Blaze.

Beyond the bed, there was a splotched sugaring of snow on the inside window ledge and on the floor. Both were already melting.

Blaze eased the door open, ready to halt at the first hint of a squeak, but there was no squeak. He slipped through to the other side as soon as the gap was wide enough. Outside was a kind of combination hallway and gallery. There was a thick, lovely carpet under his feet. He closed the bedroom door behind him, approached the darker darkness of the railing that went around the gallery, and looked down.

He saw a staircase that rose in two graceful twists from a wide entrance hall that went out of sight. The polished floor threw up scant, glimmering light. Across the way was a statue of a young woman. Facing her, on this side of the balcony, was a statue of a young man.

"Never mind the statues, Blaze, find the kid. That ladder"s standin right out there -"

One of the two staircases went down to the first floor on his right, so Blaze turned left and padded up the hall. Out here there was no sound but the faint whisper of his feet on the rug. He couldn"t even hear the furnace. It was eerie.

He eased the next door open and looked into a room with a desk in the middle and books on the walls - shelves and shelves of books. There was a typewriter on the desk and a pile of papers held down by a chunk of black gla.s.sy-looking rock. There was a portrait on the wall. Blaze could make out a man with white hair and a frowning face that seemed to be saying You thief You thief. He closed the door and went on.

The next door opened on an empty bedroom with a canopy bed. Its coverlet looked tight enough to bounce nickels on.

He moved up the line, feeling trickles of sweat start on his body. He was hardly ever conscious of time pa.s.sing, but now he was. How long had he been in this rich and sleeping house? Fifteen minutes? Twenty?

The third room was occupied by another sleeping man and woman. She was moaning in her sleep, and Blaze closed that door quickly.

He went around the corner. What if he had to go upstairs, to the third floor? The idea filled him with the kind of terror he felt in his infrequent nightmares (these were usually of Hetton House, or the Bowies). What would he say if the lights went on right now and he was caught? What could he say? That he came in to steal the silverware? There was no silverware on the second floor, even a dummy knew that.

There was one door on the short side of the hallway. He opened it and looked into the baby"s room.

He stared for a long moment, hardly believing he had gotten so far. It wasn"t a pipe dream. He could do it. The thought made him want to run.

The crib was almost exactly like the one he had bought himself. There were Walt Disney characters on the walls. There was a changing table, a rack crowded with creams and ointments, and a little baby dresser painted some bright color. Maybe red, maybe blue. Blaze couldn"t tell in the dark. There was a baby in the crib.

It was his last chance to run and he knew it. As of now, he might still be able to melt away as unknown as he had come. They would never guess what had almost happened. But he would know. Perhaps he would go in and lay one of his big hands on the baby"s small forehead, then leave. He had a sudden picture of himself twenty years from now, seeing Joseph Gerard IV"s name on the society page of the paper, what George called news of rich b.i.t.c.hes and whinnying horses. There would be a picture of a young man in a dinner jacket standing next to a young girl in a white dress. The young girl would be holding a bouquet of flowers. The story would tell where they had been married and where they were going on their honeymoon. He would look at that picture and he would think: Oh buddy. Oh buddy, you never had no idea. Oh buddy. Oh buddy, you never had no idea.

But when he went in, he knew it was for keeps.

This is how we roll, George, he thought.

The baby was sleeping on his stomach, head turned to the side. One small hand was tucked under his cheek. His breathing moved the blankets over him up and down in small cycles. His skull was covered with a fuzz of hair, no more than that. A red teething ring lay beside him on the pillow.

Blaze reached for him, then pulled back.

What if he cried?

At the same instant he spotted something that brought his heart into his mouth. It was a small intercom set. The other end would be in the mother"s room, or the babysitter"s room. If the baby cried - Gently, gently, Blaze reached out and pushed the power b.u.t.ton. The red light over it died out. As it did, he wondered if there was a buzzer or something that went off when the power went off. As a warning.

Attention, mother. Attention, babysitter. The intercom is on the blink because a big stupid kidnapper just turned it off. There is a stupid kidnapper in the house. Come and see. Bring a gun. on the blink because a big stupid kidnapper just turned it off. There is a stupid kidnapper in the house. Come and see. Bring a gun.

