“Score? No. Gosh, no.”
“Gosh?” The man grinned and savored the word. “Gosh, no. Then what are you doing so far from home?”
“I’m . . . just walking.”
“This look like Central Park to you? Not even the right state, boy. I can hook you up.”
A cool sweat ran down Kevin’s back. Ask him. Just ask him.
He glanced around. “Actually, I’m looking for a weapon.”
The man’s eyebrows went up. “And you think this is where weapons grow on trees, is that it?”
“No.”
The man studied him. “You a cop?”
“Do I look like a cop?”
“You look like a fool. Is there a difference? What kind of idiot walks around a strange neighborhood looking for a piece?”
“I’m sorry. I should probably leave.”
“I guess so.”
The man was blocking the sidewalk, so Kevin sidestepped to the street. He took three steps before the man spoke again.
“How much you got?”
He stopped and faced the man. “Four hundred dollars.”
“Let me see it.”
What if the man robbed him? Too late now. He pulled out his wallet and spread it open.
“Follow me.” The man turned and walked back toward his house without checking to see if Kevin followed.
He did. Like a puppy. How many prying eyes watched the sucker from Wall Street slinking along behind Biff?
He followed the man up to his porch. “Wait here.” He left Kevin with his hands in his pockets.
Thirty seconds later he was back with something wrapped in an old white T-shirt. “Give me the money.”
“What is it?”
“It’s a thirty-eight. Cleaned and loaded.” Biff glanced up the street. “Worth six, but it’s your lucky day. I need the cash.”
Kevin fished out his wallet with a trembling hand and handed the contents to the man. He took the bundle. Where was he going to put it? He couldn’t just walk down the street with a bundle that had gunwritten all over it. He started to shove it down his pants— too bulky.
The man finished flipping through the bills and saw Kevin’s dilemma. He grinned. “Boy, you are a case, aren’t you? What’re you gonna do, hold up your dog? Give me the shirt.”
Kevin unwrapped a shiny silver pistol with a black handle. He gripped the butt with his fingertips and handed the shirt to the man.
The man looked at the gun and smirked. “What do you think you have there? A pastry? Hold it like a man.”
Kevin snugged the gun in his palm.
“In your belt. Pull your shirt over it.”
Kevin shoved the cold steel barrel past his bellybutton and covered it with his shirt. Still looked pretty obvious to him.
“Suck your gut in. For another hundred I’ll show you how to pull the trigger.” Grin.
“No thanks.”
He turned and walked back out to the sidewalk. He had a gun. What on earth he was going to do with it, he still had no idea. But he had the piece. It was okay to pray now, maybe.
God, help me.
Baker Street. It was the third time in two days Jennifer had driven down the narrow lane under the elms. The warehouse where they’d found the blood couldn’t be seen from the street itself—it was in the second row of buildings. She imagined a young boy racing across the street toward the clustered warehouses with a bully at his heels. Kevin and the boy.
“What is here that you want to hide, Kevin?” she murmured. “Hmm?” The white house loomed to her left, immaculate, with the shiny beige Plymouth in its driveway. “What did Aunt Balinda do to you?”
Jennifer parked her car on the street and walked up to the porch. A slight breeze rustled through the leaves. The green lawn appeared freshly mowed and trimmed around the edges. She didn’t notice until she stepped up on the porch that the red roses in the flower beds were imitation. For that matter, so were all the flowers. It seemed Aunt Balinda was too tidy a person to mess with the natural flaws of nature. Everything about the house was perfectly finished.
She rang the bell and stepped back. A curtain to her left parted; a middle-aged man with a crew cut looked out. Bob. Kevin’s retarded older cousin. The face stared, smiled, and disappeared. Then nothing.
Jennifer rang the bell again. What were they doing in there? Bob had seen her . . .
The door cracked and filled with an old, heavily painted, saggy face. “What do you want?”
Jennifer flipped open her badge. “Agent Peters, FBI. Just wondered if I could come in and ask you a few questions.”
“Certainly not.”
“Just a few—”
“Do you have a search warrant?”
“No. I didn’t think I would need one.”
“We all make mistakes, dear. Come back with a search warrant.” The woman started to close the door.
“Balinda, I presume?”
She turned back. “Yeah? So what?”
“I will be back, Balinda, and I’ll bring the police with me. We’ll turn the place inside out. Is that what you want?”
Balinda hesitated. Her eyelashes flapped several times. Ruby red lipstick glistened on her lips, like glossy putty. She smelled of too much talcum powder.
“What do you want?” Balinda asked again.
“I told you. Just a few questions.”
“Then ask them.” She made no move from the door.
The woman was begging to be properly engaged. “I don’t think you understand me. When I come back in an hour, I’ll have a half-dozen blue suits with me. We’ll have guns and microphones. We’ll strip-search you if we have to.”
Balinda just stared.
“Or you can let me in now, just me. Are you aware that your son Kevin is in trouble?”
“Doesn’t surprise me. I told him he’d end up in trouble if he went off.”
“Well, it seems that your warning had some merit.”
The woman made no move.
Jennifer nodded and stepped back. “Okay. I’ll be back.”
“You won’t touch anything?”
“Not a thing.” She lifted both hands.
“Fine. But I don’t like people invading our privacy, you understand?”
“I understand.”
Balinda walked inside and Jennifer pushed the door open. A single glance into the dimly lit house washed away her understanding.
She entered a hallway of sorts, formed by stacks of newspapers that ran nearly to the ceiling, leaving a passage just wide enough for a slight man to walk through without getting newsprint on his shoulders. Two faces peered at her from the end of the makeshift hallway— Bob’s and another man’s—both craning for a view.
Jennifer stepped in and closed the door behind her. Balinda whispered urgently to the two men and they retreated like mice. Grayed carpet had been worn to the wood subfloor. The edge of a newspaper to Jennifer’s right stuck out far enough for her to read the headline. London Herald. June 24, 1972. Over thirty years old.
“Ask your questions,” Balinda snapped from the end of the hall.
Jennifer walked toward her, mind swimming. Why had they stacked all these papers in tall neat stacks like this? The display gave eccentricity a whole new meaning. What kind of woman would do this?
Aunt Balinda wore a white dress, high heels, and enough costume jewelry to sink a battleship. Behind her, backlit by a window that overlooked a dirt yard, Eugene stood in riding boots and what appeared to be a jockey’s outfit. Bob wore plaid knickers that revealed the tops of knee-high socks. A polo shirt hugged his thin frame.
The hall directed her into what appeared to be the living room, but again, its dimensions had been altered by floor-to-ceiling stacks of paper. Newspapers alternated with books and magazines and the occasional box. A foot-wide crack between two of the stacks allowed light in from what had once been a window. For all of its mess, the room had an order to it, like a bird’s nest. The stacks stood several rows deep, allowing just enough room for old Victorian furniture placed just so between smaller mounds of paper in the middle of the floor. These appeared to be in the process of being sorted.