told him not to. He said he'd settle the score in his own way, and that scared them both. It scares me, too, The police picked up Buddy Repperton, and one of his friends, the one they call Moochie . . . do you know who I mean?'
'Yes.'
'And the boy who works nights at the airport parking lot, they picked him up, too. Galton, his name is - '
'Sandy.'
'They thought he must have been in on it, that maybe he let them in.'
'He runs with them, all right,' Dennis said, 'but he's not quite as degenerate as the rest of them. I'll say this, Leigh - if Arnie didn't talk to someone sure did.'
'First Mrs Cunningham and then his father. I don't think either of them knew the other one had talked to me. They're . . . '
'Upset,' Dennis suggested.
She shook her head. 'It's more than that,' she said. 'They both look like they were just . . . just mugged, or something. I can't really feel sorry for her - all she wants is her own way, I think - but I could cry for Mr Cunningham. He just seems so . . . so . . . ' She trailed off and began again. 'When I got there yesterday afternoon after school, Mrs Cunningham - she asked me to call her Regina, but I just can't seem to do it - '
Dennis grinned
'Can you do it?' Leigh asked.
'Well, yeah - but I've had a lot more practice.'
She smiled, the first good one of her visit. 'Maybe that would make a difference. Anyway, when I went over, she was there but Mr Cunningham was still at school . . . the University, I mean.'
'Yeah.'
'She took the whole week off - what there is of it. She said couldn't go back, even for the three days before Thanksgiving.'
'How does she look?'
'She looks shattered,' Leigh said, and reached for a fresh Kleenex. She began shredding the edges. 'She looks ten years older than when I first met her a month ago.'
'And him? Michael?'
'Older but tougher,' Leigh said hesitantly.' As if this had somehow . . . somehow gotten him into gear.
Dennis was silent. He had known Michael Cunningham for thirteen years and had never seen him in gear, so he wouldn't know. Regina had always been the one in gear; Michael trailed along in her wake and made the drinks at the parties (mostly faculty parties) the Cunninghams hosted. He played his recorder, he looked melancholy . . . but by no stretch of the imagination could Dennis say he had ever seen the man 'in gear'.
The final triumph, Dennis's father had said once, standing at the window and watching Regina lead Arnie by the hand down the Guilders' walk to where Michael waited behind the wheel of the car. Arnie and Dennis had been perhaps seven then. Momism supreme. I wonder if she'll make the poor slob wait in the car when Arnie gets married. Or maybe she can -
Dennis's mother had frowned at her husband and shushed him by cutting her eyes at Dennis in a little-pitchers-have-big-ears gesture. He never forgot the gesture or what his father had said - at seven he hadn't understood all of it, but even at seven he knew perfectly well what a 'poor slob' was. And even at seven he vaguely understood why his father might think Michael Cunningham was one. He had felt sad for, Michael Cunningham . . . and that feeling had held, off and on, right up to the present.
'He came in around the time she was finishing her story, Leigh went on. 'They asked me to stay for supper - Arnie has been eating down at Darnell's - but I told them I really had to get back. So Mr Cunningham offered me a ride, and I got his side on the way home.'
'Are they on different sides?'
'Not exactly, but . . . Mr Cunningham was the one who went to see the police, for instance. Arnie didn't want to, and Mrs Cunningham - Regina - couldn't bring herself to do it.'
Dennis asked cautiously, 'He's really trying to put Humpty back together again, huh?'
'Yes,' she whispered, and then burst out shrilly: 'But that's not all! He's in deep with that guy Darnell, I know he is! Yesterday in period three study hall he told me he was going to drop a new front end into her - into his car - this afternoon and this evening, and