“Cinnamon,” the woman said without hesitation. “Axel’s friend.”
“That’s Axel Bowers?”
“Yes. He’s my partner here.”
She looked around the storefront. I did too.
“Not a very lucrative business,” I speculated.
The woman laughed. It was a real laugh.
“That depends on what you see as profit, Mr. Rawlins. Axel and I are committed to helping the poor people of this society get a fair shake from the legal system.”
“You’re both lawyers?”
“Yes,” she said. “I got my degree from UCLA and Axel got his across the Bay in Berkeley. I worked for the state for a while but 8 7
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I didn’t feel very good about that. When Axel asked me to join him I jumped at the chance.”
“What’s your name?” I asked.
“Oh. Excuse my manners. My name is Cynthia Aubec.”
“French?”
“I was born in Canada,” she said. “Montreal.”
“Have you seen your partner lately?” I asked.
“Come on in,” she replied.
She turned to go through another canvas flap, this one standing as a door to the back room of the defunct grocery.
There were two desks at opposite ends of the long room we entered. It was gloomy in there, and the floors had sawdust on them as if it were still a vegetable stand.
“We keep sawdust on the floor because the garage next door sometimes uses too much water and it seeps under the wall on our floor,” she said, noticing my inspection.
“I see.”
“Have a seat.”
She switched on a desk lamp and I was gone from the hippie world of Haight Street. I wasn’t in modern America at all. Cynthia Aubec, who was French Canadian but had no accent, lived earlier in the century, walking on sawdust and working for the poor.
“I haven’t seen Axel for over a week,” she said, looking directly into my gaze.
“Where is he?”
“He said that he was going to Algeria but I can never be sure.”
“Algeria? I met a guy who told me that Axel was all over the world. Egypt, Paris, Berlin . . . Now you tell me he’s in Algeria.
There’s got to be some money somewhere.”
“Axel’s family supports this office. They’re quite wealthy. Ac-8 8
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tually his parents are dead. Now I guess it’s Axel’s money that runs our firm. But it was his father who gave us our start.” She was still looking at me. In this light she was more Mansfield than Poindexter.
“Do you know when he might be back?”
“No. Why? I thought you were looking for Cinnamon.”
“Well . . . the way I hear it Philomena and Axel had a thing going on. Actually that’s why I’m here.”
“I don’t understand,” she said with a smile that was far away from Axel and Philomena.
“Philomena’s parents are racists,” I explained, “not like you and me. They don’t think that blacks and whites should be mix-ing. Well . . . they told Philomena that she was out of the family because of the relationship she had with your partner, but now that she hasn’t called in over two months they’re having second thoughts. She won’t talk to them and so they hired me to come make their case.”
“And you’re really a private detective?” she asked, cocking one eyebrow.
I took out my wallet and handed her the license. I hadn’t shown it to Lee out of spite. She glanced at it but I could see that she stopped to read the name and identify the photo.
“Why don’t you just go to Cinnamon’s apartment?” Cynthia suggested.
“I was told that she was living with Axel on Derby. I went there but no one was around.”
“I have an address for her,” Cynthia told me. Then she hesitated. “You aren’t lying to me are you?”
“What would I have to lie about?”
“I wouldn’t know.” Her smile was suggestive but her eyes had not yet decided upon the nature of the proposal.
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“No ma’am,” I said. “I just need to find Philomena and tell her that her parents are willing to accept her as she is.”
Cynthia took out a sheet of paper and scrawled an address in very large characters, taking up the whole page.
“This is her address,” she said, handing me the leaf. “I live in Daly City. Do you know the Bay Area, Mr. Rawlins?”
“Not very well.”
“I’ll put my number on the back. Maybe if you’re free for dinner I could show you around. I mean — as long as you’re in town.”
Yes sir. Twenty years younger and I’d have bushy hair down to my knees.
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14
Philomena’s apartment was on Avery Street, at Post, in the Fillmore District, on the fourth floor of an old brick building that had been christened The Opal Shrine. A sign above the front door told me that there were apartments available and that I could inquire at apartment 1a. There was no elevator so I climbed to the fourth floor to knock at the door of apartment 4e, the number given me by Cynthia Aubec.
There was no answer so I went back down to the first floor and tried the super’s door.
He was a coffee-brown man with hair that might have been dyed cotton. He was smiling when he opened the door, a cloud of marijuana smoke attending him.
“Yes sir?” he said with a sly grin. “What can I do for you?”
“Apartment four-e.”
“Fo’ty fi’e a mont’, gas an’ ’lectric not included. Got to clean it 9 1
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out yo’ own self an’ it’s a extra ten for dogs. You can have a cat for free.” He smiled again and I couldn’t help but like him.
“I think I used to know a girl lived there. Cindy, Cinnamon . . . somethin’.”
“Cinnamon,” he said, still grinning like a coyote. “That girl had a butt on her. An’ from what I hear she knew how to use it too.”
