Read Online Known to Evil by Walter Mosley - Free Book Online
Authors: Walter Mosley
Tags: Fiction, General, detective, Suspense, Mystery & Detective, Suspense fiction, Mystery, Private Investigators, Domestic Fiction, Fiction - Mystery, Mystery & Detective - General, New York, New York (State), New York (N.Y.), Mystery And Suspense Fiction, Political corruption
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kissed her.
Now, however, those lips would have tasted of George Toller.
Aura was a woman of the New World. Golden-brown skin, natural and wavy dark-blond hair, and pale eyes that Nazi scientists tried to create in what they called the inferior races. She was forty and beautiful to me; of African and European lineage, she was completely American.
Aura lowered into the closest chair, giving a wan smile.
"How are you?" she asked.
"Thankfully busy," I said.
"A case?"
"A whole shipload."
She smiled. Aura liked my jokes.
"Who's that at the front desk?"
"Mardi Bitterman."
"The child who was raped by her father?"
"Yes." In the days when we were passionate lovers, and then platonic lovers, I told Aura everything.
"I thought she moved to Ireland with her sister."
"Where there's heat," I said, "there's motion."
"I came to see how you're doing."
"I'm fine."
"You didn't look fine yesterday when I, I told you."
"Listen, honey," I said. "You're a gorgeous woman and you deserve to have real love in your life."
"I wanted you."
I tried to start counting my breaths but got lost after one.
"Leonid."
"Yes?"
"Will you forget me now?"
"No."
"Will you ever talk to me again?"
"Yes."
"When?"
"You can give me a week, right?" I asked, once again managing a jaunty attitude.
She looked into my eyes and, after a moment or two, nodded. Then she stood up and went out the door.
If my father had been there I would have asked him how that particular moment was a product of the Economic Infrastructure unfurling through history.
I COULD SWITCH OFF the pain of Aura's departure by turning back to Angelique. She was a mystery and missing, the object of attention of a man who was as dangerous as any terrorist or government- trained assassin.
I honestly believed that Alphonse Rinaldo could bring down a president if he set his mind to it.
And now he had set his sights on this young woman. Whether he meant her harm or not was a question for later. Right then I had no choice but to follow my nose.
I decided that I was going to do my best to save Angelique. After all, she was the one in trouble. I'd call her Angie and believe in her innocence until proven otherwise. She was my client, and Rinaldo was the devil I had to deal with.
History guides all men's hands, my father's voice whispered from any of a dozen possible graves.
"Bullshit," I said aloud in my seventy-second-floor office.
And then the office phone rang.
Instead of answering I remembered reading a line in an article where a man somewhere in Africa had said, "In the lowlands, where I make my home, it never rains, but the floods come annually."
After two rings the phone went silent. Soon after that the intercom sounded.
"Yes, Mardi?"
"It's a Mr. Breland Lewis on the phone for you."
"Tell him to hold on. I'll be on the line in a minute."
14
I don't like getting calls from lawyers. Just hearing Lewis's name, I shuddered and shrank.
And this is in response to my own attorney. If somebody asked me for a list of a dozen friends, Breland would have been on it. But still, he was representative of the law, and law, regardless of its mandate to protect the people, is no friend to man.
"Breland," I said into the mouthpiece.
"How are you, Leonid?"
"You tell me."
"It's Ron Sharkey again."
Ron Sharkey was the metaphor for well over twenty years of criminal activity on my part. I had torn down the lives of well over a hundred men and women in the years I was a fixer for the mob. Most of those that I destroyed were criminals themselves and so I could console myself saying that I was just another means of retribution for what was right and good in the world.
But I had taken down innocents along the way, too. Ron Sharkey was one of these. He lost everything because of my machinations, and he never heard my name or saw my face.
After Sharkey was released from prison I had Breland keep tabs on him. Years in stir had bent the once honest businessman. On the outside again, he had
Now, however, those lips would have tasted of George Toller.
Aura was a woman of the New World. Golden-brown skin, natural and wavy dark-blond hair, and pale eyes that Nazi scientists tried to create in what they called the inferior races. She was forty and beautiful to me; of African and European lineage, she was completely American.
Aura lowered into the closest chair, giving a wan smile.
"How are you?" she asked.
"Thankfully busy," I said.
"A case?"
"A whole shipload."
She smiled. Aura liked my jokes.
"Who's that at the front desk?"
"Mardi Bitterman."
"The child who was raped by her father?"
"Yes." In the days when we were passionate lovers, and then platonic lovers, I told Aura everything.
"I thought she moved to Ireland with her sister."
"Where there's heat," I said, "there's motion."
"I came to see how you're doing."
"I'm fine."
"You didn't look fine yesterday when I, I told you."
"Listen, honey," I said. "You're a gorgeous woman and you deserve to have real love in your life."
"I wanted you."
I tried to start counting my breaths but got lost after one.
"Leonid."
"Yes?"
"Will you forget me now?"
"No."
"Will you ever talk to me again?"
"Yes."
"When?"
"You can give me a week, right?" I asked, once again managing a jaunty attitude.
She looked into my eyes and, after a moment or two, nodded. Then she stood up and went out the door.
If my father had been there I would have asked him how that particular moment was a product of the Economic Infrastructure unfurling through history.
I COULD SWITCH OFF the pain of Aura's departure by turning back to Angelique. She was a mystery and missing, the object of attention of a man who was as dangerous as any terrorist or government- trained assassin.
I honestly believed that Alphonse Rinaldo could bring down a president if he set his mind to it.
And now he had set his sights on this young woman. Whether he meant her harm or not was a question for later. Right then I had no choice but to follow my nose.
I decided that I was going to do my best to save Angelique. After all, she was the one in trouble. I'd call her Angie and believe in her innocence until proven otherwise. She was my client, and Rinaldo was the devil I had to deal with.
History guides all men's hands, my father's voice whispered from any of a dozen possible graves.
"Bullshit," I said aloud in my seventy-second-floor office.
And then the office phone rang.
Instead of answering I remembered reading a line in an article where a man somewhere in Africa had said, "In the lowlands, where I make my home, it never rains, but the floods come annually."
After two rings the phone went silent. Soon after that the intercom sounded.
"Yes, Mardi?"
"It's a Mr. Breland Lewis on the phone for you."
"Tell him to hold on. I'll be on the line in a minute."
14
I don't like getting calls from lawyers. Just hearing Lewis's name, I shuddered and shrank.
And this is in response to my own attorney. If somebody asked me for a list of a dozen friends, Breland would have been on it. But still, he was representative of the law, and law, regardless of its mandate to protect the people, is no friend to man.
"Breland," I said into the mouthpiece.
"How are you, Leonid?"
"You tell me."
"It's Ron Sharkey again."
Ron Sharkey was the metaphor for well over twenty years of criminal activity on my part. I had torn down the lives of well over a hundred men and women in the years I was a fixer for the mob. Most of those that I destroyed were criminals themselves and so I could console myself saying that I was just another means of retribution for what was right and good in the world.
But I had taken down innocents along the way, too. Ron Sharkey was one of these. He lost everything because of my machinations, and he never heard my name or saw my face.
After Sharkey was released from prison I had Breland keep tabs on him. Years in stir had bent the once honest businessman. On the outside again, he had
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