Chad hit him in the head with a wadded up ball of old newspaper that smelled like it might have once been wrapped around a fish. Carla pinged him with an old sock.
This wasn’t happening.
He checked his six—back along the block—but the young boys were still down at the end of the street. The more bored ones had restarted the soccer game while they waited for some action.
His watch said there was at least five more minutes before any cops would be arriving, so they weren’t going to save him from Carla’s interrogation either.
“Hey, I’m the good guy here!”
Duane barely managed to duck an old sneaker that Chad threw at him. Which earned him Carla’s toss of the other dirty sock square in his face.
“Because I like her too much to risk hurting her! Okay?” It snapped out of him hard enough to
