"Whatever," Macklin said and grinned at her again.

"They haven't seen anything like me before."

Faye smiled back at him.

"Not many people have," she said.

ELEVEN.

Suitcase Simpson and Anthony De Angelo brought the Hopkins boys and Snapper Jencks in to see Jesse at 9:15 in the morning. None of them seemed scared. They all seemed to enjoy the celebrity of being arrested.

"Nobody was home but the kids," De Angelo said.

"Either house. I left a note."

"My father's going to be down here with a lawyer soon as he finds out," Earl said.

Jesse nodded. Simpson closed the door and leaned against it.

"I don't think you're supposed to arrest a kid without his parInts' permission anyway," Robbie said.

"You better call my mother It work."

Jesse leaned back in his chair and looked at them with the deadyed cop look he'd polished to a gleaming edge in South Central L.A. He let his eyes move slowly from one to the other, letting his saze rest heavily on each of them. Jencks was the hard case. He met esse's look. The other two didn't. Jesse looked at Earl.

"You want a lawyer?" Jesse said.

"I don't know no lawyer," Earl said.

"Want me to get you one?"

"I don't want your lawyer," Earl said.

"You better wait until my aid man gets here."

"How old are you?" Jesse said.

"Fifteen."

Jesse looked at Robbie.

"You?" he said.

"Fourteen."

"You?" he said to Jencks.

"Old enough," Jencks said.

Jesse nodded. Jencks looked older than the other two. He was t, but he already had the shadow of a beard, and he had muscle definition. Didn't have to be older. Might merely have grown up quicker.

"Here's how it's going to go," Jesse said.

"You better let me call my mother or father," Earl said.

Jesse gestured at the phone. Earl stared at it and didn't call. Jesse hadn't thought he would. They weren't scared enough yet, and they didn't want their parents to know they were in trouble. Yet.

"Shut up," Jesse said.

"We're going to ask you to wait in separate cells while we question you one at a time until one of you tells us that the three of you set the fire on Geary Street. Then we will throw the book at the ones who held out on us and go easy on the one who cooperated."

"Think you're bad," Earl said, "picking on three kids?"

"This the toughest we got?" lesse said to Simpson.

"Three of the toughest kids in Paradise," Simpson said.

"How you think they'll do at Lancaster?" Jesse said.

Simpson and De Angelo both laughed.

"They were in with the girls," he said, "they'd be the three sissies."

Jesse nodded.

"You think you're tough because kids in the schoolyard are scared of you, and you dare do things like torch somebody's house.

Small town tough guys." He snorted.

"But when we send you up, you'll be in with people who routinely carry razor blades in their hat bands, who would cut you right across the eyeballs for a pack of cigarettes, or for the hell of it. They will have you snowflakes for a snack."

Earl said, "I want..."

And Jesse cut him off.

"I don't care what you want," Jesse said.

"Get them out of here, Suit." Simpson and De Angelo left with the three kids. In ten minutes Simpson came back.

"The Hopkins kids are scared already," he said.

"I could see it when we put them in their cells. Jencks is the tough one."

"Yeah," Jesse said.

"I know."

"We don't have too long, Jesse," Simpson said.

"One of the parents will come home from work or get a call from a neighbor, or whatever, and they'll be up here with a lawyer."

"We'll make do," Jesse said.

"You got them isolated?"

"Yeah."

"Leave the cell doors unlocked?"

"Yeah."

"They know that?"

"No."

Jesse smiled.

"Jencks in the farthest cell?"

"Yeah."

"Okay," Jesse said, "bring him in here. Make sure they both see him on the way by."

When Jencks was in Jesse's office, Jesse nodded Simpson from the room and pointed at the empty chair in front of his desk.

Jencks sat.

He met Jesse's look.

"You're not scared?" Jesse said.

Jencks shook his head.

"I'm a juvenile," Jencks said.

"You can't do shit with me."

"You know one of the Hopkins boys will rat you out," Jesse said.

"Nobody's gonna rat nobody," Jencks said.

Jesse smiled and shook his head.

"You gonna be a bad guy, Snapper, you better learn the business. Everybody rats everybody. It's only a matter of time and pressure."

Jencks leaned back in his chair and clasped his hands behind his head and stared at Jesse without speaking. He had on baggy jeans and big sneakers. He wore a Foo Fighters sweatshirt. Jesse assumed that Foo Fighters was a rock group.

"You're a tough kid," Jesse said.

"I like that. Why I gave you the first shot. You tell me about the fire and you walk."

"Even if I did it too?"

"Two out of three ain't bad," Jesse said.

"Some great legal system," Jencks said.

"Here's how I think it went," Jesse said.

"The three of you started out just busting in there because the place was empty. And you didn't have anything else going. Then you got in there and decided it would be fun to write 'fag' on the walls, and then one of the Hopkins boys, Earl, I bet, said, "Let's torch the fucker." I figure you didn't much want to because you thought it was stupid, but you went along because they were going to do it anyway. You may have even tried to stop them but couldn't."

"I wanted to stop them, they'd stop," Jencks said.

Jesse nodded.

"Yeah, I can see that," Jesse said.

"I'm surprised you wanted to do it too. Go to jail for what? No money in it. Just a kid's asshole prank. I figured you for a little more serious tough guy than that."

"Showed them fairies something," Jencks said.

"What'd you show them, tough guy?"

"Showed 'em," Jencks said stubbornly.

Jesse laughed. His laugh was rich with contempt.

"Sure," Jesse said.

"One time, and one time only, you want to tell me what happened and walk, or you want to go to jail?"

"I ain't going to jail."

"Yeah, you are," Jesse said.

"And because you're so fucking stupid, you may be the only one." Jesse raised his voice.

"Suit?"

Simpson opened the door.

"Take him out," Jesse said.

"Turn him loose."

Jencks looked startled.

"Back way?" Simpson said.

"Yeah."

"Come on," Simpson said, and he led Jencks out of Jesse's office. In two minutes he was back.

"They see him go?" Jesse said.

"Yeah. I took him down past the cells," Simpson said, "with my arm around his shoulder. When I let him out the back door, I shook hands with him. They could see all that."

"Okay," Jesse said.

"Go get the younger one."

"Robbie."

"Yeah. Arrest him. Read him his rights. Cuff him in front."

Seated in the chair, his cuffed hands resting in his lap, Robbie was very pale and swallowed often. Jesse ignored him while he read some documents on his desk. He initialed one and picked up another, read it initialed it and put it in his out basket.