I helped the cobbler up and then turned to the other man in the office.
“Mr. Tanous?”
“Who are you?” he asked in an accent that I couldn’t place.
He was looking at the knife in my hand. Maybe he thought I stopped his attacker so that I could kill him myself.
“He is my friend, Musa,” Theodore said. “The one I told you about.”
“Easy Rawlins,” I put in.
I walked past Tanous and went to one of the three large windows that looked out on the street. Central was bustling by then. There was a hardware store, a stationery shop, a grocery store, and a liquor store all squashed together across the street. I put the knife down on the window sill and smiled at the waxed pine floor.
If it wasn’t for the obvious threat to Theodore’s friend I would have spent a good deal of time appreciating the simple room. The dark wood trim and the antique white walls seemed almost regal.
Instead I turned and asked, “Who was that man I just beat on?”
“He thinks I killed his sister,” Musa said. His voice was hollow, removed.
“Mr. Rawlins knows many people around here,” Theodore was saying. “People talk to him. Maybe he can find out what happened to Jackie.”
“Are you a detective?” Musa Tanous asked me.
“No. I’m just a guy who trades in favors, that’s all. And I know folks all over the neighborhood, like Theodore says. The kind of people who would know the habits of a girl like he told me about.”
“But you don’t have some kind of certification, a license?”
Musa Tanous was slender and very well dressed. His silver-hued suit might have been made from silk. I could tell that it wasn’t an American cut because there was only one button. It was a European design probably made in some eastern country. Tanous had a trim mustache and manicured fingers. He was as neat as his office building. There was a heavy and sweet odor mixed in with the sweat of fear coming off him.
“Did that guy with the knife have a license?” I asked.
“What does that mean?”
“It means that the government doesn’t regulate the action down here. I would expect that you’d know that, bein’ in business and all.”
“I don’t understand,” he said. “I didn’t do anything. Why are people mad at me?”
“The kid with the knife have a name?” I asked.
“Trevor McKenzie. I told you he’s Jackie’s brother.”
“Jackie Jay?”
Musa looked over at Theodore. The smaller man nodded.
“Yes,” Musa said. “She did not use her last name.”
“And what was he doing here?”
“He said that he was going to kill me for what I did to his sister.”
“Did you kill her?”
A passionate anger rose in Musa’s eyes.
“Listen, man,” I said, heading off his tirade. “The cops think you did it. Her brother thinks you did it. That’s not proof but it means something.”
Emotions passed across the man’s face like colors in a kaleidoscope.
He was struggling to get something out. I let this go on a moment and then I said, “We need to sit down if we want to have a conversation. You got a room with two chairs?”
“My office,” Musa said, literally choking on the words.
“Does Trevor know where that is?”
“Yes, but…”
“Where do you live, Mr. Tanous?”
“Pacific Palisades.”
For some reason that made me smile.
“Hey,” I said. “Why don’t we go there?”
“We could go to my apartment,” Theodore suggested. “I live closer—on Grand.”
THEODORE GAVE US the address and we each made our own way. That was L.A. Every man had the right of life, liberty, and the freedom to drive alone.
The building Theodore Steinman lived in was ugly, eight stories high, and constructed from brown brick. His apartment was on the top floor. We got there in an elevator made for three.
The front door opened into a sitting room that was quite spacious. All the windows were open. There were four extrawide chairs surrounding a glass-top coffee table and a potted fern in the corner.
