Shakespeares Trollop Page 0,47

at my feet, feeling my mouth begin to purse and my eyes narrow.

"When a house is on fire, you don't go in," he informed me, keeping his voice low with a visible effort. "No matter who is in that house ... if your mom is in that house, if your dad is in that house, if your sister is in that house. If I am in that house. You. Don't. Go. In."

I took a very deep breath, kept focused on my Nikes.

"Yes, my lord," I said gently.

He threw his hands up in the air. "That's it!" he told the sky. "That's it!" Off he strode.

I wasn't about to pursue him, because I'd have to scramble to keep up, and that just wasn't going to happen. I took off in the opposite direction.

"Lily!" called a woman's voice behind me. "Lily, wait up!"

Though I was tempted to start running, I stopped and turned.

Becca Whitley was hurrying down the sidewalk after me, her hand wrapped around the bicep of a huge man with pale curly hair. My first thought was that this man should get together with Deputy Emanuel and form a tag-team to go on the wrestling circuit.

Becca was as decorated as ever, with rhinestone earrings and lips outlined with such a dark pencil she looked positively garish. When she was in full warpaint, it was always a little jarring to remember she was so graceful and precise in karate class, and managed the apartments quite efficiently. I was pretty sure that meant I was guilty of stereotyping, something I had good reason to hate when people applied it to me.

"This is my brother, Anthony," Becca said proudly.

I looked up at him. He had small, mild blue eyes. I wondered if Becca's would be that color without her contact lenses. Anthony smiled at me like a benevolent giant. I tried to focus on my manners, but I was still thinking of Jack. I shook hands with Becca's brother and approved of the effort he made to keep his grip gentle.

"Are you visiting Shakespeare long, Anthony?" I asked.

"Just a week or so," he said. "Then Becca and I might go on a trip together. We haven't seen some of my dad's relations in years."

"What kind of work do you do?" I asked, trying to show a polite interest.

"I'm a counselor at a prison in Texas," he said, his white teeth showing in a big smile. He knew he'd get a reaction from that statement.

"Tough job," I said.

"Tough guys," he said, shaking his head. "But they deserve a second chance after they've served their sentence. I'm hoping I can get them back outside in better shape than when they came in."

"I don't believe in rehabilitation," I said bluntly.

"But look at that boy who just got arrested," he said reasonably. "The boy who vandalized Miss Dean's car last year. Now he's back in. Don't you think an eighteen-year-old needs all the help he can get?"

I looked to Becca for enlightenment.

"That boy who works over at the building supply," she explained. "The sheriff matched his voice to the one who made those phone calls to Deedra, the nasty ones. Deedra had saved the little tapes from her answering machine. They were in her night-table drawer."

Then Deedra had taken the calls seriously. And their source was a real nobody of a person, a man everyone seemed to call a boy.

I told Anthony Whitley, "See how much he learned in jail?"

Anthony Whitley seemed to consider trying to persuade me that saving the boy through counseling was worthwhile, but he abandoned the attempt before he began the task. That was wise.

"I wanted to thank you for rescuing Great-grandfather," he said a little stiffly, after an uneasy pause. "Becca and I owe you a lot."

I flicked my right hand, palm up; it was nothing. I glanced down the block, wondering how far Jack had gotten.

"Oh, Lily, if you could come by the apartment later, I need to talk to you about something," Becca said, so I guess I looked liked I was ready to go. I murmured a good-bye, turned in the other direction - maybe I'd follow Jack after all - rendering the two Whitleys out of sight and out of mind.

Jack was coming back. We met in the middle of the next block. We gave each other a curt nod. We wouldn't repeat the same quarrel. It was a closed subject now.

"Who was that?" he asked, looking past me. I glanced back over my shoulder.

"That's Becca Whitley, you