Title

Pointy Teeth
By
Joseph Flynn

Dedication

For the Coates Gang:

Judith, Martha, Susan, Ellen, Laura, David and Mary Beth.

Also by Joseph Flynn

Digger
The Next President
Hot Type
Farewell Performance
 Gasoline, Texas
The President’s Henchman
The Hangman’s Companion

Coming soon …
Round Robin
Blood Street Punx
Nailed
One False Step

Pointy Teeth
By
Joseph Flynn

Published by Stray Dog Press, Inc.

Springfield, IL 62704, U.S.A.
First Stray Dog Press, Inc. Printing, April 2004
Revised Smashwords Edition, October 2010
Copyright Stray Dog Press, Inc., 2004, 2010
All rights reserved

Flynn, Joseph
Pointy Teeth / Joseph Flynn
28,125 words eBook
ISBN 978-0-9764170-7-1

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

Thank you for downloading this free ebook. You are welcome to share it with your friends.
This book may be reproduced, copied and distributed for non-commercial purposes, provided the
book remains in its complete original form. If you enjoyed this book, please return to
Smashwords.com to discover other works by this author. Or visit the author's web site:
http://www.josephflynn.com. Thank you for your support.

Publisher’s Note
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of
the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously; any resemblance to actual persons, living or
dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
eBook design by Aha! Designs

Table of Contents

Chapter 1: Beat the Devil

Chapter 2: The Hotel Fred
 Chapter 3: Smoked Out
Chapter 4: High Heat
Chapter 5: Bunny and Sunshine
Chapter 6: No Good Deed . . .
Chapter 7: Fixer-Upper
Chapter 8: Sleepover
Chapter 9: Speed Trap
Chapter 10: Younger Woman
Chapter 11: Money Man
Chapter 12: Tech Support
About the Author

Pointy Teeth
Twelve Bite-Size Stories

Chapter 1: Beat the Devil

The devil sat at Penman’s place at the bar. Forty-five feet of gleaming mahogany, a couple
dozen empty barstools to choose from, not another drinker in the joint, and the sonofabitch had
taken Penman’s favorite spot. The far corner where most of the light came from the exit sign
above the back door.
It was the only place in town Penman could write his thrice-weekly column for the Great
Metropolitan Daily. Penman had written for newspapers for 30 years, up and down both coasts
and in a lot of burgs in between. He’d worked for journals with circulations of more than a
million and rags that were little better than shopping mall throwaways. He’d called them all the
Great Metropolitan Daily.
At the moment, his career roller coaster was at the crest of another hill. Maybe his last view
of the world from on high. Which was all right with him. For the first time in decades, he didn’t
owe a cent of alimony and a liver transplant had saved his life.
He felt a little guilty about the transplant. His old liver had been done in by a Niagara of
booze; he’d gone over the falls in barrels of scotch too many times to remember. His new organ
came courtesy of a 29-year-old Sunday school teacher who’d made the mistake of stopping at a
tollbooth in front of an 18-wheeler whose brakes failed. The bereaved widower had visited
Penman in the hospital. He’d told him what a wonderful woman his wife had been and how
Penman should try to live up to having her liver.
At almost any other time in his life, Penman would have told the guy to fuck off. Possession
was 9/10 of the law and the liver was his now. To do with as he damn well pleased. For some
reason, though, he hadn’t spouted. He’d only mumbled, “Thanks. Do my best.” Adding a
moment later, “Sorry for your loss.”
He told himself that lapse was due to being dopey from the anesthesia.
Now, six months later, he worried that the Sunday school teacher’s liver had infected him —
with a regard for the future and other people’s feelings. He couldn’t bring himself to drink
anything but water: club soda here at Rick’s on the River, straight out of the tap anywhere else. If
this got out, he’d be ruined.
 Sobriety did have its benefits, however. He was saving a greater portion of his income than
he ever would have believed possible. It looked like he might not wind up on a street corner
holding a cup and a sign.
Help me. If I can take the big fall, so can you.
His new sense of sweetness and light extended only so far. Penman stood behind the guy
who’d usurped his rightful place at the bar. He was now close enough, and intentionally so, to
breathe down the creep’s neck.
He was ready for a confrontation, if need be. Penman, like William “The Refrigerator” Perry,
had been big since he was little. And all the clean living had made him feel stronger than he had
in years. So vital, in fact, he’d even rediscovered his sex drive. Sans Viagra. Which might be a
mixed blessing.
“Hey,” Penman said.
“Just warming your seat, friend.”
The guy slid one stool to his left, not even looking at Penman.
Who still wasn’t satisfied. He liked his elbow room.
As if the guy knew, he moved over one more place.
Still hadn’t looked at Penman, though.
Marty, the bartender who worked what Penman had dubbed “The Morning Midlife-Crisis
Hour,” brought him his bottle of Calistoga and a glass with ice and a twist of lime. On his way
back to reading his newspaper opposite the cash register at the center of the bar, Marty asked the
guy who’d been “warming” Penman’s seat if he wanted another. The guy shook his head. He
gave Marty a twenty and told him to keep the change.
Big shot.
Penman sat down and jumped right back up again.
Felt like he’d plunked his ass onto a bed of white-hot coals.
He stared at the bar stool to see what kind of trick had been played on him. Damn thing
looked perfectly normal. He extended his hand, keeping it several inches above the seat. Even so,
he could still feel the heat. So how could ...
He turned to look at the joker who’d been sitting there.
The guy was looking back at him now. Wearing a hand-tailored suit. Jet black hair combed
back. Eyes so dark Penman couldn’t distinguish pupil from iris. A red glow to his skin like he’d
gotten too much sun. Clean shaven except for a spiky tuft of hair under his lower lip. A soul
patch.
The guy gave him a grin and said, “It’ll cool off in a bit.”
“Yeah” Penman asked. “So what’s with you, your ass on fire?”
The guy liked that one. Grinned wider. Penman caught a flash of teeth. Very white but —
Jesus — had they all been filed to points?
That was when the guy told him, “I like heat: I’m the devil.”
Penman wanted to crack wise, but just like that time in the hospital with the widower, his
natural instincts failed him. He couldn’t get a word out. Maybe because he believed the guy.
“You can sit down now,” the devil told him.
Penman took him at his word. Sat right down. The seat was still warm but comfortably so.
No, better than that. Pleasurably so. His ass startled to tingle. His balls, too.
“A little heat’s nice, isn’t it?” the devil asked.
Penman wasn’t about to give him the satisfaction.
“What do you want?” he asked.
 “Come on. You know the answer to that.”
“Maybe. But I like a direct answer.”
“Going to make me work for it,” the devil said.
Penman nodded.
“Okay. I stopped by to see if you’d like to sell your soul.”
Penman laughed.
“No, really,” the devil said. “The usual deal: I get your soul; you get anything you want.
Anything at all.”
Penman poured his Calistoga into his glass, listened to the ice crack as the water hit it. He
stirred his drink with a finger. He figured even with the new liver alcohol would continue to
leach out of his body for years. If he recycled a bit of it into the sparkling water, he could
honestly say he’d stepped into Rick’s for a mixed drink. He sucked his finger clean and looked at
the devil.
“I always figured you’d wind up with my soul anyway. The times I was ready to concede the
existence of God and the devil.”
“Oh, we’re very real,” the devil assured him.
“I can see you are. But what’s your problem, you’re worried about losing me?”
The devil shrugged. “Until recently, I figured you for a sure thing.”
“I don’t doubt it,”Penman said. He remembered his first wife damning him to hell on a daily
basis, but he thought he knew what the devil was getting at. “It’s the liver transplant, isn’t it? It’s
having an effect.”
“I’m afraid so. That particular organ donor is causing me no end of trouble. I hate to lose
what I already consider mine.”
Penman asked, “You don’t think I’ll backslide?”
“Why take a chance?”
Penman took a swig of his drink. When he’d first ordered a glass of water in a bar he’d felt
emasculated. And the taste! Lord, W.C. Fields had it right. The stuff was fit only for bathing, and
that just barely. But he soon found that his balls were not only still present and accounted for, but
as mentioned they were making him friskier than he’d been in years. Not only that, he was
actually starting to like the taste of the swill.
“Well, the way I see it,” Penman told the devil, “you’ve got two problems.”
“Anything you want,” the devil reminded him. “Nothing’s out of reach.”
“That’s problem number one. I’ve already indulged every vice that used to interest me. To
excess. Which, I’ll admit, is the way to indulge a vice. But now I look back on what I used to do
and it bores the hell out of me, you should pardon the expression. But that’s not even the big
problem.”
“What is?”
“Come on. You know the answer to that.”
Penman enjoyed throwing the devil’s words back at him.
“But you answered my question,” he continued, “so I’ll answer yours. The main reason I’d
never make a deal with you is you’re a loser. The all-time loser. You were God’s right-hand
man. Well, angel. And now look at you. Reduced to hustling souls in gin joints. If I let you
sucker me, what kind of schmuck am I?”
The devil didn’t take offense.
Getting up to go, he said, “We’ll just have to see.”
 Penman finished his column: 450 words on why the public shouldn’t object to the mayor’s
daughter marrying the son of the local crime boss, the gist being the two fathers had been in bed
together for years, so why shouldn’t the kids have their fun, too?
Marty brought Penman a corned beef sandwich as soon as he saw the scribe had stopped
writing. Before Penman could take a bite, his editorial assistant, Kelly, sat down next to him and
swiped his pickle. Looked him right in the eye, gave him her crooked grin, and dared him to
object. When he didn’t, she opened wide and halved the pickle with a loud crunch.
Penman observed her teeth as she chewed. Cosmetically white with perfect occlusion. The
product of the latest high-tech dental polish and orthodontia paid for by many hours of paternal
overtime.
He was mildly relieved to see that Kelly’s teeth hadn’t all been filed to points.
He was still debating with himself whether his encounter with the devil had been real or
some kind of recovering-alcoholic delirium. Really now, why would the devil want to buy his
soul? Penman couldn’t believe that six months of relative probity was enough to earn salvation
after a lifetime of debauchery. He supposed that he could check the seat of his pants for scorch
marks, but he wasn’t sure he wanted to know that badly.
Kelly finished the pickle and grabbed half of his sandwich. She gestured to him to hand over
his handwritten column. Among her various talents was the ability to read Penman’s scribble. It
was a necessary skill as Kelly was the one who transcribed his chicken-scratches into type and
sent it along to his editor. Not that anyone actually edited Penman. There had been those who’d
tried, of course, but they’d been the cretins who had caused all the fist fights in the newsroom,
criminal hearings in the courtroom, and the inevitable dismissals or resignations that followed.
Even Kelly, hard-charger that she was, knew better than to change so much as a punctuation
mark in one of his pieces. Her complete acceptance of his work was one of her charms. As was
the fact that she usually got what he had to say; not everybody did. Right now, for instance, she
was smiling and bobbing her head as she read. She stopped long enough to give Marty a wink as
he brought her a sandwich and a beer.
Penman had never been much of a beer drinker. He’d always made enough dough to afford
real alcohol, the hard stuff. But, post-transplant, he’d become fascinated by Kelly’s brews. The
golden color, the creamy white head, the pleasingly bitter aroma. He could almost taste it.
He stuck his finger back into his sparkling water.
Kelly didn’t seem to have a drinking problem. She had just one beer with lunch, and one
more after work. Never had another beer, or anything else, at one sitting. Even if she had a beer
with breakfast, a meal he’d never shared with her, that’d make only three per day — separated
by hours of abstinence. Which meant she never drank to get drunk or even enjoy a mild buzz. He
was glad she didn’t have his problem.
You just couldn’t count on a Sunday school teacher being there to give up her liver for you.
Still reading, Kelly put half of her sandwich on his plate. Compensation for what she’d
filched. Only she’d stolen corned beef and repaid him with liverwurst. Rick’s hadn’t even
offered that crap until Kelly browbeat them into making it specially for her. On pumpernickel
yet. She knew that Penman would never eat the offering and in a few minutes she’d take it back
and wolf it down. She never offered him her pickle.
Kelly reminded him of one of his wives. He couldn’t remember if it was number three or
four. Anyway, the two of them were world-beaters. He was sure that Kelly would end up
running, if not outright owning, some major publication. He could see himself in his dotage
working for her, if only to bring her a sandwich and a beer.
 In the meantime, he could enjoy watching her climb to the top of the journalistic food-chain,
devouring the slower, weaker animals on the savanna.
Of course, he’d have to dwell on the professional aspects of their relationship, avoid focusing
on her obvious physical charms: face and figure both. After all, she was young enough to be his
daughter, and for the first time in his life that was actually starting to matter to him. Damn that
transplant! It was probably for the best, though. Wife number three or four had reamed him for
more alimony than any of the others, and he was sure Kelly could outclass her without breaking
a sweat.
Penman knocked back a slug of sparkling water and finger sludge.
Kelly looked up from her reading and smiled at him.
Then she downed her beer like a frat-boy in a chug-a-lug contest.
“You can really write for an old man,” she told Penman. “When I grow up, I want to be just
like you. Except for the hairy back and shoulders, the receding hairline, and ... Well, I’d like to
write just like you.”
She gave him a wink, grabbed the uneaten half of her liverwurst sandwich and took the
column with her for the walk back to the office.
Penman watched her go, admiring her rear view as she left Rick’s and her profile as she
passed by the front window. He thought maybe Kelly would be worth a boatload of alimony.
That confounding thought was driven from his mind a moment later when he saw the devil
follow close in Kelly’s footsteps.
And the satanic SOB turned to look at Penman as he went by.
Look and give him a wink.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Kelly demanded.

Penman was writing his next column the next day and he was surprised that she’d interrupted
him. Interrupting was the only sin worse than editing in Penman’s world.
He glared at Kelly, trusting that would be enough to quiet her.
Instead, she put her hand on his arm and said, “About the devil, I mean.”
Penman would have told her to shut up — except her hand was warm.
More than 98.6 degrees warm. Her hair was mussed, too. Penman was alert enough to
fashion trends to know that some young women adopted an intentionally disheveled look, but
Kelly was not one of them. Or hadn’t been. And now her eyes were different, too. The look in
them was one he dimly remembered from his youth, when desire had nothing to do with money,
power or career climbing, only pure carnal need. The fact that she was directing such a look at
him was more than a little distracting.
He took her hand off his arm and said, “Gimme a minute, okay?”
The irony here was the subject of that day’s column: a city vice cop had gone into business as
a tour guide for visiting Asian businessmen who longed to experience the town’s finer fleshpots.
The copper guaranteed a good time: clean girls and nobody pulling any scams or rip-offs on
them. He’d been knocking down a quarter-mil a year when —
Kelly ran her fingernails up the inside of Penman’s thigh.
He almost yelped. But biting his tongue, he jotted down the final sentence of his column.
After being arrested, the vice cop jumped bail and disappeared, but undoubtedly his inspired idea
lived on and horny business travelers could sleep easy when they came to town, even when their
sleeping companions charged a small fortune for their affections.
Penman put his pen down and looked Kelly in the eye.
 She seemed ready to jump him right there. Marty was gentleman enough to look the other
way, but there was no telling if someone else might stop in for an early belt.
Besides that, Penman had a concern even more serious than being caught with his pants
down. He said to Kelly, “Please tell me you didn’t ...”
She laughed. About an octave lower than she used to.
Penman didn’t like that at all.
“Sell my soul? Am I that dumb? You should know better.”
Penman asked for a direct answer.
“No, I didn’t sell my soul,” Kelly told him. “I’m just messing with his head.”
“You’re messing with the devil’s head?”
“Uh-huh.”
He didn’t smell any booze on her, but she had to be drunk.
“He’s giving me freebies. Little tastes of what he can do. No obligation.”
Marty brought sandwiches for both of them, caught the vibe and didn’t linger.
“I ever tell you how I paid for college?” Penman asked her.
“Writing term papers?”
Penman grinned. “I thought of that but it was too much work. I played cards. Poker. Draw,
stud, hold’em: I didn’t care. I won at all of them. I made enough to pay my tuition, buy a car, get
loaded every weekend, even rent a pretty nice apartment.”
“So why go into the news racket? Why not just play cards?”
“I tried. I went to Vegas and lost every cent. I was hell on college boys, but the pros were
hell on me. You get what I’m saying?”
Kelly laughed her new scary laugh again.
“I can take care of myself, old man.” She leaned close and whispered, “I could take care of
you, too. Right now if you want to sneak into the men’s room with me.”
She wasn’t going to listen, he thought. She’d get conned. Lose her soul. Seeing that would
break his heart. But there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it.
Well, there was one thing.
Penman said, “Kelly, you’re fired.”

Kelly did it. Sold her soul. Only thing was, Penman should have known what she’d get from
the devil in return. He should have but he didn’t see it coming. Even after she’d told him she
wanted to be just like him.
She went across the street to the number two paper in town, the Not-So-Great Metropolitan
Daily. The punk paper was a tabloid. Sleazeball foreign ownership. Half the circulation of
Penman’s journal. Hired scribes who couldn’t write their way out of a freshman composition
course.
Within a month, Kelly’s new column cut the tabloid’s circulation deficit by two-thirds. Her
initial employment contract was torn up and her new salary was reported by the tabloid’s
celebrity columnist. It was twice the money Penman had made in his best year. Beyond that,
Kelly had signed to do monthly pieces for a TV news show.
This meteoric ascent was propelled by what Penman had to admit was some very sharp
writing. Five days a week. But it made Penman think of ball players who hit a ton of home runs
and then refused to undergo steroid testing. Still, what could he do? Insist Kelly pee in a cup and
test her specimen for brimstone?
 Penman was facing tough competition but he didn’t give in. He reported with more energy
and ingenuity than at any time since his first liver was fresh and young. Every time Kelly
unearthed a scandal, Penman topped it. When Kelly reported that the head of the city council was
taking bribes from real estate developers for zoning variances, Penman revealed that the middle-
aged pol’s mommy still spanked his bare bottom, at sonny-boy’s request.
But Penman knew that he couldn’t compete over the long haul. He was only a man, not the
Prince of Darkness. It broke his heart to see what Kelly had done to herself. He’d been wrong
about not having to witness the whole sad show, too. She made a point of writing her column at
Rick’s just the way he did, taking the stool at the opposite end of the bar.
Her posse came along with her, of course. A gaggle of sycophants hanging on her every
word, keeping all the horny guys away. Most of the time. Every once in a while, Kelly would
pick one out of the pack, let him draw near, exchange a few salacious words and even swap a
little spit. The first time it had happened, Penman had actually witnessed the disgusting
exchange. After which Kelly had favored him with a wink. Just like the devil had. From then on,
he made a point of keeping his head down, trying to concentrate on his work. He still had to
listen to the titters and wolf howls coming from the other end of the bar, though.
It was enough to drive a man back to the bottle.
Only Penman refused to give in.
He took strength from his Sunday-school-teacher liver.
Maybe she was even the one who inspired him, gave him the courage to try the craziest idea
of his life. He raised his hand and gestured to Marty, now one of the two bartenders who worked
the new morning crowd.
“Another Calistoga?” Marty asked.
Penman shook his head.
“How long you been working here, Marty?”
“Not very long.”
“Yeah, that occurred to me just now. I don’t remember you being here before I got my
transplant. So who you working for?”
“Sir?”
“Oh, I know you work for Rick, but that’s just moonlighting. I was told not too long ago that
God and the devil are both very real. I figure you’re with one of them. So what kind of angel are
you? Exalted or fallen?”
Marty grinned. He had the same dentist the devil did.
Penman said, “Tell your boss I’d like to see him.”

Penman thought the devil would be there in the wink of an eye but the bastard kept him
waiting longer than a tech-support phone call. Maybe he had taken offense when Penman had
rebuffed him. Probably hadn’t liked being called a loser.
Kelly and her crowd had cleared out. So had the back-up bartender. Only Marty lingered on
the far side of the room. Penman was about to leave, too, when a hot hand fell upon his shoulder.
Penman hadn’t seen the devil make his entrance but being sneaky was the guy’s stock in trade.
Penman gave the devil a look and he removed his hand.
“Something I can do for you?” the devil asked.
He took the stool next to Penman’s, their faces inches apart.
“What do you call that silly little hairball on your chin?” Penman asked. “A lost-soul patch?”
The devil no longer found Penman amusing. He got up to go.
 “Hold on,” Penman said.
The devil remained standing. Waited for Penman to speak.
“I want to review something with you. You told me I can get anything I want for my soul.
Anything at all. Is that right?”
The devil nodded.
“No exceptions?” Penman asked.
“None.”
“Okay. I’m ready to deal.”
The devil sat down. He took a contract out of an inside pocket. Put it on the bar in front of
Penman, who saw that his name was already on it. Cocky bastard, he thought. That was only
going to make things even sweeter.
As a legal instrument, the contract was simplicity itself. In consideration for relinquishing his
immortal soul to the perpetual custody of the devil, Penman would receive ... There was a blank
space for him to fill in whatever he desired. There was also a line for his signature.
“Do I have to sign in blood?” Penman asked.
The devil took out a pen. “Ink is just as binding.”
Penman took the pen and completed the form.
The devil snatched the executed contract off the bar — and frowned.
“I can’t read your writing,” he said.
Penman told him, “What I want is for you to release all claim to Kelly’s soul, now and
forever, amen. I’m swapping my soul for hers.”
He felt that the Sunday school teacher who’d given him her liver would be proud.
The devil was not so pleased.
“I can’t do that,” he shouted, jumping to his feet. “Once I have a soul, it’s mine. Abandon all
hope. Even you must have heard of that.”
“I have,” Penman agreed. “But you told me just now I could have anything I want. No
exceptions. You have to live up to that agreement for our contract to be valid.”
The devil’s complexion got a good deal redder.
“It’s a pickle,” Penman said. “Possibly beyond your ability to resolve. But I believe you told
me there’s a higher power who might settle the issue.”
Penman grinned.
The devil said, “You bastard.”
The back door to Rick’s flew open and was filled with a celestial light.

God was far too luminous to look at; easier to try staring at the sun. His light fell most
brightly on Penman, as if trying to reveal some new trick the newsman might have in mind.
Penman squeezed his eyes shut but did not avert his face.
The devil, on the other hand, had to whip on a pair of Ray-Bans and, more gallingly, bow his
head to his old boss. After an indeterminate period of time, the light got dialed back to a tolerable
level. Penman dared to take a peek.
He saw a guy dressed in a blue work shirt, jeans, and construction boots. No hardhat. But he
looked like the original guy you’d never wanted to mess with.
“Michael,” the devil said, removing his sunglasses.
“Long time, Lou,” Michael answered. “Never expected to see you back here.”
The devil looked around. To Penman, the place was a featureless white plane. Clearly,
though, the devil could see more. Then Penman noticed the devil’s eyes. They were no longer
featureless dark orbs. They were golden and reflected in them was a landscape only hinted at by
the most beautiful places on earth.
What a fool, Penman thought of the devil, to give up such a place.
Then he thought: Uh-oh. He’d just given it up, too.
Before Penman could get bummed out, Michael asked him, “Are you really that gutsy or just
plain stupid?”
Penman knew what he meant: giving up his soul for Kelly’s.
“Mostly stupid; maybe a little gutsy. But at least it was a sober decision.”
The tough guy grinned.
“Are you Michael the Archangel?” Penman asked.
“Yeah. I do the heavy lifting around here.”
“Used to be my friend,” the devil said bitterly.
Michael looked at the devil and then back to Penman.
“You ever have friends who made truly awful mistakes?” Michael asked.
“Plenty,” Penman said. “Though that was usually the part I played.”
“You cut ‘em loose if you couldn’t reach them?”
Penman remembered firing Kelly.
“Yeah.”
Penman had the uneasy feeling Michael knew just what he was thinking.
“But this time,” the archangel said, “you gave away your soul for her.”
“Yeah, I did. Don’t know why.”
Michael shook his head. He wasn’t buying that.
He told Penman, “We’ve got a saying around here. The ‘No Greater Love’ maxim. Used to
be: no greater love hath one man than he lay down his life for another. Now, you’ve upped the
ante big-time. You say you’re willing to lay down your soul for another. Which, I have to say,
takes some big brass cojones.”
Penman suddenly felt very uneasy.
“Want to see what’s waiting for you?” Michael asked.
Penman didn’t have a choice. Michael waved a hand like someone wiping steam off a
bathroom mirror and Penman got a glimpse of hell. Holy shit! Dante hadn’t covered the half of
it. Penman’s knees began to wobble.
“Still want to go through with it?” Michael asked.
Penman stared at his future.
“It’s really not that bad,” the devil told him. “It’s a dry heat.”
“You lying bastard,” Penman said. He was equally upset with himself. He’d made some
dumb moves in the past but this one had to take the cake. Still, he couldn’t bring himself to try to
weasel out. He’d had a long run; Kelly was just getting started. If he could save her from what
he’d just seen, he had to do it.
Besides, as Michael had just said, he loved her. Enough to impress even heaven.
“Yeah,” Penman said, “let’s do it. While I’m down there suffering, I’ll console myself that I
finally did the right thing.”
The devil looked disgusted.
Even Michael wore a look of consternation.
As if Penman’s answer hadn’t been what he’d expected.
Or even wanted.
“What?” Penman asked.
 “All right,” the archangel told him, “this is going to take a while to sort out. Maybe quite a
while. It’s an unprecedented situation. What you should do is have a drink or two while we work
on it.”
“Here?” Penman asked. “You serve drinks in heaven?”
He imagined it. Free scotch for eternity and it never ruined your liver. If so, he was really
going to regret not getting in.
“Not here,” Michael said. “Someplace more familiar.”

Kelly quit her job at the Not-So-Great Metropolitan Daily.

“They were going to fire me anyway,” she told Penman.
She’d returned to Rick’s, minus her entourage.
As a peace offering, she’d bought Penman a corned beef sandwich. Didn’t even swipe his
pickle.
“I started fast,” she explained, “but I ran out of ideas. And I got tired of all my sources trying
to hit on me. Which was maybe my fault for stringing them along. But it got so even Listerine
didn’t make my mouth feel fresh anymore. I had to give up the whole thing.”
She paused. Worked up her nerve.
“So I’m looking for a job. You know anyone who’s hiring?”
Penman asked, “You have any outstanding obligations?”
Kelly shook her head. “I’m free as a bird.”
He saw she was sincere. Which meant she had no memory of selling her soul. Which implied
that Kelly would be off the hook.
He, himself, had no such assurances. But from a lifetime of covering bureaucracies he was
sure a decision on his fate would be a long time coming. Difficult choices were avoided,
postponed, and delayed again. In this case, maybe forever.
“So you going to take me back?” Kelly asked.
Penman nodded.
She grinned and swiped his pickle.
“You’re too good to me,”she said.
“You have no idea,” Penman replied.
But as long as there was still a chance he might one day wind up in hell, he was going to
make sure Kelly provided him with a lot of good memories to take with him.
Alimony was no longer his biggest worry.

Back to Table of Contents

Chapter 2: The Hotel Fred
Tina the travel agent gushed with excitement when she called Charlie Parker.
“You’re not going to believe this,” she said. “Oh, God, if my mother hadn’t raised me right
or even if my boyfriend could lie with a straight face, I’d jump on this myself and salve my
conscience by putting you into Le Meridien for free.”
Charlie asked, “You could do that, get me Le Meridien for free?”
“If your wife can pass herself off as me.
“Oh.” Antoinette, aka Twine, his wife of almost ten years, couldn’t lie with a straight face
either. “So what’s this great place you’ve got for us?”
Charlie and Twine had decided to celebrate their tenth wedding anniversary in Cancún. Tina
was his sister Delia’s best friend and was supposed to work her travel agent magic to get them a
great deal on a top-tier hotel.
“What I’ve got you,” Tina said, “is the first opening in over six years at the Hotel Fred!”
The Hotel Fred? Charlie waited for the punch line. It didn’t come.
“Um, I’ve never heard of that hotel,” he said.
“Of course, you haven’t,” Tina sighed. “All the more reason I should go and not you.”

“Fred Pegler, that’s who owns the hotel?” Twine said to Charlie at home that night. She
sounded as if she didn’t believe him.
“Yeah, you ever hear of him?”
She looked at him like he’d just dropped in from Mars.
“Don’t you remember? He was the lead singer of No Money Down. They had a string of hits
back when we were kids.” For a moment, Twine looked as if she was revisiting a special
memory. Then she finished dicing a plum tomato and tossed it into the pot for marinara sauce.
“Didn’t know Fred was still alive though.”
“You’re one up on me,” Charlie replied, “I didn’t know he was ever alive.”
Charlie did know, of course, that he shared his name with an all-time jazz great, and he
generally liked music. But it was a momentary thing with him, in one ear and out the other. He
never got a tune stuck in his head. Couldn’t imagine it.
Charlie’s job was buying media and his thing was numbers: business figures, sports stats,
keeping a running total in his head when he went grocery shopping with Twine.
He asked his wife, “Any of those hits something I might remember?”
All he hoped for was a song title; melodies were beyond him. He got the National Anthem
and the Wedding March confused. Threw rice at ballgames and saluted the bride.
“Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff,” Twine told him. “That was Fred’s. But it was after the band
broke up. He recorded it by himself.”
Twine’s response surprised Charlie. Not only because he knew the title. The way Twine had
answered, her tone, the way she kept referring to Fred, it sounded like this Pegler guy had sat
next to her in high school algebra..
Passed her a love note or two.
“You remember how the song goes?” Charlie asked, probing. Unlike him, his wife could not
only remember a melody, she could also carry a tune.
Twine nodded. Her eyes lost focus as she recalled the song. She started to sing in her soft
clear alto and Charlie could see the lyrics as if they were printed out in front of him.
 The sun burned out at noon today,
But not before the world caught fire.
I just turned twenty-six,
But the boss said it’s time that I retire.
I swore to tell the whole truth,
But the judge called me a liar.

The first verse was slow and bluesy. Then Twine picked up the tempo for the chorus.

Life can be a bitch,

Every day a grind,
No plan without a hitch,
Not a truth left to find,
But no matter how bad it gets,
No matter how hard or tough,
As long as I have you,
I won’t sweat the small stuff.

Charlie was hardly a romantic, but at that moment, looking at the smile on Twine’s face, he’d
have given everything he had to have written those words, to have composed that tune.
Twine stopped singing, took her knife to another tomato, and said, “There’s a couple more
verses, but I don’t remember the words.”
Charlie didn’t think so; he’d bet Twine knew the whole song by heart. She was dicing the
Roma in time to the melody still playing in her head. He stepped up behind his wife, slipped his
arms around her waist, nuzzled her neck. She stiffened. For a second, he thought she might cry,
but then she relaxed and pressed her backside against him.
“I had my doubts about this Hotel Fred,” he said, “but I get the feeling you might like it.”
Twine’s head bobbed.
“It could be cool, Charlie.”
“I’ll call Tina right now. Tell her we’ll take it.”
He kissed his wife’s neck once more, and wondered what he was getting into.

The place looked like a movie star’s mansion to Charlie. Or a rock star’s, he supposed.
Extensive. Tan stucco. Red roof tiles. Lush gardens and a swimming pool in the shape of a sea
serpent. The property sat smack on an immaculate beach and the startlingly blue Caribbean Sea.
Tina had sent them a brochure once they confirmed their reservation. They were poring over it
for the hundredth time on the flight to Cancún.
Wanting to be a sport, Charlie had sprung for first class.
Twine took his gesture in stride, as if she never flew anything else.
She was still marveling, however, about the hotel’s many virtues.
“Only six guest suites, Charlie. Each one situated for maximum privacy.”
“Tina says the place gets a lot of show-biz types. You’re not supposed to talk to them unless
they talk to you first. You know, like British royalty.”
Twine snorted.
“And Tina says all the women at the pool go topless, sometimes naked altogether.”
“I won’t worry about you, Charlie. You’re allergic to silicone.”
 Charlie knew surgeons used saline implants these days, but he didn’t think it wise to inform
his wife he was up on the latest techniques for breast augmentation.
“I just meant we might not get the warmest or most comfortable reception from our fellow
guests,” he said.
“I think we’ll be all right, Charlie.”
As if to prove Twine’s point, once past customs, they were greeted by a smiling Hawaiian
giant with a dusty-rose drop-top Cadillac. Vintage 1961.

The Hawaiian’s name was Roderick T. Maui.

“After the demigod not the island,” he told them. “But everyone calls me Roddy.”
He put their bags in the trunk, ushered them into the backseat, and got behind the wheel.
“Um, there’re no seatbelts back here,” Charlie said.
“None up here, either,” Roddy answered. “Put your faith in Nuestra Señora.”
He gestured to a statue of the Virgin Mary on the dashboard and took off. The road from the
airport led to the Paseo Kukulcan and the Hotel Zone where everyone who was anyone in the
hotel game had built — and built and built — along the Caribbean Sea. Across the road,
bordering the Laguna de Nichupté, a string of restaurants, discos, and mini-marts knelt like
vassals before their massive liege-lords.
Twine did her best to take in all the natural beauty and the merits, or lack thereof, of tropical
oceanfront architecture. Charlie’s numerical bent, on the other hand, inclined him to try to
calculate the property values. Within the first kilometer, the total was into the billions. It seemed
impossible to him that even a current, top-charting music megastar could afford to build in such
a place as this. Much less one whose day had come and gone.
He said to Roddy, “You mind if I ask how any individual could afford to put up a hotel along
here?”
Roddy passed a red city bus that was doing 100 in a 70 kph zone. Then he glanced over his
shoulder and said, “Fred got here first.”

