birth.
b o w e r s ’ s h o u s e ,
a single-story wood box, was the most normal-looking one on the block. Its plank walls were still white, but the trim was a fire-engine red and the front door was decorated with a plaster mosaic set with broken tiles, shards of glass, marbles, trinkets, and various semiprecious stones: rough garnets, pink quartz, and turquoise.
I rang the bell and used the brass skull knocker but no one answered. Then I went down the side of the house, toward the back. There I came across a normal-looking green door that had a pane of glass set in it. Through this window I could see a small room that had a broom leaning in a corner and rubber boots on the floor. A floral- pattern apron hung from a peg on the wall.
I knocked. No answer. I knocked again. When nobody came I took off my left shoe, balled my fist in it, and broke the window.
“Hey, man! What you doin’?” a raspy voice called from up toward the street.
I was unarmed, which was either a good or a bad thing, and caught red-handed. The strange character of the neighborhood had made me feel I could go unnoticed, doing whatever I needed to get the job done. That was a mistake a black man could never afford to make.
6 0
C i n n a m o n K i s s
I turned to see the man who caught me. He walked the slender, ivy-covered corridor with confidence — as if he were the owner of the house.
He was short, five six or so, with greasy black hair down to his shoulders. Most of his face was covered by short, bristly black hairs. He had on a blood-red shirt that was too large for his thin frame and black jeans. He wore no shoes but his feet were dirty enough to be mistaken for leather. His dark eyes glittered in their sockets. Golden earrings dangled from his ears in a feminine way that made me slightly uncomfortable.
“Yes?” I asked pleasantly, as if addressing an officer of the law.
“What you doin’ breakin’ into Axel’s house?” the sandpaper-toned hippie asked.
“A guy named Manly hired me to find Mr. Bowers,” I said. “He called on me because my cousin, Cinnamon, works for him.”
“You Philomena’s cousin?” the crazy-looking white man asked.
“Yeah. Second cousin. We were raised not six blocks from each other down in L.A.”
“So why you breakin’ in?” the man asked again. He looked de-ranged but his question was clear and persistent.
“Like I said. This guy Manly, over in Frisco, asked me to find Bowers. Cinnamon is missing too. I decided to take his money and to see if anything was wrong.”
The small man looked me up and down.
“You could be Philomena’s blood,” he said. “But you know Axel’s a friend’a mine and I can’t just let you walk in his house like this.”
“What’s your name?” I asked.
“Dream Dog,” he replied without embarrassment or inflection. It was just as if he had said Joe or Frank.
6 1
W a lt e r M o s l e y
“I’m Dupree,” I said and we shook hands. “I’ll tell you what, Dream Dog. Why don’t you come in with me? That way you can see that I’m just looking to find out where they are.”
When the man smiled I could see that he was missing two or three teeth. But instead of making him ugly the spaces reminded me of a child playing pirate with pasted-on whiskers and a cos-tume that his mother made from scraps.
6 2
10
You know about karma, brother?” Dream Dog asked as I snaked my hand down to turn the lock on the doorknob.
“Hindu religion,” I said, remembering a talk I’d had with Jackson Blue in which he explained how much he disagreed with the Indian system of the moral interpretation of responsibility.
Dream Dog smiled. “Yeah. Hindu. All about what you do an’
how it comes back to you.”
“Is this apron Cinnamon’s?” I asked.
We were in the door.
“Sure is. But you know she wasn’t really a maid or nuthin’ like that. She had a business degree from Berkeley and wanted to get on Wall Street. Oh yeah, that Philomena got her some spunk.”
6 3
W a lt e r M o s l e y
“I knew she was in school,” I said. “The whole family is very proud of her. That’s why they’re so worried. Did she tell you where she was going?”
“Uh-uh,” Dream Dog said while he gauged my words.
The utility room led into a long kitchen that had a lengthy butcher block counter with a copper sink on one side and a six-burner stove-oven on the other. It was a well-appointed kitchen with copper pots hanging from the walls
