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knapsack off at the Circle, that's all. Happens every day. And don't
pretend you don't know that."
    "No. No way." Ben tried to jerk away. Her hand through the
straps held him fast.
    "Please, Benjie, I gotta do this. I owe some people."
    "Fine. Do what you have to. Just leave me out of it."
    Tears welled in her eyes. "I need you."
    Ben scanned the path, worried one of the bike cops would
come by. "Why?"
    "Because I'm sixteen. There's paper on me."
    Possession of pot, she had told him a few weeks back. A
talking-to from the judge and probation. Small potatoes for kids
from the Flats, but things had a way of adding up. "Why me?"
    "Because you're fifteen and clean. Something goes wrong,
nothing sticks to you."
    His stomach churned. "Is something going to go wrong?"
    "It's a dumb knapsack. We leave it and book out of there.
That simple."
    "I don't know, jazz. Sounds too easy."
    "These people I owe? Bad news, Benjie. If I can't pay them
back in money, they're gonna take it another way. You wouldn't
want that to happen to me, would you?"

    "No, of course not." The thought of jasmine being treated
like that almost brought Ben to his knees.
    "We'll drop this off and go on to Hubbard. I'll thank you
properly when we get there."
    "Who hired you to do this?"
    "Some guy named Luther." Jasmine tugged at him. "Come on,
we gotta walk or someone will think we're up to something."
    "How'd you meet up with this Luther?"
    "Cannon hooked us up."
"
    "Cannon? You're trusting some dude Cannon knows?"
    I thought you was tight with him."
    "Doesn't mean I trust his judgment," Ben said. "He keeps
some sketchy company."
    "Which is why he does good business." Jasmine shimmied
her hips. "All about the connections, baby."
    "I don't know..."
    "Can't you just man up, Benjie? For me?"
    A real man would demand she go to the cops. But if this
Luther was a heavyweight, Cannon, Jasmine, and Ben would
all end up with lead in their heads. Even if the dude was a
small-money, it would come back on Cannon and jasmine in a
bad way. Who was this Luther anyway? Cannon always threw
names around, but he'd never mentioned this one.
    "I swear you'll be safe. Except..." Jasmine brushed his lips
with hers. "...from me."
    Ben's blood went from zero to exponential in an instant. He
couldn't think past why not. This was his last day here. Why not
make it something he'd remember for a long time?

     

chapter four
    HESE SECRET SERVICE GUYS MUST TRAIN LIKE MOUNTAIN
goats, Logan thought.
    He cycled the paths at least once every shift and
walked the rest of the time. Without Kimmie to rush home
to after work, he was in the gym every evening. Taking his
frustration out on the bag, pounding his fists on leather
instead of Carlton Reynolds's face.
    Hiking up North Spire Boulevard, he poured sweat while
Pappas wasn't even breathing hard. It was midmorning, but the
sun blazed beyond hot. The dog days of August had emptied the
area of traffic, folks taking seriously the weatherman's admonition to go to the beach.
    Too hot for trouble-just how Logan liked it. He stopped,
uncorked his water bottle. "Thought you were interested in the
Circle. What are we doing up here?"
    Pappas wiped his forehead with the back of his hand.
"Perspective. We have satellite imagery, of course, but nothing
beats eyeballing a location. Tell me what I'm looking at."
    Though they had walked only half a mile, the steepness of
North Spire yielded a good view of the two bike paths and their
intersection in the rotary. In the Circle, a mass of lofty rhododendrons and azaleas hid the access stairway to the trains.
    All that leafy cover gave Logan the creeps. Let the
muckety-mucks from Quanta crawl in under those branches
and drag out some meth head who'd OD'd or some drunk who'd passed out in his own vomit. They'd be paving the
whole thing over the next day.

    Logan pointed to his left. "Down there to the east and southeast are the Flats. Triple deckers, strip malls, some warehouses,