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  Not now, he decided. Maybe after the humiliation of the thermometer was a bit further behind him, but not now. If that made him a chickenshit, so be it. He turned off the computer and took a walk to the other wing. Maureen wasn’t near the ice machine, but her laundry cart was parked halfway down what Luke now thought of as Avery’s hallway, and he could hear her singing something about raindrops. He went to the sound of her voice and saw her putting on fresh sheets in a room decorated with WWF posters of hulking beefcakes in spandex shorts. They all looked mean enough to chew nails and spit out staples.

  “Hey, Maureen, how are you?”

  “Fine,” she said. “Back aches a little, but I’ve got my Motrin.”

  “Want some help?”

  “Thanks, but this is the last room, and I’m almost finished. Two girls, one boy. Expected soon. This is the boy’s room.” She gestured at the posters and laughed. “As if you didn’t know.”

  “Well, I thought I’d get some ice, but there’s no bucket in my room.”

  “They’re stacked in a cubby next to the bin.” She straightened up, put her hands in the small of her back, and grimaced. Luke heard her spine crackle. “Oh, that’s lots better. I’ll show you.”

  “Only if it’s no trouble.”

  “No trouble at all. Come on. You can push my cart, if you want to.”

  As they went down the hall, Luke thought about his researches into Maureen’s problem. One horrifying statistic in particular stuck out: Americans owed over twelve trillion dollars. Money spent but not earned, just promised. A paradox only an accountant could love. While much of that debt had to do with mortgages on homes and businesses, an appreciable amount led back to those little plastic rectangles everyone kept in their purses and wallets: the oxycodone of American consumers.

  Maureen opened a little cabinet to the right of the ice machine. “Can you get one, and save me stooping down? Some inconsiderate somebody pushed every damned bucket all the way to the back.”

  Luke reached. As he did, he spoke in a low voice. “Kalisha told me about your problem with the credit cards. I think I know how to fix it, but a lot of it depends on your declared residence.”

  “My declared—”

  “What state do you live in?”

  “I . . .” She took a quick, furtive look around. “We’re not supposed to tell any personal stuff to the residents. It would mean my job if anyone found out. More than my job. Can I trust you, Luke?”

  “I’ll keep my mouth shut.”

  “I live over in Vermont. Burlington. That’s where I’m going on my outside week.” Telling him that seemed to release something inside her, and although she kept the volume down, the words came spilling out. “The first thing I have to do when I get off work is delete a bunch of dunning calls from my phone. And when I get home, from the answering machine on that phone. You know, the landline. When the answer-machine is full, they leave letters—warnings, threats—in the mailbox or under the door. My car, they can repo that any time they want, it’s a beater, but now they’re talking about my house! It’s paid off, and no thanks to him. I killed the mortgage with my signing bonus when I came to work here, that’s why I came to work here, but they’ll take it, and the what-do-you-call-it will be gone—”

  “The equity,” Luke said, whispering it.

  “Right, that.” Color had bloomed in her sallow cheeks, whether of shame or anger Luke didn’t know. “And once they have the house, they’ll want what’s put away, and that money’s not for me! Not for me, but they’ll take it just the same. They say so.”

  “He ran up that much?” Luke was astonished. The guy must have been a spending machine.

  “Yes!”

  “Keep it down.” He held the plastic bucket in one hand and opened the ice machine with the other. “Vermont is good. It’s not a community property state.”

  “What’s that mean?”

  Something they don’t want you to know about, Luke thought. There’s so much they don’t want you to know about. Once you’re stuck on the flypaper, that’s where they want you to stay. He grabbed the plastic scoop inside the door of the ice machine and pretended to be breaking up chunks of ice. “The cards he used, were they in his name or yours?”

  “His, of course, but they’re still dunning me because we’re still legally married, and the account numbers are the same!”

  Luke began filling the plastic ice bucket . . . very slowly. “They say they can do that, and it sounds plausible, but they can’t. Not legally, not in Vermont. Not in most states. If he was using his cards and his signature was on the slips, that’s his debt.”

