A Man of Honor Page 4

  Concentrating—so that his hand wouldn’t shake noticeably as he refilled his mug—Dusty said, “I drink mine black. How ’bout you?”

  Gonzo stood all of five-foot-seven, even in his high-heeled cowboy boots. He held up a forefinger. “One cream,” he said. Then, the index finger popped up beside it. “Two sugars.”

  After putting both mugs on the table, Dusty pulled out a chair. “Take a load off, and tell me what brings you here at this ungodly hour.”

  As if he didn’t already know. For months now, Gonzo had been pestering the Last Chance boys to join Los Toros de Lidia. How long, Dusty wondered, before one of them caved to the pressure and signed on with the Eutaw Street gang? Never, if he had anything to say about it.

  Gonzo took a long, loud slurp.

  “Sweet enough for you, Gonz?”

  Nodding, the boy said, “It will do.” Eyes narrowed, he added, “You should know that only my most trusted friends call me Gonzo.”

  So the gang leader planned to draw this out, did he? Well, two can play that game, Dusty thought. He leaned back and, after propping both feet on the seat of the nearest chair, casually linked his fingers behind his neck. And just for good measure, he yawned again. No point letting all those months of Special Ops training go to waste. “We’ve always been on good terms. Guess that means I can call you Gonzo, right?”

  The coffee maker hissed and sputtered, and Gonzo lurched.

  Dusty pretended he was too busy sipping from his own mug to notice. No point putting the kid on the defensive, either.

  “Gonzo will do.” He smirked. “For now.” He took another gulp of coffee, then met Dusty’s eyes. “So.” He put the mug down hard enough to slosh coffee onto the back of his hand. “Let me tell you why I am here,” he said, then licked it clean.

  As a Marine, Dusty had faced opposing forces in half a dozen countries. Whether in the Middle East, Asia, Central or South America, the enemy shared one distinct trait with this young, tough thug: Cold, soulless eyes.

  Gonzo aimed a thumb at the ceiling. “Those kids sleeping peacefully upstairs? They are the only ones in the neighborhood who are not with me.” Linking his fingers on the table, he added, “And you know what they say. . . .”

  If you’re not with me, you’re against me.

  “Ah,” he said with a nod of approval, “I will take your grim expression to mean that you do remember the adage.”

  How long before Gonzo tacked on a time limit, and threatened gun violence—maybe worse—as the price for Dusty’s refusal to allow his boys to join the gang?

  Not long, as it turned out.

  Eyes glittering like black diamonds, Gonzo whispered, “It is long past the time for things to change.”

  Dusty felt the chill all the way to the soles of his feet. He needed to buy time. Time to figure out how to beat this bandit at his own game. And if he couldn’t be beat, then time to find a new place to hang the Last Chance sign.

  He matched the glare, blink for icy blink, then held up his mug, as if to offer a toast. “And if it doesn’t?”

  A slow, dangerous smirk tilted Gonzo’s mustachioed mouth. “Then this, friend, will be our last cup of coffee.”

  4

  Only fifteen days of school left for Grace’s seniors, twenty-one for everyone else. “That’s a joke,” she said to herself. She could count on both hands the number of kids who’d show up in her classrooms these last few weeks, and they fell into two groups: Those with no place else to go, and the ones with college in their futures. Grace would never admit it out loud, of course. Somebody had to play the Pollyanna role, and it might as well be her. So when the subject of low attendance came up, she blamed the rundown buildings, erected during the turbulent 40s, with no air conditioning and painted-shut windows for the low attendance.

  The real enemy was apathy. Indifference to higher education started at the top, with politicians and government regulations, trickled down through the school administrators and teachers, and ended in a murky puddle in homes divided by divorce or poverty or both. The fact that a handful of kids made it to class at all was something to be thankful for, so she put the same effort into lesson plans as she had the rest of the school year.

  A disheveled girl slouched into the art room and, as usual, avoided eye contact. Kylie Houghton, whose naturally blond hair was hidden beneath a rainbow of dull streaks that hid long-lashed gray eyes. One rainy morning, the dampness washed thick makeup from her cheeks, allowing Grace a glimpse at freckles that dotted her rosy cheeks. And a month or so ago, when a classmate’s joke induced a faint smile, Grace found herself praying for a polite way to tell Kylie how lovely she’d be . . . with just a little attention to her appearance.

