No one spoke to her. ALIAS disappeared down a short hall and returned with a leather duffel bag with the Timberland logo.

“That’s it?” Teddy asked.

ALIAS said, “You locked me out of my own home.”

“Did I?” Teddy asked, leading the way as we passed the silent old woman living in her TV.

When we got back to his Bentley, the commons was bare of the children. A low bank of dark clouds rolled toward the river and there was the slight smell of rain in the distance mixed with the loose dust of scattering feet.

ALIAS held his bag. No expression.

Teddy circled his ride, searching for scratches or dents.

He shook his head. We both scanned the four clusters of housing projects surrounding us. No one. Loose popping of dried clotheslines stretching from metal crosses.

He pressed the release on the locks. The alarm chirped and I looked back at the long row of clouds. The silence was almost electric as I waited for him to take me home.

We rolled away in the Bentley, his car smelling of leather and new wood and some kind of lime perfume he sprayed on the rabbit fur. When we drove away, I watched three teenagers being hustled into the back of a black Suburban by about ten DEA officers. An old woman in pink house slippers yelled at them and kept throwing rocks at their back as they all loaded into the car.

5

“How did you meet this man?” I asked ALIAS, while we waited for a streetcar to move on St. Charles Avenue heading uptown to Lee Circle. Rain splattered the hood of my truck and wooden shop signs in the Warehouse District shook in the wind. Teddy had left me with the kid at my place and had gone back to the studio to make calls for last-minute loans. I told him I’d do my best but wished he’d just leave town.