Mystery. Part 1

MYSTERY.

by PETER STRAUB

Mill Walk does not exist on any map-let us acknowledge that at the beginning. Extending eastward off Puerto Rico like revisions to an incomplete sentence are the tiny Islas de Culebra and Vieques, in their turn followed by specks named St. Thomas, Tortola, St. John, Virgin Gorda, Anegada-the Virgin Islands-after which the little afterthoughts of Anguilla, St. Martin, St. Barthelemy, St. Eustatius, St. Kitts, Redondo, Montserrat, and Antigua begin to drip south; islands step along like rocks in a stream, Guadeloupe, Dominica, Martinique, St. Lucia, St. Vincent, Barbados, the almost infinitesimal Grenadines, and the little green b.u.mp of Grenada, an emerald the size of a doll's fingernail-from there on, only blue-green sea all the way to Tobago and Trinidad, and after that you are in South America, another world. No more revisions and afterthoughts, but another point of view altogether.

In fact, another continent of feeling, one layer beneath the known.

On the island of Mill Walk, a small boy is fleeing down the bas.e.m.e.nt stairs, in so great a hurry to escape the sounds of his mother's screams that he has forgotten to close the door, and so the diminis.h.i.+ng screams follow him, draining the air of oxygen. They make him feel hot and accused, though of an uncertain crime-perhaps only that he can do nothing to stop her screaming bas.e.m.e.nt stairs, in so great a hurry to escape the sounds of his mother's screams that he has forgotten to close the door, and so the diminis.h.i.+ng screams follow him, draining the air of oxygen. They make him feel hot and accused, though of an uncertain crime-perhaps only that he can do nothing to stop her screaming.

He hits the bottom stair and jumps down on the concrete floor, claps his hands over his ears, and runs between a shabby green couch and a wooden rocking chair to the heavy, scarred workbench which stands against the wall. Like the furniture, the workbench is his father's: despite all the tools-screwdrivers and hammers, rasps and files and tin cans full of nails, C-clamps and pliers, a jigsaw and a coping saw, a gimlet and a chisel and a plane, stacks of sandpaper-nothing is ever created or repaired at this bench. A thick layer of dust covers everything. The boy runs beneath the bench and puts his back to the wall. Experimentally, he takes his hands from his ears. One moment of quiet lengthens into another. He can breathe. The bas.e.m.e.nt is cool and silent. He sits down on the concrete and leans against the grey block of the wall and closes his eyes.

The world remains cool, dark, and silent.

He opens his eyes again and sees a cardboard box, half-hidden in the gloom beneath the bench. This, too, is covered with a thick grey blanket of dust. All around the boy are the tracks of his pa.s.sage-lines and erasures, commas and exclamation points, words written in an unknown language. He slides toward the box through the fuzz of dust, opens the lid, and sees that, although it is nearly empty, down at its bottom rests a small stack of old newspapers. He reaches in and lifts the topmost newspaper and squints at the banner of the headline. Though he is not yet in the first-grade, the boy can read, and the headline contains a half-familiar name. JEANINE THIELMAN FOUND IN LAKE JEANINE THIELMAN FOUND IN LAKE.

One of their neighbors is named Thielman, but the first name, "Jeanine," is as mysterious as "found in lake." The next newspaper in the stack also has a banner headline. LOCAL MAN CHARGED WITH THIELMAN MURDER LOCAL MAN CHARGED WITH THIELMAN MURDER. The next paper down, the last, announces The next paper down, the last, announces MYSTERY RESOLVED IN TRAGEDY MYSTERY RESOLVED IN TRAGEDY. Of these four words, the boy understands only "in." The boy unfolds this issue of the paper and spreads it out before him. He sees the word Of these four words, the boy understands only "in." The boy unfolds this issue of the paper and spreads it out before him. He sees the word "Shadow," the words "wife," "children." None of the people in the photographs are people he knows "Shadow," the words "wife," "children." None of the people in the photographs are people he knows.

Then he spreads out all the newspapers and sees a picture of a woman who looks something like his mother. She would like to see this picture, he thinks: he could give her the present of these interesting old newspapers he found beneath the workbench.

