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“I can’t give you a proper burial, Mr. Bowers,” I said. “But I swear that if I find out who did this to you I will do my best to make sure that they pay for their crime. Rest easy and go with the faith you lived with.”
Those words spoken, I lowered the trunk and stole away from the white man’s home, luckier to be a poor black man in America than Axel Bowers had been with his white skin and all his wealth.
i d r o v e d o w n Telegraph into Oakland and the black part of town. There I found a motel called Sleepy Time Inn. It was set on a hillside, with the small stucco rooms stacked like box stairs for some giant leading up toward the sky.
Melba, the night clerk, gave me the top room for eighteen dollars in cash. They didn’t take credit cards at Sleepy Time.
When I looked at the cash I remembered that enameled pin in Bonnie’s purse. For a moment I couldn’t hear what Melba was saying. I could see her mouth moving. She was a short woman with skin that was actually black. But the rest of her features were more Caucasian than Negroid. Thin lips and round eyes, hair that had been straightened and a Roman nose.
“. . . parties in the rooms,” she was saying.
“What?”
“We don’t want any carousing or parties in the rooms,” she repeated. “You can have a guest but these rooms are residential.
We don’t want any loud crowds.”
“Only noise I make is snoring,” I said.
She smiled, indicating that she believed me. That simple gesture almost brought me to tears.
t h e t e l e v i s i o n had a coin slot attached to it. It cost a quarter per hour to watch. If Feather was there with me she’d be beg-7 8
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ging for quarters to see her shows and to get grape soda from the machine down below. I put in a coin and switched channels until I came across Gigantor, her favorite afternoon cartoon. Letting the cartoon play, it felt a little like she was there with me.
That calmed me down enough to think about the mess I’d fallen into.
The man Robert E. Lee was looking for had been murdered.
The initials on the empty briefcase in his room might have belonged to him or to somebody related to him. But then again, maybe he’d switched briefcases after removing the papers from the one Lee said he’d stolen.
At any other time I would have taken the fifteen hundred and gone home to Bonnie. But there was no more going home for me, and even if there was, Feather needed nearer to thirty-five thousand than fifteen hundred.
I couldn’t call Lee. He might pull me off the case if he knew Axel was dead. And there was still Cinnamon — Philomena —
to find. Maybe she knew where the papers were. I had to have those papers, because ten thousand dollars was a hard nut to crack.
I read one of the letters I’d taken from Axel’s bureau. It was typewritten under the business heading of Haffernon, Schmidt, Tourneau and Bowers — a legal firm in San Francisco.
Dear Axeclass="underline"
I have read your letter of February 12 and I must say that I find it intriguing. As far as I know, your father had no business dealings in Cairo during the period you indicated and this firm certainly has not. Of course, I’m not aware of all your father’s personal business dealings. Each of the partners had 7 9
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his own portfolio from before the formation of our investment group. But I must say that your fears seem far-fetched, and even if they weren’t, Arthur is dead. How can an inquiry of this sort have any productive outcome?
Only your family, it seems, will have a price to pay.
At any rate, I have no information to bring to bear on the matter of the briefcase you got from his safe-deposit box. Call me if you have any further questions, and please consider your actions before rushing into anything.
Yours truly,
Leonard Haffernon, Esq.
Something happened with Axel’s father, something that could still cause grief for the son and maybe others. Maybe Haffernon knew something about it. Maybe he killed Axel because of it.
Lee had told me that Axel had stolen a briefcase, but this letter indicated that he received it legally. It could have been another case . . .
The handwritten letter was a different temperature. There was no heading.
Really, Axel. I can see no reason for you to follow this line of questioning. Your father is dead. Anyone that had anything to do with this matter is either dead or so old that it doesn’t make any difference. You cannot judge them. You don’t know how it was back then. Think of your law offices in San Francisco. Think of the good you have done, will be able to do. Don’t throw it all 8 0
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away over something that’s done and gone. Think of your own generation. I’m begging you. Please do not bring these ugly matters to light.
N.
Whoever N was, he or she had something to hide. And that something was about to be exposed to the world by Axel Bowers.
If I had had a good feeling about Bobby Lee I would have taken the letters and reconnaissance to him. But we didn’t like each other and I couldn’t be sure that he wouldn’t take what I gave him and cut me out of my bonus. My second choice was to tell Saul but he would have been torn in allegiance between me and the Civil War buff. No. I had to go this one alone for a while longer.
Later that evening I was asking the operator to make a collect call to a Webster exchange in West Los Angeles.
“Hello?” Bonnie said into my ear.
“Collect call to anyone from Easy,” the operator said quickly as if she feared that I might slip a message past her and hang up.
“I’ll accept, operator. Easy?”
I tried to speak but couldn’t manage to raise the volume in my lungs.
“Easy, is that you?”
“Yeah,” I said, just a whisper.
“What’s wrong?”
“Tired,” I said. “Just tired. How’s Feather?”
“She sat up for a while and watched Gigantor this afternoon,”
Bonnie said hopefully, her voice full of love. “She’s been trying to stay awake until you called.”
I had to exert extraordinary self-control not to put my fist through the wall.
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“Did you get the job?” she asked.
“Yeah, yeah. I got it all right. There’s a few snags but I think I can work ’em if I try.”
“I’m so happy,” she said. It sounded as if she really meant it.
“When you went out to meet with Raymond I was afraid that you’d do something you’d regret.”
I laughed. I was filled with regrets.
“What’s wrong, Easy?”
I couldn’t tell her. My whole life I’d walked softly around difficulties when I knew my best defense was to keep quiet. I needed Bonnie to save my little girl. Nothing I felt could get in the way of that. I had to maintain a civil bearing. I had to keep her on my side.
“I’m just tired, baby,” I said. “This case is gonna be a ball-breaker. Nobody I can trust out here.”
“You can trust me, Easy.”
“I know, baby,” I lied. “I know. Is Feather still awake?”
“You bet,” Bonnie said.
I had installed a long cord on the telephone so that the receiver could reach into Feather’s room. I heard the shushing sounds of Bonnie moving through the rooms and then her voice gently talking to Feather.
“Daddy?” she whispered into the line.
“Hi, babygirl. How you doin’?”
“Fine. When you comin’ home, Daddy?”
“Tomorrow sometime, honey. Probably just before you go to sleep.”
“I dreamed that I was lookin’ for you, Daddy, but you was gone and so was Juice. I was all alone in a tiny little house and there wasn’t a T V or phone or nothing.”
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