Known to Evil
Authors: Walter Mosley
Tags: #Detective, #Mystery, #Private investigators, #Mystery And Suspense Fiction, #Mystery & Detective, #Political corruption, #Fiction - Mystery, #New York (N.Y.), #Mystery & Detective - General, #General, #Fiction, #New York, #Suspense, #Suspense fiction, #New York (State), #Domestic fiction
Table of Contents
Also by Walter Mosley
LEONID MCGILL MYSTERIES
The Long Fall
EASY RAWLINS MYSTERIES
Blonde Faith
Cinnamon Kiss
Little Scarlet
Six Easy Pieces
Bad Boy Brawly Brown
A Little Yellow Dog
Black Betty
Gone Fishin'
White Butterfly
A Red Death
Devil in a Blue Dress
OTHER FICTION
The Tempest Tales
Diablerie
Killing Johnny Fry
The Man in My Basement
Fear of the Dark
Fortunate Son
The Wave
Fear Itself
Futureland
Fearless Jones
Walkin' the Dog
Blue Light
Always Outnumbered, Always Outgunned
RL's Dream 47 The Right Mistake
NONFICTION
This Year You Write Your Novel
What Next: A Memoir Toward
World Peace Life Out of Context
Workin' on the Chain Gang
RIVERHEAD BOOKS
Published by the Penguin Group
Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA * Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.) * Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England * Penguin Ireland, 25 St Stephen's Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd) * Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd) * Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi-110 017, India * Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, North Shore 0632, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd) * Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
Copyright (c) 2010 by Walter Mosley
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author's rights. Purchase only authorized editions. Published simultaneously in Canada
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Mosley, Walter.
Known to evil / Walter Mosley. p. cm.
eISBN : 978-1-101-18607-7
1. Private investigators--New York (State)--New York--Fiction. 2. Political corruption--New York (State)--New York--Fiction. 3. New York (N.Y.)--Fiction. 4. Domestic fiction. I. Title.
PS3563.O88456K58
2010
2009042643
813'.54--dc22
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
While the author has made every effort to provide accurate telephone numbers and Internet addresses at the time of publication, neither the publisher nor the author assumes any responsibility for errors, or for changes that occur after publication. Further, the publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.
In memory of Ella Mosley
I miss you, Mom.
1
D
on't you like the food?" Katrina, my wife of twenty-three years, asked.
"It's delicious," I said. "Whatever you make is always great."
In the corner there sat a walnut cabinet that used to contain our first stereo record player. Now it held Katrina's cherished Blue Danube china collection, which she inherited from her favorite aunt, Bergit. On top of the chest was an old quart pickle jar--the makeshift vase for an arrangement of tiny wildflowers of every color from scarlet to cornflower blue to white.
"But you're frowning," my beautiful Scandinavian wife said. "What were you thinking about?"
I looked up from the filet mignon and Gorgonzola blue cheese salad to gaze at the flowers. My thoughts were not the kind of dinner conversation one had with one's wife and family.
I have a boyfriend now,
Aura Ullman had told me that morning.
I wanted to tell you. I didn't want to feel like I'm hiding anything from you.
"Where'd you get those flowers, Mom?" Shelly asked.
His name is George,
Aura told me, the sad empathy in the words making its way to her face.
I had no reason to be jealous. Aura and I had been lovers over the eight months Katrina abandoned me for the investment banker Andre Zool. I loved Aura but gave her up because when Katrina came back, after Andre was indicted for fraud, I felt that she, Katrina, was my sentence for the wrong I had done in a long life of crime.
"I saw them at the deli and thought they might brighten up our dinner," Katrina told her daughter.
Shelly had been trying to forgive her mother for leaving me. She was a sophomore at CCNY and another man's daughter, though she didn't know it. Two of my children were fathered out of wedlock; only the eldest, sour and taciturn Dimitri, who always sat as far away from me as possible, was of my blood.
Do you love him?
I hadn't meant to ask Aura that. I didn't want to know the answer or to show vulnerability.
He's very good company . . . and I get lonely.
"Well?" Katrina asked.
Something about those flowers and the echo of Aura's voice in my mind made me want to curse, or maybe to slam my fist down on the plate.
"Hey, everybody," Twill said. He was standing in the doorway to the dining room; dark and slender, handsome and flawless except for a small crescent scar on his chin.
"You're late," Katrina scolded my favorite.
"You know it, Moms," the seventeen-year-old man replied. "I'm lucky to get home at all with everything I got to do. My PO got me workin' this after-school job at the supermarket. Says it'll keep me outta trouble."
"He's not a parole officer. He's a juvenile offender social worker," I said.
Just seeing Twill brought levity into the room.
"It's not a he," Twill said as he slid into the chair next to me. "Ms. Melinda Tarris says that she wants me workin' three afternoons a week."
"And she's right, too," I added. "You need something to occupy your mind and keep you out of trouble."
"It's not people like me that get in trouble, Pops," Twill sang. "I talk so much and know so many people that I can't get away with nuthin' somebody don't see it. It's the quiet ones that get in the most trouble. Ain't that right, Bulldog?"
"Can't you be quiet sometimes?" dour Dimitri said.
Twill's pet name for his older brother was an apt one. Like me Dimitri was short and big-boned, powerful even though he rarely exercised. His skin was not quite as dark brown as mine but you could see me in every part of him. I wondered why he was so angry at his brother's chiding. Even though Dimitri never liked me much he loved his siblings. And he had a special bond with Twill, who was so outgoing all he had to do was sit down in a room for five minutes and a party was likely to break out.
"Leonid."
"Yes, Katrina?"
"Are you all right?"
Even though we'd drifted apart like the continents had--long ago--Katrina could still read my moods. We had a kind of subterranean connection that allowed my wife to see, at least partly, into my state of mind. It wasn't just Aura's decision to move on that bothered me. It was my life at that table, Dimitri's uncharacteristic anger at his brother, and even those delicate flowers sitting where I had never seen a bouquet before.
There was a feeling at the back of my mind, something that was burgeoning into consciousness like a vibrating moth pressing out from its cocoon.
The phone rang and Katrina started. When I looked into her gray-blue eyes some kind of wordless knowledge seemed to pass between us.