“Mother, who’re they?”
“This man says he did the masonry here a long time ago. He hasn’t told me why he’s come around.”
“I’m Amity.” A tremor in the girl’s voice revealed turbulent emotion that, to this woman and boy, would sound inappropriate in these circumstances. “I’m Amity,” she repeated, “and all I want to know is—”
“Amity,” Jeffy cautioned.
But she was face-to-face with her mother, or seemed to be, and seven years of pent-up longing propelled her to finish: “—are you happy here, is everything all right here?”
The boy cocked his head. “Is something wrong with you? What’s wrong with you?”
“Rudy, be nice,” his mother said.
Another presence loomed out of the shadows behind Michelle, a stranger of about Jeffy’s age.
Rudy ignored his mother’s admonition and regarded Amity with suspicion. “You’re old enough to join the Wolves. They even take girls now. Why haven’t you joined?”
“What wolves?”
“The Justice Wolves. What other wolves are there? You should’ve joined.”
The man behind Michelle said, “What’s happening?”
“Dennis, this is Mr. Coltrane,” Michelle said. “He tells me that he and his father did all the masonry here when Dad remodeled back in the day.”
“Yeah, I know who he is,” Dennis said. “He’s Frank Coltrane’s son. I know the face.”
With every exchange, a web was being spun that would ensnare Jeffy if he said the wrong thing. He suspected that he shouldn’t stand silent, should explain himself. “I just . . . I wanted Amity to see some of my father’s work. We shouldn’t have disturbed you. I just thought maybe . . .” He didn’t know how to finish the sentence.
“Something’s wrong with them,” Rudy declared.
“You’re like my half brother or something,” Amity told him, perhaps seeking his approval to ensure that of his mother.
Rudy sneered. “Brother? My name’s Starkman. Yours ain’t.”
Dennis Starkman said, “Get inside, Michelle. Rudy, you, too.”
When the woman and boy retreated, Starkman came out of the shadows and onto the threshold, revealing that he was dressed in soft black fatigues and black boots, although not in a knitted cap. He wore a gun belt and carried a pistol on his right hip.
His round face was shaped for warm smiles and expressions of kindness. Even scowling as now, he didn’t appear to be the work of darkness that he really was.
“You listen to me, Coltrane. Your old man got what he deserved. He’s damn lucky he was just sent to Folsom instead of being cut down for good. Can you get your head around that?”
With his real father safe in another America, but with Amity at risk here, Jeffy said, “Yes. You’re right. He’s a stubborn man. He always has been.”
“Frank knew the price he might have to pay for being on the wrong side. Some thought you were in it with him, but most of us gave you the benefit of the doubt.”
“I appreciate that.”
Starkman looked doubtful. “Do you really?”
“I know . . . I know who owns the future.” That didn’t sound right. “I want to be a part of it, the better world you’re making.”
“Now you make me wonder,” Starkman continued, “coming around here. To what purpose? Did you mean to threaten my family?”
“No, no. Not at all. I just did it for the girl. She doesn’t understand why . . . why my dad did what he did, why he fell in with the wrong crowd. I don’t understand any more than she does, but I wanted to show her, you know, how before he went so far off the rails, he did some good things, he was a great craftsman, he—”
Jeffy embarrassed himself with his obsequious tone, though if he had been any less deferential, he might have invited trouble from which there would be no escape. His babble was as tedious as it was servile, so boring that Starkman dismissed him by cutting him off in midsentence. Turning to Amity, he said, “So who are you, young lady? What do you have to do with Frank Coltrane?”