“Did I see what I think I just saw?” Mace asked to Crowe.
“You saw it,” Crowe replied then he looked at me.
It was dark; I couldn’t read his eyes and didn’t try. I looked back at Mace and Clarence.
Mace’s eyes had cut to me; he stared at me a second and I could tell by the white flash in his mouth area that he grinned. Then he grabbed Clarence’s wrist, twisted it around to his back and shoved him face first against the brick wall. He pulled some cuffs out of the back of his cargo pants and slapped them on Clarence.
“Stay,” he said to Clarence as if he was a dog.
I dropped my gun and put it in the back waistband of my jeans.
“You can take your boot out of his neck now,” Vance said to me.
I looked down. Jermaine was still curled up in apparent agony and not going anywhere.
“Whoops,” I muttered and lifted my foot.
Vance crouched and cuffed Jermaine. Mace had pulled a phone out of his pocket and he’d connected.
“Luke. We got a pick up. Yeah, another couple from Law,” he faded a bit into the shadows and I heard him say, “You are not gonna f**kin’ believe this…”
I walked to Martin and Curtis. “You guys okay?”
They didn’t speak, just nodded, mouths open in disbelief.
“Curtis, your head?” I asked.
He just kept nodding.
“Why were they chasing you?” I asked them.
They kept staring at me.
“Come on boys, spill. These are bad guys, worse than most. What were they doing chasing you?”
“We thought we’d help you go after the drug guys,” Curtis told me.
“Yeah, we been followin’ them two for awhile,” Martin threw in with pride.
Oh crap. Not this again.
“All the kids are talkin’ ‘bout doin’ it. We got sick of talkin’ so we decided just to do it,” Curtis went on.
“It’s so f**kin cool you’re workin’ with Crowe,” Martin said and turned to his brother. “Told you she was workin’ with Crowe.”
Curtis nodded but was silent, overwhelmed by the excitement of it all. His eyes moving between me and Vance who had pulled up Jermaine and was positioning him against the wall next to Clarence.
My eyes returned to the kids. “Don’t say f**k and I’m not working with Crowe.”
“Yeah you are. I heard he’s like, your man and you’re like, his woman,” Martin replied.
“Yeah, Sniff said that, today, you two were huggin’ at that bookstore where they all hang out,” Curtis put in.
Damn Sniff and his mouth.
I looked at Vance and noticed he had turned to us. I didn’t know him well enough to guess his reaction to this latest fiasco but, if I’d had to guess, it wouldn’t have been him smiling wide like he was pleased about something which was exactly what he was doing.
I sent him a look and turned back to the boys. “All right, kids, let’s get this straight. You two do not go out on the street and get in the faces of bad guys. Anyone else you hear talking about it, you tell them I said the same to them. Do you hear me?” I said in my word-is-law voice.