Chapter One
Night of the Wolf

"Look," I said, "I'm going with you."

Snow was falling and the moon was howling light onto the Avenue. It was a night for skidding tires and Orphans on the street. I waited for his answer.

"Get lost," said Danny the Sweet.

"Danny," I said, "what kind of an answer is that? That's an answer I won't accept."

"Eh," said Danny, "you got no choice but to accept it."

I considered words of persuasion. "Hey," I said, as we stood in the doorway of Monty's candy store with the darkness of a January night surrounding us. "I can take care of myself."

"What do you know?" said Danny the Sweet. "Girl, you know from nothing."

But did I care? This was no time for loose talk from this eater of Milky Ways, from this driver of a fifty-seven Pontiac. No.

"I know enough." I smiled.

The Sweet leaned against the stone of Monty's doorway and sipped ginger ale. Inside Monty was closing up for the night, chasing away the neighborhood corner kids, muttering over a gin and tonic, and wiping the linoleum counter clean with an ancient dishcloth.

"That sounds like a threat," said Danny the Sweet.

I was silent, and I smiled at my old friend the Sweet.

"If you are threatening me, I got only this to say," said the Sweet, "don't try it."

But I knew Danny the Sweet, and I had no fear. I lit a cigarette and exhaled the smoke into the winter air.

 "Girl, what you think you got on me?" Danny gulped ginger ale. "You can't prove nothing."

"What I got on you," I said, "would make your mama cry." I exhaled slowly.

"You talk too much for me to take you anywhere," said Danny.

A weak argument. Hadn't I watched him change the oil of his Pontiac enough times? Hadn't I coughed my way through drugstores, hacking madly and buying up shelves of Romilar and dozens of candy bars for the Sweet?

I was silent.

"You know you do," said the Sweet.

Hey, I'm no fool," I told him.

Danny the Sweet turned his back on me. "You see this?" he said. I could see clearly in the reflection of neon the words written in red and gold on the back of his jacket.

THE ORPHANS

Danny turned around to face me once more. "They don't take no trash," he confided.
"I'll behave." I smiled; any lie to meet the Orphans.

"Especially not tonight," continued Danny.

Tonight was a night remembered in the doorways of candy stores all along the Avenue. The Night of the Wolf. The hour when the Orphans went hunting their enemy from the south end of the Avenue–the Pack; a night to celebrate when the snow is covering alleyways and the moon shines white.

"I swear it, Danny," I said. "I won't cause trouble for you."

"Maybe if you showed some respect for me," said Danny the Sweet.

Ah, he wanted me to pay for an introduction to the Orphans. What the hell, I'd fake it.
"I respect you," I said.

"Eh, you never have." Danny unwrapped an Almond Joy. "Since we were kids, you never have."

Well, that was true. But I liked him anyway; even if the mixture of codeine and chocolate had rotted his brain.

"You all think you're smarter than me," said Danny.

"Ah, Danny, I never said you weren't smart. I never said I didn't respect you."

Ice was forming on my boot, Monty had already dimmed the neon of the store, and the Night of the Wolf would soon be over if Danny didn't stop eating chocolate and feeling so stupid and sad. What more could I say? I wanted this Night of the Wolf, not any other–this night, when I was seventeen and the air rose like smoke from the gutter and the ice shone like glass upon the street.

"Hell, you're one of the Orphans, aren't you? You think they would have you if you were dumb?"

They would indeed; Danny was always good for a ride or an alibi, I knew that. But Danny the Sweet didn't have to know. What the hell.

"Yeah." Danny nodded. "Yeah." He smiled.

Good. I had talked him into temporary smartness.

"Let me go with you," I said.

"This one time," warned Danny the Sweet. "O.K. But only this one night."

That was all I needed; for I knew that this was my night; full of smoke and winter and wolves. This was my night.

"Anything you say, Danny," I told him.

The hour was growing late; and Monty sat somewhere in the darkness of the candy store, drinking one gin after the other, and the corner kids stood at a safe distance from us, warily reading the emblem upon Danny's back. "Anything you say," I repeated.

Danny nodded and began to walk down the Avenue; I followed. "You're not taking your car, Sweet?" I asked.

"Are you crazy?" he said. "Are you crazy? This is a secret meeting of the Orphans. The Pack could easily follow my car, see? We walk."

I followed him through the mazes of alleyways that led to wherever the Orphans were.
"Remember not to look at anyone," said Danny. "And whatever happens, don't say a word to the Dolphin."

So the Dolphin would be there tonight. I hadn't thought of that. How could this idiot Danny the Sweet take me where the Dolphin would be?

"What if the Dolphin talks to me?" I asked.

Danny the Sweet stopped in his tracks. Snow fell, and as Danny fumbled for a cigarette, our boots were covered in white. We stood now somewhere close to the City Line, in the territory known as the Orphans', north of an invisible line that stretched across the Avenue.
"Honey," said Danny the Sweet, "don't worry about that. The Dolphin ain't going to talk to you, see? No one's going to talk to you. If you and me both is lucky, no one will even notice your presence. The Orphans is particular about who they address themselves to. So just shut up."

"Drop dead," I said to the Sweet.

"Now, now," said Danny. "You are just a girl, and not even the Property of the Orphans gets to speak at meetings, see?"

"Hah," I said. What had the Property to do with me? Those girls in mascara and leather and silence who belonged to the Orphans.

"Look," said Danny. "After McKay, the Dolphin is the main man. And the Dolphin talks to few."

O.K., I thought. Why should I be offended by the words of the Sweet? It was not everyone who got to sit in the same room as McKay and the Dolphin on the Night of the Wolf. Especially McKay. Why should I lie? This was the night I had waited for; to finally meet McKay. What did I care about the Pack? What did I know of revenge or of blood on the streets? It was McKay, President of the Orphans since the death of Alf Cantinni four years before, whom I cared about.