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Authors: Laura Lippman

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He held out his palm, which was amazingly pink, pink as the pads on a newborn kitten's feet. It was creased and craggy, a hard-working hand, yet rosy pink. We stared at his hand, not gleaning what he wanted. Sean, at last, put a quarter in it, and the man actually bit the coin. But then he smiled, letting us know he was in on the joke, that he knew biting a coin was something people did with gold pieces in a movie, not with a quarter from Sean's pocket.

“Well, I guess you weren't expecting a show, so that's okay that you don't have more,” he said. “Tell me your names.”

Mickey took the lead.

“I'm Leia,” she said.

“Han,” said Sean, always quick.

“Luke,” said Tim.

“Carrie,” said Gwen, who couldn't think of another girl's name from
Star Wars,
clearly begrudging Mickey's decision to crown herself as the princess.

“Go-Go,” said Go-Go, not getting it. Even if he had, he probably would have said R2-D2 or Obi-Wan. It was funny about Go-Go. He lied. He lied a lot, trying to avoid punishment for his various misdeeds. But he was bad at it. He couldn't tell a lie to save his life. And his honesty often came out at just the wrong time.

“Where y'all live?”

“Franklintown Road,” Mickey said. There probably weren't four or five houses along Franklintown, but it was nearby and a credible place for us to be from. If we mentioned Dickeyville, we would give ourselves away. Should the man ever come up that way, determined to find the five children who had come into his house and tried to take his guitarânot that we would have taken it, but that's probably what he thoughtâhe would find us all too easily. All he would have to say is: blond girl, brunette girl, three boys with their hair cut way short, and everyone would say, Oh, the Halloran boys, fat Gwen, and that dark-haired girl they play with.

“And you came all the way down here. Huh. You going to come visit me again?”

It sounded more like a request than a question. Why would we come here again? What was the point of visiting this strange old man, who smelled bad and couldn't sing?

“Sure,” said Sean, our spokesman.

“I need some canned goods,” he said. “Beans, soup. And I wouldn't mind some new shirts. I like them flannel shirts, but I need T-shirts, too.”

“Sure.”

Why not agree? We were never going to return here. It was a far walk, something to do on a summer's day when you had all the time in the world. Come Labor Day and school, we wouldn't have the time. What was the harm in promising that Leia, Han, Luke, Carrie, and Go-Go would return?

We were back within the week, with all the things he requested.

We called him Chicken George, after the character in
Roots,
which had aired the previous year. He never seemed to remember our names, nor notice when we slipped and used our real ones. He asked almost nothing of us, beyond the canned goods and old shirts we pulled from our parents' homes, and each visit was the same: he would play his guitar, singing in his caterwauling style, and Go-Go would dance his dance, flinging his body around as only he could. It shouldn't have been fun and yet it was, if only because it was a secret among the five of us. There was no one else in Chicken George's life, no one else who knew of him or cared about him. He was ours, a new toy.

And, in time, we treated him as all children treat their toysâwith increasing carelessness and indifference.

About the Author

Laura Lippman was a reporter for twenty years, including twelve years at the Baltimore
Sun
. She is the author of eleven Tess Monaghan books including
Baltimore Blues
,
Another Thing to Fall
, and
The Girl in the Green Raincoat
; five stand-alone novels, including
Every Secret Thing
,
Life Sentences
and
Don't Look Back
; and a short story collection. She has won numerous awards for her work including the Edgar, Quill, Anthony, Nero Wolfe and Agatha awards. To find out more about Laura visit
www.lauralippman.com
.

Also by Laura Lippman

The Innocents

Don't Look Back

The Girl in the Green Raincoat

Life Sentences

Hardly Knew Her

Another Thing to Fall

What the Dead Know

No Good Deeds

To the Power of Three

By a Spider's Thread

Every Secret Thing

The Last Place

In a Strange City

The Sugar House

In Big Trouble

Butcher's Hill

Charm City

Baltimore Blues

Copyright

This short story collection is entirely a work of fiction.

The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

The short stories in this collection previously appeared in
Hardly Knew Her
. Copyright Â© 2008 by Laura Lippman.

“Femme Fatale,” first published in
Geezer Noir;
copyright Â© 2006 by Laura Lippman.

“What He Needed,” first published in
Tart Noir;
copyright Â© 2002 by Laura Lippman.

“Dear Penthouse Forum (A First Draft),” first published in
Dangerous Women;
copyright Â© 2005 by Laura Lippman.

“The Babysitter's Code,” first published in
Plots with Guns;
copyright Â© 2005 by Laura Lippman.

“Hardly Knew Her,” first published in
Dead Man's Hand;
copyright Â© 2007 by Laura Lippman.

“The Crack Cocaine Diet,” first published in
The Cocaine Chronicles;
copyright Â© 2005 by Laura Lippman.

AVON

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Publishers

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London W6 8JB

www.harpercollins.co.uk

EPub Edition

The author asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Ebook Edition Â© June 2012 ISBN: 9780007492046

Version 1

FIRST EDITION

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