“And what did you say?”
“I told him that I didn’t know where she was.”
If she could have, Maya would have stopped right there. But I moved my hands around in a helpless manner like Boris Karloff ’s Frankenstein’s monster did just after he murdered the little girl.
“He said that he wanted to meet with you and did I know where you were,” she added.
“Me?”
“He said that if anybody could find Philomena that you could.”
“How did he know about me?” I asked.
“He didn’t say.”
“You didn’t tell him?”
“No.”
“How did he know how to call you in the first place?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did you tell anyone that I was working for you?” I asked.
2 6 1
W a lt e r M o s l e y
“No.”
“Did your boss?”
“I do all the talking about business,” she said with a hint of contempt in her voice.
“And so you told Cicero where I was?”
“I didn’t know. But when Mr. Lee said that he was coming down to meet Saul I called Cicero. I had been trying to get in touch with Mr. Lynx but he didn’t answer his phones. I told Cicero where Saul would be, thinking that he might help him find you.”
“And what would you get out of that?”
“Cicero has a reputation,” she replied.
“Yeah,” I said. “Assassin. Torturer.”
“That may be. But he is always known to meet his side of a bargain. I told him what I wanted for the information and he agreed.”
“You wanted the bonds,” I said.
“Yes.”
I didn’t say anything, just stared at her.
“That little bastard pays me seven dollars an hour with no benefits. He makes more than a quarter million a year,” she said in defense from my gaze, “and I do almost everything. I’m on duty twenty-four hours a day. He calls me home from vacations.
He makes me talk to everybody, do the books, do all the business. I make all of the major decisions while he sits behind his desk and plays with his toy soldiers.”
“Sounds like a good enough reason to kill him,” I said.
“No. If I got the bonds I could cash them in and set up a retirement fund. That’s all I wanted.”
“Is that why you and Lee were feuding when Saul and I were there?”
2 6 2
C i n n a m o n K i s s
“Yes. Mr. Lee didn’t want to take the case but . . . but I hoped to be able to get hold of the bonds, and so I had talked him into it. He was looking for a way out of it, he didn’t like the smell of Haffernon. When you demanded to meet him he almost let it go.”
“So why would Cicero want to kill Lee?”
“I don’t know but I would suspect that whatever job he was working on, Lee’s death had to be part of it.”
“Maybe yours too,” I suggested.
She blanched at the notion.
2 6 3
40
After our chat I asked Maya to come up with me to the nurses’ station. There I introduced her to the pointy- nosed doctor and to Mrs. Bernard, the bespectacled head nurse.
“This is Miss Maya Adamant,” I said. “She’ll tell you that she’s a friend of Mr. Lee’s, but the police suspect her in his shooting.
They don’t have proof, but you probably shouldn’t let her run around here unsupervised.”
The stunned look on their faces was worth it.
Maya smiled at them and said, “It’s a misunderstanding. I work for Mr. Lee. At any rate I’ll wait until he’s conscious and then you can ask him if he wants to talk to me.”
t h e m o r n i n g w a s c h i l l y but I didn’t feel so bad.
