On any other street, the figure wouldn't have attracted so much attention, but at twilight on this street, a white woman standing and conversing casually with a black store owner drew attention. At first, her mere presence drew him, but once he had glanced at her, he couldn't quite peel his eyes away. She dressed modestly, but such curves could not hide under clothes, and Tony had to draw on his self-control not to ogle her. Any other man would have decided that, since it was perfectly normal to gawk at a beautiful woman and she would never know, he might as well enjoy the beauty while he had the chance. Paul Garner, though, had raised all of his sons to respect women, and Tony would not let himself reduce her to an exercise in self-indulgence.

Still, he reasoned to himself as his eyes wandered back to her form, if I let her out of my sight, she might be in danger. He worked to watch the expressions of her face as she conversed with the store proprietor.

While he kept her in view, he couldn't help but note her other features. Her hair seemed light, though with the deepening twilight he couldn't tell for sure, and it escaped the confines of a bun that had once held it under her cloche hat. Her profile revealed a soft chin, perhaps a bit weak, but it seemed to emphasize the large round pout of her lips. Currently, those lips seemed pursed in consternation, and he found himself smiling at her perplexed expression. She seemed so impotent in her irritation. In a child, the expression would have preceded a stamping of the foot.

He glided closer and could hear the hushed intensity of her tone as she reprimanded her acquaintance.

"With everything you've been through, the last thing you should worry about is me," the girl said. Looking more closely, Tony realized that she could be no more than twenty.

"Miss Rissa," the older lady insisted, "I can take care of myself. And I don't stand out on this street any more than the cobblestone pavement. You might as well be a lamppost."

"It doesn't matter," Rissa contradicted. "I gave you my word that I would bring this to you today, and I wanted to keep my word."

Tony pressed up as close as he dared, and he could see that the girl held a small book, perhaps a children's book, and she now pressed it into the shop owner's hands.

"I asked my friend who is a teacher, and he said that this book works best for someone learning to read. It will help you write, too, and that will help with your business."

A do-gooder, Tony sighed a bit disgustedly, but he didn't turn away from her. After all, he reasoned, I'm supposed to interfere with the men who exploit the dumb people.

Conveniently, watching out for this "dumb person" held the added benefit of giving him the purely hedonistic pleasure of watching a pretty girl.

"Don't try to pay me back," the girl insisted forcefully. "It didn't even cost me an hour's work. I see you reaching in your pocket."

For a moment, both ladies stood awkwardly, staring at each other in indecision. This almost drove Tony back to the shadows and on his way, but then the young girl did something unexpected. Reaching her arms out, she wrapped the older woman up in a very sweet hug. The woman stared up in shock, but a smile quickly replaced her shock, and she planted a small kiss on the younger girl's cheek.

"Thank you, Miss Rissa," she followed the kiss.

Now the foot stamp that Tony had expected earlier materialized, and he grinned as the younger lady reprimanded her friend. "I wish you would just call me Marissa. Or even Rissa. You don't need to call me Miss, you know."

"Get outta here then, Rissa. This is no place for you after dark."

Tony glanced around and realized how the ladies stood completely exposed. Across the plaza, he spied a small cluster of men, Italian by appearance, and a couple of scantily clad women had just stepped out of the shadows into the streetlight's glow. The laughter from the group grew more boisterous as Tony listened, and he looked back to make sure that the girl would follow her friend's advice.

To his consternation, Marissa had obeyed almost immediately and had covered half a block before Tony realized she had left. He didn't want to arouse the suspicions of the shopkeeper, who also watched the girl down the street, so he paused as he passed the woman and whispered, "I'll watch her from here. It's okay; I'm I friend of Jerome." Tony knew that the name would pretty much buy him immunity from suspicion, so without further explanation, he took off after the girl and tailed her all the way to the well-lit comfort of the park. With the influx of students from the university that floated through the park after dark, Tony felt fairly certain that he could leave her to her own devices for the remainder of her journey home. Almost regretfully, he turned to head back toward his own home.

Despite her brave words, Marissa felt a marked relief when she reached the light of the park. Something about the beauty of the manicured lawns brought her a sense of security, and the smells and sounds of nature took her back home to the countryside. She knew that she occasionally suffered from nerves, and so she had forced herself to disregard her misgivings, but she had sensed that, though unlikely, someone had followed her from the seedier neighborhood that she had left behind her. The abundance of college kids she now encountered - sitting in groups, laughing and talking, smoking their cigarettes – helped her calm the nervous flutter of her breathing. If she continued to aid the sweet woman she had helped today, Marissa would make sure to do so during the daytime when she would have a clear view of any danger before she encountered it.

Marissa did not fear the general populace of the woman's neighborhood; she had met many of them, and most were wonderful. After dark, however, a new population emerged, drawn into criminal enterprises by the poverty and desperation of the people of the community. The poor, Marissa had discovered, rarely felt powerful, and if a bully pushed his way into their neighborhood, they felt largely impotent to push him back out.

