The Guardians

'No. We didn't.'

From upstairs, the fire is a voice that joins the two of ours. Wet and gulping, like a dog swalowing something it's found in the mud.

'What did you do instead?'

'Talked. I don't have a clue about what,' Randy says, now grinning widely like his father, the loony salesman caricature they used in those Krazy Kevin! car lot ads.

'Her boyfriend, maybe. How she couldn't wait to get out of this shithole. The future. I wasn't listening to her. I was listening to him. And when I was doing the talking, I was concentrating on seling my lines. And you know something? I was good.'

'What did he tel you to do?'

'Make her stop.'

'Stop what?'

'Laughing. Smiling. Breathing'

I'm having trouble standing. The smoke has thickened, shrouding the large space so that, for moments at a time, Randy is the only thing I can see.

'I dragged her down here,' he goes on, scratching an elbow. 'Tied her to the same post where we tied the coach. Oh man, she wanted out of here—and part of me, the pussy Randy part, wanted to let her out. But there was his voice again. Teach her a lesson. Leave her down in the dark until she shuts up. So I left. Went for a walk, sobered up a little. It was cold. I was Randy again, give or take. And then I thought to myself, You've got a coat on, but that poor girl doesn't. So I ran back, came down here to find her quiet, eyes closed. Not dead, but pretty close. I saw that I couldn't let her go. I'd nearly kiled her, and nearly kiling someone is as bad as kiling her, when you think of it. It's worse— because you can't bury a body that's stroling around, teling people what it knows.'

'Randy, please. We have to—'

'I remembered how my house had a crawlspace under the kitchen floor. Yours did too, right?'

'You left her alone to die.'

' It's just another secret. That's what he kept saying . You're good with secrets. You all are.'

Randy puls something out of his pocket and tosses it at me. Somehow my hand grabs it out of the air. My Dictaphone.

'You broke the rule, Trev.'

'I wasn't going to give this to anyone. I did it for myself.'

'Which is the same reason I just told you the truth. To see if it changed anything.'

'Has it?'

Randy appears about to work this through aloud, his finger partly raised in the manner of a courtroom clarification of fine points. Yet he says nothing. His mouth agape.

'Let us go.'

My voice conveys none of the desperation I feel. It sounds as though I'm offering to take his place on the next shift in a Guardians game.

'I can't.'

'Why not?'

'I've been alone a long time,' he says, suddenly not himself at al. The boy's tone, lifeless and flat. 'And I don't want to be alone anymore.'

He grins again. Not Randy this time, not Krazy Kevin!, but the boy. And it's a glimpse of the afterlife. An eternity in here, waiting at the windows with Roy DeLisle.

Watching the girls go by.

I make a move to get past him. Not a run, nothing so orchestrated as to be understood as an intention. A grasping of' legs and arms and head in the direction of the stairs. Hut Randy pushes me back with one hand, his palm slapping my shoulder as if in greeting.

'Give me the locket,' he says, and holds his hand out. Opens his fist to show a platinum band with a piece of emerald in it. I glance down at Tracey and spot the white circle below one of her knuckles.

'That was you? You dug Heather up?'

'Right there where you're standing,' he points, and I take an involuntary step backwards. 'But once I moved away I didn't want it anymore. I was just goofy Handy Randy again, and I couldn't bear it. Mailed it to Ben, no return address.'

'Why Ben?'

'He stayed. And it belonged here.' He takes a ful stride closer. 'It wanted to be here.'

'You mean the boy wanted it to be here.'

'And now he'd like it back.'

So I give it to him. I step over Tracey Flanagan's unconscious body and pul Heather's gold heart from my walet. Let its chain pour into Randy's hand.