As Dave was halfway to the staircase, Lester turned on the table light by his side.
Dave jumped and staggered backward, his eyes wide with surprise, almost dropping the soda in his hand. "Jesus. You scared me."
"Where have you been?" Lester asked.
Dave's eyebrows furrowed. "What? Out with friends."
"The Shermans?"
"Yeah-some."
"What were you doing with them?"
"Listening to music. Talking. What's going on?"
"We're worried about you," Susan said. "We don't want you making a mistake that could ruin your life."
Abandoning the soda on the side table, Dave approached them, his face blank. "What are you talking about? That thing at the Zoo? I told Dad nothing happened, and I haven't seen Craig or the others since, like I promised."
"I know you've been at the Sherman place, Dave," Lester said. "And I know the Shermans use weed like other people eat Twinkies."
Dave straightened as if he'd been slapped. "So that means I'm using it, too? You hang around criminals all the time. What's that make you?"
Lester stood up, taller and broader than his son by far. "We're not picking a fight with you, David. We both work goddamn hard to give you and your sister a fighting chance in a tough world. We just don't want you to screw that up."
"We're not accusing you of anything, honey," Susan added. "We just want to know what you're doing."
Dave turned away and retreated to the foot of the staircase. "Right. My whole life I live up to your expectations, doing everything right. First time I get caught-not even doing anything wrong-you guys think I'm like some junkie or something. Thanks a lot."
With that, he ran up the stairs. They heard him slam his bedroom door moments later.
Lester looked down at his wife. "That went pretty well, don't you think?"
Susan got up and kissed his cheek. "I'll go talk to him."
She went upstairs slowly, hearing her husband turning on the TV, and proceeded to David's door. She knocked briefly and walked in. He was lying on his bed, pretending to be reading a magazine.
"What?" he asked, not looking up.
She sat next to him and gently removed the magazine from his hands. He didn't fight her.
"I don't believe you guys," he said.
"Can you believe we love you very much?" she asked, resting her hand on his knee.
"I know that, but it's like I'm guilty with no questions asked. Child rapists get more respect than that. I mean, what happened to innocent till proven guilty?"
Susan smiled and shook her head. "Dave, nobody's comparing you to a child rapist. Don't blow this out of proportion. Your father and I see what drugs do to people every day. Can you blame us for not wanting any of that to touch the two people we love most in the world?"
"I'm not doing drugs," Dave said in a frustrated outburst. "Why is that so hard to believe?"
"It's not that we don't believe you, and we're not accusing you of anything. ."
"That's not how Dad sounded."
"Sweetheart," she said, squeezing his leg, "think of what he does for a living."
"I know that."
"Do you? Really? If you did, I think you'd cut him some slack. He lives in a world of horrible people-people who act on the first impulse that enters their heads. It's not that he thinks you're like that, but he's worried what might happen if you get too close to them."
"The Shermans aren't horrible people."
She sighed. "I'm not saying they are. ."
"He is."
"How would you deal with a son you were worried might be getting interested in drugs?"
He rolled his eyes. "I'm not, Mom."
"How would you deal with it?"
"I'd ask him, and then I'd believe him when he told me."
"Isn't that what your father did in the car when he picked you up at the police station?"
David hesitated. "Yeah."
"It shook him up when he saw you at the Sherman place, Dave," she explained. "Just like it shook him up when we heard you'd been picked up with those other boys. It's a scary world. He was concerned, and so am I. We'd be lousy parents if we weren't. Maybe we didn't do it just right tonight. If we hurt your feelings, we apologize. But can you see what made us do it?"
David made a face, as if tempted to argue the matter further, but then conceded, "I guess."
His mother leaned over and kissed him, as she had his father earlier. "I love you. We both do. Very much."
He kissed her back and gave her a grudging smile. "I love you, too. But tell Dad to lighten up, okay? I know right from wrong."
* * *
Sammie Martens opened her eyes and looked around, trying to orient herself, only slowly remembering that she was still in Holyoke, in Johnny Rivera's urban fortress, behind the locked door of a bedroom she'd borrowed to catch a few hours sleep.
She threw off the dirty blanket covering her and sat on the edge of the bed-a sagging mattress resting on a tired, metal spring frame. Whatever success Rivera might already be enjoying was clearly not being spent on decor. Not that it ever would be. TV and the movies showed drug kingpins routinely enjoying hideaways worthy of Louis XIV, and from what Sam had heard, a few such places really did exist. But not in northern New England. It was true the money wasn't what could be generated in Miami or Colombia, or even Boston, for that matter, but still, the extravagance rarely went beyond owning some real estate and a few flashy cars. In a surreal parallel to the region's Puritan past, even the crooks seemed to tone down the excess.
Nevertheless, she thought as she got up to stretch and rearrange her rumpled clothing, a trip to the mall for a decent mattress wouldn't hurt.
She went into the bathroom, used the toilet, washed her face, and stripped to the waist to give herself a cold water bath at the sink, using some paper towels to dry off. This operation had been put into play so fast, she hadn't had time to set up an alternate apartment to her real one in Brattleboro and therefore had nowhere she could safely go for a shower and a change of clothes.
She knew undercover work would be dangerous. She hadn't thought about the lack of hygiene. You're back in the army now, she thought, replacing her clothes.
There was a knock on the door. She crossed the room, flipped the lock, and found Manuel standing in the hallway outside.
"Hey," she said. "Get some sleep?"
"Johnny wants you upstairs."
She tapped his chest with her fingertips as she walked past him. "Hello to you, too, tough guy."
Johnny Rivera was standing before a large wall map of Vermont, put up since her last visit to this room.
"Supervising your kingdom?" she asked as she entered.
He looked back at her, his entire attitude more open and friendly than during their previous encounters. "Yeah-the land of milk and honey, right?"
"If we do it right," she conceded, standing next to him and looking at the familiar terrain. It was a colorful topographical map, showing the spine of the Green Mountains running down the state's center in shades of brown, the blue of the Connecticut River on the right and Lake Champlain to the upper left. Seeing it like this stimulated a surprising pang of emotion inside her, as if she were about to enter into combat against this man for the preservation of her home. It looked so small up there, so insignificant-undeserving of this kind of malevolent attention.
"You said you could get Rutland going for me," Rivera continued. "How?"
"Run it like a business," Sam said simply. "Up to now, either mules or dealers drive up there with some product, unload it through a phone tree or a pager alert, and hightail it back for more, like we did last night. But most of the mules and dealers are users, too, so any profits go straight up their noses-or whatever. Business is good, demand is high, but that's where it stops. It's like sex without commitment- just a bunch of fast fucks."