"I like cats," he said. "We never had our own pet cat, but they were always around. My mother was always feeding stray ones. My father didn't like them too much. He said all the milk bowls and cat food on the back steps used to attract every kind of animal for miles around. Stray dogs and racc.o.o.ns and skunks. And the squirrels! Oh, my Lord, he hated squirrels most of all. Rats with bushy tails, he used to call them. I forgot about that." He sighed and shook his head. "It's funny the things you forget."

They were coming off the highway now. It felt good just to be able to talk. About nothing, really, and yet something wonderful was happening. He felt so much looser and more open. He could be himself. He didn't have to watch every word the way he did with most people, especially back there with Delores. He kept trying to think of something clever to say. Jilly drove slower, maybe, like him, wanting the trip to last.

At the security gate she showed her Realtor's pa.s.s. Meadowville was an enormous complex with at least ten five-story buildings. She parked in the visitors' lot and left the motor running. The headlights shone onto a rock garden of white flowers. In the center a fountain dribbled water from a sculpted fish's gaping mouth.

"Gordon . . . Oh, I don't know what to say. You see, I didn't realize . . . I mean . . . well, I knew you'd been away for a long time, but Dennis never said why."

"Oh." He turned, forgetting to hold on to the seat belt. She gave a start as it snapped back. "I'm sorry. I thought you knew." He shifted his feet. His knees jammed into the dashboard.

"No, he just told me. Right before I picked you up, as a matter of fact." She touched her flushed cheek, then her throat.

"Well, I'm sorry." He took a deep breath. "I don't know what to say." Ahead, the wet stony gills seemed to pulsate in and out.

"I was telling him we could only see one, the empty one, because of how late it was, and I said how that's something I never do unless I really know the client, but of course with you being his brother and everything." She sighed.

"We don't have to go in. I understand."

Her mouth kept opening and closing, then she blurted, "He said it was a murder. A woman, the same age as me."

He nodded.

"He said it was an accident. That you were trying to keep her from seeing you, but the pillow smothered her."

He rubbed his eyes.

"I mean, how can that be an accident?" She shivered and folded her arms.

"I know," he said dully. The air had turned heavy, the moon paler.

"An accident's something you don't mean to do. But you broke into her house, right?"

"We didn't think anyone was home." It hurt to speak.

"And that's when she woke up?"

He nodded.

"Why didn't you run?"

He glanced at her beautiful face, then had to look away from such innocence. How many times had he asked himself that very question?

"Why didn't you just leave?"

He shook his head and had to close his eyes. Even with Jerry screaming at him to cover her face he had wanted to run, knew he should, could have still run and saved his life and hers, instead of grabbing the pillow next to hers, the one on which her husband's head would have, should have been but for her swollen ankle sprained earlier in the day so that she could not travel with him, so that when the intoxicated, giddy intruders blundered into her bedroom, she was lying there alone. Fresh for the kill, Fresh for the kill, the prosecutor had whispered to the jury. the prosecutor had whispered to the jury. Unable to move, Janine Walters and her unborn son lying there, waiting with only minutes left to live. Unable to move, Janine Walters and her unborn son lying there, waiting with only minutes left to live.

"It must be so awful to think someone's . . . I mean, it's like . . . like there you were and there she was . . . I don't know." She shivered again. "Dennis said it was the worst thing that ever happened to him. The whole family. He said after that everything changed."

Gordon's stomach rumbled with the ferment of cream and strawberries rising sourly into his throat. Dennis was right, he never should have come back. People did not know how to deal with such a thing. And why should they be expected to? It was an aberration so beyond the boundaries of normal life that at first even he had not been able to comprehend its enormity and impact. Though his own tearful confession had been derided, when he did run from her bedroom, crashing into tables, lamps, the telephone, and then stumbled down the dark stairs out into the soft night rain, he had known she was still alive. All he could do was sob as they ran through alleys and backyards while Jerry kept asking if she'd seen him. Was he sure she hadn't? What was it she kept saying? "Please don't," was all he'd heard. And then just grunting sounds. All he could do was sob as they ran through alleys and backyards while Jerry kept asking if she'd seen him. Was he sure she hadn't? What was it she kept saying? "Please don't," was all he'd heard. And then just grunting sounds.

