Cross Country

dangerous to talk in here. Too many eyes and ears. Outside, mister. We talk out there. One hundred dollars.”
    He pushed off from the wall and pimp-strutted toward the front door, which was wide open to the street. I watched him drain his cup of beer, drop it on a table, and leave the hall.
    I had no intention of letting him get away, but I wasn’t going to walk outside the way he wanted me to either. It was his accent that told me what I needed to know. Not Sierra Leonean.
Yoruban
. The boy was from Nigeria.
    I counted thirty, then slipped out the back of Modern Serenity.

Chapter 57
    SURVEILLANCE. I WAS decent at it, always had been good at keeping a step ahead of an opponent. Even, hopefully, some as tricky and dangerous as the Tiger and his gang.
    I worked a wide perimeter around to the front. When I got to the corner of the neighboring building, I had a pretty clear view of the town hall entrance.
    The kid in the red Houston Rockets jersey was standing off to the side with another, younger boy. They were facing different directions, surveying the street while they talked.
    An ambush?
I had to wonder.
    After a few minutes, the older one went back inside, presumably to look for me. I didn’t wait to make my next move. If he had half a brain, he’d go exactly the way I’d just come.
    I skirted the dirt intersection and changed position, moving to a burned-out doorway on the opposite corner of the street. It was attached to the black concrete skeleton of whatever the building had once been, possibly a general store.
    I pressed back into the empty door frame and hung there out of sight, watching, doing the surveillance as best I could.
    Considering that I was working on Mars.
    Sure enough, Houston Rockets came out a minute later, then paused right where I had been standing before.
    His partner ran over and they conferred, nervously looking around for me.
    I decided that as soon as they made a move, I’d follow them. If they split up, I’d stick with the older one,
Rockets
.
    That’s when a voice came from directly behind me.
    “Hey, mister,
mister
. Want to buy a stone? . . . . Want to get your skull crushed in?”
    I turned, and before I saw anyone in the dark, something hard and heavy clocked me in the head; a rock or a brick, maybe.
    It stunned me and I fell to one knee. My vision whited out, then went black before it started to come back.
    Someone grabbed my arm and yanked me away from the street — into a building. Then more rough hands — I didn’t know how many — forced me to the ground and flat on my back.
    My awareness swam in fast circles. I was working hard to get my bearings. I could feel several people gripping my arms and legs, holding me to the floor with their strong, lithe bodies.
    As my vision got a little sharper, it was still hard to make any of them out in the dark. All I saw were vague, small shadows, but lots of them.
    All the size of boys
.

Chapter 58
    “YO!” ONE OF the threatening shadows called out with a voice too cocky and young to be anything but a street punk’s. “
Over here!
We got di bastard good now.”
    I was flying blind, almost literally, but I refused to go down for the count so easily. I figured that if I did, I was probably dead.
    I shook off whoever was on my right arm and swung at whoever had my left. None of them was stronger than me, but collectively they were like fly paper covering every inch of my body. I fought even harder, fighting for my life, I knew.
    I finally struggled to get halfway to my feet, each leg carrying an extra hundred pounds, when the other two bangers from the street came running in.
    One of them shined a flashlight on me; the other smashed the butt of a pistol into my face.
    I felt my nose snap.
Again!
    “Sonofabitch!” I yelled.
    The blinding pain ran up into my brain and seemed to spread through my whole body. It was worse than the first time, if that was possible. My first thought was,
You’ve got to be fucking kidding me
.
    The killer boys swarmed all over me, half as many this time, and brought me down. A sneakered foot came to rest on my forehead.
    Then I felt the cold metal of a gun barrel pressed hard into my cheek.
    “He da one?” someone asked.
    A flashlight’s bright light sent another spike of pain through my eyes.
    “He da one, Azi.” I recognized the voice from the town hall.
    The speaker crouched down next to my head. “Listen, we gonna send you out of here with a message. No one fuck with us, you