  “They say it’s ours! Both of ours!”

  “They lie,” Luke said grimly. “As for the calls you mentioned—do any of them come after eight o’clock at night?”

  Her voice dropped to a fierce whisper. “Are you kidding? Sometimes they call at midnight! ‘Pay up or the bank’s going to take your house next week! You’ll come back to find the locks changed and your furniture out on the lawn!’ ”

  Luke had read about this, and worse. Debt collectors threatening to turn aged parents out of their nursing homes. Threatening to go after young adult children still trying to get some financial traction. Anything to get their percentage of the cash grab. “It’s good you’re away most of the time and those calls go to voicemail. They don’t let you have your cell here?”

  “No! God, no! It’s locked in my car, in . . . well, not here. I changed my number once, and they got the new one. How could they do that?”

  Easily, Luke thought. “Don’t delete those calls. Save them. They’ll be time-stamped. It’s illegal for collection agencies to call clients—that’s what they call people like you, clients—after eight o’clock at night.”

  He dumped the bucket and began to fill it again, even more slowly. Maureen was looking at him with amazement and dawning hope, but Luke hardly noticed. He was deep in the problem, tracing the lines back to the central point where those lines could be cut.

  “You need a lawyer. Don’t even think about going to one of the quick-buck companies that advertise on cable, they’ll take you for everything they can and then put you into Chapter 7. You’ll never get your credit rating back. You want a straight-arrow Vermont lawyer who specializes in debt relief, knows all about the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, and hates those bloodsuckers. I’ll do some research and get you a name.”

  “You can do that?”

  “I’m pretty sure.” If they didn’t take his computer away first, that was. “The lawyer needs to find out which collection agencies are in charge of trying to get the money. The ones that are scaring you and calling in the middle of the night. The banks and credit card companies don’t like to give the names of the stooges they use, but unless Fair Debt’s repealed—and there are powerful people in Washington trying to do that—a good lawyer can force them to do it. The people phoning you step over the line all the time. They’re a bunch of scumbags working in boiler rooms.”

  Not all that different from the scumbags working here, Luke thought.

  “What are boiler—”

  “Never mind.” This was going on too long. “A good debt relief lawyer will go to the banks with your answering machine tapes and tell them they have two choices: forgive the debts or go to court, charged with illegal business practices. Banks hate going to court and having people find out they’re hiring guys just one step away from leg-breakers in a Scorsese movie.”

  “You don’t think I have to pay?” Maureen looked dazed.

  He looked straight into her tired, too-pale face. “Did you do anything wrong?”

  She shook her head. “But it’s so much. He was furnishing his own place in Albany, buying stereos and computers and flatscreen TVs, he’s got a dolly and he’s buying her things, he likes casinos, and it’s been going on for years. Stupid trusting me didn’t know until it was too late.”

  “It’s not too late, that’s what—”

  “Hi, Luke.”

/>   Luke jumped, turned, and saw Avery Dixon. “Hi. How was the trampoline?”

  “Good. Then boring. Guess what? I had a shot, and I didn’t even cry.”

  “Good for you.”

  “Want to watch TV up in the lounge until lunch? They have Nickelodeon, Iris said so. SpongeBob and Rusty Rivets and The Loud House.”

  “Not now,” Luke said, “but you knock yourself out.”

  Avery studied the two of them a moment longer, then headed up the hall.

  Once he was gone, Luke turned back to Maureen. “It’s not too late, that’s what I’m saying. But you have to move fast. Meet me here tomorrow. I’ll have a name for you. Somebody good. Somebody with a track record. I promise.”

  “This . . . son, this is too good to be true.”

  He liked her calling him son. It gave him a warm feeling. Stupid, maybe, but still true.

  “It’s not, though. What they’re trying to do to you is too bad to be true. I really have to go. It’s almost lunchtime.”

