Shallow Graves

it.
    “Oh, man, I heard it was like totally awesome. Sid, he’s kinduva dweeb but, you know, he can be okay sometimes, he was driving by and seen the cloud.”
    “Cloud?” Billy asked, eating a huge mouthful of pancakes.
    “Yeah. Of smoke. He goes, ‘It was totally black.’ I thought he was a hatter, man, really. Like I go, ‘Excuse me, I mean, ex cuse me, but gas doesn’t burn black.’ But then I figured it must’ve been tires. You hear about that illegal dump over in Jersey? They had like a million tires there and they caught fire only nobody could put it out.”
    “Missed that,” Bobby said. He frowned. “Did you hear about that?”
    Billy said, “Didn’t hear about it.”
    Ned continued. “So what it is I went by the park. Stan was there and he wouldn’t let us get too close. I mean, the body was gone and everything but the car—you should’ve seen it. Totally nuked. Awesome!”
    Bobby said, “I didn’t hear about any car, what happened?”
    Ned said, “The guy was freebasing or doing crack. And, man, it went up like an M80. Like what is free-basing?”
    Bobby shrugged and finished his pancakes. He took half of one off his brother’s plate. “I don’t know.”
    “What happened to the dude who was driving?” Bobby asked.
    Ned said, “Torched. Like this sausage.” He grinned and held it up on a white plastic fork. He put the whole link in his mouth and chewed slowly.
    “He was the guy from the movie company, right?”
    Ned said, “Yeah, I guess that screws up the chance of ’em making a movie in Cleary. The other one’s still here, though. His buddy.”
    Billy said, “I’d like to be in a movie.”
    Ned said, “Yeah, both you guys together! I don’t think I ever saw twins in a movie.” He wiped up syrup with his finger and licked it off slowly. “I think it’d be totally fresh to be in a movie. Only, you know what bothers me?”
    “No telling.”
    “Well, think about it. In a love scene, okay? Some guy’s kissing Sharon Stone or Kim Basinger or some fox, he’s gotta have a hard-on, don’t you think?”
    Bobby said, “You’d think.”
    “Man, that’d be totally embarrassing. I’d try tothink about making a play at second or something but I bet I’d still get a hard-on. Oh, man, what if I came while I was kissing her, right in front of everybody? God, I’d die.”
    The twins glanced at each other. Neither of them looked like they’d die under those circumstances.
    Billy said, “I think it would’ve been fun, have a movie made here. Then go out to the mall, to the multiplex over in Osborne, and see Main Street up there on the screen.”
    Ned said, “Oh, you know what’d be great? When they kiss on screen, you know, the girl’s gotta kiss you whether she thinks you’re a dweeb or not. It’s like in the script, so what I’d do is, I’m holding her and the director says, ‘Roll it’—”
    “ ‘Action,’ ” Bobby offered.
    “Yeah, right, ‘Action,’ and what I’d do is I’d tongue her so fast, bang, just like that! And she’d have to put up with it. She’d have to look like she enjoyed it.”
    “But then you’d get a hard-on,” Billy said, “and be all embarrassed.”
    Bobby asked, “Was there anything left of it?”
    “Of what?” Ned sucked his fork.
    “The car?”
    “Just the metal parts. They were all twisted and burnt up but—”
    “So where’s that car now?” Billy asked.
    Ned said, “Jimmy and me wanted to go take a look at it. It’s at Sillman’s Garage. They’re the ones that rented it to him.”
    Bobby said, “What you think it’s worth?”
    “Worth? It’s pretty totaled, man. It’s like nothing’s left of the back half. The engine might be okay.”
    Bobby looked at his brother. “Maybe we should take a look at it.”
    “Can’t hurt.”
    Bobby looked at the boy’s empty plate. “Hey, you want any more?”
    “They’re closed up,” Ned pointed out.
    “Hell, for you, we’ll open the kitchen.”
    “Well, just pancakes and sausages. I don’t want any eggs.”
    “Coming right up,” Bobby said just as Billy started to say the same thing.
    WEXELL AMBLER’S HOUSE was on Barlow Mountain Road just south of Cleary. The yard ran at a shallow incline down to what was called a lake on the local maps, though it was really just a pond. A hundred years ago Samuel Bingham, the Hartford insurance magnate, wanted to surprise his wife on her fortieth birthday by giving her something she didn’t already own, which