41

JACK WALKED UP and down the road in front of Faye Gregson’s place punching in Kevin’s phone number, but it didn’t come through.

“No service. Fuck!”

Oscar paced alongside of him.

“Come on. We’ve got to get our asses back there now. We’ll call the playground when we get closer.”

Faye Gregson stood on the porch, smoking and looking at them as if they were people from another planet.

Jack looked at her standing there, all hollowed out.

And knew, just then, without a shadow of a doubt, how she felt.

Like him.

Like he would keep right on feeling if anything happened to Kevin.

They got in the car, turned on the motor, and took off , leaving a cloud of dust in their wake.

• • •

At Brentwood Little League, the afternoon practice was breaking up. Kevin Harper, dressed in his jeans and Angels T-shirt, was walking off the field next to Charlie. As they headed toward the car, middle-aged mom Peggy Dent came walking toward Charlie with her daughter Kathy in tow.

“Coach,” she said. “I just wanted to thank you for the year we’ve had so far. And the way you’ve watched out for Kathy this year.”

Ordinarily, funny and genial Charlie Breen would stop and chat, but today he barely slowed down.

“Yeah, thanks,” he said. “I try to give all the kids time on the field. Kathy was great.”

“Thanks, coach,” Kathy said.

“You know, when I was a young girl, we never got a chance to develop that side of our personalities. The left side of our brain,” Peggy continued.

She smiled and blocked Charlie’s way, thinking he was going to stop. But Charlie moved around her, and when she moved with him, she found herself being not so gently pushed out of the way.

“Excuse me,” she said with a shock. “You almost knocked me down.”

“I know,” Charlie said. “Sorry. I’m in a kind of hurry.”

He grabbed Kevin’s hand and headed for the car.

“Well, thanks a lot!” Peggy Dent yelled. “You fat bastard!”

Her face contorted into a mask of rage. Charlie ignored her and pulled Kevin along with him to his car.

Charlie took a left at Ohio, right by the junior high school, and then a left into a little park adjacent to the school. He pulled over by a Dumpster and gave Kevin a worried look.

“I think there’s something wrong with the back tire on your side. Can you look back there for me? We might have a flat.”

“Really, Charlie?” Kevin said, smiling generously at his coach.

“I didn’t notice anything.”

“Just check it, will you?” Charlie said.

Kevin was surprised by the anger and impatience in his voice. He nodded and got out of the car.

He knelt down next to the rear tire and felt it with his hands. It felt as solid as a rock.

“I don’t know, Charlie. It’s seems fine. It’s definitely not flat.”

Behind him, Charlie put his huge hand around Kevin’s neck and pressed the ether-soaked rag against his nose. The boy twisted and turned, his eyes rolling wildly back in his head, but there was no escape. Within ten seconds, Kevin Harper was unconscious. Charlie picked up his limp body and pressed a button on his car key.

The trunk door popped open and he dropped Kevin inside, then slammed the trunk closed.

Then Roy Ayres went around to the driver’s side, got in, gunned the engine, and drove away.

He turned on his new iPod and happily sang along with “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.”

He loved the Beatles. They’d helped him get over Jimmy’s death, and now they were here for him as he avenged his son.

Think positive, Ayres thought. All good things come to those who wait.