Cinnamon Kiss by Walter Mosley Page A

call.
    Benny answered and accepted.
    “Hi, Mr. Rawlins,” she said, a little breathless.
    “Where’s Bonnie, Benita?”
    “She went out shoppin’ for a wheelchair to take Feather with. Me an’ Juice just hangin’ out here an’ makin’ sure Feather okay. She sleep. You want me to wake her up?”
    “No, honey. Let her sleep.”
    “You wanna talk to Juice?”
    “You know, Benita, I really like you,” I said.
    “I like you too, Mr. Rawlins.”
    “And I know how messed up you were when Mouse did you like he did.”
    She didn’t say anything to that.
    “And I care very deeply about my children…” I let the words trail off.
    For a few moments there was silence on the line. And then in a whisper Benita Flag said, “I love ’im, Mr. Rawlins. I do. He’s just a boy, I know, but he better than any man I ever met. He sweet an’ he know how to treat me. I didn’t mean to do nuthin’ wrong.”
    “That’s okay, girl,” I said. “I know what it is to fall.”
    “So you not mad?”
    “Let him down easy if you have to,” I said. “That’s all I can ask.”
    “Okay.”
    “And tell Feather I had to stay another day but that I will bring her back a big present because I had to be late.”
    We said our good-byes and I went to my car.
     
     
    ON THE WAY BACK to the motel I picked up a couple of newspapers to keep my mind occupied.
    Vietnam was half of the newspaper. The army had ordered the evacuation of the Vietnamese city of Hue, where they were on the edge of revolt. Da Nang was threatening revolution and the Buddhists were demonstrating against Ky in Saigon.
    Jimmy Hoffa was on the truck manufacturers for the unions and some poor schnook in Detroit had been arrested for bank robbery when the tellers mistook his car for the robber’s getaway car. He was a white guy on crutches.
    I found that I couldn’t concentrate on the stories so I put the paper down. I could feel the fear about Feather rising in my chest.
    In order to distract myself I tried to focus on Lee’s case. The man he wanted to talk to was dead. The papers the dead man had were gone—I had no idea where to. Cinnamon Cargill was probably dead also. Or maybe she was the killer. Maybe they were tripping together and he died, by accident, and she pressed him into the space below the brass elephant.
    I had the telephone numbers of an old folks’ home for rich people and a secretive man whose voice was effeminate, and I had a postcard.
    All in all that was a lot, but there was nothing I could do about it until the morning. That is unless Haffernon called. Haffernon knew about the trouble Axel was in. He might even have known about the young man’s death.
    I took out the Nazi Luger I’d stolen from the dead man’s treasure chest and placed it on the night table next to the bed.
    Then I sat back thinking about the few good years that I’d had with Bonnie and the kids. We had family picnics and long tearful nights helping the kids through the pain of growing up. But all of that was done. A specter had come over us and the life we’d known was gone.
    I tried to think about other things, other times. I tried to feel fear over the payroll robbery that Mouse wanted me to join in on. But all I could think about was the loss in my heart.
    At eleven o’clock I picked up the phone and dialed a number.
    “Hello?” she said.
    “Hi.”
    “Mr. Rawlins? Is that you?”
    “You’re a lawyer, right, Miss Aubec?”
    “You know I am. You were at my office this morning.”
    “I know that’s what you said.”
    “I am a lawyer,” she said. There was no sleep in her voice or annoyance at my late-night call.
    “How does the law look on a man who commits a crime when he’s under great strain?”
    “That depends,” she said.
    “On what?”
    “Well …what is the crime?”
    “A bad one,” I said. “Armed robbery or maybe murder.”
    “Murder would be simpler,” she said. “You can murder someone in the heat of the moment, but a robbery is quite