CHAPTER FIVE

Out of Century Plaza, the purse swinging.

Big purse, too, and heavy. Like it was packed with lead weights.

Scoot's luck, it'd be full of books on tax law or binders of corporate policies and procedures.

But you never knew. There might be good stuff. Stuff that was worth some money. Once, Scoot found a velvet ring box in the bottom of a scruffy denim purse, and the diamond-and-onyx baby inside had fetched six hundred bucks.

And even if this buttercream-leather shoulderbag number turned out to be a dud, that wasn't the point. The point was the taking. The rush, the thrill, the excitement. The conquest. Taking, not having.

People jumped out of the way, some shouting after Scoot, shouting things like "Watch where you're going, asshole!" as Scoot sped down 10th Street and hung a hard right onto Prewett.

The electric blue wheels hummed, juddering over the grooves in the concrete. Scoot's feet rode firm but easy on the board's fiberglass surface, which was glossy black and airbrushed with blue-white lightning bolts.

Scoot reached into the deep windbreaker pocket and touched the slick, somehow greasy surface of a wadded-up black plastic garbage bag. Tucked in there with it was a bundle the size of a tennis ball, that would unfold into a roomy duffel bag. Collapsible. Space-age.

Out with the garbage bag. Snap-flutter it open, and stuff in the purse.

Little old lady at twelve o'clock!

Scoot's reflexes took over. Swerve and pivot, skimming past with inches to spare, close enough to see the details of the weave in the cardigan stretched over the dowager's hump as the little old lady crept along hunched over her walker.

And then past, into the intersection. Horns blaring. More shouts, and rude gestures jabbed skyward. "Asshole!" again. That was the most common of the unfriendly terms applied to Scoot on any given day. "Jerk" and "Shithead" made the list, too. Once, only once, had Scoot been called a "hooligan." That had been a proud day.

Hooligan.

Kewl.

With the purse hidden in the bag, it looked like nothing more than a bundle of dirty laundry, or maybe scrounged cans and bottles bound for recycling. The one thing it did not look like was a purse, because that of course would be suspicious. A kid like Scoot, with a fancy shoulderbag?

The wail of a siren sent Scoot's pulse rate through the roof, but it was an ambulance and not the cops, an ambulance cutting through traffic.

No cops, no cops yet. And now Century Plaza was three blocks in Scoot's wake, the business high-rises having given way to the seedier urban sprawl.

Prewett was a main thoroughfare, a state highway that still had the number designation. It was a long gaudy row of car lots, motels, fast food joints, gas stations and chain stores. During the morning and afternoon commutes, it was almost as backed up as the freeways that skirted downtown. At night, the scum crawled up from the sewers. Prostitution stings, drug busts, and gang shootings were no strangers to Prewett Avenue.

Scoot decided to take the long way, and swung left onto 7th Street. Here, rundown apartment buildings rubbed shoulders with duplexes. A school crouched behind a wire-topped chain link fence like an ill-tempered bear in a too-small cage at the zoo. The empty playground was a barren asphalt plain where weathered white lines marked out a map of the United States, foursquare grids, and hopscotch. The mangy, peeling tetherballs swaying at the ends of their ropes made Scoot think of gallows and hanged men. The baseball diamond was a weedy dirt-patch.

Deee-pressing. Scoot felt bad for the kids. As bleak as that playground was, they weren't even in it but were instead packed like sardines into too-small classrooms, the troublemakers raising hell and dominating the teachers' time while the few bright students slid lower and lower into apathy.

At 7th and Dunley, after one final glance back to make sure that the cops hadn't made an appearance, Scoot hopped off the skateboard and kicked it up, catching it by one set of wheels. Fiberglass. Nice and light. The wonders of modern technology. In the olden days, it would have been made from wood with steel wheels.

With the board tucked under one arm, and the bulging black garbage bag in the same hand, Scoot strolled casually through a gap in a splintery board fence into the Dunley Street Junkyard.

It took up a quarter of the square block, and consisted of rows and rows of wrecked cars. The lot was hard-packed dirt so poisoned by oil, antifreeze and other automotive fluids that not even the hardiest weeds would stand a chance. Snarls of torn metal and sparkles of broken glass glinted up from the dirt.

The rusty metallic scrape of a long chain heralded the arrival of the proverbial junkyard dog. It ambled into view, a long-legged and floppy-eared mutt that looked like the result of a drunken liaison between a basset hound and a giraffe.

"Hey, Booger," Scoot said.

The dog's drooping jowls rippled as it uttered a low, froggy croak of a woof. His tail, which should have been cropped in puppyhood but had instead been allowed to grow into a long ropy thing, wagged.

Some guard dog. Booger spent most of his time sprawled snoring in the shade, and Scoot had never heard of him biting, or so much as growling, at anyone. An army of stray cats laid insolent claim to the junkyard, stalking and fighting and yowling their eerie love cries. Once, Scoot had looked in a busted-out window and seen a litter of kittens tumbling around on the front seat, tearing at puffs of upholstery, just as cute as could be. And on the plus side, the cats kept the rats at bay.

Most of the cars were mashed flat and stacked half a dozen high, or crunched down into cubes that reminded Scoot of the blocky Borg spaceships from Star Trek. Others had accordioned front ends, staved-in sides, sheared-off roofs. Some were outwardly intact, giving no sign of what misfortune had landed them in this unhappy place.

Moving quickly, Scoot set down the skateboard and the garbage bag on a sun-warmed trunk lid and fished out the duffel bag. It was dark red with black straps and a black zipper. Scoot stepped onto a rubber floor mat left here for these very occasions, and kicked off first one sneaker, then the next.

Off came the windbreaker, too, turning inside out as Scoot gripped the cuffs and pulled the sleeves through. It went from scarlet to navy blue with white piping. Left unzipped, it revealed a plain white tank top underneath.

Next were the baggy grey cargo pants. Scoot skinned out of them quickly, not liking the feeling of being exposed even though there was no way this would count as indecent exposure, not when the cargo pants had been worn over black knee-length bike shorts. Still, anybody changing clothes in a junkyard was bound to strike the casual observer as more than a little suspicious.

Scoot put the shoes back on and stuffed the cargo pants into the duffel bag. The bag was long enough to hold the skateboard, too, and the stolen purse.

Booger-the-dog watched with mild interest. Booger had seen this transformation many times before.

Last was the baseball cap, which today Scoot had worn turned around so that the bill was pointing backwards. It, too, went into the duffel.

Scoot undid the redoubled ponytail that the cap had concealed. As long, thick, chestnut-colored hair spilled over her shoulders, the last of Scoot went away.

For now.

**