“Sure.” Baby-John nodded. “But maybe Anybodys’ll lend me her crowbar.”

“If I get it back.”

Action gestured for them to follow him from the truck, and as Baby-John settled himself with the crowbar at his side he began to send out hard thoughts again to his heroes.

A little sad, he wondered if his trouble was just too small for them to bother with. Maybe, on his way through outer space, Riff might put in a good word for him.

CHAPTER NINE

Yes, she had kissed him as he lay on the bed, and in desperation he had clung to her, pressed his lips to her mouth. In anguished desperation he had grasped her, as if dying, and his right hand had touched her breast, hesitated, then with his palm cupped the warm flesh that beat under the fabric. And the knowledge that their lives together would be ended within minutes—at best within an hour or two—had compelled him to pull her over and across him, so that they were together on the bed.

He trembled again and attempted to leave the bed, so she had moved to the other pillow and listened as he wept, then slept. Soon her mother and father would be coming up the stairs—or were they on the way to the undertakers? Or would Bernardo be taken to the morgue?

She felt the bed shake as Tony trembled convulsively and drew up his legs as if in the throes of the bends. Groping through chaos, he gasped for breath and attempted to leave the bed.

“Stay,” she said to him.

“Maria?” she heard him whisper, “Maria, I gotta go.”

Not giving him time to speak again, she embraced him and fitted her breasts, her stomach, her loins to his body, and desire overcame fear, joy overcame sorrow, until a siren wailed in the street below.

Suddenly he thrust free and fumbled for his shoes. Terror rose in her throat and she pressed her lips against his cheek to keep the cry within her so that it would not escape to frighten the boy in whose arms she had lain.

“We are married,” she sobbed. “This afternoon we were so happy. Tonight waiting for you I was so happy.”

“You’re young,” he said. “You’ll be happy again. With someone better than me. That’s what I see for you.”

She shook her head. “Be my husband.”

“I can’t,” he said. “I’m a murderer.”

“Then be my lover.”

“I can’t.” He turned away not to see her eyes. “Bernardo won’t let me. My God, Maria, I killed him!”

“And he killed your friend. The boy who was like your brother.”

“No.” He had to deny it. “That was long ago. Just talk, nothing more. He was never my brother. At the end I don’t even think he was my friend.”

“To kill for him, he had to be more than a friend,” she continued in her low, calm voice. “Tell me about him.”

“What’s there to tell?” He trembled with grief. “Riff was a good joe. He had guts, he wasn’t afraid of anybody, and he was always looking for a fight to prove it.”