The only hesitation I have about walking down San Francisco streets close
to two a.m. is the fear that a cop will sight us and decide to check us
out; when I voice this concern to Bad Ass~~to Avery~~she blinks at me
slowly, a smile spreading beatifically across her mocha cream face.

“Honey, unless we’re butt naked toting Uzi’s, waving burning batons and
blasting air horns, the police are not going to hassle us for walking at
night in the Mission.” She pats me on one arm consolingly. “Try to
remember you’re not in Kansas anymore.”

“And besides,” she adds, as I pull the door shut to the room. “I thought
all you guys stuck together, that ‘thin blue line’ bull shit.”

I eye her mildly. “Give me a break. My face and name has been all over
the fucking TV and newspaper and I know you know why I don’t want to be
yanked in by the local heat.”

She laughs throatily and the baby lifts her head and then stares at me in
bemusement, jamming tiny fists into her eyes, yawning.

“You do seem to be sort of on the outs with them, huh? First you bust the
Senator’s daughter for cocaine and then you almost deck the Senator on live
TV and then you go ram your car into a building supposedly drunk and high
and let’s not even go into you going berserk and racking that cop’s balls
in front of five hundred people.”

“Well, I like to keep busy.” I say and when our eyes meet we both start
giggling, the half-hysterical, post-altercation laughter so familiar to law
enforcement.

“’Motel Security, I have to ask you to leave, sir’,” she mimics, aiming one
finger at my crotch, then shifts the baby to her other hip. “Where’d that
come from?”

“I have no idea,” I confess. “I was so thrown by it being you in the room~~
and what was up with that guy’s dick?”

“Nothing,” she says succinctly and that’s it, we’re off on a jag so serious
we go to our knees on the cigarette butt and broken glass lined sidewalk,
howling hysterically.

The baby lifts her head and frowns then switches instantly to a happy smile
and bounces slobbery hands together spastically, crowing a cracked and
exhausted, “Yay!” which sets us off again.

                                    *~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

“Here,” Avery says, extending the baby out to me. The little body is warm
from being carried under Avery’s tee shirt next to bare skin. “I locked up
when I left. Poppy’ll be sleeping hopefully~~”

I find myself with my hands full of chubby baby, on the steps of a duplex
which looks to be adobe, the yard fenced with chain link and the lawn
littered with moon-limned Tonka trucks and discarded chubby grinning
Playschool figures.

“Hi,” I say to the baby who peers back at me, eyes wide and suspicious in
the streetlight.

“She doesn’t like me,” I tell Avery.

“Well, I always thought she was the smart one,” she quips, then shakes her
head as she eases the door open and flicks a light switch inside to
illuminate the small porch area.

Chloe and I both blink and look annoyed.

“You’re holding her like she’s a bomb, Cowboy.”

“Well, it does smell like something detonated recently.”

Chloe glares at me and sniffs as if I don’t smell all that great either.

Avery takes her from me and I watch the baby settle comfortably into her,
legs sprawled, tiny hands fisting themselves into the fabric of the tee
shirt. Past them I can see a dark colored fabric sofa, gone slack with
years of use and sagging now with the weight of an older looking man, hair
that’s left, white, glasses showed up on his forehead, a newspaper spread
out on his chest which rises and falls slowly.

“Poppy,” Avery says, then adds, “My dad. Chloe’s grandpa.”

I nod and jam my hands in my jeans pockets, stepping off the porch onto
the sidewalk, nearly committing inadvertent suicide by Hot Wheels.

“Be careful,” Avery says, laughing softly. “It’s dangerous ‘round here.”

“I see that,” I comment and then glance up the quiet dark street to 14th
where an ambulance is screaming its way to the next catastrophe.

“Her mom…” I start out, gesturing to Chloe, then stop and Avery sighs,
patting the fat little belly with a gentle hand.

“Is a piece of shit. She’s been in Rehab, she’s done every program there
is. Some people just don’t want to be helped.”

I nod. “How far along is she?”

“No clue. The bitch lies about everything. Her twins? Chloe’s older
brothers, Curtis and Travis? Last week she told me she needed twenty bucks
to enroll them in the basketball program down at the Y and I thought, okay,
yeah, ten bucks apiece, that ain’t so bad, it’s for the shirts or
something, maybe the Gatorade… I left it on the table and the bitch stole
it and the money I had hid for the electric bill. And turned out, they
didn’t need any money for basketball. She made it up.”

She pauses, stroking Chloe’s back and shakes her head laughing. “It’s like
that all the time. It’s been one scam from her after another and what can
we do? Not like we can turn the babies out just because she’s their mama.”

“Where’s your brother?” I ask and know the answer the second the question
leaves my lips from the way her head flings up, the cheekbones throwing
exquisite hollows into her face.

“He’s dead.” Her voice is harsh, the look she gives me more so.

“I’m sorry.”

She shrugs, widening her eyes. “D’you kill him? And here the cops said it
was just an accident, looked like the wrong brother on the right corner to
the wrong people.”

