"Yeah. Bet he ran like hell the second he got outside."
"I don't know. I think he's more subtle than that." Nais-mith put a finger to his lips and motioned Rosas to follow him around the banners that lined the side of the game shop.
There was not much need for stealth. The shoppers were noisy, and the loading of furniture onto several carts behind the refurbishers' pavilion was accompanied by shouting and laughter.
The early afternoon breeze off Vandenberg set the colored fabric billowing. Double sunlight left nothing to shadow. Still, they almost tripped over the boy curled up under the edge of a tarp. The boy exploded like a bent spring, directly into Mike's arms: If Rosas had been of the older generation, there would have been no contest: In-grained respect for children and an unwillingness to damage them would have let the kid slip from his grasp. But the un-dersheriff was willing to play fairly rough, and for a moment there was a wild mass of swinging arms and legs. Mike saw something gleam in the boy's hand, and then pain ripped through his arm.
Rosas fell to his knees as the boy, still clutching the knife, pulled loose and sprinted away. He was vaguely conscious of red spreading through the tan fabric of his left sleeve. He narrowed his eyes against the pain and drew his service stun-ner.
"No!" Naismith's shout was a reflex born of having grown up with slug guns and later having lived through the first era in history when life was truly sacred.
The kid went down and lay twitching in the grass. Mike holstered his pistol and struggled to his feet, his right hand clutching at the wound. It looked superficial, but it hurt like hell. "Gall Seymour," Mike grated at the old man. "We're going to have to carry that little bastard to the station."