The Walls Of The Universe Part 19

During dinner, at a small restaurant called the Riverview, Casey said, "That Ted Carson really burns me up."

John shrugged. "He's a loser, always will be."

"He tried to hit on me once," she said.

John felt a moment's jealousy. "Yeah?"

"At a party in town," she said. "He grabbed me. I kicked him in the crotch."

"Good response."

"It works for most grabby boys," she said.

"I'll keep that in mind."

"You probably won't have to worry about it," she said. John wasn't sure if that meant she trusted him not to touch her or she was going to let him if he tried.

Remembering what John Prime had told him, he said, "I heard Carson tortured animals."

"That's not a nice thing to say!" Casey said.

"During dinner or at all?"

"At all."

"What if it's true?" John asked. What was true in one world was probably true in another.

"Have you seen the evidence? With your own eyes?"

"Where there's smoke, there's fire."

"Have you heard 'innocent until proven guilty'?"

"How many squirrels need to be dissected while still alive for us to know someone's a bad egg?"

"How many innocents should suffer to capture one bad egg?"

John grinned; then Casey grinned back. She said, "I don't agree with you, but you're a lot more interesting to talk to than Jack."

"Jack?"

"Jack would have jumped right out of the car and laid into Carson."

"Who the h.e.l.l is Jack?" John asked. "And why do people keep bringing him up?"

"My ex-boyfriend."

"Uh-oh. I thought he was just some frat boy from college."

"He'll probably be at the dance we're going to."

"Dance?"

"Who needs a movie when we can dance?" She smiled. "Oh, wait. I just remembered you like that country and western c.r.a.p. Too bad."

John said, "I hear that The Revolutionary War Witch The Revolutionary War Witch is a great movie." is a great movie."

"Uh-huh. We'll catch it next week at the U."

"So we're going out again," John said as casually as he could.

"Despite your views on Ted Carson."

The dance was at a warehouse next to the railroad tracks over on the east side of town. The warehouse was empty, hidden behind two other buildings, isolated, and perfect for a party.

The music was the rock-and-roll stuff that he usually heard on the radio, bouncy fifties music, and not the hard reverb that would have been impossible to dance to. The teens in his universe would be listening to heavy metal. Here they listened to songs the Big Bopper might have written and sung.

"I suppose you're gonna tell me you don't know how to dance," she said as they walked in past a hulking doorman who waved them right in when he saw Casey. Apparently she was well known at these things.

"I know how to dance," John said. He didn't know the bouncing dances that the kids on the floor were doing, but he had been in a play during his soph.o.m.ore year when he took drama. The play had been called Sock Hop, Sock Hop, big on Broadway during the seventies. It featured a number of fifties-style dances, and he'd had to learn the jitterbug. "The question is if you do." big on Broadway during the seventies. It featured a number of fifties-style dances, and he'd had to learn the jitterbug. "The question is if you do."

She looked at him with mock outrage. "Johnny, you amaze me." She grabbed his arm. "Let's go."

He showed her the slow-slow-quick-quick step twice, and she mimicked it gracefully enough; then he grabbed her in promenade and launched into it.

She stumbled once and then she had the hang of it. She'd been a cheerleader and studied dance when she was younger, and the basic steps of the jitterbug were easy. When he spun her out, she squealed, but when she came back in again, her face was lit with a smile.

They danced three dances straight, John adding moves as they went. He was rusty at first too; it had been three years since he'd done it. When he'd learned it for the play, his mother had danced with him in the kitchen, his father looking on and laughing. At least until John's mother had taken his father's hand and shown that he too knew the double lindy.

John noticed that people were watching them. They were frenetic and different enough in their moves that it drew interested attention. A small circle formed around them. Apparently the jitterbug had been forgotten here or it had lapsed into the junkyard of fads.

"Enough," Casey said, pushing him away. She was breathless, her chest heaving, and John wanted very much to clutch her to him again. He settled for slipping his arm around her waist and leading her to the makeshift bar. She didn't shrug his arm off but instead leaned closer to him. If they hadn't been dancing for twenty minutes, John would have retracted in fright, stiff at her encroachment. But there was an intimacy that had formed between them suddenly. Dance had its social function, and John was suddenly glad he'd worked so hard to learn those dance steps.

"Two ice waters," he said to the bartender.

