'Shut up, Boston, okay? We're not getting caught, and besides, we voted the fucker deserved it, right?'
Tar didn't need to think about that one. 'Right. But I still don't get why we don't just bash the Duck's face in. That black eye of his would be the best thing left on his body.'
'Because,' Brian said, wondering why Tar had to think so much all the time.
'Because why?'
'Jesus, are you stupid or what?'
'I ain't stupid. I just think-'
'Look,' Brian said, his hands kneading the wheel, 'we bash up the Duck and everyone knows who did it, right? His old man comes down on us like we were killers or something, and we won't see graduation from the ass end of a warden. But we do this, Tar baby, and the Duck gets creamed.
His old man creams him, Hedley creams him, and maybe even if we get lucky the frigging cops cream him too. So what the hell's the bitch?'
Tar didn't know. He supposed it made sense. 'All right,' he said. 'But if we sit here much longer, someone's gonna call the cops on us, not the Duck.'
Brian grunted his agreement and checked the green house again. 'Okay.
We'll go around the corner. I'll keep the engine running, and for Christ's sake, don't forget the other thing, all right?'
As Brian pulled away from the curb, Tar scrubbed a fist over a nose that'd been broken three times since he was a freshman. 'I could use some help. That's why Fleet was supposed to be here, in case you didn't know.'
'I know, I know, okay?'
'So help.'
'So you run faster than me, okay?'
'Not that much faster,' Tar muttered as they rounded the corner and parked on the left, facing traffic.
There was no time for further argument. As soon as the car stopped, he was out with the bags and running hunched over back to the green house.
He sprinted up the walk, turned once in a circle, and heaved them both against the front door. He was already back on the pavement when they hit, when they burst open, when they spilled dogshit and rotten eggs and vinegar onto the porch. There was a low hedge in front of the property, and just as he veered onto the sidewalk he dropped Don Boyd's windbreaker onto it, dragging a sleeve until he was sure it had caught.
Then he was back in the car, Brian pulling away before the door shut. He didn't drive so fast as to leave rubber, but fast enough to have them out of sight by the time Adam Hedley responded to the thumps upstairs and left his basement, his plaid robe tied tightly around him, his nose already wrinkling in disgust before he took hold of the knob and pulled the door to him.
Brian didn't laugh as he headed back up the hill. He just looked at Tar with a grin that never reached his eyes.
'Mission,' he said, 'accomplished.'
Something moved in the rain.
It passed across streets without making a sound; it passed under streetlamps without leaving a shadow; it walked through a puddle and the water remained still; it brushed by a hedge and the branches didn't move.
A dog on the porch next to Adam Hedley's home began yapping, pulling at the leash that held it to the door, howling once, snarling, then cowering with a whimper against the welcome mat when it moved up the walk and fixed the terrier with a stare, turned around, and moved away; and the dog began trembling, snapping at its legs, growling at its tail, urinating on the mat and foaming slightly at the mouth.
Something moved in the rain, without making a sound.
The room was large and perfect. The furniture was new enough to keep its shine and already old enough to be comfortable when used: the bed was canopied just the way Chris liked it, the desk and chair were straight from Regent Street in London, the soft rainbow rug from India, the loveseat under the window from a little shop in SoHo she had discovered two years ago. The walls were papered in white and flocked gold, the ceiling freshly plastered, the alabaster lamps with just the right touch of frills but not so feminine that it looked like a room belonging to a girl who wanted only a husband and two kids to complete her life. In the far corner was an upright piano, sheet music piled on the bench and ready to fall.
Next to the desk was an open door leading into her private bathroom. It had been one of the requirements for her agreeing to leave Manhattan-that she have as much a private environment as possible to keep the rest of the house out of her affairs, if not out of her life; had she thought it possible she would have lobbied for a private entrance as well, but that would have been pushing it. Her father, indulgent to the point of easy manipulation, would have balked, no question about it, and might possibly have sent her to that damned fancy school in Vermont where all she'd have to look at were other girls, some trees, and herds of stupid cows.
Her mother didn't care one way or the other; she spent most of her time writing ten-page letters to her two older children in Yale and Vassar, and flying down to Florida to visit her own mother.
It was, then, as perfect as she could have it, and whatever complaints she had she kept to herself.
She brushed her hair at the bathroom mirror, turning side to side, scowling at the thought of having to wash it again. She hated it-the washing, the drying, the constant brushing to keep it gleaming. She wished she could cut it off and dye her scalp blue like the Picts did for the Romans. But if she cut it off, she would look like a freak, and looking like a freak was not part of the plan.
The bath towel began slipping off her chest and she grabbed for it with an oath, held it while she flicked off the lights and walked into the dark bedroom. A reach for the wall switch was pulled back. Not yet, she thought. She wanted to stay in the dark a while longer, listening to the rain run down her window, listening to the blessed silence that meant she was alone. A sigh, contented, and she padded across the warm rug to the cushioned window seat, sat, and pulled her legs up so she could hug them and look out. There wasn't all that much to see, not while it was raining, not after sunset, but the lights in the houses beyond the yard were still visible, and growing brighter as the leaves were pounded from their branches.
The towel slipped a bit more; she didn't touch it.
She put a palm against a pane and shivered at the cold, pressed her head beside it, and tried to see the Boyds' backyard. It was too far away and blocked by too many trees, but she saw it, and she saw Don, and she saw his father.
She wondered if either of them would understand what she was doing, if Don would be very hurt if he knew he was included. Norman, she thought, wouldn't be any trouble. Certainly not from the way he looked at her yesterday when she was walking away from his son, or the way he smiled at her whenever she could think of an excuse to talk to him in his office.
He wasn't stupid. She damned well knew he knew the plan. He understood why she was going to stay in this damned dirty town until she graduated from its mediocre high school with the highest grades she could get, no matter how she got them; he sure as hell understood that a flower in a drab garden was brighter than a flower among her sisters, especially when the flower had the pick of the men who tended that garden-in a place like this, she was a goddamned champion orchid.
Her mother had chosen to be a shadow, and she had paid; her friends were too busy turning every job and love offer into political statements.
Chris, on the other hand, knew she was in a war, and only assholes and bitches didn't use their best weapons.
Norman understood, she could see it in his eyes; Don would, eventually, but not before. Not before she was ready.
A shadow down in the yard.
She peered, wiped the pane, and peered again.
And sighed.
It wasn't Don, and Norman wasn't that stupid.
It was a cat, and she grinned at it while she stretched and purred and thought about how the next phase should open.
Something moved in the rain, and Sergeant Quintero in his patrol car heard it in an alley. He was waiting for Verona to get out of the John in the bar, declining to go in himself and wait because he knew he would see women there. On Sunday. Even on Sunday there would be a woman on a stool, having a drink, talking with the barkeep,
