“She betrayed me,” Lee said again.
“Maya?”
“I told her that I was coming to see Saul.”
“Did you say why?”
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C i n n a m o n K i s s
His eyes were getting glassy. I wasn’t sure that he heard me.
“She doesn’t know, but if what you said, you said, you said . . .”
“Hold on, Bobby. Hold on.”
“She knew. She knew where we were meeting. I didn’t tell her what Saul said. I didn’t, but she betrayed me to that snake, that snake Cicero.”
He never closed his eyes but he passed out still and all. I couldn’t get another word out of him.
i t w a s a s l o w n i g h t in the emergency room. Lee was the only gunshot wound in the place. Maybe it was because of that, or maybe it was his being white that got him such quick service that day. They had him in a hospital bed and hooked up to three machines before I had even finished filling out the paperwork.
Five minutes after that the cops arrived.
When I saw the three uniforms come in I turned to Mouse, intent on telling him to ditch his gun. But he was nowhere to be seen. Mouse knew that those cops were coming before they did.
He was as elusive in the street as Willie Pepp had been in the ring.
“Are you the man that brought him in?” the head cop, a silver-haired sergeant, asked me right off.
The other uniforms performed a well-rehearsed flanking maneuver.
“Sure did. Easy Rawlins. We were meeting at Mike’s Bar and he’d just left. I heard shots and ran out . . . found him lying on the ground. There was a car racin’ off but I can’t even say for sure what color it was.”
“There was a report of a sawed-off shotgun on the ground.
Who did that belong to?”
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W a lt e r M o s l e y
“I have no idea, Officer. I saw the gun but I left it . . . for evidence.”
I was too cool for that man. He was used to people being agi-tated after a shooting.
“You say you were having a drink with the victim?” he asked.
“I said I was having a meeting with him.”
“What kind of meeting?”
“I’m a detective, Sergeant. Private. Mr. Lee — that’s the victim — he’s a detective too.”
I handed him my license. He studied the card carefully, made a couple of notes in a black leather pocket notebook, and then handed it back.
“What were you working on?”
“A security background check on a Maya Adamant. She’s an operative who works with him from time to time.”
“And why did you flee the scene?”
“You ever been shot in the neck, Sergeant?”
“What?”
“I hope not, but if ever that should happen I’m sure that you would want somebody to take you to a doctor first off. ’Cause you know, man, ain’t no police report in the world worth bleedin’
to death out on Slauson.”
The sergeant wasn’t a bad guy. He was just doing his job.
“Did you see the shooter?” he asked.
“No sir. Just what I said about the car.”
“Did the victim . . .”
“Lee,” I said.
“Did he say anything?”
“No.”
“Did the shooter get shot?”
“I don’t know.”
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C i n n a m o n K i s s
“They found blood halfway up the block,” the sergeant said.
