Tommy blushed and closed his eyes. He did wonder, as he followed her, how come he never kept the spot long enough to make it through the bedroom door.

On Christmas Day, Allen, who had no idea what had happened the night before, gave up trying to make sense of the mess in the living room. He asked around inside his head, but no one answered. God, how he hated these mix-up times. He salvaged what presents he could, rewrapping the tom packages, and loaded them, along with the painting Tommy had done for Jim, into the car.

When he got to Spring Street, he began to piece together quickly what had happened the previous night. Jim was sore as hell about him throwing a knife, and Kathy, Del and Mom jumped on him about some robberies.

“You did those roadside-rest robberies,” Del shouted, “and used a car registered in your mothers name.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Allen shouted back. Throwing up his hands in disgust, he stomped upstairs.

While he was gone, Del went through his jacket pockets and found the keys to the car. He, Kathy, Jim and Dorothy went outside to check through the trunk of the car. They found credit cards, driver’s licenses and a highway map. The roadside-rest areas along Route 33 were marked with X’s.

When they turned, they saw him at the door watching them.

“You did it,” Del said, waving the evidence in his face.

“Nothing to worry about,” Kevin said. “I won’t get caught. It’s the perfect crime. I didn’t leave any fingerprints or anything, and the fags won’t report it.”

“You goddamned fool,” Del screamed. “Jim called the guy whose wallet you stole. He saw you in town. You dragged this whole family into your goddamned ‘perfect crime. ’ ”

They saw his face change; panic replaced coolness.

They decided to help Billy by getting rid of the evidence. Jim would take the Grand Prix back with him to Spokane and keep up the payments on it. Billy was going to move out of Somerford Square to a smaller apartment on Maywood Avenue.

Through it all, Danny listened, wondering what in the world they were talking about and when everyone was going to open the presents.

Chapter Sixteen

(1)

On Wednesday, January 8, as Tommy was meeting Marlene for lunch at the Memorial Plaza Shopping Center, he saw a delivery van pull up to the Gray Drug Store. While they watched the delivery man walk into the store with a large box, Tommy muttered, “Narcotics delivery. The pharmacist’ll be working late tonight.”

Marlene looked at him curiously. He didn’t know why he had said that.

Kevin had been planning to rob the store. He’d gotten together with Wayne Luft and another friend, Roy Bailey, and laid it out for them. They would execute the robbery and get the lion’s share of the money and drugs. For the planning, he would get 20 percent.

That night, following Kevin’s instructions, the two men waited until one-thirty in the morning, forced the pharmacist back into the store at gunpoint, then robbed the safe and the narcotics cabinet.