the police are going to question you, Arnie, and people can look surprised when the police turn up suddenly. To them, surprise can look like guilt.'
'All of this because some drunk ran over that shitter Welch?'
It wasn't like that,' Michael said. 'I got that much out of this fellow Junkins who called me up on the phone. Whoever killed the Welch boy ran him down and then backed over him and ran over him again and backed up again and - '
'Stop it,' Arnie said He suddenly looked sick and frightened, and Michael had much the same feeling Dennis had had on Thanksgiving evening: that in this tired unhappiness the real Arnie was suddenly close to the surface, perhaps reachable.
'It was . . . incredibly brutal,' Michael said. 'That's what Junkins said. You see, it doesn't look like an accident at all. It looks like murder.'
'Murder,' Arnie said, dazed. 'No, I never - '
'What?' Michael asked sharply. He grabbed Arnie's jacket again. 'What did you say?'
Arnie looked at his father. His face was masklike again. 'I never thought it could be that,' he said. 'That's all I was going to say.'
'I just wanted you to know,' he said. 'They'll be looking for someone with a motive, no matter how thin. They know what happened to your car, and that the Welch boy might have been involved, or that you might think he was involved. Junkins may be around to talk to you.'
'I don't have anything to hide.'
'No, of course not,' Michael said. 'You'll miss your bus.'
'Yeah,' Arnie said. 'Gotta go.' But he stayed a moment longer, looking at his father.
Michael suddenly found himself thinking of Arnie's ninth birthday. He and his son had gone to the little zoo in Philly Plains, had eaten lunch out, and had finished the day by playing eighteen holes at the indoor miniature golf course on outer Basin Drive. That place had burned down in 1975. Regina had not been able to come, she had been flat on her back with bronchitis. The two of them had had a fine time. For Michael, that had been his son's best birthday, the one that symbolized for him above all others his son's sweet and uneventful American boyhood. They had gone to the zoo and come back and nothing much had happened except that they had had a great time - Michael and his son, who had been and who still was so dear to him.
He wet his lips and said, 'Sell her, Arnie, why don't you? When she's completely restored, sell her away. You could get a lot of money. A couple - three thousand, maybe.'
Again that frightened, tired look seemed to sweep over Arnie's face, but Michael couldn't tell for sure. The sunset had faded to a bitter orange line on the western horizon, and the little yard was dark. Then the look - if it had been there at all - went away.
'No, I couldn't do that, Dad,' Arnie said gently, as if speaking to a child. 'I couldn't do that now. I've put too much into her. Way too much.'
And then he was gone, cutting across the, yard to the sidewalk, joining the other shadows, and there was only the sound of his footfalls coming back, soon lost.
Put too much into her? Have you? Exactly what, Arnie? What have you put into her?
Michael looked down at the leaves, then around at his yard. Beneath the hedge and under the overhang of the garage, cold snow glimmered in the coming dark, livid and stubbornly waiting for reinforcements. Waiting for winter.
PART II: ARNIE - TEENAGE LOVE-SONGS Chapter 32 REGINA AND MICHAEL
She's real fine, my 409,
My four-speed, dual-quad, Positraction 409.
- The Beach Boys
Regina was tired - she tired more easily these days, it seemed - and they went to bed together around nine, long before Arnie came in. They made love that was dutiful and joyless (lately they made love a lot, it was almost always dutiful and joyless, and Michael had begun having the unpleasant feeling that his wife was using his penis as a sleeping pill), and as they lay in their twin beds after, Michael asked casually: 'How did you sleep last night?'
'Quite well,' Regina said candidly, and Michael knew she was lying. Good.
'I came up around eleven and Arnie seemed restless,' Michael said, still keeping his voice casual. He was deeply uneasy now - there had been something in Arnie's face tonight, something he hadn't been able to read because of the