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'If we told the cops, they'd want to know how we got way the hell out in Harlow,' Billy said. 'We ain't got no car, neither of us. It's better if we just keep our mouths shut. Then they can't touch us.'

'We could make a nonnamus call,' Charlie said.

"They trace those fuckin* calls,' Billy said ominously. 'I seen it on Highway Patrol. And Dragnet.'

'Yeah, right,' Charlie said miserably. 'Jesus. I wish Ace'd been with us. We could have told the cops we was in his car.'

'Well, he wasn't'

'Yeah,' Charlie said. He sighed. 'I guess you're right' A cigarette butt flicked into the driveway. 'We hadda walk up and take a piss by the tracks, didn't we? Couldn't walk the other way, could we? And I got puke on my new Keds.' His voice sank a little. 'Fuckin' kid was laid right out, you know it? Didja see that sonofawhore, Billy?'

'I seen him,' Billy said, and a second cigarette butt joined the first in the driveway. 'Let's go see if Ace is up. I want some juice.'

'We gonna tell him?'

'Charlie, we ain't gonna tell nobody. Nobody never. You dig me?'

'I dig you,' Charlie said. 'Christ-Jesus, I wish we never boosted that fuckin'

Dodge.'

'Aw, shut the fuck up and come on.'

Two pairs of legs clad in tight, wash-faded pegged jeans, two pairs of feet in black engineer boots with side-buckles, came down the steps. Vern froze on his hands and knees ('My balls crawled up so high I thought they was trine to get back home,' he told us), sure his brother would sense him beneath the porch and drag him out and kill him-he and Charlie Hogan would kick the few brains the good Lord had seen fit to give him right out his jug ears and then stomp him with their engineer boots. But they just kept going and when Vern was sure they were really gone, he had crawled out from under the porch and run here.

5

'You're really lucky,' I said. 'They would have killed you.'

Teddy said, 'I know the Back Harlow Road. It comes to a dead end by the river. We used to fish for cossies out there.'

Chris nodded. 'There used to be a bridge, but there was a flood. A long time ago. Now there's just the train-tracks.'

'Could a kid really have gotten all the way from Chamberlain to Harlow?' I asked Chris. That's twenty or thirty miles.'

'I think so. He probably happened on the train tracks and followed them the whole way. Maybe he thought they'd take him out, or maybe he thought he could flag down a train if he had to. But that's just a freight run now-GS&WM up to Derry and Brownsville-and not many of those anymore. He'd had to've walked all the way to Castle Rock to get out. After dark a train must have finally come along and el smacko.' Chris drove his right fist down against his left palm, making a flat noise. Teddy, a veteran of many close calls dodging the pulp-trucks on 196, looked vaguely pleased. I felt a little sick, imagining the kid so far away from home, scared to death but doggedly following the GS&WM tracks, probably walking on the ties because of the night-noises from the overhanging trees and bushes maybe even from the culverts underneath the railroad bed. And here comes the train, and maybe the big headlight on the front hypnotised him until it was too late to jump. Or maybe he was just lying there on the tracks in a hunger-faint when the train came along. Either way, any way, Chris had the straight of it: el smacko had been the final result. The kid was dead.

'So anyway, you want to go see it?' Vern asked. He was squirming around like he had to go to the bathroom he was so excited.

We all looked at him for a long second, no one saying anything. Then Chris tossed his cards down and said, 'Sure! And I bet you anything we get our pictures in the paper!'

'Huh?' Vern said.

'Yeah?' Teddy said, and grinned his crazy truck-dodging grin. 'Look,' Chris said, leaning across the ratty card-table. 'We can find the body and report it!

Well be on the news!'

'I dunno,' Vern said, obviously taken aback. 'Billy will know where I found out. He'll beat the living shit outta me.'

'No