Go on, Blaze. Take your best shot.

Blaze took a deep breath and let it out. Then he untucked the blankets and scooped them around the baby as he picked him up. He cradled him gently in his arms. The baby whined and stretched. His eyes flickered. He made a kitteny neeyup neeyup sound. Then his eyes closed again and his body relaxed. sound. Then his eyes closed again and his body relaxed.

Blaze exhaled.

He turned, went back to the door, and went back into the hall, realizing he was doing more than just leaving the kid"s room, the nursery. He was crossing a line. He could no longer claim to be a simple burglar. His crime was in his arms.

Going down the ladder with a sleeping infant was impossible, and Blaze did not even consider it. He went to the stairs. The hallway was carpeted, but the stairs weren"t. His first footfall on the first polished wood riser was loud, obvious, and unm.u.f.fled. He paused, listening, drawn straight to attention in his anxiety, but the house slept on.

Now, though, his nerves began to unravel. The baby seemed to gain weight in his arms. Panic nibbled at his will. He could almost glimpse movement in the corners of his eyes - first one side, then the other. At each step he expected the baby to stir and cry. And once it started, its wails would wake the house.

"George -" he muttered.

"Walk," George said from below him. "Just like in the old joke. Walk, don"t run. Toward the sound of my voice, Blazer."

Blaze began to walk down the stairs. It was impossible to be soundless, but at least none of his steps was as loud as that horrible first one. The baby joggled. He couldn"t hold him perfectly still, no matter how he tried. So far the kid was still sleeping, but any minute, any second second - - He counted. Five steps. Six. Seven. Eighter from Decatur. It was a very long staircase. Made, he supposed, for colorful c.u.n.ts to sweep up and down at big dances like in Gone with the Wind Gone with the Wind. Seventeen. Eighteen. Nine - It was the last step and his unprepared foot came down hard again: Clack! Clack! The baby"s head jerked. It gave a single cry. The sound was very loud in the stillness. The baby"s head jerked. It gave a single cry. The sound was very loud in the stillness.

A light went on upstairs.

Blaze"s eyes widened. Adrenaline shot into his chest and belly, making him stiffen and squeeze the baby to him. He made himself loosen up - a little - and stepped into the shadow of the staircase. There he stood still, his face twisted in fear and horror.

"Mike?" a sleepy voice called.

Slippers shuffled to the railing just overhead.

"Mikey-Mike, is that you? Is it you, you bad thing?" The voice was directly overhead, speaking in a stage-whispery, others-are-sleeping tone. It was an old voice, querulous. "Go in the kitchen and see the nice saucer of milk Mama left out." A pause. "If you knock over a vase, Mama will spank."

If the kid cried now - The voice over Blaze"s head muttered something too full of phlegm for him to make out, and then the slippers shuffled away. There was a pause - it felt like a hundred years long - and then a door clicked softly shut, closing away the light.

Blaze stood still, trying to control his need to tremble. Trembling might wake the kid. Probably would would wake the kid. Which way was the kitchen? How was he going to take the ladder and the kid both? What about the electric wire? wake the kid. Which way was the kitchen? How was he going to take the ladder and the kid both? What about the electric wire? What What - - how how - - where where - - He moved in order to stifle the questions, creeping up the hall, bent over the wrapped child like a hag with a bindle. He saw double gla.s.s doors standing ajar. Waxed tiles glimmered beyond. Blaze pushed through and was in a dining room.

It was a rich room, the mahogany table meant to hold twenty-pound turkeys at Thanksgiving and steaming roasts on Sunday afternoons. China glowed behind the gla.s.s doors of a tall, fancy dresser. Blaze pa.s.sed on like a wraith, not pausing, but even so, the sight of the great table and the chairs with their soldierly high backs awoke a smoldering resentment in his breast. Once he had scrubbed kitchen floors on his knees, and George said there were lots more just like him. Not just in Africa, either. George said people like the Gerards pretended people like him weren"t there. Well let them put a doll in that crib upstairs and pretend it was a real baby. Let them pretend that, if they were so good at pretending.

