Cinnamon Kiss (25 page)

“That’s your problem,” Lee said. He shifted as if he might stand and run.

“Come on, man. You the one hired me. All I got to do is tell Chickpea that you the one got the bonds, that Maya picked ’em up someplace. Then he be on your ass.”

“Saul said something about Maya on the phone,” Lee said. “Do you know anything about that?”

“A few days ago she fired me,” I said.

“Nonsense.”

“Then she hired me again when I told her that I’d found Philomena but refused to share my information.”

“How can I believe anything you say, Mr. Rawlins? First you tell me that Joe Cicero is after the bonds, then you say that my client and your quarry are dead, that you have the bonds we were after, and that Maya has betrayed me. But you don’t offer one shred of evidence.”

“You never told me about no bonds, Bobby Lee,” I said, falling into the dialect that gave me strength.

“Maybe you heard about them.”

“Sure I did …from the woman had ’em—Philomena Cargill. She gave ’em to me to keep Cicero from makin’ her dearly departed.”

Somewhere in the middle of the conversation Lee had changed from a self-important ass to something much closer to a detective—I could see it in his eyes.

“So you have these bonds?” he asked.

“Sure do.”

“Give them to me.”

“I don’t have ’em here, an’ even if I did you’d have to take ’em. Because you didn’t tell me about half the shit I was gettin’ into.”

“Detectives take chances.”

“An’ if I take ’em,” I said, “then you gonna take ’em too.”

“You can’t threaten me, Rawlins.”

“Listen, babe, you just named after a dead general. With the shit I got I could threaten Ike himself.”

It was the certainty in my voice that tipped him to my side.

“You say Maya fired you?”

“Said that you’d concluded the case and that my services would no longer be needed.”

“But she didn’t tell you about the bonds?”

“No,” I said. “All she said was that we were through and that I could keep the money I already had.”

“I need proof,” Lee said.

“There was a murder at the Pixie Inn motel this afternoon. The man found there is Haffernon.”

“Even if that’s so it doesn’t prove anything,” Lee said. “You could have killed him yourself.”

“Fine. Go on then. Leave. I tried to warn you. I tried.”

Lee remained seated, watching me closely.

“I know some federal officials that could look into Cicero,” he said. “They could get him out of the action until the case is resolved. And if we can pin these murders on him…”

“You sayin’ that we could be partners?”

“I need proof about Maya,” he said. “She’s been with me for many years. Many years.”

“When it’s over we could set her up,” I offered. “Agree to give her the bonds or put her with Cinnamon and record what she says. I think those two would like each other. But I need you to do somethin’ about Cicero. That mothahfuckah make a marble statue sweat.”

Lee smiled. That gave me heart about him. In my many years I had come to understand that humor was the best test for intelligence in my fellow man. The fact that Lee gained respect for me because of a joke gave me hope that he would come to sensible conclusions.

“He really came to you?” Lee asked.

“Right up in my office. Told me to give up Cinnamon or else my family would be dead.”

“He mentioned her name?”

I nodded. “Philomena Cargill.”

“And you have the bonds?”

“Sure do.”

“How many?”

“Twelve.”

“Was there anything else with them?”

“They were in a brown envelope. No briefcase or anything.”

“Was there anything attached?”

“Like what?” I was holding back a little to see how much he was willing to give.

“Nothing,” he said. “So what do we do now?”

“You go home. Gimme a way to get in touch with you and I will in two days. In that time figure out what you need on Maya and talk to who you need to about J.C.”

“And what do you do?”

“Keep from gettin’ killed the best I can, sit on those bonds while they accrue interest.”

He gave me a private phone number that only he answered.

He rose and so did I. We shook hands.

He was sweating under that heavy coat. He was probably armed under there. I would have been.

T
hirty seconds after Lee left, a section of the wall to my left wobbled and then moved back. Mouse came out through the crack wearing a red suit and a black shirt. He was smiling.

“You didn’t tell me you had the bonds, Ease.”

“Sure I did. The same time I told Lee.”

