Knight In Black Leather Gail Dayton (classic books for 12 year olds .TXT) 📖

that way, because she wasn't. No matter how much Eli's little proposition skittered around inside her brain. She had to lock it and everything else away. Right now, the important thing was finding Teresa.

"It doesn't matter," Marilyn said. "I don't care. What matters is keeping her alive." She took the exit leading to the youth center, where she hadn't been coming for the last few weeks, since Eli had asked her not to.

As they moved away from the freeway, away from downtown, the buildings got grimmer and grayer, despite the blood-red brick construction of many of them. There was the fried chicken place Marilyn stopped at occasionally, with the bulletproof barrier between the employees and their customers. Several lights and a turn or two further, and they reached the street with the youth center at mid-block and the bar around the corner--Nicky's--where Eli'd been attacked.

"You're not going in there, are you?" Marilyn pulled the car into a parking space down the block as Eli directed, facing the bar's front door. "Not like that."

"No." He scowled down at his casts a moment. "Not like this. We'll just watch. See what we can see."

Rain misted down, blurring the windshield and the streets outside, no more than a veil making the air heavy and icy cold. The car was minimally warmer. After half an hour of sitting, watching almost no one go by, Marilyn wanted to turn on the engine and warm up, but Eli wouldn't let her. A running engine on a parked car would be too noticeable.

She pulled the thick quilt from the emergency kit in the back seat and spread it over herself and Eli. He had to be cold with his pants leg split like that and only a sock over his left toes. A few more minutes and she was scooting closer to him, hoping to share some body warmth.

"Come here." Eli raised his good arm, next to her, and put it around her. "You're cold."

"Not so bad," she lied as she huddled next to him.

"I'm cold. Get over here." He pulled her in close. If not for the crutch angling across the floor, she'd have been in his lap.

The rap on the window made her jump as it brought back memories of parking at the shuttered steel mill before they pulled it down, and cops rousting all the amorous teens. But it wasn't a cop peering through the fogged up glass at them.

Eli turned Marilyn's face into his neck and pulled the quilt higher. Was he trying to hide her? Not a bad idea, she realized. She snuggled deeper into the quilt, letting her hair fall forward so she could peer through it.

Eli powered down the window--his was one of the two that still worked--and looked up at the narrow, young-old face of the man outside. Aging acne scars mixed with faded freckles to give him a mottled look, and stringy red-blond hair stuck out stiffly from beneath the black knit cap he wore.

"Dusty. What's doin'?" Eli nodded in greeting.

"Nothin' much." Dusty squatted beside the car and folded his arms on the open window. "Just got out of rehab."

"So whatchadoin' down here? Lookin' to score?" Eli held Marilyn tight, his hand cupping her head.

"Nah," Dusty said. "I'm stayin' clean this time."

"Sure, Dust." Eli sounded like he actually believed him. Or maybe he just wanted to make Dusty think it.

"So where you been, Eli? Somebody said you went north, back after Fat Fred bought it."

"I did. Went north. Went west. Went south a while. Now I'm back for a while." Eli's hand moved on Marilyn's head until his fingers touched her cheek. "You seen the Flashman around?"

She shifted position, taking the quilt with her, so she could see Dusty's face better.

"Saw him earlier today."

"At Nicky's?"

"Yeah. Comin' out. I don't go in places like that no more."

"Anybody with him? With Flash? A woman?"

Dusty's thin lips pursed and his forehead creased as he thought. It took him a long time. "I think so."

"Teresa? You remember Teresa Howell, don't you? Used to dance over at Candyland? Was it her?"

Dusty thought again, then shook his head. "I don't think it was her. Teresa was always skinny, right? This woman had a set of gazongas on her out to here." He cupped the air a foot in front of his chest. "Not skinny. Not anywhere."

"Not Teresa then."

Marilyn could feel Eli's disappointment in the way he held her, tighter, like he wasn't going to misplace another woman.

He went on. "You got any idea where they might have been going? Flash and the woman?"

"There was a couple of guys too," Dusty said. "I think the woman was with one of them."

"You know where they were going?"

The other man shrugged. "Nope."

"Okay, Dusty. Thanks." Eli started to roll up the window.

"Hey, Eli, whatchalookin' for Teresa for anyway?" Dusty backed up but didn't leave. "You got a woman right there."

"I'm startin' a harem." Eli shut the window on the sound of Dusty's wheezing laughter.

Marilyn started to sit up, but Eli's arm tightened, holding her where she was. "Not yet," he said. "Wait till he's gone."

"No problem." Not a bit of one, except that she liked cuddling up to Eli a little too much more than was good for either one of them. "So what do we do now? Wait and see if anybody knows more? What are our options?"

Eli sighed, his chest rising and falling under her cheek. "Stay here and see who else turns up, or drive around looking for Flash's car. Neither one of them have much chance of working."

"You think you'd be able to spot it--Flash's car?"

"Oh yeah. He's the Flashman for a reason. He likes flash, likes to be noticed. If he doesn't have it hidden where we can't see it. He's driving a red Corvette right now."

Marilyn tried to sit up and this time Eli let her, but she kept the quilt tucked tight around her neck and he kept his arm tucked tight around her shoulders. "Which is it going to be?