by P. J. Tracy
Once the Range Rover was safely in the garage with the door closed behind her, she pushed another button on the visor and turned off the floodlights. There was only one window in the small building – a narrow one by the side door that admitted a slice of the fading light from outside. Other than that, the darkness was almost absolute.
Drawing her weapon before she got out of the car was so much a part of her routine that Grace never thought about it. In the five years she had lived in this house, she had never once stepped out of the garage without the 9mm in her right hand, held close to her side in a rare gesture of consideration for neighbors who might not understand.
She made her way to the side door, looked out the narrow window at the patch of yard between the garage and her house, then pressed six numbers on a keypad next to the door and heard the heavy clunk of a releasing latch. She stepped outside and stopped for a moment, holding her breath, listening, watching, every sense alert for something out of place. She heard the swoosh of a passing car stirring up dry leaves on the street; the bass throb of a sound system somewhere down the block; the muted chitter of sparrows settling for the night. Nothing unusual. Nothing wrong.
Finally satisfied, she pulled the small door closed behind her and heard the soft beep of the alarm system signaling activation. Nineteen quick steps on a strip of concrete that led from the garage to the front door, eyes busy, palm sweating on the textured grip of the 9mm, and then she was there, slipping the red card into the slot, opening the heavy front door, stepping inside and closing it quickly behind her. She released the breath she’d been holding as Charlie came to her on his belly, head down in submission, the stub that remembered a tail trying to sweep the floor.
‘My man.’ She smiled, holstering the gun before she went down on her knees to hug the wire-coated wonder. ‘Sorry I’m late.’
The dog punished her with a spate of furious face-licking, then bounded away down the short central hall back to the kitchen. There were a few seconds of toenails scrabbling for purchase on linoleum, then Charlie returned at a dangerous gallop, leash in his mouth.
‘Sorry, fella. There isn’t enough time.’
Charlie looked at her for a moment, then slowly opened his mouth and let the leash fall to the floor.
‘It’ll be dark soon,’ she explained.
The dog gave her his best crestfallen expression.
Grace sucked in air through her teeth. ‘No walks after dark. We made a deal, remember?’
The scruffy, gnawed-off tail wiggled.
‘Nope. Can’t do it. I’m sorry. I’m really sorry.’
He never begged. Never whined. Never questioned, because whatever life Charlie had had before her had beaten those things out of him. He simply collapsed on the Oriental runner and put his head on his paws, nose nudging the discarded leash. Grace couldn’t stand it.
‘You are a disgraceful manipulator.’
The stub moved, just a little.
‘We’d have to run all the way down there.’
The dog sat up quickly.
‘And we couldn’t stay long.’
Charlie opened his mouth in a wonderful smile and his tongue fell out.
Grace bent to hook the leash to his heavy collar, feeling the excited quiver beneath her fingers and, stranger still, the seldom-used muscles at the corners of her mouth turning up. ‘We make each other smile, don’t we, boy?’
And what a wondrous thing that was for them both.
They literally ran the short block to the little park, Grace’s duster flapping in time with Charlie’s ears, her boots clicking hard on the concrete sidewalk.
The last feeble light of a cold sun flickered between the closely set houses as they ran, flashing in Grace’s peripheral vision with the distracting jerkiness of an old silent movie.
The neighborhood was quieting with the onset of cold and the dinner hour. Only two cars passed them on the way: a ’93 teal Ford Tempo with a young girl at the wheel, license number 907 Michael-David-Charlie; and a ’99 red Chevy Blazer, two occupants, license number 415 Tango-Foxtrot-Zulu.
They’re just people, Grace told herself. Just normal, average people heading home after a workday, and if they slowed a little when they saw her, if they looked a little too long out their windows, it was only because they weren’t used to seeing someone walk their dog at a dead run.
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!’
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 Charl
ie 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.
