Blossom

fearless little maniac, I'll swear that to anyone. He's the one who schooled Burke. Used to call him 'schoolboy' when Burke would act the fool.'

'You?' Lloyd looked at me.

Virgil laughed. 'Yeah, this hard-case was a young fool once. Had to learn. Like you learning now.'

'What do I do?'

'When you get inside,' I said, 'look around. Pick one out. They'll all challenge you, give you those hard looks, try to back you down with their eyes. Even the weasels'll try it, not knowing you. Pick one out, like I said. Watch his eyes. You'll smell it on him. Coward. Hard in a pack, nothing by himself. Then you walk up to him, ask him if he got a problem with anything. He drops his eyes, mumbles something, you let it slide. Anything else, any fucking thing else, you move your left hand fast at the waist, then come overhand with the right. Aim it right at the side of his neck. And drive it. He goes down, don't wait for him to get up, get your foot into his ribs, quick. Don't stop until they pull you off. Don't think about it. That's what you do. What you got to do.'

'What if…?'

'There's no 'if' here, kid. What if you go to solitary for a few days? What if they write something down in a report? Don't matter. When they let you back out, they'll wonder. Maybe you're crazy. That's okay. Maybe you're just a cold young man. That's okay too. And while they're thinking about it, they're gonna find out you're connected too.'

'Me?'

'Yeah. When you were in, who was the barn boss?'

'Barn boss?'

'The duke. The head man. Every joint's got one, especially the kiddie camps. The baddest guy there. Come on.'

'Oh, you mean…like, one of the residents.'

'They got such fancy names for stuff now, don't they, brother?' Virgil's chuckle didn't reach his eyes.

'Lloyd,' I said patiently, 'residents, they're people who stay in hotels, okay? Now, who was the boss inside?'

'Hightower. I never knew his first name. Big black guy. One of the kids told me he was in for a homicide. In a drug deal.'

'The others, they get out of his way when he walks?'

'Oh yes.'

'He only hang with blacks? Is it a racial thing?'

'I don't know. I wasn't…'

'That's okay. When you go back inside, you find out. This Hightower s still in charge, he got transferred, he got himself replaced by some other boy, it doesn't matter. You just let us know.'

'Okay.'

46

I CHECKED MY messages before I went back to the motel. Nothing. Virgil would keep the boy up until first light, working. I closed my eyes, asking for Belle to come back to me in the only way she ever could.

After a while, I slept.

47

I GAVE MY NAME to the receptionist at Bostick's. 'He's been expecting you,' she said, pointing down a dark carpeted corridor.

The sign on his office said Private. I knocked. Davidson opened the door.

'Mr. Bostick?' I asked. Nothing showed in my face.

Davidson laughed, turned to a short, Roman-faced, slim man seated at a kidney-shaped white plastic desk. 'Pay up,' he said.

Bostick slid a hundred-dollar bill across the clean surface of the desk. Stood up, offered his hand.

I shook hands, sat down, lit a smoke. Davidson's foul cigar was burning in a deep glass ashtray.

'Bart called me. I wasn't too busy, so I thought I'd fly out, see if there was something we could put together.'

I bowed my head slightly. Just enough. 'Much appreciated.'

'Where are we?' Bostick asked.

'Lloyd didn't do it,' I told him. 'We need to know how it looks for him, he comes in and surrenders. And what the Man wants with Virgil, he comes in too.'

'If the kid comes in, I can work bail for him again. Take a couple-few days. The rifle they found in his room, it bounced. No connect to the murders. What they got is a kid with a porno collection, a loner who prowls around at night. Maybe a peeper,' he continued, watching my face.

'I know.'

'And they got a couple of kids that were out one night. Some statements our boy may have made about killing people in parked cars.'

'He's a juvenile in this jurisdiction?' Davidson asked.

'Doesn't matter,' Bostick replied. 'Homicide's an adult offense. Here, he gets bound over for the Grand Jury no matter how old he is.'

'That's good.'

Bostick nodded agreement. 'Yeah, a jury won't go for all this collection of crap, but a Juvenile Court judge… you know how they are.'

I did. 'You going to push it to trial?' I asked.

'It's still a crap-shoot. If this boy didn't do it, somebody did. Better to hold off, see if they make another arrest.'

'They're looking?'

'I don't think so. Not most of them anyway. This one detective, Sherwood, he's got a lot on the ball. I think he knows Lloyd isn't the one. But the cops…they want to close cases, not solve them.'

'Virgil?'

Bostick smiled. 'We've been talking that one over. The way I see it, Virgil was out looking for Lloyd. The poor kid got scared and ran off. Virgil found him, brought him in. He should get a medal, right? I don't think they'll hold him.'

'Good. You know this Detective Sherwood?'

'A bit,' he said cautiously.

'Enough so you could get me a talk with him?'

'Maybe.'

I dragged on my smoke. 'I don't want to buy him. I want to give him whoever did this.'

'You?'

'Didn't Davidson tell you? Nobody knows these freaks better than me.'

'We discussed your credentials.'

'I got other references.'

'I'm sure you do. But…'

'The human who did this, he's not some lonely, scared kid who likes to look at pictures. The guy you want, he's a sex-sniper.'

'A what?'

'Sex-sniper. A guy who gets sexual satisfaction from penetrating his victims at a distance. The rifle's his cock. The bullets are his sperm. Bang bang, you're fucked.'

'How d'you…?'

'Berkowitz…Son of Sam, remember? Apparently motiveless shootings. Girls alone. Or a guy and a girl