from it. And what if the flames spread and killed someone in a nearby house?
The stench made my eyes tear and my gorge rise. I had wiped off the places I had touched in the ashram and the house.
Dream Dog would think twice before giving information about breaking into Axel’s place. Besides, he didn’t know my name.
At some point I realized that I was finding it hard to leave.
There was something in me that wanted to help Axel find some peace. The humiliation of his interment made me uncomfortable. Maybe it was the memory of the German boy I killed or the fragility of my adopted daughter’s life. Maybe it was something deeper that had been instilled in me when I was a child among the superstitious country people of Louisiana.
Finally I decided that the only thing I could do for Axel was to make him a promise.
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“I can’t give you a proper burial, Mr. Bowers,” I said. “But I swear that if I find out who did this to you I will do my best to make sure that they pay for their crime. Rest easy and go with the faith you lived with.”
Those words spoken, I lowered the trunk and stole away from the white man’s home, luckier to be a poor black man in America than Axel Bowers had been with his white skin and all his wealth.
i d r o v e d o w n Telegraph into Oakland and the black part of town. There I found a motel called Sleepy Time Inn. It was set on a hillside, with the small stucco rooms stacked like box stairs for some giant leading up toward the sky.
Melba, the night clerk, gave me the top room for eighteen dollars in cash. They didn’t take credit cards at Sleepy Time.
When I looked at the cash I remembered that enameled pin in Bonnie’s purse. For a moment I couldn’t hear what Melba was saying. I could see her mouth moving. She was a short woman with skin that was actually black. But the rest of her features were more Caucasian than Negroid. Thin lips and round eyes, hair that had been straightened and a Roman nose.
“. . . parties in the rooms,” she was saying.
“What?”
“We don’t want any carousing or parties in the rooms,” she repeated. “You can have a guest but these rooms are residential.
We don’t want any loud crowds.”
“Only noise I make is snoring,” I said.
She smiled, indicating that she believed me. That simple gesture almost brought me to tears.
t h e t e l e v i s i o n had a coin slot attached to it. It cost a quarter per hour to watch. If Feather was there with me she’d be beg-7 8
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ging for quarters to see her shows and to get grape soda from the machine down below. I put in a coin and switched channels until I came across
That calmed me down enough to think about the mess I’d fallen into.
The man Robert E. Lee was looking for had been murdered.
The initials on the empty briefcase in his room might have belonged to him or to somebody related to him. But then again, maybe he’d switched briefcases after removing the papers from the one Lee said he’d stolen.
At any other time I would have taken the fifteen hundred and gone home to Bonnie. But there was no more going home for me, and even if there was, Feather needed nearer to thirty-five thousand than fifteen hundred.
I couldn’t call Lee. He might pull me off the case if he knew Axel was dead. And there was still Cinnamon — Philomena —
to find. Maybe she knew where the papers were. I had to have those papers, because ten thousand dollars was a hard nut to crack.
I read one of the letters I’d taken from Axel’s bureau. It was typewritten under the business heading of Haffernon, Schmidt, Tourneau and Bowers — a legal firm in San Francisco.
Dear Axel:
I have read your letter of February 12 and I must say that I find it intriguing. As far as I know, your father had no business dealings in Cairo during the period you indicated and this firm certainly has not. Of course, I’m not aware of all your father’s personal business dealings. Each of the partners had 7 9
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his own portfolio from before the formation of our investment group. But I must say that your fears seem far- fetched, and even if they weren’t, Arthur is dead. How can an inquiry of this sort have any productive outcome?
Only your family, it seems, will have a price to pay.
At any rate, I have no information to bring to bear on the matter of the briefcase you got from his safe-deposit box. Call me if you have any further questions, and please consider your actions before rushing into anything.
Yours truly,
Something happened with Axel’s father, something that could still cause grief for the son and maybe others. Maybe Haffernon knew something about it. Maybe he killed Axel because of it.
