“How can you be sure of that? I mean you act like you can read minds, but you and I both know that there ain’t no way you can predict a woman like that.”
“I can see that some woman has gotten under your skin,” he said, leveling his eyes like cannon.
That threw me, made me realize that Bonnie was on my mind when I was talking about Maya. I could even see the similarities between the two women.
“This is not about my personal life, Mr. Lee. It’s about Joe Cicero and your assistant sending him after you, after me. Now you and I both know that he’d have taken the same shots at me if I’d gone through that door first. And I don’t have no bulletproof vest.”
“If what you told me is correct he needed you to gather information.”
“Then he’d have grabbed me, tortured me.”
“But that did not happen. You’re alive and now Joe Cicero will be under the gun. I shot him you know.”
“How bad?” I asked.
“It’s hard to say. He jerked backward and fired again. I let off another shell but he was running by then.”
“Can’t say that he’s dead. Can’t be sure. And even if you could, and even if Carl gets him or the police or anybody else —
that still doesn’t account for who’s doing all this.”
“The case is over, Mr. Rawlins. Haffernon is dead.”
“You see?” I said. “You see? That’s where you’re wrong. You think life is like one’a those Civil War enactments you got up in your house. People gettin’ killed here, Bobby Lee. Killed. And 2 9 6
C i n n a m o n K i s s
they’re dyin’ ’cause’a what Haffernon hired you for. They’re not gonna stop dyin’ just because you call the game over.”
I have to say that Lee seemed to be listening. There was no argument on his lips, no dismissal in his demeanor.
“Maybe you’re right, Mr. Rawlins. But what do you want me to do?”
“Maybe you could work the Cicero-Maya connection. Maybe she could pretend that she still wants to work with him. Somehow we get on him and he leads us to his source.”
“No.”
“No? How can you just say no? We could at least ask her if it makes sense. Shit, man, this is serious business here.”
“It’s too dangerous.”
“What’s dangerous is tellin’ a hit man where your boss is goin’
and not lettin’ your boss in on the change of plan. What’s dangerous is walkin’ out of a bar and havin’ some man you never met open fire on your ass.”
“I can’t put Maya in danger.”
“Why not?”
“Because we’re to be married.”
2 9 7
46
Ileft the hospital in a fog. How could he do that? Get engaged to a woman who not forty-eight hours before almost got him killed?
“She almost took your life,” I’d said to him, floundering for sense.
“But she’s always loved me and I never knew. A beautiful woman like that. And look at the way I was treating her.”
“She could’a quit. She could’a demanded a raise. She could’a taken her damn phone off the hook. Why the fuck does she have to send a killer after you?”
“She was wrong. Haven’t you ever been wrong, Mr. Rawlins?”
o n t h e d r i v e b a c k
to Santa Monica I was angry. Here I was so hurt by Bonnie, who with one hand was trying to save my little girl’s life and with the other caressing her new lover. Now 2 9 8
C i n n a m o n K i s s
Lee forgives attempted murder and then rewards it with a promise of marriage.
I opened all the windows and smoked one cigarette after another. The radio blasted out pop songs that had sad words and up beats. I could have run my car into a brick wall right then. I wanted to.
“ h e r e w e g o ,
Easy,” Jackson said. “Here’s all the names in the register for the last week.”
Terrance Tippitoe hadn’t been subtle in his approach. He’d torn out the seven sheets of paper in the guest log and folded them in four.
I perused the documents for maybe twenty-five seconds, not more, and I knew who the mastermind was. I knew why and I knew how. But I still didn’t see a way out unless I too became a murderer.
“What is it, Easy?” Jackson asked.
