"Then how did Miss Fine get to your door?"
"You might not know it, but I got a reputation for finding people, Paris. Most the times it"s bail jumpers, but I do other kinds of searches too. I can be discreet."
"Discreet about what?"
"Miss Fine needs to have a private talk with her nephew. I didn"t ask her why."
"So you agreed to find a man for somebody and you don"t even know what for?"
"She wants to talk to him. That"s all I need to know."
"And what"s she gonna pay you for that?" I asked.
"This ain"t about no fee," Milo said. He shrugged just as if he had already made it rich. "This is gettin" in good with the richest black woman in Los Angeles, maybe even the whole country. A man could become a millionaire behind a woman like that."
"Listen, Milo. A missin" nephew ain"t no million dollars unless there"s somethin" serious goin" on."
"There isn"t," he said.
I sat back in my spindly chair. The joints creaked and the backrest sagged, but I started to get the feeling that that little chair would hold up under a man Milo"s size, or bigger.
What I had to figure was how much to tell Milo. How much could I trust him?
We were friends-after a fashion. I had done some work for his bail bonds business when men awaiting trial went on the run. Usually I"d just find out where they were hiding and tell Milo. Nothing dangerous.
We played chess now and then and had political and philosophical debates. But we didn"t share the life-and-death kind of friendship that Fearless and I had.
"What does BB have to do with Kit Mitch.e.l.l?" I asked.
"I don"t know," Milo said. "I hired Timmerman to find BB and he came up with Kit and BB hangin" out together a few months ago. I think they were doin" some kinda business."
"What kind of business?"
Milo pursed his lips and rubbed his thumbs and forefingers together.
"BB might"a crossed the line a li"l bit, but that don"t have nuthin" to do with Miss Fine and why she wants to talk to him," the bail bondsman said.
"What kind of business?" I asked again.
"Kit needed some trucks for his melon business and BB knew how to get "em on the cheap."
"Hot?"
"There ain"t no proof of that one way or t"other," the lawyer turned skip chaser said.
"Is that why the police are lookin" for Kit?" I asked.
Milo shrugged. "Kit"s a businessman and black. You know all businessmen cross the line now and then. But when a black one do it the cops on him like white on rice."
What Milo said was true but it didn"t explain the dead man nicknamed after a Greek demiG.o.d.
"You know a woman named Leora?"
"Never heard of her."
"She has a young boy-child named Son. Says she"s Kit"s wife."
"I don"t have any personal information on Mr. Mitch.e.l.l. He could have five wives as far as I know, and two heads for all I care."
As Milo sat back in the red leather I wondered if he knew anything more. I couldn"t ask him about Wexler because I shouldn"t have known anything about a murdered man. As far as I knew, Lance Wexler was still decomposing in secret, his foot holding open the door.
"Where does this Winifred L. Fine live?" I asked.
"Why should I tell you?" Milo said.
"All I can say is that you have to trust me. Fearless might be in some trouble around Kit and I agreed to help him out. If I run across BB along the way I"ll make sure you know about it."
"What kind of trouble?" Milo asked.
"This woman Leora come around and asked Fearless where was Kit," I said. "She said that she was his wife. She said that he abandoned her and his child. After Fearless asked a couple"a questions the cops come around his place and asked about him. Now the next morning your boy Timmerman comes to my house askin" about Fearless too. You know neither one of us believes in coincidence, Milo."
"Maybe not," he said. "But if there"s a word for it in the dictionary then there"s a chance that it could happen."
"Tell me where I can find Miss Fine."
"But you could get to Winifred if I give you her address. You could make all her fortune work for you."
"Milo, I wouldn"t even know what to do with a beauty product distribution company. All I care about is my books."
Milo frowned for a full fifteen seconds before calling out, "Loretta!"
"Yes, Mr. Sweet."
"Write down Winifred L. Fine"s numbers on a card for Paris. Call her and tell her that I"m sendin" him by." And then, "You better not be messin" with me, Paris."
"I was thinkin" the exact same thing about you, Mr. Sweet."
9.
THE FINE FAMILY LIVED ON BRAUGHM ROAD, which occupied a strip of land between Santa Monica and Los Angeles. It was a big yellow house, a mansion really, flanked by strawberry farms that have long since disappeared. It had a southern look to it. The driveway was long enough to be called a road. It led to an electric fence equipped with a buzzer, a microphone, and a loudspeaker-all of them held together by black electrical tape. which occupied a strip of land between Santa Monica and Los Angeles. It was a big yellow house, a mansion really, flanked by strawberry farms that have long since disappeared. It had a southern look to it. The driveway was long enough to be called a road. It led to an electric fence equipped with a buzzer, a microphone, and a loudspeaker-all of them held together by black electrical tape.
"Who is it?" a man"s voice asked a minute or so after I pressed the buzzer.
"Paris Minton," I said.
"Who the h.e.l.l is Paris Minton?"
"Friend of Milo Sweet."
"Who?"
"Listen, man," I said. "Tell Miss Fine that Paris Minton is out here, that I work for Milo Sweet and I need some information to get the job done."