  The girl never participated in lively discussions, not even when called upon, but she never missed a day of school or a homework assignment, either . . . at least not in Grace’s English and art classrooms. In fact, Grace couldn’t decide if Kylie’s essays and poems were more thought-provoking and mature than her paintings and sketches, or the other way around.

  Today, she’d worn raggedy jeans and a drab blue T-shirt that said STOP READING MY SHIRT and hid choppy, chin-length curls under a grubby baseball cap. School policy forbade hats and logoed clothing, and Kylie knew it as well as Grace.

  “You look cute today, Kylie.”

  Elbows resting on the desk, she cupped her chin in her palms. “Y’think?”

  Helping her to comply with regulations would require finesse. “How long have you been in my class, Kylie?”

  “I dunno. Couple years, I guess.”

  Three, to be precise, Grace thought, nodding. “So you know me pretty well then, right?”

  Kylie pursed her lips. “’Bout as well as any student knows a teacher, I s’pose.”

  “Then you know that I don’t have a problem with T-shirts and hats with writing on them. . . .” She ignored the girl’s bored sigh. “. . . but the school board feels differently. If you’re caught wearing those things anywhere outside my classroom, you know what will happen, right?”

  And there it was again—that “I don’t give a hoot” look.

  “Whatever.”

  The girl was smart. So smart that, when she transferred in from the DC suburbs, she’d been placed with kids five, six, and in some cases, seven years her senior. Kylie had breezed through the academics, but her brilliance came at a hefty price, and put her behind her older classmates, emotionally and socially. In a matter of days, she’d graduate. And then, what would become of her?

  Grace had tried to gently coax the girl toward college, but in a house already overflowing with foster kids, the advice seemed to have fallen by the wayside. A pang of guilt echoed inside her, because between grading finals and keeping things afloat at Angel Acres, she hadn’t checked to see if Kylie had talked with Gavin Martin about scholarships, or anything else related to furthering her education, for that matter.

  Hopefully, it wasn’t too late for the grizzled guidance counselor to pull a miracle out of his files. Only one way to find out, Grace told herself. She had a free period coming up, and God willing, Gavin would have a few minutes to discuss Kylie with her.

  Meanwhile, there was the matter of Kylie’s outfit to consider.

  She’d violated the clothing restrictions rules before, so many times, in fact, that the principal had warned her what would happen if she broke them again. The automatic suspension wouldn’t just destroy her perfect attendance record, it would keep her from graduating with her class, as well. If Kylie had been blessed with maturity in equal measure to her intelligence, she might have realized that, in years to come, she’d regret the decision.

  But Grace understood it, and if she had anything to say about it, Kylie would graduate on stage—and walk away holding a perfect attendance certificate and a high school diploma.

  She went to the cupboard behind her desk and plucked a denim shirt from its hanger. “There’s some paint on the cuffs,” she said, draping it over one arm as she walked towar
d Kylie’s desk, “but it’ll cover up the lettering on your shirt. And the pockets are enormous,” she continued, laying the shirt beside the girl’s raggedy purse. “More than big enough so that you could tuck the hat into one of them.”

  In the silence that followed, Grace expected Kylie to frown. Refuse the offer. Maybe even storm out of the classroom. But it was a chance she had to take, because she would be a sorry excuse for a teacher if she didn’t at least try to give the girl some happy memories to carry into the future!

  “But . . . but Miss Sinclair . . .”

  Grace braced herself for rejection.

  “. . . it’s Friday.” She tapped a finger on the pocket’s faux pearl snap. “I . . . I wouldn’t be able to return it until Monday, at the earliest. Because . . . because I’d want to wash it.” She met Grace’s eyes. “Y’know?”

  Well, that was the last thing Grace expected her to say!

  Much as she would have liked to give the shirt to Kylie, Grace couldn’t risk having her see it as charity. “No rush. Any time before. . . .” She bit her lower lip as an idea took shape in her mind.

  “Before what?”