  “I won’t forget this,” she said, and squeezed his hand. “If you can—”

  The doors banged open at the far end of the hall. Luke was suddenly sure he was going to see a couple of caretakers, a couple of the mean ones—Tony and Zeke, maybe—coming for him. They’d take him somewhere and question him about what he and Maureen had been talking about, and if he didn’t tell right away, they’d use “enhanced interrogation techniques” until he spilled everything. He’d be in trouble, but Maureen’s trouble might be even worse.

  “Take it easy, Luke,” she said. “It’s just the new residents.”

  Three pink-clad caretakers came through the doors. They were pulling a train of gurneys. There were sleeping girls on the first two, both blond. On the third was a hulk of a red-haired boy. Presumably the WWF fan. All were asleep. As they rolled closer, Luke said, “Holy crow, I think those girls are twins! Identicals!”

  “You’re right. Their names are Gerda and Greta. Now go on and get something to eat. I need to help those fellas get the new ones situated.”

  11

  Avery was sitting in one of the lounge chairs, swinging his feet and eating a Slim Jim as he watched the goings-ons in Bikini Bottom. “I got two tokens for not crying when I got my shot.”

  “Good.”

  “You can have the other one, if you want it.”

  “No, thanks. You keep it for later.”

  “Okay. SpongeBob is good, but I wish I could go home.” Avery didn’t sob or bawl or anything, but tears began to leak from the corners of his eyes.

  “Yeah, me too. Squish over.”

  Avery squished over and Luke sat down next to him. It was a tight fit, but that was okay. Luke put an arm around Avery’s shoulders and gave him a little hug. Avery responded by putting his head on Luke’s shoulder, which touched him in a way he couldn’t define and made him feel a little like crying himself.

  “Guess what, Maureen has a kid,” Avery said.

  “Yeah? You think?”

  “Sure. He was little but now he’s big. Older even than Nicky.”

  “Uh-huh, okay.”

  “It’s a secret.” Avery didn’t take his eyes from the screen, where Patrick was having an argument with Mr. Krabs. “She’s saving money for him.”

  “Really? And you know this how?”

  Avery looked at him. “I just do. Like I know your best friend is Rolf and you lived on Wildersmoochy Drive.”

  Luke gaped at him. “Jesus, Avery.”

  “Good, ain’t I?”

  And although there were still tears on his cheeks, Avery giggled.

  12

  After lunch, George proposed a game of three-on-three badminton: he, Nicky, and Helen against Luke, Kalisha, and Iris. George said Nicky’s team could even have Avery as a bonus.

  “He’s not a bonus, he’s a liability,” Helen said, and waved at a cloud of minges surrounding her.

  “What’s a liability?” Avery asked.

  “If you want to know, read my mind,” Helen said. “Besides, badminton’s for pussies who can’t play tennis.”

  “Aren’t you cheerful company,” Kalisha said.

  Helen, walking toward the picnic tables and games cabinet, hoisted a middle finger over her shoulder without looking back. And pumped it. Iris said it could be Nicky and George against Luke and Kalisha; she, Iris, would ump the sidelines. Avery said he would help. All finding this agreeable, the game began. The score was ten-all when the door to the lounge banged open and the new boy walked out, almost managing a straight line. He looked dazed from whatever drug had been in his system. He also looked pissed off. Luke put him at six feet and maybe sixteen years of age. He was carrying a considerable belly in front—a food gut that might become a beer gut in adulthood—but his sunburned arms were slabbed with muscle, and he had an awesome set of traps, maybe from lifting. His cheeks were spattered with freckles and acne. His eyes looked pink and irritated. His red hair was standing up in sleep-scruffy patches. They all stopped what they were doing to check him out.

  Whispering without moving her lips, like a con in a prison yard, Kalisha said, “It’s the Incredible Bulk.”

  The new kid stopped by the trampoline and surveyed the others. He spoke slowly, in spaced bursts, as if suspecting those he addressed were primitives with little grasp of English. His accent was southern. “What . . . the fuck . . . is this?”

