Empire Falls

was treating him. Except the whole thing had backfired. He knew it made no sense, but seeing this Voss kid not flinch had fucked him up somehow. Two nights in a row he’d lain awake thinking about it, knowing this fucking kid had upped the ante to the point where the next step was to spin a real bullet in the chamber, and then they’d see what they were really made of. He could feel that awful necessity growing inside him, and part of him was glad. The other part, the late-at-night part that couldn’t sleep, was scared, probably even more scared than that shit-scared Fairhaven pansy who kept pretending to have headaches. But maybe, Zack thought as he scurried across the lawn toward the porch, there was another way, because there was something inside this house that John Voss feared more than any gun.
    He was almost at the back porch steps when the ground suddenly dipped, which sent him lunging forward to regain his balance, and with his next step he tripped over what felt like some kind of iron rod sticking out of the ground. He went down hard, narrowly avoiding impaling himself on the spike. His shin burned, and through the ripped denim of his jeans he could feel warm blood.
    His first thought was that he’d stumbled into a horseshoe pit, but then he discovered that a thick chain was attached to the top of the spike, the sort of chain that you might find a large dog on the other end of. Or in the house. The possibility of a mean-assed dog hadn’t occurred to Zack until that very moment. He’d just about concluded that this whole idea was too fucked up when his foot brushed against something wooden, and he found there on the ground, against all laws of probability, the very thing he needed if there was a dog: a baseball bat.
    He went up the porch steps as quietly as he could, and when the top riser groaned under his weight, he cringed in anticipation of a volley of barking, but none came. He paused at the back door, listening, but the house was silent, and after a minute he leaned the bat in the corner and took from his pocket the set of keys his father was always boasting would open any door in Dexter County. The third key on the ring worked, and the door swung open into darkness.
    A FTER A FEW MINUTES , it occurred to Justin Dibble that the suggestion his friend had offered in jest wasn’t such a bad idea, so he unzipped his fly and went to work. It took a while, and he had to stop once when a car slowed at the sight of the Camaro parked there on the shoulder, but then sped off in the direction of Fairhaven. Justin had barely finished when he heard a sound and saw a dark figure trotting back across the lawn, and he only just managed to tuck himself in before Zack arrived back at the stand of trees. Justin was afraid that his friend would guess what he’d been up to, but his thoughts were clearly elsewhere. Even in the pale moonlight Justin could see his eyes were gleaming with excitement.
    But all he said was, “This is SO FUCKING GREAT !”

CHAPTER 25
    T ICK HAS LEARNED several interesting things about Mrs. Roderigue. For instance, that her favorite painter is Bill Taylor, who has a show, Painting for Relaxation , on the local access channel. Taylor’s specialties are old rowboats and the rocky Maine shoreline, and most of his paintings contain both of these features. Amazingly, he manages to complete a painting, start to finish, during his one-hour time slot, and when he’s on location instead of painting from a photograph or postcard, that hour includes the time it takes him to set up his easel. He prefers to work in watercolors, freely admitting that oils slow him down. He always keeps a battery-operated hair dryer on hand so he can blow-dry the freshly applied paint and save precious seconds.
    In truth, Tick does like to watch him work on TV, and she can’t help but admire the way he attacks the canvas—Taylor’s own phrase—something she knows she has to learn. Where her own strokes are tentative and often fearful, Bill Taylor’s brush never seems to do anything that causes him regret or even misgiving. To Tick it seems as though his arm, wrist, hand, fingers and brush are all an extension of his eye, or perhaps his will. When he does make a mistake, he just chuckles and says, “Never mind. We’ll fix that later,” and sure enough, he does.
    Tick knows there are many secrets she has yet to discover, and she looks forward to the day when she, too, will have dozens of good tricks with which