"But not tonight."

DeLois took another drag and turned to the window.

"How do you know Fearless?" I asked to ease her discomfort.

"He used to live in the apartment upstairs from me. He's a real nice man. One time I had this boyfriend wanna try and beat on me. Fearless come down and asked him if he wanted to leave. It was funny. Richard started bl.u.s.terin' about how he was gonna kick Fearless' a.s.s. But the whole time he was talkin' he was movin' backwards and pickin' up his things. Finally he shouted some curse or sumpin' when he was at the door and then he ran." DeLois laughed. I did too.

We drove a few more blocks.

"So what were you doin' at Miss Moore's?" I asked again.

"I cain't make my rent and I got my little sister wit' me. I got fifteen dollars but they want thirty."

"You could slide a week or two."

"I done slid a month already."

We came to the small aqua-colored building on a street named Orchard. I stopped the car but neither of us moved or said anything.

I was closer to Fearless than to anyone except my mother. He had expectations of me that he never had to put into words. The fact that he took DeLois out of that rooming house was him saying that he wanted me to finish the job.

"So how come you left wit' us?" I asked.

"I didn't wanna f.u.c.k that man," she said. "I don't wanna f.u.c.k the landlord neither, but at least he don't weigh five hundred pounds."

I reached into my pocket and peeled off four twenty-dollar bills. I handed the money over. She didn't take it at first. Instead she looked me up and down.

"What?" I asked.

"Nuthin'. It's just that you even skinnier than my landlord and you the right color too."

I took her hand and folded it around the money.

"No, DeLois. It ain't like that. People been throwin' money at me and Fearless the last couple'a days now. And my mama always told me to keep what I earn but to share good fortune. This is just for you and your sister."

DeLois's jaw dropped. "You mean you just givin' me this money?"

"That's right."

"And you don't want nuthin'?"

"I want you to have it."

The young woman's face turned serious then. In some other circ.u.mstance I might have been afraid of her pulling out a razor. When she put her free hand on my wrist I believe that she meant to give it a gentle caress, but her feelings made it like a vise.

"You could come upstairs, Paris," she said. "I want you to."

And there it was again: that moment of antic.i.p.ation. That offer of something I wanted-and deserved too.

"No, baby. You take that money, pay your rent, buy some breakfast, and go out and find a good job. After you do all that and you been workin' a month or two, if you still wanna see me ask Fearless for my number."

She smiled and kissed me twice. The first kiss was a thank you, the second was a promise.

I drove off thinking that I had done the right thing for the first time since Fearless came banging on my door.

I GOT TO MY HOUSE at about one, still happy over those two wet kisses. I was still in a good position. Wexler thought I was working for him and Timmerman was in a hospital bed. Brown seemed to be on our side and Oscar wasn't any threat. BB was in hiding somewhere, but he thought that I was on his side too. I parked in front of my place and skipped up the front stairs. In a week or two I'd begin to wonder if DeLois would ever call me. In a month I'd worry that she had moved on. But at least that one night I was a knight in shining armor and the princess had only me in her thoughts. at about one, still happy over those two wet kisses. I was still in a good position. Wexler thought I was working for him and Timmerman was in a hospital bed. Brown seemed to be on our side and Oscar wasn't any threat. BB was in hiding somewhere, but he thought that I was on his side too. I parked in front of my place and skipped up the front stairs. In a week or two I'd begin to wonder if DeLois would ever call me. In a month I'd worry that she had moved on. But at least that one night I was a knight in shining armor and the princess had only me in her thoughts.

I opened the front door and received what seemed to be my nightly knock in the head. I fell to the floor and heard the door slam. A light came on simultaneously with the sudden deep ache in my head.

I turned on my back and looked up but all I could see for the moment was a looming shadow.

"Surprised to see me, n.i.g.g.e.r?" the shadow asked.

n.i.g.g.e.r? Louis? I had a dozen one-word questions but neither my mind nor my ears were clear enough to provide an answer. The man lifted me by the lapels of my shirt. His breath was rank but unfamiliar. His skin, where it touched mine, was hot.

"Wake up!" he shouted.

The stinging slap across my cheek brought Theodore Timmerman's face into clarity. He still wore the brown jacket he'd had on the first day he showed up at my door. But now he was wearing green trousers that didn't cover his ankles. He had the beginnings of a beard around his chin. And his breath smelled like a disease.

"What you want, man?"

"Where's the book?"

"Fearless got it."

He slapped me again.

