“No. No. No Bowers either. Are you sure you have the right place?”
“I thought so,” I said. “But I’ll go back to the doctor. Thank you very much for your help.”
“ y e e e e e s ? ” the male voice of the last number crooned.
“Philomena please,” I said in a clipped, sure tone.
“Who’s this?” the voice asked, no longer playful.
“Miller,” I said. “Miller Jones. I’m an employee of Bowers up here and he wanted me to get in touch with Cinnamon. He gave me this number.”
“I don’t know you,” the voice said. “And even if I did, I haven’t seen Philomena in months. She’s in Berkeley.”
9 5
W a lt e r M o s l e y
“She was,” I said. “To whom am I speaking?”
The click of the phone in my ear made me grimace. I should have taken another tack. Maybe claimed to have found some lost article from her apartment.
I sat in the college student’s kitchen chair and stared at the street. This was an ugly job and it was likely to get uglier. But that was okay. I was feeling ugly, ugly as a sore on a dead man’s forehead.
I left the apartment, taking the two books she’d been reading and Lena’s postcard. I took them out to my rented Ford and then went back to return the key. I knocked, knocked again, called out for the super, and then gave up. He was either unconscious, otherwise engaged, or out. I slipped the key under the door wrapped in a two-dollar bill.
9 6
15
Haffernon, Schmidt, Tourneau and Bowers occupied the penthouse of a modern office building on California Street. There was a special elevator car dedicated solely to their floors.
“May I help you?” a white-haired matron, who had no such intention, asked me. Her nameplate read theresa ponte.
She was very white. There was a ring with a large garnet stone on her right hand. The gem looked like a knot of blood that had congealed upon her finger. A cup of coffee steamed next to her telephone. She was wearing a gray jacket over a yellow blouse, seated behind a magnificent mahogany desk. Behind her was a mountain of fog that was perpetually descending upon but rarely managing to reach the city.
“Leonard Haffernon,” I said.
“Are you delivering?”
9 7
W a lt e r M o s l e y
I was wearing the same jacket and pants that I’d had on for two days. But I’d made use of the iron in my motel room and I didn’t smell. I wore a tie and I’d even dragged a razor over my chin. I held no packages or envelopes.
“No ma’am,” I said patiently. “I have business with him.”
“Business?”
“Yes. Business.”
She moved her head in a birdlike manner, indicating that she needed more of an explanation.
“May I see him?” I asked.
“What is your business?”
From a door to my left emerged a large strawberry blond man.
His chest was bulky with muscles under a tan jacket. Maybe one of those sinews was a gun. I had Axel’s Luger in my belt. I thought of reaching for it and then I thought of Feather.
A moment of silence accompanied all that thinking.
“Tell him that I’ve come about Axel Bowers,” I said. “My name is Easy Rawlins and I’m looking for someone named Cargill.”
“Cargill who?” the receptionist asked.
“This is not the moment at which you should test your authority, Theresa,” I said.
The combination of vocabulary, grammar, and intimacy disconcerted the woman.
“There a problem?” the Aryan asked.
“Not with me,” I said to him while looking at her.
She picked up the phone, pressed a button, waited a beat, and then said, “Let me speak to him.” Another beat and she said,
“A man called Rawlins is here about Axel and someone named Cargill.” She listened then looked up at me and said, “Please have a seat.”
The big boy came to stand next to my chair.
9 8
C i n n a m o n K i s s
My heart was thundering. My mind was at an intersection of many possible paths. I wanted to ask that woman what she was thinking when she asked me if I was a delivery boy when obviously I was not. Was she trying to be rude or did my skin color rob her of reason? I wanted to ask the bodyguard why he felt it necessary to stand over