Fred’s hotel was approached via a gated flagstone driveway unburdened by signage of any
kind. The structure itself was shielded from street view and traffic noise by a thick screen of
mature plantings: palms, hibiscus, and ficus. By those not in the know, most every tourist in
town, it was likely to be mistaken as a private garden belonging to one of the four-star, thousand-
room behemoths to either side of it.
Roddy pulled up at the front entrance. Two smiling Mexican men, one silver-haired, one
young, both wearing aloha shirts, cutoff jeans, and flip-flops, greeted the new arrivals. The older
man opened the car door for Charlie and Twine; the younger one fetched their bags. Roddy
introduced them respectively as Moises and Nestor.
Outnumbered by hotel staff three to two now, the Parkers were escorted to their suite.
Its large windows and balcony faced the pool, the beach, and the sea.
The ceilings were high; the floors were polished oak.
There was no television, but in the living room there was an old but lovingly burnished spinet
piano. Roddy struck middle C. “In tune,” he said. Next to the piano, on an upright stand, was a
gleaming acoustic guitar. Moises picked it up, deftly ran his fingers across the strings, making
minor adjustments to three of them. “Also in tune,” Roddy said. In addition to the instruments,
there was a high-end stereo system with a hundred CDs and an equal number of old vinyl
albums. “Please play your music no louder than you’d like your neighbors to play theirs.”
 The tour continued with the bedroom where the bed was large enough to a land small plane.
Of equally gargantuan proportions were a leather reading chair, a footstool, and a brass floor
lamp. Rounding out the room was a writing desk that looked as if Dylan Thomas might have
bent over it, well lubricated, his poetry to compose. The bathroom was also huge and featured a
skylight. The fixtures were somewhat dated, but they were immaculate and both the bathtub and
the separate shower stall were big enough to accommodate two people.
For all that, the suite was incomplete. The floors were bare; there was no art on the walls;
there were no linens, pillows, or comforter on the bed; there were no towels, shampoo, or even
soap in the bathroom.
As the one who’d had the final say in choosing the Hotel Fred, Twine felt compelled to point
out these shortcomings.
Roddy smiled. Moises and Nestor joined him.
“We like our guests to feel this is their home away from home,” Roddy said. “In just a
minute, I’ll take you to our storage facility. You can choose the art you’d like to hang on your
walls, the rugs you’d like to have under your feet. The linens, pillows, and duvet you’d prefer for
your bed. The robes, towels, soap, bubble bath, and shampoo you’d enjoy in your bathroom.
“We’ve also been informed you’ll be celebrating your tenth wedding anniversary in a few
days. Congratulations.” Moises and Nestor politely applauded. “We’d be pleased to have the
hotel chef provide you with a complimentary dinner. In the dining room or in your suite, as you
prefer. Either way, you’ll have your choice of flowers, candles, and wine for your table.”
Twine beamed. “This is too cool, isn’t it, Charlie?”
Charlie said, “Uh-huh.”
But if he’d had any musical memory at all, he would have started whistling “The Hotel
California.” The place where you could check out but never leave.

As part of their welcome to the Fred — nobody who stayed there called it anything else, they
were told, unless in deference to the native tongue it was El Fred — Charlie and Twine were
given free drinks to sip at poolside while the accoutrements they’d chosen for their suite were
being installed. Contrary to all the other oceanfront hotels, the Fred’s pool terrace did not look
out on the ocean. A high stucco wall and more plantings blocked the view, and provided privacy
for those female guests who did, indeed, choose to sunbathe topless.
At the moment, their number was two: a woman about the Parkers’ age, mid-30ish, with light
brown hair, a lithe build, and breasts that appeared to be nature’s own; and a woman closer to
fifty with hair a shade of red that Charlie had once seen on an old Chevy, and boobs that stuck up
as if raised by tent poles.
Charlie didn’t look directly at either woman but he expected his peripheral vision would be
markedly improved before this trip was over.
Twine was the one checking out both women. Both of them noticed before long. Red gave
Twine a mean look, shook her head in disgust, got up and left. The younger woman only gave
Twine a friendly wave, closed her eyes, and went back to absorbing solar radiation.
“Batting .500,” Charlie told his wife.
“You think I should do that?” she asked. “Get rid of my tan lines?”
“I like tan lines. The contrast is sexy.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, makes a guy aware he gets to see places nobody else does.”
“You just don’t want me going topless in public.”
 “That too,” Charlie said.

Twine was in the shower prior to going downstairs to dinner. Charlie sat in the living room
holding the guitar on his lap trying to pick out a few notes. Who knew, he thought. Maybe here
in this exotic place, so far from home, he could develop an unsuspected talent for music. Write a
song for his wife on the occasion of their tenth wedding anniversary.
Charlie was holding the guitar backward.
Neither he nor the instrument was left-handed.
At that point, it didn’t matter. The guitar was a prop, he was in costume and the suite had
been transformed into a movie set. Original watercolors by local artists hung on the walls. As did
a genuine drawing by Picasso over the piano. And in the bedroom, by Twine’s choice, a rock
concert poster had been placed over the bed, one that featured No Money Down as the opening
act for the Rolling Stones.
Rugs in deep earth colors with patterns they’d been told were Mayan now graced the floors.
Twine had picked out bed linens in a pale coral and a duvet that featured some mythical bird
embodying all the colors of the rainbow.
As for Charlie himself, he wore a jade green silk T-shirt, khaki sea-cotton slacks, and kid
leather moccasins, sans socks of course. His ankles were a bit pale at this point but he had a
week to work on his tan.
Five days until his anniversary to work on his song.
Looking around, he had to agree with Twine. The Fred was a cool place. He’d bet a guy
could discover new things about himself here. A soft knock called his attention to the door.
Moises or Nestor come to bring some new treat? Roddy had said they’d be looking after his and
Twine’s needs. Or maybe it was just the maid come to turn down the bed.
Charlie went to open the door, guitar in hand.
Someone new was there. A guy about his own height. Maybe twenty years older. Wavy
silver hair, brushed straight back from a widow’s peak. His skin was deeply tanned and lined. He
had the clearest blue eyes Charlie had ever seen.
Maybe the saddest eyes, too.
He was wearing the same aloha shirt, cutoffs, and flip-flops as Moises and Nestor.
“Yes?” Charlie asked.
“I’m Fred Pegler,” the guy said. “Just wanted to see how you’re settling in.”
The Fred’s owner. Fred himself? Charlie was speechless.
“You play?” Fred asked, nodding at the guitar.
Charlie immediately blushed. Felt as if he was being rude, too, leaving a friend out on the
front stoop. He repressed his embarrassment and said, “Please come in.”
Fred stepped into the suite.
Charlie said, “Excuse me a minute.” He closed the door to the bedroom. Lest Twine make
her entrance in the buff. Turning back to Fred, he added, “No, I don’t play. But it’s so beautiful I
just had to pick it up.”
Fred smiled.
“There are a lot of them like that. You fall in love at first sight. Then you hear the music you
can make together and you think it’ll never end. May I?”
Charlie gave the guitar to Fred. He sat in an easy chair, checked the tuning, tweaked it a bit,
and began to pluck the strings as he moved smoothly from chord to chord. The sound was rich
and clear. It became sweet but heart wrenching. A tune as beautifully sad as Fred’s eyes.
 For an anxious moment, Charlie wondered if he was hearing a classic. Something a normal
person would recognize immediately and say to Fred, “Man, I can’t tell you all the times I
listened to that song.”
Then he thought, screw it. Just sat down and let the music claim him.
When Fred finished he gave a small nod, as if he’d finally gotten the piece right. For Charlie,
though, the melody was already disappearing from his mind. His face clouded.
“Something wrong, man?” Fred asked.
“I have musical Alzheimer’s,” Charlie said, and explained himself.
“My sympathies.”
“Why’d you stop?” Charlie asked. “Composing and recording, I mean.”
Fred shrugged, casually cradling the guitar as if it were a small child.
“I’m a junkie. Been in recovery a long time. But go back to the music scene? No way I’m
strong enough for that. Never will be.”
“How about the song you just played? You ever tape it strictly for yourself?”
Fred shook his head. Saw Charlie was clearly disappointed.
“You liked it that much?” he asked.
Charlie nodded.
“Tell you what. You’re here a week. I’ll see if I can teach you to play it. Maybe that way
you’ll be able to hold onto it. We’ll start tomorrow.” Fred got up and handed the guitar back to
Charlie. “Glad you and your wife could come visit.”
“Yeah, we’re glad, too.”
Fred left. A moment later, Twine opened the door to the bedroom. She had one towel
wrapped around her hair and another around her body.
“Did I hear you talking to someone?” she asked.
“Fred Pegler dropped by to say hello.”
“He did? And I missed him?” Her face crumpled. “Did he say anything else?”
“Yeah. He offered to give me music lessons.”

The woman behind Fred’s bar was a deeply tanned platinum blonde. Like all the other staff
— and the hotel’s owner — she wore a flowered shirt and cutoffs. Unlike the others, she went
barefoot. Other than the crow’s feet at the corners of her eyes she struck the image of a well-
preserved hippie chick.
She said her name was Hannah and she came from Minneapolis.
When she brought drinks to the Parkers’ table, Hannah gave Charlie a folded slip of paper
and said, “Almost forgot. Fred asked me to give that to you if you came in.”
“Thanks,” Charlie said. He stuck the message into a pocket, unread.
Twine waited until Hannah left before ordering her husband, “Read the note. Tell me what it
says.”
After almost ten years together, Charlie never would have guessed his wife was star-struck.
Up till now there had been no sign of it. Having been revealed, it was beginning to bug him. He
pulled Fred’s message out of his pocket and passed it to Twine.
She unfolded the piece of paper and her eyes danced across the words.
Twine looked up at her husband. “Fred’s inviting you to his apartment, here in the hotel,
tomorrow morning at ten, if that’s not too early.”
“Not for me,” Charlie said.
“He says he’ll start you out with a 30-minute lesson. Bring the guitar from our suite.”
 “I can do that.”
Twine put her hand over Charlie’s and squeezed a little too hard.
“Charlie, you’ve got to take me with you, introduce me to Fred.”
Charlie gave her a look, then said, “Okay ... if you promise not to faint.”
Twine got the point. Removed her hand. Sat back.
Just then the two women who’d sunbathed topless that afternoon entered the bar, dressed for
the evening. Charlie hadn’t caught it at the pool but now it was clear they were a couple. Red
pointedly ignored the Parkers, but the younger woman gave them a smile.
And a wink.
Before they could discuss what that meant, the maitre d’ entered from the dining room. He
told Charlie and Twine their dinner would be served momentarily. Please bring their drinks
along.

“So you like numbers?” Fred asked the next morning.

“Always have,” Charlie said. “Ever since I was a kid.”
“But you never took music lessons.”
“Unh-uh. My sister, Delia, was the one who got the piano lessons in my family. When I said
I’d rather go out and play ball, my dad let me. Said he wasn’t going to shell out money just to
make both of us unhappy. Delia wanted the lessons, so she got them.”
Fred nodded.
“Your sister still play?”
“Any time there’s a party and a piano.”
Fred smiled as if he knew a secret. “She likes to get the party going ... and after a drink or
two her playing improves.”
“Yeah,” Charlie said.
“But a couple more drinks and her playing gets sloppy.”
“No, after the first two, her husband cuts her off.”
“Good for him. How about you, you drink, Charlie?”
“No more than one drink per meal, only occasionally at lunch, hardly ever at breakfast.”
He looked over at Twine and was pleased to see a grin on her face. Last night, they’d
returned to their suite, brushed their teeth, and gone straight to sleep. Hardly the romantic
beginning to their trip that Charlie had imagined. That morning, they had been polite enough to
set other’s teeth on edge. Far too polite to get sweaty and conjugal.
Charlie was annoyed because, having thought about it, he’d have liked to keep his lessons
with Fred a secret. Make whatever progress he could and then surprise Twine with his playing.
Couldn’t do that now, though.
Still, the two of them appreciated the warm reception everyone at the Fred had given them,
and they weren’t about to be rude. They showed up at Fred’s apartment on time and wearing
smiles. Charlie introduced Fred to Twine and asked if it would be okay if she watched him
torture Fred’s guitar.
Fred shook Twine’s hand, said he was pleased to meet her, and personally served her a bottle
of sparkling water.
“So you’re a steady guy who loves numbers and whose knowledge of music is zilch,” Fred
summed up to Charlie.
“Exactly.”
 “Well, Charlie, my man, you’re in luck, because between notation, tempo, and the business
end of things, music is almost nothing but numbers.”
Charlie smiled and the lesson began.
It went far better than he’d ever expected. He understood the music theory Fred laid on him
almost intuitively, and much to his surprise he had a high degree of manual dexterity. He could
form chords without too much difficulty and he got the hang of finger picking almost as quickly
as the counting pattern clicked into his head. The 30-minute lesson flew by, and he was hungry
for more.
But he remembered his manners, stood up, and shook Fred’s hand.
Now, he felt like going back to the suite, practicing a little more, and then getting sweaty
with his wife. But Twine had a question for him. And one for Fred.
“Charlie, would you mind if I stayed a few minutes and talked with Fred? Fred, would that
be all right with you?”
Fred didn’t say a word. Just looked at Charlie to see if it was cool.
Charlie said, “Sure. You can catch up with me down at the beach.”
He didn’t want to practice or get sweaty anymore.

The Fred had a dozen thickly padded lounge chairs set out on the beach. Each pair of them
shared a dark blue umbrella and a small circular table. Charlie had his pick. The Fred’s guests,
evidently, liked to catch their rays near the pool, behind the garden wall. Charlie kicked off his
Fred-provided flip-flops, peeled off his T-shirt, and dropped it on the nearest chair. He left his
sunglasses and bottle of Coppertone on the table.
A yellow flag was waving on the beach as he ran across the sand. He remembered from his
tourist guide that yellow meant caution. Water conditions might be marginal. He wasn’t a strong
swimmer but he plunged into the sea. The Caribbean was surprisingly cool, and he got a
mouthful of saltwater. A freshwater kid growing up, the salt always took him by surprise. He
spat the water out and looked around. A handful of other bathers were splashing and playing
games, but not nearly as many as he would have expected.
No one was within fifty yards of him.
A steady procession of waves rolled shoreward. Maybe four-to-five feet high. Not big if
you’d spent your life swimming in the ocean but plenty big for him. The force of the first wave
that struck him almost knocked him off his feet. But that one caught him broadside. He turned
sideways to the next wave and more or less knifed through it. He enjoyed both the physical
sensation of the water rushing past and that fact that he’d learned to cope, at least a little, with
this force of nature.
Soon he was diving over the waves, trying to time his leaps and plunges to the very last
second before the wave would smash into him. When he tired of that he tried to bodysurf the
waves. Again, timing was critical, starting to paddle toward the beach just as the wave lifted you
so you could ride it as far as possible. He wound up being dunked more than once, but soon his
timing improved and he got some good rides.
It was a hoot. Like a roller coaster and a magic carpet ride rolled into one. And, man, what a
workout. He’d never have thought playing in the water could be so tiring. His legs were getting
wobbly and it seemed like the back-flow, the waves returning to the sea, was getting stronger.
Maybe it was time to head for a lounge chair.
Down the beach, he heard a whistle blow. He turned to look and saw a lifeguard from one of
the big hotels waving swimmers ashore, and the flag posted on the sand was now red. With his
back to the sea, a wave caught Charlie when he wasn’t looking. It knocked him off his feet and
hurled him toward the beach. Before he could stand up, though, it pulled him under and back out.
He panicked. He felt as if he was being swept away. The word riptide popped into his head
and his heart turned to ice. He’d be carried out to sea, way too far for his meager swimming
abilities to return him to land. Nobody would notice he was gone and he would drown.
Of course, if he didn’t get his head above the surface right away, he’d drown sooner rather
than later. He stroked as hard as he could, hoping he was moving in the direction of the sky and
not the sandy bottom. Growing desperate, he wondered why, with all its other amenities, the
Fred didn’t have a goddamn lifeguard of its own.
He broke the surface in a trough between waves, managed to gulp enough air to refill his
lungs, and then was smashed under again by the next wave. But this time somebody grabbed his
wrist. And then there was an arm under his chin and he was being towed to shore by a far
stronger swimmer than he was. The Fred did have a lifeguard.
A female lifeguard.
If he wasn’t mistaken, he was feeling bare breasts against his back. Ah, well, just another of
the little extras that made a stay at the Fred such a treat. But when they got close enough to the
beach to stand without worry of being reclaimed by the deep, Charlie saw that he’d been saved
not by an employee of the hotel but by another of the guests: the brunette who’d been by the pool
yesterday and in the bar last night.
She looked at herself and said, “Well, hell, do a good deed and lose half your bikini.”
Before Charlie could respond, she crossed the beach and took the lounge chair next to the
one he’d staked out. She lay down on her stomach and as Charlie approached he could see her
breathing was already returning to normal. More than he could say for himself.
He sat on his chair and stared at her.
She felt the weight of his eyes and said, “I came out and saw you in the water. You looked a
little rubber-legged out there. Then the whistle blew, the wave hit you, and away you went.”
Figuring he knew the rest, she picked up his bottle of sunscreen and handed it to him. “Do my
back and legs, will you?”
Owing the woman his life, how could he say no?
As his hand touched her back, she told him, “I’m Jenny. From L.A.”

“One time, I jumped on a plane so see you in L.A.,” Twine told Fred.
“You mean in concert?” Fred asked.
He sat in a big easy chair, still holding the guitar he’d used for his lesson with Charlie. Only
now, it separated Fred from Twine like one of those fences Robert Frost said made good
neighbors.
“No, you’d stopped touring by then,” Twine said. “I was just trying to meet you. To tell you
how much I loved you. That and the fact you had saved my life.”
With grave suspicion, Fred asked, “How’d I do that?”
“You released “Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff.”
“And that did it?”
By way of an answer, Twine began to sing. One of the verses she hadn’t sung for Charlie.

I almost died the day you left,

Didn’t know which way to turn,
I felt so damn bereft,
 My soul began to burn
But by that fire’s light,
I saw it clear enough,
The love you gave to me endures,
I’ll never sweat the small stuff.

Fred looked sadder than ever now. “You have a nice voice,” he said.
“I was sure you wrote that song for me,” Twine said.
Fred shook his head. “The girl I wrote that song for didn’t make it.”
Twine had been on her feet, shuffling nervously in front of him as she made her confession.
Now, she sank to her knees, like an acolyte before her guru. She reached up, and he took the
hand she offered. Held it gently.
“We had a plan, Lucy and me,” he told Twine. “We were both going to come down here and
get clean. Then we’d get married on the beach. Live out our lives high on each other. Take joy
from looking at all that pretty blue water out there. Only Lucy never got on the plane to come
here. I wanted to go back and find her, but Roddy clocked me. He had people look for her back
in L.A., but they didn’t find her. A janitor cleaning the ladies room at a highway rest-stop did.”
He gave Twine’s hand a squeeze, then let it go.
“So what’s your sob story, sister?”
Twine leaned back on her heels.
“I got pregnant at 16 by a guy my dad warned me against. The guy left, proving my dad
right. Then my dad, a cop, got killed chasing some moron who’d robbed a 7-Eleven. Right after
that I lost the baby, and then the jerk who knocked me up came back.”
“You didn’t ...” Fred didn’t finish the question.
“Go back to him? I broke his nose with a Coke bottle.”
Fred laughed. It was the first time Twine had seen him look happy, and she was glad she’d
been able to put a smile on his face.
“Yeah,” she said, “I thought my dad would have liked that, too. But I didn’t know if that one
ray of sunshine was enough to keep me going. Then your song came out on the radio. I couldn’t
get enough of it. It made me think my dad’s love endured in me. So I wasn’t going to sweat the
small stuff, either.
“When I turned 18, that’s when I flew out to L.A. I had to tell you how much your song
meant to me, how much I loved you. But you’d disappeared; nobody knew where you went. One
guy even told me you were dead and your estate had released the song.”
“Not dead but in need of some money. I’d recorded that song with just me and the engineer
in the studio. Then I put it away for years. It about killed me to turn a buck off it. But the money
went for a good cause ... and if it helped you, too, that’s nice to know.”
Fred fell silent for a time, maybe thinking about Lucy.
Then he asked Twine, “Charlie know any of that stuff you told me?”

“Your wife has Margo worried,” Jenny from L.A. told Charlie.
“Who?”
“She is your wife, isn’t she? You’re wearing a ring and so was she. Of course, you could
both be married but to other people.”
Jenny propped herself up, giving him a peek at her boobs.
“Yes, we’re married,” Charlie said. “To each other.”
 “That’s what I thought.” She lay back down, but looked up at him. “Margo is my friend with
the red hair. She’s a pretty big talent agent back in L.A. She’s also worried your wife wants to
put the moves on me.”
“Twine’s not like that.”
“Twine?”
“Antoinette.”
“Oh. Well, she was looking us over pretty good the other day. I don’t mind, but Margo kind
of freaked. Me stepping out on Margo here wouldn’t be part of our arrangement.”
Charlie couldn’t resist. “What exactly is your arrangement?”
“Well, I live at Margo’s house. Eat her food. Drive one of her cars. Saves me a lot of money,
if you know the cost of living in Los Angeles. I’ve been able to save almost everything I’ve
earned the past five years.” Jenny smiled brightly. “My accountant told me last month I’ve
officially become a millionaire.”
Charlie goggled. “What do you do?”
“I’m a model, but not the usual kind.”
“Um, what other kind is there?”
“I model body parts: hands, feet, legs, tushie, abdomen, cleavage, arms, shoulders. Do some
body-double work for films, too.”
“What about your face? You’re really pretty.”
Jenny smiled at him again. “Thanks. But, no, I only show my face off-camera.”
Charlie lay back on his chair. “Well, I’m glad I got to see it, especially when I was going
down the second time.”
Jenny propped herself up again and looked down on Charlie.
“Margo’s mad at you, too,” she said.
“Me? Why?”
“Because of the suite Fred gave you. She wanted it. She says it’s nicer than ours. The last
guest who had it was a big-shot producer, a guy who works both movies and the Broadway
stage. But Fred tossed his ass out and gave the suite to you. Margo was hoping she’d get it.”
Charlie said, “I think I’d be happy with a fold-out sofa here.”
Jenny lay back down, making it easier for Charlie to look at her face.
“Me, too,” she said. “But not Margo. Anyway, back to our arrangement. Back home, we
allow each other some latitude. I’m bisexual by nature. Margo’s bi by professional necessity. But
when we travel we’re supposed to be true to each other, you know?”
“Sounds reasonable,” Charlie said.
“But now Margo said I should see if you’d be interested in a threesome with her and me.”
“What?” Charlie sat up, looked down at Jenny, waited to see if he’d heard her right.
“It’s her way of getting back at your wife. Teach her not to mess with other people’s honeys.
That and she wants to get into your suite any way she can.”
“Jesus,” Charlie said.
“She’s going to be bitchy if I tell her you said no,” Jenny told him. “And you might want to
be a little grateful to me for saving your life. So at least think about it, okay?”

Charlie went back to his suite, showered, and slipped on a pair of faded cocoa shorts and a
navy blue T-shirt that said Daily Planet across the chest. He picked up the suite’s guitar, sat in
the living room’s easy chair, and reflected on his day thus far. He’d been given a music lesson by
a rock star; gotten pissed off at Twine for both horning in on his lesson and then staying behind
with the rock star; almost drowned; been rescued by an attractive woman who’d been topless two
out of the three times he’d seen her; and had been propositioned, for ulterior motives, to commit
an act of infidelity he’d never entertained even in his fantasies. At least with anyone who looked
like Jenny. Or Margo.
He couldn’t remember another vacation quite like it.
Welcome to the Fred.
He’d told Jenny regretfully he’d have to decline her offer. No offense, but there was no way
in the world he was ever going to share a bed with Margo. He did offer to buy Jenny a new
bikini, though, said she should get whatever she liked and he’d reimburse her.
Jenny had been a good sport. Gave him a peck on the cheek and said, “If she gets too nasty
maybe I won’t sleep with her anymore either. After all, I have a million dollars — even if that
really isn’t a lot of money where I live.”
Charlie began to practice the song Fred was teaching him. Having mentally converted the
melody into a series of numbers, he had no trouble remembering it. He played until the fingertips
of his left hand got sore. Then he pushed through the pain and practiced some more.
Anything to try to take his mind off the fact that he’d left Twine with Fred that morning and
she still hadn’t returned to their suite. Well, hell, he thought, it wouldn’t be like he was the first
guy who lost his wife to a big —
The door to the suite opened and Twine walked in, looking as if she’d been crying. There
was still a sheen of moisture on her eyes, and her chin was quivering. Not from a wound she’d
received, but from a heartbreak she was about to inflict. Charlie’s heart sank. The news she had
for him, he was sure, had to be bad.
It would go something like: He and Twine weren’t going to have an eleventh anniversary.
She was leaving him and would be staying at the Fred permanently. The new Mrs. Pegler.
Twine closed the door and crossed the living room. She took the guitar from him and laid it
on the adjacent sofa. She sat on Charlie’s lap and put her arms around him. Tears fell hot against
the back of his neck.
Oh, God, he thought, here it comes.
And Twine said, “I’ve been with Fred, just came from his place this minute.”
If Charlie could have moved, he would have dumped her on the floor. If he’d retained the
power to speak, he would have screamed at her. But at that critical moment, the only semblance
of animation about him was the throbbing in his tortured fingertips.
“It was like nothing I’d ever done before,” she said.
That did it. He definitely didn’t want to hear the details. He slipped out from under her.
“I don’t want to know,” he said.
He started to go, planning to pack his suitcase and buy a seat on the first plane leaving for
anywhere. But Twine caught his wrist, just like Jenny had. He looked back at her.
“Oh, Charlie,” Twine said. “I wasn’t with Fred like that. We didn’t have sex.”
His relief was immense. He moved the guitar and plopped down on the sofa.
“It was much deeper than sex,” she said.
“What?” Charlie demanded, “What’s deeper than sex?”
“Friendship, Charlie. Today, Fred and I became friends. Talked for a long time. Bared our
souls. And then I told Fred I knew all the words to every song he ever released. He didn’t believe
me. So I proved it. He played all his songs and I sang them, every one. It was too much. Like a
dream come true.”
 Charlie could understand that. Fred had shared just 30 minutes of Fred’s magic with him and
he’d felt its power. It must have been a far more, what ... captivating experience for Twine to
spend most of the day with Fred. Singing with him.
So even if she hadn’t slept with Fred, had he lost her anyway?
She seemed to confirm his fear. “I told Fred something today I never told you.”
“Do I want to know?” Charlie asked.
“I think you should.” She told Charlie the story about getting pregnant, how she’d felt guilty
about her dad dying, and how depressed she’d been until Fred’s song came out. “It saved my life,
Charlie. Fred saved my life. He really did, and I never got the chance to thank him until today.”
Charlie sat back, gave his wife’s words a good deal of thought.
“It’s important to thank someone who saves your life?” Charlie asked.
“Yes, it is.”
Charlie told her what had happened to him that day.
And how he’d been asked to repay his debt.
Twine frowned, did some deep thinking of her own.
“Jenny, all right, if you want to, and tell her thanks for me,” she said. “But not Margo,
okay?”

Charlie and Twine flew home on the Fred’s private jet. Over the course of the week, Charlie
had continued to make remarkable progress with his musical education. Once he understood the
mathematical underpinnings of the art form, it was really pretty easy. On the night of the
Parkers’ anniversary, Twine and Fred sang a duet of “Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff” in the hotel’s
dining room, Fred’s first public performance in decades. Charlie sat front row, center.
Roddy got it down on digital video.
Fred lent Charlie the guitar from the suite, said he could bring it back the next time he and
Twine came to visit. Their suite would be ready for them.
Charlie stuck to his original bargain with Jenny. Bought her a new bikini. Though where she
found one that cost $1,500, he’d never know. Maybe L.A.
To entertain themselves on the flight home, Twine sang Fred’s songbook from memory, and
Charlie tried to pick out the music by ear. That was pretty ambitious even for someone who was
making a fast start, and many of his attempts went hilariously wrong. But as they made their
approach for landing, on Twine’s third rendition of what they now considered their song, Charlie
got it right.
Accompanying his wife on the last two lines of the final verse.

The love you gave to me endures,

I’ll never sweat the small stuff.

Back to Table of Contents

Chapter 3: Smoked Out
The stink hit Mark Bellknap the moment he opened the library book. Cigar smoke. It rose
like a toxic fume from the new novel by Mark’s favorite thriller writer, Ted O’Leary. O’Leary, a
former priest, cop, lawyer, reporter, and Navy SEAL, wrote about the continuing exploits of Tad
O’Looney, a former priest, cop, lawyer, reporter, and Navy SEAL. Sure, it was escapist
nonsense, but it was fun. Just the kind of light reading Mark enjoyed after a day of filling
prescriptions and tending to all the details of running his three drugstores in Worthy, Illinois, a
North Shore suburb of Chicago.
God, but the stench was awful. Mark felt a headache coming on.
Doggedly, he turned to the first page, hoping O’Leary’s fevered writing would draw him into
the story and help him ignore the foul emanations rising from the otherwise pristine book.
The opening sentence was a corker.
O’Looney had never done open-heart surgery before, certainly not under fire and on the
woman he loved.
The intrepid hero, bleeding from a wound at his right temple, had just cracked his beloved’s
chest with his K-Bar knife when Mark was forced to close the book, get up from his reading
chair and hurry to the bathroom. His throbbing head he’d been able to ignore, but continuing
exposure to the cigar reek was threatening to recall his dinner from his digestive tract.
He pulled the stopper from the bathroom sink, turned the cold water on, bent over, and
waited for the regurgitation to begin. A spasm wracked his middle but all it produced was a
belch. While awaiting further developments, he felt a current of cool air caress his face. A glance
showed him he’d left the bathroom window open a crack before he’d left for work that morning,
a small kindness to Mrs. Mumphrey, his housekeeper, who cleaned his home on Tuesdays. No
need for her to walk in on the after-effects of his morning sit-down.
Some people were considerate about such things.
Others, decidedly, were not.
The fresh air diminished and then eliminated Mark’s queasiness. But it had no salutary effect
on his temper. He was mad and getting madder. He turned the water off and walked back into the
reading room. He looked at the despoiled copy of Hell on the Half Shell. There was no way he’d
be able to read that book, and he could feel his blood pressure start to climb.
A man in his position would have no problem medicating himself. Well, he would have to
fudge his inventory a bit, and if the authorities ever did an audit ... No, such a course would not
only be foolish, it was also unnecessary. Mark’s next-door neighbor, George Haverford, was also
his best friend and personal physician. George would write Mark a prescription that he could
then legitimately fill for himself. More likely, though, George would simply give him a sample
of an appropriate medication that he’d received free from a pharmaceutical company.
Mark picked up his phone and made the call.
“George, it’s me. Would it be all right if I dropped by for a moment?”

Mark Bellknap was a civic-minded man. He’d received the prestigious Worthy-of-Worthy
Award for outstanding community service three years running, ‘94-‘96. He contributed to the
Community Chest, the Benevolent Fund of both the police and fire departments, the Friends of
the Parks, and the Municipal String Quartet. But his special largesse was reserved for the Worthy
Public Library. Through his donations and fund-raising efforts, the library in the town of 45,000
had a collection of books and periodicals that would have been impressive for a city ten times its
size. Other libraries were constantly making requests of Worthy for unusual items, and if there
was no local call for the volumes they were generously dispatched.
For all of his efforts, Mark was automatically put at the head of the list for any new book he
cared to place on reserve. This was an honor he had not sought, but nothing could have pleased
him more. His good friend, the head librarian, Marian Keller, had told him she only wished she
could do something more to repay him.
She even ventured the notion of renaming the library after him so his contributions would be
known to coming generations.
Mark modestly said that would be far more than he deserved, but in his heart he hoped that it
would happen. Perhaps Marian would even see to it that a statue of him might be placed outside
the main entrance. Wouldn’t that be grand?
A man of some means, he could have purchased any book that interested him, but it meant so
much more when he picked it up at the library, number one on the reserved book list.
Some years later, everything changed when Oscar Mandek moved to town. Mandek was a
mega-millionaire, a self-made man who had started out in the auto-wrecking business when he
was only nineteen.
“I just loved to hear metal shriek when it gets crushed,” Mandek told Forbes Magazine.
“And, you know, I still do.”
The magazine went on to recount how Mandek, a high-school dropout, happened to spot a
library book, W. Clement Stone’s Think and Grow Rich, in a jalopy that was about to go into the
compactor. Retrieving the book, Mandek read it, returned it to the library from which it had been
borrowed, paid a thirty-five dollar overdue fine that wasn’t his responsibility, and then had gone
on to use Stone’s advice to make a fortune in selling and repairing cars as well as wrecking them.
Mandek never forgot the source of his riches: a library book.
He became famous for his generosity to libraries.
And when he moved to Worthy he immediately became the library’s most important
benefactor. In addition to his own hefty checks, Mandek got all the people who did business with
him to contribute. Soon the library was so awash with funds a committee was set up to plan a
new wing and double the size of the library’s collection.
The head of the committee was Julie Keller, Marian’s daughter and the new head librarian.
At the first meeting of the committee, of which Mark Bellknap was a member, Julie moved that
when construction was completed the library be renamed in honor of Oscar Mandek.
Mark’s heart constricted. There was no question the motion would have passed, even if he
had the ill grace to vote against it, but Mandek himself put an end to the idea before the motion
could even be seconded.
“Don’t do that,” he said. “I’m just a guy who got lucky. Keep the name the way it is.”
Except for Mark, everyone in the room applauded Mandek’s regular-joe humility. Mark,
though, saw through it. Mandek would keep pouring in cash and make it inevitable that the
library board would overcome his objections. At some future point, when the library was three or
four times its current size, then he’d humbly accept the honor of having his name on the
building.
Mandek saw that Mark had him figured out and gave Mark an oily smile.
You might know, pal, but what are you gonna do about it?
For the moment, there was nothing Mark could do.
 Nor was there anything he could do when Mandek started getting new books before Mark.
Mark was still the automatic number one on the reserved list, but Mandek had become number
one on the pre-reserved list.
Worse, Mandek seemed to read every book Mark wanted to read. Which meant Mandek
stank up all of Mark’s favorite reading material with his infernal cigar smoke. Giving Mark
headaches. Unsettling his stomach. Driving up his blood pressure.
Making Mark crazy.