By the time she had considered her course, Marissa had reached the cross-streets on which the bookstore rested, and her muscles began to relax in anticipation of promised rest. Though the sun had set an hour before, the temperature hovered in the eighties, and the weather had leaned toward humidity the last few days. Marissa held her breath as she crossed over the sewer grate that fronted her apartment, and she waved at a few of her new acquaintances who passed down the sidewalk before her.

"Marissa!" came the unexpected call, and Marissa turned back toward the park. When she encountered the face of Sam Lincoln, she forced herself to smile. She had known him a total of three days, and already her opinion of him had evolved from one of interest to one of flattery to one of utter disgust. He had ruined her third day on the job, though he disguised his intent thoroughly. Even after he had sent her sprawling on her face in the street, he had managed to hide his spitefulness, but yesterday had erased all doubt in Marissa's mind, and the memory rose to remind her just how little she could trust Sam Lincoln.

On the previous day, instead of the gang of young men that Marissa had encountered the first time she had met Sam, he stood surrounded by an evenly split audience of guys and girls. Something about the group dynamics had erased any vestiges of Sam's gentlemanly tendencies. Nothing specific had occurred to set off the encounter, but something about Marissa's helpless situation had incurred his derision on that afternoon. Perhaps one of the girls had made a snarky comment about Marissa's lack of fashion, and next thing Marissa knew, Sam had actually reached out and grabbed Marissa by the arm.

"So," he had begun, and Marissa tried to ignore the irritation she felt at the presumptuousness of his touch. "The girls here were just asking about you. They've never met anyone from a farm before."

Still unaware of the crowd's ill intent, Marissa turned with a smile to face her new acquaintances. "Well, I don't exactly come from a farm," she tried to explain.

"Did you have to milk cows?" one girl blurted out.

"Well, no, we didn't..." Marissa began before another girl interrupted her.

"Don't you people marry your cousins and things like that?" the girl's face twisted in disgust.

"Of course not," Marissa replied.

"Give the girl a minute to talk," Sam's voice rose over his friends'.

Marissa couldn't vouch for his choice in friends, but up to this point, he had treated her decently, if not kindly. "So, tell us about it," he commanded. "What did you do all day?"

Looking around herself, Marissa considered making up an excuse and fleeing the group as quickly as possible, but she had never thought of herself as a coward, so she ventured to engage them. "I lived on a plantation, the kind that's painted white and has big pillars."

"Do you have slaves?" one girl interrupted, suddenly fascinated. "I always wondered what it would be like to have slaves."

Marissa didn't know how to respond. Initially, she almost laughed, assuming that the girl joked, but after looking into the girl's face, Marissa recognized morbid curiosity there. Marissa felt disgusted at such ignorance and at the nonchalance with which the girl discussed such a serious topic. From her earliest childhood, Marissa's parents had taught her to have compassion on those who had struggled with hardship during their lives. Though in the north, Marissa knew, a variety of prejudices existed based on neighborhoods and countries of origin and any other ridiculous difference people could conceive of, she had seen firsthand how the people of the south had drawn lines almost entirely based on skin color.

Even so, most people Marissa knew personally had rejected the color basis for hatred. The horrible things that had happened to the people even after they had left slavery made Marissa's head ache. When she had debated at school, she liked to bring up the Biblical story of the salvation of the Ethiopian as proof that a person with dark skin had the same brain power as anyone with light skin, and that he meant every bit as much to God as his lighter-skinned companions.

The whole argument seemed so ridiculous to her.

"Is she slow?" the girl's question brought Marissa back to herself. When Sam laughed heartily at the question, Marissa felt the full insult of his sentiment. This girl's torment of Marissa, the girl's ignorance, Marissa's discomfort: all of these provided entertainment for Sam. His attitude stirred the embers of her ire even more than the girl's original question. The girl's first question could have stemmed from true ignorance and therefore deserved a compassionate and rational response. People could change their minds based on new information, Marissa reasoned. The girl's second question accompanied by Sam's derisive laughter clearly communicated an intent to mock Marissa. With that knowledge, Marissa quickly abandoned all thoughts of honest intellectual exchange. She felt her heart twist into an arrow of sarcastic response. She reined it in just as quickly, however. Though Marissa often felt enough anger to lash out at people, she rarely followed through. Her genuine upset at someone's meanness tempered the vitriol of the words that made it past her lips.

After a moment, Marissa looked around, suddenly aware of all of the other eyes upon her. If she responded to Sam and the girl tit for tat, Marissa would risk looking like a fool in front of too many unknown faces. Better to eat crow and make her exit, she realized. Tears had begun to sting her eyes, tears of anger and tears of rejection, and she did her best to rein them in as she glared at Sam. "I'm sorry," she stuttered meekly. "I just remembered that I have someone waiting for me. We'll have to talk about this another time."

Without looking back, Marissa had crossed the street and hurried out of sight. Whatever doubt she had held regarding Sam's character had fled with this exchange, and Marissa had made a mental note to avoid him or anyone associated with him in the future.