“She move?”
“Gone’s more like it,” he said. “First’a the mont’ came and the rent wasn’t in my box. She ain’t come back. I’ont know where she is.”
“You call the cops?”
“Are you crazy? Cops? The on’y reason you call a cop is if you white or already behind bars.”
I did like him.
“Can I see it?” I asked.
He reached over to his left, next to the door, and produced a brass key tethered to a multicolored flat string.
I took the key and grinned in thanks. He grinned you’re welcome. The door closed and I was on my way back upstairs.
p h i l o m e n a c a r g i l l
had left the apartment fully fur-
nished, though I was sure that the super had emptied it of all loose change, jewelry, and other valuables. Most of the posses-sions I was interested in were still there. She had a bookcase filled with books and papers and a pile of Wall Street Journal s on the floor next to the two-burner stove. There was a small diary tacked up on the wall next to the phone and a stack of bills and some other mail on the kitchen table.
I pulled a chair up to the table and looked out of the window onto Post Street. San Francisco was much more of a city than 9 2
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L.A. was back in ’66. It had tall buildings and people who walked when they could and who talked to each other.
There was a ceramic bear on the table. He was half filled with crystallized honey. There was a teacup that had been left out. In it were the dried dregs of jasmine tea — nothing like the flavor left on Axel’s dressing table.
There were also two dog-eared books out, The Wealth of Nations and Das Kapital. On the first page of Marx’s opus she had written, Marx seems to be at odds with himself over the effect that capitalism has on human nature. On the one hand he says that it is the dialectical force of history that forms the economic system, bu
t on the other he seems to feel that certain human beings (capitalists) are evil by nature. But if we are pressed forward by empirical forces, then aren’t we all innocent? Or at least equally guilty? I was impressed by her argument. I had had similar thoughts when reading about the Mr. Moneybags capitalist in Marx’s major work.
She had a big pine bed and all her plates, saucers, and cups were made from red glass. The floor was clean and her clothes, at least a lot of them, still hung in the closet. That bothered me. It was as if she just didn’t come home one day rather than moved out.
The trash can was empty.
The bathroom cabinet was filled with condoms and the same lubricant used by Bowers.
He’d died instantly, between lighting a cigarette and the first drag. She had seemingly disappeared in the same way.
I decided to search the entire apartment from top to bottom.
The super, I figured, was downstairs with his joint. I didn’t have to worry about him worrying about me.
The more I explored the more I feared for the bright young woman’s safety. I found a drawer filled with makeup and soaps.
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She had a dozen panties and four bras in her underwear drawer.
There were sewing kits and cheap fountain pens, sanitary nap-kins and sunglasses — all left behind.
Luckily there was no brass elephant grinning at me from the closet, no trunk filled with pornography and the accoutrements of war.
After about an hour I was convinced that Philomena Cargill was dead. It was only then that I began to sift through her mail.
There were bills from various clothing stores and utilities, a bank statement that said she had two hundred ninety-six dollars and forty-two cents to her name. And there was a homemade postcard with the photograph of a smiling black woman on it. I knew the woman — Lena Macalister. She was standing in front of the long-closed Rose of Texas, a restaurant that had had some vogue in L.A. in the forties and fifties.
Dear Phil,
Your life sounds so exciting. New man. New job. And maybe a little something that every woman who’s really a woman wants. My hopes and prayers are with you darling. God knows the both of us could use a break.
Tommy had to leave. He was good from about nine at night to day-break. But when the sun came up all he could do was sleep. And you know I don’t need no man resting on my rent. Don’t worry about me though. You just keep on doing what you’re doing.
Love,
L
It was certainly a friendly card. That gave me an idea. I went through Philomena’s phone bill picking out telephone numbers with 213 area codes. I found three. The first number had been disconnected.
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The second was answered by a woman.
“Westerly Nursing Home,” she said. “How may we be of service?”
“Hi,” I said, stalling for inspiration. “I’m calling on behalf of Philomena Cargill. She had a sudden case of appendicitis —”
“Oh that’s terrible,” the operator said.
“Yes. Yes, but we got it in time. I’m a PN here and the doctor told me to call because Miss Cargill was supposed to visit her aunt at Westerly but of course now you see . . .”
“Of course. What did you say was her aunt’s name?”
“I just know her name,” I said. “Philomena Cargill.”
“There’s no Cargill here, Mr. . . .”
“Avery,” I said.
“Well, Mr. Avery, there’s no Cargill, and I’m unaware of any Philomena Cargill who comes to visit. You know we have a very select clientele.”
“Maybe it was her husband’s relative,” I conjectured. “Mr.
Axel Bowers.”
“No. No. No Bowers either. Are you sure you have the right place?”
“I thought so,” I said. “But I’ll go back to the doctor. Thank you very much for your help.”
“ y e e e e e s ? ” the male voice of the last number crooned.
“Philomena please,” I said in a clipped, sure tone.