He seriously considered opening his own bookstore, one that would have a strict non-
smoking policy. But he did his research before he committed any money to the idea and found
out that independent booksellers had become an endangered species, thanks to the big chain
stores. Bucking the odds, now that he was 62, seemed too daunting a task.
Accepting disappointment on that plan, he considered moving to another community. His
house, purchased 30 years earlier, was worth a small fortune these days. He could move to a
pleasant town in a more salubrious climate, buy something nice, and patronize a new library.
People there would come to value his place in the community as they once had in Worthy.
But that would also mean he’d have to sell his stores and retire. Something he wasn’t ready
to do yet, damnit. He might be graying but he was still vital. He didn’t even open the mailings
those pesky AARP people kept sending him. Just tossed them directly into the trash.
Besides that, he’d felt a sense of abandonment when his children and his wife had left town.
Not only for himself but also for Worthy. With Carolyn and Hal, he had to admit, it had been a
natural enough process. They’d gone off to college, met and married sweethearts who were
natives of their campus communities, and there they’d stayed. He’d have preferred to have his
daughter and son come back to Worthy and start their families in their hometown, but he
couldn’t really criticize their choices.
He’d have liked to criticize his wife’s choice, but he couldn’t do that either. Dorothy had
always been a caring soul and had worked as a licensed social worker until Carolyn had been
born. While the kids had been in the Worthy school system, she’d volunteered tirelessly. All
those years, Mark had admired and encouraged her selfless efforts.
But once Hal had gone off to college, Dorothy had become restless. Mark had suggested she
consider going back to work full-time as a social worker. Dorothy said she didn’t want to go
backward; she needed to find something new to do. What she found was working with an order
of nuns who ministered to at-risk families in southern Wisconsin, a two-hour drive from Worthy.
At first Dorothy worked only two days a week. But the demand for her skills increased to
three, four, and finally five days a week. The days were long and often emotionally charged.
Adding a four-hour daily commute on top of the arduous workload was more than she could
endure. One morning on a pre-dawn drive to work Dorothy fell asleep at the wheel and drove off
the road.
Providentially, the only thing she hit was a haystack. Even so, that was enough to scare her
silly. After dealing with the police, the paramedics, and a sympathetic farmer, she returned to
Worthy and told Mark what had happened. She said she’d have to quit her job. Which would be
no financial hardship as she was volunteering her time. Mark would have been glad at the
prospect of having his wife back, except he could see her decision was breaking her heart.
At no small cost to his own emotions, he asked if maybe the nuns couldn’t put her up at the
convent and he could come up and see her on weekends. Hearing that magnanimous offer, she’d
held her husband tight and thanked him every way she could.
 It was a memory he still cherished.
For the first few months, he’d visited Dorothy every single weekend. But being on-hand full
time now, Dorothy’s workload increased to fill her availability. Mark would go to visit and
Dorothy would have to tear herself away from heart (and/or gut)-wrenching situations to be with
him. He could often see that his wife’s help might make a critical difference to desperate people
and he would tell her to go do her job.
After a long discussion at the end of one visit, they worked it out that she would call him, let
him know when he should visit, when she might actually spare the time for the two of them. It
turned out to be about once every three months. Dorothy never let it go longer than that.
The thing was, every time he went to see her, it seemed she had become more and more like
one of the nuns. Which put a considerable damper on his ardor.
In time, he turned not to another woman but ever more deeply to his reading.
In books, he found companionship and comfort.
Until Oscar Mandek and his damnable cigars made their appearances.

“I have something very disturbing to tell you,” Marian Keller confided to Mark.
His old friend, the former head librarian, had called him at work that Tuesday morning and
asked if they might have lunch. Mark had agreed, but only if she let him pay. They’d met at
Domenici’s, ordered their meals, and spoke quietly over plates of angel-hair pasta.
“What’s the problem?” Mark asked.
“Well, first of all, I want you to know that I’ve been browbeating my daughter to put you
back at the top of the reserved book list. She can call Oscar Mandek’s status pre-reserved all she
wants but we both know she bumped you down for him and I don’t like it.”
Mark grinned. Good old Marian
“You were the one who made our library special long before Oscar Mandek came to town,”
Marian continued.
Mark put a hand over hers. “Marian, calm down. I think you’d better order a glass of wine.”
Up to that point, they’d both been content with sparkling water.
“When you hear what I have to say, you’ll want one, too.”
Mark frowned. “Maybe we’ll need a bottle, if it’s as bad as all that.”
“It is. Yesterday, when I was badgering Julie to put you back at number one on the book list,
she snapped at me. She said that Mandek has too strong a hold on things now to do anything that
might upset him. With his plans for the new construction and the book-buying program, he has a
majority of the library board in his pocket. If she annoys him, he’ll have her fired and replaced
with someone else.”
“You’re right,” Mark said, “that does make me want to order a drink.”
Now, Marian took Mark’s hand in hers.
“That’s not all. She said Mandek had made it his business to find out who had been the
biggest fish — his words — at the library before he’d come along. He found out it was you. He
learned from your borrowing records what you liked to read. Then he made it a point of getting
all the books by your favorite authors before you do ... just so he can blow his cigar smoke on
them. Oh Mark, he doesn’t even read novels.”

Mrs. Mumphrey had more disturbing news for Mark when he went home early; he’d been too
angry to go back to work.
His housekeeper told him, “Mr. Bellknap, sir, I’ve been offered a live-in job.”
 Mark had no doubt who the prospective employer was. “Oscar Mandek.”
“Yes, sir. He offered me more money than you can imagine. More money than is right for the
kind of work I do.”
Mark waited for the other shoe to drop.
But Mrs. Mumphrey, bless her, didn’t fail him. “I told him no. I didn’t mention you; I just
said my other people depended on me too much. He musta heard in my voice more money
wouldn’t make no difference. Just said to let him know if I changed my mind.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Mumphrey,” Mark told her.
“I know it’d inconvenience all my people, if I’d’a left them, but I got the feelin’ Mr. Mandek
wanted you to be put out in particular. You, who gave Mr. Mumphrey, rest his soul, all that
medicine outta your own pocket, that last year he was with us. So what I’d like to know, sir, is do
you want me to quit working that one day a week I do for Mr. Mandek?”
Mark knew he only had to say the word. But he also knew Mrs. Mumphrey had children and
grandchildren who counted on her income. Doubtless, she could find a new client to replace
Mandek, but that would be an aggravation the hard-working woman didn’t need.
“No, Mrs. Mumphrey. Please continue with things just as they are.”
“Yes, sir. You have a fine sense of Christian charity, if I may say so.”
In general, Mark would have agreed with that assessment. But not this time. He was thinking
of how Mrs. Mumphrey had a key to Mandek’s house, and it would not be inconceivable for him
to secretly make a copy of that key.
Which could be a very convenient thing to have.
As Mark had decided to kill Oscar Mandek.

He just couldn’t do it. Not that he hadn’t given the matter considerable thought. He’d spent
the last two weeks thinking of little else. He’d turned the day-to-day operation of his stores to his
senior pharmacist, Tom Wilson. Day after day, he’d take the train into downtown Chicago where
he’d go to the massive Harold Washington Library.
Nobody knew him there. Lost in the throngs of people who passed through the doors each
day, he went unnoticed. He roamed the stacks selecting volumes of criminology texts and true-
crime stories. Finding an isolated carrel, he would read and read and read. He never borrowed
any of the books: that would create a record. He never made a note that someone might find. He
wiped his fingerprints off the books before he re-shelved them.
All of his precautions were for naught, as the more he read the more he became convinced
that while it may in fact have been possible for someone to commit the perfect murder — there
were such unsolved crimes, after all — it wouldn’t be possible for him. Should he kill Oscar
Mandek, he was convinced he’d fall into the class of killer who only outsmarted himself; his
reading had shown him that their number was not insignificant.
Depressed, he stopped going into Chicago, returned to work, and after dinner tried watching
game shows on television. They gave him headaches almost as bad as cigar smoke. He tried to
increase his drinking but that only upset his stomach. He considered banging his head against the
walls and was about to give that idea a try one night when his doorbell rang.
He opened the door to find his neighbor, friend, and physician, George Haverford, standing
there. When Mark didn’t immediately invite George in, George pulled out an oral thermometer
and stuck it in Mark’s mouth. He spun Mark around, walked him into his living room, and sat
him down on the sofa. He picked up the remote control, glanced at Wheel of Fortune emanating
from the TV, and clicked it off.
 He took the thermometer from Mark’s mouth and looked at the readout.
“Temperature’s normal,” he said.
He checked Mark’s pulse, blood pressure, eyes, and ears. Found no gross abnormalities.
“I didn’t know you still made house-calls,” Mark told his friend.
“You missed your appointment for your annual physical. If you won’t come to me, what am I
going to do?”
Mark had completely forgotten about his physical.
“Sorry,” he said.
“Mark, I’ve had 17 people call me about you in the past two weeks. Ask me if I knew what
the heck’s wrong with you. Ed Greenlea even wanted to know if you were dying.”
Ed was Mark’s other adjacent neighbor.
“I don’t think I’m dying. I’m just down in the dumps.”
“And you’ve forgotten, despite your profession, that there are treatments for that diagnosis?”
“I didn’t think it was that bad.”
“You were watching a game show, for God’s sake!”
Mark didn’t tell George that the whirling wheel had given him a crashing headache.
“Well, doctor,” he asked, “what would you prescribe?”
“You’re to come into my office first thing tomorrow morning for a complete workup and —”
George wrinkled his nose. Sniffed. Got up from where he’d been sitting next to Mark and
followed the scent like a bloodhound. The trail led him to a bookcase where he pulled a volume
from a shelf. He opened the book, sniffed again, and smiled.
“Premium Dominican,” George said, “Monte Cristo.”
Mark looked at the book his friend held. Hell on the Half Shell. Mrs. Mumphrey must have
stuck it on the shelf when she cleaned up. It had to be a month overdue by now. He’d never had
an overdue book before. Mandek would undoubtedly have his library card revoked if he —
An epiphany hit Mark like a thunderbolt. He knew how he would vanquish his enemy.
He stood and said, “George, you’re right. I’ll be in to see you bright and early tomorrow. I
can’t let myself go any more. Thank you for being a friend.”
George shook Mark’s hand. “I’m not your only friend, you know.”
That’s right. There were at least seventeen of them. That made Mark feel almost as good as
what he had in mind for Oscar Mandek.
Almost.

Mark made one more trip to the Harold Washington Library. He found exactly the
information he needed from one of the library’s computers with an Internet hookup. There was
no end to the illicit information to be found in cyberspace. And this time he felt absolutely no
worry about getting caught.
He also spoke with George’s wife, Denise, just to be sure his surmise about his neighbor was
correct.
“I didn’t know George smoked cigars,” he said to Denise.
Mark knew for a fact that she despised tobacco smoke as much as he did.
“He doesn’t.”
“No?”
“Well ... when he travels.”
Besides being a first-class physician, George was a wizard at managing a medical practice.
He gave monthly seminars around the country on maximizing office efficiency and revenue.
 Denise elaborated. “When there is at least one state between the two of us, and he’s having a
nice dinner with those doctors he meets at his speeches, I let George have exactly one cigar. So
long as he showers and has his clothes dry-cleaned before he comes home.”
“Very generous of you,” Mark said.
“Smart, too, I hope,” Denise replied. “If he gets his thrills sneaking a cigar, maybe he won’t
sneak around with other women.”

Mark returned Hell on the Half Shell to the Worthy Public Library. Julie Keller offered to
waive the fine on the book, but he insisted on paying it. Then she gave him two more novels that
he’d been expecting. Mark could smell the cigar smoke on those volumes before he picked them
up. Julie pretended not to notice the stink.
Mark told her, “I’d like you to be the first to know that I’m resigning from the library board.”
“Oh, no,” she said, sounding truly dismayed.
“Yes. Would you please tell your mother?” Maybe that was the source of Julie’s distress, he
thought, the prospect of facing another maternal scolding. “I’m going to buy a cottage in
Wisconsin, so I can be closer to Dorothy at least half of the year. I’ll be having a little get-
together at my place in a couple of weeks to say farewell to everyone on the board. I’ll be
sending out invitations, but maybe you can let people know in advance in case the mail is slow.”
“Sure. Glad to help.”
“Thanks,” Mark said.
He didn’t want Oscar Mandek to be otherwise engaged.

The occasion was catered. A classical guitarist played softly in the background. It was as
civilized a gathering as contemporary American society was able to offer. The evening was
capped off when the library board gave Mark a plaque thanking him for his many years of
dedicated service to the Worthy Public Library.
The plaque was presented to him by a smiling Oscar Mandek
Mark shook Mandek’s hand, thanked him, and made a brief speech.
Then he added, “Oh, yes, one more thing before I forget. I have two books to return. Don’t
want them to be late and have you take my plaque back.”
He went to a bookshelf and removed the volumes, making sure he passed George Haverford
before he handed them to Oscar Mandek.
“I’m leaving for Wisconsin early in the morning,” Mark said. “You won’t mind returning
these for me, will you, Oscar?”
“My pleasure,” Mandek said. Then he noticed George at his elbow, sniffing. “Something
wrong ... Dr. Haverford, isn’t it?”
George looked at Mandek. “Do you smoke cigars?”
“Yes, I enjoy a fine smoke.”
George turned to Mark. “Have you taken up cigars?”
“Never smoked one in my life.”
“Look, what’s this all about?” Mandek asked.
George had become the center of attention by now. He turned to Julie Keller.
“Does Mark still get his library books before anyone else?”
The head librarian turned red, but she publicly confessed, “Except for Mr. Mandek. They’re
the only two patrons who’ve borrowed those books so far.”
“Then Mandek’s the one.”
 “The one what?” Mandek demanded.
“The one smoking illegal cigars.” George grabbed one of the books Mandek was holding,
opened it, and sniffed deeply. “Definitely a Havana, definitely not allowed by U.S. law to be
imported into this country.”
The board, the guitarist, and even the caterers cast disapproving looks at Mandek.
Who blustered back at George, “If they’re illegal, how do you know so much?”
“I smoked mine on a visit to Mexico. They’re legal there. Did you take these books to
Mexico, Mr. Mandek?”
For a moment, Mandek looked like he was going to say yes, but there were too many eyes
watching him far too closely for the lie to succeed.
“Of course, I didn’t,” he said, “and you don’t know what you’re talking about. I don’t smoke
illegal cigars. If you don’t believe me, you can all come with me to my house right now and I’ll
show you.”
Everybody went, except Mark.
He heard later, though, that six boxes of Cuban cigars were found at Mandek’s home. He
claimed they were planted there to ruin him. And no formal charges were ever filed against him.
But that didn’t matter. In the eyes of the community, he was deemed unworthy of Worthy.
He moved out of town within a month.
Mark was returned to his rightful place at the top of the reserved book list. To accommodate
the time he was now spending in Wisconsin, the lending period for him was doubled. And best
of all his reading material was odor free.
He even found a way to rekindle things with Dorothy.
He invited her to his cottage and told her his family life was at risk.

Back to Table of Contents

Chapter 4: High Heat
Kyle Kilgore was supposed to throw one last big league pitch. He wasn’t supposed to throw
a strike; he was told to nail the sonofabitch crowding the plate. Jack Cash, San Francisco’s third
baseman, had already lit up Chicago pitching for four home runs that night: one in the first
inning, two in the third, including a grand slam, and another in the seventh. In the fifth inning,
Cash managed to leg out the first triple of his career. For the game, he had 11 RBIs.
Worst of all from the home-team’s point of view, the Thursday night contest was the first of
a four-game series between the two teams. With Cash leading off the ninth and having a chance
to go into the record books with a fifth homer, Chicago manager, Topsoil Turner, decided to
send a message, one that would keep Cash from beating up his pitching staff all weekend long.
“Stick it in his ear,” the manager growled to Kilgore.
“You got it, Top,” the pitcher replied.
“I’m countin’ on ya here.”
“I know it.”
“Yer a good kid. Wish it’d worked out better for ya.”
Turner gave his pitcher a pat on the back and left the mound.
“Yeah, me too,” Kilgore muttered.
Behind the plate, Chicago catcher Teddy Teeman made an open-arms gesture: Wanna toss a
few warmups? Kilgore shook him off. Home plate umpire, Murray Aronson, his mask up,
frowned at the relief pitcher. Kilgore spat, halfway to the plate. He knew the ump was looking
for a way to toss him out of the game, but Aronson didn’t have any grounds. If a pitcher didn’t
want to loosen his arm, that was his own damn business. Just like if he wanted to bean the batter.
Aronson had no doubt what was about to happen.
Neither did Jack Cash, who crowded the plate in his customary fashion anyway.
Every player on both teams was on the top step of his respective dugout, ready to charge out
onto the field. From the looks on their faces, it was entirely possible this would be more than the
usual baseball dustup. Blood might actually flow.
Nevertheless, Aronson gave Kilgore the timeless command: Play ball.
Top wanted Cash hit with first pitch, a fast ball, and guys were boiling out of the dugouts
while Kilgore was still in his windup. To his credit, Cash held his batting stance, not so much as
flinching. The radar gun clocked the pitch at 101 mph. A pitch that fast would have killed Cash
had it hit him in the head.
Kilgore’s pitch was in line with Cash’s head but it was so high Teddy Teeman had to jump to
catch it.
All of the San Francisco players, one or two who’d already crossed the first-base line,
suddenly looked sheepish. Then they all broke out laughing and returned to their dugout. The
Chicago players also retreated, muttering and cursing, directing hard looks at Kilgore.
He took the toss of the ball from Teeman and picked up the rosin bag to take the sweat off his
pitching hand. A brief glance at his dugout showed Kilgore that Top had both of his fists
clenched and was nodding his head rapidly. The beanball sign was still on. Only now Aronson
didn’t seem so worried. Kilgore could see the home plate ump grinning under his mask.
Cash, the single-minded SOB, stood at the plate, focused, looking for a pitch to hit.
Kilgore wound up, trying to spot the pitch right on the batter’s helmet. Shit, with a head the
size of Cash’s, it should have been as easy as hitting the biggest watermelon at the state fair.
Even so, Kilgore managed to put his next pitch, traveling at 102 mph, into the dirt ten feet short
of the plate. Teeman fielded it on the short hop. He called time and carried the ball out to the
mound.
The San Francisco bench was rolling with laughter now.
Handing the ball to his pitcher, Teeman said, “Listen, Kyle, I know Top wants this guy
drilled with a fast ball but that don’t seem to be working too great. You think maybe you could
get him with a curve?”
“I’ll try,” Kilgore said, blinking back tears.
“You don’t have to hit him on the head, either. Anywhere’d be good.”
“Yeah.”
“You don’t hurt him too bad, I’ll step on his foot and spike him.”
Kilgore was so mortified all he could do was nod.
Teeman went back behind the plate, got into his crouch, and actually set up his glove behind
Cash’s body. But Kilgore’s curve missed, too. Low and outside.
Topsoil Turner’s eyes were bugging out by now as raucous tide of laughter from the San
Francisco side filled the stadium. The visiting team became even more amused when the fans
openly urged their errant assassin: “Drill him! Drill him! DRILL HIM!”
The thing that made Kilgore madder than anything else was that Cash let nothing distract
him. He was still waiting for a pitch to hit. Didn’t matter that the count was 3-0. If Kilgore
somehow managed to find the strike zone, he’d be swinging and the ball would leave the park.
At that moment, Kilgore hated Cash more than anyone he’d ever known.
He let fly with everything he had: 105 mph. The ball hit the screen 40 feet behind home plate
on the fly. Now even Kilgore’s teammates and the Chicago fans were laughing at him. Some
wiseass with a booming voice yelled, “Intentional walk,” and the laughter doubled.
Kilgore knew the whole thing would play on SportsCenter until Judgment Day.
Topsoil Turner was too wrung out to climb the dugout steps to yank his pitcher so Teeman
tossed a ball out to Kilgore. He caught it as Cash was trotting along to first base. The San
Francisco slugger finally acknowledged what had been going on.
He looked at Kilgore and told him, “Yer damn lucky you didn’t hit me.”
Kilgore fired the ball in his hand and the whole park fell quiet. Nobody had a radar gun on
the throw but everyone agreed it got there in hurry. Hit Cash smack on the left side of his ass.
For a stunned moment, everyone remained immobile, gawking. No one could recall a batter
being beaned on his way to first base. What rule applied? The batter had already been awarded
first base. Did he now get second, too? Or did he stay at first, making the plunking penalty free?
The umpires didn’t have to decide just then, as both Kilgore and Cash broke free of their
trances at the same time and charged each other. Their teammates weren’t far behind. The only
reason nobody got seriously hurt was because baseball players were more inept at fisticuffs than
the Little Sisters of the Poor. But the game was called in San Francisco’s favor as Chicago was
judged to have been the aggressor; that and San Francisco being 14 runs ahead in the ninth
inning.

The whole Chicago team went out on the town with Topsoil Turner, a renowned tightwad,
buying the drinks. It was such a rare occasion that even the two Southern Baptists on the team
joined in hoisting a beer to Kilgore and wishing him well. As for themselves, the Chicagoans
were absolutely certain they would go out and kick San Francisco’s ass in the remaining three
games of the series.
 Nobody gave a second thought to the debacle of a game they’d just played; they were all
talking about Cash getting drilled in the ass going to first base. They’d seen the disbelief on his
face when it had happened, and more than that, the fear. You could tell what the bastard was
thinking: there was no telling where he might get beaned in this town. Maybe getting off the
team bus. The guy’d be lucky if he ever got another hit in Chicago.
And for that they thanked Kyle Kilgore.

It hadn’t been that long ago that Kilgore had been celebrated for other accomplishments.
He’d been brought up in August the season before last, barely 22 years old. He’d won all five of
his starts, set a team record with 21 strikeouts in his first big league game, finished with 62
whiffs for the five games he pitched that season.
On the strength of that performance, the team used him in a promotional TV spot for the
coming season, showing one opposition batter after another futilely trying to catch up to his high
heat. Then Kilgore himself was shown, the youngest, meanest gunslinger in the majors. He
didn’t say a word, just stared at the camera while his name and claim to fame appeared on the
screen: Kyle Kilgore ... K after K. The ad finished with a sudden rush of wind: another batter
swinging and missing.
His first full season in the bigs more than lived up to the promise shown the year before. He
went 24-3, throwing nine complete games and six shutouts. Again, he dominated opposition
hitting, recording 271 strikeouts. Further portending a Hall of Fame career, by mid-season he
developed such a wicked curve that a sportswriter named it High Water; his fastball being Hell.
Not wanting to take any chance on letting Kilgore ever get away from them, Chicago, a
renowned tightwad of a team, signed the young pitcher to the richest contract in its history,
which included a $10 million signing bonus.
Trouble followed on the first day of next season’s spring training.
If there had been a barn behind the diamond of Chicago’s training complex in Arizona, Kyle
Kilgore wouldn’t have hit the broad side of it. Possibly, he could have hit the ocean from a
rowboat, but nobody put him to that test.
Every other test known to modern medicine, and even Caribbean voodoo, was given a try, all
without result. There was no reason known to the mind of man why Kilgore had so badly lost his
control, but he had. His ability to throw a baseball where he wanted it to go had simply
disappeared.
It was given every chance to return. Kilgore started the season in Chicago. He didn’t get out
of the first inning in any of his four starts. He was sent down to Triple-A and then Double-A.
Every pitching coach in the organization worked with him; two legendary old-timers were even
brought out of retirement to see if they could help.
Kilgore worked with everyone. He worked tirelessly, and as he was still young and strong
and determined to return to greatness, he wore out every instructor who came his way. The
futility went on for most of the season. Then he was brought up to Chicago in August. The team
reasoned Kilgore was adversely affecting their farm teams, making as much money as he did and
not being able to produce. His teammates had come to resent him, saying the least he could do
was buy them a nicer bus to take to road games.
When he returned to Chicago, his circumstances changed in two way. He would no longer be
a starter, but would pitch middle relief, a set-up man for the closer, and he would only be brought
into games when there was no runner on base and Chicago was at least three runs ahead. This
was conceived as the least stressful situation a big-league pitcher could face. Besides that, the
team had flown in Kilgore’s mother from Bangor, Maine, figuring if he had some real home
cooking it might raise his comfort level.
Both strategies went for nought. Kilgore just couldn’t find the strike zone or come anywhere
close. The team bitterly accepted the fact that he was done as a ballplayer and it would have to
eat his enormous contract. He didn’t even loosen up in the bullpen anymore, as the heckling he
took from the fans was merciless.
It was only because he’d worked so hard — and had offered to return to management every
cent of his contract outside of his signing bonus, a move which the players’ union had refused to
allow — that the team let him continue to dress for games and sit on the end of the bench.
Not that anyone sat close to him. Baseball players, being among the most superstitious
people anywhere, figured that whatever Kilgore had might be catching.
The gods of baseball, however, moved in their own mysterious ways. When the moment
came that Jack Cash had to be drilled for the good of Chicago, there was no doubt in Topsoil
Turner’s mind that whoever he sent to the mound would be in for a serious suspension and fine.
He couldn’t afford to have anyone of value to the team face the music ... but what about Kilgore?
He wasn’t going to throw another pitch for the team. Not ever. And if he got fined a million
bucks, so what? He had it and he’d tried to give it back. Oh, sure, he couldn’t find the strike
zone, but didn’t that make it even more likely he’d be able to bean the guy standing next to it.
Top was sure fate had delivered just the pitcher he needed.
And it had, only not in quite the way he expected.
Cash getting drilled on the way to first base. Made Top laugh every time he thought of it.

All the other guys had a game the next day and, being renowned tightwads themselves, they
left at midnight when Top stopped buying drinks. Kilgore stayed on and kept drinking, not that
he was much of a drinker, but the beer helped him come to grips with the gift the guys had given
him, a true symbol of everything he was leaving behind: a baseball signed by the whole team.
He looked at each signature and imagined the career of the player behind the name. Some of
them were bound for Cooperstown. Some of them would be traded ten times. But all of them
would get to keep on playing baseball at the highest level there was.
They would; he wouldn’t.
In addition to the names, somebody had put an inscription on the ball.
For Kyle Kilgore, he made his last pitch count.

A compassionate barmaid eased him out the door at closing time. He tipped her a hundred
dollars. No longer a big-leaguer, he no longer had to be a renowned tightwad. He still had eight
or nine hundred left in his wallet. He had millions socked away in solid investments. His mom
watched his money for him, so no worries there. He was twenty-four, rich, strong as an ox, and
all he wanted to do was ... jump off the Michigan Avenue bridge into the Chicago River.
He never had learned to swim, so that ought to be a pretty sure way of ending it all.
He looked around for a cab. He didn’t drive. Told himself that was just being smart. You
couldn’t hardly open the sports section of a newspaper without reading about some asshole pro
athlete getting into trouble in a car. Driving drunk. Speeding. Carrying drugs. Or a gun.
Sometimes all of the above. States ought to exclude everyone in pro sports, coaches and owners
included, from having driving privileges, he thought. Bunch of dickheads, the lot of them, when
they got behind the wheel.
Kilgore took cabs; limos when he was going someplace fancy.
 Only now he didn’t see a cab anywhere. Come on. What the hell? It was only ... four oh
nine a.m., his fancy watch told him. Looking at the time, he noticed his rookie-of-the-year ring.
Flash-in-the-damn-pan ring, he thought. He ought to take it off and throw it down the nearest
sewer. He squelched that impulse when he realized he might miss his throw and the ring would
bounce away to who the hell knew where. Well, he could always take the damn thing down with
him when he jumped in the river, couldn’t he?
He started walking. The nice thing about Chicago was you could always orient yourself by
remembering where Lake Michigan was. Now, where was it again? Oh, yeah. To the east. The
lake was always to the east of the city, and once you knew where east was, you could figure out
your other directions ... even if it took a minute or two when you’d been drinking.
Kilgore finally got his bearings and figured out he’d been walking the wrong way. He turned
around, wondering whether he should dive off the bridge or just jump; didn’t really matter, he
supposed, as long as he didn’t land on a boat going by underneath. He stopped walking when he
saw the bald guy pointing a gun at him.
The gun didn’t register as threat right away. Kilgore was too busy trying to figure out what
kind of guy he was looking at. Other than being the only dumbass on the street besides him. He
realized that the guy wasn’t bald, he’d shaved his head. And he had earrings in both ears ... and
one of those barbed-wire-looking tattoos. Only this one wasn’t around his arm it was around his
neck. Damn, that had to hurt, getting your throat tattooed.
He reached out to touch the tattoo, wondering if it felt sharp.
That startled the robber and he jumped back, waving his gun.
“The hell you think you doin’, whitey? Ain’t you got it figured out, you bein’ robbed here?
I’ll blow a hole in yo ass!”
Kilgore laughed. “Got one already.”
“Gimme yo money, you sorry sonofabitch,” the robber demanded. “An’ that watch an’ ring,
too.”
Kilgore was still laughing too hard to pay attention.
Until the guy fired a shot that whizzed by his head.
Maybe the robber had control problems, too, he thought. But now he had Kilgore’s attention.
“So, what was it you want again, my money, watch, and ring?”
“That’s right, honky. Give it up!”
Kilgore squinted at the guy. “You’re not even black. You look like this Iranian guy back
home.”
The robber compressed his lips and turned his gun sideways, as if this was supposed to make
it look more threatening.
Kilgore held up his hands placatingly. Drowning he could handle. He didn’t want to get shot.
“Okay, okay. I’ll give you what you want.”
He handed over his wallet, watch, and ring.
“You got anything else I can sell?” the robber asked. “You hold back, I shoot you.”
Kilgore patted his pockets, came up with the only other thing he had on him: the autographed
baseball. He held it out to the robber who took it with a look of suspicion. He started to read the
names on the ball, the ones that were legible, and recognized the ballplayers from his hometown
team. Then he read the inscription and smiled broadly.
“Hey, you Kyle Kilgore. You the guy I saw on SportsCenter tonight.” Laughing now, he
slapped his thigh with his gun-hand. “Funniest damn thing I ever saw in my life.”
 Kilgore considered jumping the asshole then and there. What the hell did an Iranian know
about baseball anyway? Before he could move, though, the robber tossed the ball back to him.
“You keep that ball, my man,” he said. “You sho the hell earned it.”
With that, the robber turned and loped away, still laughing.
Getting madder and madder, Kilgore watched him go. He didn’t care about his money or
jewelry. But he thought, as long as he was going to kill himself, why not take this sonofabitch
with him? Make it one less guy who’d be laughing whenever his name came up.
Just as the robber was about 60 feet away, Kilgore wound up and threw the autographed ball.
It was as hard a pitch as he’d ever thrown. And, damn, if it didn’t go right where he wanted it.
Straight and true. Caught the robber on the back of his polished dome. Dropped the sucker like
he’d been shot.
Far better than that, Kilgore knew — he knew — he had his control back.
He ran toward the guy, picking up the ball as he went. There was no blood on it, but it was
stained, as if it had picked up oil from the guy’s scalp. A few of the names had gotten smudged.
He dropped the ball back into his jacket pocket.
When he got to the body, he saw the damage his pitch had done. Geez, he’d crushed the
guy’s skull. You could see the impression of the ball’s stitches in his skin. Damn, a guy who
could throw that hard, with control, he’d own baseball.
But wait a minute.
No question the guy was dead — and killed with a baseball. As things stood, though, and as
SportsCenter had shown the world, Kyle Kilgore never could have made such a throw. But if all
of a sudden he showed he had his command of the strike zone back, then ... shit! He’d go to trial
for killing this guy, no doubt about it. They’d make a big deal about him hitting the guy from
behind, too, when he could have just let him go.
God. What was he going to do? He couldn’t stay away from baseball now that he was right
again. It’d kill him.
Suddenly, he had the answer. He looked around. Nobody in sight. He took his handkerchief
out of his pocket — Mom always told him to keep a hankie on him. You’d never know when you
might need one. He covered his hand so he’d leave no prints, rolled the guy over, took back the
stuff he’d handed over, and rolled the robber back the way he’d fallen.
Then he walked away. Nobody saw him.
What would he do? Leave town, first of all. Go out to California. Maybe even Hawaii.
Pretend like he was working hard at getting his game back. Along about December, he’d hire his
own pitching coach. Make like, little by little, the guy was helping him. Give the coach all the
credit in the world.
Then in February he’d decide whose spring training camp he’d show up at and start kicking
ass. He’d be back in the bigs on Opening Day. Hell, he’d be starting on Opening Day.
Only it couldn’t be in Chicago. That’d be too close for comfort.
There was another reason, too, one that would put him above suspicion.
What with guys like Bobby Layne, Lou Brock, and Phil Esposito, everybody knew pro jocks
always came into their own only after they left Chicago.

Back to Table of Contents

Chapter 5: Bunny and Sunshine
Bunny had a lesion on his brain. The same kind John Wayne Gacy had. David Berkowitz
and Kenneth Bianchi, too. The latter two guys were better known, respectively, as the Son of
Sam and the younger of the two Hillside Stranglers. Despite Bunny’s potential as a serial killer,
Illinois budget politics were about to turn him loose on the public.
The only good thing about that was the same legislative knife-fight was going to de-
institutionalize Sunshine right along with him. Sunshine was judged to be developmentally
disabled, but her brain worked just fine. In fact, she was a natural born con artist. She only
pretended she couldn’t read and had trouble talking. She faked being a retard so she could stay
with Bunny and take care of him.
She was the only person who could take care of Bunny. She may have been his sister. Or his
cousin. Or maybe their mamas had just been friends.
In any case, Sunshine was Bunny’s lover.
Bunny was around seventeen. Sunshine was nineteen or thereabouts.
More than anything else, Bunny wanted to be a black panther. Not the ‘60s revolutionary
kind. The actual felis melas kind.
More than anything else, Sunshine wanted to get her nose fixed. Everything else on her, she
judged, was just about right. Hell, everything else on her was outrageous.

The two of them had been left on the doorstep of the Mercy Home for Children in Vienna,
(pronounced Vy-enna), Illinois, way the hell down at the southern tip of the state. Originally
founded as an orphanage by Arinda Hirsch, spinster, registered nurse, and the sole heir of
Cincinnati beer baron Baltasar Hirsch, the home soon evolved into an asylum for young victims
of mental illness.
Brain damage in children can be the result of fetal exposure to alcohol and/or drugs,
ingestion of heavy metals such as lead from paint chips, or physical trauma. In the experience of
the Mercy Home, a severe beating was the most common cause.
Too many people neither knew nor cared that the formative brain was more easily bruised
than a ripe peach.
When the night watchman found Bunny and Sunshine on the front step of the Mercy Home,
they were wrapped together in a dirty yellow blanket, crying piteously as a jalopy with a bad
muffler fled into the night. Sunshine, almost a toddler then, had a broken nose and two black
eyes; Bunny, only an infant, had a depressed skull. Both of them were unwashed, underfed, and
dehydrated.
The guiding principle of the Mercy Home was to provide first-rate medical care and
unstinting love from a staff replete with advanced training and bountiful hearts. No child was
ever turned away. An unusually high percentage of the Mercy Home’s wards was able to
overcome horrific starts in life and go on to become independent, productive adults.
Until beer-drinkers everywhere opted for cheap mass-produced suds.
A handful of mega-producers consolidated their hold on the beer market in the mid-’80s and
put Baltasar Hirsch and many other small-scale brewers out of business. Not long after that,
philanthropic heiress Arinda Hirsch found her fortune dwindling rapidly. Shortly after Bunny
and Sunshine’s arrival, Arinda was forced to do the unthinkable: turn her labor of love over to
the state government.
 Which was when it became the Wallace P. Yunis Psychiatric Residential Facility for Minors,
operating under the aegis of the Office of Mental Health, Department of Human Services.
Despite its name change and agglomeration by the state, Arinda remained the home’s director.
She continued to call it a home, not a psychiatric residential facility for minors.
Not Wally P.U., as most of the children called it, either.
Most of the staff stayed on with Arinda. But try as they might, and they tried hard, things
were never the same once the state took over. For one thing, Arinda no longer controlled the
admission policy. No longer was a place found for every child. The director of the Illinois
Mental Health Resources Board decided who was placed in which facility. Or left to fend for
themselves.
Many of the decisions placing children elsewhere broke Arinda’s heart.
Watching her dismay, and many other things, were Bunny and Sunshine.

