John Lescroart - A Certain Justice

'But you are, girl, and you do.'

'And that's what we're marching against.'

'But it might also be anger that you're just a secretary, not a lawyer. Maybe black's got nothing to do with it-'

' Just a secretary! I…'

A man who looked like a young athlete in a coat and tie approached the table. 'Excuse me,' he said, 'I'm the manager here and some of the other patrons…' A gesture, not his fault. 'I wonder if I could ask you to continue your discussion outside.'

Jacqueline gave it back. 'And I wonder if I could ask you -'

But Ridley had her hand covered, lifting her, pulling her by it. 'Jacqueline, come on…' Arm strongly around her now, leading her to the door.

Outside on the sidewalk she turned on him. 'Get your hands off me. Get away from me.'

'Jacqueline, please…'

She struck out at him, turning away.

He grabbed for her again, but she spun, hitting him high on the forehead, the force of it pushing him back a step. 'You stay away from me. I don't want to see you. Get away .' She was backing up, facing him, a hand held up. Then, abruptly, she whirled and ran.

He followed her a few steps, gave it up and stopped in front of the huge windows of the bar. A sea of all white faces stared out at him through the glass.

He didn't feel like one of them. Not even a little bit.

The cupboard, as they say, is bare.' Melanie was opening the doors to the cabinet shelves. 'I mean, nothing.' She reached out and pulled a can of mixed fruit cocktail from the back of the shelf, a tiny tin of Vienna sausages. Kevin appeared in the kitchen doorway.

'What's your friend Ann live on?'

'I guess we're looking at it.' She opened the refrigerator. It, too, contained little in the way of food or drink. For breakfast, they'd finished some cheese and stale crackers. Lunch had been two eggs, scrambled, for the two of them, with water.

'I sure feel like a pizza,' Kevin said. 'I wouldn't mind a beer either.'

'Maybe we can order up. Do you have any money?'

Kevin checked his wallet, counting fifty-eight dollars out onto the kitchen table. He placed one of the ubiquitous flowerpots on top of the bills. 'Which reminds me,' he said, 'I haven't called work, told them I wouldn't be in for a while.' (He had worked twenty-five hours a week as a telemarketer selling business software to small companies, manning one of a bank of telephones out of a converted home in the Marina.) 'I wonder if they've noticed? Probably haven't even missed me.' Neither of them smiled when he said it. The banter couldn't cover the tension.

Melanie went back to the living room, flipped pages of the phone book and called a place she knew. When she hung up she said, They're not delivering, not with the riots.'

'Try someone else.'

Seven calls later – three pizza places, two Chinese, a Mongolian Bar-B-Que and a piroshki house – and not one was delivering. Melanie was standing by the phone in the living room, starting on the eighth, when Kevin looked up from his stuffed chair. 'I think I'm going nuts here, is what I think. Are you going nuts, or is it just me?'

She nodded. 'A little.'

'Hey, it's Friday night. It's dark out. People – normal people – are on dates, into themselves.' Her look was not encouraging. 'We go out, maybe Ann's got a wig or something, I stuff some cotton balls in my cheeks…'

'You're going to eat pizza with cotton balls in your cheeks?'

'Okay, no cotton balls. But maybe a little lipstick, a tasteful touch of rouge

Melanie was shaking her head. ' Kevin …'

His hands were flat against his sides. 'I am truly going crazy here.'

'So am I,' she said, 'but it seems every time we poke our heads outside-'

'Not every time,' he reminded her. 'Last night we sat in the line at that drive-in for a half hour and nobody recognized us.'

'Nobody was looking at us there.'

' Or for us, which they also wouldn't be at some local little dive, either. In fact, think about it, out in public is about the last place anybody would expect to see us. Even if they looked right at us, just sitting casually eating a pizza, they'd go, "No way. It couldn't be. They wouldn't be that stupid." '

Melanie sat by the phone, giving it some thought. 'On the other hand, look at, say, John Dillinger. Coming out of a movie theater…'

'He was set up, Melanie. Nobody knows where we are right now, where we're coming from, where we're going.' He was up out of the chair. 'I actually think it's a smarter choice than if we just went out to get some food at the store. We go, we eat, we come back, what do you say?'

Ann did have hats, and they each wore one – Kevin's a multicolored ski cap that he pulled to his eyebrows, Melanie's a faux-velvet beret into which she tucked her hair. They selected accessories, and Melanie applied an extra coat of fire-engine red lipstick. She also painted two moles on her face. Kevin had opted for the more natural look, although he couldn't resist a small golden ear cuff.

The city, when they were out in it, still smelled of smoke, and, contrary to Kevin's notion that people were dancing all over the place, there wasn't much sign of it. The tent city in the Panhandle of Golden Gate Park was, after all, only two blocks north of them. At the cross-streets, looking through, they could see campfires and the harsh blinking of yellow caution lights on the sawhorses that set off the campground.

Melanie had her arm around Kevin's waist – the night was chilly – her hand in his back pocket. He held her tight against him and they walked fast. Haight Street itself was not a curfew area, although there was almost no street traffic and few pedestrians. Every few doorways homeless people asked them for money. Kevin dropped his last few quarters.

As Kevin had predicted, no one seemed to notice. The street might have been empty, but Pizzaiola was crowded enough at nine something on a Friday night. Kevin picked a booth in a back corner.

'Under the Exit sign, just in case.'

'That's not funny.'

Melanie went up to order – a large combination with anchovies, a pitcher of Sam Adams, two glasses.

'Could I see some ID, please?' the man behind the bar was an African-American about Kevin's age. He smiled at her, no threat, waiting.

She froze. She had been twenty-one now for six months and, especially while she had been dating Kevin, had gotten used to ordering beer and not getting 'carded.' Now she stared, all but open-mouthed, wondering what to do. She couldn't bolt out of here alone, not without Kevin, not without alerting the whole neighborhood. She half-turned – Kevin wasn't even looking her way.

'Ma'am?'

'Oh, sorry.' Nothing else to do. She took out her wallet and presented her driver's license, which the man held under the light. 'Thanks. Who's the other glass for?'

Oh God… they were going to get caught. She should just run – yell to Kevin and run. 'My boyfriend, back there,' she said, striving for control. 'He's older than I am.'

The man squinted over through the dimness. 'That old, huh?' He was still smiling, drawing the pitcher of beer. 'Waitress will bring it right over.' In a daze, she crossed back to the corner, sat down at their table.

'This was a good idea,' Kevin said. 'Tomorrow we… what's the matter?'

The waitress arrived, put the pitcher down between them, left without a glance. Melanie was trying to control herself, shaking her head so Kevin would stop asking, not call any more attention to them. Kevin leaned over the table, closer to her. 'What is it?' Whispering. He put out his hand and she covered it with hers and told him.

At the bar Melanie's bartender was a dervish, more pitchers were getting filled. Behind the open counter, one of the cooks was spinning pizza dough in the air. Sting was on the jukebox singing Love Is Stronger Than Justice . Though there wasn't a dance floor a few people were free-form dancing, apparently immune to the rhythm changes in the tune. Nobody was paying any attention to Kevin and Melanie. Kevin mentioned this.