I gave her ten dollars and told her to stay safe.
“God’s looking after me,” she said.
Eric handed her a backpack then and they crossed the road.
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18
After leaving my Hertz car at their airport lot I went to the ticket counter. The flight from San Francisco to Los Angeles on Western Airlines was $24.95.
They took my credit card with no problem.
While waiting for my flight I called home and got Jesus. I gave him the flight number and told him to be there to pick me up.
He didn’t ask any questions. Jesus would have crossed the Pacific for me and never asked why.
In a small airport store — where they sold candy bars, newspapers, and cigarettes — I bought a large brown teddy bear for $6.95.
I sat in the bulkhead aisle seat next to a young white woman who wore a rainbow-print dress that came to about midthigh.
She was a beauty but I wasn’t thinking about her.
I buckled my seat belt and unfolded the morning paper.
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Ky had given in to Buddhist pressure and agreed to have free elections in South Vietnam. The bastion of democracy, the United States, however, said publicly that it still backed the dictator.
A couple who were going to lose a baby they were trying to adopt had attempted suicide. They didn’t die but their baby did.
I put that paper away.
The captain told us to fasten our seat belts and the stewardess showed us how it was done. The engine on the big 707 began to roar and whine.
“Hello,” the young woman said.
“Hi.” I gave her just a glance.
“My name is Candice.” She held out a hand.
It would have been impolite for me to ignore her gesture of friendship.
“Easy Rawlins.”
“Do you fly often, Mr. Rawlins?”
“Every now and then. My girlfriend’s a stewardess for Air France.”
“I don’t. This is only my second flight and I’m scared to death.”
She wouldn’t let go of my hand. I squeezed and said, “We’ll make it through this one together.”
We held hands through the takeoff and for five minutes into the ascent. Every now and then she increased the pressure. I matched the force of her grip. By the time we were at full alti-tude she had calmed down.
“Thank you,” she said.
“No problem.”
I picked up the paper again but the words scrambled away from my line of vision. I was thinking about Dream Dog and 1 1 7
W a lt e r M o s l e y
karma, then about Axel Bowers and the humiliating treatment he’d received after his death. I thought about that white girl who just needed somebody to hold on to regardless of his color.
Maybe the hippies were right, I thought. Maybe we should all go outside in our underwear and protest the way of the world.
t h e y o u n g w o m a n and I didn’t speak another word to each other. There was no need to.
When I got out of the gate in L.A., Jesus was there waiting for me.
“Hi, Dad,” he said and shook my hand.
He’d driven my car to the airport and I let him drive going back home. He took La Cienega where I would have taken the freeway but that was okay by me.
“Feather had fever again this morning,” he said. “Bonnie gave her Mama Jo’s medicine and it came down.”
“Good,” I said, trying to hide my fear.
“Is she gonna die, Dad?”
“Why you say that?”
“Bonnie told Benny why she had to stay and look after Feather and Benny told me. Is she gonna die?”
There never was a brother and sister closer than Jesus and Feather. I had taken him out of a bad situation when he was an infant, and when I brought Feather into our home he took to her like a mother hen.
“I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe.”
“But if Bonnie takes her to Switzerland they might save her?”
“Yeah. They saved other people with infections like hers.”
“Do you want me to go with them?”
“No. The doctors can help. What I need is the money to pay those doctors.”
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“I could sell my boat.”
That boat was everything to Jesus.
“No, son. I think I got a line on a moneymaker. It’s gonna be okay.”
I had planned to talk to him about Benita and the difference in their ages. But when he offered to give his boat up for Feather I couldn’t imagine what there was I had to tell him.
b o n n i e h a d p a c k e d
a large traveling suitcase for Feather.
It seemed as if she’d taken every toy, doll, dress, and book that Feather owned. When I got there they were ready to go to the airport.
There was a bright chrome and red canvas wheelchair in the living room.
Bonnie came out and kissed me, and even though I tried to put some tenderness into the caress she leaned away and gave me an odd stare.
“What’s wrong?”
“If I was to tell you the things I’d seen in the last two days you wouldn’t be asking me that,” I said truthfully.
Bonnie nodded, still frowning.
“Could you put the suitcase into the trunk?” she asked. “The wheelchair folds up and can go on top.”
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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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 chérie,” 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 chérie,” 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.
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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.