Walter Mosley - Fear Itself

“He wasn’t here, though,” she said, referring to Fearless.

“This is my friend. His name is Fearless. We’re doing something for your sister.”

“What?”

“Lookin’ for a boy name of Bartholomew.”

“Perry?”

“That’s him. You know him?”

“Him and father—Esau. Bad relations is what I calls ’em. Definitely the colored side of the family.”

“You don’t like ’em?”

“They family so I have to put up with ’em on Christmas and Easter, but other than them days I wouldn’t let them into my outhouse.”

I liked her candor even if she was mad.

“What about a young woman named Leora Hartman?”

“Leora,” Rose said. She grinned, showing us that she’d lost more teeth than she’d kept. “She’s a feather bed in God’s sanctuary.”

“You know her?”

“Know her? She’s my little girl. My baby.”

“Your daughter?” I asked, surprised and a little confounded.

If Leora belonged to Rose, then the connection to the house was even stronger than it had seemed. Maybe I should have spent a little more time talking to the demure colored woman.

Rose didn’t have many teeth but her hearing was better than mine. She made an unpleasant sound in her throat and darted back down the hall she’d come from. Two seconds after that the scuffed lime door came open.

“Miss Fine will see you both,” Oscar informed us.

“Lead on, my man.”

THE CURTAINS WERE already open when we entered Winifred Lucia Fine’s study. Her nude image in the fountain was still attempting the impossible. My heart still skipped at the beauty.

It struck me that Maestro Wexler’s home was much more opulent but somehow the beauty had gotten lost in all the majesty of his residence.

“Fearless Jones,” my friend said, approaching the matriarch and holding out his hand.

I could see that she didn’t want to shake, but the pressure of his friendliness got to her and she gave up a weak squeeze.

“Winifred Fine,” she said.

“I had a aunt named Winfred,” Fearless said. “She lived in Mississippi in a little cabin off’a the Tickle River. Whenever anybody in my family got in trouble they’d go and hide at Aunt Winfred’s. The house was built on a overhang and you could stay up under there catchin’ and fryin’ catfish until the law gave up and you could move on. She’d still be there except for a flood in ’forty-eight. Now she’s up around St. Louis. She still gotta basement to hide in, the fishin’s not too good though.”

“My name is Winifred, not Winfred,” Miss Fine said.

“She’s a good woman,” Fearless agreed.

“I need to ask you some questions, Miss Fine,” I interjected.

“About what?”

“Me and Fearless found your nephew.”

“Where is he?”

“You got to answer my questions first.”

“Did I not pay you, sir?” she asked, using elocution that she probably learned at the same black college that her niece, Leora, attended.

“Question is, did you pay me to walk down the stairs or jump out the window?”

“What is all this?” she asked, waving both hands at the sides of her head. “River hideouts. Jumping out of windows.”

“Fearless here is a rough customer, Miss Fine,” I said. “He’s a nice guy and fair but he’s known around Watts as one of the two or three most dangerous men in the entire city.”

“Are you trying to threaten me?”

“No ma’am. And it wouldn’t matter even if I was, because Fearless would not hurt a woman no matter what I said. But when we broke in on your nephew, Fearless told him that he better act right or he might get hurt. BB was scared.”

“I can imagine,” Winifred said.

“That’s right, ma’am. He was afraid of Fearless, but then, when we mentioned your name, he threw down and swung on Fearless like he was Sugar Ray Robinson up against a tomato can. Fearless had to knock your nephew out. Not only that. When he came to he begged us not to turn him over to you.”

“I’ve already paid you.”

“Not to bring a man to the slaughter.”

“That’s ridiculous. I would not harm my nephew.”

“Somebody’s been out there harmin’ people,” Fearless said. “Harmin’ up a storm.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Can we go out in your garden, Miss Fine?” I asked. “I mean, I like your room here, but I want to make sure that there aren’t any ears to catch me in my report.”

She cut her eyes at the far door and then toward the book- case.

“Yes,” she said. “That might be a good idea.”

THE AIR IN HER GARDEN smelled richer than your everyday atmosphere. Big monarch butterflies and half a dozen other varieties wafted above our heads. There were two stone benches at the far side of the fountain. Miss Fine sat down and Fearless and I parked ourselves on either side of her.

“What do you have to say, Mr. Minton?”

“Do you know a man named Maestro Wexler?” I asked.

“Yes,” she said. At first her expression was neutral, almost bland. But then a stitch of anxiety showed through.

“Do you have any business dealings with Wexler?”

“No. I mean . . . I don’t have any dealings with him but . . .”

“But what?”

“Five years ago I began buying up corner lots in Compton, through a company owned by my cosmetics corporation. That way the people I bought from thought that I was the same color as the lawyer who brokered the purchases.”

“And now Wexler wants those lots?”

“He wants to put in gas stations. He has a big contract for stations in Compton.”

“You can’t own all the corners of the whole town.”

“I own enough to compete with him. I could put in forty or fifty stations myself.”

Forty or fifty. I could see why Milo salivated whenever he spoke her name.

“You refused to sell?”

“I offered to go into business with him but he was too greedy. I decided to hold on to my property. Why not? I don’t need him.”

“Have you heard from him lately?”

“No. What is this about?”

“Two of his children have been murdered.”

“Oh my God. That’s terrible.”

She seemed actually horrified. And I didn’t believe that a woman of her caliber would put on an act for people like Fearless and me.

“Didn’t you hear about it on the news?” I asked.

“I don’t listen to the radio. Nor do I watch television.”

“What about the papers?”

“I have Oscar read to me those stories that are salient to our concerns.”

She was like a child. Completely cut off from the world, so that all that was important was her needs and her desires. In her world me and mine had never drawn a breath. The drama and tragedy of everyday people was invisible to her. In a way she was like Maestro Wexler sitting on his throne. I could see where money affected both of them more than race. It was the first time I had ever actually witnessed the power of money and class in forming character.

“I think his children’s deaths have to do with something they were hatching up with BB,” I said. “Him and Kit Mitchell.”

Winifred had a poker face that could have broken the confidence of the most seasoned dealer. She might have been isolated but she knew how to play the game.

“I don’t see what you mean, Mr. Minton.”

“BB offered us ten thousand dollars to find Kit. He put a thousand down on that offer. Maestro offered me ten thousand to find BB. He also plunked down a grand. You already gave me near a thousand in five-dollar bills. That’s three thousand that two poor black men have collected, and we haven’t done a thing but ask questions and survive the answers.”

“You want more money,” Winifred Fine said.