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time. After a quick hug, she pushed him away and held his hands.
    “Justen, where the hell have you been? I have been worried sick about you. I thought I’d lost you.”
    She turned to Crystal, “I thought I asked you to watch him. What happened?”
    Crystal lowered her face and spoke at the floor.
    “I had an errand to run. I had to get sumfin’ for us ta eat,” she said as she held up a grease stained paper bag and continued. “I thought he would be ok for a few minutes.”
    “Where was he? Where did you find him?” Sylvan asked as she scooped Justen up into her arms and took him back into Crystal’s apartment.
    She gently put him back onto Crystal’s bed.
    “Now stay here Justen. I’m going to get some clothes on and then Aunt Crystal and I are just going to sit on the couch and have a chat.
    As Sylvan leant in closer to Justen to kiss him, her blood ran cold when she softly heard the whisper in her ear.
    “Mummy,. . Please don’t be angry. I was hiding from a bad man.”

Three
    The rust coloured 1968 Chevrolet Camaro was a crap car, but it got Edward Stringer where he wanted to go. It provided a certain kind of anonymity that was very important to his line of work.
    He was on a mission. The finer details were to be given to him piecemeal so that if he were to be caught he would only know snippets. He would not be able to betray the cause.
    Pick up the phone on the corner of Fifth and Main at exactly ten PM.
    “I’m so sick of this kind of bullshit,” he growled as he pushed his foot down hard on the accelerator.
    His Mother had named him Edward and he proceeded through his school years as Eddy. In his current profession he dropped the name and preferred the anonymity of just being called Stringer. He liked the ring of the name. It suited him.
    He spied the phone booth and wrestled the Camaro to the kerb.
    After silencing the growling V8 he pulled the handle of the door up and pushed hard to open it. The stiff hinges gave way with a squeal of rusty metal on metal. His teeth clenched at the sound and hunched his back against the cold. He swore as he lumbered through the steady trickle of rain to the booth. He checked his watch. It was nine fifty nine.
    He leant on the outside of the phone booth and waited. A passerby tried to enter the booth and was instantly dissuaded by a menacing look. The stranger quickly moved on. The phone rang at precisely ten.
    Stringer swung the door open and lifted the receiver. The voice on the other end had been electronically altered.
    “Stringer?”
    “No it’s Elvis fucking Presley! Who else would it be? Ya fucken moron!” Stringer fought to hold back his growing rage.
    “Careful Stringer, you’re not indispensable. Now listen carefully – this will not be repeated.”
    Stringer allowed the caller to complete the instructions and without a word slammed the receiver back on the phone and stormed out of the booth, jumped into his car and sped off in the direction of his mark. As he drove he had time to go over his plan for eliminating his next target.
    This was his ritual.
    In his mind he could picture how the whole scenario would play out. He never rushed his jobs. Each one had to be meticulously rehearsed. There were to be no loose ends. His life depended upon his ability to carry out the task with ruthless efficiency. He had received excellent training as a sharp shooter for the Marines.
    “That was another time, another place, my other life ,” he thought as he drove the Camaro through the slick blackened streets.
    Even though it was a rainy night, from his vantage point he had a clear view of the neighbourhood. He liked using abandoned buildings to set up his operation.
    The city was full of the filthy lumbering edifices. Neglected and abused, the buildings had ceased to become safe habitats, even though the building he had decided to use still had some indigent residents. He was unconcerned; he planned to be silent and efficient. He would carry out the task