Peaches looks at me, then at Dreadlocks, and jerks his chin toward the back of the house.

CHAPTER FOUR

Dreadlocks leads us through Mrs. Daniels’s worn but clean kitchen to the screened-in porch. His bald partner in the Braves jersey ambles along behind us. A shotgun has somehow materialized in his hand, the barrel so short that the whole thing is no longer than his thigh. He smiles when he sees me glance back at him, and I turn away, hiding a smile of my own. It’s almost like they’re flirting with me.

The porch holds a set of battered wicker furniture with a light dusting of pollen. I stand by a cushioned chair but don’t sit. Dreadlocks and the man with the shotgun each take a position in a far corner of the porch, flanking me while also being able to see out into the yard and the street.

The screen door opens and Peaches steps onto the porch, letting the door swing shut behind him with a bang. “You got some adamantium balls comin’ here,” he says, standing by the door and looking at me. “Either that or you crazy. White girl drivin’ up on a goddamn motorcycle.” He looks disgusted, like I’ve failed some sort of test and he’s taking it personally.

“I just have a couple of questions and then I’m out of your hair,” I say.

“I look like Google to you?”

“It’s about my uncle, Gavin Lester.”

That gets a reaction, a flash of understanding in his eyes, and then it’s gone, replaced by a thin smile just shy of a smirk. “Your uncle, huh? Why, you doing a genealogy report for school?”

He’s pushing my buttons deliberately, and knowing that makes it easier to resist responding. But the buzzing in my head from earlier is increasing, like a swarming of bees, and I want answers, and in Peaches’s smile I see the same kind of dismissive sexist bullshit I saw on Bobby Bonaroo’s face, and on the faces of a hundred men who have run their eyes over me and written me off as unworthy of respect. It’s the same sneer I saw on Luco’s face when he pinned me to the ground and reached for the waistband of my jeans.

“Just tell me what I want to know and I’m gone,” I say. I manage to keep my voice steady.

Peaches cocks his head like a bird considering a fat worm. “Girl, I don’t have to tell you a goddamned thing.”

I grit my teeth, the twin howler monkeys in my brain starting up. “I am not a girl.”

Peaches rolls his eyes and looks at his two goons. “Get this bitch off my mama’s porch,” he says.