Vietnam was half of the newspaper. The army had ordered the evacuation of the Vietnamese city of Hue, where they were on the edge of revolt. Da Nang was threatening revolution and the Buddhists were demonstrating against Ky in Saigon.
Jimmy Hoffa was on the truck manufacturers for the unions and some poor schnook in Detroit had been arrested for bank robbery when the tellers mistook his car for the robber’s getaway car. He was a white guy on crutches.
I found that I couldn’t concentrate on the stories so I put the 1 0 4
C i n n a m o n K i s s
paper down. I could feel the fear about Feather rising in my chest.
In order to distract myself I tried to focus on Lee’s case. The man he wanted to talk to was dead. The papers the dead man had were gone — I had no idea where to. Cinnamon Cargill was probably dead also. Or maybe she was the killer. Maybe they were tripping together and he died, by accident, and she pressed him into the space below the brass elephant.
I had the telephone numbers of an old folks’ home for rich people and a secretive man whose voice was effeminate, and I had a postcard.
All in all that was a lot, but there was nothing I could do about it until the morning. That is unless Haffernon called. Haffernon knew about the trouble Axel was in. He might even have known about the young man’s death.
I took out the Nazi Luger I’d stolen from the dead man’s treasure chest and placed it on the night table next to the bed.
Then I sat back thinking about the few good years that I’d had with Bonnie and the kids. We had family picnics and long tearful nights helping the kids through the pain of growing up. But all of that was done. A specter had come over us and the life we’d known was gone.
I tried to think about other things, other times. I tried to feel fear over the payroll robbery that Mouse wanted me to join in on. But all I could think about was the loss in my heart.
At eleven o’clock I picked up the phone and dialed a number.
“Hello?” she said.
“Hi.”
“Mr. Rawlins? Is that you?”
“You’re a lawyer, right, Miss Aubec?”
“You know I am. You were at my office this morning.”
1 0 5
W a lt e r M o s l e y
“I know that’s what you said.”
“I am a lawyer,” she said. There was no sleep in her voice or annoyance at my late-night call.
“How does the law look on a man who commits a crime when he’s under great strain?”
“That depends,” she said.
“On what?”
“Well . . . what is the crime?”
“A bad one,” I said. “Armed robbery or maybe murder.”
“Murder would be simpler,” she said. “You can murder someone in the heat of the moment, but a robbery is quite another thing. Unless the property you stole just fell into your lap the law would look upon it as a premeditated crime.”
“Let’s say that it’s a man who’s about to lose everything, that if he didn’t rob that bank someone he loved might die.”
“The courts are not all that sympathetic when it comes to crimes against property,” Cynthia said. “But you might have a case.”
“In what situation?”
“Well,” she said. “Your level of legal representation means a lot. A court-appointed attorney won’t do very much for you.”
I already knew about the courts and their leanings toward the rich, but her honesty still was a comfort.
“Then of course there’s race,” she said.
“Black man’s not gonna get an even break, huh?”
“No. Not really.”
“I didn’t think so,” I said. And yet somehow hearing it said out loud made me feel better. “How does a young white girl like you know all this stuff?”
“I’ve sent my share of innocent men to prison,” she said. “I worked in the prosecutor’s office before going into business with Axel.”
“I guess you got to be a sinner to know a sin when you see it.”
1 0 6
C i n n a m o n K i s s
“Why don’t you come over,” she suggested.
“I wouldn’t be very good company.”
