Nick slept in the park that night. He didn't know where Tom slept, but when he woke up the next morning, slightly dewy but feeling pretty good otherwise, the first thing he saw when he crossed the town square was Tom, crouched over a fleet of toy Corgi cars and a large plastic Texaco station.
Tom must have decided that if it was all right to break into Norton's Drug Store, it was all right to break into another place. He was sitting on the curb of the five-and-ten, his back to Nick. About forty model cars were lined up along the edge of the sidewalk. Next to them was the screwdriver Tom had used to jimmy the display case open. There were Jaguars, Mercedes-Benzes, Rolls-Royces, a scale-model Bentley with a long, lime-green cowling, a Lamborghini, a Cord, a four-inch-long customized Pontiac Bonneville, a Corvette, a Maserati, and, God watch over us and protect us, a 1933 Moon. Tom was hunched over these studiously, driving them in and out of the garage, gassing them up at the toy pump. One of the lifts in the repair bay worked, Nick saw, and from time to time Tom would raise one of the cars up on it and, pretend to do something underneath. If he had been able to hear, he would have heard, in the nearly perfect silence, the sound of Tom Cullen's imagination at work - the lip-vibrating brrrrrr as he drove the cars onto the Fisher-Price tarmac, the chk-chk-chk-ding! of the gas-pump at work, the ssshhhhhhh as the lift inside went up and down. As it was, he could catch some of the conversation between the station proprietor and the little people in the little cars: Fill that up, sir? Regular? You bet! Just let me get that windshield, ma'am. I think it's your carb. Let's put her up in the air and take a look at the bass-tud. Restrooms? You bet! Right around the side there!
And over this, arching for miles in every direction, the sky God had allocated to this little bit of Oklahoma.
Nick thought: I can't leave him. I can't do that. And he was suddenly swept by a bitter and totally unexpected sadness, a feeling so deep he thought for a moment he would weep.
They've gone to Kansas City, he thought. That's what's happened. They've all gone to Kansas City.
Nick walked across the street and tapped Tom on the arm. Tom jumped and looked over his shoulder. A large and guilty smile stretched his lips, and a blush climbed out of his shirt collar.
"I know it's for little boys and not for grown men," he said. "I know that, laws yes, Daddy tole me."
Nick shrugged, smiled, spread his hands. Tom looked relieved.
"It's mine now. Mine if I want it. If you could go in the drug and get something, I could go into the five-and-dime and get something. My laws, couldn't I just? I don't have to put it back, do I?"
Nick shook his head.
"Mine," Tom said happily, and turned back to the garage. Nick tapped him again and Tom looked back. "What?"
Nick tugged his sleeve and Tom stood up willingly enough. Nick led him down the street to where his bike leaned on its kickstand. He pointed to himself. Then at the bike. Tom nodded.
"Sure. That bike is yours. That Texaco garage is mine. I won't take your bike and you won't take my garage. Laws, no!"
Nick shook his head. He pointed at himself. At the bike. Then down Main Street. He waved his fingers: byebye.
Tom became very still. Nick waited. Tom said hesitantly: "You movin on, mister?"
Nick nodded.
"I don't want you to!" Tom burst out. His eyes were wide and very blue, sparkling with tears. "I like you! I don't want you to go to Kansas City, too!"
Nick pulled Tom next to him and put an arm around him. Pointed to himself. To Tom. To the bike. Out of town.
"I don't getcha," Tom said.
Patiently, Nick went through it again. This time he added the byebye wave, and in a burst of inspiration he lifted Tom's hand and made it wave byebye, too.
"Want me to go with you?" Tom asked. A smile of disbelieving delight lit up his face.
Relieved, Nick nodded.
"Sure!" Tom shouted. "Tom Cullen's gonna go! Tom's - " He halted, some of the happiness dying out of his face, and looked at Nick cautiously. "Can I take my garage?"
Nick thought about it a moment and then nodded his head yes.
"Okay!" Tom's grin reappeared like the sun from behind a cloud. "Tom Cullen's going!"
Nick led him to the bike. He pointed at Tom, then at the bike.
"I never rode one like that," Tom said doubtfully, eyeing the bike's gearshift and the high, narrow seat. "I guess I better not. Tom Cullen would fall off a fancy bike like that."
But Nick was provisionally encouraged. I never rode one like that meant that he had ridden some sort of bike. It was only a question of finding a nice simple one. Tom was going to slow him down, that was inevitable, but perhaps not too much after all. And what was the hurry, anyway? Dreams were only dreams. But he did feel an inner urge to hurry, something so strong yet indefinable that it amounted to a subconscious command.
He led Tom back to his filling station. He pointed at it, then smiled and nodded at Tom. Tom squatted down eagerly, and then his hands paused in the act of reaching for a couple of cars. He looked up at Nick, his face troubled and transparently suspicious. "You ain't gonna go without Tom Cullen, are you?"