“I have it,” he said and then he read it back to me. He got every word. His voice had taken on an element of concern.
I disconnected the line and took a deep breath. That was all the energy I could expend on Bonnie and Joguye. I didn’t have time to act the fool.
I dialed another number.
“Saul Lynx investigations,” a woman’s voice answered.
It was Saul’s business line in his home.
“Doreen?”
“Hi, Easy. How’re you?”
“If blessings were pennies I wouldn’t even be able to buy one stick of gum.”
Doreen had a beautiful laugh. I could imagine her soft brown features raising into that smile of hers.
“Saul’s in San Diego, Easy,” she said, and then, more seriously,
“He told me about Feather. How is she?”
“We got her into a clinic in Switzerland. All we can do now is hope.”
“And pray,” she reminded me.
“I need you to give Saul a message, Doreen. It’s very important.”
“What is it?”
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“You got a pencil and paper?”
“Right here.”
“Tell him that the Bowers case has gone sour, rancid, that I had a visit from Adamant and a man came here that, uh . . . Just tell Saul that I need to talk to him soon.”
“I’ll tell him when he calls, Easy. I hope everything’s okay.”
“Me too.”
I pressed the button down with my thumb and the phone rang under my hand. Actually it vibrated first and then rang. I remember because it got me thinking about the mechanism of my phone.
“Yeah?”
“Dad, what’s wrong?” Jesus asked. “Is Feather okay?”
“She’s fine,” I said, glad to be giving at least one piece of good news. “But I need you to leave Catalina right now and go down to that place you dock near San Diego.”
“Okay. But why?”
“I crossed a bad guy and he knows where we live. Bonnie and Feather are safe in Europe but I don’t know if he got into the house and read Benny’s note. So go to San Diego and don’t come home until I tell you to. And don’t tell anybody, anybody, where you’re going.”
“Do you need help, Dad?”
“No. I just need time. And you stayin’ down there will give it to me.”
“I’ll call EttaMae if I need to talk to you?”
“You know the drill.”
i e r a s e d a l l t h e m e s s a g e s and then disconnected the answering machine so that Cicero wouldn’t be able to break in and listen to my news. I left the building by a little-used side en-1 7 6
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trance and walked around the block to get to my car. I drove straight from there over to Cox Bar.
Ginny told me that Mouse hadn’t been around yet that day and so he’d probably be there soon. I took a seat in the darkest corner nursing a Pepsi.
The denizens of Cox Bar drifted in and out. Grave men and now and then a wretched woman or two. They came in quietly, drank, then left again. They hunched over tables murmuring empty secrets and recalling times that were not at all what they remembered.
At other occasions I had felt superior to them. I’d had a job, a house in West L.A., a beautiful girlfriend who loved me, two wonderful children, and an office. But now I was one step away from losing all of that. All of it. At least most of the people at Cox Bar had a bed to sleep in and someone to hold them.
After an hour I gave up waiting and drove off in my souped-up Pontiac.
e t t a m a e a n d m o u s e
had a nice little house in Compton.
The yard sloped upward toward the porch, where they had a padded bench and a redwood table. In the evenings they sat outside eating ham hocks and greeting their neighbors.
Etta’s sepia hue and large frame, her lovely face and iron-willed gaze, would always be my standard for beauty. She came to the screen door when I knocked. She smiled in such a way that I knew Mouse wasn’t home. That’s because she knew, and I did too, that if there had been no Raymond Alexander we would have been married with a half-dozen grown kids. I had always been her second choice.
