in at them.
He shivered with the thought. Carolina said she would leave a milk crate outside her window to make it easier for him to climb in. He had to get over there. He had to warn her. He put his hands back on the bumpers and started to push himself up when he saw the dog come back out from between the houses. He eased himself back onto his knees.
Oh, Lord, he thought, it wasn’t a dog. He kept low. There was something in its mouth. His knees hurt. He took even, shallow breaths, because he knew that what was out there might not be able to smell him with the breeze at its back, but it had excellent hearing and he didn’t want to be guilty of making even the smallest sound.
He saw the creature’s head start to turn and for a flash of a second he thought he was finished, but before that great head with those piercing eyes came to rest on him, the wolf was engulfed in a flash of blinding red-white light that took away his night vision. Then as fast as the flash appeared, it was gone and in its place stood a stooped over old black woman. He closed and rubbed his eyes. When he opened them again, she was shuffling along the sidewalk, getting farther away from him with every small step.
He stayed silent and still, until she turned the corner, then he pushed himself up and ran to the bushes between the two houses and scooted through. Her window was open and the crate was in place.
“ Carolina,” he whispered.
“ Yeah, I’m here,” she whispered back. “I thought I heard you a minute ago, but when I looked there wasn’t anybody there.”
Arty stepped up onto the crate, put his arms through the window and squeezed in.
“ It wasn’t me you heard,” he said. Then he added, “We’re gonna need some silver bullets.”
Chapter Nine
“ I tell you he’s up to something,” Bill Gibson said. “I shoulda busted him when he snuck back in this morning, but he was out all night and I wanna know what he’s up to.”
“ I’ll take three,” Seymour Oxlade said. Gibson dealt him three from the top of the deck.
“ Two for me.” Gibson tossed his cards into the center of the table and dealt to himself, also from the top of the deck. He wouldn’t try anything with Seymour. If he got caught it would bust up their friendship and Seymour would bust his nose.
“ Quarter.” Seymour Oxlade tossed a coin into the center of the table.
“ And a quarter.” Gibson tossed two into the pot.
“ Ya got something, Billy Boy?”
“ Cost you twenty-five cents to find out.”
“ Fold. I ain’t got shit ’cept a pair of threes.” He tossed his cards on the pot, then said, “Hey, maybe he’s got a girl?”
“ Not Arty. He’s up to something, but it ain’t no girl.” Gibson lit a cigarette.
“ Got ten bucks says it is.” He reached into his shirt pocket and took out a ten dollar bill and tossed it in the pot.
“ You’re on, buddy boy.” Gibson covered the ten with one of his own.
“ How we gonna find out?” Seymour asked as the faint sound of Arty’s window going up creaked through the house.
“ Guess we’ll have to follow him and find out.”
“ Grab a couple a beers,” Oxlade said.
The two men waited till Arty was halfway down the block, before they left the house in pursuit. Two men that had met at the neighborhood bar less than a month ago. Two men with a lot in common. They both drank, liked poker, abused their children and beat their wives, only Seymour Oxlade’s abuse ran a different course than Gibson’s-he had two daughters.
They stayed a block behind, each nursing a beer, good old boys, both out of place in an over educated town.
Oxlade pulled his pants out from the crack of his ass, took a pull on his beer, and whispered, “We shoulda brought a couple more beers.”
“ Yeah,” Gibson said, “help kill the cold.” Both men were wearing flannel shirts, but neither was wearing a jacket and the brisk breeze coming from the sea wasn’t very friendly.
They stopped when their quarry reached the corner. For a second it looked like Arty might turn around. Oxlade tugged on Gibson’s shirt sleeve and darted to the center of a neighbor’s lawn, hiding behind a large tree. Gibson followed, but it wasn’t necessary, as Arty kept his eyes forward.
“ What’s he doing?” Gibson asked, with his back to the tree.
“ Just standing there, like he’s thinking or something.”
Gibson chugged his beer and set the bottle down among the tree’s large root system. He wanted to belch, but held it. Oxlade finished off his beer as well, setting the bottle next to Gibson’s.
“ There he goes,” Oxlade said as Arty turned right toward Fremont Avenue. As soon as he was out of sight the two men jogged to the corner. Two blocks later Oxlade jumped back when he saw the flash.
“ What was that?” Gibson whispered to his friend. Lightning was his first thought and he hunkered down, waiting for the thunder. He looked upward, frowning at the overcast sky when the expected thunder blast didn’t sound.
“ Don’t know,” Oxlade said, “Maybe a power line shorted out.”
“ Yeah, that must be it.” Gibson stood out of his crouch, ashamed of himself for being afraid of nothing. For a second he thought about going back home and having another beer, but he didn’t want to give up in front of Oxlade, and besides he wanted to know what the boy was up to.
“ Must have scared the shit outta your boy.”
“ Yeah.” Gibson scanned the neighborhood, seeking his son. The power flash, or whatever it was, had distracted him and he’d lost sight of the boy. He didn’t know what to do. He stood in the center of the sidewalk, rubbed his jaw and tried to think. He didn’t want to admit they’d come all this way for nothing.
“ Where’d he go?” Oxlade was scanning for Arty, too.
“ He must have gone into one of those houses.” Gibson pointed to the left.
“ But which one?” Oxlade pulled his loose fitting pants out of the crack of his ass again. “And even if we know which one, how can we find out what he’s doing in there? How am I gonna claim the bet if we can’t prove he’s got a girlfriend.”
“ Let me think a second.” Gibson didn’t like the thoughts that came into his head. He imagined Arty sitting around a fancy table, making up all kinds of stories. But whose table. Who was the boy lying his ass off to? Another kid’s parents? That pretty little teacher? A cop?
The last thought chilled him. He wanted to be home in front of the TV. He wanted another beer. He hated the night and the quiet, but he couldn’t go away without knowing. He wanted to catch the boy red handed and make him talk, before he had time to make up any lies. Surprise was the best way.
“ There he is, over there.” Oxlade pointed.
Gibson squinted into the night and saw his son moving out from between two parked cars up ahead. Both men dropped into a crouch and slid behind an old Chevy pickup parked ten houses down the block. They watched as Arty crossed a front lawn up ahead and slipped through the bushes guarding the space between two houses.
“ I knew it. He’s sneaking out to visit a girl.”
“ We don’t know that yet.”
“ Come on, Billy Boy, give it up. Let’s go back and play some cards.”
“ Not yet,” Gibson said. If he hadn’t seen Arty crawl through the bushes he wouldn’t have believed it. He didn’t know what to do. Part of him wanted to crawl in there after him, pull him out by the scruff of the neck and give the little bastard a good going over for sneaking out at night, but the other part was afraid of dark places.
“ How long you wanna wait?”
“ Just a little while.” Gibson reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out a pack of cigarettes and a silver
