into the wall. “That’s for Koko. Touch her again and I’ll cut your heart out.”
We stood two feet apart, seething primal hatred. Slowly I backed to the door. “Remember, you only get one warning and this was it.”
I picked up the box, slipped out of the room, and hustled down the alley, where Koko waited with the motor running.
CHAPTER 18
She listened to my account with her eyes wide open and I gave it to her straight. She touched my battered face and said my name. “Oh Cliff. Oh God, Cliff, what a night.” Almost a full minute later, she said, “May I call you Cliff?”
I laughed painfully. “You really are a piece of work, Ms. Bujak.”
We were sitting in some common breakfast joint well away from downtown. She had struggled mightily to find something she could eat and I had eaten whatever came out of the dingy-looking kitchen. I was working on my third cup of real coffee.
“I thought you were a bookseller. I thought you were a scholar. Then you come out here and turn into some warrior straight from the Middle Ages.”
I smiled and she said, “I meant that in a good way.”
“I know how you meant it.”
“Does it make you uneasy, being a hero?”
“Nah. My favorite song is ‘The Impossible Dream.’ But it’s got to be sung in a deep baritone, not some wimpy tenor. I heard a tenor try to do it once. Disgraceful performance. Comical, in fact.” I drank some coffee. “A good bass could really do it up right.”
She smiled, almost lovingly, I thought, and said, “Do you always do that?”
“Do what?”
“A comedy routine whenever someone tries to say nice things about you?”
I shrugged. “You haven’t even seen my old bullet wounds yet.”
“See, that’s what I’m talking about.”
It was fun being her hero but the fun soon went away. She still didn’t understand what had just happened. To her the story was over. We had won.
So I told her. “I wasn’t trying to impress you, Koko. You need to know what you’re up against. Everything I did to Dante was calculated for an effect.”
“Sounds like you’re not sure it’ll work.”
I didn’t have a quick-and-easy answer for that. I sipped my coffee.
“Like maybe you’re afraid you’ve put me at some kind of risk.”
“You were already at risk. I just hope I didn’t make it worse.”
“What choice did we have?”
“Slink away in the night and let them keep your stuff.”
She flushed and shook her head. “No way.”
I liked her decisiveness but Boot Hill is full of decisive heroes. Vast new questions yawned before us.
“They may try to kill us. Does that change your mind?”
She shook her head, this time a little tentatively. But a no is a no, I thought. I said, “I don’t think you should go home. Not till I have a better read on it.”
She looked solemn at this news. I had her focused now.
“Where will I go?” Almost in the same breath she said, “Maybe I’ll go to Charleston. Sooner or later I’ll have to, I told you that. Maybe this would be a good time.”
I felt nothing but relief at this news. “Maybe it would. Maybe I’ll even go with you.”
She brightened. “Do that,” she said. “Please do.”
“Why not? It looks like I’m finished in Baltimore. I think my cover has been blown.”
“If I find what I hope to find down there, it might help you as well.”
“Want to give me a hint?”
