curtain, the foam-coated pipes running up through the ceiling into his own third-floor bathroom: it all seemed virtual to him, flickering, pixilated. At that moment the computerized rink with its frictionless ice was more real to him than Jem’s mother’s house.
He stepped back into the narrow hallway with its undulating walls and twitching corners, a world with seams, the framed photograph of Cardinal Cushing hanging over the long-dry holy-water bowl looking poor-graphics fuzzy.
The sound of the glass rattling on the downstairs door sent a dead feeling through Doug, the caffeine and carbonation draining from his alter world, his game buzz gone flat.
“Krista’s home,” he said, returning to Jem.
“It’s cool, man, she won’t bug us.”
“Let me get my take, get it squared away.”
Jem smiled icily. “You’re gonna breeze.”
“No. Just get my shit squared away, then come right back down.”
Jem stood, unconvinced, going to the frame of the doorway between the parlor and the neglected second-floor kitchen. He yanked on the molding and brought it loose in one long piece, revealing plywood shelves nailed in between the old walls like a row of mail slots. Jem withdrew Doug’s bundle, leaving many smaller newspaper-wrapped parcels behind, many ripped open and spilling cash.
“You stash here?” said Doug.
“Why not?”
Doug nodded at Jem’s room full of toys. “You take a search warrant and they see all this hardware against your tax return, then the electricity you steal, the cable you pirate—you don’t think they’re gonna tap on the walls?”
Jem shrugged and fit the molding back over the wall edge, hammering it in tight with the heel of his hand. “Always so fucking panicked. What, where you keep yours? You don’t spend it, I know that.”
“Not upstairs.” Doug weighed the bundle in his hand. “Speaking of, how you fixed for clean linen?”
“Could always wash some.”
Doug nodded, feeling residual good humor from the game. “We could go native tonight.”
“Native it is. But only if we eat down there. Make a night of it this time, Duggy, do it right, not just up and back like going to the cash machine.”
Doug nodded, cool with that. “I’ll run this upstairs. You call the two homos.”
D OUG RETURNED DOWNSTAIRS CARRYING a suede Timberland jacket with eight thousand dollars in twenties and fifties tucked inside the quilted lining.
Jem’s mother’s house was a classic Charlestown triple-decker of stacked, identical apartments. Diabetes had claimed Jem’s mother’s body in pieces, toes and feet first, then fingers, knees, kidney, and finally her heart. The disease had since spread to her house, rotting it room by room.
Doug’s rent for the entire third floor was a couple of grand a year in real estate taxes. Jem, on the second floor, took care of all stolen utilities. The first floor was Krista’s.
Kristina Coughlin was Jem’s Irish twin, exactly eleven months and eleven days his junior. They bickered like husband and wife, she doing his laundry and occasionally cooking a meal—her mother’s gooey chicken à la king her specialty—while he handed her money and generally laid around watching TV.
Krista shared her brother’s wild streak. She had smoked her twenties down to the filter, the wear and tear just now starting to show, though she had snapped back from her pregnancy like a fresh rubber band. Merit Longs kept her in fighting trim. She had the Coughlin white-blue eyes, not so bad as her brother’s, but when she drank, which was often, they glowed like demon jewels. Something she did to her hair with a razor kept the layers jagged and sharp. Like her partying soul, her dirty-blond hair lay flat and useless during the day, only to be teased into action every night. Her chest was criminally small, her long legs usually done out in stonewashed denim and heels in order to show off her proud, heart-shaped ass.
The three of them had grown up together, Doug
He stepped back into the narrow hallway with its undulating walls and twitching corners, a world with seams, the framed photograph of Cardinal Cushing hanging over the long-dry holy-water bowl looking poor-graphics fuzzy.
The sound of the glass rattling on the downstairs door sent a dead feeling through Doug, the caffeine and carbonation draining from his alter world, his game buzz gone flat.
“Krista’s home,” he said, returning to Jem.
“It’s cool, man, she won’t bug us.”
“Let me get my take, get it squared away.”
Jem smiled icily. “You’re gonna breeze.”
“No. Just get my shit squared away, then come right back down.”
Jem stood, unconvinced, going to the frame of the doorway between the parlor and the neglected second-floor kitchen. He yanked on the molding and brought it loose in one long piece, revealing plywood shelves nailed in between the old walls like a row of mail slots. Jem withdrew Doug’s bundle, leaving many smaller newspaper-wrapped parcels behind, many ripped open and spilling cash.
“You stash here?” said Doug.
“Why not?”
Doug nodded at Jem’s room full of toys. “You take a search warrant and they see all this hardware against your tax return, then the electricity you steal, the cable you pirate—you don’t think they’re gonna tap on the walls?”
Jem shrugged and fit the molding back over the wall edge, hammering it in tight with the heel of his hand. “Always so fucking panicked. What, where you keep yours? You don’t spend it, I know that.”
“Not upstairs.” Doug weighed the bundle in his hand. “Speaking of, how you fixed for clean linen?”
“Could always wash some.”
Doug nodded, feeling residual good humor from the game. “We could go native tonight.”
“Native it is. But only if we eat down there. Make a night of it this time, Duggy, do it right, not just up and back like going to the cash machine.”
Doug nodded, cool with that. “I’ll run this upstairs. You call the two homos.”
D OUG RETURNED DOWNSTAIRS CARRYING a suede Timberland jacket with eight thousand dollars in twenties and fifties tucked inside the quilted lining.
Jem’s mother’s house was a classic Charlestown triple-decker of stacked, identical apartments. Diabetes had claimed Jem’s mother’s body in pieces, toes and feet first, then fingers, knees, kidney, and finally her heart. The disease had since spread to her house, rotting it room by room.
Doug’s rent for the entire third floor was a couple of grand a year in real estate taxes. Jem, on the second floor, took care of all stolen utilities. The first floor was Krista’s.
Kristina Coughlin was Jem’s Irish twin, exactly eleven months and eleven days his junior. They bickered like husband and wife, she doing his laundry and occasionally cooking a meal—her mother’s gooey chicken à la king her specialty—while he handed her money and generally laid around watching TV.
Krista shared her brother’s wild streak. She had smoked her twenties down to the filter, the wear and tear just now starting to show, though she had snapped back from her pregnancy like a fresh rubber band. Merit Longs kept her in fighting trim. She had the Coughlin white-blue eyes, not so bad as her brother’s, but when she drank, which was often, they glowed like demon jewels. Something she did to her hair with a razor kept the layers jagged and sharp. Like her partying soul, her dirty-blond hair lay flat and useless during the day, only to be teased into action every night. Her chest was criminally small, her long legs usually done out in stonewashed denim and heels in order to show off her proud, heart-shaped ass.
The three of them had grown up together, Doug
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