“Hey, Mum,” I called to the waitress.
She came over to me with a dazed and innocent look on her face. Mum was dressed in the black-and-white uniform of half the waitresses in America. But she carried it off with more elegance and beauty than Jayne Mansfield could have imagined.
“Yes, Paris?” she asked, but I heard another question.
“You got change for a dollar?”
“For you.”
When I think back on my youth, remembering moments like those, I realize that I have squandered my life.
Chapter 19
I used my first dime to call Milo’s office. When Loretta answered, I felt the hole in my heart.
“Hey, Loretta. It’s Paris.”
“Hello, Paris,” she said in a friendly but professional voice. I could tell that she was going to wait for me to bring up the conversation we’d started the night before — and also that there was no pressure for me to hurry.
“Lookin’ for Fearless,” I said.
“Milo went home to study an argument he’s going to present,” she said. “He’s trying to be readmitted to the bar.”
“Fearless say where he was going?”
“No. He just drove Milo.”
“Thanks.”
“Sure, Paris. Is that all?”
“I had a great time last night,” I said.
She hummed her agreement and then said, “One day you’ll come to understand what a wonderful man you are, Paris Minton.”
I called two bars and three restaurants that Fearless frequented, with no luck. I left messages for him, but no one had any idea when he’d show up.
I could have called Mona. Maybe I should have called her. If you woke her in her bed from a deep sleep and asked her where Fearless might be, she would probably know. That man was on her mind twenty-four hours a day.
But I hesitated. One day I might really need Mona’s help and if I called all the time she could begin to resent me. It’s always a delicate thing dealing with your friends’ girlfriends.
So instead I dialed a Ludlow number. He answered on the first ring.
“Yeh?”
“Bobby?”
“You know it is, Paris. What you want?”
Bobby Frank was known as the Two Dollar Man. He’d perform any errand for the discreet payment of two George Washington notes.
If someone wanted to get word to his mother that he was in jail and needed bail, Bobby would take the message to her door for two bills. If you wanted your mother and your cousin to know, then that was four — unless the cousin and the mother lived under the same roof.
Bobby lived in a studio apartment with a portable Zenith TV, a mini-refrigerator filled with cheap beer, a perpetual carton of Kools, and a big black telephone. He kept a ledger sheet that had three live columns: name, estimated cost, and paid. Cost was always a multiple of two, and you had to have an X in the rightmost column or Bobby wouldn’t work for you again.
“I need Fearless to meet me down at Ha Tsu’s ASAP,” I said.
“You ain’t paid me for that thing I did last month, man.”
“I ain’t seen ya.”
“Well, you coulda come by,” Bobby said.
“Yeah. You right, man. I’ll tell ya what, you tell Fearless when you see ’im to give ya the four dollars. Tell him that I said to settle my bill.” This accomplished two ends. It meant that Bobby would definitely get paid, and it let him know that Fearless wanted the information Bobby had. Either detail was enough to get him up and out.
“I was gonna call him,” Bobby complained. He liked to complain.
“Milo’s only three blocks from you, B,” I said. “And anyway, Fearless ain’t there.”
The Two Dollar Man sighed on his end of the line.
“I hear Milo got trouble wit’ Albert Rive,” the Two Dollar Man said. This was often the case with Bobby. He stayed at home to get his business calls, but being at home most of the time made him lonely. On top of the two dollars, I had to pay a little interest in conversation.
“It’s Al got trouble,” I said. “He got Whisper and Fearless on him. He be lucky to make it to jail.”
“I hear you got trouble too, Paris.”
I wondered how he could have known about Three Hearts and her evil eye.
“What kinda trouble?” I asked.
“Mad Anthony says he gonna kill your cousin and he got some choice words about you too.”
“Where you hear that?”
“Around. People be sayin’ that Useless better keep his butt indoors.”
“You know where Useless is right now?” I asked.
“I’ll tell you what I told Tony’s cousin.”
“What’s that?”
“Useless ain’t gone be found he don’t want it.”
“You think you can find Fearless?” I asked then. “Could you find him?”
“Oh, yeah. I think I know where he’s at.”
He probably did. For a man who stayed inside 90 percent of the time, Bobby had more knowledge about the comings and goings of Watts personalities than a station full of cops.
When i got back to good news the evening clientele had begun to arrive. My plate was still at the bar, but Ha had moved to the back in order to work with his immigrant kitchen help.
There were four waitresses on duty, two more than he needed at that hour, but the trade would be brisk soon.
Mum came up to my station and smiled, not that she needed to; she would have been beautiful frowning or crying or bemoaning the dead. Her skin was olive with a hint of lemon therein, and her dark eyes were both wise and youthful — I never really knew how old she was. Unlike the common impression that most people had of Asian women, Mum was full of good humor, quite forward, and blessed with a great figure.
I was appreciating this last quality when she asked, “So how are you, Mr. Paris?”
“Quite fine, Miss Mum. Quite fine. I got money in my pocket and someplace to be in the morning. I don’t have a job, which is a good thing, and nobody’s trying to get me put outta my house.”
She didn’t have to smile to maintain her beauty, but it didn’t hurt.
“How are you, honey?” I asked.
“Getting better.”
“Better? Was something wrong?”
“All kinds of things,” she said, pushing a shoulder forward deliciously.
“Like what?”
“I move outta my place on Grand Court over to Peters Lane. I got a nice green door with a red lantern over it.”
“You like the new place better?”
“Yeah. It’s closer, and you know I don’t get off till ten and so I like to get home before the news.”
“It’s closer but is it nicer?”
“It’s nicer because I don’t have stupid Vincent in there anymore,” she said with a sneer.
“Who’s Vincent?”
“He call himself my boyfriend but he wasn’t no friend to me. Don’t have a job, don’t do a thing. When my mothah get sick he won’t even go with me to the hospital.”
“How’s your mom?” I asked, following my cue. “Is she okay?”
Mum smiled and put her hand on mine.
“You’re sweet, Mr. Paris. She much bettah now I have free time to come see her every day.”
“Sometimes gettin’ rid of a boyfriend is better than gettin’ one,” I said.
She laughed and laughed. At Ha Tsu’s Good News I was a laugh riot.
I sat on my stool watching the devotees of Ha Tsu’s cuisine come in. It was a loud establishment when it was in full swing. Some people recognized me and came my way, but after a while I pulled out a paperback copy of The Stranger by Albert Camus. My mother died today, or maybe it was yesterday... I liked reading about the heat of North Africa combined with the oppression of European culture.