“Get out of here, kid- Go!”

Wizard stood up, but the boy was gone even before he stepped back. He stared after his vanishing prey.

“Please. Please help me.”

The gray sheaf of hair that was supposed to be combed to cover the old man’s bald spot had draggled down one side of his head. His old brown sweater was muddied at the elbow and one knee of his gray pants was torn. Wizard raised him gently, smelling the unmistakable odor of fried chicken and fish clinging to him. “Are you hurt?”

“No. God be thanked, I’m not hurt. Boys today. Only a boy that was, did you see? I told them I didn’t have any money.

But they said they had watched me carrying a bag home every night, and they wanted the deposit. Deposit! Leftover chicken and fish from the restaurant for my cat. For that they put a knife to my throat.“

“So why did you tell me to let him go?” Wizard spoke softly, his voice a deeper nimble than the traffic overhead.

“So maybe it’s not that different, if he kills me over leftover chicken, or you kill him. Or maybe it’s the delicate ecological balance I was worrying about.” A quavery laugh shook the old man’s voice. “Look at it this way. I’ve just had the rare opportunity of seeing a fullgrown Mugger in its natural surroundings as it taught its young to stalk and attack its natural prey.

Think of what might have happened if you had killed it. Why, there might be a mother Mugger, and a whole liner of little baby Muggers at home in the den, waiting for those two to bring home their kill. Oh, God!“

The old man started shaking suddenly. Wizard helped him to the dumpster and he leaned against it until the belated adrenalin shudders had passed. He tried for another laugh, but it failed. “Or think what it could have done to you, if you had killed him. Or to me.”

“Would it be worse than what’s been done to you?” Wizard asked. He didn’t want to be speaking to him like this, especially not in this chilly soulless voice, but the words were swelling out of him like blood from a wound.

“I’m not hurt. Well, not much. It would be nothing to a man your age. Oh, I’ve bruises that won’t heal for a week, and a scrape that’s going to keep me awake all night. But if it hadn’t been for you. I might be headed for the hospital. Or the morgue. But you came along and stopped it. I’ll be fine.”

“Will you? And will you walk home with your kitchen scraps tomorrow night?”

For a moment the only sound other than the roar of traffic overhead was the labored pumping of me old man’s lungs.

“No. I guess I won’t be doing that anymore,” he admitted slowly. “I guess I’ll call a cab, or get me cook to drop me off on his way. No, I don’t suppose I’ll be walking home after work anymore.”

“Then that’s what they took from you tonight, old man. Not your money nor your life, not even your cold chicken. They took your private walk home of an evening, through the streets that should belong to you. You’ve been robbed and you don’t even know it.”

With a trembling hand the old man flipped his hair back into place and patted it down. He was over the worst of his fright now, and dignity was coming back to his voice.

“I know it, young man. I knew it before they had even knocked me down. But do you think it would be different if you had killed that boy? Then on the walk home at night I could look at this dumpster and say to myself, ”That’s where (hat young bastard died for trying to rob me.‘ I saw you- You weren’t going to rough him up or hold him for the cops. You were on the killing edge. Do you think I’d be thinking of punks and muggers as I walked up this street alone at night? No. I’d be winking of you. Good evening.“

There was strength in the old man. Rebuked, Wizard stepped back to let him pass. He didn’t even look back at Wizard as he continued his interrupted walk home. Shame, weariness, and cold flooded up through Wizard, rising like a cold dde??? from the pavement. He wished no one had seen him tonight.

He stooped to retrieve his bag from under the dumpster. From there his nose led him to the crumpled sack of cold chicken and fish fillets. The muggers had tossed it aside, untouched.

He claimed it and took a cold fillet to nibble as be walked.

Dark cold pressed against the back of his neck as be headed up South Jackson. Strips and rags of-fog drifted past him and tried to surround him. Gray as Mir. Wizard walked faster His heart was beating hard in his chest when he reached the mouth of his alley. He glanced furtively about, but he was alone.

A light toss of the wizard bag took it to the landing of the old fire escape. The chicken bag followed it. He bounced once or twice on the balls of his feet, trying to limber up muscles chilled stiff. He sprang, caught the old pipe, braced a foot lightly against the bricks, and pushed up until his hands could shift suddenly to the edge of the fire escape. He hauled himself up silently. Moments later he was sliding open the propped window, and then he was inside the outer chamber of his den.

He stumbled into the inner room where he slept. He was tired.

Too tired. Too tired to light his can of sterno and brew a hot cup of tea. Too tired to do anything but put his sodden wizard bag safely into his wardrobe box. He let his clothing fall to the floor around him. It was too wet and dirty to use again. Tomorrow he would redonate it to the Salvation Army.

He shivered as he pulled on his quilted long-Johns and a dry pair of socks. Black Thomas was nowhere to be seen or felt. He wished he were here to share the cold chicken. Wizard burrowed into his bedding, shivered himself into a warm ball, and then felt the growlings of an unappeased stomach. He reached out into the darkness to the chicken bag and found a thigh piece. His nose and ears were cold, but he didn’t want to pull the blankets over his head. He dropped the greasy bone beside the mattress for the cat and sat up to reach for a woolen cap from his wardrobe box.

It watched him. It gloated. Wizard stared back, but it didn’t go away. Because it was real. A cold separate from night slunk through his bones. Who was the prisoner and who was the guard? It had nearly had him tonight; it knew it, too. They both knew and sat staring at one another, knowing it together.

Wizard’s hand found the cap. Slowly he drew it to him and dragged it on over his ears. Ever so slowly he eased himself down, never taking his eyes from it. The closet door hung broken on one hinge. It would not be shut in again. It glowed faintly in the dark with a rotten, mildewed light. The accusing letters never blinked. MIR.

NINJA WOKE HIM an hour before dawn grayed the skies. Wizard never heard her light steps. What shocked him out of sleep was the thunderous clapping of wings as the pigeons fled for their lives. They thudded blindly into the walls of the dark room, calling pathetically to one another. He rolled from his mattress and leaped at a darker patch of moving night. Ninja gave a howl of dismay and released a flapping bird. Wizard gripped the big black cat by me scruff of her neck. “How did you get in here?” he demanded of her, but she only growled murderously in her throat. Tucking her under his arm, he gathered up last night’s chicken bones. He took Ninja into the next room and then dumped her unceremoniously outside the window of the fire escape. The bones followed- A piece of old plywood kept for just such occasions blocked the window and her reentry. Wizard went back to his den.

In the blackness he groped for his can of Stemo- Ninja growled and crunched bones outside the window. Inside, the pigeons rustled on their high shelves and cooed reassuringly to their mates. He set me Stemo inside the punctured coffee can that served as a light shield and stove. He stared through the dimness at the Sterno surface and focused his mind. Flames.