“Did you say somethin’ about that?”

“No. I didn’t even think about it really. Later on I did but right then I was just doin’ what I promised I would. After that I went down to Marmott’s on Central and listened to Lips McGee and Billy Herford until almost midnight. Then I went home. I didn’t think about Leora again until my landlady Mrs. Hughes told me about the cops.”

“Cops? What cops?”

“They was askin’ about me and if anybody around there had ever heard of Kit Mitchell. They told her not to tell me they were there, but Mrs. Hughes likes me so she was waitin’ by her door for me to get in.”

“What do the cops want, Fearless?” I asked, sounding more like a doubting parent than a friend.

“I don’t know, Paris. But it don’t sound good. I mean, she said that they were in suits, not uniforms, and they called themselves detectives.”

My mind slipped into gear then.

“Why’ont you go upstairs and take my bed, man? I’ll sleep down here.”

“No, Paris. I don’t wanna put you out your bed.”

“Just do what I say, okay? Go on upstairs. I’m going to want to talk to you more about this thing with the Watermelon Man, but we should wait until we’re both sharp. You get a good night’s sleep and we’ll get into it again in the morning.”

3

WITHIN TEN MINUTES I COULD HEAR my friend snoring. He had spent three years on the front lines in Africa and Europe during the war, but he claimed that he slept like a baby every chance he got.

“Me worryin’ about them big shells and bombs wasn’t gonna help nuthin’,” he’d said one drunken night. “But a good night’s rest meant that I was sharp when I had to be.”

Many a day I had curled up on the front sofa and slept for hours, but not that early morning. Fearless didn’t know what those cops wanted, but that didn’t matter to him. All he needed was a corner to sleep in, and if in the morning he had to pull up stakes and leave California he’d do that, looking forward to a new life in Seattle or Memphis or Mexico City.