Casey took hers, dipped her finger in, and wetted her right cheek. Impulsively, John wetted her other check from his own gla.s.s.

"Told you I could dance," he said.

"I've never done that before. Where'd you learn that?"

"For a school play," he said truthfully.

"That was d.a.m.n fun." She flickered the water from her finger at him.

"Hey, Casey," someone said behind him, and he turned to see a tall, dark-haired young man standing there.

"Jack," Casey said.

"You wanna dance, Casey?" he said, edging past and in front of John.

"Too tired, Jack. Besides, John has all my dances tonight."

Jack turned and looked at John. He was three centimeters taller than John, perhaps six foot two. His shoulders were broad, and John felt his guts twist. How many fights had Jack been in during the last year? John hoped that Jack was a sensible person but smelled alcohol on his breath.

"Yeah? I saw that crazy dance he was doing. Must have learned it from his grandmother."

John sighed but remained quiet. Jack probably had a half-dozen friends to back him up. John had no one.

"Beat it, Jack. You're boring me," Casey said. She drained her water.

"I didn't used to bore you," he said. "I used to make you real happy."

"So does a good dump. And you're about as smelly."

John choked on his drink of water and sputtered a half laugh, half cough.

Jack turned red and then instead of throwing a punch or insult as John expected, he turned and walked off.

"Did you have to taunt him?"

"Oh, yeah. I did," she said with a smile. She looked over John's shoulder. "Uh-oh."

John turned and saw the red-blue flashing of lights coming through the warehouse windows.

"Cops."

"Better go," Casey said.

She grabbed his hand and headed behind the bar. There was a sheet metal door there with an unlit exit sign. They pushed through it into the cold night. John's ears seemed cushioned by the sudden silence.

"Car's on the other side of the building," John said.

They edged along the building. The music suddenly died and he heard screams from inside. The raid had commenced.

There were three police cars out front and a dozen patrolmen coming in. Two started their way to cover the side exits.

John and Casey ducked behind a Dumpster and watched the two officers jog by.

"Let's go," John said, and they dashed to the first row of cars.

Two more patrol cars pulled into the lot, and one stopped next to his Trans Am.

"s.h.i.t," he said.

"They're probably not gonna bust us," Casey said. "Just give us a warning."

"Yeah, I can't take the chance," John said. He didn't know how well his ID cards would hold out against a thorough search.

"You can't?" Casey asked.

"No, I can't. I can't get caught."

"Really, John. Three surprises in one night. I haven't been surprised three times on a date since I was a virgin."

John couldn't help laughing, and he stifled it by clamping a hand over his mouth.

"Stop it. We have to get out of here."

"We can't leave the car, so let's wait here a few minutes."

Officers started leading kids out of the warehouse, some of them cuffed. The patrolman in the car next to John's car finally got out and walked toward the front of the building.

As he pa.s.sed them, John and Casey went around the car they were hiding behind and dashed across the open s.p.a.ce to the last line of cars. They slid into their seats and doused the dome light quickly.

They watched, holding hands, until the police all had gone inside the building or left with their collars.

"Coast is clear, Johnny."

"Coast is clear," he agreed, and started the car.

As he drove her home, he considered and discarded a dozen strategies that would allow a good-night kiss. He need not have bothered. She grabbed him around the neck as they reached her porch and kissed him with a warm, half-open mouth. It lasted ten seconds, and John felt her slide against him and fit like she belonged there.

"Good night, John," Casey said, looking solemnly into his eyes. "See you tomorrow."

CHAPTER 22

John Prime was exhausted the next day, yet hyper-aware of every sound, every person at his shoulder. He kept hearing people saying "Carson" over and over again, but when he focused on the conversation they were saying "cars" or "cartoon" or "Khartoum." He almost ran from the building twice.

Sweating, almost gagging, he took his break in a stall in the locker room.

"Keep it together. No one knows," he whispered to himself. "No one even knows he's missing yet."

At the end of the day, Prime saw Carson's father talking to one of the foremen in the parking lot. Prime averted his gaze and got into his car.

Abby cooed at him when he got home, as if nothing had happened, but Casey looked at him with hollow eyes. There was no smile, no hug, no twinkle in her eye. When he neared her, his guilt merged with hers into a black swirling ma.s.s. What had they done?

They spoke not at all over dinner, and when they climbed into bed they lay as far apart as possible.