The Talisman

up to the elbow, his big, doughy face so pallid that the pimples on it stood out like garish dots of rouge.
    ‘Doctor says I may never get the use of it back,’ Heck Bast said. ‘You and your numbnuts buddy have got a lot to answer for, Parker.’
    ‘You aiming to have the same thing happen to your other hand?’ Jack asked him . . . but he was afraid. It was not just a desire for revenge he saw in Heck’s eyes; it was a desire to commit murder.
    ‘I’m not afraid of him,’ Heck said. ‘Sonny says they took most of the mean out of him in the Box. Sonny says he’ll do anything to keep from going back in. As for you—’
    Heck’s left fist flashed out. He was even clumsier with his left hand than with his right, but Jack, stunned by the big boy’s pallid rage, never saw it coming. His lips spread into a weird smile under Heck’s fist and broke open. He reeled back against the wall.
    A door opened and Billy Adams looked out.
    ‘ Shut that door or I’ll see you get a helping! ’ Heck screamed, and Adams, not anxious for a dose of assault and battery, complied in a hurry.
    Heck started toward Jack. Jack pushed groggily away from the wall and raised his fists. Heck stopped.
    ‘You’d like that, wouldn’t you,’ Heck said. ‘Fighting with a guy that’s only got one good hand.’ Color rushed up into his face.
    Footsteps rattled on the third floor, heading toward the stairs. Heck looked at Jack. ‘That’s Sonny. Go on. Get out of here. We’re gonna get you, my friend. You and the dummy both. Reverend Gardener says we can, unless you tell him whatever it is he wants to know.’
    Heck grinned.
    ‘Do me a favor, snotface. Don’t tell him.’
    2
    They had taken something out of Wolf in the Box, all right, Jack thought. Six hours had passed since his hallway confrontation with Heck Bast. The bell for confession would ring soon, but for now Wolf was sleeping heavily in the bunk below him. Outside, rain continued to rattle off the sides of the Sunlight Home.
    It wasn’t meanness, and Jack knew it wasn’t just the Box that had taken it. Not even just the Sunlight Home. It was this whole world. Wolf was, simply, pining for home. He had lost most of his vitality. He smiled rarely and laughed not at all. When Warwick yelled at him at lunch for eating with his fingers, Wolf cringed.
    It has to be soon, Jacky. Because I’m dying. Wolf’s dying.
    Heck Bast said he wasn’t afraid of Wolf, and indeed there seemed nothing left to be afraid of; it seemed that crushing Heck’s hand had been the last strong act of which Wolf was capable.
    The confession bell rang.
    That night, after confession and dinner and chapel, Jack and Wolf came back to their room to find both of their beds dripping wet and reeking of urine. Jack went to the door, yanked it open, and saw Sonny, Warwick, and a big lunk named Van Zandt standing in the hall, grinning.
    ‘Guess we got the wrong room, snotface,’ Sonny said. ‘Thought it had to be the toilet, on account of the turds we always see floating around in there.’
    Van Zandt almost ruptured himself laughing at this sally.
    Jack stared at them for a long moment, and Van Zandt stopped laughing.
    ‘Who you looking at, turd? You want your fucking nose broke off?’
    Jack closed the door, looked around, and saw Wolf asleep in his wet bunk with all his clothes on. Wolf’s beard was coming back, but still his face looked pale, the skin stretched and shiny. It was an invalid’s face.
    Leave him alone, then , Jack thought wearily. If he’s that tired, let him sleep in it.
    No. You will not leave him alone to sleep in that fouled bed. You will not!
    Tiredly, Jack went to Wolf, shook him half-awake, got him off the wet, stinking mattress, and out of his biballs. They slept curled up together on the floor.
    At four in the morning, the door opened and Sonny and Heck marched in. They yanked Jack up and half-carried him down to Sunlight Gardener’s basement office.
    Gardener was sitting with his feet up on the corner of his desk. He was fully dressed in spite of the hour. Behind him was a picture of Jesus walking on the Sea of Galilee while his disciples gawped in wonder. To his right was a glass window looking into the darkened studio where Casey worked his idiot-savant wonders. There was a heavy keychain attached to one of Gardener’s beltloops. The keys, a heavy bunch of them, lay in the palm of his hand. He played with them while he spoke.
    ‘You haven’t given us a single