--Ese.

Ramon sticks out his tongue.

--Got some water?

--Hang on.

He heads for the kitchen.

Ramon pokes his leg, watches blood leak out of the hole. He picks up the blood crusted pencil from his lap and looks at Geezer.

--Yo, boss, want your pencil back?

[image]

Paul looks better.

Without those torn up jeans and that bat eater's heavy metal T shirt, he looks much better. He looks almost like a boy again. Like he did when he'd run around in his shorts all the time. Always barefoot. Never wanting to put on a shirt. Used to be so much trouble getting him properly dressed for dinner someplace out.

Kyle Cheney sits on the floor, leans his back against the front of the couch, and puts his son's head back in his lap.

Paul coughs and gags, but he doesn't throw up again.

Kyle pats his cheek.

--See, it's getting better, isn't it? I can tell. I can always tell when your migraines are getting better because you stop throwing up. Soon, you're going to be thirsty and then hungry. That's how it's always been. Now we know, know we can get through it, know it will pa.s.s. But when they first started, I was so scared. And in fairness to your mother, she was scared, too. You know it's hard for me to talk about her at all, let alone to say something nice, but it is true. She was scared. You crawled under your bed and wouldn't come out, and when I touched you, you screamed. And then when you started throwing up, we didn't know what to do. When we moved your bed so we could get to you, I thought you would try and run away. Your mother wrapped you in a blanket and I drove to the hospital. It took forever to get a doctor. And months before they could say what was wrong. I thought the worst, of course. That's your father for you, thinking the worst. I thought a brain tumor. I thought I was going to lose my son forever. Migraines were a relief. And I know that's not what you want to hear, but considering what I thought it was, migraines were a relief. Coming out of nowhere like that, never a sign until you were almost eight. And every one was a major event at first. Getting you into your bed, drawing the curtains, getting a towel and a bowl of ice water. Keeping the house as quiet as possible. Your mother, well, fair is fair and this is the truth too, she couldn't keep at it for long. Help to get you into bed and then go somewhere else when she got tired of helping. Not that I minded. It was nice to have time alone. Have you all to myself.

He checks the cords around his son's wrists and ankles, making sure they're snug.

--Those still OK? Sorry. I know it's not what you want to hear, but you would have hurt yourself, running around while having a migraine. You would have run into a wall or into the street and gotten hurt. You're safe this way. I'll keep you safe as long as I can. I know, I know I can't forever, but now, now that we're together, now that I have you to myself again, I'll keep you safe as long as I can. Because, Paul, this is not what you want to hear, but, Paul, people wouldn't understand. These drugs, these drugs you hid, people wouldn't understand that boys can get confused. If they don't have guidance, they can get confused. And I can't, well, if this is the kind of thing you get into when I'm not around to keep an eye on you, well, then, we'll have to handle things differently from now on. And, you are not going to like this, I know, but if a little less freedom is what it takes to keep you safe, then so be it.

Mr. Cheney reaches inside his open bathrobe and scratches his stomach and looks at his son's sweaty face.

--You know what you need? A haircut. A real haircut. Not a trim. A good old fashioned haircut like you used to have.

He finds the scissors he used to cut the cord.

--A good old fashioned haircut like the ones you had when you were a little boy.

At first he thinks it's an earthquake.

When he's grabbed by his hair and the fabric of his robe and pulled from under his son and thrown across the room, he thinks it must be an earthquake. The biggest he's ever been in, much bigger than the 7.0 that hit a few years back. Maybe it's the Big One, finally come to tear California in half.

It's only after Bob Whelan has crossed the room and picked him up and thrown him again that he realizes how much worse it is.

Whelan lifts him by his armpits, shaking him.

--Where are my boys? G.o.dd.a.m.n you, you sick sonofab.i.t.c.h! You're not doing this! You don't do this! No one does this!

Slamming him against the wall with every word.

--Where! Are! My! Boys!

[image]

Forcing the back door of the house, all he could think was what a B&E bust would mean for him. For his family. It's been years since his last bust, years since clearing probation, but the stories would come back, stuff George and Andy would be bound to hear about. The stories he's kept them from hearing, about what kind of man he is. They'd never listen to him again. His c.r.a.p about responsibility and hard work, they'd never listen again.

Then he stepped into the house and closed the door behind him and started for the livingroom where he could hear the sound of The Price Is Right on the TV.