He clumsily gathers up the newspapers in his arms and walks out from beneath the bench and through the furniture. A section of pages slips away and splashes onto the floor, but he does not stoop to pick it up. The boy climbs the bas.e.m.e.nt stairs into the warmer upper air, comes out into the kitchen, and walks through it to the hallway.

His mother stands in her blue nightgown, looking at him. Her hair is wild, and her eyes are somewhere else, like eyes that have rolled all the way over in her head and only seem to look out. Did you hear me?

He shakes his head.

You didn't hear your name?

He comes toward her, saying, I was in the bas.e.m.e.nt-look at what I found-for you- She floats toward him in her blue nightgown and wild hair. You don't have to hide from me.

His mother s.n.a.t.c.hes away his present, already not a present but a terrible mistake, and more pages slither onto the floor. She holds up one of the sections of the newspaper. The boy sees her face go into itself the way her eyes had gone into themselves, as if she has been struck by some invisible but present demon, and she wobbles away toward the kitchen, the newspaper dripping from her hands. A laugh that is not a laugh but an inside-out scream flies out of her mouth. She lands in a chair and puts her face in her hands.

PART ONE.

THE DEATH.

OF TOM PASMORE.

One June day in the mid-fifties Tom Pasmore, a ten-year-old boy with skin as golden as if he had been born with a good fourth-day suntan, jumped down from a milk cart and found himself in a part of Mill Walk he had never seen before. A sense of urgency, of impendingness impendingness, had awakened him with the screams that came from his mother's bedroom and clung to him during the whole anxious, jittery day, and when he waved his thanks to the driver, this feeling intensified like a bright light directed into his eyes. He thought of hopping back on the milk cart, but it was already jingling away down Calle Burleigh. Tom squinted into the bright dusty haze through which pa.s.sed a steady double stream of bicycles, horse carts, and automobiles. It was late afternoon, and the light had a molten, faintly reddish cast that suddenly reminded him of panels from comic books: fires and explosions and men falling through the air.

In the next moment this busy scene seemed to suppress beneath it another, more essential scene, every particle of which overflowed with an intense, unbearable beauty. It was as if great engines had kicked into life beneath the surface of what he could see. For a moment Tom could not move. Nature itself seemed to have awakened, overflowing with being.

Tom stood transfixed in the heavy, slanting reddish light and the dust rising from the roadway.

He was used to the quieter, narrower streets of the island's far east end, and his glimpse of a mysterious glory might have been no more than a product of the change from Eastern Sh.o.r.e Road. What he was looking at was was another world, one he had never seen before. He had no exact idea of how to get back to the far east end and the great houses of Eastern Sh.o.r.e Road, and less idea of why he was searching for a certain address. A bicycle bell gave a rasping cry like the chirp of a cricket, a horse's ironclad hoof struck the packed dirt of Calle Burleigh, and all the sounds of the wide avenue reached Tom once again. He realized that he had been holding his breath, and that his eyes were blurry with tears. Already far down the avenue, the milk driver tilted toward the sun and the st.u.r.dy brown cob that pulled his cart. The another world, one he had never seen before. He had no exact idea of how to get back to the far east end and the great houses of Eastern Sh.o.r.e Road, and less idea of why he was searching for a certain address. A bicycle bell gave a rasping cry like the chirp of a cricket, a horse's ironclad hoof struck the packed dirt of Calle Burleigh, and all the sounds of the wide avenue reached Tom once again. He realized that he had been holding his breath, and that his eyes were blurry with tears. Already far down the avenue, the milk driver tilted toward the sun and the st.u.r.dy brown cob that pulled his cart. The ching-ching-ching ching-ching-ching of the bottles had melted into the general hum. Tom wiped moisture from his face. He was not at all sure of what had just happened-another world? Beneath this world? of the bottles had melted into the general hum. Tom wiped moisture from his face. He was not at all sure of what had just happened-another world? Beneath this world?

Tom continued to melt back into the scene before him, wondering if this experience, still present as a kind of weightlessness about his heart, was what had been impending all during the day. He had been pushed pushed-pushed right out of his frame. For an elastically long second or two-for as long as the world had trembled and overflowed with being-he had been in the other world, the one beneath.

