Chapter - Where is Skull going?

	Chapter - Where is Skull going?
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Skull burst out the back door of the bar. Looking fearfully over his shoulder, he crashed into a barrel and fell over it. He squirmed as he fell and avoided landing in the garbage. He scraped one knee on the rough cement.

Skull stood up and looked around. There was a curving cement wall on one side of the dead end alley, with the muffled sound of the freeway beyond. The bar was the last of five shops on the other side, with the alley narrowing to meet the bar's end wall. He felt claustrophobic and hurried to the wide end of the alley.

Skull stopped at the mouth of the alley and looked across the short side street, four houses facing the side of the last shop and the curving freeway wall. He needed a taxi and the nearest public phone was in the bar, inaccessible for now.

A taxi turned the corner and gently eased up the short street toward Skull. Skull started hungrily as it stopped at the last house. And old man got out, bent over and muffled in too many clothes for a summer night.

Skull waved at the taxi as the driver turned around. The driver waved him over. He wouldn't need a phone after all.

A cell phone rose in the darkness. "He's in."

A half a block from the bar, Mark gunned his car around a corner. "I thought you said he would go to Paul's place? They're going away from us, not past us!"

"He's running scared. It makes sense he'd go to his gang leader. There's something odd here." Joe sounded thoughtful.

"Maybe he's actually got a cell phone, and he's going to meet him somewhere," Mark suggested.

"No way." Bill was positive. "Even if he has one, Cliff is watching Paul's apartment. He can see Paul watching a TV show. He hasn't taken a call since Paul left the bar."

"A girl friend? His mother?" Mark sounded desperate.

"Are you sure you're talking about Skull?" Joe sounded amused.

"I don't get it." Mark whined.

"Here, I found the address on the map." Bill announced. "It's only a block from the Store!"

"Really? That's interesting. And it's probably not a co-incidence." Joe still sounded thoughtful.

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