“Well . . . the way I hear it Philomena and Axel had a thing going on. Actually that’s why I’m here.”
“I don’t understand,” she said with a smile that was far away from Axel and Philomena.
“Philomena’s parents are racists,” I explained, “not like you and me. They don’t think that blacks and whites should be mix-ing. Well . . . they told Philomena that she was out of the family because of the relationship she had with your partner, but now that she hasn’t called in over two months they’re having second thoughts. She won’t talk to them and so they hired me to come make their case.”
“And you’re really a private detective?” she asked, cocking one eyebrow.
I took out my wallet and handed her the license. I hadn’t shown it to Lee out of spite. She glanced at it but I could see that she stopped to read the name and identify the photo.
“Why don’t you just go to Cinnamon’s apartment?” Cynthia suggested.
“I was told that she was living with Axel on Derby. I went there but no one was around.”
“I have an address for her,” Cynthia told me. Then she hesitated. “You aren’t lying to me are you?”
“What would I have to lie about?”
“I wouldn’t know.” Her smile was suggestive but her eyes had not yet decided upon the nature of the proposal.
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“No ma’am,” I said. “I just need to find Philomena and tell her that her parents are willing to accept her as she is.”
Cynthia took out a sheet of paper and scrawled an address in very large characters, taking up the whole page.
“This is her address,” she said, handing me the leaf. “I live in Daly City. Do you know the Bay Area, Mr. Rawlins?”
“Not very well.”
“I’ll put my number on the back. Maybe if you’re free for dinner I could show you around. I mean — as long as you’re in town.”
Yes sir. Twenty years younger and I’d have bushy hair down to my knees.
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14
Philomena’s apartment was on Avery Street, at Post, in the Fillmore District, on the fourth floor of an old brick building that had been christened The Opal Shrine. A sign above the front door told me that there were apartments available and that I could inquire at apartment 1a. There was no elevator so I climbed to the fourth floor to knock at the door of apartment 4e, the number given me by Cynthia Aubec.
There was no answer so I went back down to the first floor and tried the super’s door.
He was a coffee-brown man with hair that might have been dyed cotton. He was smiling when he opened the door, a cloud of marijuana smoke attending him.
“Yes sir?” he said with a sly grin. “What can I do for you?”
“Apartment four-e.”
“Fo’ty fi’e a mont’, gas an’ ’lectric not included. Got to clean it 9 1
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out yo’ own self an’ it’s a extra ten for dogs. You can have a cat for free.” He smiled again and I couldn’t help but like him.
“I think I used to know a girl lived there. Cindy, Cinnamon . . . somethin’.”
“Cinnamon,” he said, still grinning like a coyote. “That girl had a butt on her. An’ from what I hear she knew how to use it too.”
“She move?”
“Gone’s more like it,” he said. “First’a the mont’ came and the rent wasn’t in my box. She ain’t come back. I’ont know where she is.”
“You call the cops?”
“Are you crazy? Cops? The on’y reason you call a cop is if you white or already behind bars.”
I did like him.
“Can I see it?” I asked.
He reached over to his left, next to the door, and produced a brass key tethered to a multicolored flat string.
I took the key and grinned in thanks. He grinned
p h i l o m e n a c a r g i l l
had left the apartment fully fur-
nished, though I was sure that the super had emptied it of all loose change, jewelry, and other valuables. Most of the posses-sions I was interested in were still there. She had a bookcase filled with books and papers and a pile of
I pulled a chair up to the table and looked out of the window onto Post Street. San Francisco was much more of