The loudspeaker went silent and I was by myself out there in the almost country of L.A. There were five different birdcalls that I made out but could not name. Flitting insects were everywhere. A big beetle thumped down on my hood. He sported a shiny black-and-green carapace and seemed to like the heat from the engine rising through the hood. His long legs weren"t strong enough to lift him above the surface, instead they moved like the oars of some ancient galley making its way across the vast brown sea of metal. A blackbird flew up and landed so quickly it was as if she had appeared out of nowhere. She swiveled her head to get a good look at the beetle and then lunged at him with her beak. I could see its oars waving in the air for a moment and then two gulps and he was gone. The blackbird c.o.c.ked her eye at me and then, in less than an instant, she was gone too.
"Who is this?" a woman"s voice asked from the loudspeaker.
"Paris Minton," I said.
"And who is Paris Minton?"
I told the new voice about Milo Sweet and my working for him.
"I don"t know nuthin" about a Mr. Sweet sendin" no man up in here," the voice said.
I didn"t respond because she hadn"t asked a question.
"Well, come on in I guess," the voice said.
The electric fence, made from simple wire gating, rolled half the way across the entrance and then seemed to get stuck. It was still trying to roll but something, somewhere, was an impediment. I got out of my Ford and helped the gate move along its track. Then I got back in and drove the S-shaped driveway up to Winifred L. Fine"s front door.
The house was four stories with an extra turret on top of that. It would have been impressive if the owner had it painted and did something about the front yard.
Really, I guess you would call it the grounds. The lawn in front of the fading house was at least five acres. The gra.s.s was overgrown but I could see why. There was a refrigerator, a stove, various canisters, and less identifiable refuse in among the long blades of gra.s.s. A gardener would have gone crazy trying to mow. And even if he managed, the lawn would have looked worse because all the trash would have been more visible.
There weren"t only discards in the yard, however. There were trees too. Fruit trees mainly. Two apples-which is one of the only fruit bearers that don"t do well in the southern California clime-a dying peach, a dead pomegranate, and a date palm that had only one living leaf.
I saw no place set aside for parking, so I just pulled as far to the right side of the road as possible and stopped the car.
The front door was green with a picture of Mary and baby Jesus laminated to its center. I wondered if knocking on Mary"s forehead was considered a sin.
A middle-aged black woman opened the door. She was quite short and wore a full-length formal black gown that had shiny black b.u.t.tons from the throat down to the hem. The sleeves went all the way to her wrists. The head of an unblinking red fox peeked at me from her right shoulder.
"Miss Fine?" I asked.
"Yes," she said. Her eyes didn"t waver, they hardly blinked. It was almost as if I were staring into the face of two dead animals, the fox and the woman.
The foyer behind her was as much in disarray as the grounds. There was a large ceramic pot in one corner filled with peac.o.c.k feathers that were coated in dust. Above this was a large painting of a white woman astride a white stallion galloping away from a squat stone castle.
"May I speak with you, ma"am?"
"Certainly, young man," she said.
With that she led me to the left, down a long and wide corridor made narrower by stacks of cartons labeled Madame Ethel"s Beauty Supply along the walls. There were also piles of doc.u.ments, newspapers, ledgers, and manuals of all kinds. We came to a room that had a barber"s chair and a park bench for furniture. By then I was pretty sure that I was in a madhouse, or at least in a house that was in the process of going mad.
"Sit down, sit down," the woman said, waving at the park bench.
She struggled with the barber"s chair. The long skirts and stiffness in her joints made the necessary movements difficult, but she finally managed to seat herself upon the cracked grandeur of the golden leather cushion.
"Miss Fine . . . ," I said.
She held up her hand to stop me and then shook the same hand. A tinkling accompanied the motion. I saw then that there was a tiny silver bell attached to her wrist. The old woman then stared at a bookcase to her left with great concentration.
The room was quite odd. First of all, it wasn"t so much a room but the dead end of the cluttered hall. There was nothing that seemed normal in there. Besides the park bench and barber"s chair there was an unfinished sawhorse and a high table on which stood three miner"s lanterns. The bookcases were crowded with handmade papier-mache figurines. There were statuettes of black men and women shopping, kneeling in prayer, two men fighting with knives, and dozens of other tableaus.
"Miss Fine," I said again.
"Shh!"
A man came out from behind the bookcase then. He wore black slacks and a long-sleeved white shirt that was one size too big. His coloring was equal parts brown and drab green, and his eyebrows were thicker than some men"s beards.
"Yes?" he asked with undisguised disdain.
"Oscar, this is my guest," she said.
He glanced at me with similar condescension.
"Yes, I know. Mr. Minton, who, I am told, was sent by Mr. Milo Sweet."
"What do we have to offer my guest?" she asked.
"What does he want?"
"Why I . . . ," she said. "What do you want?" she then asked me, as if some request I had made was the cause of her embarra.s.sment.
"Nothing. Thank you, ma"am."
"You have to have something," she said. "You don"t just walk into somebody"s house without accepting their hospitality."
Miss Fine was staring at me. Oscar was staring at me.
"Tea?" I said.
"Hot tea or ice?" Oscar asked.
"Ice."
"Milk or lemon?"
Miss Fine giggled and bounced a little in her chair.
"Milk," I said.