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vaults and& " she gestured around us, wearily "libraries." True enough. Once upon a time, I hadn't seen the difference between right and wrong, and Uncle Ben died for it. I sighed. "Look, there's nothing else to be gained here. You want to go?" She nodded. "Yeah. Another library?" "No," I said. "I have another stop to make." Chapter 12 Coach Kyle had been right. It wasn't a great neighborhood. The Larkins' apartment building was well coated with graffiti and neglect. There wasn't a visible streetlight that hadn't been broken. The windows on the lower floors were all barred and covered in boards. There weren't a lot of cars around, and the ones that were looked far too expensive for anyone living there except for one old Oldsmobile, which had been put on blocks and stripped to a skeleton of its former self. Most tellingly, on a Saturday afternoon, there was almost no one in sight. I saw one gray-haired woman walking down the street with a hard expression and a purposeful stride. Several young men in gang colors sat on or around one of the expensive cars while a big radio boomed. Other than that, nothing. No pedestrians headed for a corner grocery store. No one taking out the trash or walk-ing to the mailbox. No children out playing in the pleasant weather. I'd filled Felicia in on Samuel, and she had listened to the whole thing without comment until we got where we were going. "You take me to the nicest places," she said. "Which building?" "The one with those friendly-looking young men with the radio." "I thought you'd say that," Felicia said. We approached the building and got flat-eyed stares from the young men. They sat with the grips of handguns poking up out of their waistbands or outlined against their loose shirts. None of them were older than nineteen. One couldn't have been fifteen. "Hey," said one of the larger young men, his tone belligerent. "White bread. Where you think you're going?" I gestured with a hand without slowing down, as if it had been a polite inquiry instead of a challenge. "Visiting a friend." The kid came to his feet with an aggressive little bounce and planted himself directly in my way. "I don't know you. Maybe you better just turn around." He looked past me to Felicia. "You're pretty stupid, coming down here with a piece like that. Where do you think you are, man?" I stopped and looked around, then scratched my head. "Isn't this Sesame Street? I'm sure Mister Snuffalupagus is around here somewhere." The kid in front of me got mad and got right in my face, eye to eye. The young men with him let out an ugly, growling sound as a whole. "You trying to start something, man? You gonna get a cap, you keep this up." It was annoying. If I'd been wearing the mask, I could have taken these kids' guns away and scared them off. Peter Parker, part-time science teacher, however, couldn't beat up gangs single-handed. And if anything started, Felicia was sure to pitch in. She could handle herself as well as anyone I knew, but this wasn't the time or the place to look for a fight. I lifted my hands and said, "Sorry, man, just joking with you. I'm here to see Samuel Larkin." "What do you care?" "I'm his basketball coach," I said. That drew a round of quiet laughs. "Sure you are." He shook his head. "Time you're leaving." "No," I said quietly. "I need to see Samuel Larkin." The young man pulled up his shirt and put his hand on the grip of a semiautomatic stuck in his waistband. "I ain't gonna tell you again." I met his gaze in silence, and didn't move. He expected me to, I could tell, and as the seconds ticked by he started to get nervous. He had his hand on a gun, all of his friends had guns, and I would have had to be insane not to be afraid. He had expected me to back off or produce a gun of my own, or attack him anything, really, but stand there calmly. The basic tactics of bullies hadn't changed since I was in school cause fear and control peo-ple with it. Granted, they hadn't carried around the handguns quite so obviously. And if one of them had backed down back then, it probably would have meant a little bit of embarrassment. Depending on how hard-core this gang was, backing off could cost this kid his leadership which could well mean his life, or at least everything he thought was of value in it. I lowered my voice so that only he could hear it. "Don't," I said quietly. "Please." He swallowed. Then his shoulder tensed to draw the gun. "George," bellowed a deep voice from above us. "What you think you doing to my coach?" I looked up and found Samuel's scowling face looking down from a window on the fourth floor. George, presumably, looked away from me and put his hands on his hips to scowl up at Samuel. "I don't know no George." Samuel rolled his eyes. "Oh, yeah. G. You just G now, huh. George got too many letters." "You got a big mouth," George said, scowling. Samuel barked out a laugh. "G, you always been a funny guy." Then he looked at me and said, "Hey, Coach Parker." "Mr. Larkin," I replied, nodding. "Got a minute to talk?" "Buzz you in," he said. "Don't be too hard on my man G. Nobody ever gave him a hug or a puppy or anything like that, so he grew up with a bad attitude." I nodded to him and walked to the door. Behind me, George stepped in front of Felicia and said, "Now you, girl. You're fine. Maybe you should stay here and hang with me. Me and my crew will keep you safe from the bad element." Felicia took off the glasses and smiled at him. Not a pretty smile. It was a slightly unsettling kind of smile, very Lecter-like. "I am the bad element," she said, toothily. "The question you should be asking is, Who is going to keep you and your crew safe from me?" George let out a laugh, but it sort of died a strangled death a second or two in. Felicia kept smiling and took a step closer to him. George took a wary step back from her. "That's good, G," she told him. "That's smart. Smart men are sexy." The door buzzed, and I opened it for Felicia. She sauntered through, giving George a dazzling smile on the way, and vanished into the building. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ] |
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