“Oh, Coach, sure, sorry.” April backed out of the doorway to let me pass.

It hurt to see her move in such a slow and clumsy way, when just a short time earlier she’d been loping around like a colt with the other girls on the team. To cover my emotion, I spoke almost with Mary Ann’s brusqueness, pulling out the drawing of the frog and handing it to them.

“Where’d you find that?” Sandra demanded.

“Over at 100th and Ewing. Bron showed it to you?”

She sniffed loudly. “He had it lying on the counter in that workshop of his. I asked him what it was, and he said it was a gimmick. He was making something for one of the guys he knew, and this was the drawing the guy gave him. He was always doing stuff like that.”

“Good-hearted, helping out his pals?” I suggested.

“No!” Her face contorted. “Always imagining he had an idea that was going to make him rich. Frogs on insulating rubber, I ask you, who was ever going to buy that, and he laughed and said, oh, someone at By-Smart would fall for it.”

“Stop it!” April cried out. “Stop making fun of him. He made good stuff, you know he did, he made that desk for you, only you were so stupid you sold it so you could go to Vegas with your girlfriends last Easter. If I’d known you were going to sell it, I would have bought it from you myself.”

“With what money would that be, miss?” Sandra demanded. “Your trust—”

A loud crash, glass shattering in the rear of the house, interrupted her. I had my gun out and was running through the dining room to the kitchen before either of them could react. The kitchen was empty but I heard someone moving in the lean-to. I pulled the door open, crouching low, and hurled myself at the legs.

The space was too small for the intruder to fall over, but he crashed against the worktable, and I backed away just out of his reach to hold my gun on him.

“Freddy Pacheco!” I was panting heavily, and my words came out in short bursts. “We can’t keep meeting like this. What the hell are you doing in here? If you’ve come for the picture you drew, you are way, way too late.”

He straightened up and tried to come at me but backed off when he saw the gun. “You bitch, what you doing here? You following me? What you want from me?”

“So much I hardly know where to begin.” I leaned over and smacked his mouth, too fast for him to react. “Respect, for beginners. You call me ‘bitch’ one more time and I’ll put a bullet in your left foot. Second time, in your right foot.”

“You wouldn’t fire that, ’hos are too—”