  “Oh, my. You’re going to think I’m crazy. Even worse, you’ll think I’m cheap!”

  A frown was the girl’s answer.

  “What if we called it a graduation gift?” Grace explained. “Then you wouldn’t have to rush around, washing and drying it, so that you could return it before school’s out.”

  “Well,” she said, shrugging into the shirt, “you’re sure right about one thing.”

  Laughing, Grace said, “Ack! I knew it! You do think I’m crazy, don’t you?”

  Kylie fingered the frayed, stained cuffs. “No,” she said, her black-lipsticked mouth slanting with a grin, “but you’re cheap, all right.”

  Grace would have hugged her . . . if she thought for a minute the girl would allow it. She laughed instead, because Kylie’s little joke filled her with incredible hope.

  Two boys and a girl sauntered into the classroom, chattering like magpies. “What’s so funny?” the girl asked, plopping her books onto the desk beside Kylie’s.

  “Miss Sinclair was just asking where I get my hair done.”

  The girl looked from Kylie’s multihued hair to Grace’s mop of brown curls. “Wow,” she said, giggling, “who knew . . . you’re smart and funny!”

  Grace read passages from White Fang and Call of the Wild, but not even stories of the wilderness and the untamed animals that called it home kept the kids from falling asleep on their desks. All except Kylie, that is.

  The rest of the day seemed to grind by—each tick of the clock like off-key harmony to the grinding blades of the big, rusty fan near the door. Finally, the last bell rang, and once the last kid had bolted from the room, Grace grabbed her backpack. On the way to the guidance office, she checked her mail cubby. It was a long shot, but perhaps a concerned parent had questions about final exams or called to RSVP the graduation party she’d organized for her students. Disappointed—but not surprised—she found nothing in her box.

  Grace’s annoyance vanished the instant she saw Gavin finger-walking across the tabs of manila folders in a battered, sickly brown filing cabinet, his salt-and-pepper hair giving him an Albert Einstein look. He couldn’t have been more than fifty, if his bio was accurate. So why did it seem that he worked so hard at looking and behaving like a much older man?

  “Don’t just stand there gawking, Sinclair,” he said without looking up. “Get on in here and tell me which of your pet juvenile delinquents brings you to my humble burrow today.”

  “Nice to see you, too, Gavin.”

  Peering over wire-rimmed reading glasses, he matched her grin with one of his own. “Sorry, Gracie,” he said, chuckling. Then he held up his hands, exposing every swollen, bloodied cuticle. “This secretarial work drives me mad. Only thing I hate more is trying to cram a thousand folders into a drawer intended for a hundred.” He slammed the drawer, then pointed at the seat of a threadbare chair, piled high with newspapers, magazines, and books. “Just put that stuff. . . .” He looked around, and shoulders sagging, said, “. . . put it anywhere you can find a spot and make yourself at home.”

  Grace zipped her backpack. “Much as the cat would love a fuzzy little treat, I wouldn’t want a mouse to crawl in there,” she joked, dropping it to the floor.

  “Ha. Like a mouse could survive in here. But just listen to you,” he said, as Grace gathered an armload of paper, “still calling that poor animal ‘cat.’ How long have you had her?”

  “Years.” Years and years, she thought, remembering the day she’d helped Leslie’s mom box up clothes, Hummels, a couple dozen wolf plaques and figurines, and pack them all into the back of a U-Haul van. If the woman hadn’t spent hours sneezing and blowing her nose, she’d have taken the cat home, too.

  “Are you ever gonna give her a proper name?”

  Grace sat down and crossed her arms. “She doesn’t seem to mind the moniker. Why should you?”

  The counselor rolled up his shirtsleeves. “Well, you understood why I had to ask. What kind of counselor would I be if I didn’t?” Then he sat down behind his desk. “So tell me, what can I do for you on this sweltering Baltimore afternoon?” he asked, unbuttoning his collar.

  “Well, I have this student, see, and she shows a lot of potential.”

  “Gee. I’m shocked.” He loosened the Windsor knot of his tie. One good tug, and it slipped off with a quiet hiss. “A kid with potential. Here.” He pointed at the floor. “In the heart of Baltimore?” Eyes closed, he pressed a hand to his chest. “Be still my heart.”

