At ten minutes to four Fearless knocked at the door. I knew it was him because I was awake and when I’m conscious I know Fearless’s knock.
“Hey, Paris,” was all he said when I admitted him.
“How are you?” I asked. “Ambrosia was so worried that she called me.”
“I was doin’ things that we don’t need to talk about, man. But you don’t have to worry about Teddy no more.”
I told Fearless about the killer’s house and the obscure notes on the murders.
“Damn that’s cold,” Fearless said after taking it all in. “Sometime people get like that. I seen boys in the war would line up prisoners for target practice. Sometimes they raped and killed more than they fought the enemy. And it wasn’t just the Germans or the Russians. Sometimes you had blue-blood American rich boys rollin’ in the blood. I think there’s just some kinda men made for killin’ and hurtin’. Just one little scratch and they like to go off.”
“Well at least we don’t have to worry about Timmerman anymore,” I said, and then I told Fearless that I was going to meet Bradford, to find out who our friend Mr. Craighton might be.
“Hey,” Fearless said. “That’s a helluva lot easier than makin’ a man disappear from the face of the earth.”
I didn’t ask about what he meant. I didn’t want to know.
“You know I gave you up to him, Fearless.”
“And then you beat him to death. That’s okay.”
“No, man. You shouldn’t put your trust in me. I was so scared when he grabbed me that I told him where you were in a second. Even Milo lied to the man when asked to give up Winifred Fine.”
“Milo lied to save his chance at kissin’ millionaire butt,” Fearless said.
“That doesn’t absolve me.”
“Paris, when I got in trouble I came to you. And you agreed to help me. Now if while you helpin’ me some man says he’s gonna take your life, you should give me up. Don’t worry, baby. You’n me is tight.”
42
I GOT TO THE PARK on Lucile Avenue at eight-fifteen. I like to be early to potentially clandestine meetings. That way I can scout out all the exits and escape routes before it’s too late.
There was a French café across the street. Instead of a name there was the picture of a fat chicken wearing a beret as the sign. I moved over toward an alley and took out a newspaper that I pretended to read while waiting for the private secretary to arrive.
I wasn’t worried about Bradford. He seemed like a good guy, a concerned employee. We were the same kind, he and I, thinkers. I would have bet that he was a reader. He was satisfied with his position in life. So was I.
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?”