Cell

'Just . . . I guess just a flashlight will be okay. Are you sure?'

'Yes,' he said. He took one flashlight and gave her another. He looked ready to say something about the small sneaker when she picked it up, then seemed to think better of it. What he said was, 'You can wash, too. There may not be a lot of water, but the taps will probably draw some even with the power out, and I'm sure we can spare a basinful.' He looked over the top of her head at Clay. 'I always keep a case of bottled drinking water in the cellar, so we're not short there.'

Clay nodded. 'Sleep well, Alice,' he said.

'You too,' she said vaguely, and then, more vaguely still: 'Nice meeting you.'

Tom opened the door for her. Their flashlights bobbed, and then the door shut again. Clay heard their footsteps on the stairs, then overhead. He heard running water. He waited for the chug of air in the pipes, but the flow of water stopped before the air started. A basinful, Tom had said, and that was what she'd gotten. Clay also had blood and dirt on him he wanted to wash off—he imagined Tom did, too—but he guessed there must be a bathroom on this floor, too, and if Tom was as neat about his personal habits as he was about his person, the water in the toilet bowl would be clean. And there was the water in the tank as well, of course.

Rafer jumped up on Tom's chair and began washing his paws in the white light of the Coleman lantern. Even with the lantern's steady low hiss, Clay could hear him purring. As far as Rafe was concerned, life was still cool.

He thought of Alice twirling the small sneaker and wondered, almost idly, if it was possible for a fifteen- year-old girl to have a nervous breakdown.

'Don't be stupid,' he told the cat. 'Of course it is. Happens all the time. They make movies of the week about it.'

Rafer looked at him with wise green eyes and went on licking his paw. Tell me more, those eyes seemed to say. Vere you beaten as a child? Did you have ze sexual thoughts about your mother?

I can smell my mother on it. Her perfume.

Alice as a paper-doll, with tabs sticking out of her shoulders and legs.

Don't be zilly, Rafer's green eyes seemed to say. Ze tabs go on ze clothes, not on ze doll. Vut kind of artist are you?

'The out-of-work kind,' he said. 'Just shut up, why don't you?' He closed his eyes, but that was worse. Now Rafer's green eyes floated disembodied in the dark, like the eyes of Lewis Carroll's Cheshire cat: We're all mad here, dear Alice. And under the steady hiss of the Coleman lamp, he could still hear it purring.

9

Tom was gone fifteen minutes. when he came back, he brushed rafe out of his chair without ceremony and took a large, convincing bite from his sandwich. 'She's asleep,' he said. 'Got into a pair of my pajamas while I waited in the hall, and then we dumped the dress in the trash together. I think she was out forty seconds after her head hit the pillow. Throwing the dress away was what sealed the deal, I'm convinced of it.' A slight pause. 'It did indeed smell bad.'

'While you were gone,' Clay said, 'I nominated Rafe president of the United States. He was elected by acclamation.'

'Good,' Tom said. 'Wise choice. Who voted?'

'Millions. Everyone still sane. They sent in thought-ballots.' Clay made his eyes very wide and tapped his temple. 'I can read miiiyyynds.'

Tom's chewing stopped, then began again . . . but slowly. 'You know,' he said, 'under the circumstances, that's not really all that funny.'

Clay sighed, sipped some iced tea, and made himself eat a little more of his sandwich. He told himself to think of it as body gasoline, if that was what it took to get it down. 'No. Probably not. Sorry.'

Tom tipped his own glass to him before drinking. 'It's all right. I appreciate the effort. Say, where's your portfolio?'

'Left it on the porch. I wanted both hands free while we negotiated Tom McCourt's Hallway of Death.'

'That's all right, then. Listen, Clay, I'm sorry as hell about your family-'

'Don't be sorry yet,' Clay said, a little harshly. 'There's nothing to be sorry about yet.'

'—but I'm really glad I ran into you. That's all I wanted to say.'

'Same goes back,' Clay said. 'I appreciate the quiet place to spend the night, and I'm sure Alice does, too.'

'As long as Malden doesn't get loud and burn down around our ears.'

Clay nodded, smiling a little. 'As long as. Did you get that creepy little shoe away from her?'

'No. She took it to bed with her like . . . I don't know, a teddy bear. She'll be a lot better tomorrow if she sleeps through tonight.'

'Do you think she will?'

'No,' Tom said. 'But if she wakes up scared, I'll spend the night with her. Crawl in with her, if that's what it takes. You know I'm safe with her, right?'

'Yes.' Clay knew that he would have been safe with her, too, but he understood what Tom was talking about. 'I'm going to head north tomorrow morning as soon as it's light. It would probably be a good idea if you and Alice came with me.'

Tom thought about this briefly, then asked, 'What about her father?'

'She says he's, quote, 'very self-reliant.' Her biggest stated worry on his behalf was what he rolled himself for dinner. What I heard under that is that she isn't ready to know. Of course we'll have to see how she feels about it, but I'd rather keep her with us, and I don't want to head west into those industrial towns.'

'You don't want to head west at all.'

'No,' Clay admitted.

He thought Tom might argue the point, but he didn't. 'What about tonight? Do you think we should stand a watch?'

Clay hadn't even considered this until now. He said, 'I don't know how much good it would do. If a crazed mob comes down Salem Street waving guns and torches, what can we do about it?'

'Go down cellar?'

Clay thought it over. Going down cellar seemed awfully final to him– the Bunker Defense—but it was always possible the hypothetical crazed mob under discussion would think the house deserted and go sweeping by. Better than being slaughtered in the kitchen, he supposed. Maybe after watching Alice get gang-raped.

It won't come to that, he thought uneasily. You're getting lost among the hypothetical, that's all. Freaking in the dark. It won't come to that.

Except Boston was burning to the ground behind them. Liquor stores were being looted and men were beating each other bloody over aluminum kegs of beer. It had already come to that.

Tom, meanwhile, was watching him, letting him work it through . . . which meant that maybe Tom already had. Rafe jumped into his lap. Tom put his sandwich down and stroked the cat's back.

'Tell you what,' Clay said. 'If you've got a couple of comforters I can bundle up in, why don't I spend the night out there on your porch? It's enclosed, and it's darker than the street. Which means that I'd likely see anyone coming long before they saw me watching. Especially if the ones coming were phone-crazies. They didn't impress me as being into stealth.'

'Nope, not the creep-up-on-you type. What if people came from around in back? That's Lynn Avenue just a