2 0 2
C i n n a m o n K i s s
My job was to make those cops feel that Raymond and I had a legitimate reason to be there at that phone booth on that street corner. Most Americans wouldn’t understand why two well-dressed men would have to explain why they were standing on a public street. But most Americans cannot comprehend the scrutiny that black people have been under since the days we were dragged here in bondage. Those two cops felt fully authorized to stop us with no reason and no warrant. They felt that they could question us and search us and cart us off to jail if there was the slightest flaw in how we explained our business.
Even with all the urgency I felt at that moment I had a small space to hate what those policemen represented in my life.
But I could hate as much as I wanted: I still didn’t have the luxury to defy their authority.
“I’m a private detective, Officer,” I said. “Working for a man named Saul Lynx. He’s got an office on La Brea.”
“Detective?” No Mustache said. He was a king of the one-word question.
I took the license from my shirt pocket. Seeing this state-issue authorization so disconcerted them that they went back to their car to natter on their two-way radio.
“Bonds?” Mouse asked.
“Yeah. The man I told you about had gotten some Swiss bonds. Maybe it was Nazi money. I don’t know.”
“How much money?” he asked.
Why hadn’t I asked that question of Cinnamon? The only answer that came to me was Cinnamon’s kiss.
The cops came back and handed me my license.
“Checks out,” one of them said.
“So may we continue?” I asked.
“Who are you investigating?”
2 0 3
W a lt e r M o s l e y
“It’s a private investigation. I can’t talk about it.”
And even though I don’t remember which cop I was talking to, I do remember his eyes. There was hatred in them. Real hate.
It’s a continual revelation when you come to understand that the only thing you can expect in return for your own dignity is hatred in the eyes of others.
“blue,” Jackson answered when the Proxy Nine operator trans-ferred my call.
“I’m down here with Mouse, Jackson,” I said. “We need to talk.”
I could feel his hesitation in the silence on the line. That was often the way with poor people who had finally crawled out of hardship and privation. The only thing one of your old friends could do would be to pull you back down or bleed you dry. If it was anybody but me he would have made up some excuse. But Jackson was too deeply indebted to me for even his ungrateful nature to turn a deaf ear to my call.
“McGuire’s Steak House down on Grant,” he said in clipped words. “Meet you there at one-fifteen.”
It was twelve fifty-five. Raymond and I walked to McGuire’s at a leisurely pace. He was in a good mood, looking forward to getting back with Etta.
“You don’t mind that white boy stayin’ there while you gone?”
I asked near the time of our meeting.
“Naw, man. I look at him like he the pet Etta never had. You know — a white dog.”
There was something very ugly in the words and the way he said them. But ugly was the life we lived.
*
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2 0 4
C i n n a m o n K i s s
t h e m a i t r e d ’
frowned when we entered the second-floor restaurant but he changed his attitude when I mentioned Jackson Blue.
“Oh, Mr. Blue,” he said in a slight French accent. “Yes, he is waiting for you.”
With a snap of his fingers he caught the attention of a lovely young white woman wearing a black miniskirt and T-shirt top.
“These are Mr. Blue’s guests,” he said and she smiled at us like we were distant cousins that she was meeting for the first time.
The door she led us to opened on a private dining room dominated by a round table that could seat eight people comfortably.
Jackson stood up nervously when we walked in. He wore an elegant gray suit and sported the prescriptionless
