Just as Luke reached the struggling pair, Myrick drew back his arm to backhand the kid. Luke snaked out a hand to grab the stout man’s wrist. “Don’t do that, Elmer. I’d hate to have to stomp your ass.”
Keeping a firm grip on the child, Elmer whipped around to see who’d had the effrontery to interfere. When he saw Luke, his angry red face went suddenly pale. “Mr. Taggart, sir.”
Because Luke held the mortgage on the storekeeper’s business and could foreclose any time the mood struck, Myrick’s expression went from angry to ingratiatingly respectful in a flash. The man released the boy with an unexpectedness that sent the kid reeling. Luke reached out to clamp a hand over the starving mite’s shoulder to prevent him from escaping. His guts lurched with a wave of nausea when he felt nothing but sharp bones and stringy muscles beneath his palm.
Releasing Myrick’s wrist, Luke dove a hand into his pocket, fished out a dollar, and stuffed it into the storekeeper’s shirt pocket. “That should cover your potatoes, you stingy son of a bitch.”
Elmer fell back a step. “You’ve no call to say that, Mr. Taggart. The boy has been stealing me blind. Every time I put a display out here, he sneaks by to help himself. Yesterday, he took apples! The day before, carrots. How can a man make any profit?”
Luke cut a scathing glance at the storekeeper’s fat belly. Then he curled his hand over three large potatoes, lifted them from the barrel, and thrust them at the child. Hugging the unwashed vegetables to his chest as if they were gold, the boy clutched one in his grubby fist and began to eat it ravenously, clumps of dirt and all.
Drawing the child into a walk, all the while keeping a firm hold on his shoulder, Luke headed toward a nearby alley. Once there, he drew to a stop next to a reeking trash barrel, watching as the street urchin tore at the raw potato meat with teeth gone yellow from malnutrition and lack of brushing. Wind whistling down the alley whipped the scrawny youth’s brown hair. Between swallows, he darted wary looks up at Luke, but he was clearly so hungry, fear took a second seat to clawing need.
Finally, the boy seemed to have eaten enough to stave off the hunger pains, for he lowered the spud from his mud-ringed mouth and regarded Luke with suspicious green eyes. “You gonna have me tossed in the hoosegow?”
Suddenly aware that he towered over the kid, Luke hunkered down in the hope that he might seem a tad less intimidating. After gazing toward the street for a moment, he turned back to regard his prisoner. “You’re going about that all wrong, you know. It’s little wonder Elmer Myrick caught you.”
Bewilderment flashed across the boy’s dirty face. Luke bit back a smile. “You got a name, son?”
“Tigger is what folks call me.”
“Well, Tigger, when you’re going to steal, you need a distraction,” Luke advised with a chuckle he couldn’t quite suppress. “Though I don’t recommend a life of crime, because you will eventually wind up in jail, let me give you a couple of pointers, just in case you have to steal again out of necessity. Do you know anyplace where you can catch rats?”
The boy nodded and gestured at the alley with a toss of his head. “There’s lots of ’em right through here.”
Luke had already guessed that the trash-lined lane was crawling with rodents. “You catch one of the buggers. A nice fat one. Hide it, if you can. Some old newspaper will work if you don’t have a blanket. Take care it doesn’t bite you, and then stand on the sidewalk, watching that store until mid-morning, when all the fancy ladies are out and about to do their daily shopping. When there are a bunch of them inside, you sneak in and turn the rat loose. Do it at the back of the store, so the rat can’t make a quick getaway. I guarantee you, every woman in the place will go berserk. While they’re screaming and trying to climb the shelves, you load up on food and hide it under whatever you had the rat wrapped in.” Luke inclined his head at the half-eaten potato. “Get something decent to eat, while you’re about it. Raw spuds? You’ve got no class, kid. If you’re going to steal, steal something worth your while.”
The child regarded Luke with traces of fear still in his eyes. “You’re Mr. Luke Taggart, ain’tcha? The rich bloke.”
“I haven’t always been rich.” Luke smiled slightly and reached up to ruffle the kid’s grimy hair, which he felt fairly certain was crawling with lice and undoubtedly a few fleas from those rats he probably slept with. “Where are your folks, son?”
“My ma died this winter past, and my pa skedaddled. I took my little brother and sister over to them nuns at the orph’nage, but I didn’t want to stay. I’m too old to be recitin’ Bible verses and prayin’ on them beads. There ain’t no such thing as God, anyhow, so why learn all that tripe?”