Then he stepped forward, saying it just the way he had planned on his long days crossing the country: "Harold Lauder, I presume?"
Harold jerked with surprise, then turned with a brick in one hand and his mortar-dripping trowel in the other, half-raised, like a weapon. Out of the corner of his eye, Larry thought he saw Leo flinch backward. His first thought was, sure enough, Harold didn't look at all as he had imagined. His second thought had to do with the trowel: My God, is he going to let me have it with that thing? Harold's face was grimly set, his eyes narrow and dark. His hair fell in a lank wave across his sweaty forehead. His lips were pressed together and almost white.
And then there was a transformation so sudden and complete that Larry was never quite able to believe afterward that he had seen that tense, unsmiling Harold, the face of a man more apt to use a trowel to wall someone up in a basement niche than to construct a garden wall around a flower bed.
He smiled, a broad and harmless grin that made deep dimples at the corners of his mouth. His eyes lost their menacing cast (they were bottle-green, and how could such clear and feckless eyes have seemed menacing, or even dark?). He stuck the trowel blade-down into the mortar - chunk! - wiped his hands on the hips of his jeans, and advanced with his hand out. Larry thought: My God, he's just a kid, younger than I am. If he's eighteen yet I'll eat the candles on his last birthday cake.
"Don't think I know you," Harold said, grinning, as they shook. He had a firm grip. Larry's hand was pumped up and down exactly three times and let go. It reminded Larry of the time he had shaken hands with George Bush back when the old bushwhacker had been running for President. It had been at a political rally, which he had attended on the advice of his mother, given many years ago. If you can't afford a movie, go to the zoo. If you can't afford the zoo, go see a politician.
But Harold's grin was contagious, and Larry grinned back. Kid or not, politician's handshake or not, the grin impressed him as completely genuine, and after all this time, after all those candy wrappers, here was Harold Lauder, in the flesh.
"No, you don't," Larry said. "But I'm acquainted with you."
"Is that so!" Harold exclaimed, and his grin escalated. If it got any broader, Larry thought with amusement, the ends would meet around at the back of his skull and the top two thirds of his head would just topple off.
"I followed you across the country from Maine," Larry said.
"No fooling! You did, really?"
"Really did." He unslung his packsack. "Here, I've got some stuff for you." He took out the bottle of Bordeaux and put it in Harold's hand.
"Say, you shouldn't have," Harold said, looking at the bottle with some astonishment. "Nineteen forty-seven?"
"A good year," Larry said. "And these."
He put nearly half a dozen Paydays in Harold's other hand. One of them slipped through his fingers and onto the grass. Harold bent to pick it up, and as he did, Larry caught a glimpse of that earlier expression.
Then Harold bobbed back up, smiling. "How did you know?"
"I followed your signs... and your candy wrappers."
"Well I be go to hell. Come on in the house. We ought to have a jaw, as my dad was fond of saying. Would your boy drink a Coke?"
"Sure. Wouldn't you, L - "
He looked around, but Leo was no longer beside him. He was all the way back on the sidewalk and looking down at some cracks in the pavement as if they were of great interest to him.
"Hey, Leo! Want a Coke?"
Leo muttered something Larry couldn't hear.
"Talk up!" he said, irritated. "What did God give you a voice for? I asked you if you wanted a Coke."
Barely audible, Leo said: "I think I'll go see if Nadine-mom's back."
"What the hell? We just got here!"
"I want to go back!" Leo said, looking up from the cement. The sun flashed too strongly back from his eyes and Larry thought, What in God's name is this? He's almost crying.
"Just a sec," he said to Harold.
"Sure," Harold said, grinning. "Sometimes kids're shy. I was."
Larry walked over to Leo and hunkered down, so they would be at eye-level. "What's the matter, kiddo?"
"I just want to go back," Leo said, not meeting his gaze. "I want Nadine-mom."
"Well, you..." He paused helplessly.
"Want to go back." He looked up briefly at Larry. His eyes flickered over Larry's shoulder toward where Harold stood in the middle of his lawn. Then down at the cement again. "Please."
"You don't like Harold?"
"I don't know... he's all right... I just want to go back."
Larry sighed. "Can you find your way?"
"Sure."
"Okay. But I sure wish you'd come in and have a Coke with us. I've been waiting to meet Harold a long time. You know that, don't you?"
"Ye-es..."
"And we could walk back together."
"I'm not going in that house," Leo hissed, and for a moment he was Joe again, the eyes going blank and savage.