The two of them pretty much had the run of the place. The reason for that was simple. Even
with her broken nose, Sunshine was beautiful: blonde, blue-eyed, with a seemingly angelic
disposition. People loved to have her around.
And wherever she went, Bunny went. Plain and simple.
Sunshine realized her name was a cliché by the time she was eight, but having been beaten
and abandoned before she was out of diapers, she came to feel a lack of imagination in choosing
her name was a small indignity to bear. Especially as she was well treated otherwise.
Bunny got his name from his early form of locomotion. Rather than crawl, he scampered
around on all fours like a rabbit. It got so he could move faster that way than some of the other
kids could run. He didn’t stand up and walk until he was four.
He didn’t start talking until he was five.
But his fits of rage began when he was one.
From the start, Sunshine wrapped her arms around him and pressed his head to her chest,
where he could listen to the reassuring rhythm of her heartbeat. How Sunshine managed to keep
her heart moving slowly and steadily enough to comfort Bunny was anybody’s guess, because
every time she held him, at least in the early years, her eyes always grew wide and darted about
madly as if she was expecting to be attacked from any point of the compass.
People who disposed of their kids generally beat them first.

Sunshine learned to read from Maria with a Whip. Maria had light brown skin and long black
hair. She was tall and thin, and according to Arinda was about two years older than Sunshine.
Maria could speak two languages; she could read and write in them, too.
American and Spanish.
The very idea that anyone anywhere spoke anything but American came as a revelation to
Sunshine. After Sunshine figured out that Maria wasn’t simply jibber-jabbering, the way a lot of
the other kids did, she asked Arinda for an explanation. The director took great pains to explain
to Sunshine, not knowing how smart she really was, what a foreign language was.
Sunshine came to understand quickly what it was: a way of communicating that nobody else
at the home knew. Arinda didn’t and she said there were no Spanish speakers on the staff. Which
worked out okay as Maria did all her Spanish talking to herself. But Sunshine determined that
she was going to learn Maria’s secret language.
While she was at it, Sunshine decided, she’d also have Maria teach her to read and write.
American first. If that went okay, she’d learn to read and write Spanish, too.
 She wouldn’t have to worry about Maria telling on her, how smart she really was, because
Maria never talked to anyone unless they asked her a question first. Even then, she’d only answer
what she’d been asked. She never volunteered anything. Defense lawyers would have loved her.
Maria mostly walked around with her head down, trying to keep off to herself. If you came
up on her too fast, she’d flinch. But then most of the kids at the home were that way. Not many
of them, though, had as many scars on their backs and legs as Maria did. Sunshine had seen all of
Maria’s scars when they were in the shower room together.
The one place Bunny had to wait outside.
Sometimes, when Maria was walking around by herself, she would come to a sudden stop,
hunch her shoulders and look like she’d turned to stone. All the other kids could identify with
that, too. In her head, Maria was waiting for another beating. She didn’t cower and curl up and
cover her head like a lot of the others. She just made her body as stiff as she could and waited for
whatever she knew was coming.
Sunshine thought that was brave.
One day, some of the serious retards decided to have some fun with Maria. When they saw
her freeze up in the play-yard, they ran over to where she was, stood in front of her, and
pretended they were statues, too. Only they had their fingers in their noses and ears, they grabbed
their asses and one dummy held his wienie in his hand.
With a nod of her head, Sunshine sent Bunny over to deal with the retards. He charged them
like a ... well, like a black panther running down a pack of wart hogs. In keeping with his
preferred identity, Bunny roared as he descended upon his prey. The idiots scattered, bleating,
the one dummy running off with his wienie still in his hand.
Maria never noticed a thing, hadn’t budged an inch.
Whatever was going on in her head had to run its course before she’d move again. When it
did, she’d look for something long and flexible to pick up. Could be a slender branch off a tree.
Could be an old shoelace. Could be something only she could see. Whatever it was, she’d close
her hand around it, draw her arm back, snap it forward, and finish with a flick of her wrist.
Each time she repeated the motion, she punctuated it with a sibilant, “Tsssh!”
Sunshine hadn’t understood what Maria was doing until one day a new boy standing close to
her in the play-yard saw Maria and said, “She took herself a good whippin’ or two just like me.
And now she wants to give it back ... just like me.”
The new boy was talking to himself not Sunshine.
That was when Sunshine started thinking of Maria as Maria with a Whip.
She wondered who had whipped Maria; who she wanted to whip back.
Starting that day, Sunshine she decided to give Maria with a Whip half of her chocolate
dinner pudding. She had Bunny take her bowl over to where Maria sat alone. Maria didn’t eat the
pudding right away, but when Bunny pointed out where the gift had come from, she gobbled it
up.
Sunshine was the most popular mental defective at the home.
After some time, and several half-bowls of pudding, Sunshine fell into step with Maria as she
walked about the play-yard with her head down. Bunny walked a half-dozen steps behind,
effectively keeping all the other kids at a distance. Maria looked at Sunshine out of the corner of
her eye.
“So Maria,” Sunshine said, “can you keep a secret?”
Maria looked away, but a moment later the corners of her mouth turned up ever so slightly in
a ghost of a smile. With her head still down, she nodded.
 Not long thereafter, Maria secretly began to teach Sunshine to read and write. American.
And speak Spanish, too.
Sunshine was ten at the time. Or thereabouts.

Bunny had no interest in learning to read, but he liked to look through the picture books
people were always donating to the home. As luck would have it, one day when he was about
seven he was given a book on Africa. In it, he found two pictures that would have a lifelong
impact on him. The first, of course, was of a black panther. He sat on his bed and stared at it for
hours. More than once a staffer came by to make sure he was still breathing.
“That’s one scary-looking critter,” Sunshine told him, looking over his shoulder.
Bunny didn’t respond.
Sunshine didn’t mind; she found the picture of the animal captivating, too. All black and
sleek and strong with a mouthful of sharp white teeth. But she knew intuitively what fascinated
Bunny. The panther’s eyes: they were the same yellow-gold color as Bunny’s. Come to that, the
animal’s fur was the same color as Bunny’s hair.
Put a tail on Bunny, he’d have been happy.
A few pages later there was another picture that stopped him cold; he’d only turned the page
after Sunshine told him there might be other pictures of the panther further on. There weren’t,
but there was something almost as good. Something that gave Bunny an idea of how he could
look even more like the panther. It was a real close-up picture of a very black African man. The
man had his mouth wide open, not like he was smiling, but like he might gobble up anyone who
turned to that page in the book. Wouldn’t be hard for him, either, because all of his shiny white
teeth, every last one of them, had been sharpened to points.
Bunny’s eyes grew big. He looked from the picture of the man back to the picture of the
panther. He flipped back and forth for several minutes, comparing the dentition of the man and
the animal. Finally, he settled on the man and turned to Sunshine.
“Me,” he told her, pointing a finger at his chest. “Him,” he added, pointing at the black man.
“Me, him. Him, me.”
It was clear what Bunny wanted: to have Sunshine file all his teeth to points. She didn’t care
for the look, herself. Man, you ever bit your tongue with teeth like that...
She stalled Bunny. Told him he was too young to have his teeth filed. He still had baby teeth.
They’d fall out soon, then she’d just have to do the new ones all over again.
Bunny hadn’t lost interest or forgotten the favor he wanted by the time his permanent teeth
came in. But by then Sunshine had had enough time to get him to accept that she would sharpen
only his four canine teeth.
The vampire look was something she could get behind.

Maria told Sunshine that the home kept a file on each kid. She’d seen hers, and she knew the
address they had for her uncle. The uncle, Maria had confided, was the one who had whipped her
all the time. She’d gone to live with him when mami died. Her uncle had not only whipped her,
he’d made her watch when he was with one of his women. The women were all fat and
disgusting and most of them drank even more mescal than her uncle. She didn’t want to watch
the things they did but her uncle said she had to — so she’d know what to do when her time
came.
That idea had scared Maria so much she got a knife from the kitchen and was going to cut
her uncle’s thing off while he was sleeping. But he woke up as she approached his bed. Seeing
Maria with the knife, knowing without a doubt how she’d hoped to use it, had scared him badly.
So badly he didn’t even whip her. He simply took the knife from her, threw her in his truck, and
brought her to the home, telling Arinda the crazy thing she’d tried to do to him.
When asked about Maria’s scars, her uncle said he didn’t know anything about that. He just
wanted to be rid of her.
But Maria wanted to see him again. Only now she had decided to whip him first and then cut
off his thing. She knew right where to find him, too. His address was in her file.
Maria said Sunshine should look in her file, too, now that could read.
Look at Bunny’s, too.
See what their story was.
Sunshine did just that. As far as the staff knew, she was still a retard. They continued to let
her wander where she wanted as long as she didn’t make a mess.
Luckily for her, the file draw with her name in it, S-T, was close to the floor; she wouldn’t
have to reach up to one of the high drawers. A-B was way up at the top, but she figured what she
learned about herself would tell her about Bunny, too. She found her file, took it out and read it.
Unlike Maria, her file didn’t have any specific information on her family. She had been
abandoned by “a party or parties unknown.” It was suspected that her parents had been teenagers
either from a nearby town in Illinois or from one of the bigger population centers within a 100-
mile radius: Cape Girardeau, Missouri; Paducah, Kentucky; Evansville, Indiana. Beyond that
distance, it was unlikely anyone would have known of the Mercy Home as a likely place to
abandon a child.
The file suggested the teenage parents, or the mother, recognized the likely death of any child
continuing to reside with them/her and did what they/she thought was in the best interest of the
offspring.
Sunshine put the file back where she’d found it and closed the drawer.
She tried to work out her feelings. She was mad but not like Maria. What had happened to
Maria had been a lot worse. What had happened to her and Bunny, well, that sucked; they had
the part about her black eyes and broken nose and Bunny’s dented skull, in her file. But in the
end somebody had gone and put them in a better place.
Looked out for them that much at least.
Sunshine didn’t make any plans to go looking for her mama or daddy.
But she’d keep an eye out for anyone who looked like Bunny or her. Looked enough like one
of them they had to be kin. If that ever happened, though, she didn’t know what she’d say to their
parents. She didn’t know what she’d do.
Maybe she’d have Bunny do something.

What it got down to, in the end, was that either Wally P.U. or a medium security prison in
Vandalia would have to go. The state government didn’t have money for both of them.
It was no contest, really. The guards at the prison were unionized; the staff at Wally P.U. was
not. The people in Vandalia loved their prison; the people in Vienna would be just as happy to
see all those crazy kids sent somewhere else. Beyond that, it was known that a certain percentage
of the inmates of whichever institution was closed would be released when no place was found
for them in other over-crowded facilities, and the denizens of Wally P.U. were judged likely to
be a much smaller threat to the public than the thugs in the prison.
The powers-that-be might have reconsidered had they known Bunny better.
 As a sop to their consciences for sending mentally damaged children out into the world, the
state legislators provided a stipend of $500 to each formerly custodial person. The money also
gave the alumni of Wally P.U. a better chance to survive long enough to outlast any media
interest in their plight.
Arinda Hirsch, however, went the extra mile for each of her departing children. For Bunny
and Sunshine, she bought them bus tickets to Chicago. She also arranged a place for them to
stay.
“You remember Mrs. Mulgrew?” Arinda asked.
Mrs. Mulgrew was the home’s former nutritionist. She had moved to Chicago three years
ago, after her aunt had died and left her house to Mrs. Mulgrew. The nutritionist had always seen
to it that everyone at Wally P.U. got good, if mostly boring, food. On the bright side, she was not
above doling out Hershey bars every now and then, knowing that life had to be more than
steamed vegetables and baked cod.
Arinda continued, “She’s agreed to take the both of you into her home. She works at a
hospital now. She says she can get Bunny a job as a janitor, and she’s looking for something for
you, Sunshine. Please be nice to her. I’m sure you’ll be happy and safe if you let Mrs. Mulgrew
help you. She’ll meet you at the bus station in Chicago.”
Bunny had a question for the woman who’d been his de facto mother.
“You stay here or you go, too?”
Tears welled in the elderly woman’s eyes.
“Oh, I’m going, too.”
“Where?”
“I’m joining a group called Doctors without Borders.”
Neither young person understood.
“It’s a group that brings medical care to poor people around the world.”
“Where?” Bunny asked again.
“Well, my first assignment is in Africa.”
Bunny’s eyes got big. He bounced on his seat until Sunshine settled him down.
Arinda knew all her children; knew just what to say to each of them. “There are no black
panthers in the part of Africa where I’m going,” she told Bunny. “But I believe there are some at
the Lincoln Park Zoo in Chicago.”
She gave Sunshine their stipends and bus tickets, and held her hand for a moment.
“Sunshine, you’re a very beautiful young lady, and I’d be failing you if I didn’t warn you that
there will be many men, young and old, who will try to take advantage of you. All I can say is,
don’t do anything you think is wrong. Run and shout, kick and fight, if you need to; don’t ever
worry about embarrassing yourself.”
All the children at the home had received appropriately geared courses in sex education
before they hit puberty. But with many of them, it was in one ear and out the other. Which
seemed to be the case with Sunshine, who never once broke character with Arinda Hirsch. She
smiled as brightly and vacantly as she always did.
But she kissed Arinda on the cheek and said the one thing she knew would comfort her.
“I got Bunny to save me.” She looped her arm through his and held him close.
Bunny bared his fangs to show what would happen to anyone who messed with Sunshine.
Thirty minutes later, Bunny and Sunshine started the 8-hour bus ride to Chicago.
The first time since they were in diapers they’d been away from Wally P.U.
 Chicago knocked them out.
They’d slept the last two hours of the trip; the driver had to wake them up after everybody
else had gotten off. They couldn’t believe where they were when they stepped outside of the bus
station. Giant buildings were everywhere ... crowds of people rushed by in both directions ... cars
and buses whizzed past, half of them honking their horns. People were talking, most of them into
little phones, not to other people. Whistles were blowing. At a construction site something big
was going THUNK-THUNK. A man wearing sunglasses was playing a guitar. It was all so loud,
and everything moved so fast.
And Mrs. Mulgrew was nowhere to be found.
Sunshine had seen movies on TV; now she had the giddy feeling she was in one.
Bunny didn’t like any of it. He growled at anyone who got too close, and it was impossible
not to get close in the midst of the rushing crowd. With his growling and his vampire teeth
flashing many people jumped out of Bunny’s way, which only made him more aggressive.
Sunshine knew this wasn’t a good situation. She pulled Bunny close.
“Go home,” he said between snarls, “go home now.”
They didn’t have a home anymore, something Bunny, in his agitation, seemed to have
forgotten. Also, Sunshine had no intention of leaving somewhere this exciting for any place of
confinement — even a benevolent one — ever again.
She looked around once more for Mrs. Mulgrew, without luck.
So she turned to Bunny and asked, “How about we go somewhere else?”
“Where?” he demanded, tugging at her arms.
She remembered what Arinda had told them. “The Lincoln Park Zoo.”
Bunny’s frenzy ceased. He knew immediately what Sunshine was suggesting.
“How we get there?”
The way people in big cities like this on TV got anywhere.
“We’ll take a taxi,” Sunshine said.

The cabdriver, a man with brown skin and a pointed beard, took them for hayseeds
immediately. Especially after the girl was foolish enough to let him see how much money they
had; he’d insisted that they show him they had enough to pay the fare. He thought he could make
his day with these two. Maybe drive them all the way to the Indiana line before heading back
north to the zoo.
But the boy pressed his nose to the bulletproof partition the first time he heard the meter
click. He stared fixedly at it, as if he were seeing something magical. Something amusing. He
wore an idiot’s grin each time the fare escalated. The girl was busy craning her neck looking out
the window at all the tall buildings. Yokels!
Maybe he’d drive them to Michigan first.
Then the boy turned his gaze on the driver; he saw this in his rear-view mirror. He also saw
the boy’s demon-haunted eyes ... and then his teeth. Maybe the boy was a demon. And the way
he stared, the driver started to shake.
He turned his cab north from the Loop. He would take the most direct route possible. He
became even more terrified when the demon began looking back and forth from him to the
meter. From the meter to him. And then stroking his chin as if he were the one with the beard.
Sunshine turned away from the window and saw what Bunny was doing: looking back and
forth as he’d done with the pictures of the panther and the man with the pointy teeth. Wasn’t
hard to figure out what interested him about the driver. That black pointy beard of his. Bunny
was thinking how it would look on him.
Sunshine didn’t care much for facial hair, but she knew it wouldn’t be a concern for some
time. Bunny hadn’t raised much beyond peach fuzz on his face.
When they got to the zoo, Sunshine took her money out. She’d learned to do some simple
arithmetic at Wally P.U., but in keeping with her cover she hadn’t taken the lessons too far.
Really, there’d been no reason to do calculations at the home; even Maria didn’t know her
numbers any better than Sunshine. Out here, though, it was going to be a different story. She’d
have to learn fast.
Meanwhile, she gave Bunny a little nudge, the one that told him she wanted all his teeth out
there with a low growl. She figured the driver wouldn’t cheat them now. He didn’t. He said the
trip was on him. Sunshine gave him a smile and a thank you.
They got out of the cab and walked through the main entrance to the zoo. There was a big
refreshment stand right inside the gate. Sunshine bought them soft drinks and popcorn. The
popcorn was sold at a little wagon parked nearby. She’d trusted the vendors not to cheat her.
Couldn’t have Bunny growl too much or he’d wind up biting someone.
They both turned their heads when they heard a big splash. All of a sudden a seal shot into
the sky. It came down and splashed water everywhere. Bunny and Sunshine went over to the
where a crowd of people was standing and looked over the rail at a large pool. Sunshine read a
sign: California Sea Lions. She told Bunny what they were. There were three of them, swimming
around in the circles like brown darts. Jumping up out of the water when they took the notion.
Getting everybody wet when they came down. Making all the kids laugh.
Bunny and Sunshine joined right in; they’d never seen anything like this.
Then Bunny seemed to catch the scent of something. His nose went up in the air and without
a word to Sunshine he walked off. She wanted to keep watching the sea lions — what she really
wanted to do was jump right in the water with them — but she knew she had to look out for
Bunny. She followed maybe six steps behind him.
It was interesting to her how people avoided him. Even the ones who hadn’t been paying
attention knew when to look up and step aside. Pretty much, it was the same way things had been
at the home. Good to know Bunny would be as useful as ever to her.
Bunny’s nose led him unerringly to a big building that had ground outside of it that looked
like pictures from the Africa book. Sure enough, there was a lion. Further on, there were some
cheetahs. Going around the back of the building and turning to the far side, there was a spotted
leopard, and then...
A black panther. Which the sign said was really a kind of leopard. Sunshine wasn’t going to
spoil Bunny’s fun with details. She joined him at the rail. There was a moat between them and
the big cat, which was sleeping on a rock. Bunny stared at the animal, and then he began to
growl.
The panther’s head snapped up immediately. He fixed Bunny with savage eyes that were
identical in color to the boy’s own. Pretty darn close in personality, too. The panther hopped
down from the rock and came to the edge of his habitat, as close as he could get to the boy.
Entirely too close for Sunshine. The moat suddenly looked very narrow to her. She took an
involuntary step backward. Bunny stayed right where he was. Then he began to pace to his right,
never taking his eyes off the beast. The panther followed along, staring at Bunny. They walked
back and forth along the length of the panther’s enclosure, the moat seeming to frustrate both of
them. They longed to confront each other, obvious as the growling from each became louder.
 Finally, the panther realized the futility of the situation. He turned his back on Bunny, but as
he did, he cocked a rear leg. A jet of urine shot out across the moat. Bunny just barely dodged
out of the way. Then he laughed and took a quick look over his shoulder at Sunshine.
Sitting on a bench on the far side of the promenade by now, she shook her head at him. She
knew what he wanted to do: unzip and piss right back at the panther. That kind of stuff might fly
back at Wally P.U. Out here, she knew, they were going to have to learn new ways.
Bunny trudged over and plopped down next to Sunshine, all his fun spoiled.
He felt a lot better a little while later when Sunshine found a gift stand nearby that sold non-
prescription cat’s-eye contact lenses. The girl working the stand showed them how to moisten
the lenses and put them in. She also said you had to take them out before you went to sleep or
they’d hurt your eyes.
When Bunny saw his reflection in a mirror the girl held up for him, saw how he looked with
his new cat’s eyes, he let go with such a blood-curdling roar that the girl dropped her mirror and
a half-a-dozen people standing nearby dropped their cups of soda. Sunshine paid the girl for her
broken mirror.
They stayed at the zoo until closing time. The man who told them they’d have to leave was
nice enough to offer them a ride when Sunshine showed him the address for Mrs. Mulgrew that
Arinda had given her.
Bunny was most interested in the Good Samaritan as he was a very black man. True, his
teeth weren’t pointed, but that could always be arranged.

The man from the zoo’s name was Adon Mbeneka. He said he’d come to Chicago from
Kenya. When he saw that meant nothing to his passengers, he added, “In Africa.”
Bunny, alone in the back seat of Adon’s car, began bouncing from one side of the vehicle to
the other. Sunshine, up front, gestured for him to calm down. He continued to bounce but only in
one place.
Having seen Bunny’s obvious joy in his mirror, Adon asked, “You like Africa, yes?”
Bunny nodded furiously.
“You like the big cats, too?”
Bunny started to vibrate.
“I see lions every day when I’m a boy. Have to be very careful ‘round them fellas.”
Bunny growled fiercely and Adon chuckled.
“I go home once a year. Not for another ten months, though. You save your money, maybe
you and your pretty sister can come with me. I show you cats that don’t have moats and bars
around them.”
Bunny almost swooned. Sunshine looked to see if Mr. Mbeneka was up to something. She
remembered what Arinda had said about men, but all she could she was someone who was being
nice to them. It was good to know there were people like that outside Wally P.U. But she’d bet
there’d be others who weren’t nice at all.
Adon pulled to a stop in front of the address Sunshine had given them. He ducked his head to
get a better look at the building.
“That one big house, all right.” He turned to Sunshine. “But this neighborhood, it not so
good, missy. On TV just this morning, lady got run over by police car near here, killed dead.
Police chasing two men who rob store. Robbers get away; police very sorry; lady still dead. Be
very careful, my new young friends. I like to see you at zoo again.”
 Sunshine pressed the doorbell. Mindful of Adon’s warning, Bunny stood at her back,
watching for the approach of any form of threat. After a moment, Sunshine saw someone
peeking out from behind curtains hanging in a window to the right of the door. Then footsteps
approached and the door opened.
A thin scraggly-haired guy stood in the doorway. He was older than Sunshine but not by a
lot. He reminded her of a janitor at Wally P.U., the only one who’d ever gotten fired from the
home. For messing with one of the kids, a boy who could barely feed himself. Jerk got arrested,
too. Miss Arinda pressed charges. Sunshine had been in the room when Arinda was talking on
the phone to the police.
The new creep asked, “Who the hell’re you?”
Sunshine played dumb. She gave the guy the note Arinda had given them, thanking Mrs.
Mulgrew for agreeing to take in Bunny and Sunshine. The guy’s lips moved as he read the note.
He snorted when he finished.
“You’re a couple of retards from the home where Aunt Janice used to work, huh?”
Sunshine didn’t reply. Bunny, who was still looking the other way, caught the guy’s tone and
started a low growl.
The guy said, “What the hell is that?”
“We was told to come here,” Sunshine said meekly.
“Yeah? Well, too bad. Aunt Janice got run over by the cops this morning. The place is mine
now and you can’t...”
He reconsidered as he looked Sunshine up and down. “Well, maybe you can. I always like a
good-looking girl who’s not too smart. But the kid has to get lost.”
Bunny whirled and pounced, knocking the creep flat on his back, the two of them sliding
along a polished hardwood floor. Sunshine stepped inside and closed the door behind them.
Their new host’s face was contorted with fear as he got his first good look at Bunny.
For his part, Bunny might have ripped the jerk’s throat out then and there — except he was
distracted by what he saw in the adjacent living room. The space was filled with rows of
televisions. Not the kind they had at the home, but real big TVs with flat screens and the most
real-life intense pictures Sunshine had ever seen. All of them the same.
A black panther in a tree eating some kind of animal it had dragged up there.
All of those TVs and not a sound was coming from any of them.
Bunny got off of his intended victim, went into the living room and climbed up on a
bookcase. From his perch high in a corner of the room, his gaze went from one screen to the
next, all of them showing his alter ego enjoying his meal: ripping flesh, tearing tendons,
chewing, swallowing, painting his face with blood.
Sunshine counted the televisions: twelve of them.
The guy Bunny had attacked had pushed himself up to his elbows, and was looking around
waiting to see if his reprieve was only temporary. She asked him, “Where’d you get all those
fancy TVs?”
Not looking at her, he said, “They fell off a truck.”
“And none of ‘em broke? Or is that why they got no sound?”
Sunshine saw him look at her, like she might be joking him or something.
“Listen, I got someone coming to buy those sets. Can I get up now?”
“Long as you’re nice,” Sunshine said.
The guy bobbed his head, got carefully to his feet.
 “This is my house,” he said. “Used to be my grandma’s. Should’ve been mine when she died.
But she gave it to my aunt. Now, my aunt’s gone so it’s mine. And as you can see, I’m using it to
do business. So...”
He waited for Sunshine to draw the obvious conclusion.
“Bunny ‘n’ me got nowhere else to go.”
“That’s a shame.”
“You want me to call Bunny?” Her lips started to form his name.
“No! Don’t do that.”
Sunshine relented. “What’s your name, anyway?”
“Curtis Mulgrew.”
Sunshine asked the obvious next question: “You gonna make a lot of money selling all those
fancy TVs, Curtis?”
Sunshine had been in town less than a day, but she already had the feeling that the money
she’d been given back at Wally P.U. — which had seemed like all the money in the world at the
time — wasn’t going to be nearly enough here in Chicago.
Before Curtis could answer, the doorbell rang.
“That the person you was expecting, Curtis? The one come to buy the TVs?”
Curtis nodded.
“Well, let him in. See how much money he’s got for you.”
Curtis thought this girl was even better looking than he’d first thought, and a whole lot
smarter. He looked back over his shoulder at her as he opened the door. When he looked back,
he got a gun shoved into his nose.
Sunshine heard a sharp cracking sound and wondered if that was how it sounded when her
nose got broken. She saw a big man with a shaved head and blotchy red skin push Curtis back
into the hallway and kick the door shut behind him.
“Who’s the broad?” the man with gun asked.
“Hell if I know,” Curtis said.
“You was supposed to be alone,” the man said.
“You were supposed to bring cash not rip me off,” Curtis replied.
“I did bring cash,” the man said, “but on the way over I remembered how much I hated your
freakin’ guts, and since I had my gun with me...” he shrugged. “Now, it looks like I’ll have to
take care of blondie here, too.”
A loud roar came from the living room.
The man with the gun saw the black panther on all the TV screens.
“Got surround sound, huh?” he asked with a smile. “That oughta bump the price. Let’s go
take a closer listen.”
He herded Sunshine and Curtis into the living room.
The roar came again.
“Damn, that makes the hair stand up on my neck. Well, sorry to shoot and run but I got a
truck to load.”
He pointed the gun at Curtis first.
Sunshine said, “Look behind you, mister.”
“Yeah, right. You think I’m some kind of retard?”
“Not even that smart,” Sunshine said, “and, believe me, I know.”
The gun swung toward her and she added, “Now, Bunny.”
 That got the guy to turn around and look. Bunny was already in the air, mouth wide, fangs
bared, cat’s eyes glowing. The robber screamed and dropped his gun. Bunny didn’t have an
angle on the guy’s throat, leaping from above, but as his knees hit his prey’s chest, his teeth
fastened onto the robber’s right ear. Which came off his head like a niblet off a corncob. Only
with a lot more blood. The horrified victim looked up as Bunny chomped his flesh.
Being eaten alive was too much for him; he blacked out.
Curtis stood watching with glazed eyes.
Sunshine managed to find a remote control for the TVs. She hit the mute button, returning
sound to the dozen sets. A narrator with an English accent was explaining how long the panther’s
meal would keep him satisfied. Bunny hopped off his own game animal and sat down tailor-
fashion to watch the rest of the show.
Sunshine picked up the gun and said to Curtis, “Why don’t you find out how much money
that fella has on him. Make it into two even piles and then drag him out of the house
somewheres.”
Curtis found cash in the robber’s pockets and divided it evenly. He handed Sunshine her
share; he started to give the other to the oblivious Bunny.
“No, that’s for you,” Sunshine said, “for letting us stay here. You got room for us now, don’t
you?”
Curtis bobbed his head.
“Good. Take out the trash.”

Sunshine lay in a great big bed watching one of the TVs she had Curtis bring up. Bunny was
in the bathroom, peeing and brushing his teeth. She’d told him she would send him right back if
she didn’t think he did a good enough job with his teeth, after eating that guy’s ear and all.
Turned out, he’d brushed just fine. He knew he had to be real clean before they snuggled in
together. But she had to go back into the bathroom with him to get those cat’s eyes off. Couldn’t
leave ‘em in at night, the girl at the zoo had said. When they got back into bed, Sunshine turned
off the TV and the light. She felt Bunny’s hands go around her. He was one strong boy and there
were times she liked all that strength no end. Liked the way he’d growl in her ear, too.
But not tonight.
“Let’s be gentle tonight,” she told him. “I’ve got some thinkin’ to do.”
The growl immediately changed to a purr. He gently licked her chin.
She held him close.
“We did okay today, Bunny. Found us a place to live. Saw the zoo. Made some money. Got
Curtis to see things our way. I think we’re gonna have ourselves some fun here.”
Bunny roared.
Then he fell asleep with his head on Sunshine’s chest.

Back to Table of Contents

Chapter 6: No Good Deed. . .
Jeff Marsh was 14 hours on the road and ten minutes from home when he noticed the car up
ahead. Its front end was on the right shoulder but its ass end stuck out into the number one lane.
His lane. Damn thing would have been a traffic hazard if there’d been anyone else on I-94 at
three a.m. that early autumn morning. The car was a two-seater: something foreign, fancy and
black. Jeff blinked an hour or two of fatigue out of his eyes. The stalled vehicle came into focus.
A Porsche Turbo Carrera. A car he’d considered buying for himself.
Five or ten years from now.
He thought you usually didn’t see a car like that broken down at the side of the road.
Certainly not so it couldn’t make it all the way off the road. He was about a half-mile back when
he saw what the problem was. The rear wheel on the driver’s side had all but come off; it stuck
out almost sideways from the car.
Jeff thought that’d bring you up short, all right. But how the hell had it happened? Somebody
had changed a flat and hadn’t screwed the lugs back on tight? That was almost too stupid to
believe, especially on a six-figure sport car.
He had about five seconds to decide whether he should see if somebody was in the Porsche
and needed help. The simple thought of having to lend a hand to someone irritated him. He was
whipped, and so close to home and his soft warm bed. But he pulled over anyway, positioned his
Dodge Magnum to shield the disabled vehicle from oncoming traffic.
Not that there was any at the moment.
He switched on his emergency flashers — and wondered why the Porsche’s driver hadn’t
done the same. Was the guy drunk, narcoleptic, dead of a heart attack?
As Jeff stepped out of his car, he got the uneasy feeling he might be walking into something
bad here. He’d stopped because he hadn’t wanted to read in his morning paper that some
unfortunate motorist had expired due to his neglect. Wouldn’t want to own up to that one. Or
explain it to his sister, Terri, and his nephew, Sam.
On the other hand, Terri and Sam depended on him, his job, to keep body and soul together.
Wouldn’t do for him to breathe his last by the side of the road, either.
The sudden roar of a motor reached his ears and a car whizzed past, close enough to make
Jeff flatten himself against the Magnum.
Sonofabitch.
The guy had to be doing eighty. Fast enough to splatter Jeff up the highway for a mile. Guy
had come out of nowhere, had four lanes to himself and he’d almost nailed Jeff anyway. He was
tempted to jump in the Magnum and catch the bastard. Beat him more senseless than he already
was.
Then his heart settled back into his chest and with a grin he realized that a road-rage duel
would really put him in a bad spot. Wouldn’t help the disabled Porsche driver either — if anyone
was in the sport car. He took a look to make sure no other psycho was bearing down on him, then
he approached the Porsche carefully and with his cell phone in his hand.
A woman sat behind the wheel, gripping it with both hands. He could see her watching him
in the driver’s side mirror. As he drew near, her posture grew more rigid, as if she expected
something bad to happen. She turned her head away as he peered in her window.
“You look like you could use some help,” Jeff said loudly enough for her to hear.
He got no response. She kept looking the other way. She had a scarf on her head and was
wearing sunglasses but he got the impression that she was about his age, early thirties. He also
had the feeling maybe he’d seen her somewhere before. But this wasn’t the time or the place to
raise that possibility.
“You have a jack and a lug wrench?” he asked. “Maybe I can put your wheel back on.”
Without looking at him or speaking, she shook her head.
Glancing back at the cockeyed rear wheel he saw that idea wouldn’t work anyway. Only one
of the lug nuts that had held the wheel onto the car was still in place. The rest were God knew
where. Must’ve been terrifying for the woman when the wheel started to come off. Could explain
her attitude: scared shitless.
“Want me to call the motor club?” he asked.
She nodded vigorously, but still didn’t look at him.
“I’ll put a flare out,” he said. “Give oncoming traffic plenty of warning we’re here.”
She just sat there, looking away from him.
“Okay,” he said, “nice talking to you, too.”
Jeff went back to his car, got a flare out of the back, and ignited it. He slid into the Magnum
and called the motor club. They said they’d have a truck out to him in 15 minutes. He considered
leaving Miss Congeniality to her lonesome now that help was on the way. But he hated to leave
any job undone. If he started something, he finished it.
Turned out to be a good choice. The woman in the Porsche had forgotten her wallet.
“You believe it?” the tow-truck driver asked, explaining the situation to Jeff. “She wants me
to hold her watch till she can get back to me back tomorrow.”
“Watch won’t cover the bill?” Jeff asked.
“You kidding? It’s solid gold, the watch and the band. Has jewels in it, too. I’m afraid to take
it. I lost it, I’d have to sell my truck to make good. You could simplify things, being the one who
made the call, if you’ve got your wallet on you.”
Jeff handed over his credit card, rubbed his tired eyes while the driver wrote up the tow
charge. He signed the tab, trying not to wince. It wasn’t cheap putting a Porsche on a flatbed.
“You want me to give her your address? You know, so she can repay you.”
Jeff gave the guy his work address.
“Tell her she can send the check there,” he said.
He hoped she wouldn’t stiff him.

