Part 14 (2/2)

His acolytes, three teenagers in do-rags from the shantytown, laughed and went on to pitching bottle-caps off the edge of the roof.

”Stop that, now,” he said, ”you're getting the junkyard all dirty. Christ, you'd think that they grew up in some kind of zoo.”

When Francis drank, he got a little mean, a little dark.

”So, kids,” Perry said, wandering over to them, hands in pockets. Silhouetted against the setting sun, biceps bulging, muscular chest tapering to his narrow hips, he looked like a Greek statue. ”What do you think of the stuff we're building?”

They looked at their toes. ”'S OK,” one of them grunted.

”Answer the man,” Francis snapped. ”Complete sentences, looking up and at him, like you've got a shred of self-respect. Christ, what are you, five years old?”

They s.h.i.+fted uncomfortably. ”It's fine,” one of them said.

”Would you use it at home?”

One of them snorted. ”No, man. My dad steals anything nice we get and sells it.”

”Oh,” Perry said.

”f.u.c.ker broke in the other night and I caught him with my ipod. Nearly took his f.u.c.king head off with my cannon before I saw who it was. f.u.c.king juice-head.”

”You should have f.u.c.ked him up,” one of the other kids said. ”My ma pushed my pops in front of a bus one day to get rid of him, guy broke both his legs and never came back.”

Suzanne knew it was meant to shock them, but that didn't take away from its shockingness. In the warm fog of writing and living in Florida, it was easy to forget that these people lived in a squatter camp and were technically criminals, and received no protection from the law.

Perry, though, just squinted into the sun and nodded. ”Have you ever tried burglar alarms?”

The kids laughed derisively and Suzanne winced, but Perry was undaunted. ”You could be sure that you woke up whenever anyone entered, set up a light and siren to scare them off.”

”I want one that fires spears,” the one with the juice-head father said.

”Blowtorches,” said the one whose mother pushed his father under a bus.

”I want a force-field,” the third one said, speaking for the first time. ”I want something that will keep anyone from coming in, period, so I don't have to sleep one eye up, 'cause I'll be safe.”

The other two nodded, slowly.

”d.a.m.n straight,” Francis said.

That was the last time Francis's acolytes joined them on the rooftop. Instead, when they finished work they went home, walking slowly and talking in low murmurs. With just the grownups on the roof, it was a lot more subdued.

”What's that smoke?” Lester said, pointing at the black billowing column off to the west, in the sunset's glare.

”House-fire,” Francis said. ”Has to be. Or a big f.u.c.king car-wreck, maybe.”

Perry ran down the stairs and came back up with a pair of high-power binox. ”Francis, that's your place,” he said after a second's fiddling. He handed the binox to Francis. ”Just hit the b.u.t.ton and they'll self-stabilize.”

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