SE Hinton owns The Outsiders.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Dropdown

Eleven-

Hazel heard Eleanor shout to Bill that one of those Shepard boys was here. She backed away from the freezer, but rather than dart out the side door of the garage, she knelt down on the other side of Billy's car and waited. When Eleanor appeared, Hazel waited for her to close the door. Then she stood up.

Eleanor startled and turned around.

"My word, girl. You about scared the life out of me."

"Did I? Gonna make the next part real easy then."

Hazel crossed her arms across her chest. It wasn't an even match in her favor. Eleanor was almost as tall and outweighed Hazel by fifty pounds. She hadn't reached the beer bottles yet, and so- as far as Hazel knew- she was unarmed.

"We're popular tonight, it seems," Eleanor said. "And y'all are popping out of the most unusual places. Do you know Tim Shepard?"

Hazel shrugged and shook her head.

"Can't say that I do. Should I?"

"I couldn't say what you should or shouldn't do. He's inside talking to Billy, though."

Hazel raised an eyebrow and hoped she wasn't giving away anything to Eleanor. Stupid Tim, she thought to herself. Stupid boys. What white horse does he think he's riding in on?

Eleanor said to her: "Funny thing. I thought we'd parted ways with you, little girl. You didn't seem happy in our employ the last time I saw you."

"Yeah? What told you that? The way I was shaking when I came in or the bruises all over me?"

"Seems to me like you weren't cut out for our line of work. I took you for a tougher sort of girl than that. I guess I was wrong."

"I guess," Hazel said and shrugged. "I brought you something, Nellie. Catch."

She tossed the ring towards Eleanor, who missed it in the half-light. It bounced off of the car and rolled beneath it. Eleanor smiled and shook her head at Hazel.

"Well, well, maybe you have more stones than I thought. Or you're just stupid. If I pulled a stunt like that I don't think I'd have come back to this house and chucked the thing at me."

"I'm a little confused about the whole thing myself. I woulda thought my little stunt would've brought down more heat on me than it did."

"I just didn't like the thing that much," Eleanor said.

"The ring or the big, dumb thing that gave it to you?"

Eleanor had a reply for that, but she was cut off by a dull thud coming from the outside of the house. She and Hazel both startled. Looking at Eleanor's face, Hazel realized that it was now more illuminated than it had been- by a revolving series of red and white lights. Eleanor's eyes narrowed.

"You stay right there, little girl. You run and I'll put them onto you like dogs. You showed up uninvited in my garage, remember."

She scurried back into the house. Hazel could hear her saying something to Billy, and then answering the front door. She backed up to the garage door and peeked out. There was a single police cruiser parked in front of the house. One officer had gone to the door, and another was walking around the side of the house with a flashlight in one hand and a gun in the other.

She heard a sound at the entry to the house from the garage. She turned.

Tim had his finger to his lips. He came up next to her so he could whisper.

"Cops. Where's the ring?"

"Rolled under the car."

"Leave it. That's good enough if they toss the place. I guess I'm going to have to part with this for the greater good, too."

He took the .357 out of his jeans and began wiping it down with the hem of his shirt.

"If I was Billy, where would I stash a stolen gun?"

"He's probably got a few stashed out here already."

Tim nodded. He quietly opened the car door and chucked the gun on the front seat. Hazel raised her hands as if to say is that your grand plan?

"Come on, baby, let's go."

Hazel shook her head.

"There's a cop around the side of the house. We can't go out the back."

"Yeah, we're going out the front. The other one's inside the house."

Tim pushed her ahead of him out to the driveway. They both stopped and looked around them. Seeing no one, they darted into the next yard. They ran through yards to the end of the block, and then slowed down, walking hand-in-hand again like a couple out enjoying the evening air.

"If the cops let them alone, we're still screwed," Hazel said when they had almost reached Tim's car.

"Well, then we weren't any worse off than when we started."

He opened the passenger door for her. She got in and before he shut it, he asked:

"You were going to kill her, weren't you?"

Hazel shrugged.

"Jesus, what kind of girl are you?"

"Scarier than your mom now, I'd guess."