Jeff didn’t get to work until after lunch the next day. He’d slept in. Which was perfectly
acceptable to his employer as he generated more sales than anyone else in the office. So he was
more than a little surprised when everybody stopped what they were doing and looked at him as
he came in. The support staff, the other sales guys, even his boss, the regional manager, they all
stared and grinned liked they’d caught him with his pants down.
He looked over his shoulder to see if somebody had walked in behind him, maybe someone
playing a joke on him. But nobody was there.
Turning back, he asked, “What?”
His boss, Dave Taradash, stepped forward and handed him an envelope.
Dave said, “It was a real pleasure, Jeff.”
For a second, Jeff’s knees went rubbery. He was being fired and everyone was happy about
it? Then Dave put a hand on his shoulder.
“I’ve never met a movie star before,” he said.
Jeff shook himself, thinking he had to be dreaming, but he wasn’t.
Pulling back from Dave, he asked, “What the hell are you talking about?”
 Everybody laughed. Okay, Jeff thought, it wasn’t a dream, it was a Felini film.
But Dave explained, “The woman you helped last night, the one in the broken down
Porsche ... that was Johnnie Reed. Hollywood’s number-one heartthrob.”
The sales guys howled like wolves.
“Yeah, “ Dave agreed, “and she can act, too. She said there’s a check in that envelope to
reimburse you for the tow charge. Along with a thank you note. And ...”
The sales guys did a drum roll. The secretaries laughed again.
“... her phone number so she can say thanks personally. Of course, if you’re not the type
who’s starstruck, I’ll be happy to talk to her again.”
It all seemed like a big joke to Jeff. Couldn’t be real.
“Let’s see if the check’s good,” he said.

Not only was the check good, Johnnie Reed insisted on taking him to lunch to express her
appreciation. Seemed to Jeff she was checking him out, too. Not so much like he was hot stuff.
More like, what ... was he an acceptable physical specimen?
They were interrupted half-a-dozen times by people stopping by their table to ask for
autographs, before the maitre d’ posted two busboys to keep the riffraff at bay.
Jeff hadn’t liked the intrusions, but he found it hard to blame people for being drawn to his
hostess. Johnnie Reed was a stunning woman. Dark hair, oval face, flawless skin, classic
features. Underlying her physical perfection was an energy that acted like a gravitational field
pulling lesser bodies into orbit around her.
Jeff had to keep himself from leaning forward.
It helped that he’d seen her when she’d been resolutely withdrawn.
She seemed to know what he was thinking.
“I’m sure you thought I was perfectly horrible last night,” she said.
Jeff took a sip of water. He never drank at business meals, unless it was champagne to
celebrate a deal. After the contract had been signed. He felt he ought to be as careful with
Johnnie Reed as he was with a client.
“I thought you were scared,” he told her.
She’d been maintaining almost unblinking eye contact with him until he said that. Then, like
last night, she looked away.
He continued, “Who wouldn’t be, almost losing a wheel off your car.”
She looked back, her eyes still haunted by the memory. Made him want to hold her hands,
tell her everything would be all right. But he didn’t know here well enough to touch her, and if
he couldn’t come up with something more original than that he’d do better to keep quiet.
“It was horrifying,” she said quietly. “The whole car was shuddering. I thought it might fly
apart.”
“You talk to your mechanic? See what the problem was?”
“I talked to the owner of the dealership. He talked to everyone who touched my car. They all
swore they’d maintained the car completely to specifications. The owner said his people were the
best, but he promised to contact Porsche North America to investigate the matter and see how
they could make it up to me.”
“Well, you came through it okay; that’s the important thing.”
He raised his glass to salute her good fortune. She was drinking water, too. Clinked her glass
against his. She looked over her glass at him as they sipped.
She asked, “You’re not married, are you?”
 “No.” He’d seen she’d looked for a ring.
“Never been?”
“No.”
“But you’re not gay.” Phrased as a statement, meant as a question.
“Usually cheerful but not gay.”
“You mind if I ask how much your job pays?”
Jeff laughed. “Am I being interviewed for something here?”
“I’m curious,” she said with a smile. Wasn’t hard to see she belonged up on a movie screen.
“I’d like to know something about the man who came to my aid.”
“Okay,” he replied. “I made a little over 100K last year. I’m on pace to do better this year,
maybe by as much as 50 percent. And while it’s true I’m neither married nor gay, I do have two
dependents at the moment: my sister and her son.”
“At the moment?” Johnnie asked.
“Yeah. I’m the guy who persuaded my sister to leave her asshole husband. Told her I’d take
care of her until she got back on her feet. She studied to be a dental hygienist, got a steady job,
and took care of her son.”
“But?”
“But about a year ago she told me what she’d really like to do is go to dental school, become
a dentist, have her own practice. She had a plan to go to night school. I told her go full time,
finish sooner, and she and Sam could stay with me again. I’d take care of their expenses.”
“Wow. You’re some brother.”
“Our parents died when we were young. Terri took care of me for a long time.”
Johnnie gave him a thoughtful look.
“I was going to ask you if you’d like to come to L.A. with me. But I can see your
responsibilities are here.”
“Yeah.” He was curious, though. “What’d you have in mind, for me to do in Los Angeles?”
“Movies. Not acting, unless you’d really like to give it a shot. But there are things a smart,
energetic guy can do. If he knows somebody.”
“That would be you?”
“Yes.”
She gave him the big-screen smile again. Half the guys in his office would have left their
wives for the chance he was being offered.
“Maybe you can send me a couple of tickets to your next movie,” he said.
“Have you seen any of them?”
“No.”
Johnnie Reed laughed.
“An honest man. I don’t meet many of those. Maybe I’ll ask you to escort me to my next
premiere.”
“Maybe I’ll accept.”
She gave him her L.A. phone number and they left it at that. It was a nice bump for his ego,
but he didn’t get carried away by the whole thing. A guy would have to be a blue-ribbon fool to
hook up with an actress. All you had to do was see Meg Ryan in that movie with Billy Crystal.
The one where she did the orgasm-in-the-deli scene.
An actress was any good, man, she could fake you right out of your socks.
 A couple of nights later, Jeff came home and his sister, who was reading one of her text
books on the living room sofa, looked up at him and smiled. Not a welcome-home smile. More
like she knew something he didn’t. Like in his office the other day.
“What?” Jeff asked.
“You were on TV tonight,” Terri told him.
He gave her a look, waited for the punch line.
It came from his nephew, poking his head out of the family room.
“Really, Uncle Jeff. You were on Entertainment Nightly,” the 10-year -old told him.
“What’re you doing watching that show?” he asked, still not believing.
Terri got up and took him by the arm. “Come and see. Sam called me to come watch, but as
soon as he heard your name mentioned, he started recording.”
“They tell you what’s coming on before they show it,” Sam explained.
The three of them went into the family room and watched.
Johnnie Reed was being interviewed by a blonde woman who was very sympathetic to the
star about the automotive mishap she’d suffered on her visit home to the Midwest to see her
family. They showed a picture of a Porsche on a flatbed tow truck, the car’s rear wheel all but
fallen off. Thing was, it looked like a different Porsche to Jeff, like the whole thing had been
recreated. Show biz.
The woman interviewing Johnnie came back on and said, “As frightening as that was, I
understand you met a very handsome man who helped you out in your hour of need.”
Now Johnnie had the screen to herself. “Yes, I did. A good man, and I guess he is kind of
handsome ...”
Inset next to Johnnie a picture of Jeff appeared. It was his company picture. Left no doubt in
Jeff’s mind that Dave Taradash had gotten to talk to Johnnie Reed one more time.
“His name is Jeffrey Marsh,” the actress said. “He’s a sales executive with Keller Custom
Plumbing Supplies.”
Jeff wondered if Dave got her to throw in that free plug for the company.
“He’s a doll,” the blonde said. “You’re not going to let him get away are you?”
“Well, I tried to bring him back here with me, told him I could help him find a good job in
the business, but he has family obligations back home, and I respect him very much for that.”
The look on Johnnie’s face was one of adoration.
“So there are good men out there,” the blonde said.
“Yes, there are. Before I said goodbye to Jeff, I told him maybe I’d ask him to escort me to
my next premiere. Now that I’ve had time to think about it, I definitely want him to do that.”
Johnnie looked directly at the camera.
“Jeff, if you see this, please give me a call. You’ve got my number.”
Sam waggled his eyebrows at his uncle and said, “Woo, woo.”
Terri kissed her brother’s cheek. “Woo, woo from me, too.”
It all would have been pretty overwhelming ...
If he wasn’t feeling like Billy Crystal right then.

Jeff was on the road again the following week when Terri called his hotel room at 1:45 a.m.
“Jeff, there was a guy skulking around the house a minute ago.”
His sister sounded calm about it, but her words brought Jeff fully awake.
“He try to break in?”
Terri said, “He might have had it in mind, before I let off a round.”
 When Jeff had taken Terri and Sam in the first time, she’d been so jumpy about leaving her
husband she’d wanted to buy a pistol. Jeff had been afraid she might shoot him by mistake if she
had a gun. They’d discussed it and went to a gun dealer. Terri signed up for a weapon-safety
class and did range practice. Then she bought a LadySmith revolver. Tonight, though, was the
first time she’d ever shot at anything except a paper target.
“Were you trying to hit him?” Jeff asked.
“Too dark. But I might have killed a few impatiens.” You fired into soft dirt, no harm; you
fired into the air, you might kill somebody a half-mile away. “Seemed to scare the bastard off,
though.”
“Sam?”
“Slept right through it,” Terri said.
“Couldn’t be Gerald, could it?” His sister’s deranged ex.
“He’s not due out ‘til next week.”
“Yeah, that’s what I thought.” He’d never have left Terri and Sam alone otherwise. “I’ll cut
my trip short, be home tomorrow afternoon.”
“The state’s attorney said she’d give us 24-hours notice of Gerald’s release.”
The prosecutor had also told Jeff privately that she’d give him and Terri considerable latitude
in any self-defense claim they might need to make, should Gerald ever come anywhere near
them or Sam again. All but telling him, he could blow Gerald away, should he feel the need.
Only Jeff hadn’t joined his sister in taking up the gun.
“I’ll be back tomor—” He looked at the clock. “Make that later today. Anything else I should
know?”
“Got another gift from your girlfriend today.”
Meaning, Johnnie Reed.
“You open it?” he asked.
“Sam wanted me to, but I thought what if it’s a photo album? Nudies or something.”

Jeff called Dave Taradash from the road, told he’d be back ahead of schedule.
“Somebody was creeping around my house last night,” Jeff told his boss.
“Not—”
“No, he’s still in jail. I confirmed that this morning.”
“Then who?”
“I don’t know. I’ll call the clients I couldn’t see this trip, apologize, get Louise to check my
calendar and set up new dates. That okay?”
“Yeah, and you just reminded me. Louise took a call for you yesterday. She thought it was
some crank. A bad joke or something. Guy got abusive when she told him you were out of town.
It was like he didn’t believe her.”
“The caller didn’t leave his name?”
“You kidding? When I got on the line, he hung up. I didn’t think too much of it at the time,
but hearing about this guy at your house last night, it gives me a bad feeling.”
“Yeah, me too,” Jeff agreed. “I’ll stop by the office on the way home.”
“Don’t bother. First things first. But you can do one thing for me.”
“What?”
“Never thought I’d say this,” Dave told him, “but can you get Ms. Reed to stop calling all the
time, checking to see if you’re back yet. Maybe you could break down and give her a call.”
 Jeff hadn’t taken Johnnie Reed up on her invitation to call her.
Not even after his name hit the newspaper gossip columns and morning radio shows. Jeff call
Johnnie, you fool. What the hell’s wrong with you anyway? The most beautiful actress in
Hollywood is practically begging you to get in touch.
Thing was, he still didn’t believe it.
Thought he was being set up for something.
He was passing the spot on I-94, almost home, where he’d first seen Johnnie’s broken down
Porsche when he made the connection. Johnnie Reed had entered his life a little more than a
week ago. Since then she’d made a public show of pursuing of a guy who’d done nothing more
than call the auto club for her. Now, all of a sudden, he had a nut creeping around his house,
calling him at the office.
That was a coincidence? No way.
Then he thought of something else and muttered, “Jesus.”
The bastard who’d almost run him over when he’d stopped to help Johnnie: he was the guy
who loosened the lug nuts on her Porsche. That was why the wheel had almost come off. More
than that, the lunatic had intended that he’d be the one who came to Johnnie’s rescue. Which
explained why he was so pissed Jeff had stolen his Galahad role.
Of course, the madman had to be even more pissed now that Johnnie was making such a big
deal about Jeff. Which was just how Johnnie wanted it. She was siccing her stalker on him.

One of the reasons Jeff was so good at his job was he always did his homework. Learned
every last fact that was available about a prospective client. Tailored his approach to suit the
needs of the person with whom he’d have to deal. Didn’t always result in a sale, but his batting
average put him up in the all-star bracket.
Jeff read everything he could find in the public record about Johnnie Reed. Then he called
the people who’d urged him to return Johnnie’s affection. He told them a little bit about himself,
asked for hints about her. Like he was letting them play matchmaker.
It wasn’t long before he learned what Johnnie’s publicists had kept private. The star did
indeed have a stalker, a guy named Cody Darton.
Jeff had never heard of him, but apparently he was something of a celebrity himself: a
NASCAR driver who won an occasional race and moonlighted choreographing car-chase scenes
for movies and TV. He was reaching too high, though, when he pursued Johnnie Reed.
It had to really get under Cody’s skin to know Johnnie was chasing after a guy who sold
plumbing supplies.

Jeff and Terri sent Sam to stay with a family friend and waited. That was the thing about
stalkers: they couldn’t stay away. If you didn’t run from them, confrontation was never long in
coming. Cody showed up at Jeff’s house the sixth night after he had returned home.
Which made it a great day. The state’s attorney had called that afternoon to tell them Gerald
was going to be released at midnight. The prison where he was being held was so overcrowded
cons were being let go the minute the law allowed. Sorry they hadn’t gotten a full 24 hours
notice.
But Terri’s ex had been warned once again to stay away from his former wife, his former
brother-in-law, and his son. And once more Jeff had been quietly advised that his right to self-
defense would be honored in any imaginable circumstance.
 So shortly before Cody arrived, Jeff told Terri, “I could blow this guy away. We could say
we thought it was Gerald before we got a good look at him. The law won’t make a fuss.”
“You’re not the one who knows how to shoot, remember?” his sister asked.
“I can’t let you shoot both of them.”
“You’re very thoughtful. But why don’t we take care of your problem the first? We’ll do it
the way you took care of Gerald, okay?”
“Okay,” Jeff said.
And that’s what they did.
Cody did surprise them, though, by driving his car up onto Jeff’s porch and splintering his
front door. Must have been inspired by all his film work. But he was brought up short when he
charged into the house and found Terri with her gun leveled at his head.
She didn’t have to shoot him. Jeff swooped in from behind, as he had with Gerald, and
swung his Louisville Slugger hard across the backs of Cody Darton’s knees. Toppled him like a
tall pine. Then Jeff waled him up and down his hamstrings and calves. Booted him over and
smacked him a good one across his stomach. Finished by jamming the end of the bat under
Cody’s chin and leaning on his throat. Had him pinned him to the carpet like a bug.
Jeff said, “We’re letting you off easy this time. Next time we won’t be so nice. You
understand?”
Cody could neither speak nor nod, but acquiescence was in his eyes.
Terri phoned the cops. When they arrived and saw where Cody had parked his car, they
agreed that Jeff’s response had been a model of restraint. No blood, no broken bones. Just a guy
who wouldn’t be walking or talking the same for a very long time.
They took Cody away, but there was still a patrol unit out front when the phone rang.
Jeff picked up, listened, and said, “Hey, Gerald. Why don’t you come over? Party’s just
getting started.” He listened some more and nodded. “You know what? That’s a great idea. Go
for it.” He hung up.
“What?” Terri asked. “What’s he going for?”
Jeff told her. Then he picked up the phone and called Johnnie Reed.

She called him back after one of her people had relayed Jeff’s message.
“I thought you’d be waiting by the phone,” he said.
“I was. For days.” There was a pout in her voice. “But even if you’d called right away, I
never answer my own phone.”
“I suppose not, someone in your position.”
“You’re mocking me.”
“Just a little. I called to let you know I took care of Cody Darton for you.”
She didn’t try to deny what she’d done.
“Are you mad at me?”
“Never liked you enough to get mad.”
He thought he almost lost her there, that she was going to hang up on him.
But she said, “You’re a bastard.”
“You’d know. Setting me up for Cody. Hoping I could handle him or the cops would nail
him for doing me in. But there’s been an unexpected turn of events,” Jeff said.
“What?”
“Remember I told you I persuaded my sister to leave her asshole husband?”
“Yes.” Johnnie sounded suspicious now.
 “Well, after they’d separated, Gerald — that’s his name — started stalking my sister and me.
See, he’s so twisted he thought I broke up his marriage because I wanted Terri for myself. He got
very threatening; said he was going to kill both of us. Even made a pretty good attempt. Anyway,
he went to prison for the last eight years, but now he’s out. Got out tonight, in fact.”
“Why are you telling me?”
“Well, I just heard from Gerald. Seems he has this new idea for getting even with me. One he
likes a whole lot.”
Johnnie started to see where he was going. “You don’t mean—”
“Yeah, exactly,” Jeff said. “Even in prison, Gerald saw on TV how much I mean to you. So
now he’s going after the new love of my life, the Hollywood movie star.”
Johnnie was speechless.
“You sicced your stalker on me and got mine in return,” Jeff said. “Pretty funny, huh?”
But Johnnie Reed didn’t laugh. Couldn’t even fake it.

Back to Table of Contents

Chapter 7: Fixer-upper
The state had a full-disclosure law for any residential real estate transaction. Not that the
Realtor, a young mom named Connie who was getting back into the work force, would keep any
secrets from a prospective buyer. She looked Whistler right in the eye.
“You know this house is so cheap because it’s haunted, right?”
“I know,” he said. “It needs some work, too.
“A lot of work,” honest Connie said. “The only reason someone new like me gets to show a
place like this is because no one believes it’ll ever sell.”
Whistler nodded. He knew the old house’s history. Which explained Connie’s idea of
showing the place: glancing at it nervously from a hundred yards away.
“You can’t get craftsmen to come out here,” Connie advised.
“I’m not surprised.”
“People feel uneasy about a place where two people killed each other.”
“Don’t blame them one bit,” Whistler agreed.
“So you’re going to fix it up yourself then?”
“That’s my intention.”
She gave Whistler the once over, figured he had to be pushing fifty, but in a nice way. Long
and lean, still had most of his sandy brown hair, nice clear green eyes. Looked good in his denim
shirt, jeans, and sneakers. A working guy ... but something else, too.
Either brave or crazy, for one thing.
Connie wondered if he might be right for her divorced older sister.
Right now, though, she stuck to business.
She nodded at the house. “You might’ve heard rumors about a pile of money being hidden in
there.”
Whistler gave her a grin. “In fact, I have.”
“Most people around here think that’s just a story.”
“Nobody’s checked it out personally?”
Connie shook her head.
“Because of the ghosts?” Whistler asked.
“Because of the ghosts. Those two, neither of them’s Casper.”
“I’ll take it just the same,” Whistler told her.

Whistler closed on the property a week later. He pulled up to his new house in his pick-up
truck just after dark. He carried with him a flashlight, his sleeping bag, and a sack with a couple
of turkey sandwiches and a super-sized ice tea. Before he climbed the front stairs, he looked up
at the sky. A ragged blanket of clouds blocked out most of the stars but left a full moon visible
and glowing bright.
“Good night for a witch on a broomstick,” he reflected.
He tested each of the front steps before he put his full weight on it. There were creaks and
groans, appropriate to the setting, but the treads held fast. He crossed the wide porch and slipped
the key into the front door lock. Before he could turn it a gust of wind kicked up. The sudden
rush of air was cold and held a plaintive note.
“Nice try,” Whistler said.
He turned the key and went inside.
 The house had 20 rooms, eight bedrooms, eleven bathrooms, a main sitting room, two dining
rooms, formal and casual, a library, a sun room, an observatory, a billiard room, a painter’s
studio, a ceramics room complete with kiln, a small gym, a greenhouse, and a commercial-size
kitchen. In the basement were four small suites for servants, a wine cellar, a laundry and the
heating and air-conditioning plant. A six-car garage was set discreetly behind a row of tall
hedges.
The style was Southern ante-bellum: white paint, pillars, porches upstairs and down, french
doors everywhere. The house sat on 50 acres of land. It didn’t have a swimming pool but there
was a brook running through the property for fishing and a pretty pond surrounded by woodland
that was perfect for any sort of water activity that didn’t involve an internal combustion engine.
It was the kind of place usually reserved for the seriously rich.
Except when two angry ghosts drove off would-be buyers.
Whistler consumed his takeout dinner in the sitting room, used the nearest bathroom, and
stretched out in the sleeping bag he’d unrolled on the floor. His sleeping arrangement was a
matter of choice not necessity. The house was still furnished. He could have chosen to sleep in a
bed or on a sofa, but a quick scan had shown him every piece of furniture was thick with dust.
Better to sleep in a clean, snug bag. He used his old suede jacket for a pillow.
He was drifting off when the ghosts showed up.
There was no hokey rattling of chains or eerie moaning when they arrived.
Just an embittered woman screaming at him.
“Get out, get out, damn you, get out!”
Whistler rolled over, not scared, but not sure of what he’d see, either. Still, he recognized the
female wraith immediately. Her male counterpart was standing just behind her, looking on over
her shoulder. Both of them had their heads canted at cockeyed angles, but that’s what happened,
Whistler supposed, when you died of broken necks.
He looked at the pair of spooks, let them take a good look at him, and said, “Been a long
time, Sheila. That Kirby you’ve got with you?”
“Noel?” Sheila asked.
Whistler nodded.
His ex-wife’s restless spirit looked as if she’d seen a ghost.

Sheila ran from the room, her footsteps inaudible, as one might expect with a ghost. Whistler
was a little surprised she hadn’t just disappeared. Evaporated in a puff of ectoplasm. Maybe
she’d been too rattled pull off any special effects, he thought.
Kirby was still looking at him, not with menace, but sizing him up.
“She’ll never let you have it,” he told Whistler.
“Wanna bet?” Whistler replied.
Apparently, Kirby didn’t. He vanished.
Much more ghostlike, Whistler judged, putting his head down.

The next morning, Whistler went to work on the house’s electrical system. Ghosts might
scare some people, but faulty wiring caused fires. He was down in the basement switching out an
old fuse-box to circuit breakers when he felt Sheila’s presence.
The room had grown considerably colder, but then Sheila’s displeasure had always worked
better than central air.
“Kirby told me,” his late ex-wife said. “About the bet you wanted to make.”
 “Tattletale,” Whistler answered, not raising his eyes from his work. “If you hadn’t broken his
neck, it was only a matter of time before somebody did.”
Sheila laughed. She’d always enjoyed a barb at someone else’s expense.
“There have been times when I’ve missed you, Noel.”
Whistler looked up. The light streaming through the basement windows dimmed Sheila’s
apparition. She lost definition around the edges, like a movie beginning before the theater was
fully dark. For all her pallor and translucency, though, he could see that she’d still been a
beautiful woman when she’d died.
Dark-haired, fair skinned, and lissome.
A perfect appearance for a female con artist.
“When was that, Sheila?”
“All the times I needed a real man.”
She stepped into a shadow for better contrast and made her clothes disappear.
Whistler whistled. “Damn, you’re good. If you hadn’t divorced me for an infidelity I didn’t
commit, with a sixteen-year-old girl who turned out to be your niece —”
“You found out about that?” Sheila was suddenly dressed again.
“Uh-huh. Wasn’t until later. After you took most of my money in the divorce, and defending
myself against the phony statutory rape charge took the rest.”
“You got off. I read that in the paper.”
“Sure did. I was a free man. Broke, jobless and with my reputation in ruins, but free.”
Even in the shadow, Sheila started to grow pale.
“Wait a minute,” Whistler said, “don’t go.”
She tuned back in, turned up the contrast. Waited for Whistler to speak.
“Why’d you do it, Sheila? I would have given you anything you wanted.”
“That wouldn’t have been the same.”
“Because the fun is in the taking as much as the having,” Whistler said.
Sheila’s ghost nodded, her chin up and defiant, if cocked at a funny angle.
“You’ll never get my money back, Noel.”
“I don’t want it.”
She regarded him with grave suspicion. Perhaps the only kind for a ghost.
“I’m really supposed to believe that? If it’s not the money, why are you here?”
“I want a reconciliation,” Whistler told her.

Whistler saw neither ghost for days. Maybe they found watching someone rewire a house
boring. He did get a lot of strange looks from his new neighbors when he went into town for
supplies or food. They couldn’t figure out how he was managing to get along with his ethereal
roomies.
Harvey at the hardware store came right out and asked him, “You doin’ okay out there?”
“Work’s going well,” Whistler told him, knowing that wasn’t what the man was asking.
“And the ...” Harvey couldn’t bring himself to say the word.
“Ghosts?” Whistler asked.
“Yeah, them.”
“We’ve met.”
The merchant’s eyebrows rose.
“They’re a fairly sad pair,” Whistler said.
“Not nasty or, you know, dangerous?”
 “Not to me.”
“So you’re just gonna live with ‘em then?”
“I hope to help them find peace.”
“You a priest or a minister or somethin’?”
Whistler laughed. “Far from it.”
“Well, what if peace isn’t what they want? What if they’re cantankerous by nature?”
Whistler sighed. That possibility had occurred to him.
“Then I’ll just have to work them into my remodeling plans.”

Whistler sat at the foot of the grand staircase sketching a rough drawing of the elegant
structure that bridged the first and second stories of the house. After a few minutes work, he felt
a presence at his shoulder. Kirby. A natural-born eavesdropper.
“Have a seat,” Whistler told the ghost.
He flipped his drawing pad shut as Kirby sat down next to him.
The apparition was careful to leave room between himself and Whistler. As if Whistler
might grab him. Kirby forgetting he was incorporeal.
“We’ve been watching you,” he told Whistler. “We’ve seen all the work you’ve done.”
“Place is starting to shape up, don’t you think?”
“We could undo it all, you know,” Kirby said. “Do the poltergeist bit, if we wanted. Then
where would you be?”
“I thought of that,” Whistler said. “I can wreck the place myself.”
He took a piece of paper from a back pocket of his jeans and unfolded it.
“Demolition permit,” Whistler said, as Kirby leaned in for a look. “County says I can knock
the place down. I don’t want to, but if you and Sheila give me too much grief ...” He shrugged.
“Then where will the two of you be?”
“You bastard,” Kirby said. “Sheila warned me you’re full of tricks.”
“She’s a fine one to talk,” Whistler replied.
“We could do worse than destroy the house,” Kirby threatened. “We could fix it so, maybe,
that chandelier up there fell on you.”
Whistler glanced at the chandelier. He was going to move it — depending on his plans — but
that would miss the point Kirby was trying to make.
“You’re saying you and Sheila could kill me?” he asked.
“Like that.” Kirby tried to snap his fingers, something that didn’t work well for a ghost.
“I’ve considered that possibility, too,” Whistler told him. “But I’m betting that if I die
violently in this house, I’ll be stuck here, too. My spirit, I mean. And I guarantee you, Kirby, if I
cross over to your side of the curtain, I’m going to be the top spook around here. Kicking ass and
taking names. You think about that before you or Sheila arrange any accidents for me.”
Kirby didn’t like that line of thought. He started a fast fade, but Whistler said, “Wait.”
The ghost paused, halfway to invisibility.
“Who started that final argument?” Whistler asked. “The one where you and Sheila were
strangling each other before you both fell down the stairs?”
Kirby disappeared.
But his disembodied voice said, “She did.”

“He did, the lying bastard.”

 Sheila was giving Whistler her side of the story as he plumbed the underside of a sink in one
of the downstairs bathrooms.
“I’d ask you to hand me that wrench,” Whistler said to Sheila, who perched gracefully on the
edge of the bathtub opposite him, “only I don’t know if you’re up to that sort of thing.”
The wrench slid across the floor to Whistler and levitated neatly into his hand.
“Thank you,” he said.
He tightened the connection on the pipes he’d just joined and gave his work a nod of
approval. But the job still had to be tested. He got up off the floor, opened the tap, watched the
water flow down the drain and smiled when not a drop leaked.
He sat on the toilet seat, wrench in his lap, and looked at Sheila.
She asked him, “When did you become such a jack-of-all-trades, Noel? I’ve been watching
you closely for weeks now, wondering if this is the same man I married.”
Whistler shrugged. “I had to take a crash course in self-improvement.”
For just a second, Sheila almost looked remorseful.
“I couldn’t get a job in my field, but the Shelter People gave me an opportunity. I’ve helped
to put up almost 200 homes for low-income families. With a lot of help from some very patient
instructors, I’ve learned a number of building trades. I’ve become fairly good at them and what’s
really surprising, I like the work.”
“But you still want my money, don’t you? Despite your denials.”
Whistler shook his head.
“I don’t believe you,” Sheila said.
Whistler dropped the wrench in his toolbox and leaned forward, forearms on his legs. He
wanted to take Sheila’s hands in his, but there was no way he could hold her anymore. He was
pleased, though, that she leaned in toward him.
“You remember how much you got from me in the divorce, the monetary figure for the
whole works?” he asked softly.
“More than eight million,” she said, unable to keep a note of pride out of her voice.
“And you and Kirby, after you married him, used that as front money for your schemes: real
estate, mineral rights, and, of course, that last one.”
“Unclaimed valuables from World War II,” Sheila said flatly.
“Yeah, that was where you went wrong. The subject is way too touchy. Finally brought the
law down on you hard.”
“It was Kirby’s idea.”
Whistler wasn’t going to debate responsibility.
“Whatever you were into, though, the proceeds from the divorce greased the con: See, we got
rich and you can, too. But you never let the suckers get near any of that money.”
“Of course not,” Sheila said contemptuously. Then she steered the conversation back to its
original course. “You never did tell me why I should believe you, about you not wanting to get
your hands on my money.”
“I’ve got a little better than ten million of my own right now,” Whistler said.
That straightened Sheila right up. Would have left her breathless, if she were still breathing.
“Yeah,” Whistler smiled. “How about that? For a year or so, I was pretty bitter about what
you did to me. Then I began to see, little by little, that I’d gotten just what I’d deserved. I mean, I
was a hotshot stockbroker who pushed tons of shares in shitty companies on people just because
those companies were paying my bosses big fees. I knew the stocks were crap but, hey, my
bonuses were ungodly. I thought that was what mattered. Then you came along and did the same
thing to me that I did to all my clients: played me for a sucker.”
Sheila nodded absently.
“You had me set up from the start, didn’t you? The money was all that ever mattered.”
“No, there was the sex, too.”
“Okay, I’ll give you that. The ironic thing, though, while I was playing all my suckers, I had
plenty of good stocks I could have recommended. I have a real eye as a stock-picker. Only the
good companies weren’t paying my bosses any big fees.”
Whistler shook his head in regret.
“Anyway, after a couple years of building houses, I had a little money I wanted to put
somewhere. So I started buying some shares here and there. People saw what I was doing, asked
if they could get in on it, too. I told them they put their money down at their own risk. But you
know what, we’ve all done very well. I felt like that was the first step to evening out my moral
balance sheet. I wanted to make peace with you, too, but by then you and Kirby had died. But
when I heard you hadn’t departed I thought I’d take a chance.”
Sheila was stuck on what mattered most to her.
“You’ve really got ten million dollars?” she asked.
She was dead, but it was killing her all that she’d never get her hands on any of it.
“Let me ask you one question,” Whistler said.
“What?” Sheila asked, the suspicion clear in her voice.
“Not that; I really don’t care where your money is. I am curious, though, what your final
argument with Kirby was all about, the one that led to the two of you to fall down all those stairs.
Was it about what your legal strategy should be when you went to trial or were you just unable to
agree on where you should run and hide?”
Sheila folded her arms across her chest.
“Neither of those things. I found out Kirby was going to try to put all the blame on me ... that
and divorce me and take all my money.”
“Ah, well,” Whistler said. “I can see where that would make you angry.”

Whistler’s work on the house was almost finished when the moving truck arrived. Word had
circulated over the months he’d been working there that he’d been able to co-exist with the
ghosts without suffering a ghastly demise. That being the case, he managed to hire a crew to
come and take away Sheila and Kirby’s old furniture. Their belongings wouldn’t suit the new
residents who’d soon be taking occupancy.
The former owners didn’t reveal their spectral selves to the moving men, but Whistler
noticed them watching carefully as the house emptied out. They took special interest when the
huge chandelier over the foot of the grand stairway was removed.
“What are you doing to our house?” Kirby demanded, after the movers had left.
“My house,” Whistler corrected.
“Our house,” Sheila reaffirmed.
They were all in the kitchen. A table and four chairs had been left behind. Whistler was
enjoying a roast beef sandwich, a kosher dill pickle, and a bottle of Dos Equis. He gestured to his
guests to join him at the table. Sheila sat to his right, Kirby opposite him.
Ever the clever girl, Sheila was ready to lean whichever way the wind blew.
“You’ve got to get it through your heads,” Whistler told them, “you can no longer make any
claim on earthly possessions. You’ve got to let go. Give it up.”
 The wind blew Sheila toward Kirby.
She told him, “You see, I was right! He wants my money!”
“I’ve known it all along,” Kirby agreed, and added quickly, “You’re not going to give it to
him are you?”
“Of course not. I wouldn’t give it to you; I won’t give it to him.”
Kirby looked at Whistler with a smirk.
“I should have taken that bet you offered,” he said.
Whistler honestly didn’t want the money, but he’d never convince these two of that, so he
didn’t try to argue. “I guess you should have.”
“So what will you do now, Noel?” Sheila asked. “Give up, go away?”
Whistler shook his head. “Not after all the work I’ve put into this place.”
“Then what?” Kirby wanted to know.
“I’m afraid you and Sheila are the ones who will be leaving.”
The two ghosts laughed in eerie harmony.
“We can’t leave, remember?” Kirby said.
“We’re condemned to stay here,” Sheila jeered.
“We’ll see about that,” Whistler told them.

