Cinnamon Kiss (29 page)

They were holding hands.

“You two kiss and make up after the little tiff and trifling attempt at murder?”

I felt the presence of the bodyguard behind me. But what did I care? It was gospel I spoke.

“I told Robert everything,” Maya said. “I have no secrets from him.”

“And you believe her?” I asked Lee.

“Yes. I’ve realized a lot of things being so close to death. Lying here I’ve come to understand that my life has had no meaning for me. I mean, I’ve done a lot of important things for others. I’ve solved crimes and saved lives, but you know if someone is on a path to hell you can’t save them.”

His mouth was still under the sway of the drugs they’d given him but I perceived a clear mind underneath the weave of meandering thoughts.

“She sent Joe Cicero to our meeting,” I said. “Then Joe emptied a clip into your chest. He almost killed you.”

“She didn’t know that he’d do that. Her only desire was to get the bonds. She’s a woman without a man. She has to look out for herself.”

“Wasn’t it your job to get the bonds and give them to Haffernon?”

“He only wanted the letter.”

Those five words proved to me that Lee’s mind was running on all six cylinders. If I had become used to the idea of that letter, then I might not have noticed him slipping it in there.

“What letter?” I asked.

Lee studied my face.

“It doesn’t matter now,” he said. “Haffernon is dead. I’ve received notice.”

It was my turn to stare.

“The only problem now is Joe Cicero,” Lee said. “And Carl here is working on that problem.”

“Cicero can’t be in this alone,” I said. “He has to be working for someone. And that someone can always find another Chickpea.”

Lee smiled.

“I must apologize to you, Mr. Rawlins. When you first walked into my offices I believed that you were just a brash fool intent on pulling the wool over my eyes; that you only desired to make me do your bidding because I was a white man in a big house. But now I see the subtlety of your mind. You’re a top-notch thinker, and more than that—you’re a man.”

I can’t say that the accolades didn’t tweak my vanity, but I knew that Lee was both devious and a fool, and that was a bad combination to be swayed by.

“Can I speak to you alone?” I asked the detective.

He considered a moment and then nodded.

“Carl, Maya,” he said in dismissal.

“Boss…” Big Carl complained.

“It’s okay. Mr. Rawlins isn’t a bad man. Are you, Easy?”

“Depends on who you’re askin’.”

“Go on you two,” Lee said. “I’ll be fine.”

Maya gave me a worried look as she went out. That was more of a compliment than all her boss’s words.

After the door was shut I asked, “Are you stupid or do you just not care that that woman sent an assassin after you?”

“She didn’t know what he intended.”

“How can you be sure of that? I mean you act like you can read minds, but you and I both know that there ain’t no way you can predict a woman like that.”

“I can see that some woman has gotten under your skin,” he said, leveling his eyes like cannon.

That threw me, made me realize that Bonnie was on my mind when I was talking about Maya. I could even see the similarities between the two women.

“This is not about my personal life, Mr. Lee. It’s about Joe Cicero and your assistant sending him after you, after me. Now you and I both know that he’d have taken the same shots at me if I’d gone through that door first. And I don’t have no bulletproof vest.”

“If what you told me is correct he needed you to gather information.”

“Then he’d have grabbed me, tortured me.”

“But that did not happen. You’re alive and now Joe Cicero will be under the gun. I shot him you know.”

“How bad?” I asked.

“It’s hard to say. He jerked backward and fired again. I let off another shell but he was running by then.”

“Can’t say that he’s dead. Can’t be sure. And even if you could, and even if Carl gets him or the police or anybody else—that still doesn’t account for who’s doing all this.”

“The case is over, Mr. Rawlins. Haffernon is dead.”

“You see?” I said. “You see? That’s where you’re wrong. You think life is like one’a those Civil War enactments you got up in your house. People gettin’ killed here, Bobby Lee. Killed. And they’re dyin’ ’cause’a what Haffernon hired you for. They’re not gonna stop dyin’ just because you call the game over.”

I have to say that Lee seemed to be listening. There was no argument on his lips, no dismissal in his demeanor.

“Maybe you’re right, Mr. Rawlins. But what do you want me to do?”