  Grace only sighed, and when he opened his eyes, she said, “When the school board chooses a date for your award ceremony, be sure to let me know, will you? I want plenty of time to shop for a little black dress.”

  “Award ceremony . . . ?” Brow furrowed, Gavin tucked his chin into his collar. “So you can. . . . Huh?”

  “Oh please. No need to feign modesty on my behalf.” She snickered. “You know, the banquet where the commissioner will name you ‘Baltimore’s Most PR-Savvy Guidance Counselor.’ ”

  “Ahh, that award.” Laughing, he tossed the tie onto a chair, and watched it slither to the floor, where it coiled like a silky blue snake. “Oh,” he said, propping his glasses on top of his head, “you’re a hoot. But I don’t know what my attitude toward the system has to do with this kid you’re here to see me about, but. . . .” He held up a forefinger. “No. Wait. Don’t tell me. Let me guess.” Squinting one eye, he cupped his chin in a palm. “She can’t decide whether to have an abortion now, or wait until after graduation. . . .”

  “Good grief, Gavin. I can count on one hand the number of my girls who quit school because they were pregnant, and I’d have fingers left over.” She clucked her tongue, as if to underscore the point. “Not every kid I come to talk with you about is in trouble.” She pictured Kylie’s baggy clothes and crazy-colored hair, the I’m so-o-o bored with life attitude. “At least, not that kind of trouble.” Grace remembered the way Kylie shied away from boys, even the cute ones who blatantly flirted with her. No surprise there, considering the five-year age gap. “Kylie isn’t going to have a baby. She’s bright and articulate, one of my best students, in fact. Her problem, if she has one, is that her foster parents haven’t helped her map out the future. That’s why I’m here . . . I’m hoping you can point me toward a program, a therapist, a volunteer activity . . . something, anything that’ll lend some direction, some purpose to her life, before it’s too late.”

  On his feet now, Gavin walked back to the row of filing cabinets and slid open a drawer. “Kylie . . . Kylie. . . . That wouldn’t be Kylie Houghton, would it?” he asked.

  “Amazing.”

  “What,” he said, returning to the wall of filing cabinets, “you’re surprised that Mr. PR-Savvy actually knows the kids he counsels? Hmpf.” He opened a drawer, plucked out a folder, and dropped it onto his curling, peeling desk blotter. “I
take it you know her history, right?

  “Some of it,” Grace admitted. “But I’m sure you’re privy to things I’m not. . . .”

  Gavin leaned forward slightly. “I’m not supposed to reveal stuff like this,” he whispered, “but I believe you might be on to something there.” And shoving back from the desk, he propped both feet on the window sill behind him. “Houghton is her foster mother’s last name. No idea where she’s from, originally, or why she ran away in the first place.” He put his glasses back on. “She has flat-out refused to talk about her past.” He swiveled to face her again. “To anyone. Cops picked her up at the Greyhound station a couple-three winters ago, shivering, hungry, dirty as a gutter rat. After a couple weeks in a group home, they placed her with a foster family. She gave ’em a month, and ran away. And ran away from two more before some savvy social worker figured out that Kylie has ‘male head of household’ issues.”

  Kylie’s skittishness around the older boys made even more sense, hearing that.

  “They handed her off to Mrs. Houghton,” Gavin continued.

  “How long has she been there?”

  Gavin shrugged. “Six months, give or take.” He tapped the folder. “She was in here not two weeks ago, sitting right where you are now, asking about student loans and dormitories and all the rest of the go-to-college stuff.”

  Grace brightened. “Well, that’s good news. Surprising, all things considered, but good.”

  “It would be . . . if she’d cough up some information about herself. Can’t help her get a student loan without i.d.”

  “I guess a scared little girl doesn’t think to grab her birth certificate as she’s running out the door. . . .”

  “True. But let me tell you a little secret. . . .” He leaned forward and waved Grace closer. When she scooted to the edge of her chair, he said, “Thanks to that kid, I owe favors all over town.” He leaned back and sighed. “Pulled a few strings, and managed to get her an appointment with a pal of mine . . . admissions counselor at U of M.”