Whistler’s friends from the Shelter People showed up the next morning. Within a week, they
put up a tall narrow structure with one door and a high window. Standing in a clearing amidst the
trees out back of the main house, it was exceptionally well built. It would last a hundred years or
more, easy.
In it was the grand staircase from the main house, taken apart, moved, and reassembled. That
and the companion piece chandelier. And, of course, Sheila and Kirby.
It wasn’t the house to which they’d been bound. It was, as Whistler correctly surmised, the
scene of their crime, the staircase, that held them in thrall.
Before he left, Whistler told Sheila and Kirby that their new residence was wired for
electricity. If they ever wanted to let him know they were willing to make peace with him and
themselves, just turn on the lights. It would be seen at the main house. Which he had given to a
group that provided second chances to troubled young people.
But Whistler didn’t hold out much hope he’d be hearing from the ghosts anytime soon.
Because just before he locked the two of them in, Sheila told him once more, “Get out, get out,
damn you, get out!”

Back to Table of Contents

Chapter 8: Sleepover
In memory of Marie Stone.

The way the weather forecast called it, the day was supposed to begin with snow flurries
which would give way to partly cloudy skies. The way it actually happened, the flurries turned
into the biggest blizzard since 1967. Which was how winter could go in Chicago. What with all
the talk about global warming and a series of milder than normal winters, a lot of people had
forgotten that. Among them were the planners and the workers at the Department of Streets and
Sanitation. By 3:00 p.m. that Friday afternoon, the city had slammed to a halt.
The headmaster of the Parkside Country Day School, Walker Loggins, a man with a keen
awareness that he shepherded the offspring of many of the city’s most prominent families, had
wisely begun sending his students home at lunchtime. A long line of luxury sedans and SUVs
had lined the school’s driveway on Clark Street to pick up children fleeing the storm.
By 3:10, the normal dismissal time for the day, the only people still waiting for transport
were the headmaster and two 10th graders, Raven Donnelly, better known as Ray, who’d
attended the school since junior kindergarten, and Janie Prince, whom some students had taken
to calling Princess Jane shortly after her arrival from Boston the previous September.
Mr. Loggins peered up and down Clark Street through the windows of the Welcoming Room.
Not a vehicle moved along what was normally a busy thoroughfare. He turned to his young
charges and shrugged.
“Looks like we’re stuck,” he said. “Shouldn’t be too bad, though. The building’s warm,
there’s plenty of food in the cafeteria, and we’ve more than enough sofas to use as beds. We
should all be comfortable until help arrives.”
“My dad will be here, sir,” Ray told the headmaster. “He’ll pick me up.”
“I don’t doubt he’ll try, Ray, but ...” Mr. Loggins turned to the window again.
He couldn’t even see the buildings across the street now. Or the street itself for that matter.
Everything outside the windows was an undifferentiated swirl of snow. Who could be moving
about in that?
Ray saw the look of doubt on the headmaster’s face, Princess Jane’s, too. If Dr. Daniel’s, the
longtime headmaster of Parkside hadn’t retired last year, Ray would have said, “Betcha.”
With the new guy a little more deference was in order.
So Ray said, “A wager, sir? Five dollars says he’s here before 3:30.”
Mr. Loggins, surprised by his student’s proposition, gave the matter due consideration, but
Princess Jane was immediately game.
“I’ll take that bet,” she told Ray.
First words she’d ever shared with him.
All of two seconds later Ulysses Donnelly pushed through the school’s front door looking
like a polar bear. He shook an avalanche of snow off his work parka and said, “I’ve got a truck
with a snow plow outside. Who needs a lift?”

Mr. Loggins decided it was his place to stay at the school, to be there in case the storm
caused some unforeseen damage which required immediate attention.
“Handy fella, are you?” Ulysses asked.
“Not terribly,” Loggins admitted, “but I give my all to any problem.”
 “Good man.” Ulysses turned to Janie Prince. “How about you, sister?”
“I’ll stay, too.”
“Probably isn’t used to riding in a tow truck, Dad,” Ray said.
“One of life’s great experiences, aiding fellow motorists, but to each her own.”
A sudden look of consternation clouded Mr. Loggin’s face. He asked if he could have a word
in private with Ulysses. The two men distanced themselves from the young people by a few
paces.
“I’m afraid this is a bit awkward,” Loggins began. “I mean, I was quite prepared to wait
things out here with your son and Miss Prince, but now ...”
Ulysses understood. “It wouldn’t look good for you to be alone in the school with a young
girl. Everything could be perfectly innocent and some people would still have their suspicions.
Why, if the girl ever took a dislike toward you, she might even make a false claim against you.”
“I don’t know her that well. Don’t know if it’s in her character to do such a thing,” Loggins
admitted.
“I could take you home, too. Solve that problem right there.”
“I really think I should stay. It’s the responsible thing to do.”
“Okay. I’ll drive the girl home.”
“You’re sure you’ll all be safe? All of us could stay here.”
“I have other children.”
“Oh. Well, godspeed then.”
Ulysses told Princess Jane she was coming with them.

“Where’s home?” Ulysses asked Janie when they were settled in the truck, the blast from the
heater melting the snow that had accumulated on their heads and shoulders on the ten-foot run
from the school to the truck. Ray had taken the middle seat, so Janie wouldn’t feel hemmed in by
the two Donnellys.
“Astor Street,” she said, giving him the number.
“Nice digs,” Ulysses responded offhandedly.
Princess Jane leaned forward to look at Ulysses.
“You know the neighborhood?”
“Had a girlfriend who lived across the street from your place.”
“Really?”
Ray, who rarely interrupted one of his father’s conversations, put in, “Dad’s a grad of good
old Parkside. His girlfriend was a classmate. Now, she’s my mom.”
“You don’t say?”
Both Donnellys could see Princess Jane was trying to decide if they were putting her on. Two
guys in a tow truck, dressed as if they belonged in a tow truck, claiming connections to the Gold
Coast and the exclusive school her parents had chosen for her. Okay, Janie thought, she knew
Ray was a Parkside student; he was in half of her classes, and she’d seen he was smart. So he
was an outreach student, a worthy scholar of modest means, brought into the school community
to alleviate the affluent homogeneity.
But his father and his mother, too? How could they be graduates of Parkside if Mr. Donnelly
still drove a tow truck? Weren’t Parkside alumni supposed to rise in the world? Or ... or had she
been right, and her parents had chosen the wrong school for her when the Princes had relocated.
Was her own future in jeopardy?
Ray and his father grinned at her, as if they knew the answer.
 Then with a lurch Mr. Donnelly started plowing his way toward Astor Street.

It wasn’t a long trip in terms of mileage, but they never got there. Ulysses asked, “You have
a cell phone, sister?”
“Of course.”
“What’s your name anyway?” he asked, giving his son a nudge.
Ray took his cue, eliminating the necessity for Janie to answer.
“Dad, allow me to introduce Ms. Janie Prince. Ms. Prince, my father, Ulysses Donnelly.”
“Sir,” Janie said with a nod. “Were your parents fans of James Joyce?”
“No, Homer.”
“Oh.” Janie produced her cell phone. “Who would you like me to call?”
“Your mother or father, whoever’s at home. Let them know you’re safe and will be with
them shortly.”
“I’m afraid neither of them is at home. My father left on a business trip this morning and my
mother was due to return home today, but when I last checked her flight was canceled. O’Hare is
closed.”
“Do you have a live-in housekeeper?”
“No, sir. Our cleaning lady comes and goes.”
“An older sibling at home?” Ulysses asked.
“I’m an only child.”
“Nobody older than yourself is home waiting for you?”
“Mr. Donnelly, I am 16; I will be perfectly fine by myself.”
Ray didn’t doubt it, but felt it best to keep quiet. He knew how his father felt about such
things, as evinced by Ulysses pulling the truck over to the curb and looking at his young guest.
“Do you know how to reach your mother?”
“I have her cell number, ” Princess Jane replied, her tone indicating displeasure.
“Please call her. Ask if she wants me to leave you alone or bring you home with us.”
Home with them? Janie didn’t think so. Not these two ... tradesmen. She keyed in the number
of her mother’s mobile phone, certain her mother would see things her way. Janie’s confidence
was misplaced. While her mother was quite happy to hear she was safe, she seemed to think an
adult presence was warranted at the moment.
But Janie hadn’t been able to do more than give her mother the bare outlines of the situation.
She couldn’t very well tell mother she was sitting in a truck with two guys from snow patrol.
She’d sound ungrateful. Snobbish.
All perfectly true, but one didn’t come out and voice such matters.
With a grim countenance, she handed the phone to Mr. Donnelly. “My mother would like to
speak with you.”
“Ulysses Donnelly here,” he said, taking the phone. As he listened to the response, his eyes
momentarily took on a faraway look. Then he blinked as if waking from a dream.
“No, Mrs. Prince, no trouble at all. We Parkside people stick together.” Ulysses gave Mrs.
Prince the Donnellys’ home address. “Come by as soon as you get to town. Don’t worry if it’s
early. The dog barks loudly enough to wake the dead. ”
He said goodbye and returned the phone to Janie.
“Your mother would prefer to have you stay with us.”
Princess Jane was exasperated beyond self-restraint.
 “This is crazy. We can’t be more than three blocks from my house.” But she wasn’t really
sure about that. Even with the windshield wipers clacking furiously, she couldn’t see more than
the few feet the truck’s headlights penetrated the storm. “I want to go home.”
Ulysses and Ray exchanged a look.
“Well, never let it be said that I kept someone from going home,” Ulysses said. “We Irish
have a thing about that.”
Janie smiled, until Ray leaned across her and popped open the door. A blast from the storm
struck her immediately. She yanked the door shut before a snow drift could form in her lap.
“You can’t be serious,” she told the Donnellys.
Ray’s nod said that they could indeed.
Ulysses told her, “I won’t stop you from going home, but I won’t help you, either. Not
against your mother’s express wishes. We’ll follow along behind you and see that you get safely
inside, but you’ll have to make the journey on your own.”
“Maybe a taxi’ll come by,” Ray said with a grin.
His father nudged him again. Enough of that.
Princess Jane gave the Donnellys a mighty frown, threw open the door, and stepped out into
the storm. Ray had to slide over and close the door.
“Maybe her anger will keep her warm,” he told his father.
“Maybe,” he said.
They watched the stubborn girl kick her way through a drift, and then Ray said, “You got this
funny look on your face when you were talking with Mrs. Prince. What was that all about?”
Ulysses grinned. “Thought she sounded like someone I used to know. But then I remembered
that particular someone doesn’t even speak English.”
Janie lasted half-a-block, before she scrambled back into the truck.
Ray helped pull her inside and didn’t complain as she melted all over him.
“I never wanted to go to Parkside,” she told them red-nosed, blue-lipped, and trembling. “I
wanted to go to Chicago Latin.”
Ulysses told her, “I know some people on their admissions board. I’ll see what I can do.”

The ride to the Donnelly house took an hour. Not that it was a long drive or that Ulysses had
trouble making headway. But the Donnellys stopped half-a-dozen times to free motorists stuck in
the snow. For their good deeds they were rewarded with calls of “Merry Christmas,” a bottle of
Jameson, a box of Godiva chocolates, two tickets to a Bulls game, and the promise of a donation
to WTTW, the local PBS station, in their name. They turned down cash and a lotto ticket for the
MegaMillions game.
By the time they arrived at Donnelly Central, as Ulysses called it, Janie was seated between
father and son with their booty on her lap. The chocolate didn’t seem to tempt her but she was
regarding the Irish whiskey with some interest.
Ray stepped out into knee-deep snow, took the tokens of appreciation from Janie. Then he
extended a hand to help her out of the truck. She ignored the offer of assistance. Stepping out of
the truck, her foot found a slick spot under the snow and she sprawled on her back. Neither
Donnelly was so cruel as to laugh at her.
“Want a hand now?” Ray asked.
Ulysses watched closely, not minding the snow building up inside his truck.
Wordlessly, Princess Jane extended her had to Ray. He took it and carefully pulled his new
classmate upright.
 The elder Donnelly nodded and told his son, “The fort is yours, Raven, me lad. Tend to the
grounds.”
“Yes, Dad.” He closed the truck’s door and watched his father drive off.
After a moment, Janie asked, “Where’s he going?”
Ray told her, “A storm like this, he’s off to the fire station, the police station, the hospital,
and our parish church. He’ll be moving a lot of snow. Pro bono publico.”
“Aren’t other people supposed to do that?”
“Sure. The city is supposed to support its vital services, but we didn’t see many snow plows
out, did we? If the hospital has been plowed, Dad’ll go on to St. Andrew’s. Can’t go wrong
lending a hand to a priest who might have to rush out into the storm.”
“He could be gone all night.”
“Maybe,” Ray conceded.
“So he’s leaving the two of us here alone?”
The note of suspicion was clear in her voice.
It made Ray grin.
“My sister, Elan, is home.”
“Your older sister?”
Ray knew where she was going, grinned wider.
“Ellie’s twelve. She’s in middle-school at Parkside, but she twisted her ankle last night at
gymnastics and stayed home today.”
“By herself?” Princess Jane asked acidly.
“Nah, Fenris is with her. Come on, let’s get you inside.”
They trudged up the snowed-in driveway toward the house. It was red brick, two stories. The
living room windows were lit from within and graced with leaded glass. A large holiday wreath
hung from a polished oak front door. Those were the only ornamentations about the place that
Janie could see. Otherwise, its dense, broad, spartan architecture reminded her of just what Mr.
Donnelly had called it: a fort.
No it was larger than that: a fortress.
She stepped inside.

And immediately cowered behind Ray, as he put his haul of gratuities down, gripping his
waist so he’d stay between her and the biggest dog she’d ever seen in her life. A dog showing its
teeth and making a deep rumbling sound in its throat. That and trying to get a better look at her.
Ray cuffed the beast softly on the side of his head.
“Manners,” he said offhandedly. The teeth were sheathed and the rumbling stopped. Looking
over his shoulder he told Janie. “Stick your hand out, let him have a sniff.”
“Are you crazy?”
“He needs to know you.”
“He’s a dog: he can smell me right where I am.”
“Come on. I won’t let him bite you.”
“How could you stop him? He’s bigger than you are.”
Ray looked at the dog. “Fen, sit.”
The dog sat.
“Shake.”
The dog extended a paw. Ray shook it.
“Republicans.”
 The dog jumped to his feet, looked around, and started growling.
“Rock ‘n’ roll.”
The dog dropped to the floor and covered his ears with his forepaws.
That made Janie laugh. Then she said, “My parents are ... you know.”
“Really?” Ray asked. “Didn’t think they had any in Boston.”
“Dad’s originally from Virginia; Mom’s a naturalized American.”
“An immigrant?” Ray asked with a grin. Before Princess Jane could take offense, he said to
the dog, “Best manners, Fen.”
The animal sat as if presenting himself to the Westminster judges, head held high, eyes
straight ahead, noble in aspect and manner. When Ray offered the back of his hand, Fenris licked
it. When he took his hand away, the dog remained in position.
Ray eased Janie’s hands off his waist and stepped aside, leaving her face to face with the
wolfhound.
“You can understand why my dad doesn’t worry about my sister being in the house with
Fen,” Ray told Janie.
She nodded, not daring to speak.
“He won’t move until I release him. But he’s dying to sniff your hand. He’ll lick it, too, if
you’ll allow it.”
Janie inched her hand up from her side, extended it toward the dog.
“Slow is good,” Ray told her, “much better than fast.”
She brought her hand to a stop an inch from the dog ... who didn’t move.
“Okay, boy,” Ray told him.
Fen sniffed the proffered hand several times and then gave it one long lick from fingertips to
wrist.
A shiver ran through Janie, and she said, “It’s so soft, his tongue, I mean.”
“Fen’s just like the rest of us Donnellys: we can show you a mouthful of pointy teeth but at
heart we’re sentimental slobs.”
“Sometimes, we bite,” a voice said. Janie saw a girl standing in a doorway wearing navy
tights, a yellow leotard, and a soft pink cast on her left ankle. The cast didn’t stop her from
crossing over to them by doing a couple of cartwheels. The dog stepped aside just enough for the
girl’s hand to fall on his neck as she stopped tumbling. “Why, Fen ate a mailman just the other
day.”
The wolfhound wagged his tail, as if in happy remembrance.
“Hi, I’m Ellie.” She extended her hand to Janie. “You’re much nicer looking than any of the
other girls Ray’s brought home.”
“From school, you mean?” Janie asked, shaking hands.
“No, I think he finds most of them on the street.”

Ray made hot cocoa, even gave Fen a few ounces in his water bowl. He told Janie that he’d
invited exactly one girl over to the house in his whole life, Mary Catherine Murphy, a friend he’d
known from catechism lessons since the time he was six, and currently the star of St. Andrew’s
choir.
“A coloratura soprano,” Ellie added, rolling her eyes. “We’re lucky there’s an un-cracked
pane of glass left in the whole church.”
Janie grinned. She was starting to like Ray’s little sister.
“How come I haven’t seen you at Parkside?” she asked Ellie.
 Ellie said, “You and Ray are upper-school students, veritable demigods. We lesser creatures
are beneath your notice.”
“I have a little brother,” Ray reminded Ellie, “Shelly Katzman. Seventh grader.”
The upper-school students at Parkside were encouraged to adopt middle-school students as
little brothers and sisters, help prepare them for the rigors of high school. But the program was
voluntary and not everyone participated.
Which at the moment caused Janie’s face to flush with embarrassment.
“I ... I’ll have to look into finding a little sister.”
“Please do,” Ellie said in a beseeching tone, “you can brighten some poor child’s life for only
pennies a day.”
Ray snorted and told his sister, “You’re the cook tonight, Ellie. I’ll be outside for an hour.
That should be enough time for even a gimp like you to make dinner.”
She stuck her tongue out at her brother. Then hopped into to the pantry to fetch the
ingredients for the feast she would prepare.
“You’re going out?” Janie asked Ray.
“Have to clear the driveway and the front walk.”
She looked out the window. The snow was no longer swirling, but it was falling as heavily as
ever.
“Shouldn’t you wait till it stops?”
“That’d be one way to do it.”
Janie glanced at Fenris, who was sleeping peacefully under the kitchen table.
“You really don’t have to worry about him any more, but if you want, I’ll take him outside
with me.”
She looked relieved, but not entirely satisfied.
“You and Ellie will be contributing, but what am I supposed to do?”
Ray asked, “Do you help out at home?”
“I cook,” Princess Jane informed him. “I have my specialties.”
“How often do you cook?”
“Specialties are reserved for special occasions.”
“In other words not often.”
“I’d like to be helpful now, if that’s all right with you.”
“Okay,” Ray said. “Get your stuff back on. I’ll show you how to use the snow blower. But,
you know, we’re not doing Captains Courageous here. You’re perfectly free to take it easy.”
Janie’s eyes narrowed. “I’d hit you if I ...” She looked at the sleeping wolfhound. “... if I
didn’t want to join that mailman.”
“Fen prevents a lot of trouble that way.”

The snow blower had a pull-cord starter. Ray decided to let Janie work out her aggression
getting the machine going. He figured it would take her at least three tries; she got it the first go.
Put some wrist and a nice turn of the hips into it and the blower roared into life.
Made him glad she hadn’t belted him.
He pointed out the task ahead of them. Clear the driveway from where they stood at the
overhead door of the garage to the street, 112 feet distant. What with all the snow, it looked like
they had to plow a runway at O’Hare.
“You’re sure you want to do this now?” she asked.
“I’ll do it, if you don’t want to,” he said.
 She charged forward. Well, she lurched forward, pushing hard with her legs, like a football
player engaging a blocking sled. The snow was not only deep it was also wet. Heart-attack snow
if you were trying to move it with a shovel. Even with a three-horsepower blower it was a chore.
But Janie didn’t give up. She cleared a stripe of pavement from one end of the driveway to the
other.
Ray took the machine from her at that point.
“We’ll switch off,” he said.
Janie nodded. She was breathless and sweating from her exertion. When she saw how much
of the path she’d cleared had already been filled in by the falling snow, she moaned.
“This is crazy,” she said, “we’ll never get anywhere.”
“Yeah, we will. We’ll be ahead of the game by exactly the amount of snow we’ve moved.”
“But we’ll still have to do it all over again.”
“True, but it won’t be as bad as if we hadn’t done it the first time.”
She started to rebut that argument but stopped when she saw Ray’s impassive mug. Whatever
she said, he could always come back with: Go inside any time you feel like it.
She clomped alongside him as he cleared the next stripe.
He gave her some satisfaction, though.
“I used to feel it was silly doing this, too.”
“So what changed your mind?”
“My dad told me life is filled with pointless exercises. You have to develop the strength of
will to butt heads with them, bull your way past them and ultimately shrug them off. Something
like this is practice for what we’ll face later on.”
“Your father’s a philosopher?”
“Yeah, one who fixes Porsches for a living.”

“Dad fixes Porsches, all right,” Ellie said at the dinner table. “But we don’t own any. He
won’t let us have one.”
Ellie had broiled salmon filets, made pan-fried potatoes and a green salad, and baked a tray
of brownies for dessert. She’d set the table while they showered, separately, and served the meal
as they came downstairs, Janie wearing some of Mom’s sweats, while her clothes were in the
wash. Ray, as the momentary head of the household, sat at the head of the table.
Ellie, on his right, took his hand before they ate.
“Grace,” he told Janie. “We give thanks before we eat dinner. It’s simple and
nondenominational. But if you’re not comfortable joining in, that’s okay.”
Janie extended her hand to Ray and he took it. Thought it was very warm.
Ellie led them.
“Thank you, God, for our food, and our family, and our blessings.”
Ray and Janie reprised the blessing, and Ray added, “And please bring everyone safely
through the storm.”
“Amen,” they all agreed.
“So your father fixes Porsches?” Janie asked.
Which had provoked Ellie’s comment re fixing but not owning.
“She’s twelve and she already wants a Carrera GT,” Ray said.
“Red,” Ellie elaborated.
“Your father works for a dealer?”
“Has his own shop,” Ray answered, and told his sister, “Good fish.”
 “Very good,” Janie seconded.
“Ray,” Ellie asked, “since we have company and it’s the holiday season, can we have a little
wine with dinner? Just a glass. Please.”
Ellie had provided each of them with a glass of sparkling water for dinner.
She’d also set out wine glasses.
Ray looked at his sister and shook his head. Then he turned to Janie.
“Last New Year’s Eve, my mom let Ellie have her first sip of champagne, a sip mind you,
and she’s been dying for another go at the grape juice ever since. I worry about this girl at times.
She’s in way too big a hurry to grow up.”
Ellie muttered something under her breath.
Ray told her, “Potatoes and salad are good, too.”
“Absolutely,” Janie said.
Ellie kept her head down, ate without looking at the others. She muttered something again
and took the whole tray of brownies with her when she left the table.
Janie watched her go.
Ray said, “That performance was for your benefit.”
Janie looked at him. “What do you mean?”
“She wants you to be her big sister at school. So she can play the two of us against each
other.”
“You’re kidding.”
“She’s Machiavellian, that one,” Ray said.

Ray washed the dishes and made popcorn. They ate it sitting opposite one another on the
floor in front of the living room fireplace. Janie had helped to build the fire.
“Any other reason Ellie would want me for a big sister?” Janie asked.
“Well, this house does have a scarcity of females. With my dad, my two older brothers, and
me, the womenfolk can feel overwhelmed. ”
Good reason to have a house this big, Janie saw now.
“So where is everybody?”
“Champ’s at his house with his wife and baby girl.”
“Champ?”
“Of the chess variety. Well, arm-wrestling, too. His given name is Anlon, which is too formal
for the likes of us, and means champion in Irish. My other brother is Quin, short for Quinlan,
meaning graceful. He’s a junior at Johns Hopkins.”
“And what does Raven mean, the obvious?” Janie had seen Ray’s proper name on school
papers.
“You mean, bird brain? Cawing scavenger? No, it means wise. Though Ellie’s sure to tell
you wise-guy is more like it.”
Janie smiled.
“And your mother? Where’s she?”
“Up in Wisconsin. We have a little place up there; we sleep six to a bed. We use it in summer
and for the holidays. Mom goes up early. Has a little peace and quiet to get it decorated before
the horde descends on her.”
“She’s by herself?”
“She has Fen’s big brother for company.”
 The wolfhound lay sleeping directly in front of the fire. She had a hard time imagining a dog
bigger than him.
“What’s your mom do — if I’m not being too nosy.”
“She raises funds for political candidates.”
“Really?”
“Even a ...” Ray whispered. “... Republican or two. Of the moderate persuasion , of course.”
“Does Fen approve?”
Ray laughed.
“His brother, Odin, gets agitated if someone says Democrats. When we have a political
discussion, they wind up chasing each other’s tails. It’s great fun.”
Janie could imagine.
“How did your father get into the Porsche-fixing business?” she asked.
“You mean, how come a Parkside grad is an auto mechanic?”
“Yeah.”
“You ever read Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance?”
“Sorry.”
“Well, it has to do with how you see things, physically and intellectually. How you
experience the world. Whether it’s from inside a car, metaphorically, looking at the world
through a windshield, like looking at a TV screen, or from a motorcycle with nothing between
you and what you’re seeing.”
“Is your dad a hippie?”
“Minus the drugs and long hair, maybe. Though he does like his beer. Which is one of the
reasons he fixes Porsches.”
The fire was burning low now and Janie shivered. “I’m starting to feel a little cold. Would
you mind if I sat next to you?”
Ray hesitated a moment then gestured her over. She scooted across the rug and the two of
them sat shoulder to shoulder, Janie closer to the embers, leaning against an old leather sofa.
“So how does drinking beer tie in with fixing Porsches?” she asked.
“Well, my dad played football at Parkside before the school switched over to soccer as its fall
sport. He was an offensive guard, one of the big linemen who blocks for the running backs and
protects the quarterback. He was good enough that he had football scholarship offers from three
or four schools, which was unheard of at Parkside, but all the schools wanted to convert him to
either a linebacker or a free safety.”
Janie looked at him blankly.
“The guys who make tackles, instead of the guys who block the tacklers. My dad didn’t like
that idea. He said he liked being one of the protectors who knocked problems out of the way. But
the schools recruiting him said he wasn’t big enough to do that on the college level. Turned out
to be moot because in his last game for Parkside he blew out both his left Achilles tendon and his
right patellar tendon on the same play.”
“Ouch,” Janie said, wincing.
And Ray felt her tremble against him. Made it necessary for him to clear his throat before he
could continue.
“Anyway, that was not only the end of his football career but his injuries also classified him
as 4F for the military draft, physically unqualified. He’d always intended to go to college, but
with the draft no longer hanging over his head, he decided to take a year off first. He bought a
motorcycle, rode it around this country, and then put it and himself on a boat to Europe.”
 “And he got interested in cars there?” She shivered again and said, “I’m still cold.”
There was an afghan on the sofa. Ray reached up and grabbed it, handed it to Janie. She
draped it over both of them.
He said a silent prayer: Please, Lord, don’t let Ellie — or Dad — or anyone else — come into
the room now.
“It wasn’t cars that interested dad,” Ray continued, his voice huskier now, “it was beer.”
“Ah, the connection.”
“Yeah. He was knocking around Europe and he took his bike to Munich for Oktoberfest. He
was hoping to meet some fräuleins but he met some engineers from Zuffenhausen instead.
Zuffenhausen is —”
“A little town near Stuttgart.”
“Yeah,” Ray said, surprised. “That’s where they build Porsches.”
“I know.”
Sure, he thought, no prohibition in the Prince family against owning Porsches.
He went on with his story. “Dad got into a beer-drinking contest.”
“With Germans? Wow.”
Now she was starting to annoy him.
“Yeah, with Germans. Okay, he lost, but he came close enough that they admired his effort.
They also liked the way he was relatively clean-cut for those days, that he didn’t do dope, that he
wasn’t political. When they found out he didn’t know what he wanted to do with his life, they
got him a job at the plant building Porsches. First American ever to do that. Dad liked the work:
the focus, the precision, the single-minded pursuit of excellence. He was on the job for five
years.”
“What brought him back?”
“My mom. She was in Paris and ran into my dad who was on holiday. Each of them had
recently broken up with their sweethearts. Kismet.”
“How romantic.”
Janie snuggled against Ray.
He would have felt like a total feeb if he didn’t do anything, so he put an arm around her
shoulders.
Just as Ellie called out, “I couldn’t eat all the brownies. You guys want some?”
“You come down here, I’ll break your other ankle,” Ray yelled.
“Well, excuuuuse me.”
Then they heard Ellie giggle.
“Close your door,” Ray told her.
“Aww.” A door closed.
“Now, close it from inside your bedroom. And give me a couple creaks.”
“You’re no fun at all, Ray.”
The upstairs door opened, footsteps sounded, the door closed, and floorboards above Ray and
Janie creaked twice.
“She was listening the whole time?” Janie asked quietly.
“Probably taking notes.”
“And now?”
“We better keep things PG for a few minutes.”
They rested against one another in silence. For a girl who’d said she was cold, Ray felt she
was radiating more heat than the fireplace had when the flames were high.
 “How come your father was so insistent about bringing me home with you?” Janie asked.
“Can’t you get your own dates?”
Ray laughed. Then he said, “When Dad was overseas, he lost his Uncle Michael.”
“Did he die young?”
“He didn’t die at all, as far as anyone knows. He just disappeared.”
Janie sat up, looked Ray in the eye. Waited to hear the rest.
“My granduncle, Michael Donnelly, was a city-beat reporter for the Daily News, a Chicago
paper now long defunct. He was having a beer in a neighborhood tavern one night. He put his
glass down, still half full, walked out without a word to anyone, and was never seen again. It’s
been decades now and the mystery’s never been solved.”
“That’s awful.”
“Dad’s always thought so. Makes him concerned about other people he cares for, the idea
they might vanish without explanation, too.”
“But he just met me.”
“You’re a fellow Parksider. Even if you weren’t, he has a chance to look out for you, doesn’t
take it, and something happens to you, how’s he going to feel?”
Janie slumped down against Ray again, feeling that she’d badly misjudged Ulysses Donnelly.
Not ready to own up to that, however, she changed the subject.
“Why won’t your father let you have a Porsche, the cost?” she asked
“Well, the cost is high enough, but the nobility tax doubles it.”
Janie glanced up. “Okay, what’s the nobility tax?”
“Mom and Dad think if you’re going to indulge yourself on the scale of anything beyond,
say, a two-scoop ice cream cone, you ought to set aside a like amount of money for the less
fortunate.”
“Or you’re ignoble?”
“Buy a Porsche without paying the tax, you’re the ignoble rich,” Ray said. “Source of all the
world’s ills.”
They both understood the implicit criticism here. Janie didn’t rise to the fight. She put her
arms around Ray’s chest, making him wonderfully aware of her breasts.
“You think we’re safe from Ellie now?” she asked.

