'I don't really know,' he said. 'But I'd be willing to-'
At this moment Lilly turned away, pivoted, and slammed her knee into the man's crotch. Hard, and fast as lightning. He didn't have a chance. The man blew a lungful of sour breath into her face, then folded instantly to the ground.
Lilly looked behind her, to the mouth of the alley, then at the windows of the buildings on either side. All dark. All good. They were completely alone.
'Why?' the man managed on a ragged breath. He was curled in a fetal position on the ground, knees to his chest
'Why? Are you kidding me? What planet are you from?'
'I don't-'
'You're like a million years old,' Lilly said. 'And I'm not even legal, dickhead.' She picked up his wallet, took his driver's license and the money. 'What did you think was going to happen?'
'I thought we might-'
'You thought what?' Lilly asked. 'That we were going to fall in love? That we were going to have a romance?'
'No,' he said. 'It was just…'
Lilly got down on the ground next to the man. She lay back, then pulled up her T-shirt, baring her breasts. She worked her right arm around the man's neck, as if they were two drunken people at a wild frat party, or at some tequila-blast on spring break in Panama City. In her left hand she held up her digital camera, the lens facing them. She snapped a picture of the two of them together, then another for good measure: Mr. Mushroom Teeth and his topless teen cohort. Film at eleven.
The flash was bright blue in the darkened alley. It blinded her for a second.
'Now we have a record of our lovely time together,' Lilly said, pulling her top back down. She stood up, brushed herself off. 'And keep in mind, if you tell anyone about this, if anyone comes looking for me, they'll find this camera, okay?'
The man remained silent. As expected. He was in pain.
'Then later tonight I'm going to take some naked pictures of myself,' Lilly continued. 'Full naked. And all of these pictures will be right in a row.' She slipped the camera into her bag, took out a brush, ran it through her hair. When she was done she put away her brush, pulled off the rubber band she always kept on her wrist, snapped her hair into a ponytail. 'And your wife, your kids, your boss-the cops-they'll see the pictures, too. Think about it. How many of them are going to think you didn't take these pictures?' She put her bag over her shoulder, struck a pose. 'I'm fourteen, dude. Think about that.'
It wasn't true. She was older. But she looked fourteen, and she was an unrivalled drama queen to boot.
Lilly stepped back a few feet, waited. She reached into her bag, took out the printed photo she'd carried for two months, turned it toward the man. 'This is your house, isn't it?'
The man tried to focus his eyes on the photograph of the big house with the woman standing in front of it. A few seconds later he did. 'My… my house?'
'Yeah. You live here, right?'
'Are you crazy? That's not my house. Who is that woman? Who the hell are you?'
Lilly already knew the answer to her own question, but none of this would have made any sense if she didn't ask.
Seconds later, she put the photograph away, took a deep breath, composed herself-after all, she was not used to things like this, even if she had lived it all in her mind for a long time, over and over again- then stepped out of the alley, onto Market Street. No cops. Cool beans. After a block or so she slipped into the shadows, took out the wad of cash, counted it. She had 166 dollars.
Oh, yes.
For a street kid-which was what she was now, officially-it was a fortune. Not Donald Trump big, but big enough.
For tonight.
On Eighteenth Street Lilly slipped into a diner, wolfed a hoagie, gulped a black coffee. Twenty minutes later, back on Market, she raised her hand, flagged a cab. The driver would know an inexpensive hotel, she thought, if there were such a thing in Philly. Right now all she cared about was a clean tub and a soft bed.
A few moments later a cab pulled to the curb. Lilly slipped into the backseat. The driver was from Nigeria. Or maybe it was Uganda. Whichever, he had a wicked bad accent. He told her he knew just the hotel. Cabbies always did. She would tip him well.
He was, like her, a stranger in a strange land.
Lilly sat back, sated, in charge. She fingered the thick roll of cash in her hand. It was still warm. The night air rushing in the window made her sleepy, but not too sleepy to think about the next few days.
Welcome to Philadelphia.
THIRTY-THREE
Jessica glanced at the speedometer. she was twenty over. She backed off, but not too much. The day was closing in on her and she wasn't doing a very good job of shutting it out. She usually could.
She remembered when she was small, her father coming home after a tough day, a Philly-cop day. In those days, the days when her mother had already passed and her father, still a patrolman, was juggling his career and two small children, he would drop his cap on the kitchen table, lock his service weapon in the desk in the living room, and circle the Jameson in the hutch.
He always waited until the sun went down. Tough to do in summer. Daylight savings time, and all. Even harder to do in Lent, when he gave it up all together. Once, during Lent, when Jessica was four, and her family was still intact, her father made it all the way to Easter Saturday on the wagon. After dinner he walked down to the corner bar and got tanked. When he got home, and Maria Giovanni saw his condition, she proclaimed that her husband-probably the whole family-was hell- bound. She marched Jessica and her brother Michael down to St. Paul's, banged on the rectory door until their pastor came out and blessed them. Somehow, that Easter came and went without the Giovanni family bursting into redemptive flame.
Jessica wanted to call her father, but stopped herself. He'd think something was wrong. He would be right.
She got in just after eleven. The house was quiet, save for the sound of the central air, save for her husband Vincent's world-class snoring upstairs. It sounded like a lumberjack competition on ESPN2.
She made herself a sandwich, wrapped more than half of it and put it in the fridge. She cruised the cable channels, twice, then shut off the TV, padded upstairs, looked in on Sophie. Her daughter was awake, staring at the ceiling.
Jessica left the hall light on, the door open slightly. A wedge of gold light spilled across the bedroom. She sat gently on the edge of the bed, smoothed her daughter's hair. It was getting so long.
'Hi, sweetie,' Jessica said.
'Hi, Mom.' Her daughter's voice was tiny, distant, sleep-thick. She yawned.
'Did I wake you up?'
Sophie shook her head.
'How was school today?'
It was Sophie's third day at school. When Jessica was her daughter's age she recalled starting the new school year well after Labor Day. That was a thing of the past.
'We had a drill.'
It took Jessica a moment to realize what she meant. Then it clicked. Grade schools had recently begun to run through lockdown drills with their students. Jessica read about it in one of the school bulletins. She had called the school principal and was told that, for the little ones, they couched the idea in nonthreatening hypothetical terms like, Suppose a mean dog got loose in the school, and we needed a way to make everyone safe.