There was a swing door at the far end of the dining room. He went through it. Then he was in the kitchen. Looking out the frost-jeweled window next to the stove, he could see the legs of his ladder.

He looked around for a place to lay the baby while he opened the window. The counters were wide, but maybe not wide enough. And he didn"t like the idea of putting a kid on the stove even if the stove was turned off.

His eye lit on an old-fashioned market basket hanging from a hook on the pantry door. It looked roomy enough, and it had a handle. It had high sides, too. He took it down and put it on a small wheeled serving cart standing against one wall. He tucked the baby into it. The baby stirred only slightly.

Now the window. Blaze lifted it, and was confronted with a storm window beyond that. There had been no storm windows upstairs, but this one was screwed right into the frame.

He began opening cupboards. In the one below the sink, he found a neat pile of dishwipers. He took one out. It had an American eagle on it. Blaze wrapped his mittened hand in it and punched out the storm window"s lower pane. It shattered with relative quiet, leaving a large, jagged hole. Blaze began to poke out the pieces that pointed in toward the center like big gla.s.s arrows.

"Mike?" That same voice. Calling softly. Blaze stiffened.

That wasn"t coming from upstairs. That was - "Mikey, what did you-ums knock over?"

-from down the hall and coming closer - "You"ll wake the whole house, you bad boy."

-and closer - "I"m going to put you down cellar before you spoil it for yourself."

The door swung open, and a silhouette woman entered behind a battery-powered nightlight in the shape of a candle. Blaze got a blurred impression of an elderly woman, walking slowly, trying to preserve the silence like juggled eggs. She was in rollers; her head, in silhouette, looked like something out of a science fiction movie. Then she saw him.

"Who -" That one word. Then the part of her brain that dealt with emergencies, old but not dead, decided talking wasn"t the right thing in this situation. She drew in breath to scream.

Blaze hit her. He hit her as hard as he had hit Randy, as hard as he had hit Glen Hardy. He didn"t think about it; he was startled into it. The old lady folded to the floor with her nightlight beneath her. There was a m.u.f.fled tinkle as the bulb shattered. Her body lay twisted half-in and half-out of the swing door.

There was a low and plaintive miaow miaow. Blaze grunted and looked up. Green eyes peered down at him from the top of the refrigerator.

Blaze turned back to the window and batted out the rest of the gla.s.s shards. When they were gone, he stepped out through the hole he"d made in the lower half of the storm window and listened.

Nothing.

Yet.

Shattered gla.s.s glittered on the snow like a felon"s dream.

Blaze pulled the ladder away from the building, freed the latches, lowered it. It gave out a terrifying ratcheting sound that made him feel like screaming. Once the latches were hooked again, he picked the ladder up and began to run. He came out of the house"s shadow and was halfway across the lawn when he realized he had forgotten the baby. It was still on the serving cart. All sensation left the arm holding the ladder and it plopped into the snow. He turned and looked back.

There was a light on upstairs.

For a moment Blaze was two people. One of them was just sprinting for the road - b.a.l.l.s to the wall, b.a.l.l.s to the wall, George would have said - and the other was going back to the house. For a moment he couldn"t make up his mind. Then he went back, moving fast, his boots kicking up little puffs of snow. George would have said - and the other was going back to the house. For a moment he couldn"t make up his mind. Then he went back, moving fast, his boots kicking up little puffs of snow.

He slit his mitten and cut the flesh of his palm on a shard of gla.s.s that was still sticking out of the window-frame. He barely felt it. Then he was inside again, grabbing the basket, swinging it dangerously, almost spilling the baby out.

Upstairs, a toilet flushed like thunder.

He lowered the basket to the snow and went after it without a backward glance at the inert form on the floor behind him. He picked the basket up and just booked. booked.

He stopped long enough to get the ladder under one arm. Then he ran to the hedge. There he stopped to look at the baby. The baby was still sleeping peacefully. Joe IV was unaware he had been uprooted. Blaze looked back at the house. The upstairs light had gone out again.

He sat the basket down on the snow and tossed the ladder over the hedge. A moment later, lights bloomed on the highway.

