Winter Moon

the house and get a couple of knives, plant them in your hands before

the first black-and-white gets here.

Maybe they'll drag me into court and maybe they won't. But what jury's

going to put the wife of a hero cop and the mother of a little

eight-year-old boy in prison?"

"You wouldn't do that," the third kid said, although he spoke only

after a hesitation. A thread of uncertainty fluttered in his voice.

She continued to surprise herself by speaking with an intensity and

bitterness she didn't have to fake. "Wouldn't I, huh? Wouldn't I? My

Jack, two partners shot down beside him in one year, and him lying in

the hospital since the first of March, going to be in there weeks yet,

months yet, God knows what pain he might have the rest of his life,

whether he'll ever walk entirely right, and here I am out of work since

October, savings almost gone, can't sleep for worrying, being harassed

by crud like you. You think I wouldn't like to see somebody else

hurting for a change, think I wouldn't actually get a kick out of

hurting you, hurting you real bad? Wouldn't I? Huh? Huh? Wouldn't

I, you little snot?"

Jesus. She was shaking. She hadn't been aware that anything this dark

was in her. She felt her gorge rising in the back of her throat and

had to fight hard to keep it down.

From all appearances, she had scared the three taggers even more than

she had scared herself. Their eyes were wide with fright in the

moonlight.

"We . . . been here . . . before," gasped the kid whom she'd

kicked.

"How often?"

"T-twice."

The house had been hit twice before, once in late March, once in the

middle of April.

Glowering down at them, she said, "Where you from?"

"Here," said the kid she hadn't hurt.

"Not from this neighborhood, you aren't."

"L.A." he said.

"It's a big city," she pressed.

"The Hills."

"Beverly Hills?"

"Yeah."

"All three of you?"

"Yeah."

"Don't screw around with me."

"It's true, that's where we're from--why wouldn't it be true?"

The unhurt boy put his hands to his temples as if he'd just been

overcome with remorse, though it was far more likely to be a sudden

headache. Moonlight glinted off his wristwatch and the beveled edges

of the shiny metal band.

"What's that watch?" she demanded.

"Huh?"

"What make is it?"

"Rolex," he said.

That was what she'd thought it was, although she couldn't help but

express astonishment: "Rolex?"

"I'm not lying. I got it for Christmas."

"Jesus."

He started to take it off. "Here, you can have it."

"Leave it on," she said scornfully.

"No, really."

"Who gave it to you?"

"My folks. It's the gold one." He had taken it off. He held it out,

offering it to her. "No diamonds, but all gold, the watch and the

band."

"What is that," she asked incredulously, "fifteen thousand bucks,

twenty thousand?"

"Something like that," one of the hurt boys said. "It's not the most

expensive model."

"You can have it," the owner of the watch repeated.

Heather said, "How old are you?"

"Seventeen."

"You're still in high school?"

"Senior. Here, take the watch."

"You're still in high school, you get a fifteen-thousand-dollar watch

for Christmas?"

"It's yours."

Crouching in front of the huddled trio, refusing to acknowledge the

pain in her right foot, she leveled the Korth at the face of the boy

with the watch.

All three drew back in terror.

She said, "I might blow your head off, you spoiled little creep, I sure

might, but I wouldn't steal your watch even if it was worth a

million.

Put it on."

The gold links of the Rolex band rattled as he nervously slipped it

onto his wrist again and fumbled with the clasp.

She wanted to know why, with all the privileges and advantages their

families could give them, three boys from Beverly Hills would sneak

around at night defacing the hard-earned property of a cop who had

nearly been killed trying to preserve the very social stability that

made it possible for them to have enough food to eat, let alone Rolex

watches. Where did their meanness come from, their twisted values,

their nihilism? Couldn't blame it on deprivation. Then who or what

was to blame?

"Show me your wallets," she said harshly.

They fumbled wallets from hip pockets, held them out to her. They kept

glancing back and forth from her to the Korth. The muzzle of the .38

must have looked like a cannon to them.

She said, "Take out whatever cash you're carrying."

Maybe the trouble with them was just that they'd been raised in a time

when the media assaulted them, first, with endless predictions of

nuclear war and then, after the fall of the Soviet Union, with

ceaseless warnings of a fast-approaching worldwide environmental

catastrophe. Maybe the unremitting but stylishly produced gloom and

doom that got high Nielsen ratings for electronic news had convinced

them that they had no future. And black kids had it even worse,

because they were also being told they couldn't make it, the system was

against them, unfair, no justice, no use even trying.

Or maybe none of that had anything to do with it.

She didn't know. She wasn't sure she even cared. Nothing she could

say or do would turn them around.