School Days - By Robert B. Parker Page 0,44

one in the car," I said.

"I hope it's locked up safe," Cromwell said.

"Gun safety is job one," I said.

Cromwell looked at me and then at DiBella and then at the bodies on the ground and then at my stubby .38, which he was still holding.

"You can shoot," Cromwell said after a time. "I'll give you that."

I didn't say anything.

"Come by in a couple days," Cromwell said. "I'll see that you get the gun back."

"Am I free to go?" I said.

Cromwell stared at me for a minute.

"Yeah. Get some dry clothes. Come in tomorrow, give us a statement."

I nodded and turned toward the street. DiBella came, too.

"Where you going?" I said.

"You're unarmed," DiBella said. "I'm walking you to your car."

Chapter 43

MY BACKUP GUN was a .357, which was heavy to wear, but I thought it worth the weight on this occasion. I was with Major Johnson and the bald guy with the prison tattoos who had shown such instant affection for me the first time we met. We were sitting on a bench at the edge of a hot top walkway in a playground in Roxbury. I was once again uniquely white.

There were black children playing on the swings and slides that the park commission had set up. There were black mothers and grandmothers, most of whom were younger than I was, watching the kids. There were some black teenagers smoking cigarettes and looking bad in gangsta-rap jeans and hats on sideways.

Past the play area, I could see Jose Yang and two of his people coming toward us. They sat across the hot top walkway from us on a bench just like ours. The management team of Los Diablos was as black as everyone else, except for Yang, whose skin tone was lighter, but far darker than mine.

The scary-looking teens watched us covertly. I was an aberration, and they would naturally have stared at me. But I was with two legitimate gangbangers, and I knew the kids were struggling to look just as dangerous, while desperately trying to do nothing that would annoy any of us.

Nobody spoke for a while. Jose Yang looked at me without expression.

"I killed your brother," I said.

Yang's face didn't move. No expression. The men on each side of him didn't do anything.

"Why?" Yang said.

"He tried to kill me," I said.

"Tell me."

I did. In outline form. Yang listened without any reaction.

"He shot the broad for talking to you," Yang said when I was finished.

I nodded.

"What it looks like," I said.

"And he tried to backshoot you?" Yang said.

I shrugged.

"He tried to shoot me from cover," I said.

"But at the end, he come out," Yang said.

"Yes."

"And you come out."

"Yes."

"Face-to-face," Yang said.

I nodded.

"He was looking at you when he died," Yang said.

"He was."

Yang stood suddenly and walked down the hot top walkway to the far end of the park and stood with his back to us, looking out at the tightly packed neighborhood around us. None of us on the benches did anything. After a time, Yang turned and walked back down the walkway and stood in front of me. He looked at me. I looked at him.

"He straight?" Yang said to Major.

"Yeah."

"You believe what he say?"

"Yeah."

"Why you come tell me?" Yang said to me.

"Didn't want to be looking behind me the rest of my life."

"He was my brother," Yang said.

I nodded.

"He a fucking fool, too," Yang said.

I nodded.

"Never knew how to act," Yang said.

"He stood up," I said. "At the end. He came at me straight-on."

Yang nodded.

"You got some big balls coming here like this," Yang said.

"Had to be done," I said.

"Like killing Luis," Yang said.

"Yeah," I said.

Yang nodded some more. He looked back at the corner of the park where he had stood, as if there was something there only he could see.

"I got no problem with you," he said finally, still staring at the far corner of the park.

"Good," I said and stood.

Yang's gaze came slowly back from the corner and settled on me. He nodded.

"Sorry about your brother," I said.

Yang nodded again. He didn't speak. I had nothing else to say, so, with Major and his pal behind me, I turned and walked out of the park.

Chapter 44

I SAT IN A BIG maple captain's chair in the a small office in the Bethel County Courthouse and talked to Francis X. Cleary, the Bethel County Chief Prosecutor.

"I've heard a lot about you already," Cleary said.

He had longish silvery hair, which he combed straight back, and high color, and pale blue eyes that were very bright and never