Hearts in Atlantis(84)

'I never touched him,' Bobby told Raymer, and met Raymer's gaze firmly with his own as he said it.

Mary Doolin gasped, shocked. Even Harry, to whom lying must have been a way of life by the age of sixteen, looked surprised.

'Oh, the straight-out bare-facedness of it!' Mrs Doolin cried. 'You let me talk to him, Officer! I'll get the truth out of him, see if I don't!'

She started forward. Raymer swept her back with one hand, not rising or even taking his eyes from Bobby.

'Now, lad - why would a galoot the size of Harry Doolin say such a thing about a shrimp the size of you if it wasn't true?'

'Don't you be calling my boy a galoot!' Mrs Doolin shrilled. 'Ain't it enough he's been beat within an inch of his life by this coward? Why - '

'Shut up,' Bobby's mom said. It was the first time she'd spoken since asking Officer Raymer what this was about, and her voice was deadly quiet. 'Let him answer the question.'

'He's still mad at me from last winter, that's why,' Bobby told Raymer. 'He and some other big kids from St Gabe's chased me down the hill. Harry slipped on the ice and fell down and got all wet. He said he'd get me. I guess he thinks this is a good way to do it.'

'You liar!' Harry shouted. 'That wasn't me who chased you, that was Billy Donahue! That - '

He stopped, looked around. He'd put his foot in it somehow; a dim appreciation of the fact was dawning on his face.

'It wasn't me,' Bobby said. He spoke quietly, holding Raymer's eyes. 'If I tried to beat up a kid his size, he'd total me.'

'Liars go to hell!' Mary Doolin shouted.

'Where were you around three-thirty this afternoon, Bobby?' Raymer asked. 'Can you answer me that?'

'Here,' Bobby said.

'Miz Garfield?'

'Oh yes,' she said calmly. 'Right here with me all afternoon. I washed the kitchen floor and Bobby cleaned the baseboards. We're getting ready to move, and I want the place to look nice when we do. Bobby complained a little - as boys will do - but he did his chore. And afterward we had iced tea.'

'Liar!' Mrs Doolin cried. Harry only looked stunned. 'Shocking liar!' She lunged forward again, hands reaching in the general direction of Liz Garfield's neck. Once more Officer Raymer pushed her back without looking at her. A bit more roughly this time.

'You tell me on your oath that he was with you?' Officer Raymer asked Liz.

'On my oath.'

'Bobby, you never touched him? On your oath?'

'On my oath.'

'On your oath before God?'

'On my oath before God.'

'I'm gonna get you, Garfield,' Harry said. 'I'm gonna fix your little red w - '

Raymer swung around so suddenly that if his mother hadn't seized him by one elbow, Harry might have tumbled down the porch steps, reinjuring himself in old places and opening fresh wounds in new ones.

'Shut your ugly stupid pot,' Raymer said, and when Mrs Doolin started to speak, Raymer pointed at her. 'Shut yours as well, Mary Doolin. Maybe if you want to bring beatin charges against someone, you ought to start with yer own damned husband. There'd be more witnesses.'

She gawped at him, furious and ashamed.

Raymer dropped the hand he'd been pointing with, as if it had suddenly gained weight. He gazed from Harry and Mary (neither full of grace) on the porch to Bobby and Liz in the foyer. Then he stepped back from all four, took off his uniform cap, scratched his sweaty head, and put his cap back on. 'Something's rotten in the state of Denmark,' he said at last. 'Someone here's lyin faster'n a hoss can trot.'

'He-' 'You-' Harry and Bobby spoke together, but Officer George Raymer was interested in hearing from neither.

'Shut up!' he roared, loud enough to make an old couple strolling past on the other side of the street turn and look. 'I'm declarin the case closed. But if there's any more trouble between the two of you' - pointing at the boys - 'or you?' - pointing at the mothers - 'there's going to be woe for someone. A word to the wise is sufficient, diey say. Harry, will you shake young Robert's hand and say all's well? Do the manly thing? . . . Ah, I thought not. The world's a sad goddamned place. Come on, Doolins. I'll see you home.'

Bobby and his mother watched the three of them go down the steps, Harry's limp now exaggerated to the point of a sailor's stagger. At the foot of the walk Mrs Doolin suddenly cuffed him on the back of the neck. 'Don't make it worse'n it is, you little shite!' she said. Harry did better after that, but he still rolled from starboard to port. To Bobby the boy's residual limp looked like the goods. Probably was the goods. That last lick, the one across Harry's ass, had been a grand slam.

Back in the apartment, speaking in that same calm voice, Liz asked: 'Was he one of the boys that hurt Carol?'

'Yes.'

'Can you stay out of his way until we move?'

'I think so.'

'Good,' she said, and then kissed him. She hardly ever kissed him, and it was wonderful when she did.

Less than a week before they moved - the apartment had by then begun to fill up with cardboard boxes and to take on a strange denuded look - Bobby caught up to Carol Gerber in the park. She was walking along by herself for a change. He had seen her out walking with her girlfriends plenty of times, but that wasn't good enough, wasn't what he wanted. Now she was finally alone, and it wasn't until she looked over her shoulder at him and he saw the fear in her eyes that he knew she had been avoiding him.