Read The Regulators for Free Online

priority . . .
    Well, he’d worry about the fourth priority after he’d taken care of one, two, and three.
    The store’s new day-clerk—a skinny girl with double-colored hair that made Collie’s eyes hurt—slid out of the truck and straightened her blue smock, which was badly askew. The truck’s driver followed her. “You a cop?” he asked Collie.
    â€œYes.”Easier than trying to explain. The Carvers would know different, of course, but they were occupied with their kids, and Brad Josephson was still behind him, bent over and trying to catch his breath. “You folks get in the store. All of you. Brad? Boys?” He raised his voice a little on the last word, so that the Reed twins would know he meant them.
    â€œNo, I’d better get on back home,” Brad said. He straightened up, glanced across the street at Cary’s body, then looked back at Collie. His expression was apologetic but determined. At least he was getting his breath back; for a minute or two there, Collie had been reviewing what he remembered of his CPR classes. “Belinda’s up there, and . . .”
    â€œYes, but it’d be better for you to come on in the store, Mr. Josephson, at least for the time being. In case the van comes back.”
    â€œWhy would it?” David Carver asked. He was still holding his little girl in his arms and staring at Collie over the top of her head.
    Collie shrugged. “I don’t know. I don’t know why it was here in the first place. Better to be safe. Get inside, folks.”
    â€œDo you have any authority here?” Brad asked. His voice, although not exactly challenging, suggested that he knew Collie didn’t. Collie folded his arms over his bare chest. The depression which had surrounded him since he’d been busted off the force had begun to lift a little in the last few weeks, but now he could feel it threatening again. After a moment he shook his head. No. No authority. Not these days.
    â€œThenI am going to my wife. No offense to you, sir.”
    Collie had to smile a little at the careful dignity of the man’s tone. You don’t diss me and I don’t diss you, it said. “None taken.”
    The twins looked at each other uncertainly, then at Collie.
    He saw what they wanted and sighed. “All right. But go with Mr. Josephson. And when you get home, you and your friends go inside. Okay?”
    The blond boy nodded.
    â€œJim—you are Jim, right?”
    The blond boy nodded, wiping self-consciously at his red eyes.
    â€œIs your mom home? Or your dad?”
    â€œMom,” he said. “Dad’s still at work.”
    â€œOkay, boys. Go on. Hurry up. You too, Brad.”
    â€œI’ll do the best I can,” Brad said, “but I think I have pretty well fulfilled my hurrying quota for the day.”
    The three of them started up the hill, along the west side of the street, where the odd-numbered houses were.
    â€œI’d like to take our kids home, too, Mr. Entragian,” Kirsten Carver said.
    He sighed, nodded. Sure, what the hell, take them anywhere. Take them to Alaska. He wanted a cigarette, but they were back in the house. He had managed to quit for almost ten years before the bastards downtown had first shown him the door and then run him through it. He had picked up the habit again with a speed that was spooky. And now he wanted tosmoke because he was nervous. Not just cranked up because of the dead kid on his lawn, which would have been understandable, but nervous. Nervous like-a de vitch, his mother would have said. And why?
    Because there are too many people on this street, he told himself, that’s why.
    Oh, really? And what exactly does that mean?
    He didn’t know.
    What’s wrong with you? Too long out of work? Getting squirrely? Is that what’s buggin you, booby?
    No. The silver thing on the roof of the van. That’s what’s buggin me,