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kid laughed out loud at the story, as deep a diss as a bitch-slap.
    The Puerto Rican kid went back to his bunk, came over to where we were all standing around, and hooked the white kid to the stomach with a needle-sharp file. Gutted him like a fish. The white kid didn’t die, so, instead of going back to court with a new charge, the Puerto Rican kid got shipped to another juvie joint. With a bigger rep.
    It was inside that kiddie prison that I first claimed another human being as family. I told the others that Wesley was my brother. I wasn’t worried that anyone would ever ask Wesley if it was true—nobody ever asked Wesley anything. But a kid who called himself Tiger called me on it.
    Tiger was twice my size, plus he never walked around alone. So he should have been safe. But, one night, he got shanked in his sleep.
    Everyone thought Wesley had done it—that was what Wesley did, even then. But it wasn’t him. It was his brother.
    “You have anything, honey?” Michelle asked. “Anything at all?”
    “Little Eric in the fifth,” I told her, just to see her smile.
     
    T he noon sun was a throbbing blood-orange blob, pulsating against the mesh screen of a pollution-gray sky. For once, it actually made an impact on my permanently crusted windows. I figured I’d better get it while I could.
    “You want something from down the way?” I asked Gateman.
    “Which way is that, boss?”
    “Diner?”
    “Sold. I could really go for some of their bull’s-eye meatloaf today.”
    “Two sides?”
    “You’re singing my song,” he said, grinning. “Make mine mashed potatoes and spinach, okay?”
    I got the same for myself, and brought the whole thing back, hot. Gateman and I admired the way the half-cut hard-boiled egg looked embedded in the thick slab of heavy-crusted meatloaf before we dug in.
    “Ever wonder how come this is the only good thing they make in that dive, boss?”
    “I figure it’s what they call a ‘signature dish,’ Gate. Every restaurant’s got one. It’s how the chef shows off.”
    “Yeah? Well, I been in that joint plenty of times, boss. And if they got a ‘chef,’ I’m a fucking ballerina.”
    “Got to look past the cover, bro,” I said mildly, holding out a clenched fist.
    Gateman tapped my fist with his own, acknowledging the mistake more than one man had made about him. Dead men now. Gateman is one of the reasons they have to make prisons wheelchair-accessible. He was a pure shooter, and he could conjure up the pistol he wore next to his colostomy bag like a fatal magic trick.
    A couple of years back, the Prof had bet Max that Gateman could drill the center out of the ace of hearts at ten yards. Took a couple of weeks to set up the match, trucking sandbags down to the basement. The lighting down there was so lousy I could barely make out the white card, never mind the red heart in its center.
    I should have known something was up when Clarence put down a hundred on Gateman. The Prof and Max were both hunch-players, but Clarence was a gunman. Still, I faded his action, saying, “No disrespect” to Gateman first.
    Gateman braced himself in his chair, holding his compact 9mm Kahr in both hands, turning himself into a human tripod. He exhaled a soft sigh, then he punched out the center of the card with his first shot.
    “Got something for tonight?” he asked.
    “Just a guess,” I cautioned him.
    “That’s all there ever is, right?”
    “At the track, sure.”
    “It’s all a bet,” Gateman said. “Everything. All that changes is the stakes, boss.”
    I started telling him what I liked about Little Eric. By the time I was up to my two favorite trotters of all time, Nevele Pride and Une de Mai, duking it out at the International—I never saw that race; that was the year I spent in Biafra—Gateman’s eyes were starting to glaze over. He wanted action, not ancient history.
    “On the nose, okay?” he said, shoving a twenty over to me.
     
    A s I let myself back into my apartment,