Tim shut the door. He got in behind the wheel and started the car. He put it in gear and popped the lighter in.

"If we're going to see each other again, we got to agree on a few things," he told her.

"Who says we're going to see each other again?"

Tim smirked. "I said. And you said you weren't going back to Adelaide or wherever."

"Adrian."

"Yeah. So, I'm guessing I'll at least be seeing as much of you as Two-Bit does."

"I can't see Two-Bit wanting to see much more of me after this."

"Well, more than he does then."

"What do we need to agree on?"

Tim reached across her and opened the glove box. He pulled out a fresh pack of cigarettes, contemplating his list:

No more coke and no more weed- no more little things that could get them picked up and searched. No more emotional outbursts that resulted in stealing stuff- if they were going to steal stuff, it had to stuff they only intended to sell. No getting cuddly with creeps out at the track.

"That's all stuff that covers me," Hazel told him. "What's your end of this bargain?"

"I'm guessing my parole officer will have a hell of a list for me. Was going to start with that."

"Where are we going now?"

"Over to a friend's place. I left Curly there."

Hazel smiled- the idea that Tim had left Curly in safe hands appealed to her some. He just as well could have left him there, she supposed, because he was likely to screw up their plans, That Tim would rather have her at his side than his own brother, she figured wasn't going to sit well with Curly.

"Oh, the girl with the coke," Was how Darry Curtis greeted Hazel when Tim introduced her.

"You gonna bust her head open, Darrel?" Two-Bit asked. "Or would you like me to do that, since she and I have a reporte?"

"Some reporte, if she just waltzed in here with Tim." Curly had to get his dig in. He felt safe enough doing it with Tim in the room.

Half his size and surrounded by guys who would back him up, Hazel still had no problem looking Darry in the eye.

"Do I need to leave?" She asked him.

"Are you holding?"

Hazel's eyes widened. She whirled around to look at Tim.

...Who said, "Fuck," and rubbed his eyes.

"What now?" Darry asked them.

"I was holding. In my purse," Hazel said. "Which we left in the alley behind Billy's house."

"I'm going back and gettin' it," Tim told her.

"The hell you are. There was a cop out back. If he hasn't found it by now, he'll find you."

"Well," Darry said. He sat back down in his chair, and because it was Darry- Sodapop and Curly sat down again as well. Two-Bit had remained sitting when Tim and Hazel came in.

Now, he leaned back against the arm of the couch and looked at Hazel.

"Your ID in it?" He asked.

"Of course it is."

Tim said, "What's your warrant for?"

"Jesus Christ," Darry muttered.

Hazel folded her arms across her chest, and turned towards Darry. When she spoke, she was talking to him:

"In Tulsa County, misdemeanor possession and possibly theft, although- the cops will find what I've been accused of stealing when they search Billy's garage." Then, she dropped her arms again- as if in defeat- and turned to Tim. She said, "Soliciting in Potter County, Texas and Elk City."

"What's that mean?" Curly asked.

"Means she fucked her way here from West Texas," Two-Bit said.

Hazel cocked an eyebrow and said to him, without turning away from Tim: "How'd you think I got so good at it?"

Darry stood up.

"Okay...holy Christ...What it means is she needs to get out of my house. I think y'all better start cutting your losses and figuring out who's about to get picked up and for what, and where other than my house you're going to be when that happens."

"How big is Elk City even? How the hell did you picked up there?" Two-Bit wondered aloud.

"It's little. Makes it tougher to lay low, especially if you're a new face in town," she told him. "I'm done for. Tim, you still have time to call your PO. If you do that, you're in the clear, right?"

"There's a chance in hell that they ain't found your purse."

"There's a pretty even chance that, if they did, Nellie thought up something else to pin on me."

Curly spoke up then. He'd been quiet since Hazel had owned up to the soliciting arrests, as if mulling over whether or not that made her more or less cool in his book. Now he said, in a quiet voice uncharacteristic of him:

"Tim, call your PO."

"Who asked you?"

Curly's eyes were pleading. Tim avoided looking at them. He was looking at Hazel, and she couldn't guess what he was thinking.

"Tim," she told him. "Call your PO."