Skippy kicked Fallon under the table and said, “Nope, not a stroke—neither of us. Do we, Nick?”
“Nah. Ain’t it a shame, hah? We oughta.”
“Yes, yes. It’s something every boy ought to know.” Devlin got up and his bulk seemed greater than ever. His face had resumed its thoughtful expression and the glitter had returned to his eyes. “Well, I’ll be going up now—a little business I got to attend to. If you boys wash up the dishes you can have a game of cards before bedtime, eh?”
They listened as he walked through the hall and up the stairs. Skippy waited until he heard the man’s step in his own room before he said, “Well, he’s begun workin’ on us all right, an’ I trumped his ace right off the bat.”
“How, kid?”
“He expected us to say we could swim.”
“How did....”
“’cause I’m layin’ for him all the time from now on. Whatever he expected to do if we’d said yes, I don’t know. But I know, he’s aimin’ to try the car trick on us an’ he wanted to make sure things wouldn’t go wrong. He can’t afford to have us not drown when he’s countin’ on it, can he?”
Nickie put his elbows on the table and cupped his chin. “You mean we gotta go through with it an’ take the chance that he can’t kill us ’cause we can swim?”
“If there ain’t any other chance, we gotta.”