The smile remained on Raymond’s face. He never minded a man holding his cards close to the vest. All that mattered to him was that in the end he got his proper share of the pot.

“What you think?” I asked as we emerged into the barroom.

“I like that dude. He got some nuts on him. An’ he smart too. I know that ’cause a minute after he walked in I figgered I’d have to shoot the mothahfuckah in the head he mess around.”

That was sixty seconds after Lee had left the room. We made it halfway to the bar. Mouse ordered scotch and I was about to ask for a Virgin Mary when six or seven cracks sounded outside.

“What was that?” Mike shouted.

I looked at Raymond. He had his long barreled .41 caliber pistol in his hand.

Then two explosions thundered from the street. Shotgun blasts.

I headed for the door, pulling the pistol from my pocket as I went. Mouse was ahead of me. He threw the door open, moving low and to his left. A motor revved and tires squealed. I saw a car (I couldn’t place the model) fishtailing away.

“Easy!” Mouse was leaning over Robert Lee, ripping open his overcoat and shirt.

There was a sawed-off shotgun next to the master detective’s right hand and blood coming freely from the right side of his neck. When Mouse tore the shirt I could see the police-issue bulletproof vest with at least five bullet holes.

Mouse grinned. “Oh yeah. Head shot the only way to go.”

He clasped his palm on the neck wound. Lee looked up at us, gasping. He was going into shock but wasn’t quite there yet.

“She betrayed me,” he said.

“Get the car, Easy. This boy needs some doctor on him.”

I SAT WITH LEE in the backseat while Mouse drove Primo’s hot rod. I had the general’s namesake’s head and shoulders propped up on my lap while holding his own torn shirt against the wound.

“She betrayed me,” Lee said again.

“Maya?”

“I told her that I was coming to see Saul.”

“Did you say why?”

His eyes were getting glassy. I wasn’t sure that he heard me.

“She doesn’t know, but if what you said, you said, you said…”

“Hold on, Bobby. Hold on.”

“She knew. She knew where we were meeting. I didn’t tell her what Saul said. I didn’t, but she betrayed me to that snake, that snake Cicero.”

He never closed his eyes but he passed out still and all. I couldn’t get another word out of him.

IT WAS A SLOW NIGHT in the emergency room. Lee was the only gunshot wound in the place. Maybe it was because of that, or maybe it was his being white that got him such quick service that day. They had him in a hospital bed and hooked up to three machines before I had even finished filling out the paperwork.

Five minutes after that the cops arrived.

When I saw the three uniforms come in I turned to Mouse, intent on telling him to ditch his gun. But he was nowhere to be seen. Mouse knew that those cops were coming before they did. He was as elusive in the street as Willie Pepp had been in the ring.

“Are you the man that brought him in?” the head cop, a silver-haired sergeant, asked me right off.

The other uniforms performed a well-rehearsed flanking maneuver.

“Sure did. Easy Rawlins. We were meeting at Mike’s Bar and he’d just left. I heard shots and ran out …found him lying on the ground. There was a car racin’ off but I can’t even say for sure what color it was.”

“There was a report of a sawed-off shotgun on the ground. Who did that belong to?”

“I have no idea, Officer. I saw the gun but I left it …for evidence.”

I was too cool for that man. He was used to people being agitated after a shooting.

“You say you were having a drink with the victim?” he asked.

“I said I was having a meeting with him.”

“What kind of meeting?”

“I’m a detective, Sergeant. Private. Mr. Lee—that’s the victim—he’s a detective too.”

I handed him my license. He studied the card carefully, made a couple of notes in a black leather pocket notebook, and then handed it back.

“What were you working on?”

“A security background check on a Maya Adamant. She’s an operative who works with him from time to time.”

“And why did you flee the scene?”

“You ever been shot in the neck, Sergeant?”

“What?”

“I hope not, but if ever that should happen I’m sure that you would want somebody to take you to a doctor first off. ’Cause you know, man, ain’t no police report in the world worth bleedin’ to death out on Slauson.”

The sergeant wasn’t a bad guy. He was just doing his job.

