Excerpt from Down the River unto the Sea by Walter Mosley, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

"A woman car thief?"

"Order came from up top. I guess Bendix got friends. It's just a single woman lives alone in Park Slope. They say the car is parked in front of the brownstone. All you have to do is ring the bell and slap on some cuffs."

"You got paper on her?"

"It'll be waiting for you at the station. And, King…"

"What?" Glad only used my middle name when he wanted to make a point.

"Don't mess it up. I'll send you a text with all the details."

* * *

The purple Benz was parked in front of her place. It had the right plates.

I looked at the front door, flanked by full-length windows that were swathed in yellow curtains. I remember thinking that was the easiest arrest I'd ever been sent on.

"Yes?" she said, opening the door maybe a minute after I rang.

Her tan eyes seemed to be staring through a fog at me. She had red hair, and the rest, pure Tallulah.

My grandmother likes old movies. When I visit her in the Lower Manhattan retirement home, we watch the old love stories and comedies on TCM.

"Ms. Malcolm?" I said.

"Yes?"

"I'm Detective Oliver. I have a warrant for your arrest."

"You're what?"

I took out the leather fold with my shield and ID. These I showed her. She looked, but I'm not sure she registered anything.

"Tremont Bendix claims you stole his car."

"Oh." She sighed and shook her head slightly. "Come in, Detective, come in."

I could have grabbed her right there, put on the restraints while reciting her rights as the Supreme Court detailed them. But this was a soft arrest and the lady was feeling tender, vulnerable. Anyway, Little Exeter Barret had already connected with the captain of the Sea Frog. The shipment of heroin wouldn't be in for a few more days.

I was a good cop. The kind of officer who had yards of patience and lost his temper only when threatened physically by some suspect. And even then I took no joy in beating him after he'd been subdued and restrained.

* * *

"Would you like some water?" Nathali Malcolm asked. "The good stuff's all been packed away."

The living room was filled with boxes, bulging duffel bags, and piles of books and electronic equipment, along with clusters of potted plants.

"What's going on here?" I asked, as if reciting a line that had been written for me.

"This is what Tree calls me stealing his car."

She was wearing a sheer and shimmery green housecoat with nothing underneath. I hadn't paid close attention at first. When I got there I was still intent on the job.

"I don't understand," I said.

"For the past three years he's paid my rent and left me the Benz to use as my car," she said. Her tan eyes had turned golden under electric light. "Then his wife threatened to divorce him and he told me to get out and bring his car back to his uptown garage."

"I see."

"I have to move, Detective…what's your name again?"

"Joe."

When Nathali smiled and shifted her shoulders, the structure of our temporary relationship changed from potential handcuffs to definite bedsheets.

* * *

Nathali was very good in bed. She knew how to kiss and that is the most important thing to me. I need to be kissed and kissed a lot. She intuited this necessity, and we spent the better part of that afternoon and way into the evening discovering new and exciting ways and places to kiss.

She was a victim. I could see that in her eyes, hear it in her deep voice. And the arrest warrant was wrong. A man leaving his car at a girlfriend's house, a house he paid the rent on, had no expectation of her returning that automobile to his garage.

Excerpted from Down the River unto the Sea by Walter Mosley. Copyright © 2018 by Walter Mosley. Excerpted by permission of Mulholland. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.