Ray kissed Janie Prince. He liked it, too, the two of them huddled up to their chins under the
afghan, looking good in the dying light from the fireplace. Well, Janie looked good all of the
time.
She looked like a Breck girl, Ray thought. He remembered his mom describing a woman that
way once. A woman with soft, perfectly styled hair, clear bright eyes, retro All-American looks.
Mom said Breck shampoo had used that look for all of its models.
Janie could be one of them he thought. If the shampoo were still around.
She started kissing his neck. Lots of little kisses like she was nibbling at him. The hair on the
back of his neck stood on end. Among other things.
Then she moved her hand up his leg, starting at the knee, inching upward.
He stopped her.
“You go any higher, I’m going to mess myself,” he said.
“Well, we can’t have that, can we?” she asked with a smile.
 The reputation Princess Jane had at Parkside was that she was standoffish. Too damn good
even for the kids whose families measured their fortunes in the billions. So was it all a pose, Ray
wondered, a mask for her insecurities?
Janie whispered in his ear, “Do you want to do it?”
“It?” Ray asked, knowing perfectly well what she meant.
“It,” she repeated.
“Of course, I want to do it,” he said.
If he rued the decision soon and forever after, so be it.
She swung a leg over both of his, looked down at him.
“Have you done it before?”
“No.”
“Neither have I. Think about it much?”
“A whole lot right now.”
“Are you going with anyone at school?”
“Unh-uh.”
“Do you have a fantasy girl? You know, a senior at school? A teacher? A movie star, if you
like clichés?”
It was a measure of how pliable the moment had made him that he was ready to divulge his
secret. He only hoped Ellie didn’t have a stethoscope pressed to the floor of her room.
“My sister-in-law’s sister,” Ray told Janie.
“Is she pretty?”
“Very.”
“How old is she?”
“Twenty-seven.”
“What makes her special? Her looks, her age or is there something more?”
Ray remembered hearing Janie’s dad was a shrink. Wondered if she was playing with his
head. Decided he didn’t care. At least not yet.
“She’s divorced. Her husband left her. He had to be a jerk, walking out on someone like her.”
Janie nodded. She put her arms around Ray’s neck and kissed him.
“Would you like to pretend I’m her?” she whispered in his ear.
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Wouldn’t be fair to either of you,” he said.
She sat back on his thighs and looked at him. Her eyes reflected the embers from the
fireplace. Made her look supernatural.
“Do you like me?” she asked.
Ray told her, “More than I used to. Helping me clear away the snow went a long way to
knocking down the snooty image you have at school.”
“Maybe Ellie’s not the only one who’s Machiavellian.”
“Maybe not. If this is all a big tease, it’s a pretty good one.”
“Why shouldn’t it be a tease?” she asked. She slid forward, pressed herself against him from
hip to shoulder. “After all, I’m one of the ignoble rich.”
Complicated girl, Ray thought. He was going to have to get out of there fast, though, or he’d
mess her pants as well as his own.
Looking for an exit line, he said, “So you want to try just being friends first?”
“Yeah,” she answered. “But if you want, I could —”
 That thought was left unfinished as two sets of headlights swung into the Donnelly’s
driveway.
“Someone’s coming!” Janie said.
As long as it isn’t me, he thought.
She hopped off him, diminishing that possibility.
Ray recognized the engine note of his father’s truck. The sound of the second vehicle was
unfamiliar. He’d half expected he and Janie would face some kind of intrusion. That was the way
life in his house worked. But he’d also thought his first sexual experience would be easily timed
with a stopwatch, the way he’d heard such things went. So he’d taken his chances the
interruption would come after proper appearances had been restored. He hadn’t anticipated
Janie’s psychodrama.
He got to his feet, picked a kernel of popcorn out of a crease in his shirt, and ate it. Unless
Ellie had a mini-cam hidden in the room, they’d gotten away clean. He gave Janie a wink.
Outside, there was the sound of two vehicles opening and closing their doors.
Ray asked Janie, “You have any plans for New Year’s Eve?”
“We’re going to Stowe.”
“Aah.”
Janie looked at him, considering. “You ski?”
“Done it a couple times. Didn’t even break a leg.”
“You wouldn’t mind hobnobbing with the ignoble rich?”
“Is that what you call it?” he asked with a grin.
She slapped his shoulder, then said, “We’ll see about that.”
“Make sure we’re friends first.”
“Yes. Will you have to pay your tax?”
“Undoubtedly.”
“You have the money?”
“I’ll take out a loan if I have to.”
Janie gave him a quick kiss for that one.
Outside the front door, they heard voices laughing, and two people speaking German. Like
they were old friends.
Ray recognized his father’s voice, knew that he spoke German. The bilingualism added to
Ulysses’s aura as a Porsche wizard. But who was the woman with him?
He looked at Janie. She was staring at the front door, wearing her Princess Jane face, perfect
in all ways, save for the frown that smudged her lips
The door swung open and there stood Ulysses, somewhat bedraggled after a hard night of
snowplowing, and an expensively dressed, attractive middle-aged woman who, if Janie was a
princess, had to be the Queen —
“Mother!” Janie said.
The woman smiled and said, “Liebschen. Darling.” She turned to Ulysses and asked, “Is that
handsome boy your son, Uly?”
Ooly, Ray wondered. He and Janie shared a look of disbelief.
A beaming Ulysses told Ray, “I’d just finished cleaning up around St. Andrew’s when your
Mr. Loggins at Parkside called me. He wanted to know if it would be all right to give Mrs. Prince
my mobile number. I said, of course, and a minute later she called. This time that familiar voice
I’d heard earlier was speaking the language I’d always heard her speak in the past.”
 Mrs. Prince laughed and said, “I teased Uly for not recognizing me just because I’d spoken
English.”
“Well, that and not having heard your voice for 25 years. Anyway, O’Hare had reopened and
she’d caught a private flight home. She called to ask me if she was likely to get stuck on the road
driving home. I said not with me clearing the way for her.”
Janie’s mother squeezed Ray’s father’s hand.
“Kleine Welt,” she said.
Ray looked at Janie. She translated. “Small world.”
Wanting to know more, Ray asked, “Dad, are you saying Mrs. Prince is —”
“Romi is my old girlfriend from Germany. And now her daughter is going to school with my
son. Small world indeed!”
“And we’re all going to spend the holidays together,” Mrs. Prince told Janie and Ray.
“We’re going to Stowe, Dad?” Ray asked, incredulous.
“No, not Vermont. The Princes will be joining us in Wisconsin.”
Ray and Janie just looked at each other.
Her mother, his father. Their spouses. One big happy family.
Together for the holidays.
From her perch at the top of the stairs, Ellie looked on with glee and said to herself, “This
oughta be rich.”

Back to Table of Contents

Chapter 9: Speed Trap
Frank Percival’s hands tightened around the tiny wrists of the Carlisle twins the moment
he heard the sound. As he did every morning during the school year, the chief of police of the
small town of Hamilton, Illinois acted as the crossing guard for the elementary school. He didn’t
have to do it. Any cop in his 12-officer department would have been happy to do the job, even in
winter when windblown snow could sting like a shower of needles. But on a warm sunny
morning in late October seeing gaggles of young smiling faces safely into their classrooms was
nothing short of a pleasure. It sure beat anything Percival had done in his 30 years in the Chicago
Police Department.
The chief’s head swiveled to his right, sighting along Dirksen Street, as he tracked the sound.
At first he thought it was the roar of a car engine. Then it seemed higher pitched, a lumber mill
saw ripping through raw pine. Gary and Sherry Carlisle, first graders whose mother watched
them walk the one block from their home to Percival’s corner, now clung to the chief’s legs,
trembling as the noise grew louder, more menacing.
Maybe three blocks up Dirksen, between the well-kept modest houses that lined the street,
Percival spotted the source of the ungodly racket: a motorcycle.
It was coming his way, traveling faster than the chief could believe. Faster than he’d ever
seen anything move on a roadway. It was perversely fascinating, almost magical, how rapidly the
machine and its rider drew near, grew larger, gained visual definition ... blasted right past the
automated speed display board that warned motorists to slow down for the school zone.
The chief pulled the Carlisle twins back from the curb. If that goddamn motorcycle ever hit
any — Oh, Jesus!
The chief whipped his head in the opposite direction. All the children who came to any
corner of his intersection knew they had to wait for him to escort them across the street. For that
very reason, some of the older kids would go out of their way to cross the street a block north of
his post.
Sure enough, there was Tommy Craddick riding his bicycle across the street. The fourth-
grader had his head turned to look in the direction of the oncoming motorcycle. Even from a
block away, Percival could see the boy’s eyes were wide with fear.
“Pedal, Tommy!” the chief shouted. “Get out of the way!”
His warning was drowned out by the tidal wave of sound from the motorcycle as it rocketed
past where the chief was standing. He watched helplessly, fearing for the boy’s life. But
Tommy’s instincts were sound; he didn’t need anyone to tell him to get the hell out of the way.
His young legs pumped as hard as they could.
His effort was helped by the guy on the motorcycle swerving left to avoid the child ... which
then lined the biker up to T-bone the school bus that just nosed into the intersection. As fast as
the motorcycle was traveling, Percival thought it might knock the bus over or maybe cut right
through it like an artillery shell. In either case, kids would die.
But the motorcyclist veered hard right, missing the front of the bus by a margin too small for
the chief to discern. The rider then tried to lean back to the left to complete his slalom, but his
front wheel clipped the curb on the far side of the intersection. Both man and machine flew into
the air, high and far. Once again, Percival was sure he was about to witness a death.
 Only fate had another idea, one that Percival never would have believed if he didn’t see it
with his own eyes. Both the biker and his machine fell to earth not against unforgiving concrete
or blacktop but atop two long neatly laid-out rows of brown bags stuffed to the brim with fallen
autumnal leaves. A homeowner’s pride of property saved the cretin’s life.
Percival was about to run to the scene when he realized he still had a 50-pound child fastened
to each leg. But Mrs. Carlisle was there a second later to claim her children.
“Chief, what was that thing?”
Percival had no time to answer. He could see that the biker hadn’t even been knocked
unconscious. He was starting to move. No way Percival was going to let him get back on his
goddamn motorcycle. He ran as fast as he could.
He was maybe 20 feet away when the biker managed to sit up among the burst bags of
leaves. Cully Egan. He should have known. Nineteen years old and Hamilton’s only a felon-in-
training.
Dumb ass looked at Percival with a grin and asked, “Hey, Chief, that speed-board clock my
ride? I was tryin’ for 205. Did I get it?”
Frank Percival shoved Cully Egan back down, rolled him over, and cuffed him.

Cully was the son of Beatty Egan, the man who was unofficially responsible for Frank
Percival becoming chief of police in Hamilton. Beatty had precipitated matters by driving off
Hamilton’s previous top cop. He’d done so by tying the man to the top of the grain silo during a
thunderstorm. Beatty had told the hapless lawman that if he didn’t get hit by lightning he’d let
him go ... but if he didn’t leave town before the next storm, he’d put him right back up there.
The former chief was being taught a lesson for having the nerve to ask Beatty if maybe he
was running a crystal meth lab on his property, selling large volumes of amphetamines to an
outlaw motorcycle gang. Word of this possibility had reached the former chief from nervous
neighbors of the Egan property who reported regular visits by ten-to-twenty bikers wearing
Satan’s Sons colors, dog fights, random fusillades of gunfire, at least two occasions where men
and women ran naked in the fields and copulated under a full moon, and no sign whatsoever that
Beatty had farmed any corn or soybeans in the past five years.
The town fathers sought to fill their vacancy by placing a help-wanted ad in a national police
trade journal. Frank Percival, then in his mid-50s, former beat cop, detective, and SWAT team
commander for the CPD answered the ad. He’d expected, if he got any response at all, to be
invited downstate to Hamilton to see the town, meet the people. But the selection committee
traveled to Chicago to take a look at him.
When Percival saw the delegation from Hamilton the first thing that came to mind was the
band of Mexican peasants who had hired Yul Brynner and the rest of The Magnificent Seven.
They were that fearful; that determined, too.
At first, they’d tried to pretend that they were there simply to hire him for an ordinary job.
Told him about the department, its facilities, what his pay and benefits would be. How Hamilton
was a truly fine place to live ... except for Beatty Egan and the problems he caused.
Frank Percival listened, told them they’d have his answer within a week. He’d intended to
tell them no. He’d had his fill of violent assholes. He didn’t need dealing with some small-town
terror. He’d probably have to kill the sonofabitch. Then, likely as not, he’d wind up in court,
having to defend his actions. Giving the matter additional thought, he decided he wanted to
relocate to someplace warm.
 It was Frank’s wife, Sally, who got him to change his mind. For every year Frank had put in
with the cops, Sally had matched him with one in the Chicago public schools, first as a teacher
and then a principal. By his own admission, Frank thought Sally’d had the tougher job. One from
which she’d never backed down an inch.
So he listened when she said, “You can’t take care of this one jerk for these people? You
know I’m not going to California with its earthquakes or Florida with its hurricanes, and forget
about some sandbox in a desert somewhere. But you said you’d get five weeks vacation on this
job. So we’ll take three, maybe four, in the winter. Go to nice warm places all around the world.
Someplace new every year.”
Sounded pretty good to Percival, even if he had reason to be suspicious of his wife. Sally had
grown up in Minnesota. She liked cold weather. Probably try to get him to take up cross-country
skiing. Ice fishing. Even so, he agreed to give Hamilton a try.
In the week before Percival officially started his job, somebody shot all six of Beatty Egan’s
pit bulls. The animals were done in by long-range sniper shots. And then there was a tremendous
explosion in a stand of trees on his property. The blast set the woods on fire. Neighbors for miles
came to watch. They saw Beatty running around like a madman, screaming curses into the night.
But he never called the fire department.
The author of Beatty’s troubles was never found.
Chief Percival had the pleasure of meeting Beatty Egan not ninety minutes after he was
sworn in. Beatty stopped by the chief’s office to introduce himself. Perhaps upset by his recent
reversals of fortune, Beatty sought to make Percival’s acquaintance by reaching across his desk,
grabbing him by the front of his shirt and yanking him to his feet.
Red-faced, Beatty began a tutorial for the new lawman, “You listen real close. This is how
things work around here and —”
Beatty didn’t get to elaborate. Percival raised the billy-club he’d held alongside his leg and
drove the tip smartly into Beatty’s solar plexus. The blow dislodged Beatty’s grip on the chief
and doubled the thug over, leaving the crown of his head perfectly positioned for the blow that
fractured his skull.
“That’s how it works around here now,” Percival said before he called the paramedics.
Beatty Egan was charged with and convicted of criminal trespass and assault on a police
officer. There was no need for any witness to corroborate the chief’s testimony. He’d set up a
video camera in his office. The jury got to see the whole thing.
Beatty Egan went away to serve a ten-year jolt.
Eight patrol units from the Illinois State Police were waiting the night the Sons of Satan
towed a double-wide trailer onto the Egan property to set up a new speed lab. Each patrol unit
contained four troopers, giving the cops a two-to-one edge over the bikers, all of whom would
soon join Beatty Egan in the joint. The state cops had responded to a request from Percival, who
knew the commander of the district barracks from his days with the Chicago PD.
With Beatty and his drug business out of the picture, Hamilton might well have become
Mayberry ... if it hadn’t been for Beatty’s son, Cully.

Cully had passed his adolescence chronically truant from school, before he was allowed to
drop out altogether. His mother had wisely abandoned her husband many years earlier. Perhaps it
said something about what she’d seen in her son that she hadn’t taken the boy with her. Which
wasn’t to say that Cully had lacked female role models. Many of the biker mamas thought he
was the cutest little thing they’d ever seen. On such occasions as Cully had made it to school,
he’d boasted that he’d been getting all the sex he wanted since he first had fuzz on his nuts.
While he was barely literate, Cully had learned the intricacies of tearing apart a motorcycle
engine and putting it back together. He was a gifted mechanic. His father, a couple years before
Percival came to town, had even opened a small repair shop on the edge of Hamilton for the boy.
None of the townsfolk ever patronized the business, but the biker brethren did, and it came in
handy when explaining Beatty’s cash-flow to the taxman.
As for what the elder Egan did with his money, he didn’t go in for anything that would leave
a paper-trail. He managed his funds the old-fashioned way. He buried his cash on his property.
That was local folklore, anyway. A field of mason jars stuffed with government green, just
waiting for someone to dig it all up. Thing was, even with Beatty locked up for ten years, nobody
wanted to go treasure hunting out at his place. Mean sonofabitch was bound to get out or break
out of jail someday. Maybe come back after Chief Percival had moved on.
Cully, obviously, was permitted to dip into his daddy’s money. He had funds to pay the
property taxes on the family farm. He bought a new motorcycle that cost more than most
people’s cars. He kept the lights on at the farmhouse, and just about every weekend he had some
foolish farm-girl out there carrying on with him.
Beatty Egan’s boy was doing just fine without any visible means of support.
Just out of curiosity, Percival had asked him one time where he got his money.
“Don’t tell me it’s from your repair shop,” the chief said. “All your customers are in stir.”
Cully gave him a dirty-toothed grin and said, “I consult on the Internet.”
“Yeah?” Percival asked, grinning right back at the kid.
“People anywhere in the world got problems with their bikes, I’m the man to see. I tell ‘em
how to fix the suckers.”
The Internet, the chief thought. Yeah, right. He knew Cully visited Beatty in prison once a
month. That had to be where the kid had gotten his bullshit story. It wouldn’t have been hard to
knock it down, but Percival figured Beatty had maybe a year or two more in the joint before
somebody shanked him. Once sonny-boy was alone in the world, he’d have another talk with
him.
In the meantime, the chief and the townspeople were content to let Cully hover on the edge
of the community and their collective consciousness.
Until the morning he tried to do 205 in a school zone.

Percival stepped into the hallway that ran outside the Hamilton PD’s two holding cells. Cully
was in one; the other was empty. The click of the chief’s heels on the cement floor roused the
prisoner from the open-eyed stupor in which he lay.
Cully smiled at Percival.
“Well, did I do it? Get my 205? You gotta know by now.”
What Cully had done was fry the speed-board’s circuits. It had recorded his speed as 999
miles per hour. Which was impossible, but still would have given the young fool a thrill and a
story to tell for the rest of his life. Percival wasn’t about to give him that satisfaction.
“Why’d you do it?” he asked Cully.
His prisoner blinked. “I was goin’ for the record, a course.”
It was with regret that the chief accepted the possibility there could be such a record. Still, he
asked, “What record is that?”
 Cully lifted his feet off his cot and set them on the floor, engaging in serious conversation
now. “The one for outlaw biker street racing. Some boy out in Pennsylvania or Minnesota or
somewhere set it. State troopers clocked him with an airplane.”
“And you...”
“I had to show I could do as good.” Cully frowned. “Only thinking about it now, I figure I
shoulda gone that boy one better. Got my bike up to 206.” Cully stood up, approached the bars
that confined him, and put his hands around two of them. “Did I do it, set a new record?”
Percival thought he might have. Who the hell knew? But he said, “No.”
Cully cursed and kicked a bar, sending him hopping in pain back to his cot.
“Well, did I get close at least?” he asked, holding his wounded foot.
An idea took shape in Percival’s mind. “Two oh five,” he said. “You tied the record.”
Cully grinned like the idiot he was. Then his look turned sly.
Percival asked him, “You ran Dirksen Street so you could clock your speed, right?”
“Yeah. What else was I gonna do? Ain’t no cops with airplanes ‘round here.”
“Why didn’t you wait until the kids were all in school?”
“I thought they shoulda been. What I remember of when school started. But I just finished
modifyin’ my bike, you know. I had a real itch to get on it and go. To be honest, I didn’t
rightfully know if it was day or night, and I didn’t care.”
“In law enforcement we call that depraved indifference,” Percival told him.
Recognizing the official turn the conversation had taken, Cully asked, “So what’s my fine?
When do I get out of here?”
“Your fine?” Percival responded. “We’re still adding zeroes on to the end of it.”
“You can do shit like that?” Cully asked, outraged.
“Oh, yeah. It’s gonna be big. You got any money you want me to dig up for you?”
Cully narrowed his eyes, clamped his mouth shut.
Percival told him, “Get comfortable then. You’re going to be here a while.”

“I don’t know how long we can hold the little shit,” Percival told the mayor and the four
members of the town council.
“Why not?” the five men asked as one.
“I’m having trouble coming up with a charge,” the chief said.
“How about speeding?” the mayor asked caustically. “Or is that too obvious?”
“Okay,” Percival said. “I pull out my citation book and how fast do I say he was going? Only
record we have says he was doing 999 miles per hour. I don’t think that’ll stand up in court. Or I
could write in way too fast. But a judge might think that’s a little vague.”
“How about public endangerment?” a councilman asked. “That’s a good charge.”
“And it was certainly the case,” Percival agreed. “Everyone knows it’s true. But, again,
proving it in court is probably impossible. Pauline Carlisle was right there when Cully shot past
and she couldn’t even tell what it was she’d just seen. How are we going to prove he actually
endangered anyone? A defense attorney will say he didn’t hit anyone and, in fact, did his best to
avoid striking either Tommy Craddick or the school bus. Under oath, I’d have to corroborate
that. Worst we could get him for is busting up a bunch of leaf bags that cost Dave Melvin maybe
$20.”
“This is outrageous,” the mayor said. “We have to do something. I had a hundred people call
me this morning and they all said the same thing: ‘Lock him up and throw away the key!’”
 Percival shrugged. “Anybody else, I could at least scare him out of town. Cully, though, no
way he’s leaving daddy’s money behind. Or digging it up while we watch him.”
There was no disagreement about that.
“What’s worse, he’s going to try it again,” the chief said. “I could see it in his eyes. The next
time the mood strikes him, he’ll get back on his bike and do his best to go 206. Tough shit if
someone gets in his way.”
“Well,” one councilman said quietly, “we could just shoot the little asshole.”
His municipal brethren considered the idea but didn’t feel right actually planning a murder
with the chief of police present.
“I have another idea,” Percival said. “But there are a couple things I’ll need from the five of
you.”
With some hesitation, the mayor asked, “What’s that?”
The chief told them.

Cully was looking out his cell window at an approaching thunderstorm when they put a guy
in the next cell. Cully had never seen the guy before, meant he was from out of town. Guy had
greasy black hair and a face like a rat. That was his business, but what Cully didn’t like was the
way the guy was smiling at him. He even had pointy teeth like a rat.
“The hell you grinnin’ at?” Cully wasn’t as big as his daddy, but he had more size on him
than Ratface.
Who just laughed at him. Sat on his bunk, pulled out a pack of smokes and a silver lighter.
He lit his cigarette, inhaled deeply, and blew smoke rings at Cully.
“I’m grinning at you, dumbass.”
Cully moved to the bars that separated the two cells.
“You wanna come over here and say that, you ugly little fucker?”
Ratface grinned around his cigarette.
“I could do that. I mean, if you’re sure that’s what you want.”
Cully looked at Ratface just sitting there smoking and smiling, his damn teeth looking like
they’d been filed to those points. Then Cully recalled that all his possessions had been taken
from him before he’d been put in his cell. So how’d Ratface hold on to his smokes and a lighter?
Had to be the dip-shit cop who’d brought him in didn’t frisk him right. That was the case ... who
knew what else the fucker might have in his pockets? A knife, maybe.
Cully stepped away from the bars. Went back to looking out his window. Storm was getting
close now. Had to be about the last big rainstorm of the year. Snow would be next.
He heard Ratface cough. Thought good: Die from cancer right now.
“You want a smoke?” Ratface asked.
Cully looked over at him, shook his head.
“Your name’s Cully Egan,” Ratface said. “Good hillbilly name for a hick town like this.”
“Yeah, what’s your name, dickwad? And how’d you know mine anyway?”
“My name doesn’t matter. But I heard the cops talking about you while they were writing me
up.”
“So what?” Cully asked.
Ratface lit a second cigarette off the butt of the first.
“It was me,” he said, “I’d want to know what the cops have in mind for me.”
Shit. The little fucker had Cully there. “So what’re they gonna do?”
Ratface held his hands wide.
 “First, why don’t we see if there’s something you can do for me?”
“Fuck you,” Cully said. He went to looking back out the window, saw the rain had started,
was coming down heavy.
“Okay, have it your way,” Ratface told him.
Cully glanced at the little man in the next cell. Bastard was stretched out on his bunk, eyes
closed, puffing away like he didn’t have a care in the world.
“I don’t have anything to give you,” Cully complained. Then a sickening thought occurred to
him. “I sure as hell ain’t gonna blow you or nothin’.”
Ratface opened his eyes and looked at Cully. Smiled again. Damn those pointy teeth.
“That’s okay, darling. You aren’t my type.” He sat up and put his feet on the floor. “I know
you don’t have anything to give me now. But what I overheard, you got a whole lot of money
stashed on some farm.”
Cully’s face turned hard. But as long as they were getting personal, he asked, “How’d you
keep those smokes and that lighter. They took all my stuff.”
Ratface’s smile disappeared. He was all business now.
“I didn’t keep them; I stole them. Right off the cop that brought me in here. I’m a
pickpocket.”
Cully grinned. He’d heard about pickpockets, but he’d never met one. It woulda been kinda
cool knowing one, the two of them hadn’t been locked up.
Ratface lay back down. He said to Cully, “You know, I’ll tell you for free. I don’t believe a
shitkicker like you is smart enough to have any money anyway.”
Cully was smart enough to keep his mouth shut.
“What they’re gonna do, kid, is give you one day in the county jail for every mile per hour
you did over the speed limit. I heard some idiot cop say that’ll keep you locked up for 190 days.”
Ratface looked over at Cully. “But I don’t believe that bullshit, either.”
Cully sprang back to the bars. “You better believe it, asshole. I was clocked doin’ 205 on my
bike.”
“Yeah, right.”
“Goddamnit, I was!”
Ratface grew thoughtful. “So maybe I’m wrong. Maybe you do have some money hidden
somewhere. Well, that’s your tough luck. Those cops out there? They figure six months is long
enough to find it.”
Cully sank to his knees and wailed. His daddy was going to kill him when he found out Cully
had let all his money get taken. In the depths of his misery, the boy heard a cheerful tinkling
sound. Was just like someone jangling ...
Keys! Ratface dangled them from one hand, still lying on his cot and smoking.
Cully asked, “Are those—”
“Sure are, kid.”
“Then you ‘n’ me can—”
“Unh-uh. I fuck with the screws just for the fun of it. But I’m feeling good my case is going
to get shit-canned. I break jail, though, I’m in real trouble.”
“Well, what about me, goddamnit?” Cully asked.
“What about you?”
“I gotta get outta here before my money gets stole.”
“How much money we talking about?” Ratface asked.
Cully told him and was pleased when the little creep whistled.
 “Tell you what,” Ratface said. “You leave me, say, ten grand, I’ll give you the keys. After
you tell me where I can find my money, of course. You get away with your pile, good for you.
You get caught and rat on me, I’ll find you and gut you like a fish.”
Ratface had his mouth open, and now Cully saw the real menace of those teeth.
“You’d do the same thing if I don’t leave your share for you?”
Ratface nodded.
“Okay, okay.” Cully told him where he’d find his money. “Now, gimme them keys.”
Ratface tossed them without looking. They sailed neatly between the bars and into Cully’s
hands. He saw Ratface close his eyes again. This time he wasn’t smoking.
“Good luck, kid,” he said. “Don’t wake me when you go.”

Cully took his boots off so he could move quiet. He opened his cell door, but he didn’t leave
right off. He waited to see if there was some kind of alarm that was about to sound. That
happened, he’d pull the door shut and toss the keys back at Ratface. Hit the little fucker in the
head if he could.
But there was no alarm and after a minute he moved silently to the end of the lockup
hallway. The door there had a small window in its upper half. Cully sneaked a peek. Couldn’t see
a damn soul. There was a cup of coffee on a desk outside, but no steam rising from it. Didn’t
look like anyone would be back to drink it soon.
Still, he was scared shitless to go any farther. He got caught breaking jail, he’d be locked up
a lot longer than six months. Of course, that wouldn’t matter. He let those crooked cops dig up
his daddy’s money, he was dead anyway. His fear of his father finally got Cully to open the door.
He was mortally relieved when no one was in the office outside ... but he did hear someone
talking ... and someone else moaning ... and two men laughing.
Jesus! The screws were watching a porn flick. The shit some people did when they were
supposed to be working. Right now, though, that was fine by him. He went to the cupboard
where he’d seen that damn chief of police put the keys to his bike. The cupboard was locked, but
a key on Ratface’s ring opened it.
He grabbed the key to his bike and headed for freedom, but being who he was he skidded to a
stop and listened to the sounds of the porn show, trying to decide if he knew the title. It’d make a
good detail when he told the story of his jailbreak. Only he might not get any nookie ever again
if he stayed there too long.
Cully exited the building and was immediately drenched, but he saw where his bike was
parked. Had a big damn chain and lock on it. Ratface’s keys came through one last time.
He pulled his boots on, slipped his key into the bike’s ignition, tapped the gear shifter and let
in the clutch. Had to ease off on the gas when he felt the back end start to go sideways. Then he
was under control and able to pick up speed. Would’ve been a whole lot better if it wasn’t
raining so hard, he thought, but as long as he kept blinking real fast he could see pretty good.
He figured he had time to dig up his daddy’s money before they saw he was gone. He’d get
that done and never come back to this shitty little town.

Chief Frank Percival sat in his patrol unit. A minute earlier, a voice had reached him through
the earpiece that he wore.
“He’s out,” Ratface had said.
 Percival clicked his transmitter two times in acknowledgment. A moment later he saw the
escaped Cully Egan unchain his bike and head out in the direction of the family farm. The chief
turned his engine on, put on his lights and windshield wipers. Had to set the wipers to high.
He hoped Cully would be able to see what he’d left for him at the side of the road.

Cully thought at first some goddamn fool on an ATV was headed straight at him. Well
maybe the jackass was just a little off to his right, on the shoulder of the road. But it was a soft
shoulder here, and with all the rain it had to be pure mud by now. So whoever was coming at him
had to have some serious off-road vehicle.
Only who the hell except a fugitive would be out on a night like this?
A sudden electronic WHOOP gave him his answer.
Daring to glance over his shoulder, he saw a cop car, light bar all lit up and now its howler
started blaring nonstop, WHOOP-WHOOP-WHOOP. Telling him to pull over and give his ass
up. But the way things were, he might as well shoot himself as give up. Maybe he wouldn’t have
time to dig up Daddy’s money now, but he could sure as hell outrun a lousy cop car. Then he’d
go somewhere nobody’d ever think to look for him. Not even his old man.
Cully fed gas to his engine and right quick he could see the lights ahead weren’t any ATV.
They were the lights on the speed board. Someone had moved it from its place on Dirksen Street
near the school to out here. He didn’t know why, but the way the numbers on the board were
climbing — like a damn rocket ship — he was glad they did.
He was doing better than 100 already. He tapped his foot, shifting up a gear, gave it some
more gas and watched the board: 121. The road-water hissed under his wheels like someone laid
a steam iron on it: 145. He hunched low over his handlebars and let his bike run flat out ...
167 ... 182 ...191. He was fixated on the board. Nothing else existed for him. He was going to do
it. He was going to set a new world record. In the goddamn rain. One ninety-eight ... 202 ... he
was so close now. Close to the record but close to the speed board, too. He might not see what
speed he hit as he went past. But no way could he slow down. He leaned further out over his
bike, urging it to break the record while he could still see it, and there it was: 207!
Hot damn.
Then, just before he shot past, the number changed again: 999.
Which was fast enough to scare even Cully. Anything going that speed ought to be airborne.
Which he soon noted he was. He had missed the curve in the road just past the speed board. But
he’d hit a trough of standing water, hydroplaned, and taken off. Now, if he remembered right,
directly ahead there was an ...

Oak tree, massive and ancient. It shattered the motorcycle with only a small loss of bark. It
blotted up Cully Egan like a paper towel absorbing a spill. There was a small fire when the
bike’s gas take ruptured but it was quickly put out by the downpour.
Frank Percival pulled to a stop and observed what had happened. Just the way a punk like
Cully Egan should go out, he judged. By his own witless doing without causing harm to anyone
else. The chief carefully turned his car around on the narrow road and hitched the speed board to
the back end. In twenty minutes, he’d have it towed back to its customary spot. His department
would show no record of any prisoner intake, pickpocket or otherwise, on the night Cully Egan
had escaped custody.
He would take full responsibility for that lapse in security that allowed Cully to escape and
resign his position. His departure was one of the conditions the mayor and the town council had
to accept. The other was to accelerate his pension eligibility from the Hamilton PD. Now, he’d
get two retirement checks to keep him going.
There might be some who’d find the circumstances of Cully’s demise suspicious. Sally, for
one. Sally, now his ex-wife. When she and Percival had come to town there’d been a job open at
the district high school for a chemistry teacher, her specialty, and wouldn’t you know it, she’d
fallen for the school principal. Hell of a thing, moving someplace new and having your wife
leave you. Especially after she’d blown up a meth lab for you. Yeah, Sally might guess what he
had done, but she wouldn’t be talking.
Of course, Percival might have figured out a less drastic way to deal to with Cully Egan, if
he’d wanted to stay in Hamilton. If Sally hadn’t left him.
As it was, he thought it was time to try someplace warm.

Back to Table of Contents

Chapter 10: Younger Woman
They called themselves the Three Houseketeers. Trisha Nolan was 45; Casey Severin was
46; Mimi Hirsch was 48. They each had two kids. They all lived on the North Side of Chicago in
a neighborhood that had been iffy when they’d bought in and then had gentrified around them.
During the early years, they watched out for each other and for all of their kids. Sharing the
perils of the urban frontier and then the joys of watching their environs prosper created strong
bonds between them. Now they were united in complaints about skyrocketing property taxes.
Whenever they had a reason to celebrate, they treated themselves to lunch at The Cheesecake
Factory on the lower level of the Hancock Building. As the weather was fine that early
September day, they dined outside. The occasion was the departure that morning of Mimi’s
younger daughter for college.
Deedee’s exit meant all of them were now empty-nesters. They raised their margarita glasses
to their good fortune and, calories be damned, ordered cheeseburgers for lunch. Their
conversation was as light as their plates were heavy. It was an unspoken rule among the
Houseketeers that if somebody was having a banner day you didn’t spoil it with bad news.
But by the time Mimi and Trisha swabbed up their last dollops of ketchup with their last
french fries they both knew that something was wrong with Casey — despite the brave face she
was putting on for her friends.
As it was Mimi’s big day, she was the one who got to break protocol.
“What’s wrong, Casey?”
She told them, “I think Mark has fallen in love with a younger woman.”

