Two days ‘til Christmas. Time to get cracking on finding some “gifts” to keep the Big Boss happy. They needed to secure some big money items that would bring in a lot of cash. If they wanted to have any funds trickle down to the gang, they needed to score big.
Luke
grabbed his black leather jacket from the rusty nail it hung on in the room he
called his. It was time to get cracking. He headed out to the main area of the
condemned building the Cowhands currently called headquarters. A couple guys were
sacked out on the couch. They’d be better off on the floor with as
uncomfortable as that piece of crap was. One of them had a glowing cigarette in
his fingers still. Swearing under his breath, Luke grabbed a cup of water sitting
in the windowsill and dumped it on Jerome’s hand. Jerome jumped up swearing and
reached for the blade in his back pocket. Luke placed his cowboy boot in the
middle of his chest and shoved him back on the couch, “Idiot. If you gonna’ pass
out on the couch, don’t do it with a lit cig in your hand! This place would go
up faster than fireworks on the 4th of July if you dropped it.”
Tossing
the empty cup in the range of Jerome’s head he asked, “Where’s Dan? We need the
choirboy to help with some shoppin’ this evening.”
Still
mumbling and swearing under his breath, Jerome shrugged, “No idea. He’s your
baby. I don’t keep track of him.”
Luke
swung his fist at him half-heartedly. He deserved that, not that he’d ever admit
it out loud. He did baby Mangan. He’d known Dan since grade school. He’d always
been envious of Dan. Yeah, he didn’t have a dad either, but at least Dan knew
who his dad was. Luke had no clue. His mom wasn’t sure either. And as for his
mom – she probably had no idea he was even still alive right now. Dan’s mom had
been like an angel. She cooked food for Dan and fed Luke if he happened to be
around. That was years ago though. He dropped out of school during 6th
grade. His mom had been hauled off to jail and there was no way he was going to
a foster home. He figured being on his own on the streets couldn’t be any worse
than being with her. After that he stayed away from Dan, he was afraid Dan’s
mom would’ve told the cops or something and he’d be sent away somewhere. But
these were his streets, and he wasn’t leaving them. They were his home.
***
He’d
founded the Cowhands. A group of kids that acted tougher than they really were…until
the Big Boss caught wind of them. This guy was out looking for some flunkies to
do the dirty work to support his drug habit. Luke didn’t care. Money was money
and the Boss helped them find a place to stay and get set up. When they needed
to move to a different locale because things were getting hot or someone got
caught, the Boss helped them out. Sometimes, Luke wished he’d come up with a better
name when he started the gang. Cowhands was
kind of lame, but he wasn’t going to change it now. He’d totally lose face with
the other guys. His leadership was a little sketchy at the moment with the way
he let Dan slide from doing a lot of the riskier deals. He hadn’t made him do
any of the drug drops – knowingly. There were a couple of times he slipped a parcel
into a bag Dan was given to drop off somewhere else. He knew Dan wasn’t cut out
for the life that they led. Dan was a good kid and had had parents that cared
for him. He’d just gotten a bum deal recently. He was probably out wandering around
in the cold. He didn’t like hanging out in headquarters. Didn’t like the
cigarette smoke and the beer and other things that would come out as it got
dark. Mangan would stay out as late as he could and then come in and find a
corner and curl up and go to sleep. Luke couldn’t convince him that drinking
some of the hard stuff would help him warm up. But he needed ol’ Danny Boy
tonight, so he’d better go find him and bring him home.
***
"Mangan, what ya’ up to?"
Just like he thought, Dan was out
wandering the neighborhood in the cold, icy wind. He wasn’t paying much
attention to his surroundings, the way he jerked when Luke called to him proved
that. They needed to work on that with him some more.
"Nothin’," Dan muttered.
Ignoring the tears in Dan’s eyes,
Luke continued, "Got something for you to do, Danny Boy. Something real Christmassy."
Ol’ Danny Boy’s head had whipped
around at that. Not quite looking him in the eye, Luke started explaining.
“We need to do some shoppin’. You
know old man Goldberg’s place? Over by the bodega? He’s got all kinds of nice
things in his front window. But I know Goldberg, and he don’t put the good
stuff all in the front window. Nope, he puts a lot of it in the back. So, we’re
going in tonight. I figure if we go about 6 pm, we should be able to grab things
while he’s busy with customers. It’ll be busy tonight being so close to
Christmas and all. Plus, some of the people that have pawned stuff have gotten
their Christmas bonuses by now and they’ll want to get their things back.”
Luke looked at Dan and saw that his
eyes were kind of unfocused as he looked out into the street. Dang it, the kid
wasn’t even listening.
"Did you get all that, Mangan?"
"Um, it’s kinda’ hard to hear
you with this wind and all the traffic, could you run it by me again?" Mangan
mumbled.
Rolling his eyes, Luke pulled Dan by
the arm until a decrepit building sheltered them a bit. "Listen close this
time, okay. We’re going to go Christmas shopping. Only we won’t need money this
year."
Luke grinned as he watched Dan sort
this out in his mind. He knew the kid would figure it out - he was a smart one.
He’d wanted Mangan in the gang for years. When he’d heard that the kid was on
his own, he could hardly wait to get to him. True, it’d been sad about his
mother. She’d been a nice lady. If his own mom had been a little more like her,
he might not have started the Cowhands.
Brushing the thought aside, Luke
continued, "That little pawnshop a couple blocks over has some mighty nice
things in the windows - and throughout the store. But it’s looking kinda’
cluttered, so I think we should help them out."
