"That's what I said."

"What I mean is, you're not playing the dick with me now. This's you talking. And what you don't want is anything could mess up the shakedown you got working." He said, "Am I right?" Grinning at Chris now.

"You get all ready to make your move and somebody steps in front of you. Have to line up, huh, to get a piece of the guy. So you're saying if anything happens to blow your deal, you'll turn hardass dick and we'll be sorry. Well, I can't fault you for thinking like that.

Shit, I would too."

"Where's Robin?"

Skip hesitated, easing back, picking up his drink.

"You want to tell her yourself, huh?"

Chris said, "I want to make sure she understands."

"I can tell her, if that's all you're worried about."

"Where is she?"

Skip hesitated again.

"It's up to you. She's over in a parking lot behind St. Andrews Hall.

Couple blocks from here."

"I know where it is."

"Sitting in a red VW."

"I want to see her alone," Chris said.

"You wait here."

Skip pushed up the sleeve of his jacket to glance at his

RD

watch. He looked at Chris then with a mild expression and said it again.

"It's up to you."

Last November there were rock fans in the alley behind St. Andrews Hall, new-wavers in studded leather, spiked hair in Easter colors; normal-looking fans went unnoticed. Inside this auditorium without seats they pressed in a mass against the stage and rocked to Iggy Pop and his Brits turned loose: Iggy nonstop trying to twist himself in the air to levitate over his reaching fans while Chris, in the low balcony, watched and wondered what it was like to have that energy, to feel that response rising from outstretched hands and lighters flaming and all those eyes never letting go Today there were young black guys in the alley by the back door to the hall, waiting there, watching Chris coming toward them. Three guys with wide shoulders and skinny pants, wearing Pony sneakers. Their attitude was familiar to Chris but not their faces. A fourth guy, with bigger shoulders stretching his silky green jacket and holding a baseball bat, came out of the row of cars facing the alley.

This one was very familiar. He didn't have to stick out his tongue to be identified.

Chris took a quick look toward the parking lot full of cars. He didn't notice a red VW.

Juicy Mouth was saying, "This the man let Hooker blow his self up."

Announcing it to the three young guys, who were too cool to do more than appear half asleep.

It gave Chris time to look for a connection and think of Wendell saying there wasn't one, not between Booker's bomb and Woody's. But look at this, there was some kind of connection. Robin and Juicy? That didn't sound right.

Donnell and Juicy?

"Make it easy on you," Juicy was saying to him now.

"No fuss, stick your leg out, your foot on the bumper of that car, we be done and gone."

"You want to break my leg?"

Juicy held up the bat.

"Check it out. What have I got here?"

"For what?"

"Listen, I told the person I do more. They say no, don't put him away, put him in the hospital a while. That be fine, that do it."

"What person you talking about?"

"Can't tell you that, man. Same as like a lawyer won't tell you shit how he knows something. Check it out, it's the same thing what I'm saying."

"Was it Donnell Lewis?"

"Man, I just told you what I ain't gonna tell you."

Chris saw Juicy look up and move slowly toward the back of the old building. Chris stepped to the parking lot side and a car crept past them, going up the alley. Juicy came away from the building watching Chris, about twenty feet between them, but said to the young guys, "You get it open?"

One of them said, "I need a tire iron. Something to pop it."

Chris said, "You think I'm going in there with you?"

He unbuttoned his coat, his hand brushing the big grip of the automatic stuck in his waist, and held the coat open for Juicy.

"You see it?" He half turned to the three guys by the door, still holding open the coat.

"You see it?" Then said to Juicy again, "Was it Donnell?"

Juicy said, "You not suppose to have that, man. What is that, some kind of gun?"

Chris pulled the Clock from his waist and looked at the three well-built young guys as he palmed the slide, racked it and the gun was ready to fire. He said to them, "What you do now, you run, fast as you can. I don't want to ever see you again."

Juicy, taking his time, was coming toward him now, saying, "Man, is that thing real? That's a strange-looking piece, man. It shoot bullets or what?"

Chris said to the three young guys, "I'm gonna count to two."

The three guys stood posed at rest, dull-eyed, slack, hips cocked at studied angles.

Chris said, "One," raised the Clock and fired at the metal door behind them, past the nearest guy's head, and they were running as that hard sound filled the alley and Chris said, "Two."

He saw Juicy duck into the parking lot and went after him down a line of cars," catching glimpses of a moving figure, silky green, came to the exit drive, on the street, and there was no sign of him. An older black guy, the parking attendant, stood in the door of the shack, his office. He kept staring at the gun in Chris's hand till finally he pointed a direction and stepped back inside. Chris moved along the front of the cars facing the street, past the grill of a Rolls, another car, heard door locks snap closed and saw Juicy behind the wheel of a white Cadillac sedan, Juicy staring straight ahead. Chris approached on the passenger side and tapped the barrel of the Clock against the window.

"Hey, Juice? Who is it wants my leg busted?"

The guy refused to speak or turn his head, hands locked on the steering wheel.

"You can tell me, it's okay. Just don't stick out your tongue. Man, that thing is scary, like it's something alive, you know what I mean?

Living in your mouth… Who was it, Donnell?"

Juicy didn't answer or move or twitch or anything.

Chris said, "You think I don't see you? Okay, that's how you want it."

Chris put the muzzle of the gun flat against the glass and said,

"Juice? Look."

But the guy still wouldn't move.

Chris said, "You know what Mel Gibson would do?" and was anxious to show him as he thought of Mel blazing away with his Beretta. Shit, the Clock held more rounds.

First, though, Juicy had to be looking at him. And second, he had to be careful, not shoot through the car and hit something else, or somebody on the street a block away.

So Chris walked around to the front of the Cadillac. He raised the Clock in one hand and stood sideways-not the way Mel Gibson did it, two-handed-Juicy looking right at him now, aimed at the fat top part of the seat next to the guy and began squeezing off shots-loud, Jesus, they'd hear it at 1300-counting "four" as the shatterproof windshield came apart, counted from five through ten and stopped. Where was Juicy? There, his head showing as he came up, very cautious, behind the steering wheel. Chris fired five more quick rounds into the car before Juicy could move, continued to hold the gun aimed in the silence and said, "Was it Donnell?"

Juicy nodded, up and down.

"Say it."

"It was him."

"You feel better now?"

"I don't owe him nothing. He busted off my tooth one time, was in a Men's."

"You could've told me it was Donnell before and saved your car getting wrecked."

Juicy said, "What, this? This ain't my car."

Robing used to roll joints Skip said were the next thing to being factory made. She had rolled him one hard and tight he was smoking now, sitting low in her fake-leather chair. Robin had a hip on the edge of her desk, red sunburst still on the wall behind her, watching him as she fooled with her braid.