Known to Evil by Walter Mosley Page B

presence."
    "What did you tell them?"
    "That I would pass the information on as soon as possible."
    "I hired a receptionist," I said. "A young woman named Mardi Bitterman."
    "Really? Wow. With me, Bug Bateman, and now this Mardi, you almost have a real office."
    "Yeah. From now on you can call her during business hours when you can't get me."
    "Your drinks," Cylla said.
    She had brought them on an old-fashioned dark-brown tray that was lined with cork.
    "Is that Cylla?" Zephyra asked.
    "It is."
    "Let me speak to her a minute, will you, boss?"
    While the young women chattered, I took my first nip of brandy and wondered at the zinging feeling in my chest. It made me happy to see Cylla laughing with Zephyra. I wanted the same youthful abandon for Angie but didn't have high hopes.

    I LEFT THE BAR about midnight and walked for a while. I honestly didn't realize that I was headed for Lucy's block until I was standing there in front of her building.
    The light was on in her apartment. There was jazz coming from somewhere else. I was a teenager, drunk on his first forbidden bender and smitten with passion for a girl.
    At my age this feeling was better than love. It was the moment before you really knew the object of affection. Her nipples and the sounds she made in her sleep were still in the province of the unknown. She had no secrets because she was, in herself, a mystery. I had no hold on her because she hadn't yet offered me one.
    Standing outside her place, I had two choices: one of them was to ring her bell.
    I took out my phone, disengaged the GPS, and entered a number.
    "Lieutenant Bonilla," she answered on the third ring.
    "You wanted to see me, Lieutenant?"

    WE MET AT A little after-hours joint on Eighty-first. The bar closed at one but the owner stayed open for cops and special regulars.
    Bonilla was already there when I arrived. She was sitting in a faded red booth, wearing a steel-gray pants suit that had a definite masculine flair.
    I sat down across from her and nodded.
    "Have you talked to Kitteridge?" were her first words.
    "Not since a while ago. He wanted me to come in this afternoon but I demurred."
    "You know, you shouldn't take Carson lightly."
    The lady cop was offering me good advice. She was intuitive, working outside the rote demands of her profession. She understood that there was a conflict going on in me.
    Carson Kitteridge was the only innately honest senior cop I had ever dealt with. It was in his job definition to bring me to justice, whatever that meant. For all that, he played by the rules. He would never take somebody down except by the letter of the law. But Bethann Bonilla was even more rare. She had empathy for me; no love, or even real concern, just a feeling for what I was.
    "What do you have on the murders, Mr. McGill?"
    "I'm not on that case, Lieutenant. I don't even know what the papers say about it because I haven't had the time to sit down and read them."
    "What are you working on?"
    "Nothing criminal."
    "Does it have to do with Wanda Soa?"
    "Not that I know of."
    "Then what were you doing at her apartment?"
    "I've already explained that."
    "Do you expect me to believe that you haven't wondered?"
    "Listen," I said. "If you come to work tomorrow and nobody in the city has committed a crime, you still get paid. You could get shot in the leg and have to take six months off and they will send you a check every two weeks. I, on the other hand, have to sweat over every dollar. I don't have time to worry about some woman who called me. I don't have the luxury to be inquisitive."
    "This case has Charbon very worried," she said.
    That was a threat. Captain James Charbon was oil on my water. He was my own personal ton of bricks. Kitteridge just wanted me in the jail; James Charbon wanted me under it.
    "What is it you're trying to get from me?" I asked. I had to.
    "Anything you know."
    "Okay. I want you to listen to me. I had never heard of that woman before you told me her name. I got a call but I