Fearless Jones by Walter Mosley Page A

luck was going, staying alive had become
     a long shot.
    “Can I help you?” the older woman asked. “Something to make up for what they did?”
    “No thank you, ma’am,” Fearless said out of reflex. “But can we do anything for you?”
    “Excuse me, Mrs. Tannenbaum,” I interjected, “but my friend here and me don’t have anything to help with. We don’t even have
     our car. If you and your family could give us a ride back to your place, at least we could get that.”
    “Of course,” Fanny assured me.
    “There’s no room,” Morris, the bowling pin, said. “I have boxes in the backseat.”
    “You can put them in the trunk.” Fanny waved her hand dismissively. I’d’ve bet it wasn’t the first time she treated him like
     that.
    “No,” Morris said sternly. It might have been the first time that Morris stood up on his hind legs. Fanny’s small eyes widened
     an eighth of an inch.
    “I, I have a spare in the trunk,” Morris said. “There’s no room.”
    “I can take them,” the younger woman said. “I drove my car from home.”
    “I forbid it!” Morris shrieked.
    He took a step toward her. She shrank back a half step. Morris grabbed her by the arm, and Fearless tensed up. I was afraid
     we’d be right back in jail, but Fanny saved the day.
    “Get your hands off of her,” she commanded.
    Morris clenched his fist hard for a moment, then he let his wife go. He locked eyes with me. I could see his rage at being
     forced into line by a woman. He muttered something and then stalked off down the alley.
    “I’M GELLA , the younger woman said on the way to the car. “Hedva’s niece.”
    “Paris Minton,” I said. “And this here is Fearless Jones. Thanks for takin’ us.”
    Gella smiled and looked away. She was shy and near ugly, but there was something fetching about her awkwardness, something
     that made your hands feel that they wanted to reach out to make sure she wouldn’t fall or get lost.
    Gella drove an assembly-line prewar Ford. It was painted black and didn’t even have a radio installed. A spare machine, it
     was spotless and unadorned. Fearless and I sat in the backseat, while Fanny and her niece rode up front in silence. It was
     only a short ride, ten or eleven minutes. On the way we passed many white and turquoise and blue little houses, all sporting
     neat lawns and white cement driveways. It was around six o’clock, dinnertime for working people. Through many windows and
     opendoors, you could see brown-skinned and some white-skinned people eating at family tables.
    A few men were standing out in front watering the grass, or maybe lugging a trash can. Any man that saw us drive by stopped
     what he was doing and looked. That’s because Los Angeles was still a small town back then, and most residents were from the
     country somewhere. They treated their surroundings as familiar and friendly, and they wanted to know who was driving on their
     street.
    There I was swallowing the slow trickle of blood from the cuts inside my mouth, being driven through a blue-collar paradise.
     I had the irrational notion that I could just ask that gawky white woman to stop the car and I could open the door and walk
     out into a peaceful life, leaving the trouble I was in behind. But before I could speak up, we were pulling into the Tannenbaum
     driveway. Layla’s pink car was still parked at the curb. Fearless was there next to me, pressing his swollen jaw. There was
     no escape.
    When we were all out of the Ford, Fearless went up to Fanny and shook her hand.
    “I promised your husband that I wouldn’t let anybody rob you, Mrs. Tannenbaum,” he said. “So if you need me…”
    Fanny looked up at Fearless with an expression that many women had for him. There was trust and hope and even faith in that
     gaze. Gella and I exchanged worried glances.
    “Have you eaten?” Fanny asked us.
    “Why no, ma’am,” Fearless said.
    “Hedva,” said Gella.
    “What, dear?”
    “I have to go