I had a good laugh then. There I was all alone in the night with killers and thieves milling outside in the darkness.
I rooted my .38 out of the closet and made sure that it was loaded. The Luger was a fine gun but I had no idea how old its ammo was. I went around the house turning off lights.
In bed I was overcome by a feeling of giddiness. I felt as if I had just missed a fatal accident by a few inches. In a little while Bonnie’s infidelity and Feather’s dire illness would return to dis-turb my rest, but right then I was at peace in my bed, all alone and safe.
Then the phone rang.
I had to answer it. It might be Bonnie. It might be my little girl wanting me to tell her that things would be fine. It could be Mouse or Saul or Maya Adamant. But I knew that it wasn’t any of them.
“Hello.”
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“I’m at the Pixie Inn on Slauson,” she said. “But I’m very tired.
Can you come in the morning?”
“What’s the room number?”
“Six.”
“What size dress you wear?” I asked.
“Two,” she said. “Why?”
“I’ll see you at seven.”
I hung up and wondered at the mathematics of my mind.
Why had I agreed to go to her when I’d just been thankful for a peaceful heist?
“ ’Cause you the son of a fool and the father of nothing,” the voice that had abandoned me for so many years said.
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Icouldn’t sleep anymore that night.
At four I got up and started cooking. First I fried three strips of bacon. I cracked two eggs and dropped them into the bacon fat, then I covered one slice of whole wheat bread with yellow mustard and another one with mayonnaise. I grated orange cheddar on the eggs after I flipped them, put the lid on the frying pan, and turned off the gas flame. I made a strong brew of coffee, which I poured into a two-quart thermos. Then I made the eggs and bacon into a sandwich that I wrapped in wax paper.
Riding down Slauson at five-fifteen with the brown paper bag next to me and Johnnie Walker in the backseat, I tried to come up with some kind of plan. I considered Maya and Lee, dead Axel and scared Cinnamon — and the man in the snakeskin jacket. There was no sense to it; no goal to work toward except making enough money to pay for Feather’s hospital bill.
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I parked across the street from the motel. It was of a modern design, three stories high, with doors that opened to unenclosed platforms. Number 6 was on the ground floor. Its door opened onto the parking lot. I supposed that Philomena wanted to be able to jump out the back window if need be.
I sat in my car wondering what I should ask the girl.
What should I tell her? Should it be truth?
When my Timex read six-eighteen the door of number 6
opened. A tall woman wearing dark slacks and a long white T-shirt came out. Even from that distance I could see that she was braless and barefoot. Her skin had a reddish hue and her hair was long and straightened.
She walked to the soda machine near the motel office, put in her coins, and then bent down to get the soda that fell out. The streets were so quiet that I heard the jumbling glass.
She walked back to the door, looked around, then went inside.
A minute later I was walking toward her door.
I listened for a moment. There was no sound. I knocked. Still no sound. I knocked again. Then I heard a shushing sound like the slide of a window.
“It’s me, Philomena,” I said loudly. “Easy Rawlins.”
It only took her half a minute to come to the door and open it.
Five nine with chiseled features and big, dramatic eyes, that was Philomena Cargill. Her skin was indeed cinnamon red.
Lena’s photograph of her had faithfully recorded the face but it hadn’t given even a hint of her beauty.
I held out the paper bag.
“What’s this?”
“An egg sandwich an’ coffee,” I said.
While she didn’t actually grab the bag she did take it with eager hands.
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