Fearless Jones by Walter Mosley Page B

home.”
    “Go on then, I’ll call you.”
    “But…” Gella let the word hang in the air, obviously meaning that Fearless and I were the reason she could not leave.
    I didn’t blame her. Her uncle had been stabbed, she had just been to the police station, her husband was angry and scared
     enough to have raised his hand to her. And then there we were with our disheveled clothes and bloody faces, looking like thugs.
    “Go home to your husband,” Fanny said flatly. “I’m fine.”
    “But…” Gella said again.
    Fanny raised her voice and fired words in a language I did not understand. The meaning was harsh though — that was evident
     by the lowering of the younger woman’s gaze.
    “I’m sorry, Auntie,” the girl said. She looked at us and hunched her shoulders in an apologetic sort of way. Then she went
     to her car and got in.
    As the engine turned over, Fanny said, “Come in, gentlemen.”
    We followed her through the front door we’d been to earlier that day. This time we were ushered in with a smile.
    Fanny was five feet tall, tops. Her husband had maybe an inch on her. The house reflected their height with its low ceilings
     and small chairs. The rooms were tiny, even for me.
    She sat Fearless and me down at a round table in an alcove off of the kitchen. The meal came quickly and in courses. We had
     cabbage stuffed with ground beef, potato dumplings that she called knishes, chicken soup with rice, and chopped chicken livers
     on white bread. It was all delicious. For me, a man who had faced death twice in the last two days, it was a king’s feast.
    After she made sure that we were eating, Fanny made a call. She wasn’t on the phone very long, and when she got off she was
     weepy and sad.
    “That the hospital?” Fearless asked.
    Fanny nodded and took a chair.
    “Is he okay?”
    “He came awake for a little while,” Fanny replied. “They said that he’s sleeping now and shouldn’t have company. Not even
     me. Not even me.”
    “I’ll go down there and wait with you if you want,” Fearless said. “We could just sit outside and wait. If you’re close family,
     they’ll let you wait all night.”
    “No,” she said. “I’ll sleep tonight and go in the morning. But thank you.”
    It was kind of quiet after that. Fearless got up and served himself more soup, and I played with my fork, wishing I had a
     home to go to.
    “Your niece didn’t want to leave you alone with us,” I said just to make some noise.
    “You’re not white and not Jewish. She’s heard all kinds of stories, and she’s a suggestible girl. But she has a good heart.”
    “But maybe she’s right,” I said. “You don’t know us. Don’t you think it’s strange that two black men show up at your door
     after another black man tries to murder your husband?”
    “Stop tryin’ t’scare her, man,” Fearless told me.
    “No,” Fanny said. “No, it’s all right. I’m not afraid of you, Mr. Minton. You helped Sol even though I was screaming and yelling.
     You did too, Mr. Jones. If I would have come on a bleeding man and somebody yelled at me, I would have run away. You went
     to jail. They beat you. I’m not afraid of you. It would make more sense if you were afraid of me.”
    “Why we gonna be afraid of a pretty young girl like you, Fanny?” Fearless asked with a grin.
    “Because all I had to do was nod my head and you would be murderers in jail.”
    That pulled Fearless up short a second, but then he smiled again.
    “Well, I ain’t ascared’a you, and you don’t need to be ascared’a us,” he said. “We wouldn’t hurt nobody like you. It’s like
     I said, I’m gonna make it my business that nobody else messes with you.”
    “How you plan to do that, man?” I said, fed up with how silly they both were. She
shouldn’t
have been taking strangers into her home, and Fearless was nuts to want to protect somebody he didn’t even know.
    Fearless gave me his sour look. For someone else that look could