Now he smiled, distracted by this notion from Jules Verne or Robert Heinlein. He stepped back on the sidewalk and looked east. Both sides of the wide avenue were filled with horses and vehicles, at least half of which were bicycles. This varied crowd moved through the haze of light and dust and extended as far as Tom could see.

It seemed to Tom that he had never really known what the phrase "rush hour" meant. On Eastern Sh.o.r.e Road, rush hour consisted of a car or two honking at children to get out of the street. Once Tom had seen a servant ride a bicycle straight into the bicycle of another servant, spilling clean white laundry all over the warm red brick of the road-that was rush hour. Of course Tom had been in his father's office in the business district; he had seen the midday traffic on Calle Hoffmann; and he had gone to the harbor, Mill Key, with his parents and pa.s.sed beneath rows of palms in the company of jitneys and cabs and broughams; and at Mill Key he had seen the conveyances drawn up to take the new arrivals downtown to their hotels, the Pforzheimer or the St. Alwyn. (Strictly speaking, Mill Walk had no tourist hotels. The Pforzheimer took in bankers and moneymen, and the St. Alwyn catered to drummers, traveling musicians like Glenroy Breakstone and the wondrous Targets, gamblers, that cla.s.s of person.) He had never been in the business district at the close of a workday, and he had never seen anything like the sweep and the variety of the traffic moving east and west, primarily west, toward Shurz Bay and Elm Cove, on Calle Burleigh. It looked as though everyone on the island had simultaneously decided to dash off to the island's other side. For a moment of panic that seemed oddly connected to the wonderful experience he had just undergone, Tom wondered if he would ever be able to find his way back again.

But he did not want to go home, not until he had found a certain house, and he imagined that when the time came he would find someone as accommodating as the milk driver, who in spite of the NO Pa.s.sENGERS ALLOWED NO Pa.s.sENGERS ALLOWED sign at the front of the cart had invited him to hop on board and then quizzed him about girlfriends all during the long trip west-Tom was big for his age, and with his blond hair and dark eyes and eyebrows he looked more like thirteen than ten. This sign at the front of the cart had invited him to hop on board and then quizzed him about girlfriends all during the long trip west-Tom was big for his age, and with his blond hair and dark eyes and eyebrows he looked more like thirteen than ten. This thing thing had been nagging at him all day, making it impossible to read more than a page or two at a time, driving him from his bedroom to the living room to the white wicker furniture on the porch, until at last he had resorted to walking back and forth on the big front lawn, wondering vaguely if Mrs. Thielman's Sam might run into Mrs. Langenheim's Jenny again, or if a crazy drunk might wander into the street and start yelling and throwing rocks, as had happened two days before. had been nagging at him all day, making it impossible to read more than a page or two at a time, driving him from his bedroom to the living room to the white wicker furniture on the porch, until at last he had resorted to walking back and forth on the big front lawn, wondering vaguely if Mrs. Thielman's Sam might run into Mrs. Langenheim's Jenny again, or if a crazy drunk might wander into the street and start yelling and throwing rocks, as had happened two days before.

The funny thing was that though the feeling of glory, overflowing being, had pa.s.sed, the other feeling did not fade with it but lingered, as powerful as ever.

He was being pushed pushed, being moved moved.

Tom turned around to get a better fix on this strange area, and found himself looking between two st.u.r.dy wooden houses, each placed atop its own narrow slanting lawn like a nut on a cupcake, at another row of houses set behind them on the next street. Tall elms arched over this second street, which seemed as quiet as Eastern Sh.o.r.e Road. The houses beneath the elms were one notch less impressive than those on Calle Burleigh. Tom instantly understood that this second street was forbidden territory. This information was not ambiguous. The little street might as well have had a chain-link fence around it and a sign commanding him to KEEP OUT KEEP OUT: a spear of lightning would sizzle right down out of the sky and impale him if he entered that street.

The imaginary light that shone on his face became stronger and hotter. He had been right to come all this way. He stepped sideways, and a little two-story wooden house painted a very dark brown on the top story and a bright b.u.t.tery yellow on the bottom came into view on the forbidden street.

