Fearless Jones Read Free Page A

like you about once every five
     years or so. But when I do, somebody always ends up wantin’ to kill me. And you know I could find me an ugly girl, be half
     as happy, but live ten times as long. I don’t want anything to do with you or your boyfriend or your ex-boyfriend. So please,
     go back out the way you came and shut the door behind you.”
    My eyes had adjusted to the darkness enough to see the struggle in her face. She wanted to convince me, to make me her protector
     but couldn’t quite figure out how.
    “I don’t even have bus money. If I go out there alone he could kill me,” she said.
    That was my downfall right there. I took pity on her the way I did time and again with Fearless. I came to a compromise in
     my head even though I knew that what I should do was throw her outdoors.
    I made it to my feet and said, “Okay, I’ll give you a ride wherever you need to go to get away, but that’s it.”

3
    ELANA DIDN ’ T COMPLAIN when she saw me pocket the .38.
    “Might as well go out the back,” I said. “I mean, he’d probably be covering the front. Does he have any friends?”
    “He was with two friends.” Elana sounded defeated. I clearly wasn’t the protector she needed.
    “What’re their names?”
    “What difference do that make?”
    “Well, let’s go out the back door,” I said. My head was still light and my stomach was churning. I swallowed once and gazed
     at a piece of wall with a cabinet handle screwed on at just about waist height. The reason that Elana hadn’t found her way
     out was that my back door was almost invisible. It was just a rectangular slat that swung on three rusty old hinges.
    My red Nash Rambler was parked against a salmon-pink stucco wall that ran the length of the alley separating the houses on
     the residential street behind. There was no sign of Leon, his horned car, or his nameless friends. Elana slid into the passenger’s
     seat and laid her head against the window. She was a picture-perfect damsel in distress.
    If I were Fearless Jones I would have run headlong into the fray, taking any blows and doing anything to protect her. But
     I didn’t believe that even Fearless would have stood long against Leon Douglas.
    I started the motor and we slid off into the afternoon.
    “Where to?” I asked.
    She rattled off an address on a street named Hazzard.
    “Where’s that?”
    “It’s off Brooklyn Avenue in East L.A.”
    “What’s there?”
    “Prob’ly nuthin’.”
    I WAS CUTTING left and right on side streets, making my way east, looking up into my rearview mirror from time to time. We’d driven for
     more than five minutes in silence.
    “What does this Leon guy want from you?” I asked.
    “You don’t want to get involved, remember?” she said.
    “Have it your way, honey. All I thought was that maybe I could give you some advice.”
    “The only thing anybody could give me is manpower or money. Either that or Leon Douglas is gonna kill me.”
    I looked over into the side mirror and saw the flash of a powderblue Chrysler with horns on its grate as it swerved, aiming to cut me off.
    “Shit!” I hit the brakes, narrowly avoiding the collision. He banged into a parked car at a wide angle, blocking the street.
     I hit the gas and drove up onto the sidewalk. The lawns on that block were small hills leading up to the little homes. I put
     deep ruts across three of these lawns, fishtailing as I went. As soon as we cleared Leon, I cut a hard left back down to the
     street. Once on the asphalt, I gunned the engine and we took off. I would have felt good about the maneuver except by then
     Leon had straightened out also. He was barreling down on us.
    I careened left, scraping an oncoming Ford. Leon did the same thing. Then I heard something that sounded like a chicken bone
     breaking.
    “They’re shooting at us!” Elana cried.
    I made three more wild turns. Shots popped off at irregular intervals. There were no cops anywhere.
    “Take the gun outta my