soul. I’d saved his daughter from a life of prostitution, but that didn’t mean I’d earned his three hundred dollars. He’d go to his grave feeling that he’d been cheated by me.
“Hey, boy,” I said, rising to meet my son.
“Dad.”
He hugged me and I kissed his forehead. Benita got in on it, kissing my cheek while Essie wailed in her arms.
I took the baby in my hands and heaved her around in a circle. She looked at my face in wonder, reached up to my scratchy cheek, and then smiled.
For a moment I felt nothing but love for that infant. She had Benita’s medium-brown skin and Juice’s straight black hair. There wasn’t one drop of my blood in her veins, but she was my granddaughter. It was because of my love for her that I had been ready to kill Porky.
Looking at her trusting face, I thought of the child that my first wife took away with her to Texas. That shadow of loss brought on the memory of Bonnie, and I handed Essie back to her mother.
“Are you okay, Mr. Rawlins?” Benny asked me.
Hadn’t she just asked me that? No.
“Fine, baby.”
“You need us tonight, Dad?” Jesus asked. He knew that I was hurting and so tried to save me from Benita’s concern. He was always saving me — ever since I first brought him home from the streets.
“No. I found who I was looking for. But you guys could stay anyway. I’ll sleep in your room, Juice.”
Jesus knew that I wanted him to stay, to keep my house filled with movement and sound. He nodded ever so slightly and looked into my eyes.
I couldn’t tell what he was thinking. Maybe it was that he could watch TV or sleep in a big bed. But the way I felt then, I was sure that he could see right through me. That he knew I was way off course, lost in my own home, my own skin.
“Juice!” Feather and Easter Dawn shouted.
They ran in to hug the boy who took them on boat rides and taught them how to catch crabs in a net. All the commotion caused Essie to cry again, and Benita brought out her bottle.
I drifted into the kitchen and started dinner. Before long I had three pots and the oven going. Fried chicken with leftover macaroni and cheese, and cauliflower with a white sauce spiced by Tabasco. Easter and Feather joined me after a while and made a Bisquick peach crisp under my supervision.
The whole dinner took forty-seven minutes from start to the table. While the pastry cooled on the sink, Feather and Easter Dawn helped me serve the meal.
Dinner was boisterous. Every now and then Easter got a little sad, but Jesus sat next to her and told her little jokes that made her grin.
EVERYONE BUT ME was in bed by nine.
I sat in front of the dark TV, thinking about whiskey and how good it once tasted.
After a while I forced myself to consider the Vietnamese child who had been taken from her war-torn homeland, whose parents (and all their relatives and everyone they knew) had been murdered by the man who had adopted her — Christmas Black.
The professional soldier’s patriotism had soured when he realized what America’s war had cost him. He was a killer on a par with Mouse. But Christmas was also a man of honor. This made him more dangerous and unpredictable than the homicidal friend of my youth.
If Christmas had left E.D. with me, then he must have been at war somewhere. What he wanted was for me to look after his little girl, but he wasn’t my client. Easter had asked me to assure her that her father was okay. The only way I could do that was to go out and find him.
After that, or maybe blended up in it, I would have to find Mouse and see what was what in those murder allegations. Raymond had once spent five years in the can for manslaughter. He had made it known that he would never go into prison again. That meant if the cops found him first, a goodly number of them were likely to get killed. Even if Etta hadn’t hired me, I’d still try to save the lives that Mouse would take — that was one of my self- appointed duties in life.
4
I was jarred out of a deep sleep by something — a sound. It was very late. The first thing I saw when I opened my eyes was the little yellow dog glaring at me from between the drapes that covered the front window. I wasn’t quite sure that the phone had rung. But then it jangled again. There was an extension in my bedroom, and I was worried about disturbing the baby, so I answered quickly, thinking that it was either Christmas or Mouse calling in from some hazardous position in the street.
“Yeah?” I said in a husky tone.
“Easy?”
The room disappeared for a moment. I was floating or falling into a dark night.
“Bonnie?”
“I’m sorry it’s so late,” she said in that sweet accent. “I could call you tomorrow. . . . Easy?”
“Yeah. Hey, babe. It’s been a long time.”
“A year, almost.”
“It’s great to hear you, your voice,” I said. “How are you?”