  Avery trotted over. “It’s the Institute. Hi, I’m Avery. What’s your n—”

  The new kid put the heel of his hand against Avery’s chin and shoved. It wasn’t particularly hard, almost absent-minded, but Avery went sprawling on one of the cushions surrounding the trampoline, staring up at the new kid with an expression of shocked surprise. The new kid took no notice of him, or the badminton players, or Iris, or Helen, who had paused in the act of dealing herself a hand of solitaire. He seemed to be talking to himself.

  “What . . . the fuck . . . is this?” He waved irritably at the bugs. Like Luke on his first visit to the playground, New Kid hadn’t slathered on any repellent. The minges weren’t just swarming; they were lighting on him and sampling his sweat.

  “Aw, man,” Nicky said. “You shouldn’t have knocked the Avester over like that. He was trying to be nice.”

  New Kid at last paid some attention. He turned to Nick. “Who . . . the fuck . . . are you?”

  “Nick Wilholm. Help Avery up.”

  “What?”

  Nick looked patient. “You knocked him over, you help him up.”

  “I’ll do it,” Kalisha said, and hurried to the trampoline. She bent to take Avery’s arm, and New Kid pushed her. She missed the springy stuff and sprawled on the gravel, scraping one knee.

  Nick dropped his badminton racquet and walked over to New Kid. He put his hands on his hips. “Now you can help them both up. I’m sure you’re disoriented as hell, but that’s no excuse.”

  “What if I don’t?”

  Nicky smiled. “Then I’ll fuck you up, fat boy.”

  Helen Simms was looking on with interest from the picnic table. George apparently decided to head for safer territory. He strolled toward the door to the lounge, giving New Kid a wide berth as he did so.

  “Don’t bother with him if he wants to be an asshole,” Kalisha said to Nicky. “We’re okay, Avery, aren’t we?” She helped him to his feet and started backing away.

  “Sure we are,” Avery said, but tears were once more spilling down his chubby cheeks.

  “Who you callin a asshole, bitch?”

  Nick said, “Must be you, since you’re the only asshole here.” He took a step closer to New Kid. Luke was fascinated by the contrast. New Kid was a mallet; Nicky was a blade. “You need to apologize.”

  “Fuck you and fuck your apology,” New Kid said. “I don’t know what this place is, but I know I’m not staying. Now get out my face.”

  “You’re not going anywhere,” Nicky said. “You’re here for the long haul, just like the rest of us.” He smiled without showing
his teeth.

  “Stop it, both of you,” Kalisha said. She had her arm around Avery’s shoulders, and Luke didn’t have to be a mind reader to know what she was thinking, because he was thinking the same thing: New Kid outweighed Nicky by sixty pounds at least, probably more like eighty, and although New Kid was carrying plenty of table muscle in front, those arms were slabs.

  “Last warning,” New Kid said. “Move or I’ll lay you t’fuck out.”

  George seemed to have changed his mind about going inside. Now he was strolling back toward New Kid, not behind him but to one side. It was Helen who was coming up behind him, not fast but with that nice little hip-sway Luke so admired. And a small smile of her own.

  George’s face contracted in a frown of concentration, lips pressing together and forehead furrowing. The minges that had been circling both boys suddenly drew together and gusted at New Kid’s face as if on an invisible breath of wind. He raised a hand to his eyes, waving at them. Helen dropped to her knees behind him, and Nicky gave the redhead a shove. New Kid went sprawling, half on gravel and half on asphalt.

  Helen leaped to her feet and pranced away, laughing and pointing. “Nookies on you, big boy, nookies on you, nookies all over you!”

  With a roar of fury, New Kid began getting up. Before he could accomplish that, Nick stepped forward and kicked him in the thigh. Hard. New Kid screamed, clutched at his leg, and pulled his knees up to his chest.

  “Jesus, stop it!” Iris cried. “Haven’t we got enough trouble without this?”

  The old Luke might have agreed; the new Luke—the Institute Luke—did not. “He started it. And maybe he needed it.”

  “I’ll get you!” New Kid sobbed. “I’ll get all of you fucking dirty fighters!” His face had gone an alarming red-purple. Luke found himself wondering if an overweight sixteen-year-old could have a stroke, and found—appalling but true—that he did not care.