CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Eva was waiting tentatively in the kitchen when Allison emerged from the bathroom. "Allison?"

"How's Hector?" The steam had helped ease her throat, and though it hurt to talk, she almost sounded like herself again. Almost.

"Fine," Eva said. "They are not arresting him."

"He saved my life, Eva. That crazy bastard would have killed me."

"Who was he? Do you know?"

Allison shook her head and repeated what she'd told Officer Flyte. "I've seen him around here and there." She paused. "And … yesterday … I thought he was following me for a while. Then I didn't see him, and figured I was being paranoid. I guess I wasn't, huh?"

"But you are all right? Your eye looks bad. And your poor neck."

"I'm fine. Or I will be." She looked past Eva, but the apartment on the other side appeared empty. "Where is Hector? You said they didn't arrest him."

"No," Eva said, and frowned. "But Teddi hit the roof when she found out I had been letting him stay here without paying any rent. She threw him out."

"What?" In her outrage, she spoke too loudly, and pain like a sliver of glass lodged in the soft meat of her throat.

"It is all right," Eva said. "He's with Jamie Tremayne."

"Jamie? Jamie was here?"

"I wouldn't let him come up. I thought you would not want him to see all this."

"Oh, God."

"He knows you are not hurt, though," she explained.

"Does the whole neighborhood know?"

"This is the most exciting weekend for Dunley since the election-day riots," Eva said seriously. "First Mr. Abelard and now you."

She groaned. But she didn't have time for this. She had to … "Listen, Eva, will you do me a favor?"

"Of course, Allison."

"This is going to seem weird."

Eva's lips quirked. "Really?"

Kneeling by the recliner and trying to ignore the ripe, coppery slaughterhouse smell of the blood, she said, "Just don't ask me any questions or tell anyone about it, okay?"

"I promise."

"I want you to hang onto this for me," she said, unsticking the envelope from the underside of the foot cushion. She was glad to see that no blood had seeped down that far.

"Is it drugs?" Eva asked, her voice even as she eyeballed the envelope.

"No."

"You swear to God and the Holy Mother?"

"I swear to God and the Holy Mother, it isn't drugs."

"Because I won't keep drugs for you, or for anybody."

"I wouldn't ask you to," Allison said.

Not without some visible reluctance, Eva took the envelope. "All right."

"Thank you, Eva. And thank Hector for me. He really did save my life."

As she got up, her foot kicked something small out from under the recliner. It whirled into view. It was a cell phone, the pre-paid disposable kind. Allison didn't own one. Nor had she found a phone of any kind, though she'd expected to, in the purse.

But the guy … one of the times she'd looked back to see if he was still following her, he had been talking on a cell phone. This had to be his, dropped in the scuffle.

Feigning nonchalance, as if it was hers, she picked it up. She got her trusty familiar duffel, which still had her skateboard, helmet and pads in it. Not sure how long it would be until she was allowed back in her apartment, she left those items in there and added a few changes of clothes and other odds and ends. And the tiny cassette from the miniature tape recorder.

Uncle Bob, Teddi Lace and Officers Flyte and Rugerro were waiting down the hall by the stairwell. Though the other doors were all shut, Allison got the crawling sensation of many curious eyes socked up against peepholes and watching her as she walked by.

"We figure he came in by the balcony," Officer Rugerro said as she neared them.

"I heard the door open," Allison said. "Felt the breeze. That's what woke me up."

"Your uncle is going to take you to his house now," Flyte said. "Someone from the department will contact you tomorrow. Later today, really. And we'll have you come down to the station and make a statement. Just going over what you told us here tonight."

"Oh!" Allison blurted, then grimaced and spoke in a harsh whisper. "The … the guy … is he going to be okay? He's not … he's not dead or anything, is he?"

"He was alive when they loaded him into the ambulance," Rugerro said with a glower that made her think he wasn't exactly glad of this fact.

According to neighborhood lore, when he'd heard about what Needles had done to the flasher, Rugerro had taken the tattoo artist out for a beer. He had also reportedly busted the nose of Tina Wendmeyer's ex-boyfriend when that ex had shown up at the 7-Eleven threatening to rearrange Tina's face. Rugerro was no one to fuck with when the neighborhood was concerned.

