I went upstairs, the gun bouncing against my ribs with every step. I'd left my apartment dark again. I started to wonder if I flat-out didn't like it better that way.

LATER THAT NIGHT, I sat out on the balcony watching the corner boys, my hands folded over the gun in my lap. I felt foolish carrying it around the apartment but didn't know what else to do with it, afraid it might somehow go off unless I kept close watch. And I kind of liked holding it.

Down on the corner, every few minutes a car slunk up to the curb, idling until a figure stepped out of the shadows. The figure leaned in long enough for the exchange, then rose up flashing whatever hand signs completed the deal. Once in a while a real hard-core fiend came staggering down the street, clutching a bum arm or a dead leg and flashing a gap-toothed grin like he was walking into his office Monday morning and heading for the coffeepot. The dealers took care not to get too close. The smell, I figured.

The junkies were all the same, men and women alike. The drunk back end of some zombie parade. They all had the same stagger, the same smile, the same hands. Crooked fingers of one hand holding out crumpled bills they couldn't surrender fast enough, twitchy fingers of the other hand curling around the invisible vials they longed to hold. It was like they'd rolled off some junkie assembly line: Cocaine Barbie and Heroin Ken, complete with Super Jonesing Junkie Grip. Everything from the Dream House hocked in an alley years ago.

The scene was nothing unprecedented; it happened every night. The only new part of the situation was my interest in it. What limb had gone numb for Danny? Did he smile that desperate, lying smile? How many people had backed away from his stink?

I couldn't let him go back. Ever.

The people I taught about at work: Washington, Jefferson, Hancock, and Hamilton, all the names everyone knows and all the ones lost to history, technically they were all criminals. Every one of them, from the signers of the Declaration to the grunts with rags for shoes, was hangable for treason. They knew the noose was waiting should they back down. So they did what they had to do, simple as that. And because they won, instead of getting the gallows, they went free, went on to new lives in a new nation.

Danny and I weren't looking to start a revolution, but if I had to become a temporary criminal so my brother could be a permanent ex-junkie, could live free from heroin and not die, I would find a way to survive the aftermath.

I turned away from the corner and stared into the Manhattan skyline, my damp fingers sliding over the cooling metal of the gun. What did I care about people getting high? So what if they bought the drugs on my corner. If it wasn't mine; it'd be another. Danny had found plenty. Had I the right to wish this dirty business on other blocks, other neighborhoods? There were plenty worse of both. My corner was pretty tame by comparison.

Who knew the answer? The whole deal had a chicken-or-the-egg quality to it that smarter, braver, and better-paid men than me and the cops in the patrol car had tried to puzzle through.

The dealers would sell anywhere, everywhere, and anything they could as long as the customers kept buying. And the customers lived loyal to the product until death and beyond. If one guy in the whole country was left selling, they'd sniff him out and line up from New York to the Mississippi.

I was on my way to bed when Maxie started barking. That hysterical bark that had one lone inspiration. The chains of his gate rattled and I heard the snickers of teenagers. I looked down at the gun in my hand. There were some things, however, that perhaps no longer needed to be tolerated.

Standing just inside the balcony doors, I raised the gun and squinted down the barrel, sighting on the back of the nearest boy's thigh. The other one kicked the gate again. Maxie went berserk. I lowered the gun. It was damn dark in that driveway and I had never fired a gun in my life.

Danny's instructions had been for close range.

I closed the door to my apartment building quietly behind me. My bare feet made no sound on the stoop or the steps. Like I'd seen in the movies, I carried the gun stiff-armed at my side, behind my right thigh. My heart raced and I felt as though I was sitting on my balcony, looking down on someone else who looked like me. What the hell was I doing? Darting across the street, gun in hand, in the middle of the night. Over a blind old dog that wasn't even mine. Doing something.

I stepped up onto the curb and into a cloud of marijuana smoke. I held my breath.

One boy crouched at the gate, crab walking from side to side in front of the small opening between the gate and the fence. Maxie's black nose and tan muzzle darted again and again into the space, long white teeth flashing. He threw himself at the fence then at the gate then at the fence again, his barking loud and close enough to hurt my ears. I focused on the second boy, the closer one. The laughing cheerleader.

I eased up behind him, slipping off the safety as I raised the gun. I pressed that black muzzle hard into the back of his head. It couldn't be this easy.

"Shut the fuck up and don't move," I said.

The boy stilled and raised his hands out to his sides. The other was too involved in torturing that poor dog to notice.

