Blackbird Read Online Free PDF Page A

scattered across the table. You grab your backpack and start toward the door, but in the few seconds it takes you to reach it he is already standing, dropping his wallet and keys in his back pockets.
    You start down the stairs and out into the street, trusting the cars will stop when you cut across. A truck slows a half block up. The driver leans on their horn. All the lights are green and more cars speed toward you as you run, your skin covered in a quick sweat.
    When you’re finally across you wonder if you imagined it, if the danger was as real as it felt. You turn back just in time to see the man in the parking lot. He gets into a silver car. There’s a dent in the side, the gash stretching from the back bumper to the front door. His fingers rest on the edge of the open window. You can’t tell if he’s recognized you from the news photos or he knows you from before. There’s nothing about him that feels familiar. He’s still watching you, his eyes in the rearview mirror as he pulls the car out.
    You cut through a side street and disappear into a parking structure. The sign reads ARCLIGHT CINEMAS . An arrow directs you up an entrance ramp and you weave through parked cars, eventually coming out into an interior courtyard. Inside the lobby, lines snake from the cashier around to the café. You maneuver through the crowd, past an elderly man in a Dodgers cap and a pack of overly made-up women. You push out the front of the building. A group of teenagers has just left the theater. There are ten of them, maybe more, and you keep close, trailing only a few steps behind.
    As they start down a set of stairs you walk beside the group as if you’ve always been there. One boy has a skateboard tucked under his arm. He holds out an ID to his friend. “Maryland,” he says. “It works as long as they don’t scan it.”
    The girl has a bright purple streak in her hair. She turns the ID over, tilts it back and forth in the light. “You got this at that smoke shop on Hollywood and Western?”
    You are shoulder to shoulder with them, walking along Sunset Boulevard, when you glance behind you. The man has pulled the car around. He stops at the intersection, his left blinker on, ready to circle the block. He’s following you. You’re certain of it.
    You move closer to the group, positioning yourself on the inside so you’re not as visible. The girls beside you are talking about a concert they went to and the black lipstick they picked up at CVS. It feels strange to listen to them, the tiny, ordinary details of their lives.
    “Hey . . . do you guys know where I can get some pot?” You say, waiting a few seconds to let it sink in.
    A boy in front bursts out laughing. A few “oh, shits” echo through the group.
    “Are you crazy?” The boy with the skateboard looks at your ill-fitting jeans and shirt, taking note of the dainty purple flowers on your collar. “You can’t just walk up to people and ask them for pot. What are you thinking?”
    “I’m thinking I want some pot.” It’s provocative, but it works—they close in aroundyou. You have their attention.
    “You could be a cop,” a boy with braces says.
    “I didn’t know there were teenage cops.”
    The girl with the purple streak in her hair laughs. “I guess there aren’t, huh?”
    You pause at the intersection, watching the sign across the street, the blinking red hand telling you Don’t walk, don’t walk . You keep your head down, but out of the corner of your eye you can see his car approaching. The man drives past, moving up Sunset. There is a decal on the trunk. ASK ME ABOUT REAL ESTATE . You look below, where the license plate should be, but it’s gone.
    He stops at the next corner and puts his blinker on, preparing to take a left down a side street. You’re at the front of the group, watching him go, when your eyes meet his in the rearview mirror. As he turns the corner your legs are dead weight.
    “Helloooo? Did you hear me?” the boy with the