Two days earlier, Tom had been lying on the striped yellow chaise in the living room reading Jules Verne, inside the imaginary but total safety of words on a page organized into sentences and paragraphs-a world both fixed and flowing, always the same and always moving and always open to him. This was escape escape. It was safety safety. Then a loud noise, the sound of something striking the side of the house, had pulled him up on the yellow chaise as roughly as a hand shaking him from sleep. A moment later Tom heard a blurry voice shouting obscenities in the street. "b.a.s.t.a.r.d! s.h.i.+thead!" Another rock crashed against the side of the house. Tom had jumped from the chaise and moved to the front window, unconsciously keeping his place in the book with his index finger. A middle-aged man with a thick waist and short, thinning brown hair was weaving back and forth on the sidewalk beside a slumped canvas bag from which a few large stones had spilled. The man held a baseball-sized rock in each hand. "Do me like this!" he yelled. "Think you can treat Wendell Hasek like he's some kind of jerk!" He turned all the way around and nearly fell down. Then he rounded his shoulders like an ape and squinted furiously at the two houses-each with great columns, round turrets, and twin parapets-across the street. One of these, the Jacobs house, was empty because Mr. and Mrs. Jacobs had gone to the mainland for the summer; the other was inhabited by Lamont von Heilitz, a fantastic and sour old man who lived in the shadows and echoes of some vague ancient scandal. Mr. von Heilitz always wore gloves, pale grey or lemon yellow, changed clothes five or six times a day, had never worked a single day in his whole life a single day in his whole life, and darted out on his porch to yell at children who threatened to step on his lawn. The chaos-man hurled one of his rocks toward the von Heilitz house. The rock banged against the rough stone side of the house, missing a large leaded window by only a few inches. Tom had wondered if Mr. von Heilitz would materialize on his front porch shaking a fist in a smooth grey glove. Then the man twitched his head as if to dislodge a fly, staggered back a few steps, and bent down for another rock, either forgetting the spare in his left hand or feeling that one rock was simply not enough. He thrust his hand into the canvas sack and began rooting around, presumably for a rock of the proper dimensions. He wore wash pants and a khaki s.h.i.+rt unb.u.t.toned half of the way down the bulge of his stomach. His suntan ended at an abrupt line just below his neck-the protruding stomach was a stark, unhealthy white. The chaos-man lost his balance as he leaned down deeper into the bag and toppled over on his face. When he got himself up on his knees again, blood covered the lower half of his face. He was squinting now at Tom's house, and Tom stepped back from the window.

Then Tom's grandfather, Glendenning Upshaw, the most imposing figure in his life, came heavily down the stairs in his black suit, pa.s.sed his grandson without acknowledging him, and slammed the front door behind him. Tom instinctively knew that the chaos-man had come for his grandfather and no one else, and that only his grandfather could deal with him. Soon his grandfather appeared, making his way down the walkway toward the sidewalk, thumping the tip of his unfurled umbrella against the pavement. The intruder shouted at Tom's grandfather, but Tom's grandfather did not shout back. The intruder fired a rock into Gloria Pasmore's roses. He fell down again as soon as Tom's grandfather reached the sidewalk. To Tom's astonishment, his grandfather picked the man up, taking care not to b.l.o.o.d.y his suit, and shook him like a broken toy. Tom's mother began yelling incoherently from an upstairs window and then abruptly stopped, as if she had just taken in that the whole neighborhood could hear her. Tom's father, Victor Pasmore, came down and joined Tom at the window, staring out with a careful neutrality that excluded Tom. Tom slipped out of the living room, index finger still inserted between page 153 and page 154 of Journey to the Center of the Earth Journey to the Center of the Earth, moved through the empty hall, and continued on out through the open door. He feared that his grandfather had killed the chaos-man with the Uncle Henry knife he always carried in his trouser pocket. The heat was the muscular heat of the Caribbean in June, a steady downpouring ninety degrees. Tom went down the path to the sidewalk, and for a moment both the chaos-man and his grandfather stared at him. His grandfather waved him off and turned away, but the other man, Wendell Hasek, hunched his shoulders again and continued to stare fixedly at Tom. His grandfather pushed him backwards, and Hasek jerked away. "You know me," he said. "Are you gonna pretend you don't?" His grandfather marched the man to the end of the block and disappeared. Tom looked back at his house and saw his father shaking his head at him. His grandfather came trudging back around the corner of Eastern Sh.o.r.e Road and An Die Blumen, chewing his lip as he walked. The determination in his slow step suggested that he had pitched the chaos-man off the edge of the world. He glanced up and saw Tom, frowned, looked down at the sparkling sidewalk.

