School Days by Robert B. Parker

cigarette. She didn’t look at me when we sat down.
    â€œHi, Janey,” she said.
    Janey said, “Hi.”
    â€œRemember me?” I said.
    George nodded. She had changed clothes, but the look wasthe same. Cropped T-shirt, low pants. Her eyes were slathered with dark makeup, and her lips with dark gloss. She had silver rings on all her fingers. And her nails were painted black.
    â€œHave you seen Animal?” I said.
    She shook her head.
    â€œTell me a little about him,” I said.
    George looked at Janey.
    â€œHe’s an okay guy,” Janey said. “You know? You can, like, talk to him. He won’t tell.”
    George nodded and looked back at me.
    â€œWhatcha want to know?” she said.
    â€œAnimal get you dope?” I said.
    â€œYes.”
    â€œWhat?” I said.
    â€œMostly, like, weed,” she said. “But whatever you want, you tell him, he gets it for you.”
    â€œKnow where he gets it?”
    â€œSome gang in Boston, I think,” George said. “I think it’s his brother’s gang.”
    â€œKnow the name of the gang?” I said.
    â€œNo.”
    â€œWendell Grant hang with you guys?” I said.
    â€œSome.”
    George stubbed out her cigarette and lit another one. She had a thin face. Under the makeup were dim traces of acne scarring.
    â€œDell do any dope?” I said.
    â€œHe was, like, heavy-duty,” she said. “Coke, meth, lots of stuff.”
    â€œHe get it from Animal?”
    â€œYeah, ’course. You get stuff around the Rocks, you get it from Animal.”
    â€œDell tight with Animal.”
    â€œNobody was tight with Animal. He is the Man, you know? I mean, everybody is scared of him and like, sure Animal, anything you say, Animal. ”
    â€œKing of the Rocks,” I said.
    â€œYes.”
    â€œAnimal ever have a gun?” I said.
    George looked at Janey again.
    â€œI’m telling you,” Janey said. “He’s okay.”
    She was right, of course, but I wondered how she knew that. Probably didn’t matter. I was now a celebrity and, more important, at this moment, I was her celebrity.
    â€œYeah, he had a gun. Him and Dell, like, used to shoot guns sometimes.”
    â€œWhat kind of guns?” I said.
    â€œLittle ones. You know . . . like . . . handguns!”
    â€œDid you see what kind of handgun?”
    â€œI don’t know,” she said. “Just, like, a gun you hold in your hand and go bang bang. ”
    â€œSquare-looking or kind of round.”
    â€œSquare, I guess.”
    â€œShoot a lot of times without stopping?” I said.
    â€œI guess.”
    â€œWhat did they shoot at?”
    â€œBottles, and boxes and stuff. Sometimes they’d find a stray cat and, like, shoot at it.”
    â€œDid Dell have a gun?”
    George shook her head.
    â€œAnimal let him use one of his,” she said.
    â€œAnimal have many guns?” I said.
    â€œI don’t know,” George said. “I guess he could get them whenever he wanted them.”
    â€œFrom his brother?”
    â€œI guess.”
    â€œEver see Jared Clark around there?” I said.
    â€œJared? The phantom? No. He’d be too scared.”
    â€œYou scared?”
    â€œYeah, of Animal.”
    â€œBut you’re his girlfriend.”
    â€œSure. All the girls, you want to hang at the Rocks, you got to fuck Animal.”
    â€œWhat would happen if you didn’t?” I said.
    â€œNobody, like, doesn’t,” she said. “You don’t, you don’t hang there.”
    â€œAnd you got to hang somewhere,” I said.
    â€œAcourse,” she said.

27
    â€œW HAT KIND OF DOG you say she was?” DiBella said.
    â€œGerman shorthaired pointer,” I said.
    â€œAnd why has she got her head in my wastebasket?”
    â€œLooking for clues,” I said.
    Pearl straightened from her exploration of DiBella’s wastebasket with an