Hearts in Atlantis(52)

Rionda put her arms around Carol and hugged the girl to her large bosom. She surveyed the boys in the orange shirts and she was smiling. Smiling and making no effort to hide it.

'Willie Shearman, isn't it?'

The formerly cocked-back arm dropped to Willie's side. Muttering, he bent to pick up his bike.

'Richie O'Meara?'

The boy in the motorcycle belt looked at the toes of his dusty Snap-Jacks and also muttered something. His cheeks burned with color.

'One of the O'Meara boys, anyway, there's so damned many of you now I can't keep track.' Her eyes shifted to Robin Hood. 'And who are you, big boy? Are you a Dedham? You look a little bit like a Dedham.'

Robin Hood looked at his hands. He wore a class ring on one of his fingers and now he began to twist it.

Rionda still had an arm around Carol's shoulders. Carol had one of her own arms as far around Rionda's waist as she could manage. She walked with Rionda, not looking at the boys, as Rionda stepped up from the street onto the little strip of grass between the curb and the sidewalk. She was still looking at Robin Hood. 'You better answer me when I talk to you, sonny. Won't be hard to find your mother if I want to try. All I have to do is ask Father Fitzgerald.'

'Harry Doolin, that's me,' the boy said at last. He was twirling his class ring faster than ever.

'Well, but I was close, wasn't I?' Rionda asked pleasantly, taking another two or three steps forward. They put her on the sidewalk. Carol, afraid to be so close to the boys, tried to hold her back, but Rionda would have none of it. 'Dedhams and Doolins, all married together. Right back to County Cork, tra-la-tra-lee.'

Not Robin Hood but a kid named Harry Doolin with a stupid homemade bat-sling strapped to his back. Not Marion Brando from The Wild One but a kid named Richie O'Meara, who wouldn't have a Harley to go with his motorcycle belt for another five years . . . if ever. And Willie Shearman, who didn't dare to be nice to a girl when he was with his friends. All it took to shrink them back to their proper size was one overweight woman in pedal pushers and a shell top, who had ridden to the rescue not on a white stallion but in a 1954 Studebaker. The thought should have comforted Bobby but it didn't. He found himself thinking of what William Golding had said, that the boys on the island were rescued by the crew of a battle-cruiser and good for them . . . but who would rescue the crew?

That was stupid, no one ever looked less in need of rescuing than Rionda Hewson did at that moment, but the words still haunted Bobby. What if there were no grownups? Suppose the whole idea of grownups was an illusion? What if their money was really just playground marbles, their business deals no more than baseball-card trades, their wars only games of guns in the park? What if they were all still snotty-nosed kids inside their suits and dresses? Christ, that couldn't be, could it? It was too horrible to think about.

Rionda was still looking at the St Gabe's boys with her hard and rather dangerous smile. 'You three fellas wouldn't've been picking on kids younger and smaller than yourselves, would you? One of them a girl like your own little sisters?'

They were silent, not even muttering now. They only shuffled their feet.

'I'm sure you weren't, because that would be a cowardly thing to do, now wouldn't it?'

Again she gave them a chance to reply and plenty of time to hear their own silence.

'Willie? Richie? Harry? You weren't picking on them, were you?'

'Course not,' Harry said. Bobby thought that if he spun that ring of his much faster, his finger would probably catch fire.

'If I thought a thing like that,' Rionda said, still smiling her dangerous smile, 'I'd have to go talk to Father Fitzgerald, wouldn't I? And the Father, he'd probably feel he had to talk to your folks, and your fathers'd probably feel obliged to warm your asses for you . . . and you'd deserve it, boys, wouldn't you? For picking on the weak and small.'

Continued silence from the three boys, all now astride their ridiculously undersized bikes again.

'Did they pick on you, Bobby?' Rionda asked.

'No,' Bobby said at once.

Rionda put a finger under Carol's chin and turned her face up. 'Did they pick on you, lovey?'

'No, Rionda.'

Rionda smiled down at her, and although there were tears standing in Carol's eyes, she smiled back.

'Well, boys, I guess you're off the hook,' Rionda said. 'They say you haven't done nothing that'll cause you a single extra uncomfy minute in the confessional. I'd say that you owe them a vote of thanks, don't you?'

Mutter-mutter-mutter from the St Gabe's boys. Please let it go at that, Bobby pleaded silently. Don't make them actually thank us. Don't rub their noses in it.

Perhaps Rionda heard his thought (Bobby now had good reason to believe such things were possible). 'Well,' she said, 'maybe we can skip that part. Get along home, boys. And Harry, when you see Moira Dedham, tell her Rionda says she still goes to the Bingo over in Bridgeport every week, if she ever wants a ride.'

'I will, sure,' Harry said. He mounted his bike and rode away up the hill, eyes still on the sidewalk. Had there been pedestrians coming the other way, he would likely have run them over. His two friends followed him, standing on their pedals to catch up.

Rionda watched them go, her smile slowly fading. 'Shanty Irish,' she said at last, 'just trouble waiting to happen. Bah, good riddance to em. Carol, are you really all right?'