When he got back in the house he went wordlessly upstairs with Tom's father. Tom watched him go, and when both his father and grandfather had closed his mother's bedroom door behind them, he went into the study and pulled the Mill Walk telephone book onto his lap and turned the pages until he came to Wendell Hasek's name. Loud voices floated down the stairs. His grandfather said "our" or "hour." "hour."

Tom became aware of a thin sound like the cry of an animal a moment after he had ceased to hear it: then he immediately wondered if he had had heard it. The cry lingered in his inner ear, probably the only place it had ever existed. No sound as soft as that had a chance of being heard in the clopping and rattling from Calle Burleigh. heard it. The cry lingered in his inner ear, probably the only place it had ever existed. No sound as soft as that had a chance of being heard in the clopping and rattling from Calle Burleigh.

Tom longed to be home, not stranded in a foreign district. The traffic on both sides of the boulevard blocked his pa.s.sage across Calle Burleigh as effectively as a wall. There were no traffic lights on Mill Walk in those days, and the rows of vehicles extended as far as he could see. He would have to wait for the end of rush hour to cross the street, and by then darkness would be very near.

Then he heard the actual sound, not its sudden absence. It surrounded all the other noises of Calle Burleigh like a membrane. The cry disappeared into itself and vanished by gradations, like an animal that begins by swallowing its tail and ends by devouring itself altogether.

The cry came again, a wavering rose-pink cloud rising up from the block behind Calle Burleigh. The cloud broke into a stuttering series of dots like smoke signals and coalesced into a bright thread that went sailing over the tops of the houses.

Tom began to drift eastward on the pavement, his back to the streaming traffic. He slid his hands into the pockets of his white cotton trousers. His white b.u.t.ton-down s.h.i.+rt, streaked with grey here and there by the milk cartons, adhered to his back.

The houses on Calle Burleigh gave him a broken and interrupted view of the forbidden street. Between two ma.s.sive redbrick houses with wide porches Tom saw the two-story yellow and brown building and a smaller house, of rough white stone joined with thick ropes of mortar, beside it. He found himself before a brown wooden house as ornately ornamented as a cuckoo clock. He kept moving and looked through to the backs of brick houses on the next street. Facing him was a taller, two-story building of dirty cream-colored brick in which a broken first-floor window had been replaced by grease paper. In a sudden cessation of noise as the traffic stopped, he heard chickens clucking in the yard.

The pink cloud rose above the houses and thickened and narrowed, thickened and narrowed.

The traffic started up with clanks and shouts, with heavy hooves striking the ground, with cracking whips and ringing bells.

Tom moved sideways to get to the other side of a gloomy Gothic structure with a turret and a widow's walk. A curtain s.h.i.+fted, and Tom had an impression of grey hair and a skull-like face peering out. The creature behind the window moved back just enough to become a grey blur.

The thin grey fingers disappeared, and the curtain dropped. Tom moved sideways, thinking in a way that was not quite verbal that he was not in his real life, but in some terrible dreamlike state from which he had to escape before it claimed him forever.

In the next instant the cry went up again, this time clearly from the little street Tom could see between the houses of Calle Burleigh.

At the end of the block he realized that he had been hearing the cries of an unhappy dog. It howled and whined at once, sending up another cloud of pink steam.

Funny, Tom thought-how much that dog managed to sound like a child.

