Kid stepped forward.
June, her hand loose before her face once more, followed.
The closet door had been taken down and propped up on boxes. An open sleeping bag hung off it onto the floor. A boy and girl, both with long hair, slept there together. Neither were scorpions and the boy (his hand curled against her neck) looked as though he would have slept easier in the commune.
Someone (Angel?) rummaged inside the closet. Things rumbled and fell and growled, punctuated by, "…shit…" and "…God damn…" and "…shit!.." and "…shit…"
Since Kid had last been in the room, someone had hung up a poster of George as the Moon. Around it were a half dozen Playboy centerfolds, two covers from Black Garters, and lots of naked women playing tennis at some nudist camp.
June closed her fists so tightly in the skirt of her green jumper, they shook.
This is an act, Kid thought. But then, so is this.
"Eddy?" Her voice was firm for all her quivering arms.
"Huh?… Oh, hey…" It was the square-jawed blond scorpion who'd harassed Pepper. "What are you… just a second." He pushed the blanket off his feet and began to lace his sneakers. He snapped his jeans together and searched for his vest. Hair, light as his sister's, made a crushed and sprung helmet of gold foil too big for his head.
"I've… I've never seen anything like this in my life!" June accused, softly. Her face looked as though, expecting milk, she had swallowed orange juice. She actually said: "Eddy… is it really you?"
"Just a second," the blond repeated, got his vest on, and stood, unsteadily on the mattress. He looked too old for Kid's picture of June's other brother. His forehead was creased. His temples were high. Like I'm a baby face, Kid thought, maybe you'd just think he was over twenty-five: but there was a certain youthful unsurety of movement. Like his sister's. Their eyes and upper lips were identical. His lower one was fuller than hers — more like Mrs Richards'. He came toward them. "What'd you come here for?"
"We thought you'd gone to another city, Eddy!" She looked past his shoulder and back. "Oh… if Daddy and Mommy could see you here, in this, like this, they'd just… die… they'd die…"
"What do you want?"
"To talk to you. To see you. To see if you were really… Somebody said they'd seen somebody who looked like—"
"Just a second," Eddy said. "I gotta go to the — I mean I just woke up." He touched his sister's shoulders, then stepped past Kid into the hall. "I'll be right back…"
California turned over on the mattress.
Cathedral looked up from the book.
June's eyes flicked about the shadowed room, caught once on the poster, dodged it. "I liked your book very… I thought it was nice… the part you wrote about us when… no, no!" She said after a moment: "Eddy lives here with you… I mean how long has he…"
Kid shrugged.
"My mother likes your book too," she said after another moment. "She gave it to a few of…"
When she didn't finish, he said: "Say hello for me."
"I wouldn't dare!" After a second, she closed her mouth. "Oh, I couldn't
It isn't worth getting angry, Kid thought. He leaned against the doorway edge. Angel, in the closet, looked out, said, "What…?" got no answer, shrugged, and went back in. I don't answer because there is nothing to say. She turns and stares fixedly at some pile of bedding on the floor she does not really see, sure an answer is demanded of her.
He could walk away and leave her to wait alone.
"Watch it," Glass said behind him.
Kid turned.
"Got it." Spitt hefted Dollar's ankles up under his arms.
"You just put him in there," Copperhead said. "He'll be all right."
June had turned too. Kid was impressed how well, for her nervousness, she looked interested but not hysterical.
Dollar's shoulder hit the door.
"Back him up there, huh?" Glass lifted Dollar roughly by the arm, stepped over, and walked him through.
"…you see that? You see how they done him? He was just hanging around outside, he didn't even run or nothing, when they came after him. Shit, they didn't do that much. Soon as Copperhead hit him the third time he crumpled right up like that. He ain't even got a bloody nose. His eye looks pretty bad, though…"
Below the eye the puffy cheek was scraped. Dollar's arms flopped out on either side. His belt was opened.
"I think he fakin'," Copperhead told Kid, scratching his head. "I think he just didn't want to get hit no more, and he's just fakin'. But he's fakin' pretty good."
"He didn't run when he saw you coming?" Kid asked.
"Where was he gonna run?" Copperhead held his right fist in his left hand. The freckled knuckles were bleeding. "Put him down on that one."
Kid looked, but couldn't see Glass's hands.
Angel came out of the closet again, looked around, said, "Aw, Jesus Christ…" shook his head, and again went back inside.
By the window, Cathedral, who had closed his book, opened it again.
"They put him on Eddy's…?" June began.
The couple on the door shifted. The counterpoint of the naked scorpions' snoring went on without change.
"Excuse me, huh?" With a glare Eddy stepped around Pepper. He walked to his mattress, squatted, and pulled a hank of chains out from under Dollar's shoulder. He looked up at Kid. "They got him?" He shook his head, picked up the blanket and pulled it up over Dollar's shoulders.
That, Kid thought, is for her. The room was too hot for blankets.
Putting on his chains, Eddy came back to the door. "What did you come here for?"
"I don't know… I just don't know — I just don't understand how you can…"
Spitt and Glass had gone. Copperhead looked at June, frowned at Kid, and left.
"Come on," Kid said. "You people want to talk? Let's go out on the porch, huh? People are sleeping here, right?"
Kid let them go first, and took up Eddy's rear.
In the hall, the bathroom door was open; Filament — yes, that was the short-haired white woman's name, he suddenly remembered — was taking her morning crap, jeans around her shins, the Times folded across her knees.
"In there," Eddy pointed over June's shoulder.
June turned through the service porch door, and said, "Oh, I'm sor—"
"Huh?" Raven's stream halted. "There's somebody using the bathroom," he explained, bewildered, to June's bewildered stare; and his urine chattered in the sink again.
"Come on, come on," Kid herded them in. "He'll be finished in a minute."
Raven shook himself, pushed himself back into his pants. "Yeah, I'm finished."
This has been planned, Kid thought smugly. This couldn't just be happening.
Raven left—
"I'll shoo anybody else out," Kid said.
— then ducked back in the door. "Hey, I meant to run some water in the sink, you know…?"
"Later," Kid said.
"Okay." He left again.
June was looking out the window. Eddy was watching her and pulling the hair at the back of his neck. "What did you want, huh?"
June turned.
"I figured," Eddy said, "you would all get out. I mean I thought Mom and Daddy would take you and Bobby to another… city…"
"You didn't tell him," June asked, "about Bobby?"
"I didn't know he was your brother until three minutes ago." Kid said. "June pushed Bobby down an elevator shaft and broke bis neck, accidentally. He's dead." And immediately George's face filled his mind, obliterating all other reactions.