“But if they do give cash?”
“I just put it in a manila envelope in my bag,” she said, shrugging it off.
I couldn’t tell if she was naive. Or plain stupid.
I mean, no, this wasn’t the same city it was twenty or thirty years ago. And, sure, the Upper West Side was a relatively safe, affluent area. Muggings weren’t as pervasive as they’d once been. But it was the holiday season. Every kind of crime was on the rise as people got desperate to get gifts for their loved ones.
I felt the familiar weight of my ankle holster—and the gun in it. She wouldn’t be getting robbed on my watch.
“So this is your first year with Giftmas?” she asked as we made our way down to the subway platform.
“Yeah.”
“Not much of a talker, huh?” Steph asked.
“No.”
“Well, I can talk enough for the two of us,” she said. “Did you just hear of the charity?”
“Yeah, just yesterday.”
“And you decided to come right over?” she asked, pressing a hand to her heart.
“Yeah.” But I felt guilty for the look of awe in her eyes. I didn’t earn that shit, that was for sure.
“We could use more people like you,” she said as we made our way on the train.
Steph went right for one of the bars.
“Get up,” I said, stepping in front of a little shit-starting kid like I’d been once upon a time. I could spot fuckers like younger me a mile away.
“Fuck off,” he shot back.
“Get up,” I demanded again, reaching down to grab him by the front of his hoodie and yank him off his seat. “Babe,” I invited, waving Steph toward the now-abandoned seat.
I noticed her deer-in-the-headlights eyes but she slid into the seat.
“Who the fuck you think you are?” the kid, embarrassed, snarled at me as I led him a few feet away before releasing him.
“Shut up.”
“Who do you—” he started, charging at me.
“Keep it up, kid. Who you working for? ‘Round here… Matty? Derick? Miguel? Miguel,” I repeated when his eyes flickered. “Keep it up and me and Miguel will have some words.”
His chest stayed puffed, but his face looked a little less sure. “Miguel ain’t scared of nobody,” he insisted, chin jerking up.
“No? Tell him Venezio says hi. See who he ain’t scared of then. You give your seat to women and old people, you little shit,” I told him before turning and making my way back toward Steph.
Her eyes were glued to me as I approached.
“You really didn’t need to do that.”
“Yeah, I did. Who else is gonna teach these kids manners and shit?”
I didn’t have a family to do it for me either. I’d been a smart-ass kid taking up a valuable seat when I was a teen. And got my ass dragged up out of it by some six-six tank of a man whose old lady and baby needed a place to sit.
“Well, thanks, I guess. This is the first time I’ve sat down since five this morning. My feet have a pulse,” she admitted, flexing her feet up and down.