"I think the bullet went into his lung," Eva said. "It was a sucking chest wound. And he lost a lot of blood."

"Lucky for him you were here," Flyte said.

"Yeah, good job," Rugerro said, like he was trying to sound as if he meant it but really would have been just as happy – maybe happier – if Eva had not been so quick to provide emergency medical care.

Fifteen minutes later, Allison was in Uncle Bob's living room, surrounded by rock and roll memorabilia. The crowning glory of his collection was an antique but still functional jukebox, loaded with records. He had stacked them randomly. Jazz and sixties' protest songs and big-band classics and fifties' beach music and disco. It was always a musical adventure at Uncle Bob's.

She called Jamie, who was wide awake and waiting to hear from her. Talking fast despite the clawing pain in her throat, so as not to let him get a word in, she assured him that she wasn't hurt. This was fudging the truth a little because by now she felt like she'd put in a year in a torture chamber. She thanked him for volunteering to give Hector a place to stay. Told him she would see him tomorrow.

"If you can stand the sight of me, that is," she said. "I'm not exactly ready for a photo shoot."

"Allison –"

"Tomorrow, Jamie. Please?"

"But I –"

"Tomorrow," she said. Right then, she couldn't stand to hear the distraught concern in his voice. It would make her cry all over again. "I'll see you tomorrow."

Uncle Bob came back into the living room as she hung up. He held a tray with two steaming mugs and a plate of brownies.

"Warm milk," he said. "With a splash of vanilla extract, a dash of cinnamon, and a squirt of that phony whipped cream out of the can. I didn't have any cocoa. So, for our chocolate, we'll have to eat these double-fudge walnut brownies."

"Wow," Allison said. "You didn't have to –"

"Stop telling me what I do or don't have to do," he scolded gently. "I had enough of that on the way over here in the car. Allie-girl, did you honestly think I was going to let you spend the rest of the night in that building?"

"I could have stayed with Eva."

"Not hardly. Not happenin', as the kids say."

She curled her hands around the mug, which had a white dollop of whipped cream melting over the side. "What about Mom?"

"What about her?" He blew into his own mug, sipped, wiped away a foamy mustache.

"Does she have to know about this?"

"She is your mother."

"She'd freak out," Allison said. "So would Dad. They'd say that I never should have moved out on my own, and they'd want me to come home."

"They can't make you do anything. Wasn't that what your big rebellion was all about? Showing them that you could take care of yourself?"

"And then this happens," she croaked. "Some nutjob breaks into my apartment and almost kills me … that's taking care of myself?"

"Allie, you're an adult," he said. "A young one, maybe, but you're over twenty-one. If you don't want to tell them, you don't have to."

"But you think I should."

"Family is family." He shrugged, took a brownie. "Wouldn't they want to know that you're okay?"

"I am okay. Besides, the only one who'd care is Missy, and I don't want to scare her. It's better this way."

"If that's how you want it." Bob chewed for a while; the brownies were moist and dark and dense.

Allison took one, found that opening her mouth that far hurt her split lip, and broke a piece off to nibble on.

"Are you ready yet to tell me about it?" Uncle Bob asked.

"There isn't much more to tell," she said. "I don't know him."

"Tony Rugerro said they found a bike in the alley behind your building, next to the ladder he must've used to get up there. By the looks of that ladder, he probably got it from Sam's junkyard, and it was a wonder it didn't break apart under him."

"Too bad it didn't," Allison said.

They chewed brownie and sipped warm milk for a while. Allison found the trickle of the milk down her throat simultaneously soothing and excruciating.

"I've seen you sometimes, out riding that skateboard of yours," Uncle Bob said.

"You have? But …"

"Oh, you're dressed like a boy, sure enough, but I know it's you. What your mother would say about that, I'd like to hear."

"I wouldn't," Allison said.

