Isaac kept his eyes on the floor. "I was making a phone call."

"To who? To who?" Zeke might have started shaking him then, but a woman came out of the restroom and gave them a curious look. He threw an arm around Isaac's neck, trying to make their interaction look like good-natured roughhousing.

"To whom," the boy corrected, and Zeke really wanted to slap him then. What nine-year-old knew the difference between "who" and "whom," much less cared? The stupid kid should be grateful for his rescue from that tight-ass upbringing, not spending every moment scheming about how to return.

"You didn't call 911, did you, Isaac?" Even Zeke lost the new names when his emotions ran high. "We're all going to be in some deep shit, you try that. You know what they're going to do? They're going to take you away from your mom. But they won't give you back to your dad-oh, no. They'll split you and Efraim and Penina up, put you in foster homes. Is that what you want?"

Isaac's lip quivered, but he didn't break easy, this kid. Spoiled as he was, he was a tough number.

"You called your dad, didn't you? I heard you say 'Daddy,' don't deny it. Look, I can pick up the phone right now, call the operator, and ask her where the last call went from this phone, so you might as well tell me."

"'1-800-CALL-ATT,'" Isaac said in a mockingbird's singsong voice. " 'Free for you and cheap for them.' "

"Ike, you want to spend more time in the trunk? Because that can be arranged. You can ride back there all the time, take your meals there, spend the nights there if that's what you want."

Isaac stared back, yielding no ground. God, he was tough. Those had to be his grandfather's genes, not his father's. But the boy couldn't hold it together very long, and he finally whispered, "I called my dad, at the store. I miss him."

"Did you get him?"

"I'm not sure. He never… The machine didn't pick up, but I'm not sure he was there."

Softened by his victory, Zeke bent down next to Isaac, examining the red mark the phone had left. Not good, a kid with a bruised eye. People noticed things like that. They had to avoid attracting any attention, at least for the next few weeks. That's why they had been on the move since Natalie had refused to take the kids home. Her stupid impulse had forced Zeke to risk much more than he wanted, but what could he do? He couldn't convince her to leave without telling her everything, and Natalie couldn't be trusted with what Zeke thought of as the global overview. Her ignorance of certain details was key to the success of his plan.

"We'll want to put something on that. I'd ask for a raw steak, but I'm pretty sure they don't have real steak here. Hey, maybe I could ask for a McRib, but the barbecue sauce would stick to your face."

The boy didn't smile. "All the food here is crummy. I wouldn't want to eat it even if it were kosher."

"It's good food-you don't know what you're missing. Other kids love it, would eat it every day if they could."

Isaac just shook his head, his lips pressed together as if someone might try to sneak in an outlaw french fry. Zeke was actually worried about how little the kid ate, holding out as much as possible. Today he had agreed to drink a strawberry milk shake, on the grounds that it wasn't made from real milk, then asked for the money for a salad. He loaded up on salad bars when they went to places like Ruby Tuesday, sometimes asking the waitress for a Styrofoam to-go box and plastic utensils. He was rigid, a little chip off the old-before-his-time block. But there was something defiant in his behavior, too, a thumb-in-the-eye slyness that drove Zeke mad.

"I know about keeping kosher, but it's bullshit, my man, just old superstitions that don't make any sense. You think God cares what kind of plates you eat from or whether you have a lobster now and men? Why would God make something as delicious as lobster if he didn't mean for man to eat it? Think about it."

"It didn't look good, when we went to that Red Lobster place. The twins left it on their plates. They said it tasted like butter-flavored rubber."

Zeke decided to try a different tack. "You miss your dad, don't you, partner?"

The boy nodded miserably.

"Look, I know what it's like to miss someone, buddy, but you have to understand. This is for the best. Your dad was good to you, but he wasn't good to your mom. Your mom was very, very unhappy, living like she did. And your dad knew it, but he didn't want to do anything about it. So she had to leave."

"She could have left me with Dad. I wasn't unhappy."

"Is that what you wanted, a life without your mother?"

The question was cruel, almost worse than a smack, asking a child to choose between two parents. Zeke could see that Isaac was floored by the impossibility. Like every kid since time began, he wanted his mother and his father. Yeah, well, four out of five dentists pick Trident, and one out of two marriages folds. Get used to it, kid. One parent is better than nothing. Zeke had two, then he had one, then none. It was all survivable.

"Was my mom really unhappy?" the boy asked. "I never saw her cry."

"She didn't want you to know, but yeah, she was really unhappy."

"But my dad was happy, and I was happy, and the twins were happy."

"I suppose so. You thought you were, which is as good as. But now that you know how unhappy your mom was, maybe it was all an illusion."

Isaac shook his head, defiant now. "No, I was definitely happy. So you're saying that for my mom to be happy, it's okay to make us all unhappy-me and my dad and the twins."

"The twins are like puppies, my man. They're fine as long as they're warm and their bellies are full."

"Still," Isaac said, "two against one, me and my dad."

"What?"

"Majority rule. If we were happy, she should have tried to be happy."

Oh, man, the apple really don't fall far from the tree. Another little selfish shit, courtesy of Orthodox Judaism, arguing every point as if it were straight from the Talmud. What about my happiness? Zeke wanted to ask this smug brat, but he knew that Isaac didn't consider Zeke a factor. As someone outside the Rubin golden circle, he didn't matter at all.

"Look, partner, there's some stuff kids just can't understand. If we go back to Baltimore, they're not going to let you live with your dad."

"Why?"

"You wouldn't understand."

"I could if you pick the right words. My father tries to explain everything to me, no matter how complicated."

"I'm not your father," Zeke said, straightening up. "Thank fuckin' God."

He assumed that Isaac would have a smart-ass retort, but Natalie appeared in the corridor just then, the twins in tow, her lovely face flushed and on the verge of tears.

"Penina-I mean, Daisy-made…" She gestured helplessly at the girl, red-faced and damp, either at the end of a crying jag or about to begin one.

"Made what?" Zeke asked, although Isaac was nodding as if he understood.

"Made. In her pants, in the ball room, and they're all out there screaming at me, saying the sign says no children who aren't toilet trained. Only she is, she was, for over three years now-never even wet the bed in all this time. I don't know what's gotten into her."

The girl babbled something, and the boy twin babbled back, comforting her, or so Zeke assumed. He couldn't understand a word these two said, even when it was allegedly in English. Natalie said they used to talk like normal kids, but you couldn't prove it by Zeke.

"Take her in the ladies' room and clean her up the best you can," Zeke said. "I'll take the boys out to the car and wait for you there. And if we have to, we'll start strapping diapers on the two of them. If I'm all but living in a car, I don't want it to smell like crap."

He left the receiver dangling on its silver cord, catching Isaac's longing looks toward it. Zeke was going to have to watch this one like a hawk. Watch him or put him in the trunk more often. He had no choice.