SAL
Trudy, wispy and blond, hovering between a tenuous childhood and a too-distant adulthood, sat on the bench wearing a Lynyrd Skynyrd tee shirt and a denim jacket. In a brown paper bag inside Sal’s backpack were ten tiny balloons. Four red, four blue, two yellow. The colors of a birthday party. When Sal gave them to her she would give him one hundred dollars, but his arms lay like bands of cement on his backpack.
She scratched her elbow. ‘So can I have it?’ It was the first time she’d ever spoken to him. Her voice was high and thin, like a little girl’s.
None of the others were coming. ‘They’re freaked by the needles,’ Ezra had whispered behind the solar panels, where Gideon couldn’t overhear them. ‘But Trudy knows Jim. Jim knows Cathy. Cathy knows Amanda. Word’ll get around that it’s
