“I believe you,” he said. “You got too much hay in your hair to be liars. But that cop down there…boys, I could sic him on you like a dog on a rat. You’d be cellbound while him and me was splittin that money.”
“I’d bust you one,” Blaze said. “That’s our money. Me and Johnny found it. Look. We been in that place, and it’s a bad place to be in. A guy like you, maybe you think you know stuff, but…aw, never mind. We
“You’re gonna be a bruiser when you get your full growth,” the big man said, almost to himself. Then he looked at John. “Your friend here, he’s a few tools short of a full box. You know that, right?”
John had recovered himself. He didn’t say anything, only returned the big man’s gaze steadily.
“You take care of him,” the big man said, and he smiled suddenly. “Bring him back here when he gets his full growth. I want to see what he looks like then.”
John didn’t smile back — looked more solemn than ever, in fact — but Blaze did. He understood it was all right.
The big man produced the twenty-dollar bill — it seemed to come from nowhere — and shoved it at John. “These steaks are on the house, boys. You take that and go to the baseball tomorrow. If you ain’t had your pockets picked by then.”
“We went today,” John said.
“Was it good?” the big man asked.
And now John did smile. “It was the greatest thing I ever saw.”
“Yeah,” the big man said. “Sure it was. Watch out for your buddy.”
“I will.”
“Because buddies stick together.”
“I know it.”
The big man brought the steaks, and Caesar salads, and new peas, and huge mounds of string-fries, and huge glasses of milk. For dessert he brought them wedges of cherry pie with scoops of vanilla ice cream melting on top. At first they ate slowly. Then Detective Monahan of Boston’s Finest left (without paying nothing, so far as Blaze could see) and they both pitched to. Blaze had two pieces of pie and three glasses of milk and the third time the big guy refilled Blaze’s glass, he laughed out loud.
When they left, the neon signs in the street were coming on.
“You go to the Y,” the big man said before they did. “Do it right away. City’s no place for a couple of kids to be wandering around at night.”
“Yes, sir,” John said. “I already called and fixed it.”
The big man smiled. “You’re all right, kid. You’re pretty good. Keep the bear close, and walk behind him if anyone comes up and tries to brace you. Especially kids wearing colors. You know, gang jackets.”
“Yes sir.”
“Take care of each other.”
That was his final word on it.
The next day they rode the subways until the novelty wore off and then they went to the movies and then they went to the ballgame again. It was late when they got out, almost eleven, and someone picked Blaze’s pocket, but Blaze had put his share of their money in his underwear the way Johnny told him to and the pickpocket got a big handful of nothing. Blaze never saw what he looked like, just a narrow back weaving its way into the crowd exiting through Gate A.
They stayed two more days and saw more movies and one play that Blaze didn’t understand, although Johnny liked it. They sat in something called the lodge that was five times as high as the balcony at the Nordica. They went into a department store photo booth and had their pictures made: some of Blaze, some of Johnny, some of them both together. In the ones together, they were laughing. They rode the subways some more until Johnny got train- sick and threw up on his sneakers. Then a Negro man came over and shouted at them about the end of the world. He seemed to be saying it was their fault, but Blaze couldn’t tell for sure. Johnny said the guy was crazy. Johnny said there were a lot of crazy people in the city. “They breed here like fleas,” Johnny said.
They still had some money left, and it was Johnny who suggested the final touch. They took a Greyhound back to Portland, then spent the rest of their dividend on a taxi. John fanned the remaining bills in front of the startled driver — almost fifty dollars’ worth of crumpled fives and ones, some smelling fragrantly of Clayton Blaisdell, Jr.’s underpants — and told him they wanted to go to Hetton House, in Cumberland.
The cabbie dropped his flag. And at five minutes past two on a sunny late summer afternoon, they pulled up at the gate. John Cheltzman took half a dozen steps up the drive toward the brooding brick pile and fainted dead away. He had rheumatic fever. He was dead two years later.
Chapter 13
BY THE TIME BLAZE got the baby into the shack, Joe was screaming his head off. Blaze stared at him in wonder. He was furious! The face was flushed across the forehead and the cheeks, even the bridge of the tiny nose. His eyes were squinched shut. His fists made tiny circles of rage in the air.
Blaze felt sudden panic. What if the kid was sick? What if he had the flu or something? Kids caught the flu every day. Sometimes they died of it. And he couldn’t very well take him to a doctor’s office. What did he know about kids, anyway? He was just a dummy. He could barely take care of himself.
He had a sudden wild urge to take the baby back out to the car. To drive him to Portland and leave him on somebody’s doorstep.
“George!” he cried. “George, what should I do?”
