“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.
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C i n n a m o n K i s s
“I know some federal officials that could look into Cicero,” he said. “They could get him out of the action until the case is re-solved. 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?”
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W a lt e r M o s l e y
“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.
2 5 4
39
Thirty 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 2 5 5
W a lt e r M o s l e y
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 s a t w i t h l e e 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?”
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C i n n a m o n K i s s
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.
i t w a s a s l o w n i g h t 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?”
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W a lt e r M o s l e y
“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 agi-tated 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’