"Is she dead? You think she's dead?" Jerry demanded, grabbing the back of his shirt to make him stop running.

"No!" he insisted. Of course not.

"But she wasn't moving. She was so still."

"Yes. But she was making sounds."

"What kind of sounds?"

"Moaning. Like soft moaning."

"Jesus Christ, then we gotta go back!"

"No!"

"We have to, you fat, stupid f.u.c.k!"

"No, I can't! I can't!" he kept panting as he ran, arriving home in time for the popcorn his mother had just made and insisted he share with them, huddled in the dark little living room, staring at the television, while his mother, father, and Dennis watched the Red Sox, hating himself, sickened by his cowardice for hurting the poor woman and then for not going back with Jerry to help her. Please be all right. Please, please, please be alive, he was still imploring batters, pitchers, umpires, and screaming fans, who all seemed to be leering at him, when the phone rang in the kitchen. It was for him, his mother said.

"She's dead," Jerry whispered.

"No!" he said so loudly that they all looked up at him.

"Shut up! n.o.body's gonna know we were even there-so shut up! Just shut the f.u.c.k up! About everything-you hear what I'm saying?"

Then his mother was next to him, demanding to know who that was, then, with a gasp, held up his hands to look at the gouges down both arms. It was the bushes, he said. The rosebushes had scratched him when he came through the side yard. She called in his father, who said his rosebushes could not have made cuts as deep as those, enunciating each word as if he knew there was evil among them and would not have his roses in any way tainted by it. Then he said it was a fight. He'd been in a fight. With who? A girl? Dennis jeered.

"And look!" his mother said. "You lost your ring, didn't you? His brand-new cla.s.s ring," she told his father, who had defied her by allowing Gordon to order the most expensive one.

"He'll get it back," his father said. "His name's inside. I told him to have it engraved and that way he'd always get it back."

The next morning a policeman was banging on the front door. Holding up a clear plastic bag, the officer asked if that was her son's ring.

"You found it! Thank you.Thank you so much," his mother said, joining the disembodied chorus, their voices chanting the warrant's directive of names, dates, places, his right as to what to say or not to say, to speak, to be represented by counsel of his choice, and if not, the court would provide one.

Jilly drove him home. They would see the condo another day in better light. That was fine. He didn't care about condos. All he cared about was not frightening her. She parked in front of his house. Across the street, two younger boys watched Jada Fossum reel out a yoyo then snap it back until it wobbled crazily on the taut string. Two dark figures stood in the porch shadows above her. A phone rang and one of the men paced back and forth as he talked on his cell phone.

"Gordon, wait," Jilly said as he started to open the door. "I'm sorry. I mean . . . I'm sorry."

"No, don't you be sorry."

"It was just such a shock. I mean, it was all so . . . like, new and fresh in my head, I didn't have time to get it all straight."

"No, I know." He tried to smile.

The purple Navigator was parked down the street. The two hooded men came down the porch steps. Polie said something to the boys and they ran away. Feaster put his arm around Jada's shoulder and whispered in her ear. She walked between the men to the SUV.

"Do you think it was, like, fate or something? I mean, what happened. The murder," she said, watching him.

"What do you mean?" he asked with a faint note of amazement. Fortley had been filled with fatalism's disciples, hapless victims of their victims.

"Well, like, there you were and there she was, and then all of a sudden everything just kind of came together. In such a horrible way. I believe in that," she added.

"What? That things aren't our fault?" he asked quietly. Suddenly she seemed so young.

"Well, yes. In a way. And now science is actually proving it. I mean, in a way it's all decided ahead of time, when you think of it. Who we are, what we become-it's all in the genes."

