commands. To say nothing of homework.
The loafer appeared before his eyes without warning, so unexpected that his brain did not immediately register the sight. His brain was still concerned with this lousy life called high school, adolescence, the teen years. But then: the loafer. The cruel slash across the instep. He stopped in his tracks, one foot on the step above him, the other in midair as his brain intercepted what his eyes had recorded.
'Wait a minute,' he said.
Nobody among the rampaging students coming and going up and down the stairs heard his words or paid attention.
Obie sprang into action. The guy wearing the loafer had been coming down the steps: At one point the shoe had been at his eye level. Turning, looking below, he spotted a familiar figure hurrying across the second-floor corridor, trying like everyone else to beat the final bell to the class. Torn between getting to his own class on time (he'd already been tardy once today) and tracking down his quarry, Obie threw caution aside. His life depended on that loafer: the hell with being late for class. The hell with everything else. He set off in pursuit, going against the mainstream now, darting in and out of the streaming students, getting jabs in his ribs from sharp elbows.
He caught up with the student (he was almost sure of his identity, had recognized him from behind but had to be absolutely certain, without a shadow of a doubt, because this was life and death now, not fun and games) at the doorway to Room Nineteen. Ironic, of course. Putting on the brakes, his own shoes skidding on the wooden floor, he almost crashed into the guy. Looking down, he confirmed the evidence. Yes, the loafer was slashed, the buckle was loose. He looked up again as the kid, perhaps sensing his scrutiny or hearing the skidding arrival of someone behind him, turned around and regarded him. Full face.
No doubt now. No doubt at all.
Cornacchio, the sophomore. Bunting's stooge.
The bell rang, splitting the air as Cornacchio, after a hurried, puzzled look at Obie (but was it puzzled or more like horrified?) jammed through the door, shouldering his way between two other students.
Obie remained alone as the corridor emptied and the doors slammed shut. Stood there, caught and held, his heart like the ticking of a bomb about to explode.
The fever that coursed through his body now made him sharp and alert He had gone beyond fatigue and 'exhaustion into a land of hyper state, senses sharp, body on the alert, a new energy pulsing with the beat of the fever. He used all the old strategies and methods that he had learned during his years as Archie's right hand, setting up the assignments, compiling his notes and data on students. His notebooks were filled with the names of students and the background details of their lives that had been valuable for the assignments. Hundreds of names. And, of course, Cornacchio among them.
Vincent Cornacchio. Sixteen years old. Height, five seven; weight, one sixty-five. Father, factory worker.
That night in bed, curled up fetuslike, still not sleeping but not wanting now to sleep, thoughts alive and sharp like needles pricking his consciousness, Obie plotted and schemed and mapped his strategy. Cornacchio had held him down and under the car. But somebody else had attacked Laurie, had
He finally fell into a deep, dreamless sleep that was more of a coma, a little death, than anything else. He awoke in the morning without any sense of having slept. Eyes still flaming, pulse still throbbing in his forehead, stomach still rejecting the thought of food. But his mind keen and knife-edged, eager for action, in a hurry for the day to pass until this evening, when he would confront Cornacchio. Cornacchio of the slashed loafer with the dangling buckle, who would lead him to the guy who had touched Laurie.
'Brother Eugene's dead.'
'Oh, no. . '
They rounded the corner of State Street into Stearns Avenue past the Hilite Dry Cleaners (In by 9, Out by 5) and Rasino's Barber Shop, the wind assailing their bodies, brushing their cheeks, cool air on moist warm flesh.
'He died in New Hampshire,' the Goober said, eyes straight ahead, back arched, legs pumping. 'He never came back to Trinity after. .'
His voice trailed off.
The word lingered in the air as they ran. Cars and buses and people, young and old, flowed past them as if on movie screens, outside their own isolated world of running.
Propelled by guilt, the Goober left Jerry behind in a burst of speed. Not only running now but running away. But impossible to run away, of course. As he zoomed around a corner, he was back in Room Nineteen again, 'in the middle of the night, terrified, the screwdriver so tight in his hand that blisters exploded in his palm.
Jerry followed him around the corner in his own lack of speed, spotted him up ahead, and hung back, knowing he could never catch up.
But the Goober put on the brakes, came to a sudden stop, and looked back over his shoulder.
'Sorry,' he called, waiting, running in place, legs churning.
As Jerry came abreast, the Goober pointed to an unoccupied bench at a nearby bus stop. 'Let's rest,' he suggested, noticing Jerry's labored breathing, his face grooved with the agony of exertion.
Jerry was grateful for the pause, realizing that he was very much out of shape. He knew that he had to convince the Goober that he was not to blame for what had happened to Brother Eugene, hoped he could find the proper words.
'I hope you're not feeling guilty,' Jerry said as he sat down, waiting for his body to calm, his heart to resume its normal silent beat. 'It can't be your fault, Goob.'
'I keep telling myself that,' the Goober said. 'But I keep wondering what would have happened if we hadn't taken Room Nineteen apart. Would Brother Eugene still be alive?'
'You can't second-guess a thing like that, Goober,' Jerry said, groping for the right words. But could any words mollify his friend? 'Room Nineteen happened last fall. Brother Eugene wasn't young anymore. You've got to forget the past—'
'It's not that easy.'
'I know,' Jerry said, thinking of the chocolates.
'I can't wait to leave that rotten school,' Goober said, voice bitter, pounding the earth with his foot.
'I'm not going back either,' Jerry said. 'I might go back to Canada,' he added, discovering that possibility only as he spoke the words.
'You liked Canada that much?'
Jerry shrugged. 'It's peaceful there.' He thought of the Talking Church, knew he couldn't possibly explain to the Goober how he felt about those weeks in Quebec. 'This parish I lived in with my uncle and aunt is only a few miles north of Montreal. Maybe I can commute to an English-language school in Montreal.' More possibilities that he had not realized existed until this moment.
'Monument High for me,' Goober said flatly. 'No more Brother Leon. No more Archie Costello. No more Vigils. No more crap—'
'Is Archie Costello still riding high?' Jerry asked tentatively, wondering if he really wanted to know.
'I try not to pay attention,' Goober said. Then amended his reply: 'Yeah, sure he is. You hear rumors all the time about assignments. Secret stuff. Some poor kid given a stupid stunt to perform.' Like me, he thought, and Room Nineteen.
'Let's run some more,' Jerry said, on edge suddenly. All this talk of Brother Eugene and Archie Costello brought back memories he had been avoiding. Room Nineteen was bad enough. But what about the chocolates? He didn't want to think about the chocolates.
They ran now in companionable silence, like last fall, finding a balm and benediction in the movement of their bodies, down hills and across streets, arriving finally at Monument Park and coming to a halt near a Civil War cannon. Sitting, stretching, Jerry was languid in the aftermath of exertion, felt as though his bones and muscles were deliciously melting.