"You think you can fool me? Where is it, b.a.s.t.a.r.d?"

"Fearless got it. He does. I'm not lyin'."

He threw me against the wall. My feet actually left the floor before I struck. I felt the pain in my lungs.

"Where is he?" Timmerman bellowed.

I gave up Ambrosia's address without even a second's hesitation. Everything I did for DeLois was washed away in one cowardly moment. Deep in my mind, though, I didn't believe that Timmerman would ever get the upper hand on my friend.

Then he fell on me. His hands wrapped around my throat and my eyes felt as if they were going to pop out of my head. The pressure increased, and for the first time in the thirty years I had been alive fear left me. I was dying and there were no words to dissuade my killer. There was no Fearless Jones to break in at the last moment. There was nothing but death yawning out under me.

My ears were on fire and my heart was exploding. I started pounding with both of my fists at the point Fearless had tapped Theodore in the chest. There were bandages there now but I was striking him with strength I'd never known before or since. Timmerman released me and fell backwards. I went after him, hitting that bull's eye again and again until finally I collapsed.

My foeman fell on top of me and I knew that I'd soon be dead. I struggled for a moment, trying to breathe, hurting from my throat. And then I faded into unconsciousness, knowing that I would never awaken again.

39.

FEELING AS IF I HAD BEEN TRAMPLED by some prehistoric wooly rhino, I tried to look around. I couldn't open my eyes all the way, and the light I managed to see was a dingy blue-brown glow. I could barely breathe, feeling as though there was a great stone on my chest. I tried to pry my eyes wider. The world was small and crazy. It was as if maybe a lead blanket had been draped over me and it was slowly pressing the life from my lungs. by some prehistoric wooly rhino, I tried to look around. I couldn't open my eyes all the way, and the light I managed to see was a dingy blue-brown glow. I could barely breathe, feeling as though there was a great stone on my chest. I tried to pry my eyes wider. The world was small and crazy. It was as if maybe a lead blanket had been draped over me and it was slowly pressing the life from my lungs.

Suddenly I came fully awake. I yelled and bucked, rolling the body from on top of me.

Theodore Timmerman, who probably never worked for an insurance company, was lying next to me on his back-wide-eyed and dead. I was on my side thinking about standing up but unable to make the right moves in order to achieve that goal. All I could do was lie there next to a dead man who had come close to killing me. My bones were jelly and my mind was a dull thud. All sensation had fled my body. Only breath remained. Sweet, sweet breath. Breath and death and every once in a while some sound like the house settling or the waterlike whoosh of a car pa.s.sing down Jefferson.

There were also gurgling sounds emanating from within the corpse that lay mere inches from my ear. The body fluids settling down, headed back for the ground that they rose from. A motor started humming somewhere on the side of the building. A cat yowled and I felt a sharp pain in my left hand.

The fingernail of my ring finger was bleeding, half torn off in the struggle with the big white man. I concentrated on that pain, realizing somehow that if I didn't I might lose consciousness again or I might even lose my senses completely and lie there until someone found me and called the police, who would then cart me off to prison.

I got up on one elbow, stayed there for what felt like a month, then I rocked up into a sitting position. I was moving fast by then. It took me no longer than five minutes to remember my legs and feet and the possibility of walking.

I stared at the phone for a long time, I have no idea how long, trying to remember Ambrosia's number and how to dial it. I knew I had tucked it away on a slip of paper someplace but it was beyond me to think of where.

What I did think of was my little cousin Aster, a young girl, not yet five, who died in a flash flood when I was six. She was my best friend, and when my mother took me to her parents' house to help with the preparations we found them washing the body before putting her in her Sunday dress. I asked could I wash her feet, and I remember her mother, a big West Indian woman, cried and wrapped me in her arms. My mother wouldn't let me wash Asty's feet, but that night I dreamt that I washed her soles and between her toes with a real sea sponge and perfumed soap.

Looking down at the phone, with Theodore's corpse in the periphery, and thinking about dreaming about washing my dead playmate's feet, I suddenly remembered Ambrosia's number.

"h.e.l.lo," she said without the slightest shred of civility.

"Fearless there?" I asked in a voice that belonged to a dead man.

"Do you know what time it is, Paris Minton? It's three in the mornin'. First Fearless don't get in till two and I just fall asleep again, and then -"

"Get him for me, Ambrosia," I said. "I don't have time to play."

Maybe she could hear the stress in my voice. Maybe Fearless had talked to her about me being his closest friend. Whatever it was, she stopped her complaints and a moment later Fearless was on the line.

