“What about Lena?”
“I call her every other day or so but I don’t tell her where I am.”
“And Raphael?”
That was the first time I’d surprised her.
“How did you . . . ?”
“I’m a real live detective, honey. Finding out things is what I do.”
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“No. I mean I’ve talked to Rafe but I didn’t tell him where I was staying.”
“Have you seen anybody you know or have they seen you?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Are you willing to trade those papers for your life?” I asked.
“Axel made me promise to turn them in if anything happened,” she said.
“Axel’s dead,” I said.
“You don’t know that.”
“Yes I do and you know it too,” I told her. “This is big money here. You learn more outta this than five PhDs at Harvard could ever tell ya. Axel messed with some big men’s money and now he’s dead. If you wanna live you had better think straight.”
“I . . . I have to think about this. I should at least try to find Axel once more.”
I didn’t want to implicate myself in the particulars of Axel’s demise. So I reached into my pocket and peeled off five of Mouse’s twenties. I palmed the wad and handed it to her under the table. At first she thought I was trying to hold her hand. She clutched at my fingers and then felt the bills.
“What’s this?”
“Money. Pay for your room and some food. But don’t go out much. Try to hide your face if you do. You got my office number too?”
She nodded.
“I’ll call you tonight or at the latest tomorrow morning. You got to decide though, honey.”
She nodded. “You want to come back to the room with me?”
“I’ll walk you but then I got to get goin’. Got to get a bead on how we get you outta this jam.”
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Her shoulder heaved again, saying that a roll in the hay would have been nice but okay.
I knew she was just afraid to be alone.
i m a d e i t to my office a little bit before four.
There were three messages on the machine. The first was from Feather.
“Hi, Daddy. Me an’ Bonnie got here after a loooong time on three airplanes. Now I’m in a house on a lake but tomorrow they’re gonna take me to the clinic. I met the doctor and he was real nice but he talks funny. I miss you, Daddy, and I wish you would come and see me soon. . . . Oh yeah, an’ Bonnie says that she misses you too.”
I turned off the machine for a while after that. In my mind every phrase she used turned over and over. Bonnie saying that she missed me, the doctor’s accent. She sounded happy, not like a dying girl at all.
I was so distracted by these thoughts that I didn’t hear him open the door. I looked up on instinct and he was standing there, not six feet from where I sat head in hands.
He was a white man, slender and tall, wearing dark green slacks and a jacket of tan and brown scales. His hat was also dark green, with a small brim. His skin was olive-colored and his pale eyes seemed to have no color at all.
“Ezekiel Rawlins?”
“Who’re you?”
“Are you Ezekiel Rawlins?”
“Who the fuck are you?”
There was a moment there for us to fight. He was peeved at me not answering his question. I was mad at myself for not 1 7 1
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hearing him open the door. Or maybe I hadn’t closed it behind me. Either way I was an idiot.
But then Snakeskin smiled.
“Joe Cicero,” he said. “I’m a private operative too.”
“Detective?”
“Not exactly.” His smile had no humor in it.
“What do you want?”