"Tell your buddy to do the same thing."

"You said shut up."

I kicked him hard in the back of the knee. It buckled and he stumbled backward, his skull leaning hard into the gun. My big toe screamed in pain and I really hoped I didn't have to kick him again.

"Do it," I said.

"Dawg, shut up and stand still."

Dawg turned around. "What the fuck?"

It took a minute to compute. When he understood the situation, he took a moment to think about it, factoring my white face into the equation. I cocked the hammer back, like Danny had shown me, to aid Dawg along in his thinking. It helped. Now he had to factor in his friend pissing his pants. Dawg raised his hands in the air.

"I could give a fuck what you do on that corner," I said, "but anyone ever bothers this dog again and you won't see it coming next time." I had no idea what I was saying but it felt good coming out. I'd made my point. "Now get the fuck out of here."

Dawg backed away across the lawn, his hands in the air. I tapped the gun against his friend's head. "Move out, motherfucker."

The friend started walking, his piss-stained legs wide apart.

"I'll remember your face, motherfucker," Dawg said.

"Good," I answered, hoping to God that he wouldn't. "You better."

I stayed in the driveway far too long, plenty long enough for someone to come racing around the corner and blow my head off. But I had to watch them walk away. I had to savor their defeat; I couldn't help it. I felt like Motherfucker of the Year. Don't tread on me, indeed. Or on my neighbor's dog.

I almost shot myself in the foot when the porch light came on. Old Lady Hanson leaned out her door.

"Next time, just shoot them and give me the gun," she said. "You think the cops are gonna look twice at an older-than-dirt white lady with two dead drug dealers on her front lawn? Get some sense, young man."

FIFTEEN.

THE NEXT DAY, WALKING INTO THE OFFICE AFTER MY ELEVEN o'clock class, I found Danny perched on the corner of Kelsey's desk. I froze, my hand on the open door, stunned into paralysis. Kelsey wiggled her fingers at me in a flirty wave, but quickly turned away. The murder in my heart must've been broadcast across my face. If Danny saw it, he didn't react.

"Should I leave?" I asked. "Am I interrupting something?"

Kelsey stood. "Excuse me?"

Danny raised his hand. "It's me Kevin's mad at." He laid his hand over his heart. "I'm early."

I finally unstuck myself from the doorway, flinging my bag onto my desk from across the room.

I followed it there and dropped hard into my chair. Kelsey sat back down. Danny didn't move.

"We're going to see Whitestone," Danny said.

"Together?" Kelsey asked.

"You wanna answer that, Danny?" I asked. "Since you seem to know everything."

I knew I shouldn't act so pissed off; there'd be no explaining my tantrum to Kelsey later. But I couldn't help myself, after all the shit he'd given me about bringing her into this-there he was sitting on her desk. The balls on this guy. Then again, I should've expected different?

"This is your office," Danny said. "I'll defer to your authority here."

I leaned forward in my chair, elbows on my knees, contemplating just how much damage to do.

Questions flashed across Kelsey's face. Why wasn't I thrilled to see my brother, the way I talked about him? Shouldn't they meet if she and I were going to be together? Kelsey looked like my mother had the other night when I told her about Danny's return. Everyone who spent five minutes in a room with us seemed to end up looking like that. Confused and frustrated.

Danny, on the other hand, stayed perfectly composed, eyebrows high on his head, looking for all the world as though he had no idea what the fuss was about, like a bemused and slightly bored owl. I burst out laughing. The fact that our situation was anything but funny only made me laugh harder. I covered my face with my hands until I could gain control of myself. I never could stay mad at my brother. Catching my breath, I slouched in my chair.

Now that I was relaxed the lies flowed forth without a second thought.

"The prison that let Danny out on work release?" I said. "It doesn't have an undergrad program that really turns him on. So he's thinking of enrolling here."

Except for the prison part, it was pretty much the same lie I'd prepared for Whitestone.

Kelsey looked up at Danny. He kept his eyes on mine.

"It's true," he said. "Who wants to major in soap-dropping?"

"With a minor in license plate making," I added.

"You guys are retarded," Kelsey said. "Like short-bus, helmet-wearing retarded."

"Seriously though," I said, "Danny is thinking about getting his degree."

"The history of psychology," Danny said. "Asylums and hospitals and things like that. Kevin said Whitestone will help me get started." He cracked his knuckles. "And maybe help get me admitted. My previous academic record is spotty, to say the least." He smiled. "As a younger man I was big into chemistry."

