“I don’t.”
“It wasn’t you?”
“I was home all night. You can check with my mother.”
He rested his hands on his bulging stomach. “I buried a lot over the years. Each time I questioned myself. The times you got caught stealing—”
“Food,” she said, sad. “It was just food.”
“This is different. A lot of money, if someone was in there they could’ve died. Some things I can’t protect you from.”
They stood together as a car passed, a neighbor, old and looking on, a quick glance at them and then away. Star’s girl, not a hint of surprise.
“I know about Darke and what he’s like.”
She palmed her eyes, too tired, her muscles all tight. “You don’t know shit, Walk.” She said it quiet but he took it hard. “Why don’t you go stroll up Main and help the vacationers with their dogs.”
He looked for something to say, instead he dropped his eyes to the grass and thumbed his badge, redundancy fit him like a second skin.
She turned and walked on, not looking back. He knew if it wasn’t for Robin keeping her straight, his hands would be all full.
At the school gate she saw the car, the Escalade, black with windows that shaded out the world. It sat idle, the unknowing passed by. Yellow buses lined like flowers.
She knew it would come; Star always talked about balance, cause and effect. She waved off her brother and watched him into the red doors.
In the air was still fire, floating embers that charred her arms and clung to her nose. She wondered who’d seen her at that hour, that night hour when the socially concerned should’ve been home and sleeping off the perfect day. Bad luck, that was all. A part of her was glad, because fuck Dickie Darke.
She crossed the street and walked up to the window outside her school, where she was safe, with teachers and people who promised to notice strangers.
The window dropped. Darke’s eyes, swollen, bloated like he’d been dredged from the water, except instead of the ocean it was money and greed that filled him.
She stood still, her knees shaking beneath her jeans but she fixed him with a hard look.
“Get in.” Not angry, not loud.
“Fuck you.”
A group of kids from her class passed and did not see her, all excitement, last week of school. Sometimes she wondered what it would be like, a little more ordinary, a little more nothing.
“Kill the engine and take the key out.”
He did.
She walked round. “I’ll leave the door open.”
He gripped the wheel, thick fingers, huge knuckles.
“We both know.”
She watched the sky. “We do.”
“Do you know about the principle of causation?” He looked so sad, so fucking big and tough and sad. A creature not of this world.
“Come at me.”
“You don’t know what you did.”
On the mat was a single spent butt, just stubbed and burned in. The brand her mother smoked.
“You’re not like your mother,” he said.
Duchess watched a bird hold still and perfect in the air.
Darke rubbed a hand along the wheel. “She’s got a way out. She owes rent. I need a favor.”
“She’s not a whore.”
“Do I look like a pimp to you?”
“You look like a cunt to me.”
The word sat there a while.
“That’s okay. So long as I don’t look like the man I really am.” He spoke with a flatness that chilled her.
“You took something last night.”
“You’ve got enough.”
“Who decides what enough looks like?”
She stared.
“Your mother can make this go away. You need to ask her. That would level things a little.”
“Fuck you, Darke.”
“The tape, Duchess. I need the security tape.”
“Why?”
“Trenton Seven. You know what that is?”
“The insurance place. I see the boards.”
“They won’t pay the money because the tape is missing and they think I had something to do with the fire.”
“You did.”
He took a long, deep breath.
She grit her teeth.
“I won’t forget.”
She met his eye. “You shouldn’t.”
“I really don’t want to have to come for you.” Something in his voice made her believe him.
“But you will.”
“I will.”
He reached across her, into the glove compartment, took out his sunglasses, not before she saw it, sitting there, the barrel facing her.
“I’ll give you the day. You tell your mother what you did. She can fix it, or I’ll have to. And you get the tape back.”
“You’ll give it to Walk.”
“No.”
“The insurance guys will get the cops involved.”
“Maybe. But you got to ask yourself something, Duchess.”
“And what’s that, Dick?” Maybe he caught the tremor then.
“Would you rather have the cops come looking for you? Or me?”
“I heard you stamped a guy to death.”
“He didn’t die.”
“Why did you do it?”
“Business.”
“The tape. Maybe I’ll hold on to it.”
He stared at her, those eyes that bore deep.
“You stay away from my mother and maybe one day I’ll give it back to you.”
She climbed from the car, then turned. He watched her, studied her, taking in every feature, committing her to memory. She wondered what he saw as she walked into the school building, beside other kids, their lives so light they dazzled her.
The day crawled. She checked the clock often, her eye on the window, the teacher’s words not reaching her ear. She ate lunch alone, watched Robin from the fence and felt what little control she once had slip from her grasp. Darke could do immeasurable damage. She needed the tape. She believed he wouldn’t take it to Walk. She reasoned there were two types of people in the world, the kind that called the cops and the kind that did not.
When the bell sounded she watched the other kids file in, kids playing ball tried for one last play, Cassidy Evans led her group.
Duchess slipped down the side of the main building, then ran across to the parking lot and drifted through Fords and Volvos and Nissans. She would get caught, no doubt about it, but she’d tell her mother she was feeling sick, time of the month, something the school would not press.
She walked fast, feeling the eyes of everyone she passed. She skirted Main in case Walk was