Luke knew Dan knew exactly what he
meant. He’d helped "unclutter" places before.
"The plan is to
"visit" right around six tonight."
"What! The pawnshop doesn’t
even close until nine - why so early?" Dan spluttered.
"It’s time for you to try
something a little riskier, my friend," Luke replied grinning. He’d babied
Dan a lot longer than he’d allowed for any other new member. He hadn’t wanted
to overwhelm him. Oh, he knew that Dan would never rat on them, but he didn’t
want to tempt fate.
Luke watched a range of emotions
cross Dan’s face. The kid really needed to work on controlling his expressions.
Finally, as he knew he would, Dan replied, "Okay, what do I have to
do." Luke smiled; Dan knew that loyalty began at home.
***
Well, damn. That hadn’t gone how he’d
planned at all. He didn’t know who could’ve tipped off the cops about their
plans for hitting that pawnshop tonight. When that pack of cops burst out of
the back room, Luke had felt like he was going to puke. This was not how he’d
planned it. The Big Boss would definitely be displeased. He was the one who had
told Luke to hit that shop. He’d given Luke a list of items that he’d
particularly wanted. Luke hadn’t shared that information with the other guys.
They didn’t need to know that he wasn’t really the one calling the shots.
He’d managed to stick a nice vase into a bag that already had
a couple packets of coke in it. He’d been hanging on to this bag because it was
the one that was going to the boss. The vase was the top item on the boss’s list,
and it was the first thing he’d grabbed. But he sure didn’t want caught with stolen
goods and illegal drugs if he had the misfortune to not be able to outrun the
cops. He’d shoved the bag into Dan’s hands, hissed “Run!” in his ear and pushed
him out the door. He’d followed him and ran the opposite direction. He’d made
sure the cop in the lead saw the pass off, so he was fairly certain they wouldn’t
waste time following him. He felt a twinge of guilt thinking about Dan, but you
gotta’ look out for number one. Sometimes you gotta’ sacrifice your friends.
Danny Boy was loyal; he wouldn’t rat them out.
Luke looped around a block or two, backtracking in the
direction he thought Dan would go. He knew Dan was scared and wouldn’t be
thinking of where he was headed, but his feet would take him back to his old
neighborhood. When you ran, your feet always took you back home.
***
When Luke had tried to recruit him right after his mom died,
Dan had rejected the offer. Luke didn’t let it bother him too much, he knew
that once it got cold, ol’ Danny Boy would change his tune. Dan didn’t realize
it, but Luke always knew where Dan was. He knew which parks he slept in on which
nights. He thought he was avoiding the Cowhands for those weeks, when really,
they were tracking his every move.
So, when that cold spell hit in late
September, Luke knew that Dan had no coat, no blankets, no shelter. The kid was
going to learn what it meant to be homeless really fast. He knew that he was
almost broken to the point where he was going to search out Luke.
Luke could’ve made it easy for Dan,
but that wasn’t the ways of the streets or the gang. You had to earn it. He had
watched and waited. And one late rainy night, he’d “stumbled” across Dan curled
up and shivering in the doorway of an out-of-business deli. Mmm, Jake’s had the
best hamburgers when they were open. Hopefully, he’d be out of jail and back
cooking by next summer. Anyway, he’d offered Dan a granola bar he just “happened”
to have in his pocket. Next, he’d invited him to stay at his place that night
and this time, ol’ Dan the Man accepted, and it was all downhill from there.
True, it hadn’t been the best time
because they’d just lost a guy to Juvie, so they were experience a housing transition,
but they had a jacket and boots that were just the right size for Dan. And he
wasn’t homeless anymore.
***
He saw Dan duck inside a church.
Shoot. That wasn’t good. A cop came running up seconds later, but Luke knew he’d
seen Dan go inside. He watched as the cop wiped the snow off his shoes before
heading inside. He even stopped and spoke to someone who was holding the door
open for people to go in.
Well, that sucked. He was sure Dan
was gonna’ get caught now. He knew he should leave and go make his report to
the Boss, but he also wanted to know Dan’s fate. If the cop hauled him out, the
Cowhands would have to find a new headquarters. He hated moving during the
holidays.
A short time later, Dan walked out
next to the cop. No cuffs or nothing, that was interesting. Cop must not have
wanted to make a scene in a church. The cop opened the back door and gestured for
Dan to get in. He took the bag that Dan had been carrying and got behind the wheel.
Luke felt kind of bad. The vase was one thing, but the coke in the bag was
going to get Danny Boy into more trouble. But he was pretty confident that Dan
wouldn’t tell the cops nothing about where it came from.
Luke could hear some music coming out through the open door.
Something about being homeless. Dang. Maybe they were giving away food or something.
Not that he was homeless, Cowhands always had somewhere to crash.
***
Two days later, Luke got a note
shoved under the door of his room in their new headquarters. This place was a
little better than their last place. All the windows still had glass in them.
That helped since the doors were all drafty.
Anyway, the note was from a guy that
worked in Juvie and kept an eye out for Cowhands. Cowhand Daniel Mangan was the
newest resident. After Christmas he’d have a hearing and there was talk about
looking for an uncle. Luke remembered Dan talking about some Uncle Will or something
like that and that he was probably a farmer or something. His guy in Juvie was
going to keep an eye on Mr. Mangan to make sure he didn’t rat out the gang.
Maybe if they did find that uncle of his, Danny Boy could be of more use to
them down the road. He owed them after all, they’d kept him from being homeless.
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