“Mr. Tanous?”
“Who are you?” he asked in an accent that I couldn’t place.
He was looking at the knife in my hand. Maybe he thought I stopped his attacker so that I could kill him myself.
“He is my friend, Musa,” Theodore said. “The one I told you about.”
“Easy Rawlins,” I put in.
I walked past Tanous and went to one of the three large windows that looked out on the street. Central was bustling by then. There was a hardware store, a stationery shop, a grocery store, and a liquor store all squashed together across the street. I put the knife down on the window sill and smiled at the waxed pine floor.
If it wasn’t for the obvious threat to Theodore’s friend I would have spent a good deal of time appreciating the simple room. The dark wood trim and the antique white walls seemed almost regal.
Instead I turned and asked, “Who was that man I just beat on?”
“He thinks I killed his sister,” Musa said. His voice was hollow, removed.
“Mr. Rawlins knows many people around here,” Theodore was saying. “People talk to him. Maybe he can find out what happened to Jackie.”
“Are you a detective?” Musa Tanous asked me.
“No. I’m just a guy who trades in favors, that’s all. And I know folks all over the neighborhood, like Theodore says. The kind of people who would know the habits of a girl like he told me about.”
“But you don’t have some kind of certification, a license?”
Musa Tanous was slender and very well dressed. His silver-hued suit might have been made from silk. I could tell that it wasn’t an American cut because there was only one button. It was a European design probably made in some eastern country. Tanous had a trim mustache and manicured fingers. He was as neat as his office building. There was a heavy and sweet odor mixed in with the sweat of fear coming off him.
“Did that guy with the knife have a license?” I asked.
“What does that mean?”
“It means that the government doesn’t regulate the action down here. I would expect that you’d know that, bein’ in business and all.”
“I don’t understand,” he said. “I didn’t do anything. Why are people mad at me?”
“The kid with the knife have a name?” I asked.
“Trevor McKenzie. I told you he’s Jackie’s brother.”
“Jackie Jay?”
Musa looked over at Theodore. The smaller man nodded.
“Yes,” Musa said. “She did not use her last name.”
“And what was he doing here?”
“He said that he was going to kill me for what I did to his sister.”
“Did you kill her?”
A passionate anger rose in Musa’s eyes.
“Listen, man,” I said, heading off his tirade. “The cops think you did it. Her brother thinks you did it. That’s not proof but it means something.”
Emotions passed across the man’s face like colors in a kaleidoscope.
He was struggling to get something out. I let this go on a moment and then I said, “We need to sit down if we want to have a conversation. You got a room with two chairs?”
“My office,” Musa said, literally choking on the words.
“Does Trevor know where that is?”
“Yes, but…”
“Where do you live, Mr. Tanous?”
“Pacific Palisades.”
For some reason that made me smile.
“Hey,” I said. “Why don’t we go there?”
“We could go to my apartment,” Theodore suggested. “I live closer—on Grand.”
THEODORE GAVE US the address and we each made our own way. That was L.A. Every man had the right of life, liberty, and the freedom to drive alone.
The building Theodore Steinman lived in was ugly, eight stories high, and constructed from brown brick. His apartment was on the top floor. We got there in an elevator made for three.
The front door opened into a sitting room that was quite spacious. All the windows were open. There were four extrawide chairs surrounding a glass-top coffee table and a potted fern in the corner.
“Sit,” Theodore said, and then he called, “Sylvie.”
On cue a woman entered through a small doorway. She was taller than the cobbler but by no means tall. She had white skin, white hair, blue eyes, and wore a dress that was four shades of gray. She was thin, happy to see us, and wordless.
“Mr. Rawlins,” Theodore said, introducing me.
Her mouth moved and she smiled but no words were spoken or necessary. She touched my hand and nodded.
“Pleased to meet you,” I whispered in return.
“You know Musa,” Theodore continued.
Sylvie smiled for the landlord but it was a bit chillier than my greeting.
“Can I get you anything?” Theodore asked us. “Tea, schnapps?”
“Just let us talk for a few minutes,” I said. “Then we can get outta your hair.”
When Sylvie turned to leave I felt that she was dancing to some music I couldn’t hear.
“I’ll be right through that door if you need me,” Theodore said. “Just call.”
He went with his wife: the hard-working dwarf following his elfin dream.
“THANK YOU FOR HELPING ME back at the office, Mr. Rawlins,” Musa said. “I don’t think he would have really hurt me but you didn’t know that.”
“Imagine how many people come up to the Pearly Gates,” I replied, “shaking there heads and sayin’, ‘I never thought he’d really do it.’”
Musa smiled and we moved to the coffee table.
I sat first and the maybe–Middle Eastern man sat directly across from me. He leaned back in his chair and concentrated on his left hand.
This tactic amused me. Usually when a man’s in trouble his defenses break down. He sits next to you and then leans forward, he looks you in the eye. But Musa Tanous leaned back, downplaying the deadly game he was involved in.
“Why did you drive over here, Mr. Tanous?” I asked at last.
“Because Theodore seems to think that you could do something for me.”
“You don’t?”
“You aren’t a licensed detective. You don’t know the people involved. How can you help me?”
“I can’t if you don’t want me to,” I said.
“And if I said I wanted you to help then something would be different?”
“No.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I’m here because of Theodore too,” I said. “He asked me to see what I could do and I intend to try. But if you don’t open up and admit you got trouble, I have no way in.”
Musa Tanous sat up and then leaned toward me, maybe an inch.
“What do you charge?”
“Did you kill Jackie Jay?”
The elegant man stood up. He didn’t step away or even turn his head. It was a threat of dismissal but nothing more.
“Sit down, Mr. Tanous.”
“I don’t intend to stay here and take insults from you.”
“I’m not insulting you. People out there seem to think you did kill her, and I have to hear from your own lips that you didn’t before I can tell you what it will cost to get you off the hook.”
He hung his head and sat down again.
“No,” he said.
“No what?”
“I did not kill her.”
“Do you know who did?”
“No.”
“How did the cops convince the prosecutor to charge you?”
For the first time sadness showed in his eyes. He looked at the Steinmans’ sheer curtains undulating on the breezes.
“Jackie and I went to the Dinah Motel the night before the morning she was found. We stayed there together and in the morning I went off to work,” he said. “She stayed in bed. Jackie liked to sleep late. The last time I saw her she was, she was sleeping.”
“What time was that?”
“Close to five.”
“Early.”
“I like to have the whole building checked over before people come in. That way I know what needs to be done.”
I liked that answer. It was how I worked.
“How’d you meet Jackie?”
“Trevor worked for me. He did cleaning and some fixing but then he stole from one of my tenants. He took a turntable and a pair of speakers from room C-fifteen and tried to sell it to Mr. Dodson, who owns the hardware store across the street. I went over to his house, to speak to his mother. I told her that I would call the police if I did not get the things he stole or the money they were worth.”