Walter Mosley - Cinnamon Kiss

The Nazis wanted to kill me. That’s because the Nazis knew that I was an American even if Bogaman and Wills did not.

I went maybe four hundred yards more through the woods and then I slithered across the road, making it back to the clump of branches that camouflaged the nest. I jumped up without thinking and began firing my pistol, holding it with both hands. I hit the first man in the eye and the second in the gut. They were completely surprised by the attack. I noticed, even in the two short seconds it took me to kill them, that their uniforms were makeshift and their hands were wrapped in rags.

The third soldier in the nest leaped at me with a bayonet in his hand. The impact of his attack knocked the pistol from my grasp. We fell to the ground, each committed to the other’s death. I grabbed his wrist with one hand and pressed with all my might. The milky-skinned, gray-eyed youth grimaced and used all of his Aryan strength in an attempt to overwhelm me. But I was a few years older and that much more used to the logic of senseless violence. I grabbed the haft of his bayonet with my other hand while he wasted time hitting me with his free fist. By the time he realized that the tide was turning against him it was too late. He now used both hands to keep the blade from his chest but still it moved unerringly downward. As the seconds crept by, real fear appeared in the teenage soldier’s eyes. I wanted to stop but there was no stopping. There we were, two men who had never known each other, working toward that young man’s death. He spoke no English, could not beg in words I might understand. After maybe a quarter of a minute the blade passed through his coat and into his flesh, but then it got caught on one of his breastbones. I almost lost heart then but what could I do? It was him or me. I leaned forward with all my weight and the German steel broke the German’s bone and plunged deep into his heart.

The most terrible thing was his last gasp, a sudden hot gust of breath into my face. His eyes opened wide as if to see some way out of the finality in his body — and then he was dead.

I jumped up from my sleep in Saul’s Rambler. A sign at the side of the road read THE ARTICHOKE CAPITAL OF THE WORLD.

“Bad dream?” Saul asked me.

It was a dream, but everything in it had happened more than twenty years before. It was real. That German boy had died and there wasn’t a thing either one of us could do to stop it.

“Yeah,” I said. “Just a dream.”

“I guess I should tell you a little about this guy Lee,” Saul said. “He’s not known to the public at large but in certain circles he’s the most renowned private detective in the world.”

“The world?”

“Yes sir. He does work in Europe and South America and Asia too.”

I noticed that he didn’t mention Africa. People rarely did when talking about the world in those days.

“Yes sir,” Saul Lynx said again. “He has entrée to every law enforcement facility and many government offices. He’s a connoisseur of fine wines, women, and food. Speaks Chinese, both Mandarin and Cantonese, Spanish, French, and English, which means that he can converse with at least one person in almost every town, village, or hamlet in the world. He’s extremely well read. He thinks that he is the better of every, and any, man regardless of race or rank. And that means that his racism includes the whole human race.”

“Sounds like a doozy,” I said. “What’s he look like?”

“I don’t know.”

“What do you mean you don’t know? I thought that you’d done work for him before.”

“I have. But I never met him face-to-face. You see, Bobby Lee doesn’t like to sully himself with operatives. He has this woman named Maya Adamant who represents him to most clients and to almost all the PIs that do his legwork. She’s one of the most beautiful women I’ve ever seen. He spends most of his time hidden away in his mansion on Nob Hill.”

“Have you ever talked to him, in Chinese or otherwise?” I asked.

Saul shook his head.

“Have you seen his picture?”

“No.”

“How do you even know that this man exists?”

“I’ve met people who’ve met him — clients mainly. Some of them liked to talk about his talents and eccentricities.”

“You should meet with a man you work for,” I said.

“People work for Heinz Foods and Ford Motor Company and never meet them,” Saul argued.

“But they employ thousands. This dude is a small shop. He needs to at least say hello.”

“What difference would that make, Easy?” Saul asked.

“How can you work for a man don’t even have the courtesy to come out from his office and nod at you?”

“I received an envelope yesterday morning with twenty-five hundred dollars in it,” he said. “I get a thousand dollars just to deliver you your money and take a drive up to Frisco. Sometimes I work two weeks and don’t make half that.”

“Money isn’t everything, Saul.”

“It is when your daughter is at death’s door and only money can buy her back.”

I could see that Saul regretted his words as soon as they came out of his mouth. But I didn’t say anything. He was right. I didn’t have the luxury of criticizing that white man. Who cared if I ever met him? All I needed was his long green.

A beautiful day in San Francisco is the most beautiful day on earth. The sky is blue and white, Michelangelo at his best, and the air is so crystal clear it makes you feel that you can see more detail than you ever have before. The houses are wooden and white with bay windows. There was no trash in the street and the people, at least back then, were as friendly as the citizens of some country town.

If I hadn’t had Feather, and that enameled pin, on my mind I would have enjoyed our trip through the city.

On Lower Lombard we passed a peculiar couple walking down the street. The man wore faded red velvet pants with an open sheepskin vest that only partially covered his naked chest. His long brown hair cascaded down upon broad, thin shoulders. The woman next to him wore a loose, floral-patterned dress with nothing underneath. She had light brown hair with a dozen yellow flowers twined into her irregular braids. The two were walking, barefoot and slow, as if they had nowhere to be on that Thursday afternoon.

“Hippies,” Saul said.

“Is that what they look like?” I asked, amazed. “What do they do?”

“As little as possible. They smoke marijuana and live a dozen to a room, they call ’em crash pads. And they move around from place to place saying that owning property is wrong.”

“Like communists?” I asked. I had just finished reading Das Kapital when Feather got weak. I wanted to get at the truth about our enemies from the horse’s mouth but I didn’t have enough history to really understand.

“No,” Saul said, “not communists. They’re more like dropouts from life. They say they believe in free love.”

“Free love? Is that like they say, ‘That ain’t my baby, baby’?”

Saul laughed and we began the ascent to Nob Hill.

Near the top of that exclusive mount is a street called Cushman. Saul took a right turn there, drove one block, and parked in front of a four-story mansion that rose up on a slope behind the sidewalk.

The walls were so white that it made me squint just looking at them. The windows seemed larger than others on the block and the conical turrets at the top were painted metallic gold. The first floor of the manor was a good fifteen feet above street level — the entrance was barred by a wrought iron gate.

Saul pushed a button and waited.

I looked out toward the city and appreciated the view. Then I felt the pang of guilt, knowing that Feather lay dying four hundred miles to the south.