The Edge of Justice by Clinton McKinzie Page A

morning, early?”
    “I'd like that. You guys can show me the good stuff. Top-rope me up the hard ones. But I think I'd want to have you holding the rope, not your pal Heller. He didn't seem too friendly, and I'm a little out of shape.”
    “You didn't look it the other day when you were soloing.” She blushes a little as she says it, then looks around again and sees the girl behind the counter watching us intently. Lynn stops smiling and stares at the girl until she looks away and pretends to busy herself with the magazines stacked there.
    “How 'bout meeting us at Reynold's Complex, like at eight o'clock?”
    “Sell me a guide so I can find it and I'll be there.”
    She leads me over to a rack of guidebooks and hands me one called
Heel and Toe—Climbs of Greater Vedauwoo.
    “How come they call it
Heel and Toe
?”
    “After you do a few fat cracks up there you'll find out, man. They should call it
Bloody Knees and Elbows
or
Gnarly Fucked-up Off-Widths.
”
    I groan. “Off-widths.” Climbing off-widths means sticking in just one elbow and a knee, wedging them tight, then wiggling up sideways. There is no more physical, feared, or painful type of crack climbing. Vedauwoo is famous for them.
    Lynn rings the guidebook up on the register while the girl who'd been standing there keeps sneaking mirthful looks at the two of us. I notice Lynn takes twenty percent off the listed price. I guess I'm now a partner.
    “I'll see you in the morning, Anton,” she says, her brown eyes smiling.
       
    From there I drive to a pet store at the south end of town not far from the hotel to get a new bag of food for Oso. After parking outside on the street, I stand enjoying the sun and the wind for a moment while I flip through the pictures in the guidebook with it propped open on the hood. Just when I think I've found a picture that matches the coroner's, I hear a voice behind me.
    “Hey,
cabrón
.”
    The word raises the hair on my arms with a gentle sting. I turn and look at the four Hispanic youths who've gathered around me on the sidewalk. Oso thrusts his head through the window, a low growl vibrating from his throat. One stands before the loose half-circle of the other three with his hands clenched at his sides. I can see the homemade gang tattoos across his knuckles. All of them wear too-large red-checked plaid shirts with only the top buttoned and baggy pants. Above the shirts they each have an ornate “13” tattooed on the skin of their throats. I recognize a couple of them only vaguely as junior members of the gang I'd investigated in Cheyenne eighteen months before, but can't remember any names.
    I toss the book through the open window beside Oso's head. I give the kid a puzzled look but don't say a word.
    “I said hey,
cabrón
. Fucking
joto.
”
    Oso growls louder at the words. The youth looks at the beast in the truck's window and perhaps sees that the dog is too big to get through it. But he may not even notice or care. I can see that his pupils are just pinpricks. He's on something strong. His jaw is locked and beads of sweat run down his face. Behind him a middle-aged woman inside the store is watching the scene through the plate-glass window and punching numbers into a telephone.
    “Remember me, motherfucking Burns?”
    “No.”
    “Remember
mi hermano,
Dominic,
quebrachon
?”
    I blink slowly with an inward wince. I'd put a bullet through his brother's head. And through the flesh of the two other Sureno 13 gang leaders with him. Last year in the shoot-out north of Cheyenne.
    I become aware of my gun's warm metal on my skin where it's clipped inside the back of my pants but don't touch it as the boy turns slightly and holds his hand out to one of the others behind him. One steps forward and holds his own hand open, exposing his palm. A concealed two-foot length of pipe slides down from his baggy sleeve. The one who's been talking, Dominic's little brother, snatches it from him and faces me again.
    That sunlight