'They feel kind of funny,' Jack said, and the policeman barked. He had laughed, Jack realized a second later.
'Take them away, Franky,' the Judge said. He was already picking up the telephone. 'You're going to be different boys thirty days from now. Depend on it.'
While they walked down the steps of the redbrick Municipal Building, Jack asked Franky Williams why the Judge had asked for their ages. The cop paused on the bottom step and half-turned to glare up at Jack out of his blazing face. 'Old Sunlight generally takes em in at twelve and turns em loose at nineteen.' He grinned. 'You tellin me you never heard him on the radio? He's about the most famous thing we got around here. I'm pretty sure they heard of old Sunlight Gardener even way over in Daleville.' His teeth were small discolored pegs, irregularly spaced.
3
Twenty minutes later they were in farmland again.
Wolf had climbed into the back seat of the police car with surprisingly little fuss. Franky Williams had pulled his sap from his belt and said, 'You want this again, you f**kin freak? Who knows, it might make you smart.' Wolf had trembled, Wolf's nose had wrinkled up, but he had followed Jack into the car. He had immediately clapped his hand over his nose and begun breathing through his mouth. 'We'll get away from this place, Wolf,' Jack had whispered into his ear. 'A couple of days, that's all, and we'll see how to do it.' 'No chatter' came from the front seat.
Jack was strangely relaxed. He was certain that they would find a way to escape. He leaned back against the plastic seat, Wolf's hand wrapped around his, and watched the fields go by.
'There she is,' Franky Williams called from the front seat. 'Your future home.'
Jack saw a meeting of tall brick walls planted surrealistically amidst the fields. Too tall to see over, the walls around the Sunlight Home were topped with three strands of barbed wire and shards of broken glass set in cement. The car was now driving past exhausted fields bordered with fences in which strands of barbed and smooth wire alternated.
'Got sixty acres out here,' Williams said. 'And all of it is either walled or fenced - you better believe it. Boys did it themselves.'
A wide iron gate interrupted the expanse of wall where the drive turned into the Home's property. As soon as the police car turned into the drive the gates swung open, triggered by some electronic signal. 'TV camera,' the policeman explained. 'They're a-waitin for you two fresh fish.'
Jack leaned forward and put his face to the window. Boys in denim jackets worked in the long fields to either side, hoeing and raking, pushing wheelbarrows.
'You two shitheads just earned me twenty bucks,' Williams said. 'Plus another twenty for Judge Fairchild. Ain't that great?'
CHAPTER 21 The Sunlight Home
1
The Home looked like something made from a child's blocks, Jack thought - it had grown randomly as more space was needed. Then he saw that the numerous windows were barred, and the sprawling building immediately seemed penal, rather than childish.
Most of the boys in the fields had put down their tools to watch the progress of the police car.
Franky Williams pulled up into the wide, rounded end of the drive. As soon as he had cut off his engine, a tall figure stepped through the front door and stood regarding them from the top of the steps, his hands knitted together before him. Beneath a full head of longish wavy white hair, the man's face seemed unrealistically youthful - as if these chipped, vitally masculine features had been created or at least assisted by plastic surgery. It was the face of a man who could sell anything, anywhere, to anybody. His clothes were as white as his hair: white suit, white shoes, white shirt, and a trailing white silk scarf around his neck. As Jack and Wolf got out of the back seat, the man in white pulled a pair of dark green sunglasses from his suitpocket, put them on, and appeared to examine the two boys for a moment before smiling - long creases split his cheeks. Then he removed the sunglasses and put them back in his pocket.
'Well,' he said. 'Well, well, well. Where would we all be without you, Officer Williams?'
'Afternoon, Reverend Gardener,' the policeman said.
'Is it the usual sort of thing, or were these two bold fellows actually engaged in criminal activity?'
'Vagrants,' said the cop. Hands on hips, he squinted up at Gardener as if all that whiteness hurt his eyes. 'Refused to give Fairchild their right names. This one, the big one,' he said, pointing a thumb at Wolf, 'he wouldn't talk at all. I had to nail him in the head just to get him in the car.'
Gardener shook his head tragically. 'Why don't you bring them up here so they can introduce themselves, and then we'll take care of the various formalities. Is there any reason why the two of them should look so, ah, shall we say, 'befuddled'?'
'Just that I cracked that big one behind the ears.'