Ishmael Toffee by Roger Smith

the far end of the graveyard, and he hears their darky shouts mixed with the angry colored voices of the squatters.
    Then, as he shakes him off and tucks him away, Ishmael catches a movement over the crosses and he ducks down behind a tombstone. Two men coming on. Youngsters. Fucken gangsters. Knows the walk, knows the attitude. Can’t swear to it, but reckons they’re the same ones that chased him last night.
    They haven’t seen Ishmael and he leopard crawls back toward the kid, not feeling the gravel tearing his elbows and knees. He comes round a headstone and sees her ankles pale against the earth, and knows that he’s going to have to get his hand over her mouth when he wakes her to keep her quiet.
    Too late.
    She sits up and looks around, wiping at her eyes. He drags himself on, hoping she’ll see him, willing her to shut up.
    But she opens her mouth and shouts out in that little whitey voice: “Ishmael! Ishmael!”
     
    ●
     
    Cindy hears a noise and here comes Ishmael, running at her very fast, his eyes white and wide and his tongue pink through his lips. There’s a loud noise, like a door slamming shut in the wind, and he looks like he’s run into something and his shirtfront is bright red. He keeps on running to her, but slower, and before he can get there she feels hands on her as a big, tall man lifts her up far off the ground.
    She’s looking down at Ishmael, who walks now like her daddy when he’s drunk and another man is pointing something at Ishmael and there’s a bang and the little man wobbles but on he comes and he’s got a rock in his hand and he falls forward, hitting the tall man who lets his hands go and Cindy drops hard onto the ground and she can’t breathe.
    Her face is close to Ishmael, lying on the sand, his hands grabbing the ground with crab fingers.
    “Run, Cindy,” he says. “Run, now.”
    His eyes go far away like her mommy’s did, lying dead in the red bathtub, and Cindy runs like she ran then, never ever telling anybody that she saw her mommy dead.
     
    ●
     
    The jockey hammers Boston with a rock, the tall man falling like a tower of bricks. But the jockey is down, too, bleeding and Angel fires again but misses. The kid takes off, moving like a rabbit through the graves, toward the Red Ants and the squatters who have stopped their battle and stare at the little whitey coming on.
    “Little Cindy! Little Cindy” they shout, and the Ants and the squatters join forces now, running through the graveyard trying to catch the kid, who weaves off toward the dump.
    Angel puts in a spurt, hurdles the graves, flying along, and he runs the kid down and grabs it by its shirt and lifts it, not breaking his stride.
    Three Red Ants come at him with nightsticks and he shoots one of them in the face and sees him drop. Angel keeps on running toward the dump, the kid twisting in his arms like a crazy thing.
    He risks a look over his shoulder and sees the squatters and the Red Ants streaming after him, shouting, “Little Cindy! Little Cindy!”
    As he takes to the slope of the landfill he slings the kid over his shoulder and knows he’s running it, that race, and that if he doesn’t win he’s for sure a fucken dead man.
    Angel curses himself for hitting on the white pipe. Feels that shit in his muscles, slowing him down. Fucking with his head, too.
    He’s up on the dump, dodging piles of trash, a pain like a knife in his ribs, his breath coming in rasps, and he thinks of Boston lying back there, maybe dead, and knows he’s alone now, with all these useless people wanting what he’s got.
    He slows, but thoughts of the half-mil send a burst of energy into his legs.
    The child smacks her fists against his back and kicks her feet into his ribs, screaming like a little pink pig. He gets behind a pile of garbage, out of the mob’s sight for a second, stops and throws her off him onto the ground. She hits and shuts up and he drops onto her and punches her in the gut—punches hard enough to