Cinnamon Kiss (23 page)

“Sit,” Black said.

I sat down on one of the two wood-framed couches that he had facing each other.

He sat opposite me and flashed a brief smile.

“Tea?” Easter asked me.

“No thank you,” I said.

“Coffee?”

“Naw. I would never get to sleep then.”

“Ice water?”

“Are you going to keep on offering me drinks till you find one I want?” I asked her.

That was the first time she smiled. The beauty of her beaming face hurt me more than Bonnie and a dozen African princes ever could.

“Beer?” she asked.

“I’ll take the water, honey.”

“Daddy?”

“Whiskey and lime, baby.”

The child walked away with perfect posture and regal bearing. I had no idea where she could have come from or how she got there.

“Adopted daughter,” Black said. “I got her when she was a tiny thing.”

“She’s a beautiful princess,” I said. “I have a girl too. Nothing like this one but I’m sure they’d be the best of friends.”

“Easter Dawn doesn’t have many friends. I’m schooling her here at home. You can’t trust strangers with the people you love.”

This felt like a deeply held secret that Christmas was letting me in on. I began to think that his bright eyes might have the light of madness behind them.

“Where you from?” I asked because he had no southern accent.

“Massachusetts,” he said. “Newton, outside of Boston. You ever been there?”

“Boston once. I had a army buddy took me there after we were let go in Baltimore, after the war. Your family from there?”

“Crispus Attucks was one of my ancestors,” Black said, nodding but not in a prideful way. “He was the son of a prince and a runaway slave. But most importantly he was a soldier.”

There was a finality to every sentence he spoke. It was as if he was also royalty and not used to ordinary conversation.

“Attucks, huh?” I said, trying to find my way to a conversation. “That’s the Revolutionary War there.”

“My family’s menfolk have been in every American war,” he said, again with a remoteness that made him seem unstable. “Eighteen-twelve, Spanish-American, of course the Civil War. I myself have fought in Europe, and against Japan, the Koreans, and the Vietnamese.”

“Here, Mr. Rawlins,” Easter Dawn said. She was standing at my elbow holding a glass of water in one hand and her father’s whiskey in the other.

Judging from her slender brown face and flat features I suspected that Easter had come from Black’s last campaign.

She carried her father’s whiskey over to him.

“Thanks, honey,” he said, suddenly human and present.

“Easter here come from Vietnam?” I asked.

“She’s my little girl,” he said. “That’s all we care about here.”

Okay.

“What was your rank?” I asked.

“After a while it didn’t matter,” he said. “I was a colonel in Nam. But we were working in groups of one. You have no rank if there’s nobody else there. Covered with mud and out for blood, we were just savages. Now how’s a savage rate a rank?”

He shone those mad orbs at me and I believe that I forgot all the problems I came to his door with. Easter Dawn went to his side and leaned against his knee.

He looked down at her, placing a gigantic hand on her head. I could tell that it was a light touch because she pressed back into the caress.

“War has changed over my lifetime, Mr. Rawlins,” Christmas Black said. “At one time I knew who the enemy was. That was clear as the nose on your face. But now …now they send us out to kill men never did anything to us, never thought one way or the other about America or the American way of life. When I realized that I was slaughtering innocent men and women I knew that the soldiering line had to come to an end with me.”

Christmas Black could never hang out with the guys on a street corner. Every word he said was the last word on the subject. I liked the man and I knew he was crazy. The thing I didn’t know was why I was there.

I
was nursing my water, trying to think of some reply to a man who had just confessed to murder and gone on to his quest for redemption.

Lucky for me there came a knock at the door.

“It’s Uncle Saul,” Easter Dawn said. She didn’t exactly shout but you could hear the excitement in her voice. She didn’t exactly run either but rather rushed toward the front of the house.

“E.D.,” Christmas said with authority.

The girl stopped in her tracks.

“What did I tell you about answering that door?” her father asked.

“Never open the door without finding out who it is,” she said dutifully.

“Okay then.”

She hurried on, followed by her father. I trailed after them.

“Who is it!” Easter Dawn shouted at the door.

