His mother had given him the money when his old man wasn't looking, but he was still beaten half to death and could barely walk for a week.
Cart had laughed. Cart was always laughing at him, and he was getting tired of it. Then Cart told him today to get lost. Just like that-get lost, shithead. Just like that.
But damn it, he wasn't a shithead. He knew that. He wasn't as smart as Denise the Bitch, maybe, but he wasn't a shithead. Cart knew that. Somehow, he had to make sure Cart knew that. God, if Cart didn't pay attention to him anymore, he wouldn't have any friends left, because Mrs. Fletcher didn't count.
He sighed, crushed the cigarette under his heel, crawled through the opening he'd made and stood with his back to the wall. There was no one around. The sun was setting fast. He was ready to get inside and tell Mrs. Fletcher why he was late, when he heard footsteps on the graveled path beside the building. He ducked quickly behind the dumpster and held his breath, looked up and saw Mrs. Fletcher hurrying toward Ocean, cutting between the church and the library. He frowned and wondered who was watching the store. A moan. Muriel, that's who. Who else? Muriel North, who once told him out of the corner of her mouth when she thought no one was listening that he ought to be taken out in one of the boats and dropped over the side. Chum, fish bait, that's what she called him; bloody bits of dead fish to attract the sharks. Chum. The old bat, with her fingers so yellow from smoking she looked like someone from a kung fu movie, for Christ's sake.
Hell, even his mother didn't talk to him like that, even when she was drinking all that crap and shittin' up her liver like he'd seen one time in school, like what happened when people drank too much and all. One of these days, the first day she stopped baby talking him, he was going to smash all the bottles she hid in her closet. Or maybe he'd do it anyway, for Christmas.
Merry Christmas, Ma, you're sober again.
Hell.
Well, there was no sense going in the store now because all he'd get would be grief and a half. Muriel North was a goddamned expert at handing out the grief, and that was something he didn't need right now.
And Cart was gone with Denise the Bitch, and he didn't dare go home because he was supposed to be at work, and…
He fell back in sudden panic with a choked-off curse, hitting the wall hard when a small gull squawked loudly and landed in the browning grass a few feet away. He stared at it a moment, rubbing his sore shoulder, watching it hunt boldly for edible garbage. It complained to itself as it found little more than a moldy orange rind, and Frankie was tempted to find a rock to put through its head to make people think the gull-killer was back. But before he could move, his eyes widened, his lips parted in a smile.
Gull. Bird. Tess Mayfair and her fancy birdbath in that garden behind the boarding house. Cart had tried a million times to steal it, and the old fart had nearly caught him. She was the only one on the island Cart was afraid of. Of course, he wasn't a coward. Anybody'd head the other way when she was running full tilt at you. God, she must weigh five hundred goddamn pounds.
But he wasn't afraid.
And if he could get that birdbath and bring it to Cart, by Jesus Cart'd listen to him then.
The creep. Who did he think he was, calling him a shithead?
He spat and sidled to the corner of the building, checked the street for traffic, and broke into an easy lope that took him behind the other stores, the theater, Naughton's Market. He was in the trees fifteen minutes later, running easily, dodging the low branches, once in a while taking a fallen log at a leap. He was grinning. And he didn't even care that the shadows seemed to follow.
TWO
The haze thickened, closing out the blue and softening the light to a faint shade of gold-gray. What leaves stubbornly remained on branches stirred restlessly, trembling; and those fallen to the gutter clustered close to the curb. The scent of last night's rain still clung to the air, but there was a stronger one now that made the growing slight breeze unpleasantly damp.
Peg held her jacket closed with one hand as she walked toward the setting sun, her free hand shading her eyes. Rather than go to the corner, she cut around the back of the drug store, hurrying to Ocean between the library and the church. A large Doberman chained to an iron stake near the sidewalk lunged at her, barking, snarling, and wagging its tail. She grinned and waved at it, and continued across the street, to the next, and the third, finally slowing on the pathway flanked with chainlink fencing. The house on her left belonged to the Adams, the one on her right to the librarian, Hattie Mills. Straight ahead was her own, and there was a man on the front walk waiting for her.
She moistened her lips nervously. Bob Cameron had called her only half an hour ago, asking if she would mind talking with him for a bit. When she asked why, he oddly declined to give her a reason except to say it had something to do with her late husband.
Then she told herself sternly to stop overreacting. It was probably nothing. It was the day, the Screamer. Almost every hour she had gone to the window to check the sky for thunderheads, the tingling along her arms the same sensation she experienced before a storm. Others felt it too, commenting as they paid their bills and left without delivering the usual ration of gossip.
It was the day, not Bob Cameron. It was probably some stupid way to get him her vote.
He waved as she approached, and she managed a polite smile. He was taller than she, burly and wide-mouthed, tanned so dark his wavy graying hair seemed almost as white as the suit he was wearing. She stepped around the hood of the car at the curb, had gone three steps beyond before she realized there was someone behind the wheel. She turned and frowned as Cameron touched her arm.
"Glad you could come, Peg." His voice was as smooth as the cologne he had on.
"I can't stay long," she told him. "Poor Colin is minding the store, and I don't want to go broke."
He smiled warmly and squeezed her elbow. "No problem. It won't take but a few minutes, I promise you."
Suddenly, she had a distressing feeling that he was v about to declare himself and had called her away to get her free of Colin. It was foolish, she knew, but she couldn't shake it loose once it had taken hold, couldn't for the life of her remember if she'd ever given him even the slightest hint she might be interested at all. Good lord, how could she? After what had happened to Jim, how could she?
She tilted her head to place his face between her eyes and the sun. "Well?"
"I'd rather we do it inside."
She shrugged and pulled her keys from her pocket, had the knob in her hand when she heard the car door slam. Cameron was right behind her and eased her over the threshold.
"Bob?"
Immediately behind them two men followed, and Cameron steered her directly back to the kitchen.
"Damn it, Bob!" But softly. An annoyed glance over her shoulder.
He sat at the round table unbidden, and as she blinked in a combination of undefined fear and annoyance, the others took seats and stared at her openly. Suddenly she was outraged, and an order to leave was hard at her lips when the man on her left-incredibly thin, blond, with a jaw that came to a nearly-perfect honed point-introduced himself as Michael Lombard. His hands were folded primly on the table, his back was straight.