I tried to scream at her. The scream was a bubble of agony, terror, unreality and negation swelling in my chest, struggling to break through like a drowning man struggling for the surface.

The smile widened on her face. She batted her eyes at me. The match came to life. It was like a stage magician’s trick. She held the lit match above her cupped palm as if to say “Look, see? I have made fire!”

She let go of the flickering match. I could no longer see the flame from it, but I knew it was there. The match fell slowly, gracefully, a drifting feather-match, as delicate as a mayfly’s wings and as potent as poison.

The bubble broke. The scream came, at first as an almost silent wail, then in growing intensity like a teakettle coming to boil, it whistled out:

“ NnoooOOOOO!”

Flames engulfed her, her hair, her eyes, her clothes and skin. And I was screaming but my scream was just the tiniest whistle.

“Bill! Bill!” It was Hank and I was awake, the shallow wail from my throat cut off.

“Get a hold of yourself,” he said.

I stared into the darkness in the direction of his voice. The house was quiet.

I noticed lights through the blousy window curtains. Truck headlights. They were there just a moment before they winked out.

“Somebody’s here,” Hank said. “I hope to God it’s this big friend of yours.”

“That it’s Lawrence,” I said. “Back from his chicken run to Waco. Yeah. I hope so too.”

It was.

The inside back porch light came on and I heard a heavy tread on the hardwood floor.

I listened.

After a few moments I heard low murmurs from down the long hallway off the living room. It sounded like it was the back bedroom. It was Lawrence and his mother whispering to each other.

I didn’t feel so good, and it wasn’t just the leftover stirrings from the nightmare I had just experienced. It was a feeling of vacuumdown in my gut. Like maybe I was taking unfair advantage of folks of good will and had become a nuisance.

The whispers and mumbles lasted a few minutes, Mrs. Coleeta explaining, no doubt, and Lawrence clarifying. No other voices.

The conversation ceased. The hardwood floors vibrated, and I knew Lawrence was again moving through the house.Hank and I waited, but Lawrence was either intent on getting some much-needed sleep for himself or on allowing-for the moment-sleeping dogs to lie. Or both at the same time.

We heard the creak of old bed springs behind a closed door.

“Let’s catch a few hours more,” Hank whispered in my direction.

Before long I was back on the edge of sleep. And thankfully, this time, there were no dreams.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Breakfast was a family affair. Keesha sat up at the table, smiling, a milk moustache prominent beneath her little nose. She wore a small light-blue PowerPuff Girls blouse-one of the purchases from Target, no doubt. She looked happy in it. No more lonely nights and grimy tenements for her. It made my heart glad.

Julie sat across from me and to Keesha’s left, making fast work with her knife and fork.

Lawrence put in an appearance, plopping himself down in a chair and looking as though he could do with a little additional sleep.

Breakfast done, Julie helped Ms. Coleeta with clearing the table and getting the kitchen squared away. It was refreshing to see Keesha both eager to help and encouraged to at the same time. The vacant look that had been there on her face had begun to fade. There is no greater thrill in life than to find that you are not only useful, but that you can help, and that your help matters. I was sure it was that, coupled with her natural childhood resilience, that made all the difference.

Hank remained at the table nursing yet another cup of coffee while Lawrence took me out back to the pit.

As the morning wore on, I helped him clean out the previous day’s dead coals and scrape the grill.

I had a beer in my left hand, and that made it feel like a Sunday.

“Hey, Bill?” I knew from the tone of his voice that what he had to talk about with me wouldn’t be exactly sweetness and light. I was right. “How’d you get roped into this?” he asked after handing me a scratcher pad.

“It’s a long story,” I told him.

“When did it start?”

“As far as I can tell about 1926.”

“You’re playin’ me, man,” he said.

“Well, maybe a little. But still, I think that’s where the money started. I’ve still got some checking into all that to do. But I came in on this whole thing Monday morning. By the way, what’s today?”

“Thursday.”

“Damn,” I said.

“Yeah. Time flies, and all that nonsense.”

“Yeah.”

“You got pulled in pretty fast, didn’t you?”

Fast. That was the word I’d been searching for while dodging Austin Police patrol cars in the night.

“Yeah,” I said. “But compared to what?”

“Don’t get me wrong, Bill,” he said. “She seems like a fine lady, even though she’s some kind of thief, but-you gonna do this thing? You going to help her?”

I thought about it for a moment. “I don’t know what else to do,” I said.

“Bill,” he said, pausing. I looked up at him. “You in love with this girl or something? Don’t get me wrong. I’m smitten with her myself.”

I looked down at the grill I was scrubbing and at my hands. The grill was cleaner than it had been probably since it was new and I had flecks of black carbon up to my elbows. It was a hell of a question, and I suppose it took me a little off guard. I wasn’t sure how to answer.

“You really want an answer for that, Lawrence?”

“Not if you don’t want to give me one.”

He looked at me, his large brown eyes both expectant and patient.

“I like her, Lawrence. She reminds me I’m still alive.”

He laughed. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” I said.

“I’ve seen men do worse.”

We put our attention back on the job at hand for another ten minutes. When I looked back up, Lawrence was just standing there, his hands on his hips. He was a big man, but he carried it well. I’d known a few large guys before that were like Lawrence; much bigger than they themselves perceived. I had a theory that because they were not so consciously aware of their own size they could be dexterous and quick. There’s nothing quite as liberating as not knowing one’s own limitations.

“The kid can stay with us,” he said.

“That one came out of left field,” I told him.

“That’s where I pitch from. Don’t take this the wrong way, but she needs her own kind of folks. What she don’t need is more danger.”

I agreed with him. I hoped that Julie would as well. Maybe it wouldn’t be a sticking point. A wedge between us.

I finished up on his grill. When I looked around, he was unloading whole chickens from a large Igloo cooler, setting them up next to his cutting board, getting them ready to quarter.

“Bill. I’d join you. I’d help out.”

“But?” I waited.

“I’ve got to mind this grill and take care of my momma. I wouldn’t mind seeing a little action, though, you know?”

“Action? That’s the last thing I want. Really, I’d prefer a vacation.

“Yeah, right!” He laughed. “Since when do people like us get to take vacations?”

I supposed he was right.

He turned towards me, one large brown hand with long fingers like plump sausages wrapped around a whole chicken. I imagined those hands could be of real use to us in the near future, but it looked as though it wasn’t meant to be.

“Yeah. I understand,” I told him.

“But I do have one piece of advice for you,” he said.

“I’m listening.”

“Good. I don’t like to give out advice. Most of the time people don’t like to take it. It was a white fellow, I think, who said that people just hear what they want to hear, and disregard the rest.”