22

JAKE TURNED AWAY AND began to idle up the sidewalk ahead of the two boys. He reached into his breast pocket with a shaky hand, pulled out his father’s sunglasses, and managed to fumble them onto his face.

Voices swelled behind him, as if someone was gradually turning up the volume on a radio.

“You shouldn’t have ranked on her that bad, Henry. It was mean.”

“She loves it, Eddie.” Henry’s voice was complacent, worldly-wise. “When you get a little older, you’ll understand.”

“She was cryin.”

“Prob’ly got the rag on,” Henry said in a philosophical tone.

They were very close now. Jake shrank against the side of the building. His head was down, his hands stuffed deep into the pockets of his jeans. He didn’t know why it seemed so vitally important that he not be noticed, but it did. Henry didn’t matter, one way or the other, but-

The younger one, isn’t supposed to remember me, he thought. I don’t know why, exactly, but he’s not.

They passed him without so much as a glance, the one Henry had called Eddie walking on the outside, dribbling the basketball along the gutter.

“You gotta admit she looked funny,” Henry was saying. “Ole Be-Bop Maryanne, jumpin for her newspaper. Woof! Woof!”

Eddie looked up at his brother with an expression that wanted to be reproachful… and then he gave up and dissolved into laughter. Jake saw the unconditional love in that upturned face and guessed that Eddie would forgive a lot in his big brother before giving it up as a bad job.

“So are we going?” Eddie asked now. “You said we could. After school.”

“I said maybe. I dunno if I wanna walk all the way over there. Mom’ll be home, by now, too. Maybe we just oughtta forget it. Go upstairs and watch some tube.”

They were now ten feet ahead of Jake and pulling away.

“Ah, come on! You said!”

Beyond the building the two boys were currently passing was a chainlink fence with an open gate in it. Beyond it, Jake saw, was the playground of which he had dreamed last night… a version of it, anyway. It wasn’t surrounded by trees, and there was no odd subway kiosk with diagonal slashes of yellow and black across the front, but the cracked concrete was the same. So were the faded yellow foul lines.

“Well… maybe. I dunno.” Jake realized Henry was teasing again. Eddie didn’t, though; he was too anxious about wherever it was he wanted to go. “Let’s shoot some hoops while I think it over.”

He stole the ball from his younger brother, dribbled clumsily onto the playground, and went for a lay-up that hit high on the backboard and bounced back without even touching the rim of the hoop. Henry was good at stealing newspapers from teenage girls, Jake thought, but on the basketball court he sucked the big one.

Eddie walked in through the gate, unbuttoned his corduroy pants, and slipped them down. Beneath them were the faded madras shorts he had been wearing in Jake’s dream.

“Oh, is he wearing his shortie panties?” Henry said. “Ain’t they cuuute?” He waited until his brother balanced himself on one leg to pull off his cords, then flung the basketball at him. Eddie managed to bat it away, probably saving himself a bloody nose, but he lost his balance and fell clumsily to the concrete. He didn’t cut himself, but he could have done so, Jake saw; a great deal of broken glass glittered in the sun along the chainlink.

“Come on, Henry, quit it,” he said, but with no real reproach. Jake guessed I Henry had been pulling shit like this on him so long that Eddie only noticed it when Henry pulled it on someone else-someone like the blonde ticket-seller.

“Turn on, Henwy, twit it.”

Eddie got to his feet and trotted out onto the court. The ball had struck the chainlink fence and bounced back to Henry. Henry now tried to dribble past his younger brother. Eddie’s hand went out, lightning-quick but oddly delicate, and stole the ball. He easily ducked under Henry’s outstretched, flailing arm and went for the basket. Henry dogged him, frowning thunderously, but he might as well have been taking a nap. Eddie went up, knees bent, feet neatly cocked, and laid the ball in. Henry grabbed it and dribbled out to the stripe.

Shouldn’t have done that, Eddie, Jake thought. He was standing just beyond the place where the fence ended, watching the two boys. This seemed safe enough, at least for the moment. He was wearing his dad’s sunglasses, and the two boys were so involved in what they were doing that they wouldn’t have noticed if President Carter had strolled up to watch. Jake doubted if Henry knew who President Carter was, anyway.

He expected Henry to foul his brother, perhaps heavily, as a payback for the steal, but he had underestimated Eddie’s guile. Henry offered a head-fake that wouldn’t have fooled Jake’s mother, but Eddie appeared to fall for it. Henry broke past him and drove for the basket, gaily travelling the ball most of the way. Jake was quite sure Eddie could have caught him easily and stolen the ball again, but instead of doing so, the lad hung back. Henry laid it up-clumsily-and the ball bounced off the rim again. Eddie grabbed it… and then let it squirt through his fingers. Henry snatched it, turned, and put it through the netless hoop.

“One-up,” Henry panted. “Play to twelve?”

“Sure.”

Jake had seen enough. It would be close, but in the end Henry would win. Eddie would see to it. It would do more than save him from getting lumped up; it would put Henry in a good mood, making him more agreeable to whatever it was Eddie wanted to do.

Hey Moose-I think your little brother has been playing you like a violin for a long time now, and you don’t have the slightest idea, do you?

He drew back until the apartment building which stood at the north end of the court cut off his view of the Dean brothers, and their view of him. He leaned against the wall and listened to the thump of the ball on the court. Soon Henry was puffing like Charlie the Choo-Choo going up a steep hill. He would be a smoker, of course; guys like Henry were always smokers.

The game took almost ten minutes, and by the time Henry claimed victory, the street was filled up with other home-going kids. A few gave Jake curious glances as they passed by.

“Good game, Henry,” Eddie said.

“Not bad,” Henry panted. “You’re still falling for the old head-fake.”

Sure he is, Jake thought. I think he’ll go on falling for it until he’s gained about eighty pounds. Then you might get a surprise.

“I guess I am. Hey, Henry, can’t we please go look at the place?”

“Yeah, why not? Let’s do it.”

“All right!” Eddie yelled. There was the smacking sound of flesh on flesh; probably Eddie giving his brother a high-five. “Boss!”

“You go on up to the apartment. Tell Mom we’ll be in by four-thirty, quarter of five. But don’t say anything about The Mansion. She’d have a shit-fit. She thinks it’s haunted, too.”

“You want me to tell her we’re going over Dewey’s?”

Silence as Henry considered this. “Naw. She might call Mrs. Bunkowski. Tell her… tell her we’re goin down to Dahlie’s to get Hoodsie Rockets. She’ll believe that. Ask her for a coupla bucks, too.”

“She won’t give me any money. Not two days before payday.”

“Bullshit. You can get it out of her. Go on, now.”

“Okay.” But Jake didn’t hear Eddie moving. “Henry?”

“What?” Impatiently.

“Is The Mansion haunted, do you think?”

Jake sidled a little closer to the playground. He didn’t want to be noticed, but he strongly felt that he needed to hear this.

“Naw. There ain’t no real haunted houses-just in the fuckin movies.”

“Oh.” There was unmistakable relief in Eddie’s voice.

“But if there ever was one,” Henry resumed (perhaps he didn’t want his little brother feeling too relieved, Jake thought), “it’d be The Mansion. I heard that a couple of years ago, two kids from Norwood Street went in there to bump uglies and the cops found em with their throats cut and all the blood drained out of their bodies. But there wasn’t any blood on em or around em. Get it? The blood was all gone.”