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he walked toward the back of the shop and through a green doorway.
I sat there smoking and thinking about Joe Cicero. It didn’t really make sense that he worked for Lee, because why would Lee fire me and then put a man on my tail? But there seemed to be a divide between Lee and his assistant. Maybe she had put Cicero on me. But again, why not just let me work for Lee and bring them what information I got? She was my only contact with the man.
A cool breeze blew on my back. I turned to see an older black man come in. His clothes were rumpled as if he had slept in them and he gave off an odor of dust as he went past. He sat two seats down from me and gestured to Millie (who never smiled) and murmured his order.
I put out my cigarette and thought about Haffernon. Maybe he hired Cicero. That could be. He was a powerful man. Then there was Philomena. But she had said that she was afraid of the snakeskin killer. That made me grin. The day I started believing what people told me would probably be the day I died.
The man next to me said something to the waitress.
And didn’t Philomena say something about a cousin? And of course there was Saul. Maybe he knew more than he was letting on. Maybe he stumbled across something and was trying to get around me. No. Not Saul. At least not yet.
“They havin’ a festival down Watts,” I overheard the man saying to Millie. She didn’t answer or maybe she whispered a reply or nodded.
Of course anyone who was involved in the business deal in Egypt might have hired Cicero. Anyone interested in those bearer bonds.
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“So you too lofty to talk to me, huh?” the man was saying to Millie.
His anger caught my attention and so I glanced in his direction. Millie was at the far end of the counter and the rumpled man was staring at me.
“Excuse me?” I said.
“You too lofty to speak?” he asked.
“I didn’t know you were talkin’ to me, man,” I said. “I thought you were speaking to the woman.”
“Yeah,” he said, not really replying, “I gots all kindsa time at sea with men from every station. Just ’cause my clothes is old don’t mean I’m dirt.”
“I didn’t mean to say that . . . I was just thinkin’.”
“In the merchant marines I seen it all,” he said. “War, mutiny, an’ so much money you choke a fuckin’ elephant wit’ it. I got chirren all over the world. In Guinea and New Zealand. I got a wife in Norway so china white an’ beautiful she’d make you cry.”
My mind was primed to wonder. I just moved it over to think about this man and all of his children and all of his women.
“Easy Rawlins,” I said. I held out my hand.
“Briny Thomas.” He took my hand and held on to it while peering into my eyes. “But you know the most important thing I ever learned in all my travels?”
“What’s that?”
“The only law that matters is yo’ own troof. You stick to what you think is right and when the day is done you will be satisfied.”
Mouse was coming out from the green doorway.
I pulled my hand away from Briny.
Raymond stopped between us.
“Move on down the row, man,” he said to the merchant marine. “Go on.”
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The old man had a good sense of character. He didn’t even think twice, just picked up his coffee and moved four seats down.
“You should’a kilt that mothahfuckah, Easy. You should’a kilt him.”
“Cicero?”
“My people tell me he’s a bad man — a very bad man. Called him a assassin. Did work for the government, they said, an’ then went out on his own.”
Mouse had been frowning while telling me about Cicero but then, suddenly, he smiled.
“This gonna be goooood. Man like that let you know what you made of.”
“Flesh and blood,” I said.
“That ain’t good enough, brother. You need some iron an’ gun-powder an’ maybe a little luck to get ya past a mothahfuckah like this here.”
Raymond was happy. The challenge of Joe Cicero made him feel alive. And I have to say that I wasn’t too worried either. It’s not that I took a government-trained assassin lightly. But I had other work to do and my survival wasn’t the most important thing on the list. If I died saving Feather then it was a good trade. So I smiled along with my friend.
Over his shoulder I saw Briny lift his coffee in a toast.
