Grace pouted. ‘What. No more romance?’
‘You bitch. You motherfucking bitch what did you do to me I can’t feel my motherfucking arm!’
‘What’d she do, Frank? What’d she do?’
‘I’ll show you.’ She took a step toward the other two, who exchanged an alarmed glance over the black kid’s head, then dropped his arms and quickly backed away.
‘Your ass is dead, bitch!’ one of them hissed at her, trying to swagger as he scurried backward. ‘You are one dead motherfucker.’
‘Uh-huh.’
She didn’t chase them, exactly. She just walked after them at an unhurried pace, finally stopping when she got to the curb, reminding herself that they were only kids, and you weren’t supposed to frighten children.
She watched them disappear into a crumbling stucco across the street, and then said out loud, ‘Don’t come up behind me.’ She turned to see the black kid frozen in mid-stride, a few feet away.
‘You weren’t supposed to hear me.’ Crestfallen.
‘Well, I did.’
A full lower lip jutted. ‘No one hears me. I’m the black shadow. I’m quiet as night. I’m the best.’
‘You are good,’ Grace gave him. ‘But I’m better.’ She started walking back toward the tree where she’d left Charlie. A loose sole flopped on the kid’s left tennis shoe as he trotted beside her. ‘You should have lifted a new pair of sneakers when you got the jacket. That’s what gave you away.’
‘The jacket’s mine.’
‘Sure it is.’
‘Good leather lasts a long time. Sneakers don’t. Those, I lifted. Show me what you did to Frank, huh?’
She lengthened her stride. ‘Go home, kid.’
‘Oh, right. Me and the blond brothers alone in the house after you made them look like pussies? Ain’t gonna happen. I’ll wait till Helen gets home.’
Grace stopped, took a breath, then looked down at him. ‘You live with those kids?’
He jerked his head toward the stucco that had swallowed Dumb, Dumber, and Dumbest. ‘Foster home.’ He shrugged.
One of Grace’s eyebrows shifted up a notch. ‘An integrated foster home?’
‘Not enough black people signing up. Don’t you listen to the news? So sometimes the brothers get lucky, and sometimes we get Little Rock.’
‘What do you know about Little Rock?’
‘I read about it.’
‘Oh yeah? How old are you?’
‘Nine. Almost ten.’
Going on a hundred, Grace thought, and started walking again. It was almost full dark now, and she wanted desperately to be home. The kid stuck like glue.
‘Where do you think you’re going?’ she asked him without stopping.
‘I’m just walking.’
‘This Helen, is she your foster mom?’
‘Yeah.’
‘You like her?’
‘She’s okay. At least she keeps the other three from killing me, when she’s around.’
‘So where is she?’
‘Work. Gets home at seven-thirty.’
Up ahead, Grace saw Charlie’s nose peek around the trunk of the tree. ‘You’ve got about half an hour to walk, then.’
‘About. Hey, is that a dog?’
Grace’s arm shot out to block the kid’s chest. ‘He scares easy.’
‘Oh.’ The kid went down on his knees and stretched out one arm, pink palm up. ‘C’mere, boy, c’mere.’
Charlie flattened his head onto the ground and tried to disappear.
‘Jeez, what happened to him?’
‘He came that way.’
The kid cocked his head and studied the dog for a minute. ‘That’s really sad.’
Grace gave him a sidelong glance, considering. It was her opinion that anyone who could empathize with the suffering of an animal might not be totally irredeemable.
She made a small gesture with her hand that Charlie considered for a long moment before rising and moving cautiously toward them, head down in fearful submission.
‘Wow,’ the kid whispered, staying stock-still. ‘He’s scared to death, and he still comes. You’re some alpha dog.’
‘Where do you get this stuff?’
‘I read, I told you.’
‘Nine-year-old kids aren’t supposed to read. They’re supposed to sit in front of violent video games, frying their brains.’
The kid’s teeth shone an unreal white in the dark. ‘I’m a rebel.’
‘I guess.’ She watched Charlie inching closer, his trust in Grace doing noble battle with his fear of strangers. ‘Come on, Charlie, it’s all right.’
But Charlie was having none of it. He stopped dead and sat down, worried eyes jerking back and forth between the woman who represented safety and the apparently terrifying visage of a four-foot-tall boy.
‘I guess that’s as close . . .’ she started to say, but before she could finish the sentence the kid was on his back on the ground. ‘What are you doing?’
‘Exposing my belly,’ he whispered up at her. ‘Total submission pose. Nonthreatening.’
‘Ah.’
‘That guy who went up to Alaska and lived with the wolves? He said this is what the outside wolves have to do to get accepted into the pack. How come you carry a gun?’
Grace sighed and looked down the dark street, thinking she must really be slipping if a fat cop and a little kid pegged her in one day. When she looked back, Charlie was standing over the boy, washing his face with his long sloppy tongue, his hind end wagging like crazy.
‘Hey, Charlie, you good ole boy, you,’ the kid giggled, squirming now, trying to dodge the lashing tongue. ‘That old wolf man, he sure knew what he was talking about, huh?’
Grace folded her arms and looked on, her expression faintly disgusted. Charlie was all over the kid now, licking, whining, the stump of his tail beating the world, generally making a fool of himself. There was no dignity in this. Worse yet, it was distracting. A car seemed to appear out of nowhere, cruising slowly by the park. She hadn’t even heard it coming.
‘Charlie!’ A little panic in the voice as she watched the car pass, then turn into the driveway next to the stucco house. A woman got out, reached back in for a bag of groceries. Grace exhaled. ‘It’s time to go home.’
With obvious reluctance, Charlie moved obediently to her side and the kid got up, brushing dried leaves off his pants. ‘We were just playing. Dog like that needs a boy. If you like, I could come over after school sometimes, keep him company till you got home.’
‘No thanks.’ Grace jerked her head toward his house. ‘Your salvation just arrived.’
The kid glanced over at the car, and when he looked back, Grace and Charlie were already walking away. ‘Wait a minute! You didn’t show me that thing you did to Frank yet!’
Grace shook her head without turning around.
‘Come on, lady, have a heart! Thing like that could save my little black ass, you know!’ he shouted after her.
She kept walking.
‘Trouble with some people is they just don’t get what it means to be afraid all the time!’ An angry shout now; frustrated.
That stopped her. She took a breath, let it out, then turned around and walked back. He stood his ground, looking up with the whites of his eyes showing. Defiant and wet, all at the same time.
‘Listen, kid . . .’
‘My name’s Jackson.’
She ran her tongue over the inside of her left cheek, considering. ‘You’re too short for the hold I put on Frank, got it? But I could show you something else . . .’
19
Freedman and McLaren were thorough. They did one walk through the boat with Captain Magnusson, then another on their own, double-checking the three sets of restrooms, the food service areas, even the tiny cabin where the captain kept a book, a recliner, and a spare uniform hanging on a wall hook.
‘Not a lot of space in here,’ Freedman had told him, trying to maneuver his bulk through the doorway.