“When…”

“Two months.” She snarls it, not wanting sympathy, not wanting
commiseration.

I clear my throat and before I can speak she says, voice severe and
lecturing, as if to a child, “It may not be. But it doesn’t
matter. Family is family and that’s Chloe’s baby brother or
sister. That’s the twins’ baby brother or sister.”

I lick my lips and nod, looking back towards 14th and above me she snorts
and looks vaguely disgruntled and seems to be about to start off on a
tirade when the form on the sofa stirs, newspaper crinkling as he coughs
and flounders upright.

“Av’ry?” he asks, voice thick and hoarse from sleep and she takes a step
back and when she speaks to him her voice is respectful and has lost the
street-smart drawl she incorporates into her speech with me.

“I’m here, Daddy. At the door.”

“You find Maylene?” The sofa and floor creaks as he shoves himself up off
it, wincing slightly and rubbing at his knees before he straightens upright.

“Oh, I found her,” Avery says and he knows the tone and stops, then sees
she’s holding the baby who is kicking and grinning and holding out both
hands to him, making empty fists and grunting noises.

“Well, but you got our little doodle bug back safe and sound,” he says, a
smile in his voice and takes the baby out of her arms, then sniffs and
wrinkles his face up comically.

“Shoooooo-wheeeeee!” he exclaims, to the delight of the baby who pats his
dark face happily, making ecstatic conversational noises. “I think doodle
bug done made some doodle…

“Hello?” this last as he catches sight of me, turning to peer down the
steps and squinting at the light as he takes a step out beside Avery onto
the porch.

I nod and take the same step backwards, clearing my throat, wondering why
the fuck I hadn’t walked away ten seconds earlier, looking at the freedom
of traffic and a fire truck which is howling its way to join the ambulance
on a street only fifty yards away.

“Well,” I say, withdrawing and raising the obligatory hand, “Nice to meet
you, sir~~”

“Hold on now just one second,” he says and thirty four years of Southern
mentality and politeness throw me to a stop so fast my heels squeak on the
pavement.

“Avery,” he says voice cordial and coaxing and she represses a grin as she
ducks her head to indicate me, her voice formal and serene, but her eyes
telling me she is enjoying this no end.

“Poppy, this is Cooper. She’s a police officer, from Texas and she likes
to be called Cowboy.”

“Fuh~~” I start, and then stop myself, chewing on my tongue and glaring at
her, although I can’t quite hide the grin.

“Finn,” I amend the F rather deftly I think and smile at him, holding out a
hand. “Cooper Finn, sir.”

“Cooper,” he says, tasting it and ruminating on it for a moment. “Odd
choice for a girl but I like it. Strong, unusual. Yes, I like it.”

This decided he takes my hand and there’s a jolt like a bolt of juiced
electricity clear through me as he does.

I feel my eyes widen and my first instinct is to yank my hand back but
something in Avery’s face stops me; she’s waiting for this and whatever it
is, it’s some kind of test and H. Cooper Finn has failed too many of those
lately.

“Hmm,” he says finally, releasing me.

It takes everything I’ve got to not stagger backwards.

“Darkness,” he announces and it dawns on me suddenly why the cadences in
his voice are so familiar; it’s pure Southern Baptist Evangelist in Revival
mode.

“But she’s trying,” he adds and repeats it to Chloe aka Doodle Bug who
turns to gaze at me skeptically.

“She’s trying.”

“Um… yeah,” I say helplessly and take three huge ass steps backwards,
skillfully avoiding all Playschool, Tonka and Hot Wheels accessories.

“I’ll just be trying to find my way back to that motel now.”

“She looks peaked Avery. Isn’t there some pot roast left over? Did you
invite her in for a bite to eat?”

I switch my no doubt terrified gaze to Avery and find her smugly batting
her eyes and smiling as she tilts her head, shaking it, sadly, ashamed of
her manners.

“Why, no, Daddy. I didn’t.”

“That’s okay,” I say, forcing what I hope is a polite, yet resolved
smile. “I’ll just be going now…”

“Always plenty to feed another mouth at the Pennybaker house,” he says
graciously, while Avery grins at me evilly where he can’t see it.

“No, sir, thank you, really~~ I’m not hungry. And it’s really late. I’ll
just be~~”

“Finn,” he says suddenly, bemusedly patting the infant’s back. “Cooper
Finn. Why does that sound so famil~~” he stops, gazing at me, eyes
blinking behind wire rimmed frames.

“Oh.”

I nod.

“The police officer from Texas in the paper and on the television.”

“Yes, sir,” I say and even I hear how tired I sound as I sigh so I force
the smile as I take another step backwards, hands back in my
pockets. “That would be me. Nice to meet you.”

“Avery,” he says, pulpit voice booming so that both of us jump,
startled. “I fixed a plate for Maylene. Get that one for Miss Finn.”

“That’s not neces~~” I begin and then stop, feeling dizzy and confused as
the moment is superimposed in my brain with one from twenty seven years
earlier.

