4

“PARIS MINTON?” a white man in a brown jacket asked.

His pants were brown too, but they clashed with the hue of his sports coat. He had spaces between his teeth and freckles on his forehead. His black hair looked like it was painted on and his eyes were both too low and too close together. He should have been a short man, with those goofy features, but he was at least six foot four, two inches taller than Fearless.

Something was missing. At first I thought it was something about my visitor, but then I realized that it was a sound. Fearless was no longer snoring.

“Yeah, that’s me,” I said.

“My name is Theodore Timmerman. I’m looking for Fearless Jones.”

“Last I heard Fearless was somewhere up near Oxnard, workin’ on a farm.”

Theodore frowned and I realized that I should have asked him why he was nosing around about my friend. I wasn’t fully awake. I tried to cover my mistake by yawning and asking, “What you want him for?”

“Can I come in?” he replied.

“I don’t even know you, man,” I said. “The bookstore don’t open till ten, and I already answered your question.”

“I need to find Fearless Jones. Maybe you have some idea about how I can locate him.”

“No. I mean you might try cruisin’ up and down Central. Fearless is workin’ for a guy sells watermelons off the back of a fleet of Texas trucks around that way. If you see one’a them, they’d prob’ly have an idea of where he is.”

“You don’t have a number?” Timmerman asked.

“He don’t have a phone.”

“Oh.”

“What’s this all about?” I asked.

“Mr. Jones has come into an inheritance,” he said, masking the lie with a foolish grin. “I’m representing the estate.”

“Oh? Who died?”

“That’s confidential, Mr. Minton. Only to be revealed to Mr. Jones himself. But I can tell you that it would be well worth his while to contact me.”