What if it was a cop? Jesus, what if?

He lay down in the shadow of the hedge, very aware of how clearly his footprints back and forth across the lawn must show. They were the only ones there.

The headlights swelled, held bright for a moment, then faded without slowing down.

Blaze got up, picked up his basket - it was his basket now - and walked to the hedge. By parting the top with his arm he was able to lift the basket over and put it down on the far side. He just couldn"t lower it all the way. He had to drop it the last couple of feet. It thudded softly into the snow. The baby found his thumb and began to suck it. Blaze could see his mouth pursing and relaxing in the glow of the nearest streetlight. Pursing and relaxing. Almost like a fish-mouth. The night"s deep cold had not touched it yet. Nothing peeked out of its blankets but its head and that one tiny hand.

Blaze jumped the hedge, got his ladder, and picked up the basket again. He crossed the road in a hurried crouch. Then he moved across the field on his earlier diagonal path. At the Cyclone fence surrounding the Oakwood parking lot, he put the ladder up again (it wasn"t necessary to extend it this time), and carried his basket to the top.

He straddled the fence with the basket balanced across his straining legs, aware that if his scissors-lock slipped, his b.a.l.l.s were going to get the surprise of their life. He jerked the ladder up in one smooth pull, gasping at the added strain on his legs. It teetered for a moment, overbalanced, then fell back down on the parking lot side. He wondered if anyone was watching him up here, but that was a stupid thing to wonder about. There was nothing he could do about it if someone was. He could feel the cut on his hand now. It throbbed.

He straightened the ladder, then balanced the basket on the top rung, steadying it with one hand while he swung carefully onto a lower rung. The ladder shifted a little, and he paused. Then it held still.

He went down the ladder with the basket. At the bottom, he crooked the ladder under one arm again and crossed to where the Ford was parked.

He put the baby on the pa.s.senger seat, opened the back door, and worked the ladder inside. Then he got in behind the wheel.

But he couldn"t find the key. It wasn"t in either of his pants pockets. Not in his coat pockets, either. He was afraid he had lost it falling down and would have to go back over the fence to look for it when he saw it poking out of the ignition. He had forgotten to take it along. He hoped George hadn"t seen that part. If George hadn"t, Blaze wouldn"t tell him. Never in a million years.

He started the car and put the basket in the pa.s.senger footwell. Then he drove back to the little booth. The guard came out. "Leaving early, sir?"

"Bad cards," Blaze said.

"It happens to the best of us. Good night, sir. Better luck next time."

"Thanks," Blaze said.

He stopped at the road, looked both ways, then turned toward Apex. He carefully observed all the speed limits, but he never saw a police car.

Just as he was pulling into his own driveway, baby Joe woke up and started to cry.

Chapter 12.

ONCE BACK AT HETTON HOUSE, Blaze caused no trouble. He kept his head down and his mouth shut. The boys who had been big "uns when he and John had been little "uns either made out, went out to work, went away to vocational schools, or joined the Army. Blaze grew another three inches. Hair sprouted on his chest and grew lushly on his crotch. This made him the envy of the other boys. He went to Freeport High School. It was all right, because they didn"t make him do Arithmetic.

Martin Coslaw"s contract was renewed, and he watched Blaze come and go unsmilingly, watchfully. He did not call Blaze into his office again, although Blaze knew he could. And if The Law told him to bend over and take the paddle, Blaze knew he would do it. The alternative was North Windham Training Center, which was a formatory. He had heard that in the formatory boys were actually whipped - like on ships - and sometimes put in a little metal box called The Tin. Blaze didn"t know if these things were true, and had no wish to find out. What he knew was he was afraid of the formatory.

But The Law never called him in to be paddled, and Blaze never gave him cause. He went to school five days a week, and his chief contact with the Head became The Law"s voice, bellowing over the intercoms first thing in the morning and before lights-out at night. At Hetton House the day always began with what Martin Coslaw called a homily (homily grits, John sometimes said when he was feeling funny) and ended with a Bible verse. John sometimes said when he was feeling funny) and ended with a Bible verse.