“Who’s this?” the voice asked, no longer playful.
“Miller,” I said. “Miller Jones. I’m an employee of Bowers up here and he wanted me to get in touch with Cinnamon. He gave me this number.”
“I don’t know you,” the voice said. “And even if I did, I haven’t seen Philomena in months. She’s in Berkeley.”
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“She was,” I said. “To whom am I speaking?”
The click of the phone in my ear made me grimace. I should have taken another tack. Maybe claimed to have found some lost article from her apartment.
I sat in the college student’s kitchen chair and stared at the street. This was an ugly job and it was likely to get uglier. But that was okay. I was feeling ugly, ugly as a sore on a dead man’s forehead.
I left the apartment, taking the two books she’d been reading and Lena’s postcard. I took them out to my rented Ford and then went back to return the key. I knocked, knocked again, called out for the super, and then gave up. He was either unconscious, otherwise engaged, or out. I slipped the key under the door wrapped in a two-dollar bill.
9 6
15
Haffernon, Schmidt, Tourneau and Bowers occupied the penthouse of a modern office building on California Street. There was a special elevator car dedicated solely to their floors.
“May I help you?” a white-haired matron, who had no such intention, asked me. Her nameplate read theresa ponte.
She was very white. There was a ring with a large garnet stone on her right hand. The gem looked like a knot of blood that had congealed upon her finger. A cup of coffee steamed next to her telephone. She was wearing a gray jacket over a yellow blouse, seated behind a magnificent mahogany desk. Behind her was a mountain of fog that was perpetually descending upon but rarely managing to reach the city.
“Leonard Haffernon,” I said.
“Are you delivering?”
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I was wearing the same jacket and pants that I’d had on for two days. But I’d made use of the iron in my motel room and I didn’t smell. I wore a tie and I’d even dragged a razor over my chin. I held no packages or envelopes.
“No ma’am,” I said patiently. “I have business with him.”
“Business?”
“Yes. Business.”
She moved her head in a birdlike manner, indicating that she needed more of an explanation.
“May I see him?” I asked.
“What is your business?”
From a door to my left emerged a large strawberry blond man.
His chest was bulky with muscles under a tan jacket. Maybe one of those sinews was a gun. I had Axel’s Luger in my belt. I thought of reaching for it and then I thought of Feather.
A moment of silence accompanied all that thinking.
“Tell him that I’ve come about Axel Bowers,” I said. “My name is Easy Rawlins and I’m looking for someone named Cargill.”
“Cargill who?” the receptionist asked.
“This is not the moment at which you should test your authority, Theresa,” I said.
The combination of vocabulary, grammar, and intimacy disconcerted the woman.
“There a problem?” the Aryan asked.
“Not with me,” I said to him while looking at her.
She picked up the phone, pressed a button, waited a beat, and then said, “Let me speak to him.” Another beat and she said,
“A man called Rawlins is here about Axel and someone named Cargill.” She listened then looked up at me and said, “Please have a seat.”
The big boy came to stand next to my chair.
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My heart was thundering. My mind was at an intersection of many possible paths. I wanted to ask that woman what she was thinking when she asked me if I was a delive
ry boy when obviously I was not. Was she trying to be rude or did my skin color rob her of reason? I wanted to ask the bodyguard why he felt it necessary to stand over me as if I were a prisoner or a criminal when I hadn’t done anything but ask to see his boss. I wanted to yell and pull out my gun and start shooting.
But all I did was sit there staring up at the white ceiling.
I thought about that coat of paint upon the plaster. It meant that at one time a man in a white jumpsuit had stood on a ladder in the middle of that room running a roller or maybe waving a brush above his head. That was another room but the same, at another time when there was no tension but only labor. That man probably had children at home, I decided. His hard work turned into food and clothing for them.
That white ceiling made me happy. After a moment I forgot about my bodyguard and the woman who couldn’t see the man standing in front of her but only the man she had been trained to see.
“Mr. Rawlins?” a man said.
He was tall, slender, and very erect. The dark blue suit he wore would have made the down payment on my car. His scarlet tie was a thing of beauty and the gray at his temples would remind anyone of their father — even me.
“Mr. Haffernon?” I rose.
The bodyguard stiffened.
“That will be all, Robert,” Haffernon said, not even deigning to look at his serf.
Robert turned away without complaint and disappeared behind the door that had spawned him.
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“Follow me,” Haffernon said.
He led me back past the elevator and through a double door.
Here we entered into a wide hallway. The floors were bright ash and the doors along the way were too. These doors opened into anterooms where men and women assistants talked and typed and wrote. Beyond each assistant was a closed door behind which, I imagined, lawyers talked and typed and wrote.
At the end of the hall were large glass doors that we went through.
Haffernon had three female assistants. One, a buxom forty-year-old with horn-rimmed glasses and a flouncy full-length dress, came up to him reading from a clipboard.
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