"What's up, Paris?"

"I just killed Theodore Timmerman."

"I'll be right there," he said.

He hung up the phone in my ear, leaving me holding on to the receiver and thinking about how Aster would scream and giggle when I tickled her.

"HE'S SURE ENOUGH DEAD," Fearless was saying. "No doubt about that at all." Fearless was saying. "No doubt about that at all."

I had pulled up a chair next to the corpse while Fearless examined the body.

"I didn't mean it," I said.

I had been saying things like that since Fearless got there. I said I was sorry. I said I didn't mean to kill him. I asked Fearless why did he have to try and hurt me like that.

"You didn't kill him," Fearless said.

"What you talkin' 'bout, man. I hit and hit and hit and hit, and he fell dead."

"If anybody killed him," Fearless said, "I'm the one. I'm the one threw that stone. I'm the one threw him down and tied him up. But Paris, we took him to the hospital. We called to make sure he got a bed. What else could we do? And what was you supposed to do wit' him stranglin' you like that? I mean, if there was ever a case of self-defense in Los Angeles, it's this right here."

"Yeah I . . . Yeah I . . . guess."

Fearless put his hand on my neck. I thought he was trying to console me, but then I felt a pinch on a muscle next to the big vertebra. A pain went down my back and up into my head that was beyond any physical hurt I had ever known. I cried out and tried to get away from the hold but Fearless would not let go. It seemed as if he had taken up Timmerman's job and planned to kill me too.

Finally he released his grip and I fell to the floor writhing. Fearless picked me up and carried me to the bathroom in the back of the store. He turned on the shower I had installed over the bathtub and threw me in, clothes and all.

The water was freezing!

I tried to climb out but Fearless wouldn't let me. He held on to my arms and legs until I was almost numb with the cold. After long minutes he pulled me out and said, "Dry off and then go upstairs and change, Paris. We got business to take care of here."

"Man, what the f.u.c.k you do that to me for?" I shouted, sputtering with rage.

"You was slippin', Paris," he said, giving me a one-shoulder shrug. "Shock, man. You know I been on the front lines. I seen boys experience death for the first time. And here you think you killed that man. We ain't got time for no sanitarium, so I just put you through the crash course."

I was so cold that I was shivering. The quavering in my chest and Fearless's offhanded manner made me laugh. I did that a bit and then stopped for fear that my friend might throw me back in the shower.

It was at that moment that I accepted myself as a killer.

40.

I CHANGED CLOTHES QUICKLY, not thinking about the dead white man downstairs at all. Fearless had been busy too. He'd found two old blankets and some rope and trussed the body up so that now it looked like an oversized, unfinished doll. not thinking about the dead white man downstairs at all. Fearless had been busy too. He'd found two old blankets and some rope and trussed the body up so that now it looked like an oversized, unfinished doll.

"Here, Paris, let me take care of that finger."

While he bandaged up my torn nail he kept talking. "I emptied his pockets. It's all on the table in your kitchen. Now I'm gonna take him out somewhere and get rid of him."

"Don't you think we should call the cops?" I asked.

Fearless just shook his head.

"I, I'll go with you, though," I offered.

"No, Paris. I don't need you and it'a be bad enough if one of us is found wit' a dead man in the trunk. I know what I'm doin', brother. You just do what you do with his things."

I watched as Fearless carried the man-doll down to the street and dumped him in the trunk. I didn't worry about the money or even my book in there. I was a new man, at least for the moment, concentrated on the task at hand.

ALL THEODORE TIMMERMAN LEFT in the world was a package of mint gum, a roll of nickels, one of his own fake insurance cards with in the world was a package of mint gum, a roll of nickels, one of his own fake insurance cards with Craighton at pull lay 10:30 Craighton at pull lay 10:30 scrawled on it, and a ring of three keys. The keys were probably to his apartment, but the address would have been in the wallet that Fearless had confiscated before taking him to the hospital. We'd tossed the man's pants, wallet, and shoes in a bin downtown. There was no finding his address. scrawled on it, and a ring of three keys. The keys were probably to his apartment, but the address would have been in the wallet that Fearless had confiscated before taking him to the hospital. We'd tossed the man's pants, wallet, and shoes in a bin downtown. There was no finding his address.

And why would I still be chasing him down anyway? He tried to kill me three times already. There was no reason for me to put us into further jeopardy. The one real threat to me was dead. I had killed him with my own two hands.