“Fearless knows,” the aged gray-headed man said. “Fearless knows.”
I wondered if Fearless had gotten us mixed up in yet another hopeless cause, but then I remembered the troubles we were in were of my doing.
I went to Fearless ready to ask if I had to carry that old man out on my back. But the words died in my throat when I peered over his shoulder.
Sol’s face was shrunken and blue. His teeth glistened between parted lips, and he wasn’t breathing. He hadn’t drawn a breath in some time.
But still Fearless babbled on.
“Fearless.”
No reply.
“Fearless!”
“What? What you want, Paris?”
“Who are you talkin’ to, man? He’s dead.”
“I know that. You think I don’t know a dead man?”
“Then who are you talking to?”
“His soul,” Fearless said. There was a hint of embarrassment in his voice.
“What?”
Fearless put up his hands to silence me. “My momma used to say, a long time ago when I was a boy, that when a man dies, his soul is lost at first ’cause he don’t know he’s dead. It wanders around and could be lost forever. But if he sees you and he knows who you are and he knows that you’re talkin’ to him, then he tries to answer back. But when you don’t answer, he knows that he must be a spirit. Your voice becomes the messenger, and he realizes what has happent an’ he knows to go for Heaven.”
Then, instead of getting up and talking to me about our business, he turned back to Sol and started muttering again. I sat in a chair far away from the tiny man and waited until my watch said eight-thirty, then I went to Fearless again.
“How long you plan to keep this up?” I asked.
“Momma said to do it till dawn.”
“Visitors’ hours end at nine, Fearless. We don’t want the nurse to see you hoverin’ over no corpse.”
Fearless hesitated, then he turned away from his divine mission. “I guess that’s enough. I think he must’a heard me.”
“Yeah,” I said. “Now let’s get the fuck outta here.”
“WHEN DID he die?’ I asked Fearless in the parking lot.
“I don’t know. I mean, he was dead when I got there.”
“And the nurse didn’t come in to see him?”
“No. He was dead,” Fearless assured me.
“But how could that be? Aren’t the nurses supposed to check?”
“How should I know?” Fearless said defensively. “Maybe they looked in and saw that he looked peaceful. I don’t know.”
“So he didn’t say nuthin’?” I asked.
“How he gonna say somethin’ if he’s dead, Paris?”
I had no reply, no question to follow up. I wanted Sol to be alive more than anything. He was the only one who really knew about the money everybody was after. And that was the only reason I was still looking for answers. At least with some cash, I could rent another bookstore. But now that he was dead, I knew that it was time to move on.
“You want to go down to Louisiana and visit my mother?” I asked.
“Sure,” Fearless said. “Right after I find who killed Sol and Fanny.”
“The trouble is too deep,” I said. “It’s time for us to split.”
“You go on, Paris. It’s my word on the line here.”
“Your word what? You didn’t promise to find out who killed them.”
“But I promised to protect Fanny, and I didn’t. I bet because she wasn’t comin’ here, that’s why Sol died.”
“Mr. Jones,” I said as a plea.
“You go on, man. You didn’t promise.”
“I was with you, wasn’t I? I got you here. Maybe I even think you’re right, but I’m scared, man, scared to death with all these men fightin’ and killin’.” The truth came out of me without my intention.
Fearless put his steely hand on my shoulder.
“You scared, but you ain’t no coward, Paris. Uh-uh. Matter’a fact, you a hero.”
“What?” I never knew Fearless to try and play anybody, much less me, his best friend.
“Yeah. Hero is just bein’ brave when there’s trouble. An’ bein’ brave means to face your fears and do it anyway. Shoot. You can’t call me a hero ’cause I ain’t scared’a nuthin’ on God’s blue Earth.”
He got me again. Shamed me into going in on something that I should have left alone.
“You go on home,” I said. “I’m’a go over and see Gella and the fool. I’ll be back later on.”
29
GELLA GREETED ME at the door looking over my shoulder for Fearless. He had that kind of effect on people; that’s why I never wanted him to meet my girlfriends before we were solid.
“He couldn’t come,” I said.
Gella smiled, realizing she had been rude. “Come in, Mr. Minton.”
The tiny house was neat and sweet smelling. I imagined that gawky Gella had spent the whole day cleaning, trying to wipe away the stigma of death.
I remembered that Sol was dead and wondered if she had been notified. I decided to leave it up to the hospital. It wasn’t my job to announce death, and anyway, I wouldn’t want any evidence that I was the first one to know. It struck me as strange that the nursing staff was unaware of Sol’s passing for so long. Being safe was still my motto, regardless of Fearless calling me a hero.
“Please have a seat, Mr. Minton.”
“Paris,” I said while lowering myself onto a brown leather chair.
From the outside the Greenspans’ house looked like a plaster castle painted a dull orange. But inside the layout was the same as Sol and Fanny’s house. One contractor must have built tract homes for miles. Back in my little parish in Louisiana every home was different. We were poor, but at least we were different, I thought. That’s how jealousy works sometimes.
I was jealous of the fine wood furnishings and the long, plush drapes that covered an entire wall. There was a grandfather clock with a brass pendulum that must have weighed half a pound and gold-brown carpeting so thick that you’d think you were standing on an ancient pine forest floor.
Her skinny neck had a gold chain on it, and the diamond of her engagement ring was no chip like the wedding stones you found around where I lived.
For a moment I felt sorry that I didn’t send Fearless. Why shouldn’t he be in that house and have that woman draped on him like that chain when her husband finally decided to come home? Why couldn’t he take her on the couch, and on the floor, while that sap of a husband gawked and whined?
I felt the beginnings of an erection as I sat there looking at that red-eyed, sorrowful young woman, but there was no love in my heart. Maybe it was the past few days of danger and mayhem that stripped away the bonds of my rage.
“Is something wrong?” Gella asked me in that slightly nasal voice.
She saw the rage and aggression in my eyes. That recognition doused my anger — and my ardor.
“It’s been a tough few days,” I said.
“Yes it has.”
Gella reached for a small, framed photograph that sat on the coffee table. She looked at it and then handed it over to me. It was a picture of Fanny in a fancy green dress. She was laughing very hard and leaning over to the side like she’d done with me and Fearless that first night. It was a very different picture from the ones in Fanny’s bedroom.
“Uncle Sol gave it to me before they arrested him,” she said. “When he gave it to me, he said, ‘Isn’t she beautiful?’”