Gatekeeper Read Free Page A

to streetlamp. It was one of the safest places he could think of to let his mind drift. Not that his mind was too far off—just a few blocks, really, to home and family, and the uncertainties he was feeling there.
    "Hey, Dave, pass the six-pack up."
    Absentmindedly, he retrieved the beer from the floorboards between his feet and dropped it onto the bench seat between the two young men up front. The older of the two, Craig Steidle, who'd bought the beer and owned the car, extracted a can for himself, handed another to Wayne, beside him, and dangled a third over his shoulder from his fingertips.
    "Take one, man."
    David shook his head at the eyes in the rearview mirror. "Maybe later."
    Craig laughed but didn't move his hand. "More for the rest of us, then. Want one, Little Chris?"
    Chris was sitting beside David, his head bopping to the music thrumming throughout the car. "Cool."
    The can arched through the air and bounced off Chris's leg, making him jump in surprise.
    "You were supposed to catch that, dumbass," Craig taunted him. "Make sure you aim it out the window when you open it."
    Chris was the youngest of them, at fifteen, although David only beat him by ten months. Nevertheless, it qualified Chris as the butt of most of their jokes, for which David was guiltily thankful. He'd once been the one catching all of Craig's flak.
    Chris opened the beer as instructed, literally holding it outside the car as Craig pulled off the road into the Zoo, the nickname for the Springfield Shopping Plaza and the primary hangout for kids from all over town. Once a marsh poking a blunt peninsula into a bend of the Black River, it was completely paved over now, lined with a string of the usual retail outlets and looking—like the rest of Springfield—a little the worse for wear.
    "Don't wave the goddamn thing around, stupid," Craig yelled back at Chris over the music. "You'll get us all busted."
    Shamefaced and confused, Chris withdrew the can, spilling some of its contents into his lap. He ducked down and took a surreptitious swig to partially restore his self-respect.
    Craig aimed the car for the plaza's cul-de-sac, ostensibly at a small cluster of U-Haul trucks, but in fact toward the Zoo's inner sanctum and well-known place of ill repute—a poorly lit footbridge connecting the back of the plaza to Pearl Street and the old Fellows machine-tool plant on the river's far bank. He drove slowly, checking out the social clusters of kids hanging around parked cars like shipwreck survivors clinging to flotsam. His hand dangled out the window so he could flick his fingers at those he knew in a series of studiously casual greetings. From the back seat, next to pimply-faced Chris and his self-consciously suckled beer, David granted Craig a begrudging respect—as obnoxious and transparent as he could be, Craig did have a certain hard-won bearing. Currently a resident of the town's Westview housing development, down-and-out through several generations, he'd turned his limited talents into something his peers saluted with a measure of respect. He also had a criminal record, if a minor one, which added to his luster among the younger teenagers.
    Craig slowed to a halt a dozen yards shy of the footbridge steps. These were the key attraction to the place, combined with its isolation and its escape route potential. The steps were seen by the kids as a forum, where like-minded people could privately convene. The merchants and the police saw it differently, of course—as a gathering spot for dopers and drunks and a place where at least one rape had occurred within the last few years.
    "Hey, Jenny," Craig called out to a young woman sitting half sprawled across the steps, unaware or uncaring of how her posture and her miniskirt defeated any hope of modesty.
    Jenny merely looked at him, scowling slightly.
    "Come over here." Craig made to take a swig from his beer can, pausing just long enough to add in an undertone, "Skanky bitch."
    Wayne chuckled beside