Life moved along. He could have become the King of the Boys if he had wished, but he did not wish. He wasn"t a leader. He was the farthest thing from a leader. He tried to be nice to people, though. He tried to be nice to them even when he was warning them he would crack their skulls open if they didn"t lay off his friend Johnny. Pretty soon after Blaze came back, they did lay off him.

Then, on a summer night when Blaze was fourteen (and looking six years older in the right light), something happened.

The boys were hauled to town on an ancient yellow bus every Friday, a.s.suming that as a group they didn"t have too many DDs - discipline demerits. Some would just wander aimlessly up and down Main Street, or sit in the town square, or go up an alley to smoke cigarettes. There was a pool hall, but it was off-limits to them. There was also a second-run movie theater, the Nordica, and those boys who had enough money to buy a ticket could go in and see how Jack Nicholson, Warren Beatty, or Clint Eastwood looked when those gentlemen were younger. Some of the boys earned their money delivering papers. Some mowed lawns in the summer and shoveled snow in the winter. Some had jobs at HH itself.

Blaze had become one of those. He was the size of a man - a big one - and the chief custodian hired him to do ch.o.r.es and odd jobs. Martin Coslaw might have objected, but Frank Therriault didn"t answer to that priss. He liked Blaze"s broad shoulders. A quiet man himself, Therriault also liked Blaze"s way of saying yes and no and not much more. The boy didn"t mind heavy work, either. He"d lug packs of Bird shingles up a ladder or hundred-pound sacks of cement all afternoon. He"d move cla.s.sroom furniture and filing cabinets up and down stairs, not saying boo to a goose. And there was no quit in him. Best thing? He seemed perfectly happy with a dollar-sixty an hour, which allowed Therriault to pocket an extra sixty bucks a week. Eventually he bought his wife a sw.a.n.ky cashmere sweater. It had a boat neck. She was delighted.

Blaze was delighted, too. He was making a cool thirty bucks a week, which was more than enough to pay for the movies, plus all the popcorn, candy, and soda he could put away. He bought John"s ticket, too, cheerfully, as a matter of course. He would have been happy to throw in all the usual snacks, as well, but for John the movie was usually enough. He watched greedily, his mouth agape.

Back at Hetton, John was beginning to write stories. They were stumbling things, cribbed from the movies he watched with Blaze, but they began to earn him a certain popularity with his peers. The other boys didn"t like you to be smart, but they admired a certain kind of cleverness. And they liked stories. They were hungry for stories.

On one of their trips they saw a vampire movie called Second Coming Second Coming. John Cheltzman"s version of this cla.s.sic ended with Count Igor Yorga ripping the head from a half-clad young lovely with "quakeing b.r.e.a.s.t.s the size of watermelons" and jumping into the River Yorba with the head under his arm. The strangely patriotic name of this underground cla.s.sic was The Eyes of Yorga Are Upon You The Eyes of Yorga Are Upon You.

But this night John didn"t want to go, even though another horror movie was playing. He had the runs. He"d been five times that morning and afternoon despite half a bottle of Pepto from the infirmary (a glorified closet on the second floor). He thought he wasn"t done, either.

"Come on," Blaze urged. "The Nordica"s got a terrific c.r.a.pper downstairs. I took a s.h.i.t there once myself. We"ll stick real close to it."

Thus persuaded, despite the dire rumblings in his vitals, John went with Blaze and got on the bus. They sat up front, behind the driver. They were almost the big "uns now, after all.

John was okay during the previews, but just as the Warner Bros logo was coming on, he stood up, slid past Blaze, and started up the aisle in a crabwise walk. Blaze was sympathetic, but that was life. He turned his attention back to the screen where a dust storm was blowing around in what looked like the Desert of Maine, only with pyramids. Soon he was deeply involved in the story, frowning with concentration.

When John sat back down beside him, he was hardly aware of him until John started yanking his sleeve and whispering, "Blaze! Blaze! Blaze! F"G.o.d sakes, Blaze!" F"G.o.d sakes, Blaze!"

Blaze came out of the movie like a sound sleeper waking from a nap. "Whats"sa matter? You sick? You s.h.i.t yourself?"