Stars, he had expected her to say, which meant we were no more than inconsequential fleas jumping through our preordained hoops in a meaningless cosmos. Hopeless, helpless, blameless.

"So in the end, there's only so much a person can do with whatever they've been given. And of course, that's really the thing, isn't it? I mean, doing your best, no matter what. No matter what happens or doesn't happen, or whatever you have or you don't have." She sighed. "I'm not putting this very well, but do you know what I mean?"

Her equation made him a born killer, genetically programmed and predisposed to murder, helplessly adrift in the tide of natural homicidal urges that could be incited by any random, intersecting force. If he knew nothing else, he knew that wasn't true.

"I'm not sure, but maybe. I think so," he answered slowly. She didn't realize the scope of what she'd said, but he was touched by her need to exonerate him.

As she drove off, the Navigator came down the street. In the backseat Jada rolled down the window. She smiled, waving wildly at Gordon.

CHAPTER 7.

Jada crouched by the toilet, squinting at the outlet. She finally unscrewed the wall plate with the steak knife. Mouse t.u.r.d and plaster grit spilled out with the crimped bills she pulled from the outlet box. Eighteen dollars, it was all she'd been able to find in her mother's jeans when she came back from Lowell or wherever the h.e.l.l her mother had ended up this time. Jada hated leaving her alone for too long, but there wasn't any food in the house.

The phone rang. She ran to get it before her mother woke up. Probably the guidance counselor again. Or Ronnie Feaster. Either way was trouble. She hadn't been to school all week. Her mother had had another fight with Ronnie. She owed him too much money as it was, so from now on she paid cash like everybody else, but she was too sick to hustle. She woke Jada up in the middle of the night, crying and saying she had to go someplace but she'd be right back. Three days later, she dragged home with black eyes and cuts all over her face. At first she hardly moved in the bed. Jada kept checking to see if she was still breathing. Today, though, her mother was waking up more. She kept telling Jada to call Ronnie. Jada lied and said she'd already left at least twenty messages for him.

Her mother groaned as Jada s.n.a.t.c.hed the ringing phone from the bed. She ran into the bathroom. If it was him, she'd say her mother still wasn't back. In a couple more days the worst would be over. She'd be clean again.

"h.e.l.lo," she answered in a low voice, hand cupped at the mouthpiece. "Yes, this is Marvella Fossum," she told the attendance secretary, who then asked why Jada was still absent. "It's the flu. She can't eat or get out of bed even, she's so weak." It was almost the truth. All she'd eaten today were pretzels and such lousy-tasting milk she'd had to hold her breath to drink it.

"That's a long time to be so sick," the attendance secretary said. "Has she seen a doctor?"

"Oh, yes, twice I brung her, as a matter of fact, and both times they said the same thing: a lotta liquid drinks and that she should sleep. A lotta sleep. Get it all outta her system," she added, on a roll now. She should be an actress, JumJum said once, and Marvella said, Yeah, but in what kind of movies with a mutt face like hers?

"Who's Jada's doctor? What's his name?"

She couldn't remember. She needed a name. "Gordon," she said, looking out the window. "Doctor Gordon."

Pages were turning. "Gordon . . . do you know his first name?"

"He just said Doctor."

"Well, where's his office, then?"

"Uh-maybe at the emergency room. That's where we went, her fever was so high."

There was a pause. "Jada! I know this is you."

"No, I told you, this is Jada's mom, Marvella," she said indignantly.

"Well, I guess I have no choice, then, but to send the attendance officer out."

"Fine," Jada said huffily, panicking the minute she hung up. She would tell him how her mother had the flu and was too sick to talk to anyone. Jada put on pajamas and spent the rest of the day waiting in front of the TV, but no one ever came. At three-thirty the moaning started up again. Jada went in and sat on the edge of the bed. Shivering, her mother lay curled in a tight ball. Had Ronnie called? She needed to get high. She'd die if she went much longer, she groaned. Her teeth were chattering. She smelled of sweat and stale urine.

