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"She does so," I insisted. "I heard her."

"If she did, it was so long ago, I can't remember." She was sad for a moment and then she brightened. "See if you can get Roy to let me wear his leather jacket Friday.

He'll let me if you ask him for me, Rain. I look real fine in that jacket. Will you ask him? Will you?"

"Okay," I said laughing. "But I'm sure he'd let you wear it if you asked him yourself."

"No, he wouldn't. He would carry on about me being like some homeboys or something. He doesn't want me looking good."

"Oh Beni, stop being so critical of him. He loves you. With Ken running out on us all the time, Roy feels responsible. It's not easy being our big brother."

She looked at me with her head tilted and her lips pulled back deeply into her cheeks.

"Sometimes you talk like you're twenty years older than me, Rain. It makes me wonder how we've both been raised under the same roof."

I started to laugh as we rounded the corner, but it ended up being only a brief smile because directly in front of us, leaning against a car, was Jerad Davis. He stood up when he saw us. He wore the same clothes he had worn in Oh Henry's, but he looked uglier and more frightening to me when he smiled and sauntered toward us.

"Well, well, well, look who I bumped into, the Rain girl herself," he quipped.

Beth stopped, her mouth agape. She looked at me in anticipation. I stared at him when I paused, but I didn't speak.

"Can't you say hello? It's not like we don't know each other. Hell, we kissed."

"You mean you forced yourself on me," I accused. He just laughed.

"You were the one who came rushing at me, girl. I've been thinking about you and I decided I'll give you some of my time." He looked at Beni. "I hear you're going to see Carlton Friday night. Why don't we make it a double date, huh?" he asked, turning back to me.

"Excuse me," I said. "We have to get home."

I started around him, but he stepped in my way, holding his arms out.

"Now that's not polite and here I've been telling everyone I met the politist Rain in the city." He laughed.

"Please, let us pass," I said.

"Not until I get another kiss," he declared.

"I'd rather kiss the gutter."

He roared and I tried to walk around him again, but he skipped in front of me, his arms out as if he was going to embrace me.

"You liked it, baby. Admit it."

"It made me sick," I said. "That's all I'll admit."

Beth looked absolutely mortified, the look of terror in her eyes adding to my own fear. Jerad's face hardened, his eyes like stones.

"That's not nice," he said, still blocking my way.

"Let them go by," a voice shouted from behind us. We turned to see Roy come walking from between two parked cars. He had a tire iron in his right hand, gripped like a club. Jerad didn't move, just stared at Roy, his eyes narrowing and the small smile on his lips growing cold and sharp.

"Who the hell are you?"

"Their brother, that's who," Roy said.

"What are you going to do with that tire iron?" Jerad asked.

"Whatever I have to do," Roy replied. He came up beside me. In the silence, I thought everyone could hear my heart pounding like bongo drums.