Warrior Angel by Robert Lipsyte Read Free Book Online

drawing pictures he tore up before anyone could see them. Helping Jake find parts in the old cars for his customers. Dropping out of Sparta High School after he was kicked off the football team. He had slugged a teammate, an elephant-assed tackle who had called him Tonto. Didn’t like football anyway. Too many rules. A white man’s game.
    He didn’t tell Gould any of it.
    He remembered running away to Times Square, falling in with Doll and her pimp, Stick, getting busted by Sgt. Alfred Brooks. Once, he’d thought that was the best thing that had ever happened to him. Now, he wasn’t so sure of anything.
    He felt trapped in the hotel suite, a prisoner. He felt as helpless as he had at the Whitmore Hills Juvenile Correctional Facility. That was almost three years ago.
    Â 
    He had a dream.
    He was walking backward up to Donatelli’s Gym, slowly, feeling each step sag under his weight, hearing the old wood creak. He knew that Mr. Donatelli himself was waiting at the top of the three dark, narrow flights of stairs, and he knew the old man would be disappointed because it wasn’t Alfred. He was waiting for Alfred to come back, the real contender, not for this mixed-blood who couldn’t throw his combinations, who couldn’t walk out of his prison.
    But it was Jake sitting in a chair under a single naked bulb.
    â€œI’m back, Jake. I’m ready.”
    Jake stared right through him as if he were invisible.
    Â 
    Sonny woke up sweating. I don’t exist to a dead man.
    He borrowed Malik’s laptop. Told him he wanted to check out the flesh.
    He sent a message to the Warrior Angel from his private e-mail address, [email protected].
    He wrote:
    I don’t know where to go.

8
    T HE L AND R OVER was back on the highway, heading west, when Starkey spotted flashing police lights in a corner of the rearview mirror. He felt a dry lump rise in his throat. It’s finished before it even started, he thought. He imagined pulling off the road, sitting like a child as the cop swaggered over, demanded a license he didn’t have, registration and insurance he didn’t know where to find. He would have to try very hard not to react to the cop’s attitude, remember he was on a Mission for the Creator, that he wasn’t here to act out for himself.
    â€œAct out what?” asked PJ. The lump gagged him.
    The police lights began to grow in the mirror like poisonous flowers.
    He could make a run for it. The Land Rover had some power; he could feel it throb under him like a Thoroughbred stallion that wants to be turned loose. But it probably couldn’t outrun a souped-up police cruiser, and even if it could,there would be dozens of cop cars up ahead waiting for him. Planes and helicopters if Stepdad got into the action. Been there, done that.
    And there’s always a chance of a crack-up in a high-speed chase. I can risk that for myself if the Mission depended on it, but I can’t expose a Live One like PJ. The Archies are always hammering us on that. You’re down there to save them, not hurt them.
    â€œWho are the Archies?” asked PJ.
    The red flower filled the mirror.
    â€œThe Archangels are like the elders of the tribe, the chiefs who know almost everything.”
    â€œAlmost?”
    â€œOnly the Creator knows everything.”
    He brought his foot up slowly on the accelerator.
    â€œWhy are you slowing down?”
    Sirens.
    â€œLet me do the talking, PJ.”
    â€œPlease don’t call me PJ anymore.” Her voice cracked. “That’s not me, PJ, I don’t want to be that person who can’t…”
    The cop car swept past. He felt his breath follow it out of his body and down the highway.
    â€œâ€¦get dressed, who can’t get on with her life. My name is Allysse.”
    He waited until he could breathe again. “You never said anything in Circle.”
    â€œI didn’t want to get anyone mad at me.”
    That was