The fact that Bob had recognized her didn't upset her much. He was more observant than most people gave him credit for, especially his own sister. Everyone thought he was a harmless eccentric with a thing for moldy oldies, but he saw a lot from his store.

"Anyway, I've seen you with whole crowds of kids, some of them on skates or those scooter-things or bikes. This guy, maybe he was from that crowd?"

"Yeah. I think he was." She told Bob how she had seen the red-haired guy around occasionally, how she'd seen him at the skate park. "And then it seemed like he was following me. I thought I lost him after a couple of blocks."

"The gun, though, Allie. Where'd the gun come from?"

She studied the carpet, which was burnt-orange shag mashed flat by years of wear and tear. "That's … that's kind of … tricky."

"If I'm going to help you, I need you to be honest with me. Where did you get it? Did you buy it?"

"I … sort of … found it."

"Found it?" His eyebrows climbed toward his comb-over. "Found a loaded gun?"

"Sort of."

"Did you steal it?"

"Well …"

"Allie, I'm not going to be mad at you," he said, setting aside his mug and half-eaten brownie. He put his hands on her shoulders. "But the police are going to ask these same questions, and you'll have to have a better story than 'I sort of found it' to tell them."

Allison's head felt plated with iron, it was so heavy. She couldn't lift it to meet his gaze. "If I told them the truth, though, they'd arrest me."

"Tell me, then."

"It was …" She swallowed thickly, like she was trying to choke down a sticky wad of guilt. It hurt her throat. "It was in a purse. I stole a woman's purse on Friday, and the gun was in it. That's why I asked you about guns. I didn't know what to do. I should have gotten rid of it. I meant to get rid of it, and then all this had to happen. When the guy and I were fighting, we knocked everything over. The gun fell out of the purse. And then when Hector and Eva came in, Hector saw it and picked it up. I tried to tell him not to, but I wasn't in time."

He let go of her shoulders and sat back, and Allison wanted to peek and see if he was about to get mad at her after all. But still, her head was too heavy to lift, and she could only sit with her neck bent, staring miserably at the ugly orange carpet.

"I'm guessing this isn't the first time?" he asked, still speaking gently.

"The first time there's been a gun," she said.

"But not the first purse."

"No." She braced herself for him to demand a full accounting, an entire explanation of her life as Scoot and Scoot's illicit activities. In a way she'd made him a part of it too by disposing of the purses through Sherwood Second-Hand.

"Does all that have anything to do with this guy? Was he … in on it with you?"

"No!" Now she looked up. "Nobody was. Just me. No one else. I mean, sure, there were some people who saw me do it now and then, and he might have been one of them, but no one was in on it."

"All right," Uncle Bob said. "I believe you."

Allison drank more milk and let the warmth trickle down her throat, trying not to wince. "I'm sorry, Uncle Bob. I know you promised not to be mad, but if you are, I understand. I let you down. You trusted me, and gave me a job and told Mom and Dad you'd keep an eye on me, and I've let you down."

"You haven't let me down, Allie-girl. I'm glad you told me, and I'm not mad."

"Really? But –"

He made an exasperated snort. "Do you want me to be mad?"

"Well, no," she said.

Though, weirdly, she felt the same flicker of disappointment she'd always felt in her shoplifting days whenever she once again strolled past an oblivious security guard. What was wrong with her? Did she, secretly and deep-down, have some crazy masochistic streak that did want to be caught? Mrs. Oberdorfer, who watched Dr. Phil religiously, would probably say that it was her child inside, Little Allison, crying out for attention, for discipline from stern fatherly types. She shuddered.

"We still need to think of what we'll tell the police," Uncle Bob said. "Without mentioning purse-snatching. Let me think for a minute."

He got up and turned on the jukebox. It came alive with a whir. Neon sputtered, then steadied into a multicolored luminescent glow. Through the convex glass bubble on the front, Allison could see levers moving as a new record was brought to the top of the stack and the needle-arm descended into the groove. A fifties-sounding car song came on, something about a girl dying on the railroad tracks with her boyfriend's class ring held tight in her hand.

Cheerful, Allison thought. A hell of a cheerful way to end the night.

**