"Swallow," Blackburn said again.

Leo swallowed, and Blackburn gave him more.

"Goood boy," Blackburn said. "Make-ums alll better."

Leo threw up after the first quart and lay in the puddle, his arms and legs working feebly. Blackburn stood up and poked around the stockroom for an oil can spout. He had spilled too much pouring free.

He found a spout and came back to Leo, who was crawling toward the swinging doors. Blackburn turned him onto his back again, sat on him, and plunged the spout into another quart. He put the spout to Leo's lips, but found that Leo's teeth were clamped together.

"It's for your own good," Blackburn said. "You're not at all well."

Leo shook his head.

"Come on," Blackburn said. "Open up for the good medicine."

Leo kept shaking his head.

"Open up," Blackburn said, "or I'll shove the spout through your teeth."

Leo relented. Blackburn finished that quart and started another. And then another. Leo threw up three more times. Blackburn had to jump out of the way. It took awhile before it was over.

Blackburn wrote a note on the back of the IOU to leave with Leo, then headed for the door to the loading dock. He paused there and looked back. The green-and-white cans gleamed in the slime on the floor.

"Hope you're feeling better," Blackburn said, and went out.

The police found the note in Leo's pocket. It read:

Dear Lorraine. I am no good, as well you may have imagined. I have been jealous because you are smart and I am stupid as a stump. I have no hemlock and don't even know what hemlock is anyway on account of I am so damn dumb, so will make do with motor oil. Goodbye. Leo.

The Oklahoma County Coroner ruled it a suicide.

No one was home at the house beside the Nazarene church. Jimmy knocked again to be sure, then sat on the porch step to wait. It was his seventeenth birthday. He had time. Wantoda was green and quiet, and the air smelled of new grass. The 4 SALE sign in the window of the black Ford Falcon had an exclamation point. Mr. Dunbar would be home soon, and Jimmy would get a good deal. The six-hundred-dollar wad of cash in his jeans pocket was most of the money he had earned working after school at the turnpike Stuckey's. He would spend no more than four hundred on the Falcon. It had been sitting in the Dunbars' yard for weeks. Jimmy had the afternoon off from Stuckey's because Ernie was sick with asthma and couldn't give him a ride. Jimmy had wanted to take the time off anyway, it being his birthday. The car would be his present to himself. It was a safe bet that it would be the only present he got. Dad had been laid off from the machine shop again, so Mom didn't have money to spend on things like birthdays. And Jasmine wouldn't even speak to him without shrieking, much less give him a present. Mom might manage to throw a cake together, but that would be it.

It was enough. He didn't want anything else. He was seventeen. He wanted to be responsible for himself, to be in control. He wanted to buy a car. He wanted to buy a car and drive all over Tuttle County before dark. He wanted to stay away from home until his family wondered where he was.

Besides, he needed the car. He had a date for the Junior-Senior Prom on Saturday. Mary Carol Hauser had said yes just this morning. Jimmy knew that she had put off her answer in hope of a better offer, but he didn't mind. He liked Mary Carol. She was smart and foul-mouthed, with green eyes and swollen lips. It was imperative that he buy the Falcon this afternoon so he would have a chance to clean it before Saturday.

Jimmy heard a car approaching. He stood, hoping it was Mr. Dunbar. Then the blue Blazer emerged from the shadows of the trees that overhung the street, and Jimmy sat back down. The Blazer was Officer Johnston's new cop car. It was a four-wheel-drive enclosed truck with a siren, red-white-and-blue roof lights, knobby tires, a public-address system, a searchlight, a shotgun, and black windows all the way around. Just why the town had bought it was a mystery. In eleven years, Johnston had never done any police work beyond setting speed traps and harassing parked teenagers. He sure didn't need a brand-new truck for that.

The Blazer slowed. The driver's-side window slid down, and Officer Johnston leaned out. He was wearing mirrored sunglasses. His veined nose seemed to throb. A burning cigarette hung from his lower lip.

"Who's that on the porch?" Johnston demanded. The Blazer came to a stop at the mouth of the Dunbars' driveway.

Jimmy stood. "Jimmy Blackburn, sir."

Johnston frowned. "Oh, yeah. Mr. Firecracker." Three years ago he had hauled Jimmy, Ernie, and two other boys to City Hall for throwing firecrackers into trash cans. "What you doin' on the Dunbars' porch?"

Jimmy nodded at the Falcon. "I'm going to buy that car, sir, but nobody's home yet."

"Uh-huh." Johnston took the cigarette from his mouth and spat. "I get any complaints from Mr. Dunbar, I'll know who to look up."

"Don't worry, sir."

"I ain't the one needs advice, Mr. Firecracker," Johnston said. "You watch yourself." The tinted window slid up, and the Blazer moved on.

"Asshole," Jimmy muttered. He was careful not to let his lips move. Johnston was known to keep an eye on people in his rearview mirror and come back if they cussed him.

When the Blazer was gone, Jimmy gazed at the Falcon and imagined himself in the front seat with Mary Carol snuggled up beside him. He doubted that she was much of a snuggler, but he could imagine it. He could imagine almost anything.

A squirrel appeared on the Falcon's roof. It seemed to have materialized from the air. Its tail fluffed, and it deposited a brown pellet on the black paint.

"Hey!" Jimmy yelled. "Not on the car!"

The squirred chittered and deposited another turd.

Jimmy stepped off the porch and started across the yard, but stopped when a blob of gray fur shot past him. It rushed to the Falcon and leaped up, slamming against the left rear door. It fell to the ground and leaped up again, barking. It was the filthiest dog Jimmy had ever seen. It leaped at the squirrel over and over again. The squirrel dashed about the roof looking for an escape.

Jimmy watched, considering. He felt a little sorry for the squirrel, but sorrier for the dog. Even though its fur was thick and shaggy, its ribs showed. It couldn't belong to the Dunbars; it had to be a stray that had stopped to rest in the cool dirt under their porch. It was so hungry that it was crazed. Jimmy went into the yard and looked for a rock to throw. Maybe he could knock the squirrel to the ground, and the dog would have time to be on it.

He found a half-buried chunk of brick. He kicked it loose and picked it up, but as he cocked his arm to throw, the squirrel jumped to the Falcon's hood and from there to the ground. It started for a cedar, but the dog cut it off. The squirrel zigzagged and fled toward the Nazarene church. The dog charged after it.

Jimmy threw the chunk of brick, hoping to at least slow the squirrel down. He missed and hit the dog. The dog flinched but didn't slow. Jimmy was angry at himself then, and impressed with the dog's determination. He swore that the dog would dine on squirrel meat before evening.

The squirrel crossed into the churchyard and ran up the church's concrete steps toward the white double doors. Then it disappeared. The dog leaped up the steps and ran headlong into the left double door. There was a loud bang and a rattle. The dog fell back, then leaped up again. It clawed at the door and barked.

Jimmy crossed into the churchyard and climbed the steps. He saw that the left door's bottom right corner was chipped and ground down, making a small hole. The squirrel had escaped into the church.