Tom looked up at the street sign on the corner. TOWNSEND TOWNSEND was the name of the side street. He knew nothing in this neighborhood; he had not even known of the long green open area with a bandsh.e.l.l, swings, a seesaw, luxuriant shade trees, and a few exhausted animals in tiny cages, which lay half a mile east on Calle Burleigh. The milk driver had been astonished that any resident of Mill Walk would not recognize Goethe Park. was the name of the side street. He knew nothing in this neighborhood; he had not even known of the long green open area with a bandsh.e.l.l, swings, a seesaw, luxuriant shade trees, and a few exhausted animals in tiny cages, which lay half a mile east on Calle Burleigh. The milk driver had been astonished that any resident of Mill Walk would not recognize Goethe Park.

Tom stepped around the corner. A dark green metal rectangle with the legend 44TH STREET 44TH STREET stamped in relief and painted a s.h.i.+ning, almost incandescent white faced him from the next corner. In the section of Mill Walk that Tom knew, streets had names like Beach Terrace and The Sevens, and this designation seemed eerily impersonal to him. stamped in relief and painted a s.h.i.+ning, almost incandescent white faced him from the next corner. In the section of Mill Walk that Tom knew, streets had names like Beach Terrace and The Sevens, and this designation seemed eerily impersonal to him.

The creature sobbed and snarled and choked.

Tom saw a hairy half-human thing sprawled in the dust, a thick chain lashed around its neck, its ragged fingernails digging into the dirt of its pen.

With the arrival of this image came a stomach pain so strong and sharp he nearly vomited. He clutched his stomach and sat down on the lawn of the corner house. It seemed to him that what he had seen was himself. His heart fluttered in his chest like a bird chained to its perch.

A door slammed behind him, and Tom turned to see a wide old woman a.s.sessing him from the front step of the corner house.

"Get off my lawn. Right now. That's trespa.s.sing, what you're doing. I won't have it." The woman spoke with a strong German accent that made each of her syllables strike Tom like a well-aimed brick. She was a nightmare version of Lamont von Heilitz.

Tom said, "I was feeling a little sick, and-"

The old woman's face darkened. "L-I-A-R! L-I-A-R! Get lost!"

She began grunting down the steps, and when she reached the bottom, waded toward him as if she intended to launch herself at him. "Talk back, hey? I won't have you tramping on my gra.s.s, you S-C-U-M, get back where you belong-"

Tom had already jumped up and was walking quickly backwards to the safety of the sidewalk.

"Back to your own place!" she shouted. Her blue housedress billowed around her as she advanced on Tom. He began backing up the sidewalk toward the next side street.

Now the woman stood on the very edge of her domain, with the toes of her flat slippers just overlapping the sidewalk. She had extended her arm and index finger very determinedly toward the alley and 44th Street. Her face was an amazing red-purple. "Sick and tired of you brats walking all over my property!"

Tom turned around and ran. He thought to cut up the alley between Calle Burleigh and 44th Street, but as soon as he swerved into the alley her voice exploded behind him: "Can't sneak into my yard that way! You want the police? Keep going!"

He looked over his shoulder and saw her surging down the sidewalk toward him. Tom swerved out of the entrance to the alley and ran toward 44th Street. The woman bawled out a phrase Tom did not understand, or which he misheard: "Cornerboy! Stupid cornerboy!"

On the corner of Townsend and 44th Street he turned around again. She was standing at the entrance to the alley, puffing hard, her hands on her hips. "S-C-U-M! That's what you are, you cornerboys!"

"Okay, okay," Tom said. His heart was still beating hard.

"I see you where you live!" she yelled.

He turned west into the next block, and after he had taken a few steps his view of her was cut off by the house on the corner.

The flawless enameled sky of the Caribbean had begun to show the first traces of the yellow that soon would flash over its entire surface and darken in a moment to purple, then into real night.

Tom wondered if the old woman had gone back into her house. She was probably waiting to make another run at him if he tried to sneak back around the corner.

He lifted his foot and forced his leg to thrust it forward. A forlorn wail immediately blossomed in the air before him. He froze. He glanced at the houses on either side of him-heavy curtains had been drawn over front windows in both houses, giving them a vacant, closed-up look. At this time of the year, nearly everybody in Mill Walk kept their windows open to catch the Atlantic breezes. Only Mr. von Heilitz kept his windows closed and his curtains drawn. Even the people who lived in the "native" houses, naturally cooler than the European or North American buildings, never closed their windows during the summer months.

