2 5 0
C i n n a m o n K i s s
“Cicero? Joe Cicero?”
The honesty of his fear made me understand that the situation was far more complex than I thought.
“I’d never do business with a man like that,” Lee said with in-cantatory emphasis, like he was warding off an evil spell I’d cast.
“How do you know the guy if you don’t work with him?” I asked. “I mean he’s not in the kind of business that advertises.”
“I know of him from the newspapers and some of my friends in the prosecutor’s office. He was tried for the torture and murder of a young socialite from Sausalito. Fremont. Patrick Fremont.”
“Well he’s been runnin’ around lookin’ for that briefcase you hired me to find. He told me that he killed Haffernon and Axel and that me and my family are the next ones on his list.”
“That’s your problem,” Lee said. He shifted as if he might stand and run.
“Come on, man. You the one hired me. All I got to do is tell Chickpea that you the one got the bonds, that Maya picked ’em up someplace. Then he be on your ass.”
“Saul said something about Maya on the phone,” Lee said.
“Do you know anything about that?”
“A few days ago she fired me,” I said.
“Nonsense.”
“Then she hired me again when I told her that I’d found Philomena but refused to share my information.”
“How can I believe anything you say, Mr. Rawlins? First you tell me that Joe Cicero is after the bonds, then you say that my client and your quarry are dead, that you have the bonds we were after, and that Maya has betrayed me. But you don’t offer one shred of evidence.”
“You never told me about no bonds, Bobby Lee,” I said, falling into the dialect that gave me strength.
2 5 1
W a lt e r M o s l e y
“Maybe you heard about them.”
“Sure I did . . . from the woman had ’em — Philomena Cargill. She gave ’em to me to keep Cicero from makin’ her dearly departed.”
Somewhere in the middle of the conversation Lee had changed from a self-important ass to something much closer to a detective — I could see it in his eyes.
“So you have these bonds?” he asked.
“Sure do.”
“Give them to me.”
“I don’t have ’em here, an’ even if I did you’d have to take ’em.
Because you didn’t tell me about half the shit I was gettin’ into.”
“Detectives take chances.”
“An’ if I take ’em,” I said, “then you gonna take ’em too.”
“You can’t threaten me, Rawlins.”
“Listen, babe, you just named after a dead general. With the shit I got I could threaten Ike himself.”
It was the certainty in my voice that tipped him to my side.
“You say Maya fired you?”
“Said that you’d concluded the case and that my services would no longer be needed.”
“But she didn’t tell you about the bonds?”
“No,” I said. “All she said was that we were through and that I could keep the money I already had.”
“I need proof,” Lee said.
“There was a murder at the Pixie Inn motel this afternoon.
The man found there is Haffernon.”
“Even if that’s so it doesn’t prove anything,” Lee said. “You could have killed him yourself.”
“Fine. Go on then. Leave. I tried to warn you. I tried.”
Lee remained seated, watching me closely.
2 5 2
C i n n a m o n K i s s
“I know some federal officials that could look into Cicero,” he said. “They could get him out of the action until the case is re-solved. And if we can pin these murders on him . . .”
“You sayin’ that we could be partners?”
“I need proof about Maya,” he said. “She’s been with me for many years. Many years.”
