The Throat

protest.

'This is nuts,' I said to John. 'You're nuts.'

'I didn't notice you doing much to stop him,' John said. 'We'll make him stay in the car. Maybe a witness will come in handy.'

'A witness to what?'

The car door slammed.

Instead of responding, John went outside. I went after him and closed the door. Alan was already enthroned in the backseat, facing forward, ignoring us. John walked around to the passenger door. I looked up and saw that the night was perfectly clear. The row of street lamps marched down toward Berlin Avenue, and a scattering of stars lay across the black sky. I got into the car and started the engine.

'This has something to do with April's death,' Alan boomed from the backseat. It was a statement, not a question.

'Maybe,' John said.

'I can see right through you. You're made of glass.'

'Would you please shut up, maybe?'

'Fine,' Alan said. 'I'll do that.'

8

Gangs of boys standing outside the taverns and the factory walls stared at us when we drove through the valley. John put his hand on the butt of the revolver, but the boys stepped back deeper into the shadows and followed us with their eyes.

A police car turned out of a side street and stayed with us all the way down Goethals. I waited for the flashing lights and the siren. The car followed us onto Livermore. 'Lose him,' John said, and I made a careful right turn onto South Second and looked in the rearview mirror. The police car kept moving in a straight line down Livermore.

On Muffin Street, I turned left and drove past the rows of quiet houses. Through most of the dark windows flickered the gray-green of the television screen. They were sitting in the dark in front of their sets, watching what was left of the excitement. Finally, I came to South Seventh and turned down toward Bob Bandolier's old house. Two blocks away, I cut off the headlights and drifted past the darkened houses until I reached the same place where John and I had parked in the fog. I pulled in next to the curb and looked at John.

'Okay.' He turned around to speak to Alan. 'We're going to go into a house in the next block. If you see a man come out through the front door, lean over the seat and tap the horn. Tap it, Alan, don't honk the thing, just give it enough of a touch to make a short, sharp sound.' He looked at me, still thinking, and then turned back to Alan. 'And if you see lights come on in the window, in any window, or if you hear shots, get out of the car and hustle up there as fast as you can and start banging on the front door. Make a hell of a lot of noise.'

'What's this about?' Alan asked.

'In a word, April,' John said. 'Do you remember what I told you to do?'

'April.'

'That's right.'

'I'm not going to sit in this car,' Alan said.

'For God's sake,' John said. 'We can't waste any more time arguing with you.'

'Good.' Alan decided the issue by opening his door and climbing out of the car.

I got out and went around the rear to stand in front of him. John softly closed the passenger door and moved a couple of feet away, deliberately distancing himself. Haggard and defiant, Alan tilted his chin up and tried to stare me down. 'Alan,' I whispered, 'we need you to stand watch for us. We're meeting a policeman inside that house'—I pointed at it—'and we want to get some boxes of papers from him.'

'Why—' he began in his normal voice, and I put my finger in front of my mouth. He nodded and, in his version of a whisper, asked, 'Why didn't you ask me along in the first place, if you needed me to stand watch?'

'I'll explain when we're done,' I said.

'A policeman.'

I nodded.

He leaned forward, curling his fingers, and I bent down. He put his mouth next to my ear. 'Does John have my gun?'

I nodded again.

He stepped back, his face rigid. He wasn't giving anything away. John moved up the block, and I went toward him, looking back at Alan. He had the monkey-king look again, but at least he was standing still. John began walking across the street, and I moved along the side of the car and caught up with him before he reached the next curb. I looked back at Alan. He was walking past the front of the car, clearly intending to keep pace with us on the other side of the street. I waved him back toward the car. He didn't move. A single gunshot came from what I thought was the northwest. When I looked back at Alan, he was standing in the same place.

'Let the old fool do what he wants,' John said. 'He will, anyhow.'

We went toward the Bandolier house with Alan trailing along on the other side of the street. When we reached the boundary of the property, John and I walked up onto the lawn at the same instant. I looked back at Alan, who was dithering on the sidewalk across the street. He stepped forward and sat on the curb. From one of the houses on our side of the street, Jimbo's bland, slow-moving voice drifted through an open window.

I went up toward the side of the house, hearing John pull the fat wad of keys out of his pocket. I hoped he could remember which one had worked the last time. We began working our way down the peeling boards.

When we reached the corner of the house, I grasped John's shoulder and kept him from walking into the backyard.

'Wait,' I whispered, and he turned around to face me. 'We can't go in the back.'

'Sure we can,' he said.

'We wouldn't make it halfway across the kitchen before he knew we were in the house.'

'So what do you want to do?'

'I want to get on the porch,' I said. 'You stand against the building, where he can't see you when he opens the door.'

'And then what?'

'I knock on the door and ask if I can see him now. He has to open it. He doesn't have any choice. As soon as he opens the door, Alan'll stand up and shout, and then I'll go in low and you come in high.'

I jerked my head sideways, and we crept back along the side of the house.

Alan looked up at us as we crept back into view on the side of the porch. I put my finger to my lips, and he squinted at me and then nodded. I pointed up toward the porch and the door. He stood up from the curb. Stay there, I motioned. I mimed knocking and pretended to open a door. He nodded again. I poked my head forward, as if I were looking out, then put my hands on the sides of my mouth and waggled my head. He made a circle with his thumb and forefinger and stepped back off the sidewalk into the deeper darkness of the lawn behind it.

We came around the side of the porch and moved silently over the site of Bob Bandolier's old rose garden. Alan came a little forward off the lawn. Someone in the old Bandolier living room stood up on a creaking board and began pacing. Fontaine was walking around in his childhood, charging himself up.

Everything fell apart before John and I reached the porch steps.

Alan bellowed, 'Stop! Stop!'

'Goddamn,' John said, and took off across the lawn. Alan had misunderstood what he was supposed to do. I came up out of my own crouch and ran toward the steps before Fontaine could open the door.

But the front door was already open—that was what Alan had been yelling about. Paul Fontaine stepped outside, and a squad car, the same car we had seen patroling, turned into South Seventh from Livermore. Its light bar had not been turned on. 'Goddamn you, Underhill,' Fontaine said.

Alan blared, 'Is that him?'