Silent Night

“You ever consider following the kids around, try to find out who’s bothering them?”

“Yeah, right.” Frankie flashed the might-be-a-sneer, might-be-a-grin look at Hawk. Hawk showed nothing. The look disappeared. “I do what Mr. Alvarez tells me to do. No upside in freelancing.”

“Might help you to move around a little bit,” I said. “You stand next to the door too long, people might mistake you for a coatrack.”

Frankie balled his fists, took a step toward me, then looked at Hawk and reconsidered. We walked out.

HAWK AND I sat in my car and looked back at Street Business. We seemed to be doing a lot of sitting in my car lately. Maybe it was the start of a new holiday tradition. Next year we could change it up a little and sit in Hawk’s car.

“How you feeling about Street Business now?” I said.

Hawk nodded his approval. “Not bad,” he said. “This Jackie seem sincere, seem good with the kids. Place be clean and tidy. Kids look happy, like they gettin’ fed and looked after. Got structure and routine.”

“Is it a place you would have wanted to be when you were a kid?”

Hawk shook his head.

“Not what I wanted, way I was then. Didn’t want no structure, didn’t want no rules.”

“But you wanted to eat. A place to sleep.”

“Food always come with some catch. Rules. Tradeoffs. Someone tryin’ to save me. Didn’t want that. Needed to find my own way.”

“So—what, then?”

“Man I am now can look back, say sure, would’a been nice to have someplace safe to go, place where you knew somebody give a rat’s ass, could teach you things. Didn’t want that then.”

He turned to me and gri

“We so different?”

“Different enough. You got rules.”

“And you don’t?”

“Just a few. Need a whole book for your rules. Have to think too much. Turns you soft sometimes. I try to live your way, I be dead long ago.”

“And you think Street Business might make those kids soft?”

“Just sayin’ the world be a pretty simple place when you just tryin’ to stay alive.” He fell silent for a moment. “Street Business be good if it gives kids a safe place off the streets. Even better if it teach them skills. Someday they got to go out on their own, leave Street Business behind. Got to be ready when that day comes.”

“Give a man a fish versus teach a man to fish.”

“Always comforting to hear you quote Scripture,” Hawk said.

“Anything trouble you about this place?”

Hawk thought for a moment. “Couple of things. Something go wrong down here, sure would hate to depend on ol’ Frankie.”

“Yeah,” I said. “You’ve got to admire a man who loves his work. I’ve met the other member of the security detail. He’s pretty much the same.”

“Don’t know this Juan Alvarez, but you think if he so concerned about his brother, he make sure his team fell in line.”

“Or bring in a team that did,” I said. “What else?”

Hawk looked out the car window. “Neighborhood’s too quiet.”

He was right. The block was deserted. Except for Street Business, there were no lights visible in the windows of any building on either side of the street. There were no Christmas lights, no menorahs, no holiday decorations for the length of the block. I realized that in the entire time Hawk and I had been in the car, we had seen no traffic, no pedestrians, no kids pulling sleds or throwing snowballs.

We waited and watched for signs of life. Fifteen minutes passed and nothing changed.

“No Whos in Whoville,” I said.

“Maybe the Rapture just happened,” said Hawk, “and we got left behind.”

Dusk settled over the neighborhood. The streetlights kicked on, offering a thin canopy of light over the street.

“Still curious why Alvarez don’t wa

“Well,” I said, opening my car door, “since we’re in the neighborhood, let’s find out what makes them so special.”

The first one we chose was quiet and dark inside. If anyone was upstairs, we did not hear them. I turned on a couple of lamps in a room that once had passed as a parlor but now looked like the final resting place for furniture the Salvation Army wouldn’t take. The two sofas were sprung, and the chair cushions looked as greasy as two-day-old stir-fry.

In the kitchen, dirty dishes were piled in the sink and laundry was heaped by the washer.

“Tidy bunch,” Hawk said.

“No sports equipment or video games. Nothing for kids.”

“These aren’t kids. These employees,” Hawk said.

I entered a larger room with a desk in the corner. I was shuffling through some papers lying on the scarred Formica top when I heard footsteps.

I turned, and a tall man with a red crew cut was pointing a small handgun at me. Hawk was nowhere in sight.

“Who are you?” he said. “What are you doing here?” He was lean and strong-looking, in better shape than either Joe or Frankie at Street Business.

“I’m going door-to-door collecting for charity,” I said. “We want to send all the underprivileged kids in Weston to violin camp. Would you care to contribute?”

“Not fu

I raised my hands, and he continued to point the gun at my chest. He seemed uncertain about what to do next.

“How’d you get in here?” Redhead was doing his best to look menacing. The gun helped.

“Chimney,” I said. “Just like Santa.”

Redhead opened his mouth to say something. He never got the chance. Hawk appeared behind him and put one arm around Redhead’s neck and his knee deep into his back. Redhead let out a choked snarl and dropped his gun. I picked it up and stuck it in my pocket.

Hawk let Redhead go.

I looked down at the floor where Redhead sat with his head down. He had left a small duffel bag in the doorway, which I inspected while Hawk watched him. Five hundred in big bills and a round-trip economy ticket to El Paso, Texas. A small notepad filled with dates and numbers. I tucked it inside my pocket.

I looked at Redhead. “You live here?”

He stared at the ground and said nothing.

“Want to tell us what’s so great about El Paso at Christmas?”

Redhead remained enamored with a spot on the wooden floor. He shook his head.

“Maybe he just shy,” said Hawk. “Could use a little encouragement to facilitate some conversation.”

Redhead started to shake a little.

“No,” I said. “Let’s go.”

“No?” Hawk said. “Guy almost shot you.”

“Almost,” I said. “And we did invite ourselves in.”

Hawk shook his head. “Rules, Spenser. Rules go

“Maybe,” I said. “But not today.”