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hand over the other and began to methodically climb the waterspout.
    This was their moment. Stein watched Davidek struggle helplessly as the guidance counselor held him in place. He reached out and grabbed the blue lady’s face between his hands, thrusting his face against hers in a smacking kiss.
    Bromine opened her hands.
    Davidek bolted free, his lungs gasping air as he dashed toward the unconscious boy, grabbing him by one arm and pulling him across the asphalt. It looked like the facedown kid had an urgent classroom question. Half of a brick cratered into the hood of a Volkswagen Beetle beside them. They’d been spotted again.
    Davidek heaved the unconscious boy onto his own back and stumbled toward the sheltering cars, where Stein now rolled on the ground as a raving Ms. Bromine slapped him silly.
    The wounded boy’s head lolled, like his neck was a kitchen rag. One shoe fell off his foot. His eyes were open, drifting back toward the school. He raised a weak arm and pointed. “Fuckin’ … Spider-Man …,” he groaned.
    Mr. Zimmer, his shirttail dangling free, had reached the top of the school, his ropy arms grabbing for purchase along the stone ledge. The boy on the roof hadn’t seen him yet. He was instead watching with panic as dual fire engines pulled up to the curb and police cars squealed into the parking lot. Hector Greenwill and his bull’s-eye sweater were now close enough to hit.
    Clink had one jar left, and intended to make it count by hurling it directly into the fat kid’s face. There was no fluid in it, so it was light, and he aimed it ever so carefully. He shook the jar slightly, but nothing rattled inside. Clink held out the glass container, turning it at an angle. The world got very quiet for the boy on the roof.
    There was nothing inside this one. The jar was empty—except for the image of the boy he was targeting, who with his black-and-orange striped sweater looked like a very exotic trapped bumblebee.
    Clink unscrewed the jar’s metal lid. He spilled the nothing over the side, where he imagined it was captured by the silent wind and carried away. He put the empty jar back in his bag and adjusted the strap around his shoulder.
    On the other side of the school, Mr. Zimmer had clawed over the ledge and was surging forward, arms outstretched, his feet making gritty pulse-pounds against the surface of the roof.
    Vickler’s eyes were closed. He never even saw the teacher coming.
    Down below, Davidek was cradling the wounded kid as paramedics swarmed around them. A few cars over, Bromine was dragging Stein by the front of his shirt. Then a hush swept over the crowd in the parking lot.
    Everyone looked up to see Clink slip backwards off the ledge.

 
    PART I
    The Bad Hand

 
    ONE
     
    Six months later, Davidek stood again in St. Michael’s parking lot, looking up through gray rainfall at the rooftop of the school. The destroyed saints had been replaced, glistening amid the surviving statues like new teeth in a decrepit smile. Water poured down the rust-colored stone walls of the school, turning the classroom windows into shimmering cascades of light.
    It was the first day of the new school year, and Davidek stood silent and still, his gray slacks, white shirt, and blue blazer growing heavy in the falling rainwater. He couldn’t believe he was here any more than his parents could believe him when he had come home from visiting St. Mike’s with stories of stabbed faces, severed fingers, and projectile animal specimens.
    “Don’t make up stories,” his father had said, showing him the local newspaper story about a janitor who was injured at St. Mike’s in a roofing accident. “No mention of your daring rescue or a kid falling off the building.”
    “He fell, but he didn’t land, ” Davidek said, making his father groan and his mother sigh.
    Clink’s attempt at a gruesome end was stymied by his infamous black bag. When he tipped off the roof, it was that strap Mr. Zimmer snagged as he