Kelsey stared at me, more questions simmering on her lips. I knew what they were. Since when did Kevin Curran, one hundred and fifty pounds of departmental deadweight, have any sway with Whitestone? And if he really had it, where did he get it? From Danny's checkbook? Who was I really trying to fool? Whitestone, Danny, or her? But Kelsey had mercy. She didn't say a word. She bent over and pulled a brown bag from her knapsack.

"Sorry, fellas," she said, standing, "I didn't bring enough for three."

Danny hopped down off the desk. "This meeting won't last long. Save that for tomorrow. I'll take us out for lunch."

"Can't," Kelsey said, brown bag swinging at her hip.

She walked to the door and pulled it open. Instead of walking out, she turned to us. I sensed something in the way she looked at Danny and me, something in the way she wrinkled her nose at us. We weren't two separate men to her. For the moment at least we were a single unit. And she wasn't sure she liked it.

"I have class in forty minutes," she said. "And so do you, Kevin." She rolled her eyes toward the ceiling, pumping one leg, clearly deciding if she had any more to say. She did. "Danny, I know you've been gone a long time, but were you really in prison?"

Danny turned and hunched over, pointing at me. "This man? This man right here? He has his whole life been an unrepentant liar."

"I have not," I said.

"A-HA!" Danny yelled. "Caught you again."

Kelsey's nose wrinkled a little more. She looked us up and down, Danny still locked in his finger-pointing crouch. "So this is the Curran Brothers?" she asked.

"Aye, lass," Danny said.

I lifted my palms, as if to show there was nothing up my sleeve. "In their unrepentant glory."

"The act needs some work, fellas," Kelsey said. "Seriously." She walked out the door, the lock clicking into place behind her.

"If she only knew," Danny said. He raised his thumb, turning his pointer into a gun.

"You, motherfucker," I said, "are gonna ruin my life."

"If it wasn't for me, motherfucker," Danny said, "you wouldn't have a life to ruin."

WE HAD TO CLIMB five flights of stairs to Whitestone's office. No elevator for us. Cameras in every one, Danny said. All the way up, he sang an old Doors tune, ignoring my repeated snapping at him to shut up.

"I'm a spy/In the house of love," Danny sang, poorly, while smoking a cigarette. "I'm a spy/For the Maf-i-a."

I covered his hand with my own when he reached for the doorknob at Whitestone's floor.

"Can't you play this a little cooler?" I asked. "Some of us here aren't experts at this. I'm the one that works here. Shouldn't I go first?" I looked him in the eyes. "Are you high?"

"Define cool," Danny said. "And high."

I growled at him through clenched teeth.

"C'mon, lighten up," Danny said, rubbing out his cigarette on the wall, leaving ugly black streaks of ash. "Just high on life, but thanks for asking. This is the fun part; I'm enjoying myself.

You should be, too. No bodies, no guns. No creeping around in the night, no Drakkar." He bumped me away from the door. "Admit it, there's a rush in your veins right now that you don't get spouting off about the Constitution for the thousandth time. Relax, Teach. Enjoy the ride.

Some excitement, a little adrenaline. It's one of the job's better perks." He pulled the door open.

"I got this."

Whitestone's secretary spotted Danny first, our emergence from the stairwell surprising her. Her head rose high on her goose neck, her arm rose into the air. She snapped her fingers for my brother's attention. "Excuse me, sir. Can I help you?"

I peeked around Danny's back. "Hey, Lucille. This is my brother, Danny. We're looking for Dean Whitestone."

"Oh, it's you," she said. Her arm came down. "He said you might be coming up."

"Yeah, I left a note in his mailbox this morning."

Lucille smiled a cold, mean smile. "I told him I'd believe it when I saw it."

"Believe it, sister," Danny said. "It's the man himself, Sir Kevin Curran, intellectual acrobat, resident genius, Grand Pooh-bah of American History. Ask him anything about the Constitution.

ANYTHING! "

"There's no smoking anywhere inside a campus building," Lucille said. She turned back to her computer.

Danny dashed to my side when he saw me ready to knock on the door.

"One second," he whispered, digging into his jacket pocket.

He pulled out his keys, gripping what looked like a laser pointer between his thumb and forefinger. A red beam of light passed over the door handle. "Digital impression," Danny whispered. "Got it on eBay. You take the lead here."

I hesitated, afraid of what I was about to unleash.