I stood there a long time, stunned. Then, after I thought about it, I started to chuckle, then laugh out loud. The first time I’d laughed in forever.

Now she stood at the bus stop moving her feet back and forth to stay warm. It was cold but not that cold. She always had to have the heater on, an extra blanket, or a hot drink. She frequently talked about moving to warmer climes with palm trees and a balmy breeze. What she really liked best was when I climbed into bed, and I took my warm socks off. She wanted me to put them on her feet. I had to do it for her or it wasn’t the same. For some strange reason it acted as an aphrodisiac. The memory made me ache for her.

I got up and crossed the street without staring at her so I didn’t draw her attention. I wanted to keep her in sight as long as I could. Tomorrow, no matter what, I’d go see her. By tomorrow, if nothing changed, I felt sure it would be okay. I only had an hour and a half before I had to be back out in front of Chantal’s apartment where Robby was supposed to pick me up.

The bus slowed, stopped, the doors opened. My Marie was first to get on but had to back out to let the passengers getting off pass first. I saw her expression change to surprise, and it scared me. I took a quick step, looked to see what had caused her reaction, to identify any threat.

Sometimes there was a God who looked after the little children. Dora Bascombe was exiting the bus with little Tommy Bascombe in tow. His tear-streaked face, dirty denim pants worn with holes in the knees hung from his too-skinny body. And, of course, he was barefooted. His broken arm with the cast should’ve been in a sling but swung back and forth banging against his chest as she jerked his other arm. Dora got off the bus to take him to Killer King for his follow-up. According to Marie, Dora had missed two appointments, and if she missed another, Child Protective Services told her they would take Tommy and put him in a foster home. The threat of a foster home wasn’t what motivated Dora. If she didn’t have Tommy, the state money would dry up. She was forced to take heed to CPS and protect her little golden goose.

The mother and child moved down the street toward the hospital as Marie stood on the first step of doorway of the bus. Her head whipped around wildly, not knowing what to do, helpless to do anything. She wanted to act, to run and “sock the livin’ shit out of the bitch” but thought better of it. As I watched, I loved her even more. If that were possible.

Finally, she got on the bus. The doors closed and the bus moved off down Wilmington. She stood in the window and watched as the bus zipped past mother and child and then faded off into traffic. I walked along behind Dora and Tommy, seething at her abusive language to the boy who wouldn’t walk fast enough, his dirty bare feet a blur, getting air every time she jerked his arm. I looked around for a rock or even a bottle to bash her head, but, like Marie, knew that would solve nothing. I’d have to bide my time, play it smart.

Dora didn’t know me, never saw me before, and if she did recognize me from court, it would mean nothing. She would have merely thought I was someone else in the audience watching court cases like she’d been doing, waiting for an unfair justice system to screw over a loved one. I followed her close behind into the out-patient wing of Killer King. She waited in line a long time. I stood off to the side, back against the wall, and couldn’t quite catch all her vulgar language as she chastised the receptionist in a lengthy tirade for the long wait. She took it out on Tommy, yanked his arm so hard he screamed. I clenched my fists. Not yet. Not yet.

She went over to the U-shaped waiting area filled with chairs all occupied with indigents seeking medical attention. She looked around shaking her head in wonder, then said, “Fuck all this.” She towed Tommy out the door. I recognized her thought process, had heard it before. When the welfare caseworker asked her how come she didn’t take her injured child in for a follow-up, she would say that she checked in and waited for hours and hours, something that could now be verified, the check-in part. They never called her name, so she left. She’d be given another chance. Too bad for Tommy.

Up close, I got a good look at Tommy’s feet. They were blue from the cold. They had not been inside long enough for him to thaw out, not on the cold floor, not before they were on the move again. Dora lived immersed in the tweaker life and only cared about one thing, rock cocaine. Tweakers thought of nothing else but their glass maiden, the pipe.

She walked south on Wilmington, her head spinning on her shoulders. She searched for someone to give them a ride. If that happened, I’d be out of luck. I easily stayed with them, past 121st Street, 122nd and at 124th where she turned west. After one block on 124th I figured out her destination, it made my blood boil. I again wished I’d snatched the pear’s automatic from his sock drawer, because if I was right, I was going to need it.

We passed a lookout, a preteen black kid who sat on a broken-down cinder block wall in his designer kicks and his Raiders jacket, who watched, ready at any moment to give the alert, a long whistle. I knew their routine, nothing had changed since I’d left. I pulled the knit beanie down further until it covered my eyebrows. As I walked, I reached into my pocket for the Band-Aids. I peeled them open, put one across the bridge of my nose and one on the cheek under my left eye, an old armed robber’s trick. The victims key in on the Band-Aids and never peep the person beneath. When interviewed, they promptly say it was some big black dude with Band-Aids on his face. The problem was I knew the area, had worked it before, and if I knew the area, the area knew me. Band-Aids or no Band-Aids, if someone said, “Hey, that’s Bruno Johnson,” the jig would be up.

Chapter Nineteen

We crossed another street that bisected 124th and headed into a cul-de-sac filled with apartment buildings. Thugs sat in groups on the hoods of their highly polished hoopties, with red bandanas folded and tied around their foreheads. They wanted all who came onto the block to know the block belonged to the Bloods, the Playboys, Pimps, and Gangsters clique. They had their gats—guns—stashed close at hand ready to go to guns at a moment’s notice.

They whistled at the white woman with her child and made lewd gestures with their hands, some grabbing their crotch. I kept my head down, watching the sidewalk and the gangsters out of my peripheral vision. I increased speed, caught up with Dora, to let them think we were together, then backed off a little before she turned and said, “Hey, what the—?”

I was in, past their main defenses. Getting out would be another problem.

She knew exactly where to go. She followed the walkway between two apartments, made a left, went around a derelict pool filled with dirt and weeds and surrounded by rusted chain-link that sagged in places. She stopped at an open apartment door and peered in. She bounced from foot to foot as if her bladder were about to burst. “Q? Q, are you in there?”

She looked back over her shoulder, sensing my presence. Our eyes locked for a long second before her need for meth again took control.

Q? Maybe the kid’s luck was holding out. Q was Quentin Bridges, Q-Ball, a nickel-and-dime street dealer I’d known personally and had gotten up close and personal with on two occasions, laced his head with the barrel of my .357 for dealing crack to the neighborhood junior high school kids.

The first time it happened when my team was executing a search warrant. We rolled up Trojan horse-style—the entire team in a van jumped out and deployed on an apartment complex on El Segundo Boulevard. I carried the door ram. When we rounded the corner, Q-Ball stood at his apartment door with a line of poor folks who hardly had enough money to eat, waiting to buy his rock cocaine.