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.” What defused a group who thought tormenting or robbing or killing was “fun”?As the boys reached the sidewalk, they made sure they took the full width of it.To miss them, Anna and Geneva would have to step back into the street.They didn’t.Given that showing humility—fear—in ceding the sidewalk hadn’t appeased them the first time, there was no reason for Anna to think it would the second.Stopping, Geneva at her side, Anna waited, letting the boys close the distance.A faint click, then a snicking sound, made her glance down.Geneva had taken the leash from Sammy’s collar, then pulled her segmented and folded white cane from some pocket in her skirts and flicked it into a narrow staff.Not much striking power, but the stings could be diverting.Leaving her the cane, Anna took the leash with its metal clasp from Geneva’s hand and, surreptitiously wrapping the strap around her knuckles, stepped a bit away from her friend.“Good evening, gentlemen,” she said when the boys were half a dozen yards away.“Geneva and I were hoping you could help us.Do you know your way around the French Quarter?” She smiled as if she truly believed they’d come to earn their merit badges by helping a couple of little old ladies back across the street.“You ladies looking for something special?” the boy marginally in the lead asked.He’d taken an unlit cigarette from behind his left ear and, holding it between thumb and forefinger, was stroking the length of it in an unsubtle gesture.“Yes,” Anna gushed.“Friends of our said one of the city’s best restaurants was on this street, but, gosh, if it is we sure didn’t see it.It’s called Grandma’s.” Why that name popped off her tongue, Anna wasn’t sure.Possibly because the kids looked like big bad wolves and she was feeling Red Ridinghoodish.For a moment, she thought they were going to play the game, at least for a while.Then a shorter boy elbowed the cigarette stroker to one side.“What you got in the backpack, bitch?” He snaked an arm out to try to grab hold of the daypack Anna carried.“Okay, then,” Anna said flatly.“I guess we aren’t going to be friends.What will it take to get you to leave us alone?”“Oooooh,” one of the wingmen crooned.“Tough mama! Maybe we got to tenderize your ass ’fore you go home to the hubby.Fact he prob’ly be thankin’ us for breaking that broomstick you got up your butt.”So much for civilized negotiations.Her cell phone was in the daypack.She doubted she could dig it out and dial 911 before she was stopped, so she didn’t try.Anna sensed Geneva tensing up.The singer hadn’t survived childhood trauma and gotten to where she was by backing down or begging.Even Sammy came up from his obedient sitting position and lowered his head as if he were trying to remember where it was best to bite people he didn’t like.They were going to fight: a small middle-aged ranger, a blind woman, and an amiable dog, against five streetwise thugs coming into the strength of men.They would lose, of course, but now wasn’t the time to think about that.Headlights raked the seven of them, and Anna threw her arm across her eyes to keep from being blinded.A cab pulled to the curb under a streetlight fifty feet beyond the boys.A door opened, and a man climbed out.“Hey!” Anna shouted, waving both arms.“Cabbie!” Sidestepping into the street, she kept waving.The cab’s IN SERVICE light blinked out, and the car picked up speed.“Hey!” she yelled again, stepping farther into the street.The cabbie floored it, swerved around Anna, and cut the corner at the end of the block so sharply his tires screamed.“I guess he don’t want your sorry white ass in his pretty black cab,” the speaker of the gang said.“At least he veered,” Anna grumbled.“Surely that means he had some affection for me.” The sneers didn’t waver, and she wondered if they knew what the word “affection” meant, wondered if they’d ever felt it under any name.The man who’d gotten out of the cab was standing beneath the streetlight watching the drama as if it were being played out onstage.Anna started to raise her hand to holler at him, and then they locked eyes.It was Dougie, the yellow jacket, the man who had pulled a knife on her and Mackie.He was staring at her hard, and she wondered if he recognized her, if he knew she was looking for him.Then she realized that what had him transfixed wasn’t the way she looked but the way she was looking at him, much the way a fox might look at a baby duckling.Before she could move or shout, he turned and walked rapidly across the street and out of sight down Rampart.The boys were grinning, and the loose chain they’d made around Anna and Geneva began to tighten.Geneva leaned her head back and took in a great lungful of air.She could scream all she wanted to, Anna thought.Nobody was going to hear her.At least nobody who gave a damn.THIRTY-THREEClare was standing in a narrow alleyway.To one side was a Dumpster, to the other a windowless brick wall.Just enough space remained between the two for a broad-shouldered man to stand without quite touching anything vile.Narrow as her frame was, she kept her arms close to her sides [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]