Read Online And Sometimes I Wonder About You by Walter Mosley - Free Book Online

searching the floor for loose change that might have fallen from my pocket, or his. I knew the camera was there.
    The video stopped for a moment with the attacker and his knife lying quite still, and then the image jumped back to the first frame.
    Looking up again I said, “So?”
    “That’s you,” Carson said.
    “You can’t even see his face.”
    “I know your moves.”
    “But I am sure the jury does not.”
    There came a subtle hum; my phone was set on vibration. I looked down and saw that the call was coming from the Hotel Brown. I tapped the Ignore icon and asked, “Did the man with the knife expire?”
    “No.”
    “Is he in a coma or unconscious? Do they expect him to die?”
    “No.”
    “Has he made a complaint or identified me from photos you must have right here on this tablet?”
    Kit got tired of repeating his one word in our short play and so he shrugged.
    “How about the woman?” I asked. “Have you identified her?”
    “Not yet but we expect to. Maybe you could tell me who she is.”
    “I don’t even know who the men are.” I tried to keep the smug out of my voice. After all, Kit represented the NYPD and they really didn’t need a reason to break my head—I knew this from firsthand experience.
    “The victim,” Captain Kitteridge said, “is Alexander Lett, recently from Virginia. He woke up in a hospital bed with a broken wrist and a knot the size of a tangerine on his forehead. When we asked him about the knife he said that he just found it and was bringing it to the lost and found. He said that the attacker must have thought he was threatening him with said knife and acted out of reflex.”
    “If he told you all that then why are you here?”
    “What’s goin’ on, LT?”
    “I don’t know.”
    Kit stared at me. It’s a wonder that he could make such dreamy eyes into a threatening glower. I felt the danger but I’d been surrounded by danger my entire life—that was my stock-in-trade.
    I guess this truth was apparent; Kit stood up.
    “You know, LT,” he said. “I believe you when you say that you’re trying to clean up your act and get it right. But this is not the way. Lett seems like serious business. This bug is going to sting you—if you’re lucky.”
    He turned and walked out.
    My smartphone buzzed at me again like the hornet Kit was warning me about. I waited for the vibrations to subside and then I picked up the little transmitter to make my own warning call.
    —
    “Hello?” he said on the fourth ring, just when I was sure I’d get his service.
    “Twill?”
    “Hey, Pop.”
    There was music playing somewhere—loud music. The heavy beat was accompanied by the hubbub of many people talking, laughing, shouting, and jostling around.
    It was 10:56 in the morning.
    “What’s goin’ on, Twill?”
    Before he could answer, someone spoke to him calling him something with the word “itch” in it. Twill answered whoever it was with a word or two and then said to me, “Hold up a second, Pop. I’ll go someplace a little more quieter.”
    The party sounds slowly subsided until they were just background noise, like traffic heard through a storm window.
    “What can I do for you, Pop?”
    “Where are you?”
    “At a warehouse party in the Bronx.”
    “At this time of mornin’?”
    “It only started at three,” he said pleasantly, as if talking about a favorite TV show. “I’m workin’.”
    “On what?”
    “Missin’ person.”
    “Missin’ person for who?”
    “Kathy Ringgold.”
    “Don’t make me ask you for every detail here, Twill. You’re supposed to be in the office.”
    “Okay, Pop, okay. You don’t have to get mad. There was this girl I went to high school with named Kathy Ringgold. She broke up with this guy Roger and then, after a week or two, wanted him back. But he was gone from his room and his phone had been disconnected. Nobody knew where he went and Mardi had told her that I was a detective now, so she asked me to find him. I ain’t