"Whatsa time?" he asked the boy, who looked at a big, gleaming watch (birthday present, Billy thought).

"Almost eleven."

"Near quitting time for us," Bobby said. He scanned the site of the breakfast-the basement of the First Presbyterian Church of Cleary-and motioned to a nearby paper-tablecloth-covered card table. "Why don't you sit over there. We'll join you."

"Well, sure," Ned said, turning his round, red-scrubbed face to where they pointed.

Bobby made himself and his brother plates of pancakes and sausage, then plastered the stacks with smears of Parkay. He added a couple extra sausages to his and poured syrup on both plates.

He called across the room to Earl Gibson, the manager of Cleary Bank & Trust and president of the Kiwanis, and asked if it was okay for them to quit and have something to eat. And Earl came by, pumped their damp hands and said, "You bet." Then he thanked them both for doing such a good job. "Whatsyer secret, Robert?"

Bobby winked at the boy and said, "What it is, they get aerated when I send 'em up."

"He makes 'em good, Mr Gibson," Ned told Earl.

Billy said, "Aunt Gee-mima, watch yo black butt. My bro Bobby's in town."

They all laughed and the twins sat down with the boy.

The twins loved to volunteer. They were Little League coaches and they worked regularly at the Cleary Boys' Club and the Future Farmers of America. Their favorite volunteering was for this, the Fall Kiwanis Pancake Breakfast, and the Jay-Cees summer barbecue and, though they weren't married and had no children, the PTA's regular potluck suppers (nothing beat the combo of food and volunteer work).

Ned was one of those teenagers that could talk easily with adults, especially adults like the twins, who knew sports and weren't too geekish to tell an occasional Polack joke or one about girls' periods or boobs. The boy's rambling monologue was up and running by the time Billy and Bobby focused on it.

"Oh, man, I heard it was like totally awesome. Sid, he's kinduva dweeb but, you know, he can be okay sometimes, he was driving by and seen the cloud."

"Cloud?" Billy asked, eating a huge mouthful of pancakes.

"Yeah. Of smoke. He goes, 'It was totally black.' I thought he was a hatter, man, really. Like I go, 'Excuse me, I mean, excuse me, but gas doesn't burn black.' But then I figured it must've been tires. You hear about that illegal dump over in Jersey? They had like a million tires there and they caught fire only nobody could put it out."

"Missed that," Bobby said. He frowned. "Did you hear about that?"

Billy said, "Didn't hear about it."

Ned continued. "So what is I went by the park. Stan was there and he wouldn't let us get too close. I mean, the body was gone and everything but the car-you should've seen it. Totally nuked. Awesome!"

Bobby said, "I didn't hear about any car, what happened?"

Ned said, "The guy was freebasing or doing crack. And, man, it went up like an M80. Like what is freebasing?"

Bobby shrugged and finished his pancakes. He took half of one off his brother's plate. "I don't know."

"What happened to the dude who was driving?" Bobby asked.

Ned said, "Torched. Like this sausage." He grinned and held it up on a white plastic fork. He put the.whole link in his mouth and chewed slowly.

"He was the guy from the movie company, right?"

Ned said, "Yeah, I guess that screws up the chance of 'em making a movie in Cleary. The other one's still here, though. His buddy."

Billy said, "I'd like to be in a movie."

Ned said, "Yeah, both you guys together! I don't think I ever saw twins in a movie." He wiped up syrup with his finger and licked it off slowly. "I think it'd be totally fresh to be in a movie. Only, you know what bothers me?"

"No telling."

"Well, think about it. In a love scene, okay? Some guy's kissing Sharon Stone or Kim Bassinger or some fox, he's gotta have a hard-on, don't you think?"

Bobby said, "You'd think."

"Man, that'd be totally embarrassing. I'd try to think about making a play at second or something but I bet I'd still get a hard-on. Oh, man, what if I came while I was kissing her, right in front of everybody? God, I'd die."

The twins glanced at each other. Neither of them looked like they'd die under those circumstances.

Billy said, "I think it would've been fun, have a movie made here. Then go out to the mall, to the Multiplex over in Osborne; and see Main Street up there on the screen."

Ned said, "Oh, you know what'd be great? When they kiss on screen, you know, the girl's gotta kiss you whether she thinks you're a dweeb or not. It's like in the script, so what I'd do is, I'm holding her and the director says, 'Roll it,'-"

"'Action,'" Bobby offered.

"Yeah, right, 'Action,' and what I'd do is I'd tongue her so fast, bang, just like that! And she'd have to put up with it. She'd have to look like she enjoyed it."

"But then you'd get a hard-on," Billy said, "and be all embarrassed. Was there anything left of it?"

"Of what?" Ned sucked his fork.

"The car?"

"Just the metal parts. They were all twisted and burnt up but-"

"So where's that car now?" Billy asked.

Ned said, "Jimmy and me wanted to go take a look at it. It's at Sillman's garage. They're the ones that rented it to him."

Bobby said, "What you think it's worth?"

"Worth? It's pretty totaled, man. It's like nothing's left of the back half. The engine might be okay."

Bobby looked at his brother. "Maybe we should take a look at it."

"Can't hurt."

Bobby looked at the boy's empty plate. "Hey, you want any more?"

"They're closed up," Ned pointed out.

"Hell, for you, we'll open the kitchen."

"Well, just pancakes and sausages. I don't want any eggs."

"Coming right up," Bobby said just as Billy started to say the same thing.

Wexell Ambler's house was on Barlow Mountain Road just South of Cleary. The yard ran at a shallow incline down to what was called a lake on the local maps, though it was really just a pond. A hundred years ago Samuel Bingham, the Hartford insurance magnate, wanted to surprise his wife on her fortieth birthday by giving her something she didn't already own, which didn't leave many possibilities. But he noticed a low-lying spot on their seventy-acre estate and an idea occurred to him. He dug out three hundred apple trees and dammed a small stream that ran through the property.

The result was a shallow, weedy ten-acre lake, now surrounded by houses of the sort Ambler owned: half-million dollar colonials (Ambler's was the oldest, built in 1746) and contemporaries. All two-acre-plus lots. Ambler's ex-wife had landscaped the place; it was trim and simple. Pollen-dusty hemlocks, azaleas, rhododendrons, boxwood. She'd given up on tulips and annuals. ("The damn deer can find their own entrees," the woman had said shrilly.)

Standing now at the edge of this pond, Ambler whipped his fishing rod back and forth, trying to drop the tiny dot of burgundy fly into the yellow plastic hoop floating thirty feet away. Each time he'd flick the willowy rod he came close to his target but there was an uneven breeze and he was having problems compensating. Although he'd hunted all his life and fished frequently with a spinning reel he'd only been fly-fishing for a year, and learning it was hard as hell. Still, he kept at it, patient, squinting at the hoop, which looked white through his yellow-lens glasses.

The footsteps came up slowly behind him. The steps were deliberately loud (and, he decided, male); someone was walking heavier than necessary to announce himself. So he wouldn't startle Ambler.

He glanced over his shoulder at the young man. "Mark."

"Howdy, Wex."

The man wore blue jeans, a plaid jacket, a blue down vest, engineer boots. He was in his late twenties, heavy. His thin lips curved into a sincere smile. His sand-colored moustache was irritatingly meek. He had brush-cut hair, parted in the middle. Put him in a polyester suit and he'd be a model Kmart manager. He didn't look like what he was: a facilitator. Ambler didn't particularly like the young man; on the other hand, labor and accounts receivable problems at Ambler's construction company had nearly vanished since he'd hired Mark.