“Maybe you could work the Cicero-Maya connection. Maybe she could pretend that she still wants to work with him. Somehow we get on him and he leads us to his source.”

“No.”

“No? How can you just say no? We could at least ask her if it makes sense. Shit, man, this is serious business here.”

“It’s too dangerous.”

“What’s dangerous is tellin’ a hit man where your boss is goin’ and not lettin’ your boss in on the change of plan. What’s dangerous is walkin’ out of a bar and havin’ some man you never met open fire on your ass.”

“I can’t put Maya in danger.”

“Why not?”

“Because we’re to be married.”

I
left the hospital in a fog. How could he do that? Get engaged to a woman who not forty-eight hours before almost got him killed?

“She almost took your life,” I’d said to him, floundering for sense.

“But she’s always loved me and I never knew. A beautiful woman like that. And look at the way I was treating her.”

“She could’a quit. She could’a demanded a raise. She could’a taken her damn phone off the hook. Why the fuck does she have to send a killer after you?”

“She was wrong. Haven’t you ever been wrong, Mr. Rawlins?”

ON THE DRIVE BACK to Santa Monica I was angry. Here I was so hurt by Bonnie, who with one hand was trying to save my little girl’s life and with the other caressing her new lover. Now Lee forgives attempted murder and then rewards it with a promise of marriage.

I opened all the windows and smoked one cigarette after another. The radio blasted out pop songs that had sad words and up beats. I could have run my car into a brick wall right then. I wanted to.

“HERE WE GO, Easy,” Jackson said. “Here’s all the names in the register for the last week.”

Terrance Tippitoe hadn’t been subtle in his approach. He’d torn out the seven sheets of paper in the guest log and folded them in four.

I perused the documents for maybe twenty-five seconds, not more, and I knew who the mastermind was. I knew why and I knew how. But I still didn’t see a way out unless I too became a murderer.

“What is it, Easy?” Jackson asked.

I shoved the log sheets into my pocket, thinking maybe if I could implicate the killer in Rega Tourneau’s death then I could call in the cops. After all, I was on a first-name basis with Gerald Jordan, the deputy chief of police. I could slip him those sheets and the police could do the rest.

“Easy?” Jackson asked.

“Yeah?”

“What’s wrong?”

That made me laugh. Jackson joined in. Jewelle came to sit behind him. She draped her arms around his neck.

“Nuthin’s wrong, Blue. I just gotta get past a few roadblocks is all. Few roadblocks.”

Jackson and Jewelle both knew to leave it at that.

I WASN’T THINKING too clearly at that time. So much had happened and so little of it I could control. I had to have a face-to-face with Cicero’s employer. And in that meeting I had to make a decision. A week ago the only crime I’d considered was armed robbery, but now I’d graduated to premeditated murder.

Whatever the outcome it was getting late in the evening, and anyway I couldn’t wear the same funky clothes one day more. I figured that Joe Cicero had better things to do than to stake out my house so I went home.

I drove around the block twice, looking for any signs of the contract killer. He didn’t seem to be there. Maybe he was dead or at least out of action.

I took the bonds from the glove compartment of my hot rod and, with them under my arm, I strode toward my front yard.

Tacked to the door was a thick white envelope. I took it thinking that it had to have something to do with Axel or Cinnamon or maybe Joe Cicero.

I opened the door and walked into the living room. I flipped on the overhead light, threw the bonds on the couch, and opened the letter. It was from a lawyer representing Alicia and Nate Roman. They were suing me for causing them severe physical trauma and mental agony. They had received damage to their necks, hips, and spines, and she had severe lacerations to the head. There was only one broken bone but many more bruised ones. They had both seen the same doctor—an M.D. named Brown. The cost for their deep suffering was one hundred thousand dollars—each.

I walked toward the kitchen intent on getting a glass of water. At least I could do that without being shot at, spied on, or sued.

I saw his reflection in the glass door of the cabinet. He was coming fast but in that fragment of a second I realized first that the man was not Joe Cicero and second that, like Mouse, Cicero had sent a proxy to keep an eye out for his quarry. Then, when I was halfway turned around, he hit me with some kind of sap or blackjack and the world swirled down through a drain that had opened up at my feet.

