his power and tried to get you to kill her tonight."
"Through that pipe," said a man.
"He going to give me that Lexus?" asked Lamar, half mocking.
"How about this," said Mack. "How about if you suddenly wake up in that Lexus, going seventy miles an hour and heading right through a guardrail and over the cliff above the Santa Monica pier?"
"Yeah, right," said Lamar.
"Or you wake up in that Lexus and the whole LAPD on your ass going down the freeway like O. J. and you all covered with blood only you don't know whose blood it is. Maybe the owner of that Lexus. Maybe that's how your wish gets fulfilled. Everybody see you in that Lexus, man! On TV!
Only there's a dead Lexus owner back in his garage and your prints all over the golf club that beat his brains in. How about that for getting your wish?"
"Never happen," said Lamar.
"Ophelia McCallister woke up tonight inside her dead husband's coffin," said Mack. "That couldn't happen either."
"I think we ought to talk to these people," said Osie Fleming. "Find out what's true before we believe this bullshit."
They heard the sound of a motorcycle.
They turned and saw a single headlight coming up the hill. Two people on the bike. Had to be Yolanda in front. And behind her, when she got close enough, when she turned into the driveway of her house, was Sherita Banks. Couldn't be anybody else, those hips.
Sherita looked up at all these people watching her from fifty yards away and buried her face in Yo Yo's back. Yo Yo turned and saw them, too. They watched her put down the kickstand and worm her way off the bike without Sherita getting off first. And when she helped Sherita off, they could see that the girl was wearing a blanket wrapped around her like a skirt.
"What's happening, Mack." Yo Yo called out to him.
Mack didn't answer. He got ahead of the pack and turned and faced them. "Not one step closer," he said. Over his shoulder, he called out to Yo Yo. "Some of these folks got to thinking you a witch tonight. Came to pay a visit. Maybe have them a lynching."
"Nobody going to lynch nobody," said Lamar.
"Me? A witch?" said Yo Yo. And she laughed.
It was a glorious laugh, warm and resonant. It seemed to reverberate from the hills on either side. It seemed to make the stars twinkle clearer overhead.
More people were walking up the hill and down the hill to converge at her house.
"Sherita!" called out Ebby. "What happened?"
Sherita burst into tears and hid behind Yo Yo.
"She nearly got raped, that's what," said Yo Yo. "She was asleep in her own bed having this dream, and she woke up at a friend's house and there was her gangbanger brother getting all set to start a train on her. Yeah, that's what! And you know why it didn't happen? Cause Mack saw her dream and told Ceese and he called his buddies on the force and they got there in time. Isn't that right, Sherita?"
They could see that Sherita was nodding.
"What you people want here?" demanded Yo Yo. "Leave this girl alone. I just brought her here to clean up and borrow some clothes before she went home. She didn't want her daddy and mama to see her with nothing on."
Lamar turned to Mack. "All that proves is the two of you got your stories together."
"Give it a rest, Lamar," said Osie Fleming. "The girl isn't denying it. And Mack's right. It's crazy to be going after a witch like this. What were we thinking?"
"He believes in magic, dammit," said Lamar. "It's not like he's saying there's no such thing as a witch!"
"And I'm saying we're crazy to treat this like an emergency," said Osie. "What were we thinking?
Plenty of time to talk about this tomorrow. Find out how much of what Mack Street here told us is the truth. We can talk to Ceese. We can talk to the Chums. We can talk to Byron. Let's go home and go to bed. Witch hunt in the middle of the night. We must be crazy."
Yo Yo called out from the driveway. "Any of you need a ride up the hill, I'll be back outside in a minute!"
Shut up, Yo Yo, Mack thought but did not say. You're not making any friends teasing them like that.
"I heard that, Mack Street," she said to him as he approached.
"You did not."
"Did so."
"What did I say?"
"You said, 'I'm your hero