Billy snarls and takes a step toward me. Caesar moves between us. Billy stops, looks Caesar up and down, and sneers. “Nigga, get outta my face.”

Billy is half a head taller than Caesar, but Caesar looks up at him calmly. “You get out of mine,” he says.

“I wasn’t trying to make fun of you,” I say to Billy. “I was asking nicely. Pepper gel stings.”

Peaches puts a hand on Billy’s arm, and after a moment Billy takes a step back, his eyes angry and locked on Caesar. Peaches looks almost as angry as he takes me in. “What you doin’ here?” he says.

“I need your help.”

Peaches smiles, unpleasantly. “Ain’t that a bitch. I’m all outta help. Especially for you.”

“It’s about Tane Kamaka.”

“He’s your problem now.”

“Looks like the feds have a problem too. You want to talk to me, or to them?”

Mrs. Daniels shuffles up, another older lady holding her arm. Luckily her friend is short enough to duck underneath Mrs. Daniels’s hat. “Antoine, we’re going to get some food,” Mrs. Daniels announces. Then she notices me and raises her head, her hat tilting precariously. “Miss Faulkner.”

“Mrs. Daniels,” I say. “Good to see you again.”

She raises an eyebrow. “It’s surprising to see you again.”

Peaches’s smile doesn’t change, but he glances at his mother, then at the nearby teenagers, who are surrounding Li’l Whizz, and at the news reporters with cameramen behind them. “Mama, you go on, I’ll be there in a little bit.” To me he nods toward a side entrance to the rec center. “Inside.”

THE INSIDE OF the rec center is new and clean and smells of fresh paint. It’s also deserted. We sit in a windowless office off the main lobby. The office has a glass door and a desk and three chairs and nothing else. Peaches sits behind the desk and puts his feet up on it. I take one of the chairs in front of the desk. Billy and Caesar stand in opposite corners of the room and eye-dagger each other.

“I don’t like being threatened,” Peaches says.

I raise my hands in a shrug. “I’m not threatening.” I look at Caesar. “Was I threatening?”

“You did mention the feds,” Caesar says, keeping his eyes on Billy.

“That’s not a threat,” I say to Peaches. “I’m not sending them your way. But they’re looking for Tane. They came to my brother’s house this morning and showed me a picture of him, asked me if I knew him.”

“What you tell them?”

“I lied and said I never met the man. And while I was talking with them, Tane bolted. He’s gone. So now I have to find him.”

Peaches shakes his head. “Sounds like you in a world of trouble.”

“I’m touched by your concern.”