I LOST CONSCIOUSNESS but there was a part of my mind that struggled to wake up. So in a dream I did wake up, in my own bed. Next to me was a dark-skinned black man. He opened his eyes at the same time I opened mine.

“Where’s Bonnie?” I asked him.

“She’s gone,” he said with a finality that sucked the air right out of my chest.

THE MORNING SUN through the kitchen window woke me but it was nausea that drove me to my feet. I went to the bathroom and sat next to the commode, waiting to throw up—but I never did.

I showered and shaved, primped and dressed.

The bonds were gone of course. I figured that I was lucky that Cicero had sent a proxy. I was also lucky that the bonds were right there to be stolen. Otherwise Joe would have come and caused me pain until I gave them up. Then he would have killed me.

I was a lucky bastard.

After my ablutions I called a number that was lodged in my memory. I have a facility for remembering numbers, always did.

She answered on the sixth ring, breathless.

“Yes?”

“That invitation still open?”

“Easy?” Cynthia Aubec said. “I thought I’d never hear from you again.”

“That might be construed as a threat, counselor.”

“No. I thought you didn’t like me.”

“I like you all right,” I said. “I like you even though you lied to me.”

“Lied? Lied about what?”

“You acted like you weren’t related to Axel but here I see that you signed into the Westerly Nursing Home to visit Rega Tourneau. Cynthia Tourneau-Aubec.”

“Tourneau’s my mother’s maiden name. Aubec was my father,” she said.

“Nina’s your mother?”

“You seem to know everything about me.”

“Did you know what Axel was trying to do?”

“He was wrong, Mr. Rawlins. These are our parents, our families. What’s done is done.”

“Is that why you killed him?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. Axel told me that he was going to Algeria. I don’t have any reason to think that he’s dead.”

“You worked in the prosecutor’s office when Joe Cicero was on trial, didn’t you?”

She didn’t answer.

“And you visited your grandfather only a few hours before he was found dead.”

“He was very old. Very sick. His death was really a blessing.”

“Maybe he wanted to confess before he died. About trips to the Third Reich and pornographic pictures of him with twelve-year-olds.”

“Where are you?” she asked.

“In L.A. At my house.”

“Come up here …to my house. We’ll talk this out.”

“What is it, Cindy? Were you in your grandfather’s will? Were you afraid that the government would take away all of that wealth if the truth came out?”

“You don’t understand. Between the drugs and his crazy friends Axel only wanted to destroy.”

“What about Haffernon? Was he getting cold feet? Is that why you killed him? Maybe he thought that dealing with a twenty-year-old treason beef would be easier than if he was caught murdering Philomena.”

“Come here to me, Easy. We can work this out. I like you.”

“What’s in it for me?” I asked. It was a simple question but I had complex feelings behind it.

“My mother was disowned,” she said. “But the old man put me back in the will recently. I’m going to be very rich soon.”

I hesitated for the appropriate amount of time, as if I were considering her request. Then I said, “When?”

“Tomorrow at noon.”

“Nuthin’ funny, right?”

“I just want to explain myself, to help you. That’s all.”

“Okay. Okay I’ll come. But I don’t want Joe Cicero to be there.”

“Don’t worry about him. He won’t be bothering anyone.”

“Okay then. Tomorrow at twelve.”

I WAS ON A FLIGHT to San Francisco within the hour. I rented a car and made it to an address in Daly City that I’d never been to before. All of this took about four hours.

It was a small home with a pink door and a blue porch.

The door was ajar and so I walked in.

Cynthia Aubec lay on her back in the center of the hardwood floor. There was a bullet hole in her forehead. Standing over her was Joe Cicero. His right arm was bandaged and in a sling. In his left hand was a pistol outfitted with a large silencing muzzle. He must have been killing her as I was walking up the path to her door.

My pistol lay impotent in my pocket. Cicero smiled as he raised his gun to point at my forehead. I knew he was thinking about when I had the drop on him; that he wouldn’t make the same mistake that I had.

“Well, well, well,” he said. “Here I thought I’d have to chase you down, and then you come walking in like a Christmas goose.”