Yet here Marissa stood again, now in the subdued twilight of the park, and now wondering how long she had stood in an apparent stupor as she considered the events of the previous day's meeting. Twice now she had encountered Sam. Twice now, he had She desired nothing more than to appear to her greatest advantage in front of him, yet here she stood, mouth hanging open in reverie, while Sam called her name. Like chickens in a hen-house, Sam would attack if he sensed weakness.

Why had she run into him again? Had he purposely sought her out just so he could tease her?

I'm a big girl, she instructed herself in a weak attempt at a pep talk. I'm not going to be afraid of a few mocking words.

"Marissa?" he spoke slowly now as if to an animal in need of calming. "You ran off yesterday, but I was hoping we could finish our conversation now." When she felt rather than heard the titters of laughter around him, she realized that his usual gaggle surrounded him. Ridiculously, tears sprang to her eyes once again. The moisture stirred up so much anger in her mind that she clenched her jaw, and the inadvertent movement caused an actual tear to overspill her lids. Before she could stop herself, she had spun on her heels and bolted toward the bookstore. She would never forgive herself for showing so much weakness to the heartless young man.

Her mind tacitly registered the swing of jazz music that spilled from an open doorway several buildings away from the bookstore. Trying to block out her misery at Sam’s tormenting, she focused on the notes, the smashing and clashing, the lulling and thrumming, and her mind successfully suppressed the thought of the group behind her until she made it through the doorway to the bookstore and fell, crying, onto the bottom step in a heap. Gratefully, no one stayed at the bookstore past closing time, so she was able to sit there and nurse her injured pride for several minutes before she forced herself to stand and trudge up to her room.

When she woke up the next morning, she would make a point to search out the source of the music, whether a radio or some aspiring set of college musicians honing their craft. For the time being, though, she rushed up the stairs and away from the danger of Sam and his friends.

From several yards away, Tony watched the unfolding events with a mix of annoyance and concern. He had left the stupid girl at the edge of the park, but as he turned to make his way home, the new voice had arrested his movement – the voice of trouble.

"Marissa?" Tony heard Sam Lincoln call, and the sound sent a chill down Tony's spine.

How had the girl, in town only a few days, found so much access to danger? Tony wanted to grab her and shake some sense into her. Innocent with a penchant for finding peril – not a good combination, and he almost wanted to leave her to learn the consequences of her actions. At the look of horrified misery on the girl's face, however, Tony felt stirred to compassion. She was almost safer on the streets where I found her than standing at the mercy of Sam Lincoln, Tony thought sarcastically.

After an instant of thought, though, he recognized Sam’s stance, that the ruffian intended to pursue the young woman and intercept her before she could reach her destination. "Hey, Sam," Tony called out loudly and glanced at the girl to make sure she kept running. The entire group of flunkies that followed Sam around with religious fervor redirected their attention to Tony, and he felt the sudden pressure to make up a reason for calling Sam's name.

"When is the rally for Regis going to happen?" An appeal to Sam's favorite crooked politician seemed a good excuse for Tony to hail the notorious troublemaker from across the square. Tony noted with satisfaction that after a second of mindless gawking, Sam's victim had fled across the street and entered the ground floor of the campus bookstore. Hopefully, none of Sam's crew had noticed the direction of her exodus.

"You looking for trouble?" Sam replied with a grin, and Tony cringed in irritation at the movement of several other guys into a line behind Sam – a gathering into ranks, almost military in its responsiveness. Tony had no desire to engage Sam under these circumstances.

"Only the political kind, Sam. I'm always interested in the thoughts of my community leaders." The sarcasm dripping from Tony's words could have drowned an elephant. In no way did Tony consider Regis McReynolds a community leader; more of a community bully. Anyone who manipulated businessmen with threats of physical violence deserved no great respect.

Sam looked around himself at the faces of his companions, and Tony could see the internal struggle battle inside the natural-born ruffian. No doubt, Sam would love to make a fool of Tony, but Tony had chosen his topic wisely. For all intents and purposes, Sam played a legitimate role in the McReynolds campaign for city council, and while Sam wore the political hat, any stooping to violence would reflect badly on the councilman. Tony suppressed a smile when Sam turned back with a look of exasperation. In the street, though the sun had set, too many uninvolved people meandered past to allow Sam to engage in any subversive activity.

"A week from Wednesday. Six o'clock on the eastern end of the lake. I'm sure you'll see some banners by tomorrow morning."

"Can't wait," Tony grinned, determining to watch his back for the next few days despite the apparent civility of the exchange. He felt smugly satisfied that he had rescued a victim from Sam Lincoln's clutches, but Tony still didn't relish the idea making himself so conspicuous to his political enemy. Generally, Tony stayed out of the way of controversy, desiring to maintain the facade of indifference so he could play the spy for Jerome.

Sighing with mixed emotions, Tony turned back toward his father's house and made his way across the park as inconspicuously as he could manage. He had a feeling that his minute interference tonight would come back to haunt him later.