“Are you Ezekiel Rawlins?”
“Yeah. Why?”
“I’m looking for a girl.”
“Try down on Avalon near Florence. There’s a cathouse behind the Laundromat.”
“Philomena Cargill.”
“Never heard of her.”
“Oh yeah. You have. You talked to her and now I need to do the same thing.”
I remembered the first day I opened the office two years earlier. I’d had a little party to celebrate the opening. All of my friends, the ones who were still alive, had come. Mouse was there drinking and eating onion dip that Bonnie’d made. He waited until everyone else had gone before handing me a paper bag that held a pistol, some chicken wire, and a few U-shaped tacks.
“Let’s put this suckah in,” he said.
“In what?”
“Under the desk, fool. You know you cain’t be workin’ wit’
these niggahs down here without havin’ a edge. Shit, some mothahfuckah come in here all mad or vengeful an’ there you are without a pot to piss in. No, brothah, we gotta put this here gun undah yo’ desk so that when the shit hit the fan at least you got a even chance.”
1 7 2
C i n n a m o n K i s s
I slid my hand around the smooth butt of the .25 caliber gift.
“I don’t know no Cargill,” I said. “Who says that I do?”
Cicero made an easy move with his hand and I came out with my gun. I pointed it at his head just in case he was wearing something bulletproof on his chassis.
The threat just made him smile.
“Nervous aren’t you, son?” he said. “Well . . . you should be.”
“Who said I know this woman?”
“You have twenty-four hours, Mr. Rawlins,” he replied.
“Twenty-four or things will get bad.”
“Do you see this gun?” I asked him.
He grinned and said, “Family man like you has to think about his liabilities. Me, I’m just a soldier. Knock one down and two take his place. But you — you have Feather and Jesus and whats-hername, Bonnie, yeah Bonnie, to think about.”
With that he turned and walked out the door.
I’d met men with eyes like his before — killers, every one of them. I knew that his threats were serious. I would have shot him if I could have gotten away with it. But my floor had five other tenants and not one of them would have lied to save my ass.
Two minutes after Joe Cicero walked out the door I went to the hall to make sure that he was gone. I checked both stairwells and then made sure to lock my own door behind me.
1 7 3
27
The second phone message was from Mouse.
“I called it off, Easy,” he said in a subdued voice. “I figure you don’t want it bad enough an’ I already got a business t’
run. Call me when you get a chance.”
The last message was from Maya Adamant.
“Mr. Rawlins, Mr. Lee is willing to come to an agreement about your information. And where he cannot see paying you the full amount, he’s willing to compromise. Call me at my home number.”
Instead I called the harbormaster at the Catalina marina and left a message for my son. Then the international operator connected me with a number Bonnie had left.
“Hello?” a man said. His voice was very sophisticated and European.
“Bonnie Shay,” I uttered in the same muted tones that Mouse had used.
1 7 4
C i n n a m o n K i s s
“Miss Shay is not in at the moment. Is there a message?”
I almost hung up the phone. If I were a younger man I would have.
“Could you write this down please?” I asked Joguye Cham.
“Hold a minute,” he said. Then, after a moment, he said,
“Go on.”
“Tell her that there’s a problem at the house. It could be dangerous. Tell her not to go there before calling EttaMae. And say that this has nothing to do with our talk before she left. It’s business and it’s serious.”
