Echo

'Exactly.'

'I thought you liked me.'

'I do.'

'Well, then.'

'Well, then, what?' asked Deacon patiently.

'I want to stay with you.'

'I can't live with a liar.'

'Yeah, but if I told the truth, would you let me stay?'

It was a strange little echo of what Barry had said yesterday ... 'Will they let me go if I tell the truth?' ... But what was truth? ... Verity?... 'You mean, heads you win, tails I lose.'

'I don't get you.'

'Presumably you've spent the last three days trying to weasel your way in by not telling me the truth.' Deacon toyed with the idea of revisiting Terry's behavior of last night, but thought better of it. He knew from his own experience that postmortems were bitter affairs which achieved little beyond continuing warfare.

'I reckoned you needed time to get to know me. It took Billy a couple of months before he realized I was the next best thing to sliced bread. Anyway, you can't kick me out. Not yet. I ain't learnt to read, and I want to earn that money you promised to pay me.'

'You've already cost me a fortune.'

'Yeah, but you're rich. Your ma's house alone has gotta be worth a bob or two, so you can easily afford another mouth to feed.'

'I told her to sell it.'

'She won't, though. She's well gutted about tearing up your dad's will and giving your fortune away to your sister. When the time comes-which is the few months she's given herself-she'll fade away. She's made up her mind to it. and there ain't nothing you can do to stop it unless you make it worth her while to stick around a bit longer.'

'And how do I do that?'

A sort of ancient wisdom glimmered in the boy's pale eyes. 'Billy said it's curiosity that keeps people alive, being as how we all want to know what happens next. And them that kill themselves or lie down and die before they need to reckon there's nothing left to be curious about.' He spoke seriously. 'You and your ma ain't got nothing to talk about except the stuff that made you angry enough to walk out on her, so you've got to give her something else to think about. Like me. She'd be well excited if you told her you was gonna keep me. She'd be on the phone all the time sticking her nose into our business.'

'That's enough to put me off the idea for good.'

'Except if you don't give her a reason to talk to you, then another five years'll go by. And you don't want that any more than she does.'

'Are you sure you're only fourteen?' Deacon asked suspiciously. 'You talk like a forty-year-old sometimes.'

Terry looked injured. 'I'm mature. Anyway, I'm nearer fifteen than fourteen.'

'Social services won't allow you to stay with me,' said Deacon, handing him a cigarette. 'If I expressed even mild interest in taking care of you they'd label me a pedophile. It's dangerous these days for men to like anyone under the age of sixteen.' He held a match to the tip. 'Also, I'm responsible. I shouldn't let you smoke these damn things for a start.'

'Give over. I didn't get none of this grief from Billy. He just took me on board like I was his long lost kid. I ain't asking you to adopt me, and chances are I'll be off out of it in a couple of months. Look, I just want to stay for a while longer, learn to read, meet Mrs. D again. It's a free country and if you ain't doing nothing wrong, 'cept giving a homeless bloke a bed, why should the bastards at social services interfere?'

'Because that's what they're paid for,' said Deacon cynically, staring through the windshield. 'How much is it going to cost me to keep a six-foot-tall teenager in food, clothes, beer, and cigarettes for weeks on end?'

'I'll go begging. That'll help out.'

'No way. I'm not having a beggar in my flat or an illiterate with an impoverished vocabulary. You need educating.' Don't say it, Deacon... 'You're going to bankrupt me, probably land me in prison, and at the end of it all you'll rugger off leaving me to wonder what the hell came over me.'

'I ain't like that. I stood by Billy, didn't I? And he weren't half as easy to like as you are.'

Deacon glanced at him. 'If you put one foot out of line and drop me in it with social services or the police, I'll come after you with an axe the minute I'm out of prison. Is that a deal?'' He held out his hand, palm up.

Terry gripped it excitedly. 'It's a deal. Now can I phone Mrs. D and wish her Happy Christmas?' He reached for the mobile. 'What's her number?'

Deacon gave it to him. 'You really like her, don't you?' he said curiously.

'She's an older version of you,' said Terry matter-of-factly, 'and I ain't never met two people who treated me straight off with respect. Even old Hugh was okay, so maybe you're none of you as bad as you like to make out. Have you ever thought of that?'

*19*