Free Chicago Stories: West of Western by Eileen Hamer Page B

have to be a mechanic to see the tools scattered around weren't automotive tools. She wondered if the Drug-o-Mat had been in the same spot all last summer. Did anyone even pretend to believe the charade? Did anybody even care? McDruggies, Tony called them. the local low-level drug market, or one of them. Maybe one or more of these creeps had painted her garage door, but she couldn't see this bunch of losers managing that neat level of execution. No way. Whatever else these four were up to, they were obviously lookouts. Seraphy strolled past, her awareness of their hostility bringing her up on her toes.
    Two of the four ignored her, keeping their eyes on the engine, as if that rendered them invisible to passers-by, but the tallest, almost her height, straightened and turned to confront her with angry eyes. Markowicz and Terreno said the Lobos leader was named Chico. Was this Chico? On his right, a fat teenager with bad skin and a lazy eye sniggered and wiped his nose on his sleeve.
    “Ch-ch-ch-ch. Hey, Chica.” Tall guy leered. She knew that sound, the sound the gangs used to call their girlfriends for sex, and could feel his eyes move down her body. Her skin crawled and she fought the impulse to stop long enough to knock his teeth down his throat, settling for baring her teeth as she passed. Cockroaches. They reminded her of cockroaches.
    Four pairs of eyes followed her to the corner, where she turned west on Cortez, into the sun, and were forgotten when she saw the long street of hundred-year-old buildings. Packed close together on narrow lots, post-Chicago-Fire brick and stone construction, built at different times and in different styles, calling to her with different voices. A small asphalt-sided cottage with a bright blue iron fence and matching painted sidewalk lured her to come for a closer look. In the center of a neatly-swept dirt yard, an upended, half-buried bathtub made a grotto for a pretty blue-robed Virgin. Plastic flowers with embedded twinkle lights formed a border, a halo around the top, and a mound at the Virgin's feet. Charmed by the grotto's innocence and attention to detail, Seraphy promised herself to come back at night when the lights would be lit.
    A few houses farther on “ch-ch-ch-ch” followed her again, this time emanating from a dark passage on her left, and yanked her out of her reverie. When she turned to look, she caught a glimpse of a dark shadow disappearing back into the passage. Just then a flock of small boys blew past her, laden with yellow St. Mark's backpacks, and she smiled and said hi and the kids answered, polite parochial-school ‘hellos.’ Showing them her camera, she asked if she could take their pictures and they posed, grinning. Lining up a last shot of the kids, she caught her stalkers in the viewfinder. The tallest Lobo from the corner, and his fat buddy, lurking in the gangway across the street. She thanked the kids and picked up her pace.
    “Ch-ch-ch-ch.” Okay, now she was not amused. Automatically wiggling her left hand to check her knife, she remembered she hadn't worn it since being wounded. Maybe it was time to rethink that. She didn't want to fight, and she didn't even know these guys, so why were they stalking her? Still, best be prepared. She had wanted to meet the neighbors. Maybe these were the neighbors, maybe they killed the guy on her doorstep. Yeah, next time she'd wear the knife, just in case.
    Still looking at the buildings, but with one eye out for her stalkers, considering whether to be alarmed, she nearly walked into a pale blonde woman struggling to get a large stroller through a side gate. Seraphy stopped to hold the gate. The flowered babushka and conservative coat were vaguely Eastern European, maybe Ukrainian or Polish? The woman glanced at her, then tucked her chin into her coat collar and hunched her shoulders, wary of a stranger.
    “T’ank you,” she whispered, maneuvering the stroller out of the narrow passage without looking at