him. All I could do would be to tell the cops where his body was hidden — and that would point a finger at me.
2 1 0
C i n n a m o n K i s s
Money was the next thing on my mind. I needed to pay for Feather. It was then that I remembered Maya Adamant’s last call.
There was a phone booth down the street from the Pixie Inn.
I called my old friend the long-distance operator and asked for another collect call.
“Lee investigations,” Maya answered.
“I have a collect call for anyone from Easy Rawlins. Do you accept the charges?”
“Yes, operator,” she said a little nervously.
“How much?” I asked.
“You were supposed to call me yesterday — at my house.”
“I’m callin’ you now.” I wondered if Bobby Lee had his phones bugged too. Maya was probably thinking the same.
“Where are you?”
“Down the street from the apartment where Cinnamon Cargill is staying.”
“What’s that address?”
“How much?” I asked again.
“Three thousand dollars for the addresses of Cargill and Bowers.”
“It’s the same address,” I said.
“Okay.”
I couldn’t tell if she knew about Bowers’s death so I decided to try another approach.
“Tell me about Joe Cicero,” I said.
“What about him?” she asked at about half the volume of her regular voice.
“Did you put him on me?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Mr. Rawlins. I know the name and the reputation of the man Joe Cicero but I have never had any dealings with him.”
2 1 1
W a lt e r M o s l e y
“No? Then what was Joe Cicero doin’ at my office askin’ about Cinnamon Cargill?”
“I have no idea. But you’d be smart to look out for a man like that. He’s a killer, Mr. Rawlins. The best thing you could do would be to give Mr. Lee the information he wants, take the money, and then leave town for a while.”
I had to smile. Usually when I was working I was the one who did the manipulating of people’s fears. But here Maya was trying to maneuver me.
“Thirty thousand dollars,” I said.
“What?”
“Thirty grand and I give you everything you want. But it gots to be thirty and it gots to be today. Tomorrow it goes up to thirty-five.”
“A dead man has no use for money, Ezekiel.”
“You’d be surprised, Maya.”
“Why would you think that Mr. Lee would be willing to pay such an outrageous figure?”
“First, I don’t think Mr. Lee knows a thing about this conversation. Second, I don’t know the exact amount on those bearer bonds —”
“What bearer bonds?”
“Don’t try an’ mess wit’ me, girl. I know about the bonds because I’ve talked to Philomena. So like I was sayin’ . . . I don’t know exactly how much they’re worth but I’m willing to wager that even after the thirty grand you and Joe Cicero will have enough left over to make me look like a bum.”
“I have no business with Cicero,” she said.
“But you know about the bonds.”
“Call me this evening on my home phone,” she said. “Call me then and we’ll talk.”
2 1 2
C i n n a m o n K i s s
*
*
*
t w e n t y m i n u t e s l a t e r Cinnamon walked up to her motel door. She was carrying a brown supermarket bag. It made me like her more to see that she was conserving her money, buying groceries instead of restaurant
