Fearless Jones Read Free Page B

pocket!” I yelled.
    Elana wasn’t slow. She didn’t resist or think or pretend that it was too much for her. She just jammed her hand into my pocket
     and rolled down her window.
    A bullet ricocheted off the side of my door.
    I made a right turn and Elana leaned out, taking four fast shots at the rampaging bull of a car. I had turned onto Edison,
     a warehouse street with very few pedestrians. I remembered, too late, that most of the side streets off it were dead ends,
     so I couldn’t afford a turn. We were on a straightaway with only two bullets left.
    “Did you hit anything?” I shouted.
    “I don’t think so.”
    The Chrysler was coming on strong for three blocks, four, five. I swerved and banked to pull around cars ahead of me. Leon
     matched me move for move. After Leonard Street the bull slowed. By the next block there was smoke from the car’s hood. They
     pulled to the curb soon after that.
    I almost fainted when I realized we’d survived.
    I turned onto Hooper and headed downtown.
    “Where are you going?” she asked me, the steely calm of her voice in deep contrast with my racing heart.
    “You’ll see when we get there.”
    After half an hour or so we came to an underground parking lot on Flower. It was expensive, thirty-five cents an hour, but
     I wanted to be careful now that I had a killer on my trail. A killer with whom I had just been in a running gun battle in
     the streets of L.A.
    I reached out to Elana Love and said, “Gun, please.”
    She looked down at the pistol in her hand and considered a moment before handing it over.
    We went to a small diner called Guardino’s on Hope. It was a nice place with an Italian flair. Larry, the owner, liked me
     and Fearless because we’d come there on double dates and buy big dinners with fancy wines for our girls. Fearless could eat
     antipasto all day if you’d let him.
    “Paris,” Selena Karsky said in greeting. She was Larry’s girlfriend, bottled blond and fifty. She still looked good though.
     “Where’s Fearless?”
    “He went away,” I said.
    “Oh, that’s too bad. Is he coming back soon?”
    “No,” I said. “I don’t think so. He got a job outta town.”
    “You must miss him.”
    “More every day.”
    Selena took us to a booth in the dark corridor of the restaurant. Of the eight booths, six already had customers. All of them
     were white, and a few gave us surprised looks.
    “We’re not too hungry, Selena,” I told her. “Just beers, mine-strone, and an antipasto plate for two.”
    “Okay,” she said, smiling.
    “Friend of yours?” Elana asked when Selena was gone.
    “She smiles and serves me spaghetti and seats me even though some people complain. I like her okay.”
    “Why did you bring me here?” Elana asked.
    “Because I’m a fool.”
    “Excuse me?”
    “If I had sent you away instead of offering you a ride, none of this would be happening. I’d be sleepin’ off my lumps, and
     you’d be all snugly with Mr. Douglas.”
    My words made her uncomfortable, which was just fine by me.
    “So,” I continued. “Tell me about Leon and why it’s his business to kill me.”
    “Are you going to help me?”
    “No. I’m gonna help myself. You got Frankenstein and his brothers stakin’ out my store. If I don’t do something, I’ll either
     lose my business or lose my life. You know I don’t like either one’a them choices.” I spoke in a whisper that had all the
     weight of a shout.
    “What could you do?” Her sneer reminded me that she had witnessed my humiliation under Leon’s threats and violence.
    “Go to the cops for one thing.”
    That wiped the smug off her face.
    “No, don’t,” she said.
    “Why not?”
    Elana Love struggled with the truth. It was all caught up with lies and fears. She couldn’t tell me everything, but she had
     to let up on something or I’d blow the game.
    “Leon had a cellmate in prison. A man named Sol Tannenbaum. Sol was in for embezzlement, but, you know, he wasn’t a