CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

"Follow him," the ice-cold bitch on the cell phone had said. "Lose him, and I'll shoot you in the kneecaps."

Jon had no doubt that the bitch meant every word.

So he followed.

At one point, he was sure he'd lost the little prick. Fury and panic bubbled up in his gut. But then, he'd come around the corner just in time to see the black lightning-bolt skateboard with the electric-blue wheels roll out of an alley and continue on its merry fuckin' way.

He'd been more careful, then. He could be careful when he had to, smart when he had to. People might not think so, but people were fuckin' idiots. They were all down on him because he hadn't finished school. Fuckin' boring school. No use to anybody.

Even his own damn mother thought he was a drug dealer. He told her he didn't, he told her that the reason he got so many calls and had to go out so often in the middle of the night was to buy, sell, and trade bike parts. She could have taken his word for it. But the old shit-queen hadn't fuckin' trusted him, how do you like that? Hadn't fuckin' trusted her own son. She'd even gone searching and found his stash, eighty bucks' worth. Flushed it down the crapper and kicked him out of the house. Said he'd lied to her.

Well, fuckin' duh he'd lied to her … what was he going to do? Tell her the fuckin' truth? For all he knew, she only said she'd flushed his stash. For all he knew, the shit-queen might have sold it or used it herself.

That didn't matter now. What mattered was the ice-cold bitch with the shotgun, and that pretty-boy purse-snatcher Scoot.

Jon had seen Scoot go into a junkyard on 7th and Dunley, casual like he owned the fuckin' place. Maybe that was where Scoot lived. A junkyard rat. Living with some drunk fuck of a father in a shack little better than a lean-to, eating canned pork-and-beans.

Yeah, that seemed about right. If he lived in a shithole like this, he'd nab purses too. Who wouldn't?

Jon had been by the junkyard a few times – looking for bike parts, which he sometimes really did sell – and knew there was a dog. He pedaled around to the used car lot. Pennants were snapping in the breeze and harsh lights glared across windshields with price stickers like 7,599 Runs Like New and 13,450 2003 and 5,695 Takes Me Home. The only salesman Jon saw was busy with a family that had about nine hundred kids, all examining at a mustard-yellow dinosaur of a station wagon with a luggage rack and fake-wood panels down the sides. Fuckin' fake-wood panels, what a joke.

He sidled through the ranks of washed and waxed lemons, walking his bike. At the back were the motor homes. Some were just pickup trucks with camper caps, others were weird silver tubes that looked more like something a robot might land on the White House lawn, and others were more recent models, the fuckin' road hogs that retired old farts drove around in.

Two back-to-back fences divided the car lot and junkyard, chain link on the car lot side and rickety board planks on the junkyard side. Jon propped his bike against the side of an RV and looked over the fence at the jumble of rusted-out hulks, hoping to see the shack where Scoot and Scoot's old drunk fuck of a father lived.

Instead, he saw Scoot.

In a sheltered little nook made by walls of wrecked cars.

Taking off his –

Holy shit!

The fuckin' pretty-boy was a chick!

Jon could not believe his eyes. Or his luck.

Scoot-the-chick had a tall, tight, lean body. Not much titworks, true, and not much ass – J. Lo had the world's most perfect ass, and starred in all of Jon's whack-off fantasies.

But look at those long legs, fuckin' damn! The skimpy exercise clothes she'd had on under her baggy jeans and loose shirt clung like paint and showed off everything. And when Scoot pulled off that dorky helmet and shook out a lot of darkish brown hair …

No fuckin' wonder none of the girls had been able to get into Scoot's pants. They would have been in for one big fuckin' disappointment.

He watched as Scoot loaded her skateboard and clothes into her duffel bag and sneaked out through a hole in the board fence.

Fuck! Didn't live in the junkyard after all.

Jon scrambled down, got his bike, and had to go way the hell around to get out of the car lot. The salesman caught sight of him and started to call out, but just then Mr. Fuckin' Brady with all the kids asked a question about the yellow dinosaur station wagon, and the salesman turned back with a big shit-eating grin.

