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Dew laughed, but the pain in his throat changed the laugh to a cough.

“Kid, you could have broken my neck just now. You didn’t. So if this little girl has control over you, why am I still alive?”

The insane look faded away completely. Perry stood straight, stared at Dew for a few more seconds, then turned and walked away.

Margaret rose to her knees. Her hands held her left thigh, and her face was wrinkled with pain. “You kicked me.”

“Sorry,” Dew said. “My aim was off. I can’t imagine why.”

Dew slowly got to his feet, then reached down and helped Margaret up.

She let out a long breath. “Jesus,” she said. “You’re not the most sensitive guy in the world, are you? You need to stop being such a p.u.s.s.y? Did you really think that was going to motivate him somehow?”

“He’s a guy,” Dew said. “That kind of thing usually works with us.”

Margaret shook her head. “Can’t you men ever just talk something out?”

“You’re right, women are so much more logical,” Dew said. “Maybe I should have shown him my boxercise technique.”

Margaret rolled her eyes. “Fine. You’ve got me there. But hear me, Dew. Marcus and Gitsh are in the trailer mopping up Bernadette’s blood. You will get Perry to go in there and talk to those things, or that woman died for nothing.”

She pointed her finger in Dew’s face. “Do you understand me?”

So much anger in those eyes. She didn’t even look like Margo anymore. This was a new woman, one he’d helped create.

“I understand,” Dew said. “I’ll get through to him.”

Margaret walked back to the trailer, leaving Dew alone in the burned out, snow-covered kitchen.

TWO ALL-BEEF PATTIES

Rome sat slunk down in the driver’s seat of his Delta 88. The car was turned off, but even if it had been on, it would have been cold as h.e.l.l because the heater hadn’t worked in months. His eyes were just high enough to look out the driver’s-side window, across Orleans Street, at the fat man with the red beard walking along a waist-high fence. Wasn’t even a sidewalk there, just a snow-covered gra.s.s strip, the fence, then trees on the other side. White guy in the wrong neighborhood, at night, carrying a big white McDonald’s bag in each hand.

“Are you kidding me?” Rome said quietly. “Doesn’t this motherf.u.c.ker know where he’s at?”

In the pa.s.senger seat, Jamall shook his head. “He must not. White guy walking here at night? Alone? After hitting an ATM? It’s like he wants to get robbed.”

“Hope he got some Big Macs,” Rome said. “I’m hungry.”

The man wore jeans and a long-sleeved plaid s.h.i.+rt. Not only did he seem oblivious to his surroundings, he also seemed oblivious to the cold. Every four steps or so, his breath shot out in a big white cloud that lit up from the few working streetlights.

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