Smoke

teachers standing like sentries, arms crossed, eyes alert, by every possible exit or entrance from the yard, four in total. Someone had to keep the world and all its many terrible changes outside the perimeter of the last safe place.

He peeled back the tab on his coffee from the deli up the street and settled in. A door slammed somewhere close by and he started, spilling a little hot coffee on his jeans.

“Nice,” he said, reaching for a napkin from the glove box. He dabbed the hot liquid and swore at the stain it left on his thigh. Since the shooting, he’d been really edgy. He dreamed about Jerome “Busta” White, the boy he’d killed. He’d wake up sweating, and more frightening, he’d had a couple of intense flashbacks during his waking hours. The shrink they made him see told him it was normal and that it would pass. And it did seem to be better, a little better every day. But he knew for a fact that he’d never forget that kid’s eyes. How they were liquid and full of life and in a moment they’d turned cold and still as glass.

He’d never given a whole lot of thought to the concept of soul. But Dylan saw something leave that kid. How could it be that life just vanished that way? It was hard to understand in theory; it was harder to witness. They’d all wind up that way, abandoned by life. Him, Jesamyn, Ben, too, someday. The thought filled him with dread. He tried to push the dark thoughts away. They made him question everything about himself, everything about the way he’d lived his life so far. He got the terrible sense that everything he thought was cool and important was shit. That the things he thought were irrelevant, the things he had abused and taken for granted, were the only things that mattered. He’d been on the road for forty years, walking in the wrong direction, taking all the wrong turns. It made him feel sick inside. Worse, Jerome knew it, too. In those last seconds, he saw it. But it was too late for Jerome.

He closed his eyes a second and rested his head back against the seat. When he opened his eyes, he saw Clifford Stern come around the corner of Sixty-Sixth Street and walk up Fourteenth Avenue. He was a small, weaselly-looking man, with a shiny balding head and small, darting eyes. He walked quickly, looking around him nervously, then jogged up the stairs that led to his front door. Dylan noticed that he didn’t turn his back completely to the street as he unlocked the door, but stood awkwardly sideways so that he could see behind him.

Jesamyn was right; there was something weird about all of this. He knew Stenopolis had a temper. He’d been on the receiving end of it. But having a temper and being the kind of soulless killer you had to be to beat a woman to death with your fists were not the same thing. He decided he’d give Clifford Stern a few minutes to relax; he seemed jumpy and afraid. Let him think he was home and safe for a few minutes. Then Dylan would have a few words with him, find out how well his story held up outside the safe environment of a police station.

This was not the best choice of activities for someone already being investigated by IAD for a shooting. But what could he do? The woman he loved, who currently hated his guts, needed him. He’d be crazy to pass up the opportunity to help her.

He dialed Jesamyn but got her voicemail and hung up. He thought about dialing Elena but thought better of it. After Jesamyn had wigged out that night, he’d broken it off with Elena, which pained him because of her outrageous ass, perfect tits, and silky blonde hair down to her waist. But she wasn’t Jesamyn. He wanted to try to be faithful to Jez, even if there was no relationship at the moment. Maybe because he’d screwed up so many times, he’d have to be faithful to her before she took him back. That was his strategy anyway. He’d tell her about it after he helped her and she was feeling grateful. He knew he could make her listen. He could always make her listen; it was just getting her to believe that would be a challenge.

He turned the rearview mirror so that he could makes faces at himself for a second… sexy face, tough face, innocent face… and instead saw something behind him that caught his attention. He lowered himself in his seat and looked out the sideview mirror as a white van cruised slowly up Fourteenth Avenue. He slunk down farther and closed his eyes to slits, feigning sleep, as the van passed by his parked car. The windows were darkly tinted, too dark to see the driver. This was illegal in New York City now, but older-model cars that were already tinted before the law was passed couldn’t be ticketed. The van was well kept but definitely an earlier-model vehicle.

As the van passed by him slowly, he saw the New Day logo on its side.

“Huh,” he said to himself. “How about that?”

Part of him had figured Jez was just being paranoid. She did have paranoid tendencies, especially where Ben was concerned. But there it was. The van made a U-turn and drove past Stern’s house, pulled into a parking space, and came to a stop. Maybe Dylan was catching Jez’s paranoia but he felt the hairs rise on his arms. There was something menacing about that van. He slunk down a little farther and waited.

***

You shouldn’t have done this,” said Matt.

“My son is going to rot in prison? No,” his mother said with an emphatic shake of her head. “No.”

“Where’d you get the money?” he asked from the backseat of their 1990 Dodge Minivan.

“Don’t worry about it,” his father said sternly.

“Dad.”

“They’ll get it back,” said Theo, putting a hand on his arm, which Matt promptly shook off and gave him a black look. How could he let them do this?

“After the trial,” Theo said, like he needed to explain the law to Matt. Matt turned away from his brother’s face; it was so earnest and young that he couldn’t bear to see it. He would have rather stayed in jail than have his family risk their future to make the $500,000 bond. Even the ten percent they needed… where had they gotten that kind of money?

“They’d have killed you in there, bro,” Theo whispered. “You’re a cop.”

Matt didn’t look back at him or answer. He just stared at the river, at the other cars on the highway. The world seemed so changed. Grayer, colder. He envied the girl he saw singing along with whatever was playing on the radio of her sky blue convertible bug. He envied the kid talking into the wireless cell-phone headset, smiling. Their lives were blissfully intact. Maybe not perfect, but not shattered. They probably didn’t even know how lucky they were.

“Your lawyer says that there are a lot of holes in their theory. He says he bets the charges will be dropped before this goes to trial.” His brother was nervous, worried, filling silence.

“The truth will set you free, Mateo,” said his father, raising a finger in the air. “The system works. They won’t send an innocent man to jail.”

He looked at the back of his father’s balding head, his tearing eyes in the rearview mirror. Matt found himself, as always, simultaneously bolstered and enervated by the old man’s optimism. Matt wanted to believe his father was right, but in his heart feared that his father was just hopelessly naive about the way the world could grind you up if you got yourself caught in the wrong groove. Theo was more like their father, always facing the hard times with an outstretched chin, believing that the light was on their side. Matt was more like his mother. In the courtroom and in the sideview mirror now, he could see that her face was a mask of fear and sadness. In her brow resided the knowledge that something black had come for her son and it would likely as not succeed in taking him from her. She rested the side of her head in her palm, as if she didn’t have the strength to sit upright.

“A prostitute,” she said softly and then jumped as if she hadn’t meant to say it out loud.

“That’s not all she was, Ma,” Matt said softly.

She released a noise that effectively communicated her disdain. He closed his eyes. His father turned on the radio, some oldies station where Bing Crosby was singing “White Christmas.” They rode home in silence.

He was glad for the solitude when everyone stopped hovering and falling over themselves to feed him and comfort him, offering words of solace and encouragement. His aunts and uncles, a couple of his cousins had been waiting at his place when he returned, obviously cooking all day as a way to comfort themselves. The Greeks believed that there was no bad thing that could not be made bearable with enough food. He loved them all for what they were trying to do, but he’d never been so glad for the quiet of his own home. His mother urged him to come back and sleep in his old room, which they kept like a shrine to him and Theo. But he had refused. She’d looked at him with the hurt and angry expression that she’d had all day and eventually stopped insisting.

He lay on his bed in the dark and breathed in the heavy scent of oil and garlic that still hung in the air; in fact, he was comforted by it for a time. A heaviness, a terrible inertia had come over him. He should be out there,