I knew that they had to get to the airport soon and so I got to work. Jesus helped me figure out that the wheelchair had to go in the backseat.
When I got back in the house Feather was screaming. I ran into her room to find her struggling with Bonnie.
“I want you to carry me, Daddy,” she pleaded.
“It’s okay,” I said and I took her up in my arms.
*
*
*
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W a lt e r M o s l e y
b o n n i e d r o v e , Feather slept on my lap, and I stared out the window, wondering how long it would take to drive down to Palestine, Texas. I knew that my work for Lee would be a dead end. Axel was dead. Philomena was probably dead. The papers were long gone. I had gotten a Luger and fifteen hundred dollars in the deal. I could use the German pistol to press against Rayford’s willing neck.
f e a t h e r w o k e u p
when we pulled into the employees’ lot at the airport. She was happy to have a wheelchair and she raced ahead of us at the special employee entrance to TWA. They had to go to San Francisco first and then transfer to the polar flight to Paris. I saw them to the special entrance for the crew.
A woman I recognized met us there — Giselle Martin.
“Aunt Giselle,” Feather cried.
Giselle was a friend of Bonnie’s. She was tall and thin, a brunette with a delicate porcelain beauty that you’d miss if you didn’t take time with it. They worked together for Air France.
She was there to help with Feather.
“Allo, ma cherie,” the French flight attendant said to my little girl. “These big strong men are going to carry you up into the plane.”
Two brawny white men were coming toward us from a doorway to the terminal building.
“I want Daddy to take me,” Feather said.
“It is the rules, ma cherie,” Giselle said.
“That’s okay, honey,” I said to Feather. “They’ll carry you up and then I’ll come buckle you in.”
“You promise?”
“I swear.”
The workmen took hold of the chair from the front and back.
1 2 0
C i n n a m o n K i s s
Feather grabbed on to the armrests, looking scared. I was scared too. I watched them go all the way up the ramp.
I was about to follow when Bonnie touched my arm and asked, “What’s wrong, Easy?”
I had planned for that moment. I thought that if we found ourselves alone and Bonnie wondered at my behavior, I’d tell her all the grisly details of Axel Bowers’s death. I turned to her, but when she looked into my eyes, as so many women had in the past few days, I couldn’t bring myself to lie.
“I read a lot, you know,” I said.
“I know that.” Her dark skin and almond eyes were the most beautiful I had ever seen. Two days ago I had wanted to marry her.
“I read the papers and all about anything I have an interest in.
I read about a group of African dignitaries getting the Senegalese award of service that was symbolized by a bronze pin with a little design enameled on it — a bird in red and white . . .”
There was no panic on Bonnie’s face. The fact that I knew that she had recently received such an important gift from a suitor only served to sadden her.
“He was the only one who could get Feather into that hospital, Easy . . .”
“So there’s nothing between you?”
Bonnie opened her mouth but it was her turn not to lie.
“Thank him for me . . . when you see him,” I said.
I walked past her and up into the plane.
“ w i l l y o u c o m e
and see me in the Alps, Daddy?” Feather asked as I buckled her seat belt.
The plane was still empty.
