Billy understood that his brother had the same flaw as Achilles. Emmett was not a reckless person. He rarely raised his voice or showed impatience. But when something happened to make him angry, the force of his fury could come to such a boil that it resulted in an injudicious act with irreversible consequences. According to Billy’s father, that’s what Judge Schomer had said Emmett was guilty of when he had hit Jimmy Snyder: an injudicious act with irreversible consequences.
Through the screen door, Billy could see that Emmett was coming to a boil right now. His face was growing red, and having taken Duchess by the shirt, he was shouting. He was shouting that there was no trust fund, no inheritance, no money in the safe. Then he shoved Duchess to the ground.
This must be it, thought Billy. This is the time and place at which I needed to be in order to play my essential role in the course of events. So Billy opened the screen door and told his brother that there was money in the safe.
But when Emmett turned around, Duchess hit him on the head with a stone and Emmett fell to the ground. He fell to the ground just as Jimmy Snyder had.
—Emmett! Billy shouted.
And Emmett must have heard Billy because he began to get up onto his knees. Then Duchess was suddenly at the doorway pushing Billy inside, locking the door, and talking quickly.
—Why did you hit Emmett? Billy said. Why did you hit him, Duchess? You shouldn’t have hit him.
Duchess swore he wouldn’t do it again, but then he went back to talking quickly. He was talking about something called a snafu. And then about the safe. And Woolly. And the Yankees.
When Emmett began banging on the storage-room door, Duchess pushed Billy into the hallway, and when Emmett’s banging stopped, Duchess started talking again, this time about the authorities and the house in California.
And suddenly, Billy felt like he had been here before. The tightness of Duchess’s grip and the urgency with which he was speaking made Billy feel like he was back on the West Side Elevated in the dark in the hands of Pastor John.
—We’re going to talk to Emmett, said Duchess. We’re going to talk with him all about it, Billy. But for the moment, it’s just you and me.
Then Billy understood.
Emmett wasn’t there. Ulysses wasn’t there. Sally wasn’t there. Once again, he was alone and forsaken. Forsaken by everyone, including his Maker. And whatever happened next rested only in his hands.
Opening his eyes, Billy kicked Duchess as hard as he could.
In the instant, Billy could feel Duchess’s grip release. Then Billy was running down the hallway. He was running down the hallway to the hiding place under the stairs. He found the door with the tiny latch right where Woolly had said it was. The doorway was about half the size of a normal doorway and had a triangular top because it had been cut to fit under the staircase. But it was tall enough for Billy. Slipping inside, he pulled the door closed and held his breath.
A moment later he could hear Duchess calling his name.
Billy could tell that Duchess was only a few feet away, but he wouldn’t be able to find Billy. As Woolly had said, no one ever thought to look in the hiding place under the stairs because it was right there in front of them.
Emmett
After trying the muck-room door and finding it bolted, Emmett ran around the back of the house and tried the door that led into the dining room. When he found that door locked and then the kitchen door too, he was through trying doors. Removing his belt, he wrapped it around his right hand so that the buckle was on top of his knuckles. Then he smashed one of the panes of glass in the door. Using the metal surface of the buckle, he knocked away the remaining shards that jutted from the frame. Sticking his left hand through the cleared pane, he unlocked the door. The belt, he left wrapped around his fist, thinking it might come in handy right where it was.
As Emmett stepped into the kitchen, he saw Duchess’s figure at the far end of the hallway turning a corner at a sprint and disappearing into the muck room—without Billy.
Emmett didn’t run in pursuit. Understanding that Billy had broken free, he no longer felt a sense of peril. What he felt now was inevitability. No matter how fast Duchess ran, no matter where he ran to, it was inevitable that Emmett would have his hands upon him.
But as Emmett left the kitchen, he heard glass breaking. It wasn’t the sound of a windowpane. It was a sheet of glass. A moment later, Duchess reappeared at the other end of the hallway holding one of the rifles.
That Duchess had a rifle didn’t change anything for Emmett. Slowly, but unhesitantly, he began walking toward Duchess, and Duchess walked toward him. When they were both about ten feet short of the staircase, they stopped, leaving twenty feet between them. Duchess was holding the rifle in one hand with the barrel pointing at the ground, his finger on the trigger. From the way he held the rifle, Emmett could tell that Duchess had held one before, but that didn’t change anything either.