“It’s the big bad wolf,” Saul Lynx replied in a playful voice he reserved for children.

The door flew open and Saul came in carrying a box wrapped in pink paper.

Easter Dawn put both hands behind her back and gripped them tightly to keep from jumping at him. He bent down and picked her up with one arm.

“How’s my girl?”

“Fine,” she said, obviously trying hard to restrain herself from asking what was in the box.

Christmas came up to them and put a hand on Saul’s shoulder.

“How you doin’?” the black philosopher-king asked.

“Been better,” Saul said.

By this time the girl had moved around until she had snagged the box.

“Is it for me?” she pleaded.

“You know it is,” Saul said and then he put her down. “Hey, Easy. I see you made it.”

“That reminds me,” I said. “I gave Ray this address too. He should be by a little bit later.”

“Who’s that?” our host asked.

“Friend’a mine. Good guy in a pinch.”

“Let’s go in,” Christmas said.

Easter ran before us, opening the present as she went.

SAUL SAT next to the war veteran and I sat across from them with my water.

“Joe ‘Chickpea’ Cicero” were the first words out of Saul’s mouth. “The most dangerous man that anybody can think of. He’s a killer for hire, an arsonist, a kidnapper, and he’s also a torturer —”

“What’s that mean?” I asked.

“It’s widely known that if someone has a secret that you need to get at, all you have to do is hire Chickpea. He promises an answer to your question within seventy-two hours.”

I glanced at Christmas. If he was frightened it certainly didn’t show on his face.

“He’s bad,” Black agreed. “But not as bad as his rep. It’s like a lot of white men. They can only see excellence in one of their own.”

Excellence,
I thought.

“That might be,” Saul said. “But he’s plenty dangerous enough for me.”

Easter Dawn brought in a beer, which she offered to her Uncle Saul.

“Thanks, honey,” Saul said.

“Easter, this is man talk,” Christmas told the girl.

“But I wanted to show Mr. Rawlins my new doll,” she said.

“Okay. But hurry up.”

Easter ran out and then back again with a tallish figurine of an Asian woman standing on a platform and stabilized by a metal rod.

“You see,” she said to me. “She has eyes like mine.”

“I see.”

The doll wore an elaborate black-and-gold robe that had a dragon stitched into it.

“That’s a dragon lady,” Saul told her, “the most important woman in the whole clan.”

The child’s eyes got bigger as she studied her treasure.

“You’re spoiling her with all those dolls,” Christmas said.

I was thinking about the assassin.

“No he’s not, Daddy,” Easter said.

“How many do you have now?”

“Only nine, and I have room for a lot more on the shelves you made me.”

“Go on now and play with them,” her unlikely father said. “I’ll come say good night in an hour.”

Decorum regained, Easter left the room and the men went back to barbarism.

“What’s Cicero got to do with this?” Christmas asked.

“I don’t know.” Saul was wearing a tan suit with a brown T-shirt.

Christmas Black raised his head as if he’d heard something. A moment later there was a knock at the door.

“Stay in your room, E.D.,” Christmas called.

We all went to the door together.

I had my hand on the .38 in my pocket.

Black pulled the door open and there stood Raymond.

“Christmas Day,” Mouse hailed.

“Silent Knight,” our host replied.

They shook hands and gave each other nods filled with mutual respect. I was impressed because Mouse’s esteem was an event more rare than a tropical manifestation of the northern lights.

On our way back to the couches I felt my load lighten. With Raymond and someone he considered an equal on our side I didn’t think that anyone would be too much for us.

I revealed as much of the story as I dared to. I told them about the state of Axel’s house but not about finding his corpse. For that I relied on their imaginations when they heard about the meeting between Chickpea and Axel. I told them about Maya’s calls and about finding Haffernon in Philomena’s room. I told them about the existence of the bonds and the letter, but not that I had them.

“How much the bonds worth?” Raymond wanted to know.

“I don’t know,” I said. “Thousands.”

“You think this Haffernon’s the top man?” Christmas asked.

“Maybe. It’s hard to tell. But if Haffernon was the boss, then who killed him? He is the one hired Lee. I’m sure of that.”