Seeing the body face down in blood, seeing the b.l.o.o.d.y shards of gla.s.s, he'd almost screamed. In the darkness it could have been anyone. But it's not George or Andy. It's a Mexican guy. One of those Arroyo boys. Knocked out and bleeding.

And then a voice from the livingroom, too soft, almost lost in sound of the TV.

And he remembers watching Helter Skelter a few weeks ago with George and Andy. They showed it in two parts on KTVU because it was so long. He and George liked it. Andy had nightmares.

He remembers that Charles Manson is in prison in Vacaville, just a few hours away. They say he's always trying to escape. He sees in his head words written in his sons' blood scrawled across the livingroom walls. Crazed junkie murderers in an orgy in the livingroom. Those hippie friends Paul's mom had around all the time.

And he has to shake his head to get the craziness out.

And coming out of the hallway, and walking past the dining room table covered in the uncorrected papers of Kyle Cheney's students, and standing behind the couch and looking down at his neighbor cradling his bound and naked teenage son, he realizes there are things nearly as bad.

[image]

--What's that you got, boss?

--Keep your seat, Ramon.

--Keep my seat? Boss, you tell me how to do anything else I'll do it. Keep my seat. You hear that, ese, telling me to keep my seat? Know what it feels like, my leg?

--Just stay on the couch.

--My leg feels like nothing. No lie, ese, like nothing. Felt like all kinds of something when boss put the pencil in it. Feels like nothing now. What you think that mean, ese?

Fernando gives him the water gla.s.s.

--I don't know, bro.

--Can't be good, is what I think.

Geezer waves the derringer again.

--Fernando, just stay over there.

--Givin' him some water.

--He has it, you go over there.

--Want me to look for the kid?

--Just sit over there.

Fernando goes and sits on an upended orange crate with several broken slats. The old dry wood creaks.

Ramon empties the gla.s.s in one long swallow.

--Otro vez, bartender.

Fernando starts to rise.

Geezer shakes his head.

--No. No more water.

Ramon tilts back his head, opens his mouth wide and shakes a last few drops from the gla.s.s onto his tongue.

--Ahhhhh. No problem, boss, that took care of it.

He rubs the gla.s.s against his forehead.

--It hot in here?

Geezer scratches his a.s.s.

--Yeah, it's hot in here. Didn't think a beaner noticed the heat.

Ramon smiles.

--Sure, sure we do. We feel the heat. Know what you do about the heat? Got to dress light. All that sweat on you. That's cuz you're wearing a sweat suit. Sweat suit means sweat, boss.

--f.u.c.k you. I'm wearing a sweat suit because I have some proper AC in my place. In my place a man could freeze without a sweat suit. I didn't bother changing into my tropical suit because I thought this place would be further along. I thought it'd be cool at least.

Fernando shrugs.

--Hey, man, you said get another lab set up. You didn't say it had to be climate controlled or some s.h.i.t.

--f.u.c.k sake, 'Nando, I say keep it like a swamp? Come over here, I didn't figure I should be wearing my...word? The hats, but not called a hat, the ones explorers wear in movies. Like Livingstone? No, wait, I got it! Pith helmet. Didn't think I needed a pith helmet to come over here.

Ramon taps the pencil against the side of the gla.s.s.

--Boss?

--What?

--Never answered my question.

--What?

--What you got there?

--It's a gun.

--Yeah, no s.h.i.t?

--No s.h.i.t.

--Why you waving it all around at us? We're your people. Employees. Got us out on bond. Things gone sour while I was asleep?

Fernando points at the blood and bone on the wall.

--He killed Loller.

--The biker security guard guy?

--Yeah.

--Maaaan, that's too bad. He was alright.

He looks at Geezer.

--Why you do something like that, boss?

Geezer taps the grabber against his leg.

--Because he f.u.c.ked with my s.h.i.t.

Ramon nods.

--Yeah, man, I see that. But, hey, bro?

--Yeah?

--You saw him shoot the guy?

--Yeah.

--Whelan and Hector saw?

--Yeah.

Ramon holds out his arms.

--s.h.i.t, ese, you all are like witnesses to murder one. Know what they say in the joint about when you kill someone?

--No.

--Say, no witnesses, ever.

He raises an eyebrow at Geezer.