Walter Mosley - Fear Itself

At least I had been until people started talking about hundred-thousand-dollar books. At first I wanted the Fine family diary for myself, but as time had gone by I had begun to crave the money. I had never known a Negro who had a hundred thousand dollars before the day I met Winifred Fine. That kind of money could make a whole new life for me. Even if I had to share it with Fearless I’d still be rich. I could open a bookstore down by the ocean and have the two things I loved most in life: reading and the sea.

Bradford arrived at ten to nine. He wore a simple gray suit that had seen its day of wear. He looked around and then sat on a park bench perched at the edge of the grassy lawn and facing out across the street. Bradford was erect and expectant. He was my doorway to riches. He would know the identity of Maestro Wexler’s nemesis. Wexler’s enemy was mine because he was after the book that was going to make me a rich man. After dealing with him I could sell the book back to Oscar or, if he couldn’t make the grade, I could sell it to Maestro and he could close the deal with Winifred Fine directly. Either way I’d get paid for my services and the world of Theodore Timmerman would slowly fade from my mind.

At three minutes after nine I crossed the street to Bradford. Looking both ways many times before reaching the opposite side, I noticed the French café twice. The second view of the silhouetted chicken set off a bell in my head.

“Mr. Minton,” Bradford said, rising as I approached him.

“Mr. Bradford.” I stuck out my hand.

We shook and sat down side by side on the park bench.

There was the café again.

“So, Mr. Minton,” Bradford said. “You have information for me.”

“It’s a nice morning, isn’t it?” I said.

“Why yes,” he replied with a friendly smile.

I’m sure he thought that I wanted to impose some decorum on our meeting, when really I was stalling for time. The café disturbed me, though I had no idea why. I had never been on that street as far as I remembered. But still there was a vague apprehension.

“I like this spot,” Bradford continued. “It reminds me of my younger days in Paris, before the war.”

It was him saying my name, that’s what did it. My name, the capital of France, the country where people spoke French, where the term chicken would be translated poulet —or to the unenlightened, pull lay.

“You lived in Europe?” I asked.

“Yes. I was the assistant to Parnell Wexler, Maestro’s uncle, in the thirties. I had a small apartment on the Left Bank and walked down the Seine to work every morning.”

“I hear that the weather is terrible in Paris,” I said. “My friend Fearless spent six months there, on and off, after they threw out the Germans. He said that he didn’t see the sunshine again until he was back in the U.S.”

“It’s a glorious town,” Bradford said, the nostalgia in his voice deepening his Australian accent. “Beyond weather concerns. The art and architecture, the people and the language, are the very top of human potential.”

He was a white man and he had an accent. Maybe Charlotta didn’t know any accents but the ones that Mexicans had. Maybe the word Mexican meant accent to her.

“What’s your first name, Bradford? You know, if we’re going to be working together. We might as well be on a first-name basis. You can call me Paris.”

“Bradford is my first name, Paris,” he said easily. “Bradford Craighton.”

“Well, Brad, I can hear how much you love Paris, not me but the city,” I said. “Must be great now you’re goin’ back there in style.”

Bradford turned his head slowly, as if he really didn’t want to see what I had become there next to him.

“Come again?”

“You ever meet a guy named Timmerman?” I asked.

“Timmerman? What is his first name?”

“Theodore.”

“No. I don’t think so. Why do you ask?”

“Think hard, Brad. He’s the man that called you after he pulled your number off a man that he had just gave a heart attack. He didn’t know it, but he really wanted to speak to Maestro, but it was your number he called, your private line.”

“I, I, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Tall white guy, ugly, likes the color brown in his wardrobe,” I said, pretending to jog his memory. “You sent him off to look for a book.”

“What book is that?”

When he didn’t want more details about the murder I knew my suspicions were true.

“I don’t know what it’s about but it’s real old, over two hundred years. Winifred’s family prizes that one handwritten manuscript over all their other possessions.”

“I don’t know anything about what you’re saying,” Bradford said.

“Yes you do. I know it. You know it. So let’s stop playin’ and get down to brass tacks.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about. Does this have anything to do with Lance or Minna?”

“Late last night, after I talked to you, this Timmerman snatched me and my friend Fearless. When he had the upper hand he let it slip about the book and a fellah named Craighton that he met on a park bench in front of a French café. He even told us the time you guys met. Ten-thirty.”

“That’s ridiculous. Why would he tell you all that?”

“Because I’m not a brave man, Mr. Craighton. He asked me what I knew and I threw your name at him, hoping to save myself from a beating.”

“You say that he had the upper hand?”

“My friend is tough. Theodore let his guard down and Fearless laid him low.”

“Where is this Timmerman now?”

“They admitted him to the hospital this morning. Fearless busted his leg for sure. His jaw too.”

“Why was he after you?”

“He wanted me to bring him to Winifred Fine. I think he had something for her.”

“What, what was that?”

“That’s enough from me for the moment,” I said. “That’s all I got to say until I hear somethin’ from you.”

“I already told you,” Bradford Craighton said, sounding almost like an Englishman, “I don’t know this Theodore Timmerman.”

“You ain’t never gonna get that book lyin’ like that, man. If you want to stay in the game you got to share.”

“What do you mean?”

“I got some information. You got some too. We share, and then once we trust each other, maybe then we can make a money deal.”

Bradford must have loved Paris more than he loved life and liberty. Paris was whispering in his ear, sweating through his pores. He stared at me so hard maybe he saw his beloved city in my stead.

“Timmerman called me,” he said at last. “Like you said.”

“Uh-huh. But Kit called you first, right?”

“Yes.”

“He said that he had the book,” I prompted.

“Yes.”

“Come on, Bradford. Don’t make this be like the dentist’s chair.”

“Mr. Mitchell called and said that he had the book, like you said. He wanted, he wanted money. Money I didn’t have.”

“Now how does a colored farmer come up with the private number of the personal secretary of one of the richest men in L.A.?”

Bradford wasn’t about to answer that question, so I did myself.

“Because,” I said, “Lance and Minna told you about the book. They came to you to get to their father. You were the go-between. But Kit fucked you up. He took the book for Bartholomew Perry and then kept it. BB was too conceited and gave Kit so much information that he thought that he could go out on his own. He cut out BB and Lance and Minna. But what he didn’t know was that cuttin’ them out put a definite crimp on you retiring to France.”

“You seem to know everything already,” Bradford said.