Known to Evil by Walter Mosley Page A

I want a cigarette I have to bum one on the street."
    "She must do very well at her job."
    "She told me that someone gave her a grant or something, and she's using part of that to help me. You'd think she could give me a few bucks, though. A bottle of wine now and then isn't such a sin. . . .
    "Maybe you and me could go out for a little swizzle."
    "Maybe some other time," I said, rising to my feet.
    "Do you have to go already?"
    "I need to find your daughter."
    "Angie's fine. She's like a cat."
    Lizette wanted to stand up but her body wasn't accommodating the desire.
    "Will you come back again?"
    "When I find Angie I'll come back and tell you."
    "Angie," Lizette said with a sneer.
    As I went out the door I heard her mutter, "Bitch."

21
    I t wasn't much after eight when I left Lizette's hungry cave. From there my feet took me down the street to the Naked Ear.
    The Ear was busier that evening. Large groups of young and not so young people hovered around the bar, drinking and talking, laughing and trying to get the bartender's attention.
    I wedged my solid bulk between two women in identical blue dresses, said Excuse me to a man who was laughing so hard that he couldn't take a sip from his glass.
    Finally I sidled up to the bar next to a middle-aged man who was reading The New York Times.
    "Anything happening?" I asked.
    "Not yet," he said, refusing to look at me. "Everybody's waiting for January twentieth like early Christians waiting for the end of time."
    There are very few rules I adhere to. In my line of work you can't let something from yesterday keep you from right now. But one thing I never do is talk politics with strangers in bars.
    "You're McGill, right?" a woman said.
    The bartender that night had black hair and shocking cobalt eyes. She'd been the runner-up to beauty her entire life, but the judges always left the party with her.
    "Cynthia," I said, reaching back into my memory.
    "Cylla," she said. "You were close."
    "Not bartender close."
    "Lucy said to tell you that she had to take off tonight but she'd be back on duty tomorrow."
    I felt the twinge of unrequited infatuation where instinct told me my heart was.
    "Three cognacs, right?" Cylla said.
    "Yeah."
    "Find a seat and I'll bring them to you."

    THE OUTER CIRCLE OF the bar was never heavily inhabited, even on the busiest nights. When the Ear got going, ninety percent of the clientele thronged around the bar like youngsters in a mosh pit.
    I found a small round table near a couple of young smoochers. Their love transported them. The beers were glasses of red wine and the table was outside on the Champs-Elysees en ete.
    Ignoring the lovers, I tried to understand the life of Angelique Tara Lear. Her boyfriend had betrayed her. Her mother, whom she supported, called her a bitch. Her friend had been murdered, maybe in her stead, and the most powerful man in New York seemed to be obsessed with her every move and acquaintance. Few people did that much living in an entire decade.
    My phone made the sound of Chinese wind chimes.
    "Hey, Zephrya. Guess where I am."
    "Looks like the Naked Ear."
    " 'Looks like'?"
    "You got the GPS turned on on your phone again," she said. "I could tell you exactly where you were in Beijing or Timbuktu."
    Zephyra Ximenez was my lifeline in the electronic dimensions. I rarely saw her. Ninety-nine-point-nine percent of her work was on the phone or online. She had a Dominican mother and Moroccan father--lineages, when combined, that gave her dark red-black skin and the kind of look that defines rather than trails after beauty. I had met her at the Ear and tried to pick her up, but she didn't have a father complex. When I told her about my work she offered me her professional services.
    In the long run that was a much better deal for both of us.
    "The police are after you, Mr. McGill," she said.
    "Say what?"
    "Lieutenant Bonilla--the last time I talked to her she was a sergeant--and Detective Kitteridge have both called and demanded your