“Did you see the shooter?” he asked.

“No sir. Just what I said about the car.”

“Did the victim…”

“Lee,” I said.

“Did he say anything?”

“No.”

“Did the shooter get shot?”

“I don’t know.”

“They found blood halfway up the block,” the sergeant said. “That’s why I ask.”

He peered into my face. I shook my head, hoping that Joe Cicero was dying somewhere.

A young white doctor with a pointy nose came up to us.

“Your friend is going to be fine,” he told me. “No major vascular damage. The shot went through.”

“Can I speak to him?” the policeman asked the doctor.

“He’s in shock and under sedation,” the doctor said. He wouldn’t meet the policeman’s eye. I wondered what secrets he had to hide. “You won’t be able to talk to him until morning.”

Blocked there the cop turned back to me.

“Can you tell me anything else, Rawlins?”

I could have told him to call me mister but I didn’t.

“No, Sergeant. That’s all I know.”

“Do you think this woman you’re investigating might have something to do with it?”

“I couldn’t say.”

“You say you were investigating her.”

“My findings were inconclusive,” I said, falling out of dialect.

The cop stared at me a moment more and then gave up.

“I have your information. We may be calling you.”

I nodded and the police took the doctor somewhere for his report.

EVERYTHING CALMED DOWN after half an hour or so. The police left, the doctor went on to other patients. Mouse was long gone.

I stayed around because I knew that someone wanted Lee dead, and so while he was unconscious I thought I’d watch over him. This wasn’t as selfless an act as it might have seemed. I still needed the haughty little detective to run interference with Cicero. I didn’t know if Lee had actually seen Cicero shoot at him, if Lee had shot him, and, if he had, if the wound would ultimately be fatal. I had to play it as if Cicero was still in the game and as deadly as ever.

The only thing worth reading in the magazine rack in the waiting room was a science fiction periodical called
Worlds of Tomorrow
. I found a story in it called “Under the Gaddyl.” It was a tale about man’s future, the white man’s future, where all of white humanity was enslaved under an alien race—the Gaddyl. The purpose of the main character, a freed slave, was to emancipate his people. I read the story in a kind of wonderment. Here white people all over the country understood the problems that faced me and mine but somehow they had very little compassion for our plight.

I was thinking about that when a shadow fell over my page. I knew by the scent who it was.

“Hello, Miss Adamant,” I said without looking up.

“Mr. Rawlins.”

She took the seat next to me and leaned over, seemingly filled with concern.

“He knows you set him up. He told the cops that,” I said.

“What are you talking about?”

“He knows that you sent Cicero down to blow him away.”

“But I …I didn’t.”

She was good.

“If you don’t know nuthin’ about tonight then what the fuck you doin’ here? How the hell you know to find him in this emergency room?”

“I came down because I knew you or Saul would tell him about our conversations. I wanted to talk to him, to explain.”

“So you were outside the bar?” I asked. “Watchin’ your boss get shot down?”

“No. I was at the Clarendon Hotel. I heard on the news about the shooting. I knew where the meeting was.”

“What about Cicero?” I asked.

Her face went blank. I could tell that this was her way of going inward and solving some problem. I was the problem.

“He called me,” she said.

“When?”

“After you came to see us. He wanted to talk to Mr. Lee but I told him that all information had to go through me. He said that we had interests in common, that he wanted to find Philomena Cargill and a document that Axel had given her.”

“And what did you say?”

“I told him that I didn’t know where she was.”

If she could have, Maya would have stopped right there. But I moved my hands around in a helpless manner like Boris Karloff’s Frankenstein’s monster did just after he murdered the little girl.

“He said that he wanted to meet with you and did I know where you were,” she added.

“Me?”

“He said that if anybody could find Philomena that you could.”

“How did he know about me?” I asked.

“He didn’t say.”

“You didn’t tell him?”

“No.”

“How did he know how to call you in the first place?”

“I don’t know.”

“Did you tell anyone that I was working for you?” I asked.

“No.”

“Did your boss?”

“I do all the talking about business,” she said with a hint of contempt in her voice.