At the mouth of the alley, he saw red flashes and cursed under his breath. But the cop car, parked squarely in the middle of the intersection, turned out to be a fuckin' blessing in disguise. Everyone in the neighborhood was gathered on the corners for the free show. Scoot was walking slowly toward them.

An ambulance was at the curb in front of a diarrhea-brown apartment building. Its rear doors stood open, and so did the building's front door. Two dudes in white smocks came out with a gurney that had a shriveled old man on it. An oxygen mask covered the old man's mouth and nose. A sheet had been drawn up to his chest. An equally shriveled little old lady walked beside him, holding his dry claw of a hand.

The fuckin' 9-1-1 thing, can you dig it? Some geezer had worked himself into a heart attack, and was off to the hospital.

Jon lurked in the doorway of a pet grooming salon that had closed at six-thirty but still stank of wet dog and strong shampoo. He saw Scoot mingle with the neighbors like she belonged there, saw people say hi to her and her give it right back.

Mr. and Mrs. Geezer got loaded into the ambulance. One of the white-smocked dudes said something to a policewoman who, in Jon's opinion, filled out the seat of her uniform pants in an amazing way. Primo ass. Almost J-Lo quality. She nodded, and went back to her patrol car where some beefy cop was leaning on the fender talking to more of the neighbors.

Once the ambulance doors closed, cutting off the view of Mr. and Mrs. Geezer, the crowd started to thin. Jon waited and watched to see what Scoot would do. If she came back this way, she'd see him. She'd seen him at the skate park and had known he was trailing her, and if she spotted him now, she'd guess that her secret was out. Then he'd have to think fast.

But she didn't turn around. She crossed the street and went into the diarrhea-brown apartment building. Nobody gave her a second fuckin' look. Must live there, then.

A thought slithered into his mind.

The ice-cold bitch who had busted into his place and threatened to blow his head off wanted to get to Scoot. It seemed like a lot of fuckin' trouble to go to over a purse … unless there was some serious good shit in the purse. Maybe the ice-cold bitch was a dealer. Maybe her purse had been loaded with product.

Whatever the reason, she had to want it back pretty damn bad.

If he could get his hands on it … he'd be in charge then, wouldn't he? He'd be calling the shots. Once he had the purse, he could state his terms and see how bad the bitch wanted it back.

And he could get his hands on Scoot at the same time …

That'd almost be, what did they call it? Poetic fuckin' justice. He hadn't crossed paths with Scoot all that often, but he resented being tricked. Resented being made a fool of. By a chick, even. So what if she could ride? Who the fuck did she think she was, anyway?

He watched the dregs of the crowd melt away and knew he couldn't linger any longer without looking suspicious.

A mini-movie played inside his head. He saw himself on the cell phone again, cool as Vin-fuckin'-Diesel, telling the ice-cold bitch that he had her purse. That if she wanted it back, she'd have to play the game his way. If she tried coming after him with her fuckin' shotgun, she could shoot him, sure, but he'd hide the purse so she'd never fuckin' find it.

Yeah.

And when she showed up where he told her to be, he'd be ready. No bitch got away with talking to him like that. She was some big fuckin' mouth when she had the gun and he didn't, but he knew people. Connected people. Weasel could get him a gun. Weasel could get him a fuckin' grenade if he wanted, or a fuckin' rocket launcher.

So the ice-cold bitch would show up and he'd be ready for her. Rough her around some, maybe. Pay her back for what she did to him. He didn't mind so much what had happened at his place, but he minded like hell the way she had come right up to him in Century Plaza like she wasn't even fuckin' afraid of him. Made him look bad in front of his friends. They'd laughed about it later, laughed at him, Jimmy and Kidmaster-D and Silverdark and the others. Laughed at him.

She had to pay for that. Yeah. Bitch. Pay for it in the only way a bitch like that would be good for. He'd get her down on those knees and make her open up that bitchy mouth, and …

Yeah. Fuck with him? He'd show her who was fuckin' with who.

Scoot, too. She deserved it. They all deserved it. And they wouldn't tell a fuckin' soul. They wouldn't dare.

What could they do, call the cops on him? That, he'd like to see.

**