"Man, shut that thing off." The voice was loud, way too loud for an ambush, and Jason recognized it. It had once told him about a DVD in the dash of his imaginary Cadillac XLR. Under other circumstances, if his life were the only thing at stake, he might have smiled to think of Soul Patch coming back for another try.

The TV snapped off, silence dropping like an echoing curtain. Damn. The audio had provided good cover for his movement.

"What you doing, dog?" Soul Patch sounded irate.

"Shit came on by itself."

"Maybe Trey-Ball stepped on the remote."

Three men, three voices. That meant the stairs were clear. He kept his pace steady, lifting a foot, moving it careful, setting it down fully before picking up the other. He reached the counter, noticed the telephone on it. Why not. Picked up the receiver, dialed 911, then gently placed the handset on the counter and moved on.

"Man, I didn't step on shit."

"Well, somethin' happened."

Soul Patch's voice cut off the bickering. "Shut your damn mouths. Find this kid and let's take care of business."

The words yanked Jason's head sideways. His hands trembled as he processed the meaning behind the words. He'd assumed that Soul Patch had held a grudge from the other morning, had come back to try and finish him off. But that wasn't it at all. They weren't after him. They were after Billy. For some reason, they wanted to kill his nephew.

Not on Jason's watch.

He started up the stairs, moving along the outer edge, never putting his full weight down. Like all the houses in the neighborhood, Michael's was old, but where half the owners let them crumble, Michael had cared for his. The stairs were covered in new carpet, and the heavy weave muffled sound. If all went well, he could get Billy, head back down and out the way he'd come before the gangbangers realized they were gone.

Then a light went on in the hallway above him. "Dad?" Billy's voice was sleepy, confused, heartbreaking – and loud.

So much for stealth. Jason's heart jumped through his chest and he lunged forward, pounding up the steps, hearing the pursuit focus behind him, the squeak of sneakers on hardwood, something falling over with a crash.

At the end of the hallway, Billy stood in the crack of the doorway, framed in yellow light, tiny in his tighty-whiteys. Jason sprinted down the hall, passing the doors to Michael's room and the bathroom, then scooped his nephew under one arm, stepped into the boy's room, and kicked the door closed. His eyes danced fast: posters, NASCAR clock, pile of dirty clothes, writing desk with a ladder-back chair. It would do. He set Billy down, grabbed the chair and jammed it under the door handle, then flipped off the light.

He knew better than to think they were safe, strode across the room to the window. The roof of the three-season room was a few feet below them. He tugged at the window. Nothing happened. Footsteps slammed up the stairs. Jason cursed, wrenched the lock open, then threw the window up. "Come here!"

He turned to find Billy already standing beside him, eyes wide and skin pale by the glow of the streetlight. Jason pushed aside the stab of guilt at the boy's panic. No time. Chalk up one more reason to hate Soul Patch.

He heard a door slam open down the hallway, imagined the men sweeping flashlights across Michael's bed. Jason leaned forward to fumble with the latches of the screen. They were ancient, the plastic tabs sticking, the springs long rusted out. Fear coursed through his veins. He had to get Billy out of here.

He grimaced, then drove his right foot into the edge of the screen frame. The cheap assembly ripped off the window, falling out to clatter on the roof below. "Come on," he gestured to Billy, then half-helped, half-tossed him out the window. Behind him he heard the rattling of the door handle, heard it open a half inch to where the chair blocked it.

Jason crouched on the edge of the sill, threw one leg through, then pulled the other out. Billy stared at him, eyes wide as moons. A ripping crack, and behind them the chair gave, the door flying open. Someone yelled.

Jason grabbed his nephew, slung him over one shoulder, and ran to the edge of the roof, the tar sticky on his bare feet. Didn't even hesitate, just jumped to the grass below, the impact ringing electric in his knees and ankles. As he hit, he noticed the crooked two-by-fours laddering up the backyard's single tree to the wobbly treehouse he and Michael and Billy had built together, not two months ago.

There was a crack and an explosion of glass, and then he was running, mind automatically cataloguing gunfire, two, then three shots, he'd guess nine-millimeter. He dashed down the thin walkway between the houses, Billy's weight riding like a rucksack, the boy's arms around his neck, what was left of the childhood he'd known receding with every pounding panicked step.

Lights began to blink on in the houses around them, people who were awakened by gunfire more than they'd like, who knew to turn on their lights but never step out on the porch. The Cadillac was thirty yards down, and he sprinted as best he could, fumbling for his car keys with one hand. Ran to the passenger side and opened it, then climbed in that way, using the car as cover from the house, pulling Billy after him. Jason cranked the engine and jerked it into drive before the engine had finished firing.

The front door to Michael's house yanked open as they squealed away, and Jason half expected Soul Patch to run down the sidewalk, blasting away at them like some action movie bad guy, the back window blowing out. But mingling with the tires and the engine was the sound of sirens, loud wails coming from more than one direction. The call to 911 paying out. The figure in the door raised his gun, hesitated, then turned and vanished into the house.

His heart was racing, and Jason wanted to mash the gas and tear ass for miles, but he made himself slow down, turning off on the first street he saw, keeping his speed an even thirty. A police car screamed toward him, and he pulled out of its way, every bit the good citizen.

As he did, he looked over at his nephew, his little-boy body all but naked, lit up like a bruise in shades of red and blue, and he wondered who could be so messed up they'd want to murder an eight-year-old child.

And whether they'd try again.

CHAPTER 12

Anthony DiRisio was bored. He couldn't see how the police did it, sitting on stakeouts for hours and hours. In the movies, they always made it look like the cops had just enough time to share a war story before something went down. But he'd been waiting half a block from the niggers' house for two hours, and the only thing that'd happened was he really needed to take a piss. He sighed and stretched, the shoulder holster riding up on his ribs.

He was parked far enough away that nobody would notice the van, but still had a good angle on the front porch, where homeboys sipped bottles of Eight Ball. They were clowning and posing like the lords of all creation in the midst of a neighborhood that looked like the Lebanon. Crumbling bungalows with steel cages over the front doors, tiny yards grown to shit. No respect for their environment. Graffiti on the billboards, graffiti on the lampposts, graffiti on the goddamn street in front of the house.

A muscular guy stepped outside, his body silhouetted. Bass-heavy rap flowed out from the open door like theme music. Dion Williams, called himself "C-Note." Anthony called him "C-nappy-ass nigger." He bumped fists with one of the brothers, and the jig got up and followed him back inside.

He knew it wasn't fashionable to call them "jigs" anymore, but it was the word he'd learned as a child growing up south of Taylor, and it stuck in his mind.