The photographs were of the men in question gambling and in compromising positions with Angel. Some of the pictures were quite explicit, making me wonder if Useless was the photographer. The accounting sheet listed every transfer of funds from the mark to the blackmailers, also the probable dates on which the monies had been embezzled.
The letters were the most embarrassing. It surprised me that every man had written to Angel. My mother had told me a long time ago never to sign my name to anything unless I was compelled to by law or the possibility of profit. She hadn’t used those words exactly, but that’s what she meant.
Some of the letters were romantic, talking about forbidden love and freedom. Others were down in the gutter. I supposed that Angel had written to them first and they replied, hoping for something that they didn’t even understand.
The fifteenth section of the folder contained a file with all the pertinent information on each mark. Full names, addresses, phone numbers, names of wives, ex-wives, children, past lovers, and immediate supervisors. A few of the men had confessed to crimes they had committed at different points in their lives.
I imagined them in the heat of their passion, whispering, whimpering, confessing at Angel’s altar. There was no contempt in my mind’s eye. I could see getting down on my knees for the absolution granted by her beauty. If I were an older gentleman I might have been happy to sacrifice the life I’d built for her. I mean, after all, what good is a lifetime of accrued wealth when all it gets you are body aches and boiled meat for supper?
None of the men had committed murder or any other violent crime as far as the notes went. They seemed to be well-chosen docile and bureaucratic sorts. Even Martin Friar was only brave in his mind. He’d given up his organization’s money to assure his place in Angel’s heart and to protect himself from exposure.
The more I read, the less I believed in the possibility that one of the businessmen was responsible for the deaths I’d encountered. This left me with the most probable cause: Useless.
My cousin messed up anything he got involved in. And if you were there with him, the worst would come to you. Useless had stolen the accordion folder from someone. I knew this because the folder was too neat, too well planned out for a sloppy mind like his. The man, or woman, who had designed this extortion scheme had it all worked out to a science. It was like an investment folder or a detailed business plan.
This meant that Useless was intimate with the mastermind of the operation. He was running from that someone and knew a name.
I didn’t like my conclusion. I didn’t want to talk to Useless again. My fear might have been irrational, but the idea of being in the same room with my cousin made my neck hairs rise.
Luckily I had other things to do first.
I took my car down the street to Central Avenue and drove four blocks to Eugenia’s Stationery Store. There I purchased a box of manila envelopes, a ream of white paper, two black markers, and a roll of postage stamps.
For the next hour I put all the blackmailers’ information into thirteen envelopes, then stamped and addressed each one to the men being blackmailed. I typed thirteen short notes that read,
It’s over now. You will not be bothered again.
A friend
I wrote PERSONAL AND CONFIDENTIAL on the front and back of each envelope, then I licked the adhesive and sealed the envelopes. After that I taped each one shut.
The only information I skipped was Brian Motley’s. His life had already been destroyed.
After that I drove to a post office I knew in Westwood and deposited the envelopes in the box outside.
In my car coming home I had what I came later to know as an anxiety attack. My tongue went dry and my stomach roiled. A cold sweat broke out across my brow. My hands clenched into fists around the steering wheel, and I barely had the muscle control to pull up to the curb. Sitting there, holding on tightly with my head against the wheel, I began to shiver. I think the thing that got to me was sending off those envelopes filled with so much threat and turmoil. My chest began hurting again. I wanted to cry but could not. So instead I took long deep breaths with my eyes closed. After a few minutes I was able to release the wheel. A few moments more and I relaxed into sobs.
When the episode had passed, I was able to drive but unwilling to go home.
Maybe the killer would be there waiting for me. Maybe. But I learned something about myself that afternoon. I learned that fear was so pervasive in my life that it had no real sway over me.
After all, I was afraid of everything. A cold might be pneumonia. A cut warned of lockjaw. Any man I met might be the boyfriend of a woman who had neglected to inform me about her situation.
“Scared if I do,” I said, “and scared if I don’t.”
This made me laugh very hard. Anyone passing would have thought that I’d gone insane there behind the wheel.
Chapter 41
I meant to go see Fearless, but first I wanted to drive past my store. Maybe, I thought, I would have the courage to go in if I didn’t see anyone waiting for me. I could change my clothes, take a short bath.
Three blocks from my house I decided that after all of this was over I was going to buy myself a gun, a small-caliber pistol, for times like these.
Jessa was sitting with her back against my door and her knees pulled up to her face. She was rocking herself there. I think it was that gentle, futile swaying that made me park and approach her.
When I got to the top of the stairs, she looked up. Her crystal blue eyes flooded with tears.
“Paris,” she wailed, rising and throwing her arms around me. “I’m so scared.”
I had to bite my lower lip to keep from crying along with her.
“Calm down, Jessa,” I said. “It’s gonna be all right.”
Tenderness only served to make her cry harder. I opened the door as fast as I could and pushed her across the threshold. She stood in the little reading-room entranceway, racked with sobs, leaning against the wall. I let that go on for a minute or two and then dragged her toward the kitchen-porch. When we passed the place where Fearless and I had come upon Tiny, she dug her nails into my forearms.
“That’s where he died,” she said through a series of hoarse sobs. “That’s where my baby boy died.”
“Died?” I asked. “Who died?”
“Tiny,” she said, nodding and leaning on me as we went from the room.
“Is that where the blood came from?”
My incredulity put her tears temporarily at bay.
“Didn’t you find him there?”
“No,” I lied. “All there was was a little blood. I thought that it must’a been from him beatin’ on you. Matter of fact, I was worried ’bout you until you decked me out there in front’a Hector’s place.”
“Hector shot him. He was dead on the floor.”
“Hector must’a missed,” I said. “Because there was nobody here. Just some blood, like I said. Did he shoot him in the head?”
She nodded at me hopefully.
“Must’a just grazed him,” I speculated. “Must’a either bounced off or glanced off the side. The bullet hittin’ him prob’ly knocked him out and then, after you left, he must’a woke up and run.”
“You really didn’t find him?” Jessa asked.
“No, ma’am,” I said. “If I found a body, I’d have to call the cops, and you know I’d be in jail still, them wonderin’ how a white man came here to die.”
“You didn’t see him?”
“If he’d been shot by a black man in my store, I’m sure he decided to cut his losses and run. Probably thought it was one of my crazy cousins.”