Kiss of Noir by Clara Nipper Page A

His phone rang.
    “If that’s Cindy, you better go on home, boy,” Payne said.
    “Oh, fuck y’all.” Johnny stood and went outside to answer the call.
    “Deal you in, Nora?” Cleo asked.
    “Come on, my man, let’s kick some ass,” Drew said.
    “No, I’m feeling sick,” I said.
    “Hope it’s no one you’ve eaten,” Payne quipped, passing dominoes. Drew laughed and Cleo giggled.
    “My man!” Drew held out his hand to Payne, who slapped it.
    “Oh, give me a break,” I spat. “I’m getting some air!” I headed for the back door so I wouldn’t run into Johnny. I heard Payne say, “Touchy, isn’t she?” I stopped to listen further.
    “Not usually,” Cleo said. I exhaled.
    “Well, you know, you can’t get two of us in the same room, we’ll swagger each other into oblivion.”
    Cleo grunted.
    “Ob…obliv what?” Drew asked.
    “Never mind,” Payne said. Dominoes clicked.
    “Slide in easy, honey,” Cleo murmured. I went outside where the sun stabbed me.
    When I returned, Cleo was smoking a cigarette and frowning over a gun and a wedding ring that a woman was trying to sell.
    “Please, you gotta help me,” she said, looking over her shoulder. “I got four kids.” She glanced around again. “They’ve gotta eat.”
    “Sure, I can take them off your hands, but it won’t be much.”
    “I’ll take whatever you can give me. I don’t care.” The woman ran a hand through her hair. She leaned to look outside where a battered old station wagon held four quiet children, all sitting in their seats, facing forward. I got a chill seeing this.
    “You want a loan or a sale?” Cleo asked.
    Drew, Johnny, and Payne were all fiddling with toothpicks or cigarettes or dominoes, their eyes downcast.
    “I can give you more if you sell them.” Cleo had the ring on the first knuckle of his pinkie finger.
    “Sell. I will never need these again.” The woman chewed her lip.
    “Well, how about that?” Cleo wrote a figure on a pad and slid it over to her.
    She swallowed hard and blinked. Then nodded. “Oh…okay, if that’s all you can…”
    “Yep, that’s the best I can do. Take it or leave it.”
    “No, no! I’ll take it. That’s fine. Thank you, sir.” The woman bit her nails.
    “Wait.” I stepped up. “Here, take this.” I handed the woman two hundred dollars. Then I slid the gun back to the woman. “And keep this. You may need it. Got any ammo we can give her, Cleo?”
    Cleo glared at me but pushed a small box of bullets across the counter.
    “Good. Now take this, get food and a tank of gas, and go somewhere safe far away. And no matter what, don’t go near him ever again. You or your kids, got it?”
    The woman began crying. “Oh, God, oh, God, bless you, bless you, bless you all. I’ll pay this back, I swear I will.”
    I waved her away. The others watched me like a pack of coyotes hiding in the bush.
    “I never thought my life would be like this, you know?” The woman sank to the floor. I gave her a hand full of tissues from the box under the register. Sometimes people cried when they pawned things. It paid to be prepared. “I thought he was nice, you know?”
    I sat with her on the floor, patting her knee. Cleo handed her the cash for the wedding band. She cried for a few moments in silence. The telephone rang and the woman jerked and jumped to her feet. Cleo answered the call. The woman embraced me while babbling, “I’ll never forget you. May God bless you for your kindness. I’ll pay this back. I swear. I have to go. Thank you, thank you.” The woman scurried out, trailing tissues.
    I strutted to the table and sat with a gusty sigh. “Well, what did I miss?”
    “I’m buying lunch,” Payne said with a brilliant grin, “for those who played.”
    I looked at Cleo, who was still at the counter with paperwork. He winked.
    “Yeah, I didn’t want to be suckered again, so I sat out too,” Johnny said.
    Drew smiled. “My man beat her and I didn’t do too bad.”
    “So