I start to walk toward them. They don’t notice and when I’m about ten feet away I stand straight, pull my shoulders back and in my deepest voice I say, “Hey! You all right, lady?”
Her head snaps over and I realize she’s not a lady. She’s a kid with dirt-stained, coffee-colored skin and matted curly hair and light eyes. Is she even a teenager? I take a few steps closer and try to look calm and not shocked. The guy glares at me. He’s meaty but not muscled, which bodes well for me if I have to get physical. And he’s dirty, stains on his jacket and tears in his jeans; not the fashionable kind.
“She’s my kid. Mind your business,” he warns and yanks her away from the wall and turns her and himself away from me. He starts to drag-walk her down the alley. She looks back at me, eyes wide and filled with fear.
“Hey!” I take more steps toward them. “Kid! Is he your dad?”
“No!”
“Fucking bitch!” he barks, but doesn’t let her go and starts drag-walking her faster.
I pick up my pace too and clamp a hand on his shoulder. He spins to face me quickly, arms up. He doesn’t swing, he doesn’t seem to be holding a knife or a gun and more importantly, he lets her go.
I reach out and motion for her to get behind me. She does with quick, quiet steps. He turns his glare to her. “You fucking owe me, Mac!”
“I owe you nothing!” she yells back.
He bares his teeth, what’s left of them, and swears again taking a step toward us so I step toward him. “Fuck you…” he hisses at me. “I’m going to fucking find you and I’m going to make you pay.”
“What does she owe you?” I ask. But I’m really not sure I want the answer. She’s a street kid, clearly, so the answer could be anything from money to clothes to sexual acts. Oh please let it not be sexual acts.
“Not your fucking business.”
“I looted his Dumpster,” she blurts out.
Ah. Turf war. Okay. I sigh in relief because I can fix this. I reach into the pocket of my hoodie and pinch some, but not all of the bills I have in between my fingers and pull them out. A twenty and a five. “Twenty-five bucks to forget about whatever she took from your Dumpster.”
He rips the money out of my extended hand. “Tell her not to do it again.”
“She won’t. Right, Mac?” I glance over my shoulder. She’s not there. The entire alley behind me is empty. “What the fuck?”
I start to jog. When I get to the sidewalk I look right and then left. She’s across the street, half a block up. I sprint and catch up to her in no time. I even manage not to be hit by any cars when I jaywalk to get to her faster. “Mac!”
She doesn’t turn. Instead she starts walking faster and then she breaks into a run. I speed up. She’s fast, but she’s not a professional athlete with over a decade of endurance training. I reach her before she even gets half a block. She turns on me when I grab her arm and she’s ferocious, like a wild animal in a trap. It’s meant to be intimidating and to scare me and I’m thinking it works on a lot of people, but not me. I’ve been her. I know the tricks.
“I’ll scream. I’ll tell them you touched me,” she threatens.
“But then you won’t get the sixty bucks I want to give you,” I explain calmly, quietly, as I reach into the kangaroo pocket of my hoodie with the other hand and pull out the bag with the now mostly crushed donut. “And this.”
Her eyes, which are a light green color, dart down to bag and then back to my face, harder than ever. “It’s probably laced with roofies.”
I laugh. This girl is tough. “They wouldn’t dissolve like they do in drinks. You’d see them. And I swear on my life I just bought it a second before I ran into you. It’s my favorite donut in the world and I’m giving it to you, so take it before I change my mind.”
She wrenches her arm free and for a split second I think she might bolt again, but instead she snatches the donut bag out of my hand. She pulls it out. Most of the chocolate frosting is gone, it must be stuck to the inside of the bag. I figure she’ll take a bite but she just holds it, still a skeptic. “You don’t look like a guy who eats donuts.”
I laugh. “I’m not supposed to. You’re saving me from myself.”
She still looks skeptical but she takes a giant bite anyway. “Thanks,” she manages through chewing. “It tastes much better than the stale ones they dump out back after close.”
Oh God, this kid is killing me. “How long have you been on the street?”
“Who said I was?” she challenges.
“Everything about you says you are,” I reply bluntly. “I know because I’ve been there.”
“Ha!” she blurts out without a drop of humor. “Bullshit.”
“Swear to God,” I promise and something in that hard as nails face softens. I decide to push a little more. “How old are you?”
