“Only if you promise to do the same.”

Markham smiled.

“I promise.”

“Okay. I promise, too.”

Then Cathy did something she had never done before in her life: unsolicited and of her own accord, she leaned over and kissed a man on the cheek.

“Thank you, Sam,” she said, and was gone.

Only when she was safe inside the Polks’ kitchen, only when Janet asked her how her day had gone, did Cathy realize what she had done. And just as the shy art history professor began to giggle, back on the road Markham checked his face in the rearview mirror.

He was still blushing.

Chapter 21

“Shake off your slumber, O son of God.”

Why is Papa speaking English?

The seventeen-year-old runaway from Virginia Beach smiled-happy to be home again. But for some reason his bed was cold and hard this morning, and he could feel his heart pounding in his back and in his side against-

The bus station floor. I fell asleep again at the bus station.

Paul Jimenez cracked his eyes-a bright ball of light stinging them to slits.

No, he thought. Something else. I can’t wake up.

“Bad shit,” he heard himself whisper. “Eliot, you motherfuck-”

But then Paul Jimenez remembered that he didn’t talk to Eliot anymore-had not even seen him in over six months, ever since the pigs picked him up for stealing those checks. And Paul never used that shit like Eliot did-never used that shit at all anymore. He had been lucky with that, had been warned about that shit almost a year ago on his first day in town by the guy he met at the Boston Public Library; the guy who smiled a big gold-tooth smile when Paul said he was clean; the guy who told him about the big bucks a kid like Paul could make on Arlington Street as long as he stayed clean.

“You start taking that shit, though,” the guy had said, “and you’re done, son. Hawks ain’t gonna drop that kinda coin for a junkie. Fresh and clean. Remember that.”

Paul’s eyes fluttered wide, and amidst a bright white haze the young man suddenly understood that he was not on the bus station floor; he was not even on the floor at Brian’s-that cold hardwood floor on which he had been crashing with his friends for the last couple of months, and on which a roach tried to crawl in his ear. But he was lying down-yes, could feel something steel-hard on his back and buttocks. And he was groggy, felt like he couldn’t move-had to be doped up on something. Yet at the same time he felt his veins pumping with energy, with the light above him, with the heart pounding beat of-

Music? Somebody slip me shit at the club? Some bathroom floor in Chinatown?

For a moment Paul thought he could see the dance floor, the lights flashing on the college boys-some looking for it for free, some looking to make some extra money to get their Abercrombie & Fitch fix. All the same.

Roofie motherfuckers.

“That’s it,” said the man’s voice-a voice that Paul recognized from someplace. “Come forth from the stone.”

Paul tried to speak, but his throat hurt-felt like he had swallowed a glass full of needles. Then he felt a dull prick, a tug on his forearm. His heart was racing-even more so than when he confessed to Papa that he liked boys; even more so than when Papa shut him in the hotel room with that prostitute hoping that he would come out a man; even more so than when Papa drove him to the Greyhound station, bought him a bus ticket to Boston, and told him never to come home again. But this was a different kind of heartbeat-harder, more painful-a heartbeat that he could feel all the way down to his fingers and toes, the tips of which felt like they wanted to pop.

“Where am I?” Paul asked, his voice cracking. The edges of the light before him solidified into a white rectangle-

Must be the Strand, he thought-the shit-bag movie theatre where, as “Jim,” he used to meet his clients in the back row for a quick swallow or no swallow-ten percent of either going to the theatre manager, of course. But that was before he started using the computer at the library; that was before he set himself up in business online-where the real money was. Yeah, he still worked Arlington Street sometimes, but only in a pinch; only when-

No, Paul thought. It ain’t the Strand-screen was too sharp, too close to his face in the darkness. And then Paul’s senses, Paul’s memory came back to him in one big rush-the images in his beating blood filling his brain like water in a balloon.

The man in the car. The big man in the suit. Chris. Was going well. Was buying Jim’s innocent act. Then he spit at me-no, pinched me in the neck; smiled at me when I-

Instinctively Paul tried to sit up, tried to separate himself from the cold steel behind him-but his head would not move, would not even turn from side to side. And he felt something on his shoulders-hairy and itchy. Paul tried to lift his hands, but his wrists were tied down; and although he could not see his chest, his thighs, or his ankles, he understood all at once that the man named Chris had strapped him down to a table.

Naked.

It’s finally happened, Paul thought, his mind scrambling for what to do. I finally got myself in with a loco.

Sure, during his year on the streets of Boston, Paul had run into his share of freaks-had even let a hawk dress “Jim” up in a diaper once and whip him with a belt. Probably should have gone to the hospital after that one, but the money from that gig was so good he was able to rest up at Brian’s for a couple of weeks before going back to work. But now something was really wrong. He had been slipped something-could feel it in his chest, in his hands and feet, pumping hard, pumping painfully.

He had to think. Fast.

“I’ll roll which-you, lover,” he said as Jim. “But you gotta tell me what’s what first. Turn on the lights so I can see you, baby.” Paul’s voice felt sharp, clear, but seemed to disappear in front of him-sucked up dead into the darkness. Then suddenly the screen above him flickered into life.

The image floating before Paul’s eyes was that of a statue-dirty white marble against the darkness, floating just inches from his face. Paul recognized it immediately. It was the Jesus and Mary statue from atop his mother’s dresser; the small white figurine that she’d had since before he was born-the one he was never allowed to touch; the one she used to look at when she’d say her rosaries.

The Pietà, Paul said to himself. That’s what she used to call it. The Pietà.

Yes, there was Mary, draped in her flowing robes and staring down at the crucified Jesus in her arms-the very same version of Jesus that Paul had stared at so many times when his parents were out working. The memories came flooding back to him at once: the strange excitement at first; then, when he was older, the guilt he felt upon looking at Jesus’ body-a virtually naked body that even by the age of six had already begun to cause a strange stirring in his Toughskins.

“I gotch-you,” said Paul, said Jim. “This is what you’re into, it’s cool. But let’s talk business first so we can enjoy ourselves. Okay, lover?”

“Ssh,” said the voice again. “Look at the screen, O son of God.”

Paul knew it was Chris-the guy from the car, the guy from the Internet. Paul could feel himself beginning to panic-his mind racing in time with his heart. He had to stay calm, had to think clearly, had to fight the shit this prick had slipped him. Then suddenly the image of the statue shifted, and began closing in on the face of Jesus.

“That’s it,” said Chris from the darkness, from somewhere off to Paul’s right. “Shake off your slumber, O son of God.”

As did Tommy Campbell on the mortician’s table three months earlier, Paul tried to turn his head, tried to find the owner of the voice, but could see nothing except the image of the statue before him, which now had settled on a close-up of Jesus’ face. It was just as Paul remembered it, but better-much more detailed than the cheap souvenir copy that had been his mother’s. A face that was serene, at peace with death. A face that, even in his panic, Paul could not help but find simply beautiful.