It had been dark, just like this, but colder.

There had been grass beneath my feet rather than toy littered concrete, but
the light~~ something about the light and the shape of the furniture and
the cozy, muted setting past the door is the same. There’s a calendar on
the wall and a long haired white cat staring at me with suspicion and when
I hear my name called it takes me a fuzzy moment or two to realize it’s
2002 and I’m thirty four years old. A quick glance at the nearest street
light confirms it; there’s no giddy swoop of a red plastic Christmas bell,
the top frosted with white plastic snow in some West Texas holiday fantasy.

There’s just a pale amber circle of light with a halo about it because the
fog is rolling in.

I shiver, cold suddenly and jerk, startled by the small collision of past
and present; “Cooper,” I hear in a voice whose patient yet exasperated tone
tells me it’s been said several times and turn my head to find all three of
them regarding me from the doorway quizzically. Avery’s expression is
bemused, her father’s concerned and kindly, head to one side; Chloe regards
me with wide dark eyes that look uncomfortably wise and ancient for my
present mood.

“Yeah,” I say, “I’m fine,” and then realize that no one asked that
particular question but have no idea what else they might have asked and
laugh a little, kicking at the sidewalk as I walk backwards towards the
small gate at the street.

I fumble trying to lift the metal latch and there’s a second or two of
panic before I’m safely out on the outer walk and then wonder, as I swing
the gate shut, what I thought there was to be afraid of here.

“Miss Finn,” I hear the old man call quietly and I force a smile as I lift
my hands off the gate and say, “Got it! Finally!” brightly as if I think he
was going to give me instructions about the latch.

It’s too dark for me to really make out his expression; the porch light
winks twin gold sparks off the lenses of his glasses as his head moves. The
baby yawns and throws both arms down violently to her sides as she hurtles
her small body against his chest and kicks her feet, snuggling in.

I feel the muscles in my gut tighten as he clears his throat and silently
will him to say something inane and innocuous, but know he won’t. The hair
on the back of my neck lifts and the skin of my arms stands out in goose
bumps, waiting and I make a display of checking that the bar dropped and
the gate is secure before I look up.

For one split second it’s as if I’m standing on the porch looking out at
the figure by the gate; I see the ducked head, the wary look out from under
disordered hair that should have been washed and combed a day ago spiky and
lank around a face that looks bruised and sallow even at a distance, the
defeated slump of the shoulders and the all-too-clear outline of weapon
under the baggy tee.

Yeah, I think and not bitterly as he reaches for the knob of the wooden
door in preparation to swinging it shut. I’d be doing that too. You
should close that door. People like me belong out here looking in.

“No,” he says clearly, shaking his head, “That’s not what I was
thinking. Not at all.”

My heart pounds furiously, wondering if I spoke aloud but certain I haven’t
and I nearly jump out of my skin when he shakes his head again, laughing
slightly.

“I hope we get a chance to talk sometime, Miss Finn. And I think maybe you
should be wondering exactly what it is you’re running from. And who.”

                               *~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

The accident is at Valencia and 14th, a block before the motel; I can
see the ambulance and fire truck and at least three police units on the
scene, splashing the buildings red and blue, radios popping with static and
miscellaneous transmissions and beeps. There’s a crowd gathered even at
this hour and it’s easy to slip in among them unnoticed and very anonymous.

Someone’s put the nose of a vehicle into the side of the small neighborhood
liquor store tearing out a good six foot of cinderblock and adobe just
behind the cash register area much to the delight of the neighborhood
insomniacs and homeless. The police on the scene have taken up a position
blocking the hole to the right of the car’s front end; they look antsy and
restless, batons out and the rather boisterous carnival air and alcohol
fumes of the crowd make it clear why. I snort, reminded of the Superbowl
Sunday when a beer truck over turned two miles outside Austin on IH10,
tossing Budweiser in every size, shape and form all over four lanes of
highway. We’d almost needed the National Guard to keep control.

Thirty five feet past the crash a homeless man has set up an impromptu shop
just inside an alley handing out cartons of cigarettes and six packs of
beer apparently gleaned from the store before the emergency personnel and
police arrived. He presses a six pack of room temperature Samuel Adams
into my hands with a huge toothless grin and a hearty, “Jesus Loves You,”
to which I can only respond, “He certainly must,” in agreement.

Back in the room I lock up, stash the beer in the little fridge and snag a
cold one before sliding over the top of the chest of drawers back into my
little cubby hole, feeling oddly ridiculous, like a child playing cops and
robbers. I slide the SIG back under the edge of the bed and tentatively
feel around the edges of what just transpired with Avery and the old man,
wondering if I want to go anywhere near it anytime soon and decide that no,
I do not.

Preacher, I tell myself. A connoisseur of facial expressions and you know
how easy you are to read. Not like it was hard with you standing there
glaring at him from under your bangs. Nothing to be spooked about and you
sure as hell aren’t going back. Let it go.


END OF FIFTY