Fearless Jones by Walter Mosley Page A

the curb, but I might just as well have been the fireplug as far as Dorthea was concerned.
    “What you wanted, Fearless?”
    “Did you know them Messenger of the Divine peoples?” he asked.
    The light of love faltered in her eyes.
    “Did you?” I chimed.
    “What’s this all about, Paris?” Now that she was angry she talked to me.
    “Dorthea, honey, I don’t wanna fight with you…”
    “I ain’t fightin’ I just —”
    “I don’t wanna fight, so I’ll cut this short. I need information on them Messenger people because I think it was somebody
     after them came and burnt down my store. You know I lost everything and somebody got to pay.”
    “Them’s religious people, Paris,” Dorthea said. “They wouldn’t do nothin’ like that.”
    “I don’t think they did it,” I assured her. “But somebody didn’t like ’em did.”
    “Who?”
    “Did you know Reverend Grove?” I asked.
    “Why should I tell you?”
    “Five dollars,” I said.
    Dorthea looked left and right, then she said, “You gotta car?”
    “Right across the street.”
    “Take me around the block then.”
    We got into Layla’s Packard. Fearless drove and I sat in the back.
    “What you wanna know?” Dorthea asked.
    “Do you know Grove?”
    “Yeah. William. He from Arkansas. He came in as Father Vincent’s head deacon, but after just a year he was so popular that
     he forced Vincent into semiretirement and took over the whole ministry even though they say he ain’t really ordained. That
     man can preach. He make you feel like he’s God and you the only one he care about.”
    “But he took the church away from the pastor was there?” Fearless asked.
    Dorthea nodded. “Brought in his own deacons and everything.”
    “Did you know a woman around there called Elana Love?” I asked.
    “What about her?” She certainly did, and she didn’t like her either.
    “Did you know her?”
    “She was all over William. I mean, sometimes they’d go in the back while Vincent was deliverin’ the sermon for him. It was
     just sad the way they was.” Dorthea curled her lip the same way that Shirley had.
    “Did they do anything but sermons there?”
    “What you mean?”
    “Anything illegal?” I was thinking that the church had something to do with the money or bonds or whatever and maybe Dorthea
     had heard about it.
    She said, “No,” but there was something else on her mind.
    “Come on, Dorthea. Ten bucks.”
    “You won’t tell?”
    “Swear,” I said, drawing an X across my heart with my finger.
    “Brother Bigelow from over there sold me a pearl ring one time for fifteen dollars. It was a real nice one. He said that he
     got stuff like that sometimes and that if I knew ladies in the beauty shop wanted some good jewelry cheap, I should bring
     them to him.”
    “Did you?” I asked.
    “Uh-uh. It’s one thing just buyin’ a ring, but I didn’t want to be a fence.”
    Fearless turned to her and smiled.
    “Good girl,” he said.
    She would have beamed at any compliment he gave.
    “Why did the church move away?” I asked.
    “I don’t know. Really. But it was all of a sudden. One day they was just gone. Everything. You remember.”
    “Do you know where they went?”
    Dorthea looked me in the eye. She was measuring me.
    “Why should I tell you, Paris?”
    Before I could think of a lie Fearless said, “You can tell me, honey.”
    “Well,” she said. “I like you, Fearless, but I wanna see my money before I say anything else.”
    I counted out five wrinkled one-dollar bills followed by a five.
    “They was in Compton three weeks ago, down on Alameda somewhere. At least that’s what I heard.”
    “You know the address?”
    “Uh-uh. But you could find it if you looked.”
    “When do they have meetings?”
    “Every night they can.”
    Fearless pulled up in front of The Beauty Shop and parked.
    “Is that it?” Dorthea asked.
    “You know how we can find Elana Love?”
    “That bitch? No.”
    She grabbed the handle and