"It'll be all right," Jada said softly. "Pretty soon it'll be over and you'll feel so good. Just like before, I know you will."

"f.u.c.k off. Just f.u.c.k off, will you?" She raised her head, then withered with the effort. "Get Ronnie. You gotta get him!" she begged.

"Okay, Ma, I know, I know. Just lay back and you'll feel better. I'm taking good care of you, Ma. I won't let anything happen to you."

Her mother sobbed, and she started to touch her arm, then drew back. Sometimes she'd be so flipped out, she'd think Jada was trying to hurt her. "It's okay," she whispered. "It's okay, Ma. Don't cry." She went into the bathroom and wet the end of a towel. "Here, Ma." She barely touched it to her mother's hand. "Maybe this'll make you feel better."

"Give me the phone," her mother cried, flinging away the towel. "I said give me the phone."

"Just try, Ma. One more day, that's all. You can do it. I know you can. Please! Will you just try?"

"Give me the G.o.dd.a.m.n phone! Give it to me, you ugly little b.i.t.c.h, you, or I'll leave! Is that what you want? You want me to leave? Cuz this time I'm not coming back. You hear me? You hear me?" she was still screaming when Jada ran in with the phone.

Hunched on one elbow, she tried to sit up. Her shaking hands kept hitting the wrong numbers. She gave Jada the phone and told her to do it. Her mother left a teary message, telling Ronnie how sorry she was and how she was so sick, she was afraid she was dying. "Please," she begged. "Please bring me something. A five-dollar rock. Pieces. Anything. Please, I'll do anything, I promise. Please, please, please."

Jada ran down the hill through the cold drizzle, hating everyone in every house and store she pa.s.sed for having a better life than hers, hating her mother, hating Ronnie, but most of all hating herself for doing this, for trying to find him when this was all his fault. After the last rehab, her mother had stayed clean almost four months, her longest yet. She had a job with a big cleaning service, and she started going out with JumJum again, which really got to Ronnie. n.o.body dared say it to his face now, but everyone thought Ronnie had set JumJum up just to get Marvella back. Not that Ronnie was the least bit nice to her once JumJum went away. That's the way Ronnie was. He had to be in charge, had to be the boss all the time of everyone.

Jada figured JumJum was probably her father. At least he was the most likely one. Her mother had been with him off and on since dropping out of high school her freshman year. Sometimes when Ronnie wasn't being such a vicious, mean a.s.shole, she imagined how it might be him. According to her mother, it could have been any one of four different guys. Or maybe it was was all four, she'd laugh, teasing Jada about her strange mix of features. all four, she'd laugh, teasing Jada about her strange mix of features.

The thin rain pressed her close by the storefronts. Her pace quickened when she saw two guys smoking outside the pool hall. One was that fat creep Polie Valens. He was Ronnie's cousin from the Bronx, so that made him the man. He said he didn't know where Ronnie was, but then n.o.body ever knew where anyone was. Especially Ronnie Feaster. Polie gestured, and the other guy went inside.

"Whachoo want him for?" Polie asked.

"Nothing. I just gotta give him something."

"Give itta me, then," he said, bringing his wide face closer to hers. "I'll make sure he gets it." He yanked her inside the doorway.

"I can't." She tried to pull back, but he held on to her arm.

"C'mere, kitty-kitty-kitty," he said through pursed lips. "That's whachoo remind me of." His huge body engulfed hers, pressing her against the plate gla.s.s. He smelled of b.u.t.ts and beer and musky cologne. The whites of his eyes were glazed and yellow, his nose and chin raw with zits.

"Don't! Don't! Don't do that." She whipped her head from side to side.

"Come on, come on, come on, just one time, one little kiss and that'll be it, I promise."

"No! Leave me alone!" She b.u.t.ted her head into his shoulder.

He laughed. "I got what she needs. That's why she keeps calling, right?"

"She didn't call you."