows upon the hard desert soil were impressive. Cadillac cars and Italian sports jobs, there was even a Bentley and a Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud.

And Hector’s Caddy, pink and chrome, as Useless had promised. It actually sparkled under the hot L.A. sun.

“They say you’re bad, Fearless Jones,” Bubba said.

“Some say I’m good,” Fearless replied easily.

Bubba didn’t like the joke. “What would you do if I told Bree here to jump up an’ tear out yo’ throat?”

Fearless glanced at Bree, who started growling on cue. He, Fearless, contemplated a moment and then looked back at Bubba.