“Come on, get off the street.”

He stood for a minute, thinking it wasn’t a great idea, then fi-nally walked back in. The yardbird was in a seat watching a Phillies game, a green bottle clenched in his fist as if he expected somebody to make a grab for it. There were more toys around, which Ray tried to see as a good sign. Though he knew better. The house stank of mold and stale beer and cigarette smoke.

The woman smiled at him and nodded, like a helpful clerk in a pharmacy. “What you need, doll?”

“I’ll take what you got. Black tar, china, what ever.”

“Okay, hon. How much?”

“A gram, two.”

“You make small talk with Heston. I’ll be right back.”

The man, Heston, looked over his shoulder at him, then back at the TV. “You get your shit and keep moving, got it?” On the walls Ray saw swords, throwing stars, and pictures that looked like they had been cut out of magazines of women tied with ropes. Somewhere a baby started crying. Heston moved in his chair and turned up the sound on the game with a remote. Ray saw that what looked like a heap of wool blankets on a couch was a young obese woman with a black eye and a fixed stare. The noise from the baby was a resonant whine that pried at Ray’s head like somebody was trying to get it open with a screwdriver. Heston banged on the arm of his chair.

“Goddammit, Rina.”

The woman came back in carrying the baby, a wet rag of a kid with brown stains on its jumper, its face contorted in a now silent howl. Ray dug at his jeans and pulled money out, his body jerking with the need to get out and on the road. He saw Heston turn and throw the remote hard at the woman on the couch. She made no move to block the throw, and the remote hit her in the temple with a hard clatter.

The woman with the baby scooted Ray outside with her body, his hand with the money still extended. Her eyes were wild and full of something Ray couldn’t imagine, fear or hate or something, so amped that it became something else, a wounded animal vulnerability leaking out of her eyes.

She held the baby out to him. “Take her.”

“What? Do what?”

“Take this baby. You got to.”

“Lady, what? I’m, uh, I use dope. I can’t’”

“Take this baby and get her away from here. Give her away, do something. He don’t let me out of his sight, and she’s going to end up dead or in the hospital. Mister, these people are crazy.”

Ray held his hands up and shook his head. “I don’t understand.” The woman shrieked and shook, and he retreated another step, waving the money like a flag of surrender.

The woman hit herself on the forehead with an open palm. “Oh, for Christ’s sake, won’t nobody help me?” She turned the baby to stare into its startled eyes and it was silent, and for a long and terrible moment Ray thought she was going to throw it away from her onto the walk. Finally she lowered the child back to her chest, where it folded itself against her. She turned away, her eyes unfocused, and slowly moved back inside and shut the door.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

RAY DROVE AWAY and got lost in Fairless Hills in the new dark, the endless developments leading one to the other, and he kept making aimless turns to try to find Route 1. He thought about the woman and the baby, and his heart knocked in his chest. He felt a hot hand on his neck, his conscience working on him in some way he couldn’t understand. He couldn’t take the baby. It couldn’t be wrong to turn the woman down, but he did get a flash of himself as he often did, heading west on the turnpike, the dying sun filling his windshield and maps of the western states fanned out on the seat. Only this time there was a bundle beside him on the seat and he wasn’t alone, and couldn’t there be something good in that?

When he was back heading north, the moon was just beginning to show. His cell rang, and he picked it up.

“Raymond?”

“Hey, Ma.”

“I’m home.”

“Good, did you have fun?”

Theresa’s voice got quiet. “You sound tired.”

His eyes clouded over, and his breath hitched in his chest like it was caught on the bones of his ribs. “I am, Ma. I’m so tired.”

“Why are you out?”

“I was just, I don’t know.”

“Come home. Come on home for a night and just rest, hon.”

“I want to.”

“Ray, I have to tell you something.”

“What? Is something wrong?”

“No. No, nothing’s wrong. Your father’s here.”

Ray didn’t know what to say. The rage he had felt for so long was as burned out of him as everything else.

“He’s sick, Ray, and he’s just lying down. He wants to see you.”

“Yeah.”

“You know he’s going to be gone soon.”

“Yeah.”

“Listen, just come over and have a meal with me and you can sleep in your room. He’s all doped up anyway, and you don’t have to see him until you want to.”

“I, uh. I don’t know.”

“You don’t have to see him if you don’t want to.”

“I’ll see.”

“Okay, hon. I love you. He loves you, too.”

“Don’t. Don’t say that.”

“Okay.”

HE STOPPED AT a CVS on Old York Road and bought himself a toothbrush and toothpaste and a bottle of seltzer, and he brushed his teeth sitting half out of his car in the lot behind the store. He spat and swigged from the bottle and threw it back onto the seat and got out to throw away the toothbrush. He stood for a minute, looking at the traffic going by on York and rattling the change in his pocket, and finally went back into the store and bought a box of candy and a tiny spray of flowers and threw them onto the seat. The clerk was a young girl, maybe Spanish, and her skin was caramel colored and smooth. Ray smiled at her when she gave him his change, and she smiled, too.

When he finally pulled up to the house it was full dark, and for the first time since the spring he could feel the slightest cooling when he got out. Ray did math in his head, trying to remember the date. He got out and started to close the door but then remembered and reached back in for the flowers and candy. He wanted a cigarette for the first time in a while. He stood and looked at the house and listened to the motor on the Honda ticking and heard dogs barking up the street and then Shermie started up inside. The sky was full of stars and roaming clouds and the blinking lights of airplanes. Ray walked up the sidewalk. The cell he had left in the car began to ring again and he turned to see if it would keep ringing and should he get it or just let it go and a shape unfolded itself from the dark yew at the border of the yard and stepped into Ray and stuck a knife in him and he went down.

FROM A DISTANCE it must have looked like they were in an embrace. Old friends finally meeting. The man leaning into him and Ray clutching at the moving arms. Ray made a sound, something like a scream, and then he couldn’t catch his breath. He had a flash of the face, the goatee and long hair, and he knew it was the guy from the midnight blue Charger, and the guy was saying something but Ray couldn’t make it out. It wasn’t important. Ray had heard it all before, about how he had it coming and that he needed to pay, and he had heard it and he had said it even about himself and now it was prophecy coming to pass.

The pain was like a note so high it passed out of hearing. The only thing that hurt after the first seconds was his left leg, though that didn’t make sense. The guy must be swinging wild with that knife, he thought. He heard Shermie, louder now, and the door opened and there he was, the old dog moving faster than Ray had ever seen before. Shermie tore into the guy and Ray wanted to laugh but he couldn’t make sounds anymore and then there was Theresa and she began to scream and stuck her hand into her mouth and there was more he couldn’t follow, but the guy stopped to look at her. Scott, that was his name, he wanted to say it. They were both looking back at the door, at Theresa, and Ray wanted to tell her to go back inside, to get away, and the young guy had hold of Ray’s shirt with one hand and when he turned he turned Ray, too, and he saw Theresa take a step back and say something about the police and then look back into the house.