Still, she watched the cars until their taillights disappeared down the street, and she would hold the plate numbers in her phenomenal memory for days, perhaps longer. She couldn’t help it.
It wasn’t much of a park. A small square of closely cropped grass, a few red oaks with crispy leaves clinging to naked branches, a rusty swing set, a pair of weathered teeter-totters, and a sandbox used more by neighborhood cats than children. Charlie loved it. Grace tolerated it because it was a relatively open space with a clear view in any direction, and because it was almost always deserted.
Off the leash Charlie ran hard for the first tree, lifted his leg and left his mark, then ran for the next. He hit each tree at least twice before trotting back, tongue lolling, to where Grace waited for him by the teeter-totters, her back pressed against the firm trunk of the largest oak, her eyes as busy as the dog’s legs had been.
‘Finished?’ she asked him.
Charlie looked startled by such a ridiculous suggestion and bounded away immediately to begin the tree circuit all over again. His paws shuffling fallen leaves into a new order was the only immediate sound that broke the breathless stillness of dusk in this quiet neighborhood. Life probably existed within the small houses that lined the streets around the park, but you’d never know it from the outside. Yards were empty, windows were closed, the city bears were snug in their dens.
She tensed at the sudden slam of a door a few houses down, relaxed when she saw a definite kid shape run across the street and into the other side of the park. He ducked around a broad tree trunk and disappeared, and Grace imagined a nine- or ten-year-old reprobate coming out to sneak a smoke.
Charlie suspected something more sinister and was at her side in an instant, pressing hard against her legs, his wet nose burying itself in her cold palm. He didn’t like sudden noises or sudden movement, unless he was making them.
‘My hero,’ she whispered down at him, stroking his bony head. ‘Relax. It’s just a kid.’ She started to hook the leash to Charlie’s collar for the run home, but then the door slammed again and her head jerked up to see three more shapes racing across the street after the first. These were bulkier, obviously older kids, and there was something wrong about the way they moved; something stealthy and predatory that made Grace go still and watchful.
‘Goddamn it, you little prick, you’re going to get it this time!’
The enraged shout from across the park sent the poor dog down to his belly, nails furrowing the dirt as he clawed his way between Grace’s legs and the trunk of the oak.
Little bastards, Grace thought, down on her knees instantly, stroking the trembling dog, murmuring reassurance. ‘It’s okay, boy. It’s okay. They’re just kids. Loud kids. But they won’t hurt you. I wouldn’t let them. No one will ever hurt you again. You hear me, Charlie?’
His tongue swiped her cheek in a hot wash that chilled immediately in the cold air, but he still trembled. Grace kept stroking him, fastening the leash by touch as she watched the three older kids cruise the far side of the park. It took them only moments to find the first one and drag him from behind the tree.
‘No-o . . .’
It was a single word of desperation; a kid’s voice carrying an adult fear, cut off by the muffled thud of a fist hitting a soft body part. Grace rose slowly to her feet, eyes narrowing as they focused on the scuffle fifty yards away.
Two of the older kids were holding the arms of the small one while a third danced in and out like a boxer, taking punches at his belly. Maybe the little kid had it coming; she didn’t know; but the basic rules of fair play were being violated here, and Grace just hated that.
‘Stay,’ she told Charlie – a totally unnecessary command considering that the dog was still flattened against the ground like a doggy pancake. She did it more for his pride than anything else.
There was little light left to reflect on the figure in the long dark coat striding across the park; and even if there had been, the three older boys probably wouldn’t have seen her coming. They were too intent on the task at hand. To them it simply seemed that one moment they were alone, and the next there was a quiet, even voice just a few feet away saying, ‘Stop.’
Startled, the kid throwing the punches jerked upright and spun on the balls of his feet to face her. He was maybe fourteen, fifteen at most, with stringy blond hair, a narrow angry face, and acne eruptions that shouted puberty.
Testosterone overload, Grace thought, her eyes flicking briefly to his two companions, who looked so similar they might all have been brothers. The three wore multi-pocketed baggy pants, the kind that sagged well south of a belt line, and cheap overshirts that hung down to their knees. Wannabe Scandinavian gangbangers. Clothes too thin to hide a gun.
The little one they held pinned by his arms was the only one wearing a coat, and Grace suspected that if he ever took it off he’d never see it again. You didn’t get lambskin jackets like that at Kmart, or even Wilson’s Leather. Obviously the kid lifted at the best places. He was as black as the others were white, which was surprising. You didn’t see the two races mingling much in the city, in peace or war.
He was folded over from the last punch he’d taken to the belly, and when he looked up she saw a baby-smooth face that should have been on a swing set instead of taking a beating. His eyes and nose were streaming, but his little jaw jutted defiantly, and he didn’t make a sound.
‘Who the fuck are you?’ The puncher’s small pale eyes made a disdainful sweep of her body that was intended to intimidate.
Grace sighed. It had been a long day, and she was too tired for this. ‘Let the kid go.’
‘Oh, yeah, right, sure we will. Get the fuck outta here, bitch, before we start on you.’
Brothers two and three jerked on the black kid’s arms simultaneously, as if they were one organism instead of two, chiming in with their own colorful suggestions. ‘Fuck her.’
‘Yeah, fuck her. Hey. Maybe we should really fuck her.’ Nervous giggle.
‘Yeah, teach the white bitch a lesson.’
The white bitch. Grace shook her head, deciding not to point out that they, too, were white. I’m getting old, she thought. I no longer understand the insults of young people.
The puncher hunched his shoulders and dropped his head, looking up from beneath lowered brows. ‘You like getting fucked, lady? You like it in the ass? That your problem? Your old man don’t give it to you in the ass like you like it, so you come over here looking for it?’
They were a year or two away from being truly dangerous, as long as they weren’t carrying. They could have blades, of course, and she was ready for that, but she didn’t think so. When they were this underdeveloped, weapons always came out early.
‘I told you to let the kid go,’ Grace said.
He took a step toward her and stopped, squinting in the near-darkness, something flickering in his eyes when he got a good look at her. ‘Oh, yeah, you did, didn’t you? Well, I’ll tell you what. You get down on your knees and suck my dick and maybe I’ll think about it.’
It was probably poor manners to smile, but Grace couldn’t help it. ‘You are a disgusting little beast, aren’t you?’
‘Whaddya mean, “little”?’ he snarled, and that made Grace laugh out loud. Funny, the things that set people off.
He took another quick step toward her, started to raise his arm, then screamed at an electric bolt of pain that started in his right trapezoid and shot down to his fingers.
Grace dropped her hand back to her side and calmly watched the would-be boxer scramble backward, clutching his shoulder, face screwed up in a furious effort not to cry. ‘Jesus Christ! What the fuck did you do that for? Who the fuck are you? Get the fuck away from me!’