Burn- pigeon 16 by Nevada Barr Page A

was nurturing so assiduously in his mind. "You know, a pass, like a reward? A finder's fee." Dougie laughed as if "finder's fee" were a clever witticism. Blackie failed to see the joke and didn't try too hard. He'd long ago given up trying to figure out what went on inside the boy's head. The closest he could get to picturing the inside of Dougie's skull was a kind of reddish sandstorm.
    He tried to go back to that place where there was only the radio and the road.
    "He did once, you know, when one of the jewels got broken. He gave me the pieces. Piece." Dougie laughed again. This time Blackie got the joke but didn't find it funny. He never found Dougie funny. Nobody needed to. Dougie always laughed at his own jokes. Blackie wished the kid had a screeching bray or a weird cackle, instead of the rich warm burble that seemed full of Christmas and candy and evenings around the dinner table. It creeped him out to put that laugh with what Dougie laughed at.
    "You're like a dog," Blackie said. "Feed it once and it keeps coming around begging. Fuck." He was disappointed in himself for getting drawn into conversation.
    "Stray dogs used to come around our place. I'd sneak table scraps out so they'd come back." Again the beautiful laugh; the laugh that would lure toddlers onto a man's knee. Blackie didn't want to think about why Dougie fed the strays.
    "Watch the fucking road."
    "I ain't driving," Dougie complained, but he watched the road.
    A few miles passed in relative peace. Even the trickling whimper from the back of the van had dried up. Blackie knew it was too good to last and was almost relieved when Dougie broke into the murmur of the voice on the radio.
    "Uh-oh," he said in a childlike singsong. "Man, you're gonna be pissed!"
    Blackie didn't doubt that. He waited to be informed on just why.
    "Really, really pissed," Dougie said.
    "Cut the crap."
    "I forgot something."
    "Jesus fucking Christ. What?"
    "Remember me taking my coat off so I wouldn't get stuff on it? I think I left it on the couch there."
    Blackie laughed. "Good. That thing was a pimp's advertisement."
    "It cost two hundred dollars," Dougie said, affronted.
    "You got ripped off. Somebody saw you coming."
    "No sir."
    Blackie shook his head. "Christ on a crutch," he muttered.
    "You know what else?"
    Blackie could hardly wait.
    "I think my wallet is in the pocket."

ELEVEN
    Running shut out thought. The burn of cold air in her lungs and the rasping squeak of her sneakers on the wet pavement filled voids where she might have lost herself; places where logic killed her children all over again and the future housed nothing but an antique radiator and windows black with wire mesh.
    A block, two, and she realized she had to find another way to shout down the monsters in her mind. Running would call attention to her more surely than an inside-out man's raincoat on a lone woman in the dark of early morning. She needed to get out of sight, get to a place she could stop and decide just how long the rest of her life would be and how she might best spend it.
    Jalila was the key.
    Jalila and David had left the house together. Only David was carried from the fire.
    If it was David.
    For a dizzying moment Clare realized she hadn't recognized her husband's body, only his bathrobe.
    "Jalila," she whispered to focus her mind. The au pair would know why the two of them had run out in the middle of the night, why David had returned.
    Clare slowed her steps; her heart ceased its hammering; her mind cleared to a degree. David had warehouses and two factories down near the docks. For the past several years, maybe more--Clare was not kept apprised of David's business dealings--he'd kept a small apartment nearby to rest in when he worked late, change clothes, shower.
    And entertain, Clare didn't doubt. She'd never been invited there, nor had she had any desire to barge in. A time or two she'd seen the outside of the building when she'd been called on to pick David up for a social function of