“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.
s a u l s a t
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 —”
2 3 4
C i n n a m o n K i s s
“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.”
“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.
2 3 5
W a lt e r M o s l e y
“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.
