"Not much longer."

"Better job?"

"This one, actually." Washington took a sip of his gin. "You heard of a man called Adam Kent?"

"Nope."

"Started an import business out of his garage twenty years ago, now he's a multimillionaire. Night after tomorrow he's hosting a benefit dinner for us, and he's giving half a million dollars from his own pocket."

"Half a million?" Jason whistled. "Jesus."

Washington nodded. "Going to make a world of difference. Right now, we're running on scraps and prayers. I lose a lot of boys could be helped."

Jason took another sip of the liquor. Felt that male discomfort, wanting to say something but the words weird. "You helped me."

"You didn't need much. Just a little direction."

"Still. I was sliding. I mean rebellion is one thing, but stealing televisions?" He shook his head. "If you hadn't kicked my ass, I might have gone the wrong way."

Washington leaned forward with the bottle and refilled both their glasses. Somewhere a siren screamed.

"I should have come before," Jason said.

"I was wondering if you would. Your brother told me you were out of the service."

Jason grimaced, stood, walked to the porch railing. Opposite the house was an abandoned lot. When he'd lived down the block there used to be an old playground carousel out there, a rusty metal circle that spun on a central point. He and Michael would grab hold and run as fast as they could, then jump on, watch the world blur around them. "I thought about it." He closed his eyes, saw Martinez, opened them fast. "Just that things… haven't worked out so well for me."

"How do you mean?"

"I didn't leave the Army. I was discharged." The sky had grown too dark to show whether the carousel still sat amidst the weeds. Jason tried not to think about the words. " 'Other than honorable,' they call it. For 'patterns of misconduct.' It's a pretty common way to drum somebody out. They do it to a lot of guys who admit to having PTSD. Not the same as dishonorable, but not good."

"You want to talk about it?"

"No." From a distant car he caught a snatch of music, something Latin and pretty, appropriate for a night so thick with heat. He sighed. "I made a mistake."

"What kind?"

"The kind where people die."

Washington said nothing. The old man had always been good at that.

"I disobeyed an order," Jason said. "I was a sergeant, and I ordered my men somewhere they weren't supposed to be. One of them got killed."

The Worm slid between his ribs and his heart, a nauseous slippery feeling.

"That's a hard load, son."

Jason sipped his gin, stared into the darkness. "Harder for the guy who died." So much had happened in so short a time, he felt battered, like a heavy bag worked over by a boxer. He blew a breath, brushed the bangs from his sweating brow. Turned and leaned back against the railing. "You see Michael a lot?"

"He brought Billy over plenty of weekends. Helped out, threw us a fundraiser once a year in the bar. But he always wanted to be more aggressive. Wanted the community to fight back, to go after the gangs directly. And he didn't like the politics and fundraising. Said people just gave money so they felt okay about ignoring the problem."

"Is that true?"

Washington shrugged. "Son, I don't much care. Kids are dying out here. The money helps."

Jason nodded. That sounded like Michael, to draw a line in black and white, not be able to see the shades of gray between. It was one of the things that had always made it difficult between them, the way Mi-

Crack!

The sound was loud and sharp, and Jason acted without thinking, body moving to a combat stance, jerking the Beretta from beneath his shirt, his eyes wide, searching for motion or muzzle flare, ready to spring in any direction. Neck tingling, senses raging, palms sweaty but sure against the grip.

Nothing happened.

It took a moment of standing weapon-ready before Jason remembered where he was. How often he'd heard that sound as a kid, always far enough away that he could never be sure if it was a gun or a car backfiring or a cherry bomb. It was a city phenomenon, especially on the South Side, just one of those things you got used to. He felt a flush of heat in his face, a vein in his forehead. He stared into the darkness, afraid to turn around.

Then, from behind, "You want to tell me why you brought a gun to my house?"

Jason sighed. Snapped on the safety and tucked the pistol away, still looking out into the twilight. "I'm sorry."

"Sorry's no kind of answer." The softness was gone from Washington's voice.

Jason nodded. Turned slowly, pulled out a chair, and told the man the whole story, from Playboy on. It took nearly an hour, and Washington didn't say a word until he was done. Just sat stonefaced and alert. When it was all over, he said, "I don't like guns."

"I'm sorry."

"I won't have it in my house."

"I'll leave it in the car. I'll take it there now, if you want."

Washington stared at him. "You do that before you walk through my door. And lock it in the trunk, you hear?" When Jason nodded, Washington leaned back. He took a slow sip of gin, stared into the distance. "You said it was Playboy come after you?"

"You know him?" After the afternoon he'd had, Jason supposed he shouldn't be surprised. Washington obviously knew most everything going on in the neighborhood.

"He's a Gangster Disciple, a soldier. Second in command."

"Second in command? He was like twenty-three."

"Gangs recruit young. A thirty-year-old thinks before he pulls the trigger. A fifteen-year-old don't."

"Is Playboy somebody who might come after Michael for talking to the police?"

"Sure. But you said the men Billy saw were white."

"Yeah." Jason put his feet on the railing. "I don't know who they were." He rubbed his eyes, black stars popping. "Hell, I don't even know what's going on out here."

"What's going on?" Washington shrugged. "Things are getting worse. That's the nature of things. You know that nearly fifty percent of black boys drop out of high school? I'm talking city of Chicago. A whole generation, and we're failing them."

"Who's failing them? I didn't force them to drop out of school. And I sure as shit didn't ask them to come after my family," Jason said. "What about their parents?"

"Parent, son. Usually just a mom alone, working two minimum-wage jobs, bringing in maybe four hundred a week. Can't afford daycare, can't afford books or a computer, and she ain't never there. Kid doesn't have a home, school is failing him, the streets are rough, what choice he got but to pledge a set?"

"Bullshit." He was a guest, but he couldn't let that go, not after the last days. "I grew up down the block. You know my dad split. Mom had three jobs. Michael and I both worked, bought our own clothes from when we were twelve. Everybody's got a choice. They join because Tupac or Snoop Dogg or whoever else says it's cool. Join a gang, you get to ride around with a gun, women falling all over to climb in your Benz."

Washington shook his head. "You know how much a kid makes slinging rock? Nine, ten bucks an hour. Suburban kids make that at Starbucks, don't have to worry about nothing but burning their fingers. They don't join up for the money."

"Lemme guess. They join up for their community, stand against the white man."

"There's a black-white thing, sure, but not the way you mean."

"So why then?"

"For respect," said a low voice from behind them.

Jason whirled. The man in the door was menacing as hell: two-fifty, six-something, with arms of carved granite and hair tightly braided to his skull. "Got nothing, goin' nowhere. But if they join a crew, then they famous. Rising ghetto stars. Nobody can mess with them, 'cause they belong."