Of course, Tom thought, they closed their windows so that they would not hear the creature.

Tom stepped forward again, and up ahead of him, off behind one of the houses across the street to his right, the creature uttered a protest that set the chickens flapping and clucking: He thought he was going to melt down into a stain on the sidewalk. He would have to take his chances on the old woman's having gone back inside her house. He turned around.

And then he was so startled he nearly jumped off the sidewalk, for no more than five or six feet behind him was a teenage boy his own height, frozen in place with one foot in advance of the other, his hands held out in a straight line from his elbows. The boy, who clearly had been trying to sneak up on Tom, looked as startled as his quarry. He stared at Tom's face as if he had been stuck with a pin.

"Okay," he said. "Hold it right there."

"What?" Tom said. He stepped backwards.

The teenage boy stared at Tom with a very careful absence of expression on his broad, sallow face. The only animation in his face was in his eyes. A scattering of pimples lay on his forehead beneath a fringe of black hair. A magnificent pimple reddened the entire area between the left corner of his mouth and his chin. He was wearing jeans and a dirty white T-s.h.i.+rt. Hard, stringy muscles stood out in his biceps, and premature lines of worry bracketed his mouth. At thirteen, he had the face he would carry with him through all of his adult life. What struck Tom most was the jumpiness in the boy's flat black eyes.

"Hey, calm down," the boy said. He licked his lips as he considered Tom's white b.u.t.ton-down s.h.i.+rt and white trousers.

Tom retreated several steps. "Why were you sneaking up on me?"

"Tell me you don't know," the boy said. "Sure. You don't know anything about it, do you?" He licked his lips again, and this time really scrutinized Tom's clothes.

"I don't have any idea of what you're talking about," Tom said. "All I want to do is go home."

"Uh-huh." The boy disbelievingly moved his chin rightwards, then back to center, executing half of a head-shake. His gaze s.h.i.+fted from Tom to a point behind him and to his left, and the impatient expression softened with relief. "Okay," he said.

Tom looked back over his shoulder and saw a teenage girl marching toward him from what seemed to be the source of the creature's sounds. Her black hair hung straight to her collarbone and swung as she walked, and she wore tight black pedal pushers and a black halter top, very dark black sungla.s.ses, and what looked like dance slippers. She was four or five years older than the boy. To Tom, she looked completely grown up. He saw that she did not care at all about her brother, and that she cared even less about him. She came toward them across the street on a diagonal line from the steps of the two-story brown and yellow house. A fat man with a stubbly brown crewcut leaned against one of the side windows in the little bay, his arms folded over the frame of the lower windowpane and his large fleshy face pressed against the upper pane.

The girl wore unusually dark lipstick, and had pushed her full, rounded lips together to form a pouty little nonsmiling smile. "Well, ho hum," she said. "And what are you gonna do now, Jerry Fairy?"

"Shut up," the boy said.

"Poor Jerry Fairy."

She was close enough now to examine Tom, and peered at him through the black sungla.s.ses as if he were gunk on a laboratory slide. "Well, is that what Eastern Sh.o.r.e Road boys look like?"

"Shut up, Robyn."

Robyn slid the sungla.s.ses down her nose and peered at Tom through amused dark eyes. For a second Tom thought she was going to stroke his cheek. Instead she pushed her gla.s.ses back up over her eyes. "What are you gonna do with him?"

"I don't know," said Jerry. don't know," said Jerry.

"Well, here comes the cavalry," said Robyn, smirking over her brother's shoulder. Jerry turned sideways, and Tom saw coming around the side of a native house a fat, angry-looking boy, with a striped T-s.h.i.+rt and stiff new jeans rolled up at least a foot, alongside another boy several inches shorter and almost skeletally thin. The second boy's s.h.i.+rt was so much too large for him that the shoulders fell halfway to his elbows and his neck swayed up out of the gaping collar. The smaller boy trotted beside the other, grinning widely. "They'll be a big help," Robyn said.

"More than you," said her brother.

"I wish you'd tell me what's going on," Tom said.