met Theodore there for lunch. What she wouldn't give for the chance to sit at the bar there again, sipping a Bloody Mary.
A crowd of men joking and drinking beer on the corner stepped aside to let them pass.
"Help," Auntie Lil cried out weakly, but a shrill laugh from the woman on her left masked the sound.
"Hola!" the prostitute sang out to the men. "Don't go anywhere. I'll be back!"
"Hola!" one of the men called after them. "You girls working with your granny these days?" The crowd laughed but their merriment quickly faded behind them as the two women stepped up their speed, nearly dragging Auntie Lil between them. Only a deserted street littered with the shadows of huge trucks and empty garages stood between them and the piers of the Hudson.
"Just a block more to go," Leteisha Swann announced calmly. "Then we shall see what we shall see."
"Don't you know Rodney's last name?" T.S. asked Little Pete once again.
The kid shrugged. "He's weird. Comes and goes. Disappears all the time. No one knows where he lives, man. I don't like him. Never did. Since way before he beat up Timmy, I knew he was bad news. He's real mean, you know. Real mean and real calm. Won't say nothing and then, bam, you're down on the sidewalk. Cold. He's a cold man. Real cold. Makes me shiver just thinking about him. I'm going to bust him good."
"No, you're not. You're going to tell this to the police and let them bust him," T.S. said firmly. He switched off the tape and slipped the cassette into his jacket pocket.
"The police?" The boy's voice trembled. He was still unconvinced, though T.S. had spent the better part of a half hour pleading with him to at least tell the cops about Rodney. And the rest helping him trash the apartment in what T.S. knew to be a futile attempt to make it look as if it had been robbed.
"It's all right, son. I'll stay beside you every minute. They won't ever have you alone." Both T.S. and Little Pete took reassurance in his repeated use of the word "son." And both needed reassurance at that moment.
"We won't mention the man at all," T.S. promised. "Just Rodney. Don't you want to see him punished for what he did to Timmy?" Little Pete nodded glumly and they left the apartment. T.S. didn't think they'd get very far before he bolted.
"What are you going to do with that?" the small boy asked as they waited for the elevator. He stared at the videocassette.
T.S. patted it. "Let Detective Santos take a look." Especially if you take off running down the street like I think you're going to do, he thought to himself.
"The cops." Little Pete's back stiffened and he repeated the word several times, as if not quite believing that he was going to take a stand on the same side as his old enemies. "What if Rodney finds out it was me who told on him? He'll get out and kill me."
"No, he won't," T.S. said calmly. "They'll put him away somewhere where he won't be able to get to anyone ever again."
"For beating up a kid?" The little boy gave an ugly, adult-sounding laugh. "That's a joke. You don't know nothing, man."
"He killed Emily," T.S. said simply. "He killed Timmy's grandmother and we're going to get him." There. Maybe that would keep the kid in tow.
Little Pete's eyes grew wide and his mouth shut abruptly. He stood only inches from T.S. in the elevator car, craving the comfort of his solid presence like a chick seeks the shelter of his mother's wings. They rode down in silence, T.S. sometimes absently patting the boy's head.
The street was crowded with theatergoers and they had to push through a batch of plump and bejeweled ladies to reach the street. Sure enough, as T.S. had suspected, Little Pete began to drag his feet.
"You go without me, man," the boy started to say, but an indignant buzz cut him off. Shouts rang out on the other side of the street.
"What's up?" Little Pete asked, standing on his tiptoes. T.S. unashamedly followed suit. Someone was pushing through the throng of restaurant-goers. A whole line of pushing people, in fact. They burst into a patch of deserted sidewalk and, in that instant, fifty-five years of constant connection to another human being culminated in a certainty that, somehow, Auntie Lil was in danger. He knew it the second he recognized the figure