Kick by Walter Dean Myers Page B

to make money, just to help the community. As far as I know, they’re accurate.”
    â€œHow come here, she seemed to make more money?” Paul asked.
    Hernandes looked at the entries that Paul was pointing at and shrugged again. “I don’t know,” he said. “But I see that she was getting paid by Mr. McNamara and someone else. It was Christmastime. Maybe she wasn’t working for him but he gave her a gift. I really don’t know.”
    â€œChristmas?” Kevin perked up.
    â€œYou know something?” I asked.
    â€œThat’s when Christy’s mom was in the hospital,” Kevin said.
    I decided that Paul and I had already moved beyond our authorization by questioning Hernandes, so it didn’t particularly bother me to have him go next door and copy the pages at the drugstore. I reimbursed him for the four dollars and ten cents he was charged and took the copies with me.
    â€œCoffee is good for the soul, officer,” Hernandes said when the woman brought it over.
    I didn’t like the coffee, but I thanked Mr. Hernandes anyway.
    â€œThat wasn’t coffee,” Paul said when we had got back into our vehicle. “That was coffee-flavored mud.”
    â€œIt’s called espresso,” I said. “I love the flavor, but my stomach can’t take it.”
    â€œSo what are we going to do now?” Kevin asked.
    Paul looked at his watch. “I’m off in thirty minutes,” he said. “I promised the old lady I’d take her out to dinner tonight.”
    â€œWhere you taking her?” I asked.
    â€œThe Italian restaurant on Fairmount.”
    â€œYou messed up that bad?” I asked. “That place costs a fortune.”
    â€œWhat can I tell you?” Paul said.
    We drove to Paul’s house and let him out. Then I started toward Kevin’s place. On the way I told him what Pellingrino had told me. I tried to explain it as casually as I could because I didn’t want him to panic. It must have been too casual, because he didn’t seem bothered at all.
    â€œKevin, do you remember why Mrs. McNamara was in the hospital?”
    â€œNo, sir.”
    â€œChristy never told you?”
    â€œNo, sir.”
    â€œIf you called Christy now, would she tell you?”
    â€œI don’t think so.”
    â€œYou’re lying.”
    â€œYou can’t call me a liar,” he said. There was anger in his voice.
    â€œI can drive you down to the juvenile facility,” I said. “Charge you with something stupid, like obstruction of justice.”
    Silence.
    â€œIs that what happens to you on the soccer field, too?” I asked. “You start off playing a team game and then you’re the lone eagle, figuring out ways you can win all by yourself?”
    â€œI don’t mean to do that,” he said. “It’s just that . . . can you stop the car for a minute?”
    I eased the car over to the right lane and then to a stop outside a drugstore. Three characters leaning against the wall looked at the car; then one of them put the brown paper bag they had been passing around into a pocket and they all took off slowly down the street.
    â€œThey must know you’re a cop,” Kevin said.
    â€œThey think everybody is a cop,” I said. “What did you have to say?”
    â€œI know you’re on my side,” Kevin said. “Just the fact that the judge called you was good. Even your partner seems like a nice guy. I just wish I could do more to straighten things out.”
    â€œDo what you can do, Kevin,” I said. “That’s what we expect from decent young men. We don’t expect miracles, just that people contribute what they can to make this a better planet to live on.”
    â€œChristy doesn’t tell me all that much,” Kevin said. “In a way I don’t want to know it, and in another way, it’s easier between us for me not to know everything about her