“Lee has at least twenty operatives at his beck and call,” Saul said.

“And if anybody’s behind Haffernon,” I added, “they’ll have a whole army at their disposal.”

“What’s the objective, gentlemen?” Christmas asked.

“Kill ’em all,” Mouse said simply.

Christmas’s lower lip jutted out maybe an eighth of an inch. His head bobbed about the same distance.

“No.” That was me. “We don’t know which one of them it is.”

“But if we do kill ’em all then the problem be ovah no mattah which one it was.”

Christmas laughed for the first time.

Saul gave a nervous grin.

I said, “There’s still the money, Ray.”

“Money don’t mean much if they put you in the ground, Ease.”

“I can’t go out killing people for no reason,” Saul said.

“There’s a reason,” Christmas replied. “They suckered you in and now your life’s on the line. The cops wouldn’t touch this one and if they did they’d put you in jail. There’s your reason.”

“Yeah,” I said, because once you invited men like Christmas and Mouse into the room Death had to have a seat at the table too. “But not before we find out what’s what.”

“An’ how you plan to do that, Easy?” Mouse asked.

“We go to the horse’s ass. We go to Robert E. Lee. He’s the one brought us in. He should be able to find out what the problem is.”

“What if he’s the problem?” Christmas asked.

“Then we’ll have to be smart enough to fool him into showing us that fact. The real problem is getting to him. I got the feelin’ that Maya doesn’t want that conversation to come about.”

“That’s easy,” Saul told us. “Call him now, when she’s not at work.”

AFTER A SMALL STRATEGY discussion Saul dialed the number. It rang five times, ten. He wanted to hang up but I wouldn’t let him. After at least fifty rings Lee answered his business phone.

“It’s Saul Lynx, Mr. Lee. I’m calling you at this late hour because I have some fears that Maya may not be trustworthy…. The way I feel right now, sir, I wouldn’t want to work for you again…. But you have to understand we believe …Mr. Rawlins and I believe that Axel Bowers was murdered and that Mr. Haffernon was too…. Yes …Easy has talked with Maya a few times since that initial meeting and he told her that he located Miss Cargill and that he’d spoken to Axel. Did she tell you about that? …I assume that she hasn’t…. Sir, we need to meet …No, not at your house …Not in San Francisco…. There’s a bar called Mike’s on Slauson in Los Angeles. Easy and I want to meet you there.”

There was a lot of argument about the meeting but Lee finally gave in. The way we figured it, if there was a problem between Maya and Lee he would have some inkling of it beyond our insinuations. If he doubted her loyalty he’d have to take the meeting.

As if she could read the vibrations in the air Easter Dawn made tea and brought it to us just when the call was over. Her father didn’t chastise her for leaving her room.

I took the child on my lap and she sat there comfortably, listening to the men.

“I’ll go with you and Raymond back to L.A.,” Saul said.

“No. Go to your family, man. Ray and me can see to this.”

“What about you?” Christmas asked Mouse.

“Naw, man. It ain’t no war. Just one white boy think he bad. If I cain’t take that then I’m past help.”

Easter brought out her dolls after that and we all told her how beautiful they were. She basked in the attention of the four men and Christmas was glad for her. After he put her to bed we all left. Mouse asked Christmas could he leave his red El Dorado there for a few days. He wanted to be able to strategize with me on the ride.

When we approached my flashy Pontiac I felt that I was leaving something, a fellowship that I’d not known before. Maybe it was just sadness at leaving a home when I was homeless.

I
n the front yard Saul came up to us, shook Mouse by the hand, and then drew me away.

“Easy, I know I got you into this mess,” he said. “Maybe I should come along.”

“No, Saul, no. Neither you or me got the stomach for a man like this killer. Really Mouse would be better on this alone.”

“Well then why don’t you grab Jesus and come up and stay with us at the cabin?”

“Because EttaMae would kill me if I let her husband get shot out there. It already happened one time. I got to cover his back and you got to go to your family.”

Saul gave me his hangdog stare. He was a homely man, there’s no doubt about that. I held out a hand and he grabbed on to it.

“I’m sorry,” he said.