Free Satan’s Lambs by Lynn Hightower Page B

just made it into this awful red scar. Archie says he was lucky they didn’t kill him.”
    â€œWhy didn’t they?”
    â€œStickboy. The … now, what he call him? The sergeant-at-arms. That was Stickboy Madison. He and Archie was real tight, and when Archie got kicked out, Stickboy burned the tattoo off and beat him up real bad. But he didn’t kill him, and to hear Archie talk, it was some kind of big favor. I guess that’s the one thing Archie is afraid of. Them Grits, and mainly Stickboy. He was always real careful to make sure he didn’t do nothing to step on their toes.”
    â€œAnd you don’t know why they kicked him out?”
    â€œArchie never would say. But he hinted some. I think it was on account of some pictures he took? See, he used to have this little plastic camera, and he could hold it like at his waist? It was like them old-fashioned kind, with the little window in the top, so he didn’t have to hold it up to his face. He called it something—oh, hip shooting, that was it. Most the time, nobody would notice that he was taking pictures.”
    â€œCamera of choice for blackmailers,” Lena said. “You think he tried to blackmail somebody in the gang?”
    â€œHe wouldn’t tell me if he did. But that’d be Archie all over.”
    â€œWhat do you know about the Grits?”
    Eloise shrugged. “Not much.”
    â€œThis may be the way to the ticklish spot. I’ll have to research this gang, see what I can come up with. If Stickboy Madison told Archie to leave you alone, would he?”
    â€œOh, you bet.”
    â€œThat leaves one really hard part.”
    â€œWhich be?”
    â€œGetting something on Stickboy to make him call Archie off for us.”
    â€œBe easier to convince the devil.”
    â€œThat’s an idea, too.”

12
    Lena saw him at the stoplight. The Cutlass was still running rough and she had the window down, so she could listen to the engine. The guttural sputter of a Harley caught her attention.
    The man straddled his bike, one booted heel resting on the pavement. He wore a black tank top and blue jeans, his hair reddish gold and frizzy beneath a Greek fisherman’s cap. It was hard to tell where the hair stopped and the beard began. But what really got her thinking was the scar on his bicep. A ragged red scar, where you might expect a tattoo.
    The light turned green, and the bike roared through the intersection. Lena checked her mirror for cops, then did an illegal U-turn.
    Definitely headed in the right direction. He pulled into the right lane, bike canting from side to side with grace and precision. If he turned right … but no, he was headed into Cutler’s Food Mart.
    Lena sighed.
    The bike zigzagged through the grocery’s parking lot and exited onto Kearney Street, avoiding the red light and the intersection. Lena pulled in after him. Whoever he was, he was less than two miles from Eloise’s apartment.
    The biker turned left at the stop sign, and Lena accelerated. The car jerked and did not respond. Lena checked the gas gauge. The needle was well to the left of empty. She coasted down the hill.
    The car quit a half mile too soon. Lena pulled to the side of the road, and a man in a navy blue Lynx honked and roared around her. She looked for a pay phone, but the area was downtrodden residential, with nothing likely in sight.
    She went to the trunk, got her baseball bat, wished for a gun. She took off running down the street.
    The bike sat in the apartment parking lot, and the door to the building stood open. Lena steadied herself against the doorjamb, chest heaving, while she caught her breath. She knocked at the first ground-floor apartment. There was movement behind the peephole, but the door did not open. She knocked at the door across the hall. Nothing.
    A child screamed, staccato and shrill.
    â€œCall the cops!” Lena yelled, kicking the first door she’d