Part 40 (1/2)

So what's the difference?”

”Shut up!” Mike roared.

”You ain't telling me to shut up!”

”Me either,” Silvo yelled. ”You think you're a great big big-shot! You think you're king of the world!”

”Who figured out the Vanish?” Mike screamed. ”You'd all be a bunch of b.u.ms if I hadn't showed you that! And you know it! You'd all--”

”Don't give us that,” Silvo said. ”We'd have been able to do it, same as you. Like you said, anybody who's got talent could do it. There were guys you tried to teach--”

”Sure,” said a fourth voice. ”Listen, Fueyo, you're so bright--so why don't you try teaching it to somebody who don't have the talent?”

”Yeah,” said voice number five. ”You think you could teach that flashy sister of yours the Vanish?”

”You shut up about my sister, Phil!” Mike screamed.

”So what's so great about her?”

”She got that book back from the Fed,” Mike said. ”That's what. It's enough!”

”h.e.l.l,” a voice said, ”any dame with a little--”

”Shut your G.o.dd.a.m.n face before I shut it for you!”

Malone couldn't tell who was yelling what at who after a minute. They all seemed unhappy about being on the run from the police, and they were all tired of being cooped up in a warehouse under Mike's orders.

Mike was the only person they could take it out on--and Mike was under heavy attack.

Two of the boys, surprisingly, seemed to side with him. The other five were trying to outshout them. Malone wondered if it would become a fight, and then realized that these kids could hardly fight each other when the one who was losing could always fade out.

He leaned over and whispered to Dorothea and Boyd, ”Let's sneak up there while the argument's going on.”

”But--” Boyd began.

”Less chance of their noticing us,” Malone explained, and Started forward.

They tiptoed up the stairs and got behind a pile of crates in the shadows, while invective roared around them. This floor was lit by a single small bulb hanging from a socket in the ceiling. The windows were hung with heavy blankets to keep the light from s.h.i.+ning out.

The kids didn't notice anything except each other. Malone took a couple of deep breaths and began to look around.

All things considered, he thought, the kids had fixed the place up pretty nicely. The unused warehouse had practically been made over into an apartment. There were chairs, beds, tables, and everything else in the line of furnis.h.i.+ngs for which the kids could conceivably have any use. There were even some floor lamps scattered around, but they weren't plugged in. Malone guessed that a job would have to be done on the warehouse wiring to get the floor lamps in operation, and the kids just hadn't got around to it yet.

By now the boys were practically standing toe-to-toe, ripping air-blueing epithets at each other. Not a single hand was lifted.

Malone stared at them for a second, then turned to Dorothea. ”We'll wait till they calm down a little,” he whispered. ”Then you go out and talk to them. Tell them we won't hurt them or lock them up or anything. All we want to do is talk to them for awhile.”

”All right,” she whispered back.

”They can vanish any time they want to,” Malone said, ”so there's no reason for them not to listen to--”

He stopped suddenly, listening. Over the shouting, screaming, and cursing of the kids, he heard motion on the floor below.