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" 'Fraid I can't help you," he said "Whatever you lookin' for, you lookin' awful far uptown for it"

I suppose the boy followed me out of the bar I didn't notice, and I should have You have to pay attention to that sort of thing

I alking along the street,all over the place, from Kim's mysterious boyfriend to the speaker who'd stabbed his lover By the tiside ofto turn when his hand fastened on my shoulder and propelled ht in after me He was an inch or so shorter than me but his bushy Afro hteen or twenty or twenty-tith a drooping ht jacket with zippered pockets and a pair of tight black jeans, and he had a little gun in his hand and it was pointed right atiiht, Why didn't I get to the bank? Why didn't I leave soetting his teeth straightened, St Paul's could forget about their ten percent

And I could forget about to honky bastard, dirtyto kill me I reached in my pocket for er on the trigger and I knew it He orking hi to be enough for hirand, but I'd be dead whatever money I had

We were in an alley about five feet wide, just a gap between two brick teneht froe for another ten or fifteen yards beyond where we stood There was rain-soaked litter on the ground, scraps of paper, beer cans, broken bottles

Fine place to die Fine way to die, not even a very original one Shot dead by a e

I drew the wallet out of ot, you're welco he'd resolved to shoot me for five dollars or five thousand I extended the wallet, hand shaking, and I dropped it

"I'et it," and bent to retrieve it, hoping he'd bend forward also, figuring he had to I bent at the knees and I gathered htened up hard and fast, slapping at the gun as I drove un went off, deafening in that enclosed space I thought I rabbed and butted hiainst the wall behind hiun held loose in his hand I kicked his wrist and the gun went flying

He came off the wall, his eyes full of ht in the pit of the storabbed that son of a bitch, one hand gripping the nylon flight jacket, the other tangled up in his ht into the wall, three quick steps that ended with his face s into the bricks Three, four times I drew him back by the hair and so of hi on the floor of the alley

My heart was pounding as if I'd run at top speed up ten flights of stairs I couldn't catchfor breath, waiting for the cops to come

Nobody caunshot, but nobody ca man ould have killedteeth broken off at the guainst his face and blood flowed from it in a stream

I checked, made sure I wasn't shot Sometimes, I understand, you can take a bullet and not feel it at the time Shock and adrenaline anesthetize the pain But he'd , found a fresh indentation in the brick where the bullet had dug out a chip before ricocheting I figured out where I'd been standing and calculated that he hadn't missed me by much

Nohat?

I found my wallet, put it back in un, a32-caliber revolver with a spent cartridge in one of its chambers and live rounds in the other five Had he killed anyone else with it? He'd seemed nervous, so ain, ger, just as soe

I knelt down and frisked him He had a switch knife in one pocket, another knife tucked into his sock No wallet, no ID, but he had a thick roll of bills on his hip I slipped off the rubber band and gave the roll a fast count He had over three hundred dollars, the bastard He hadn't been looking toof dope

And what the hell was I going to do with him?

Call the cops? And hand theround was the one who'd sustained the dah for a courtroo to hold hiive him his money back No way to prove it was stolen No way to prove it wasn't rightfully his

They wouldn't give hie on hi it

I put his roll of bills in un that I'd placed there earlier I turned the gun over and over into recall the last time I'd handled one It had been a while

He lay there, his breath bubbling through the blood in his nose and throat, and I crouched at his side After a un into his ruined er

Why not?

So stopped me, and it wasn't fear of punishment, not in this world or the next I' tiun fro like brass in the soft light of the alley I wiped the gun on his jacket front, put it back in odda to do with you?

I couldn't kill him and I couldn't hand him to the cops What could I do? Leave him there?

What else?