It was late, and there was no immediate danger. She was a young woman, and I was the young man who had just saved her life. I couldn’t see where a kiss was out of line.
“I’m too upset to do that, baby,” she said after my third awkward attempt. “Why don’t we try an’ get some sleep. I’ll feel better tomorrow.”
The only vacancy the motel had was furnished with two single beds. I could see that I was destined to sleep alone and so crawled under the covers of the one nearest the window.
“Aren’t you gonna take off your clothes?” she asked.
“No.”
“I won’t look.”
“I wish you would. You might see somethin’ you like. But I’m not taking off my pants until I know that I won’t have to run any minute with some killer on my ass.” I wasn’t really afraid, but I had my car key, money, and Fearless Jones’s pistol in my pockets. I wanted all of that close at hand.
She made a little humming sound and then got under her bedclothes. She did take off her dress, but I couldn’t see anything because of the blankets.
“G’night,” she said softly.
I switched off the lamp on the night table next to my bed, closed my eyes, and concentrated on the sound of the waves. After a while my mind began to drift.
In the reverie my thoughts kept returning to Fearless Jones.
Fearless Jones. Tall and slender, darker than most Negroes in the American melting pot, he was stronger than tempered steel and an army-trained killing machine.
I learned just how deadly he was one night after a big rainstorm in San Francisco. I was coming down a dark street dancing to the jazz I knew I’d be hearing soon. When the cops stopped me, I guess I must have been a little too cocky. They didn’t like my attitude and were correcting it with their nightsticks when Fearless showed up to meet me. He jumped in the middle of the fracas as if he were still under Bradley fighting the Germans hand to hand. He disarmed both men and beat them to their knees.
He would have let it go at that if one of the cops hadn’t put a knife in his thigh. After that there was no hope. One cop fell unconscious, facedown in a pool of water. The other, the one who stabbed Fearless, well, his windpipe busted.
Fearless still had a small limp from that knife wound. There’s never a day that goes by I don’t wish that I’d taken the beating and Fearless had missed the whole thing.
But for all that he was a killer, Fearless was a good man too. Too good. He was generous beyond his means. This generosity often led to trouble that I got pulled into. Loan sharks and wife-beating husbands, con men and shady landlords. Fearless brought me into conflict with every kind of lowlife and thug. And I am not a courageous man.
Maybe that’s why I had Fearless on my mind instead of the sensuous curves of Elana Love. I was scared, and Fearless was the only person I really trusted. I considered going to the police about Leon, but the cops were an iffy bet at best. Maybe somebody had reported the shoot-out. Maybe, if they couldn’t find Leon, the cops would decide that I shot at myself. There was no way that I could rely on Elana telling them the same story she told me. And if they got me into an interrogation room, I’d confess to anything they said.
No, I couldn’t go to the police. And I wouldn’t go to Fearless either. In the morning I’d take Elana anywhere she wanted to go and then I’d go on vacation for a few weeks, maybe down in San Diego. I had enough money for a holiday. And by the time I returned, Leon would either be back in jail or on easy street. Either way he wouldn’t be worried about me.
With that decision made I dozed off, but I didn’t relax. In my dreams someone was chasing me through the main library downtown. I ran from room to room with my unknown pursuer close behind. I knew that in one of the books there was written the secret of my success and salvation, but I couldn’t stop to search for it for fear I’d get caught and drown in the waters outside the Mussel Beach Inn.
“Paris.” Her lips were touching my ear.
I tried to jump, but her arms were around me. Her breasts were heavy against my back.
“I thought you said —” I started to say.
“Shhhh,” she whispered. “What you got down here?”
I heard the zipper from under the blanket and then I felt the silken warmth of her hand.
“Dang,” she said in what I knew was real surprise. “I could use three hands on you.”
There are no two lovers alike. Every man and woman has different needs and pleasures in bed. I’ve always known this. It’s part of the reason that I have so much anticipation the first time with a new woman. But that night I realized that everybody is different with every new love they meet. Coming together with Elana made me into a new man. I was jumping through hoops I hadn’t known were there. Elana gave me pleasure in places I never associated with sex.
Together we were like an overripe peach, just dripping with sweetness and sticky with love. My orgasms were so strong that I didn’t even feel the ejaculations. But they were in no way superior to the feel of her teeth at the back of my neck.
From a worried sleep to passionate love to a deep slumber she took me. The ocean was crashing, and the cool air drove me deeper into the blankets. At the first moment of consciousness I was smiling and placated. But then I began to sense that I was alone.
Morning light was coming through the wavy curtains. Elana was not in my bed and neither was she in hers. The bathroom was empty. My pants were strewn in the middle of the floor. My wallet was laid open, emptied of cash. The .38 was gone too.
She hadn’t taken the five-dollar bill that I keep in my shoe. I always thought it would come in handy if I was mugged late one night and had to pay for a taxi ride home. I never imagined that a mugging would come in the form of sex. And, as much as I wanted to be mad, as much as I was mad, I still appreciated the way she had robbed me. At least I did until I realized that she had also stolen my car.
The blacktop lot to the motel was completely empty. It was ten A.M. and I was marooned in Venice for no reason other than I was a fool.
I took a bus directly to the Bank of America branch on Normandie. I made a withdrawal, which took a while because I was closing out my account, and carried my money back home.
THERE WAS no crowd, and so I figured the fire must have happened either the night before or early in the morning. Whenever it happened it must have raged, because there weren’t ten books out of over three thousand that survived the blaze. My storefront rental was razed to the ground. Only the metal fixtures and the extra thick wood of my desk and filing cabinet left any vestige of the life I had been trying to build.
I wept like a child. The tears ran down my cheeks, and my hands hung down. I stood there in the middle of the blackened lot that had been my future, quivering from the diaphragm.
“Mr. Minton.” It was Theodore Wally from the Superette. He was standing at my side ready to catch me in case I were to fall again.
“What happened?” I asked.
“It was a fire last night,” the old-faced youth told me. He seemed almost as upset as I was. He might have even shared a tear or two with me. “The fire inspector came and asked me questions about you. I told him what happent yesterday. I hope that wasn’t bad.”
“What am I gonna do now?” I moaned. “That was everything I ever owned.”
“Your insurance’ll pay for it, won’t it?” Theodore asked hopefully.