Something like that, you didn’t talk about it at a café table with people buzzing all around
you. They walked to the lakefront. They took off their shoes, rolled up their pant legs, sat on the
concrete shoreline, and dangled their toes in the water. The lake level was high that year.
“So who is she?” Trisha asked. “And should we kill her?”
“Or at least dent her car,” Mimi countered.
“No, don’t do either of those things,” Casey told her friends.
“Why not?” they asked.
“Well, for one thing, I’m the younger woman.”
Trisha and Mimi leaned forward to look past Casey, who sat between them, and at each
other. Then they regarded Casey.
“Okay, Lucy,” Mimi said in her best Desi Arnaz voice, “you got some splainin’ to do.”
“You remember my dad passed away last year?” Casey said.
Trisha and Mimi did. After she’d heard the news, Casey had spent all night crying on Mark’s
shoulder. The next day she’d spent crying with them. No, they hadn’t forgotten.
“Well,” Casey continued, “Mom’s ready to sell the house now. She’s going to live with my
sister, Bobbi. Anyway, she was cleaning out the attic, deciding which of Dad’s things to give to
family and which would go to the Salvation Army. When she got to Dad’s old view camera, she
remembered that Mark had always been fascinated by it, and she thought how much she’d
always appreciated how close Mark and Dad had been. So she sent it to him.”
Casey’s thoughts drifted until Mimi gave her a nudge.
“Get to the good part,” she said.
 “Along with the camera Mom sent this picture Dad took of me when I was 19. I never meant
for Mark to see it.”
Trisha knitted her brow. “What could be so bad?”
Mimi added, “If the photographer had been anyone other than your dad, I’d think we were
talking about a nudie here.”
Casey blushed ... and looks of creeping uneasiness crossed on her friends faces. Until Casey
set them straight.
“Of course, I wasn’t nude. My dad was as proper a man as ever lived. But the picture ... it
was a bit provocative.”
“Meaning what, exactly?” Trisha asked.
“It’s hard to talk about, but for maybe an insane week or two I thought about being a model,”
Casey said.
Her friends raised their eyebrows. Casey had always been slim and attractive but in an All-
American girl sort of way. A soccer mom who could get out on the field and play the game if she
wanted. In the last few years, though, she’d let herself go a little. But who the hell hadn’t?
“I was the one who asked my dad to take the picture,” Casey said. “He’d go out and shoot
every building for which he ever did a rendering. You know, to see how close the architects
came to his drawings. He shots were so great that I thought maybe he could do okay with me.”
“Only maybe he did a lot better than you ever expected?” Trisha asked.
“Uh-huh. I couldn’t believe I was the girl in the picture. I mailed it to an agency in New York
and they sent me a first-class airplane ticket and said come see them right away.”
“So how come you’re a hausfrau and not on magazine covers, sweetie?” Mimi asked.
Casey splashed the water with her foot. Took a minute to answer.
“I got to New York, stood in front of the agency’s building, and I was too scared to go in. I
knew if I did I’d be setting off on something that ... well, it made my knees weak when I got
right up close to it. I turned around and went home. I wanted to forget the whole thing, but my
dad made me call the head of the agency and apologize to her. Made me repay my travel
expenses, too. Which took me about a year.”
“And after all this time,” Trisha said, “that old picture still packs a punch?”
Casey gave each of her friends a stern look. One that said: You’ll take this secret to your
graves with you. They bobbed their heads in acquiescence.
“At first, I didn’t think so. When Mark first saw it, he didn’t seem to make too much of it. It
was almost as if he’d seen it before; but I sure hadn’t shown it to him. I was relieved. I thought
I’d stick it the back of a photo album and it’d be forgotten. But then he asked me if I wanted to
go to the frame store with him. He said he wanted to frame my picture. Get just the right mat for
it. I kept putting him off, but he kept looking at the picture, staring at it more every day. His face
got this dreamy look when he did. I could see the wheels turning in his head.”
“Or maybe you were just imagining,” Mimi said.
Casey shook her head.
“Last week I was washing dishes. Mark and I, we’d had some wine with dinner. Without
looking away from the sink, I asked if there was anything more to wash. He came up behind me
and brought me his wine glass. There was a sip or two left in it. He held it up to my lips so I
could finish the wine and then he put the glass in the sink. I thought that was sweet of him,
giving me the last drink. Then ...
 “I felt him slip his hands inside the waistband of my shorts. And my panties, too. The next
thing I knew they were both around my ankles and Mark was, you know, right there, ready to go.
And I still had had my hands in rubber gloves and soap suds.”
Trisha and Mimi looked at each other, amazed.
Casey’s eyes took on the soft focus of someone recalling a potent memory.
“The past few years, things haven’t been as fluid as they once were. I can’t be ready at the
drop of a hat. But that night it was as easy as it’s ever been. And we did it right there at the sink.
Which is something I still have a hard time believing.”
“Well, sure,” Trisha said. “How many girls have an orgasm doing the dishes?”
Mimi wanted to know, “Did you? Have an orgasm?”
Casey nodded. “But I stopped washing for a while.”
“Damn, this must be one hot picture of you,” Trisha said.
“Can we see it?” Mimi asked. “Tell me we can.”
Casey returned to the moment, looked at each of her friends.
“Mark is inviting the Nolans and the Hirsches to the unveiling this Saturday night, but if
you’re really my friends, you’ll stay home. And keep your husbands with you.”
Two-thirds of the Houseketeers just laughed.

They all came, Trisha and Paul, Mimi and Ed, but Casey made them wait. She insisted they
eat dinner first. She prepared five courses. Trisha and Mimi had the difficult job of restraining
their husbands from wolfing their food while they delicately shoveled it in as fast as they could.
Mark didn’t comment on this vaudeville act but he did smirk.
Casey thought it was only slightly less embarrassing than if she’d simply posed nude on the
dining room table while the others gorged around her.
In due course, dessert was consumed, mouths were patted clean with linen napkins, and after-
dinner drinks were politely declined. The company repaired to the living room where Mark had
already hung the picture and draped it with a white silk cloth.
He stood next to it and said, “I’ve always thought Casey was a good looking woman. She
caught my eye the first time we were in the same room. But I didn’t realize just how gorgeous
she really is until I saw this picture.”
Ed Hirsch commented, “More’s the pity that her dad has passed on; he could have done one
of Mimi and Trisha.”
Mimi gave Ed an elbow to the ribs.
But Mark told him, “Tom was a meticulous records-keeper. We used to compare notes all the
time. Maybe I—”
“Yeah, right,” Trisha said, “just as soon as Mimi and I are nineteen again we’ll circle a date
on our calendars.”
“Come on, come on,” Paul said. “Let’s see what the fuss is all about.”
Mark nodded and pulled the silk cover off with a flourish.
Casey watched her guests’ reactions closely, especially Trisha’s and Mimi’s. Their husband’s
impressions were secondary. Besides, she was sure Mark would be watching the two men
closely. Mimi let out a long low whistle.
And Trisha said softly, “Hubba-hubba.”
Paul and Ed just got big round eyes.
What they all saw was a 19-year old Casey Mulroy, dark hair shining, skin as fair as the
morning sun, deep blue eyes holding infinite mysteries. At first glimpse, she did appear to be
nude, standing tall and slim and proud. Her face and graceful neck led the eye to bare shoulders
and a floating slope of cleavage, and her left leg was bare from sleek thigh to tapered calf to
slender ankle. At either side of her hovered two long delicate hands. The area between the
revealed skin was pitch black, as was the background, leaving it to the imagination to complete
the picture. But on further examination the highlights of Casey’s black satin dress became
apparent and with them the contours of her body, aiding whatever thoughts the viewer had
already conjured.
After a silence long enough to make her uncomfortable, Casey said, “It’s all trick
photography.”
“Damn good trick,” Ed replied looking over at her.
Everyone was looking at her now, making the inevitable comparisons. Casey hadn’t let
herself go that badly, but compared to the girl in the picture she felt like the Hindenburg, and if
people didn’t stop staring soon, she might explode, too.
Fortunately, Mimi and Trisha sensed her mood and dragged their husbands out the door,
issuing thanks for an enjoyable evening. After they were gone, Mark looked at his wife.
“Have a good time?” he asked.
“A million laughs.”
“Come on, it wasn’t that bad. Bet the girls give you a lot of compliments.”
“We’ll see. I’m going to take a hot shower.”
“I don’t get any help with the clean up?”
“No, you do the dishes tonight.”

“I was a bitch the rest of the weekend,” Casey told the Houseketeers.
“Well, sure,” Trisha said, “you glamour queens always are.
Mimi chuckled.
They were riding the “L” to the Merchandise Mart. Mimi wanted to get some new furniture
and Trisha had the design credentials to get them into showrooms that were off-limits to the
public. The morning rush was an hour past and they had one end of the car to themselves. The
ever-changing face of the city raced past below them.
“I feel like Mark’s cheating on me every time we make love. Which is crazy because how
can he cheat on me when I know he’s thinking of me? Only he’s not thinking of me the way I am
now but the way I was then. Goddamnit, I wish my mother had never sent me that picture. I want
to smash it every time I walk past.”
Mimi took Casey’s hand. “It really is a stunning picture. You were beautiful. It’s only natural
that Mark feels the way he does. If I were married to you I’d feel the same way.” Mimi added her
other hand to Casey’s and pitched her voice much deeper. “In fact, I do want to marry you. I
must have you, I must.” Mimi made little kissing sounds.
Casey yanked her hand free, and Trisha laughed.
“Fine friends you two are.”
“The best,” Trisha said. She got her laughter under control and continued, “Let’s get real
here. You’ve got the best of both worlds. Your husband loves you and now you’re his fantasy
girl, too. How do you top that?”
Casey parried, “But what about the pressure? I can never look that good again.”
“Has Mark asked you to try?” Mimi inquired.
“No, but isn’t it clear that’s what he’d like?”
Trisha said, “Hell, girl, we’d all like to be in our 20s again.”
 Mimi added. “Even if the two of us never looked quite so fair as you did.”
Trisha nodded. “Should we tell her now?”
“Tell me what?” Casey asked.
“We’re going to join a gym, Trish ‘n’ me,” Mimi said.
“Think about a little cosmetic surgery.”
“Maybe fly off to a Swiss clinic. Have some of those forever-young treatments.”
“You two are so full of it,” Casey told her friends.
The train pulled into the stop for the Merchandise Mart and they got off.
“Well, we are going to join a gym. You’re welcome to come sweat with us,” Trisha said.
“And we’re going to look at whirlpool baths while we’re at the Mart,” Mimi added.
Trisha nodded. “We both prefer whirlpools to the kitchen sink.”

Casey and Mark were in their backyard, a relatively small space taken up mostly by their
garage. But there was enough grass to mow, as Mark was doing now, and space for a hammock
and a butane grill, and a patch for growing tomatoes. Casey was re-staking plants, pleased that
several of them were heavy with fruit.
She’d apologized to Mark when he’d come home from work. He’d kissed her and hugged her
and they’d gone out back to putter in the yard.
He really had been good to her, Casey thought. After their younger child, Jack, had gone off
to college two years ago, she had said it was time for her to go back to work. But her degree was
in elementary education, and she wasn’t ready for more kids, not after 20 years of raising her
own. Mark had been understanding and told her to take a year’s sabbatical. That year had come
and gone and she still hadn’t wanted to go back to the classroom. So Mark had said to take
another year and reinvent herself.
Which was proving tougher than she ever would have thought.
She looked over at her husband. He’d finished his mowing and was lying peacefully on the
hammock, his eyes closed, humming tunelessly to himself. She walked over to him.
“There room on that thing for me?” she asked.
“You bet.” He scooted over.
Casey got on carefully, so she didn’t dump the both of them.
“Do you love me?” she asked.
“Every chance I get.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“I know, but it answers your question anyway.” He slipped an arm around her shoulders.
“That picture of me makes you hot, doesn’t it?” Casey asked.
“It’s a hot picture, all the more so because it’s you.”
“Would you like me to look like that again?”
Mark opened his eyes. “Sure, and I’d like to have all my hair again, too.”
He had a small ridge in front. Behind that it disappeared to the crown of his head. He kept
what was left, sides and back, trimmed short. The hair he had went well with his beard, which
complimented his likably craggy face. Her husband’s hair loss hadn’t made him any less
attractive, she thought.
“Are there any old pictures of you hanging around?” Casey asked.
“Nothing like yours.”
She eased her way off the hammock.
“I’m going to join a gym with Mimi and Trisha.”
 “Good for you,” Mark said.
He closed his eyes again and went back to humming.

The Houseketeers became regulars at the health club. Through the fall, winter, and spring
they did strength work, cardio, and stretching. They tried pilates, yoga, and cycling. Mimi and
Trisha went on the South Beach Diet; Casey cut back to one night of Häagen-Dazs per week and
stopped baking chocolate chip cookies altogether.
Though they didn’t say so, Trisha and Mimi measured themselves against Casey. Not the
picture of the 19-year-old Casey; that would be masochism. But against the middle-aged Casey,
which was a high enough hill to climb. Especially as their friend kept getting eerily closer to her
youthful incarnation, damn her.
The interesting thing was that the fitter, shapelier, and stronger Trisha and Mimi became the
less they saw themselves as Houseketeers. Mimi was a CPA and started working more hours at
Ed’s firm. Trisha, an interior designer, picked up a handful of private clients and then pitched
and won a commercial account. Now she was looking for an office of her own.
Moving in new directions, the two of them worried — about Casey.
Their friend seemed stuck, unable to find a new niche for herself. So Mimi and Trisha took
her to lunch. This time they went to Charlie Trotter’s, where the food was to die for and the
portions were to search for with a magnifying glass. Just what they needed on their diets.
“We’re worried,” Mimi said.
“More concerned than worried,” Trisha amended.
“I’m worried,” Mimi insisted.
“About me?” Casey asked.
“You, sweetie. We’re worried—”
“Concerned,” Trisha repeated.
“Whatever. We’ve got to figure out something for you to do.”
“We figure,” Trisha said, “we’ve got five-to-ten years at most before our kids make us
grandmas and stick us with the babysitting, put us back on the domestic track. So we’ve got to do
something interesting now.”
“Well, you two seem to be off to good starts.”
Mimi and Trisha looked at each other.
“We were wondering,” Mimi said, “if you might like to come work with one of us.”
Casey frowned. “I don’t know a thing about accounting or interior design.”
Each of her friends took one of Casey’s hands.
“You know we love you, right?” Trisha asked.
“Very much,” Mimi said.
“So you shouldn’t take this the wrong way,” Trisha told Casey.
“But how would you like to be support staff for one of us?” Mimi asked.
Casey grinned. “You want me to be your secretary? Well, I do know how to make coffee, but
my typing’s not so hot.”
Mimi and Trisha both protested that Casey would be given serious responsibilities with either
of them. She certainly wouldn’t be treated as an underling. Casey gently disengaged her hands
from theirs.
She said, “It’s okay. You don’t have to be worried or concerned about me. I think I may have
come up with something.”
“What?” her friends asked.
 “I don’t want to say right now. I have to talk with Mark first, do some shopping, and see if I
can find an old phone number.”

Being an architect and sensitive to his environment, Mark noticed the changes the moment he
stepped through the front door and into his living room. For one thing, all of the windows had
been hung with blackout curtains. For another, all of the furniture had been pushed out of its
normal positions to make way for ... a stage set? No, a photography studio. The view camera
he’d inherited from Tom Mulroy was set up in the middle of the room. An elaborate array of
lights and reflectors had sprouted like an industrial forest. Positioned at the focal point of the set-
up was a tall wooden barstool.
Mark smiled and called out, “Casey!”
Timing it to a T, she stepped into the room just before he would have called her again. His
eyes and smile widened as he saw what she was wearing. It looked like the same dress she’d had
on in the photo, or damn close to it. She had her hair fixed the same way. The same makeup was
on her face. He had to blink to make sure his wife hadn’t somehow become a teenager again,
animated the fantasy he’d been entertaining for a couple of years.
The likeness was stunning but it wasn’t perfect. There was knowledge in Casey’s eyes now
where before there had been innocence. He body showed strength and depth where before there
had been potential and promise. And, damnit, she was sexier now than she had been then. He had
a hard time finding the breath just to talk to her.
Casey crossed the room and sat down on the stool.
“I never told you why at 19 I was afraid to become a model.”
Mark shook his head. No, she most certainly hadn’t.
“For all the glamour that appealed to me, the thoughts of fame and fortune, I was also afraid
of the dark side I’d read and heard about. The brevity of being on top, if you even get there. The
starvation diets, the drug use, the inconstancy of relationships. That last part was maybe what
scared me most. I saw myself married to rock stars, a string of them, never finding one good guy,
and then dying childless, anorexic, broke, and alone.”
“Doesn’t sound like any fun when you put it like that,” Mark said.
Casey nodded. “But all of those thoughts raced through my head that day in New York.”
“Well, I suppose I should be grateful for that fit of paranoia. Me, and Patrick and Jack.”
“Me, too. You and the boys mean more to me than any rock stars ... well, maybe if I’d gotten
to meet Springsteen.”
Mark laughed.
Casey said, “But now I’m older and stronger. I have met my great guy and all these years
later I still love him.”
“Ditto, kiddo.”
“We have two great boys.”
“That we do.”
“I like a little wine now and then but show no signs of becoming dependent.”
“None at all.”
“I still like sex, but I can imagine it with only one lover ... assuming you can keep up with the
new super-fit me.”
“Do my best,” Mark said with a grin. He nodded his head at the camera and the lights. “So is
this what I think it is?”
 Case told him, “I think the only way to get your mind off that old picture is to take a new one
... but if you do, there’s a catch.”
“Keeping up with you sexually?”
“Supporting my new career.”
Mark said, “Hmm, let me guess.”
“I made a call today,” Casey told him. “Found an old number. Talked to Penelope Hayes.
She remembered me after all this time.”
“Who’s Penelope?” he asked, knowing even though he wasn’t supposed to.
“She runs the modeling agency I ran out on.”
“Sure, you always remember the one who got away.”
“Anyone ever get away from you?” Casey asked.
“Unh-uh.”
“The agency’s in New York,” she said.
“You want to move?” Mark asked.
“I’ll commute.”
“Okay.”
“You’re all right with it?” Casey asked.
“What about models having to be young?”
“People are smart enough to use mature models, now. So you’ll back me up?”
“Whatever you need, whatever I can do, you got it.”
“I won’t work too much.”
“Take the work that interests you.”
“Thanks. Maybe I’ll do the swimsuit edition of Modern Maturity.”
Mark laughed.
“We’ll work it out,” Casey told him.
“You bet we will.”
“So you’ll take my picture now? Penelope wants to see how well I’ve aged.”
Mark crossed the room to Casey.
“I’d give you a big kiss if it wouldn’t ruin your makeup.”
“Take my picture, then kissing will be just one of the things we’ll do.”
Mark extended his hand to Casey and she took it to stand up. He moved the barstool out of
the way and then looked at the way the lights were set up. He made small adjustments in two of
them and adjusted a reflector. Did it in a casual, almost offhand way.
“Hey,” Casey said, “you look like you know what you’re doing.”
He smiled at her. “I’ve committed your dad’s notes to memory.”
Then he took the picture. Got it first try.

Casey was sleeping deeply when Mark slipped out of bed. He closed the bedroom door
behind him. He grabbed a portable phone and took it out to the backyard. He lay down in his
hammock and looked up at the stars. He tapped in a phone number he’d committed to memory.
“Hi, Bobbi,” he said, “It’s Mark. Is Helen there? ... Yeah, tonight. Went great.”
He hummed tunelessly as he waited for his mother-in-law. She and her late husband, Tom,
had first shown him the picture of Casey a couple years back, right after Tom was first
diagnosed, told it was time to get his affairs in order. A methodical man, Tom Mulroy’s financial
affairs were always in order. But closing out a life emotionally was inevitably a more delicate
proposition.
 He had few enough enough regrets and those were mostly resolved with grants of forgiveness
and requests for the same. But one thing that stuck in his craw was his daughter, Casey, backing
down from an ambition that had briefly enthralled her. As much as anyone else, he’d been glad
to have his daughter come home, marry, have children, and live close by. But the picture he’d
taken of Casey had always haunted him; a face like hers should have been celebrated publicly.
He should have raised his girl to be tougher, more dauntless.
When Tom had heard from Casey that Mark had said she should take a year to reinvent
herself, he had an idea. He called that modeling agency Casey had gone to and spoke to the same
woman she’d gone to see years ago. He’d asked if there was any call for beautiful older women
in her business and was pleased to hear the answer.
After that, he enlisted Mark in his scheme. Showed him the picture his wife didn’t want him
to see. They concocted all sorts of plans to get Casey to give her youthful ambition another try,
Tom showing Mark how to use his camera every time he and Casey visited, but then —
“Hello, Helen,” Mark said. “Yeah. Casey made the call. Spoke to Penelope Hayes. Casey’s
very excited. No, she isn’t scared any more. Yeah, it’s great. No, I don’t think she suspects. I
almost slipped, showing a little too much familiarity with how to take the shot, but I think I
covered up okay.”
Helen was delighted, but her words trailed off into a bittersweet pause. Mark understood. She
was wishing Tom was there to hear the news. When the end had come for him it was shockingly
abrupt.
Looking up, Mark spotted a shooting star. It arced across the heavens.
He said, “Helen, don’t worry about Tom missing a thing. He’s still here, and he’s still
helping with the lighting.”

Back to Table of Contents

Chapter 11: Money Man
Clack McKinnon graduated high school with a B average. Even got a “4” on an AP history
test. So if he ever went to college, he’d have a three-hour credit going in. His buddies Naldo
Montes and Huey Kleef, sitting with him at the back of Tula’s Diner, whispering back and forth
about a crime they were planning, had barely made it into high school and hadn’t lasted a
semester. They knew Clack had gone through school and graduated in the four years they’d been
in and out of jail, but they figured he’d squeaked by just to please his mom. They didn’t know
about the respectable grades and the advanced placement test.
Clack had no intention of telling them.
He was considering joining them in the heist they were working out.
It’d be his first crime.
He hadn’t gone looking to get into crime. The idea had come up last week, after he’d lost his
latest job and he was sitting right there in that same booth, Tula not minding that he and Naldo
and Huey were nursing the same cups of coffee for an hour because nobody else was in the place
and they always kept their voices down and left as big a tip as they could afford.
Huey said to Clack, “So what’s it been now man? Three or four jobs you lost since you got
your diploma?”
Clack wasn’t in a hurry to answer, so Naldo jumped in.
“He had that non-union construction gig. Good money. But, damn, the building got built, and
he ain’t been called back since.”
“Did some roofing,” Huey said. “Only the boss comes to work hungover one morning, falls
off his ladder, uses the money from the job to pay his medical bills, gets sued, goes out of
business, leaves his whole crew shit outta luck.”
Clack looked at his friends. Wondered why he didn’t know some other guys.
“Then there was the car-wash,” Naldo said. “Clack here’s changin’ in the locker room, ready
to go home and, bam, the cops bust in and arrest the whole shift ‘cause a few of the guys are
enjoyin’ a joint or two. Down at the station, Clack swears it wasn’t him smokin’ dope, and his
blood test proves it.”
Huey smiled. “Our boy was smart enough to stay far enough away he didn’t even get a
contact high. But the cops kept him overnight anyway ‘cause they didn’t like him saying he
didn’t see anybody tokin’ up.”
“Bein’ innocent didn’t keep him from losin’ that fine job at the car wash, though.” Naldo
shook his head in commiseration.
“Fuck you both,” Clack told them.
He got up from the booth to go.
“Man,” Huey said to him, “you realize somethin’? All those jobs a yours, they’re jobs for
guys like us, ex-cons.”
“And you ain’t been able to keep ‘em anyway,” Naldo said.
“Even bein’ a high school grad-u-ate.”
Huey and Naldo both snickered.
Clack gave them the finger and headed for the door.
“Hey, wait, man,” Huey called.
“Yeah,” Naldo said. “Maybe you can help us with somethin’.”
Clack let Tula’s door close behind him, didn’t look back.
 Huey and Naldo came to his house the next day, after they’d seen his mother leave for work.
They brought coffee and Krispy Kremes.
“We was just fuckin’ with you yesterday, man,” Naldo said when they were settled in Loris
McKinnon’s kitchen.
“Didn’t mean nothin’ by it,” Huey added. “You know how far back we go.”
Huey and Naldo were the first two kids Clack had met when his mother brought him up to
Chicago from Texas. The kindergarten teacher put them together. Huey and Naldo ate crayons.
Preferred them to anything they got at home. Clack hadn’t talked much since his daddy left him
and Mama, and not at all his first five months in Chicago. Mrs. Anderson, the teacher, must have
felt the three of them were a good fit.
She was right, too. They all felt more at ease with each other than with any of the other kids.
Only thing was, Loris hadn’t thought much of her son’s new friends. She was not warm to them
and when she had her son alone always told him, “You can do better.”
Clack thought about telling Mama the same thing.
Now, though, he was beginning to think his mother was right.
Because the guys he’d watched eating crayons were asking how he’d like to become a felon
just like them.
“We got this job we’re planning,” Huey said, “but we need a third guy, a lookout.”
“That’s all you gotta do,” Naldo said. “Keep your eyes open.”
Huey took a small black plastic object out of his pocket. It had a stubby antenna and three
buttons. It had a name on it, EZTalk, and an inscription saying it was made in China.
Clack glanced at it and looked back at his friends.
Naldo said, “It’s a walkie-talkie. Pretty small, huh? But works up to a half-mile away.”
Huey nodded and took two more EZTalks out of his pocket, giving one to Naldo, keeping
one for himself. He pressed a button on his and a burst of static came from the other two. Which
made Huey smile.
“See, that’s all you have to do,” Huey said. “Keep your eyes open and if you see anything
doesn’t look right, just ...”
He produced more static.
“Don’t need to say a word,” Naldo told him. “Just ...”
He pressed his static button, too.
“And for that we’ll give you ...” Huey looked at Naldo and got a nod. “Two grand.”
“You’d have to wash a lotta cars to get two K,” Naldo said.
“Whole thing shouldn’t take more’n twenty minutes,” Huey added.
“Only one more thing,” Naldo told Clack. “Maybe, you know, somethin’ goes wrong on the
inside where we can see it but you can’t. Then we give you two buzzes. Means we need help
fast. So come on the run, right?”
They both looked at Clack expectantly, but he only sipped his coffee.
“Ain’t you gonna say nothin’?” Naldo asked.
Clack put his cup down.
“You guys make sure you’ve got fresh batteries in these things?”

He still didn’t say yes, not then. He kept reading the help-wanted ads. Most of them he could
skip right by. Either they called for experience he didn’t have or they wanted a college education.
Others, they didn’t like his voice when he called their phone numbers. Had to be that, because he
hadn’t said ten words before the guy on the other end said, “Sorry, that job’s been filled.” How
the fuck could that be? Clack had called first thing on the first day the ad appeared in the paper.
Only other thing he could figure, the job was already given to a kid of somebody who worked at
the place; only got put in the paper to make it look like somebody else actually had a chance.
The job ads appeared in the same section of the paper as the business news, so Clack got to
read all about out-sourcing. Jobs going to China and India. People over there making EZTalks
and all sorts of other shit. Only the working stiffs even in those places were starting to look
expensive. So the guys who had the jobs to give were looking at Bangladesh and places he’d
never even heard of. Shit, man, where was it going to stop?
And what were people like him supposed to do?
He’d tried all of the neighborhood stores, starting with the few big supermarkets that still
paid half-decent and actually had health and dental plans. They let him put in applications but
told him not to hold his breath because unless a whole lot of people suddenly died the waiting list
for openings was two-three years long. None of the non-union places had any jobs either. He
could have delivered pizzas, if he’d had a car.
Clack thought maybe he ought to learn whatever language they spoke in Bangladesh, dress in
rags, and offer to work 12 hours for 30¢ or whatever those poor bastards scraped by on. But he
didn’t think that’d work either. You were a businessman, you could only pull shit like that in
places far away, where people couldn’t actually see what a miserable asshole you were.
After reading the classified ads and going around almost begging for a job, Clack would
grind his teeth about not being able to go to college, study something that would at least give him
a chance of making a life for himself. His grades were good enough to get into a state school, but
B’s never won anybody a scholarship, and Mama sure couldn’t afford to pay his tuition.
He thought about joining the army for maybe ten seconds. Long enough to see one of those
video clips on TV. Army truck going down the road in Iraq and BANG. Bomb goes off and the
poor guys inside never knew what hit them. And who started the war? Bunch of assholes who
never put themselves in any truck going down any dangerous road. President who’d checked off
that box on his National Guard form: No, thanks, don’t send my ass overseas, and while you’re
at it, how about letting me out early? Christ, you joined up, you were supposed to salute that
guy?
The one thing left for him, Clack thought, was to consider the only job offer he had.
Two grand for twenty minutes work.
Just keep your eyes open, press a button if you have to.

“Let’s hear what you’ve got in mind,” Clack told Naldo and Huey.
They were sitting in the two-room basement apartment Naldo got from an uncle in return for
hauling trash down to the alley from the other six flats in the building. Huey helped keep the
hallways swept and mopped so Naldo let him crash on the floor in a sleeping bag he stole from a
sporting goods store. The two of them were drinking malt liquor at ten in the morning.
“How do you know we ain’t done the job already?” Naldo asked.
Huey bobbed his head. “Yeah. You think all we got to do is wait for you?”
Clack’s friends were both wearing faded AC/DC t-shirts, jeans that had never been washed,
and down-at-the-heels Air Jordans.
“Must’ve missed it,” Clack said. “How you guys made a big score and are living the high
life.”
Naldo and Huey gave him hard jailhouse stares, but then they both cracked up.
“Never could lie to you, man,” Naldo said.
 “Always was smarter than us,” Huey added.
“So what’s the job?” Clack asked.
“Fur,” Naldo told him.
Huey made like he was rubbing his face in something wonderful.
“Pussy?” Clack asked, puzzled.
His friends laughed and took pulls at their 45-ounce bottles.
“That’ll come later,” Huey said.
“After we steal a shitload of real fur. Minks ‘n’ shit like that. Coats, right?”
“Capes, too,” Huey put in.
“An’ stoles,” Naldo reminded him. “I love that one. Someone asks, what’d you steal? You
say I stole a stole.”
Clack watched as the two of them rolled around laughing, spilling malt liquor on a sofa that
had been baptized that way countless times before. He waited them out. Would have left except
he had nothing else waiting for him.
Calming down, Naldo said, “Weather’s getting warm. All the rich ladies got to put their
fancy furs in storage till next winter. Bet you never thought of that. Place that’s like one big
closet for rich bitches’ furs from all over town.”
“Place keeps ‘em safe and clean till next time they need ‘em,” Huey explained.
“How many coats can you take?” Clack asked.
The question drained the last of the merriment from Huey and Naldo. Now they were getting
down to business, and maybe Clack was asking more than he needed to know.
“A lot, man, we’re gonna get a lot a fur,” Naldo said.
“Fur is expensive,” Clack reasoned, “so you’re talking big money.”
Huey told him, “Two grand’s all we’re offerin’ you. Take it or leave it.”
“I’m not arguing that,” Clack said, “just trying to understand things. So who gave you boys
the idea to do this job?”
Huey and Naldo looked at each other, silently debating whether to claim the idea as their
own, but they’d already seen they couldn’t put one past Clack.
“Was this guy we did time with,” Naldo said.
“Black dude name a Cadmus.”
Clack raised his eyebrows. “Cadmus?”
“His name,” Huey said, “Maybe his mama liked it. But he’s the guy who works security at
the storage company. It was his idea.”
“Tell Clack how he got the idea,” Naldo told Huey.
Huey smiled and had a final tilt of his bottle.
“Was some a those animal rights nuts. Offered Cadmus five K to let ‘em into the building so
they could ruin all that fur. Pour pig blood on it or some shit like that.”
“Only what those assholes don’t know is Cadmus likes fur. He’s savin’ to buy himself a fur
coat.” Naldo informed Clack. “How’s that for pickin’ the wrong guy?”
Huey continued, “Anyway Cadmus pretends like he’s down with these punks but he sets
them up. Tells his boss, has the cops waiting, ‘n’ zippity-doo-dah the bust goes down like sweet
cream. Cadmus, he’s a hero.”
“We were shooting craps in this alley with him an’ after we’re done he tells us his idea. Since
he’s proved he’s righteous at the storage company, how about he lets us in, we tie him up, grab
the furs, split the take with him later? Nobody’s gonna question him ‘cause he’s already proved
he’s an honest man,” Naldo summed up.
 Clack had a question. “If this guy’s got a criminal record, how’d he get his job?”
“He was an MP in the army,” Huey said. “Good background for a security job.”
“Left out the part about jail time when he filled out his application,” Naldo said.
Shit, Clack thought. Didn’t people check? If you could lie about your past and get away with
it, maybe he could b.s. his way into some halfway decent job.
“This Cadmus,” he said, “if he’s wired the heist for you guys, why do you need me?”
Huey and Naldo exchanged a furtive look.
“Just bein’ careful,” Naldo said.
“Can’t be too careful,” Huey agreed.
“Remember what we said,” Naldo added, “we might need you to come on the run to help us.”
They were lying to him again, Clack knew, but he didn’t call them on it.
“One more thing,” he said. “You ever mention me to this Cadmus.”
His friends both shook their heads. Looked honest this time.
“All right then,” Clack said. “You keep it that way, I’m in.”

“Where have you been?” Clack’s mother demanded. “Your daddy died!”
As far as mothers went, Clack figured Loris was a C+. She’d always kept him clothed and
fed. Made sure he got to school with a bag-lunch most days. Even helped him with his math as
far as she could. She’d been smart enough not to remarry, but she did have her boyfriends. A
new one about every three months. She never let any of them come home with her, so Clack
never had to worry about some asshole knocking him around. But he felt about Mama’s friends
the same way she felt about his.
She could have done better.
One thing she did great was keep her paycheck coming in. She supervised a shift of ladies,
mostly illegal Mexicans and Asians, who packed nuts for a wholesaler called Life Is Nuts that
shipped them all over the country. Clack couldn’t remember the last time his mother missed a
day of work. So what the hell was she doing home? And who gave a shit if his old man had died?
Clack couldn’t even remember the guy.
As to her question, where he’d been, he didn’t think she’d care to hear he was out deciding to
go to work for Naldo and Huey.
So he said, “How do you know he died? You been in touch?”
That set her right back on her heels. Made her mad.
“Of course not! Why would I do that?”
“Well, then who gives a shit? Why’d you take off work?”
“I got a call from a lawyer this morning, that’s why.”
Clack frowned. A lawyer? What was that all about?
He asked his mother.
She put her hands on Clack’s shoulders and looked him in the eye.
“Your daddy left you and me some money.”
Clack didn’t believe it.

The lawyer told them how much.

“Mrs. McKinnon, you’ll get thirty thousand dollars cash; Mr. McKinnon, you’ll get sixty
thousand dollars worth of shares in a company called NanoTech, Inc.”
“What’s that?” Clack asked.
 Before answering, the lawyer, whose name was Cormac Walsh, turned to Loris and asked,
“Mrs. McKinnon, would you please give me a moment alone with your son?”
“Why?” she asked, suspicion in her voice.
“It’s a stipulation of the will.”
Loris read between the lines: Play ball if you want your money, lady.
She got up and told Clack, “I’ll be right outside, honey, if you need me.”
Once the door closed behind her, Clack asked the same question his mother had.
“Why’d she have to leave?”
“Your father wanted it that way.” The lawyer almost looked embarrassed. “He wanted me to
ask you if you get along with your mother.”
“Why? We don’t like each other, we don’t get the money?”
“Oh, no. You both get what was provided for in the will. That’s not subject to change.”
“Then why kick my mom out?”
“The stock you’ve been given is currently valued at sixty thousand dollars, but your father
suggests that if you hold it for a period of five years it will be worth a million dollars or more.”
Clack stared at the lawyer, looking for any sign he was bullshitting him.
Walsh continued, “Your father was an executive at NanoTech, so perhaps his forecast for the
stock was optimistic ... or perhaps he had a very clear idea of how bright the company’s future
will be. In either case, he didn’t want your mother to put pressure on you to sell the stock to
benefit her.”
“But what about me. If I want to sell it for myself I can do that, right?”
“Yes, of course.” The lawyer paused again. “But I think if it was me, I’d keep the stock for at
least a little while. See if it starts heading in the direction you father predicted.”
Clack sat still momentarily, then looked at Walsh.
“Why he’d do it?” he asked. “After all this time, never even calling me on the phone, why’d
my father leave me anything?”
“I’m sorry,” the lawyer said, “I don’t have that information.”

Loris got a certified check; Clack got a brokerage account containing 1500 shares of
NanoTech, Inc. Walsh checked the latest quote on share price before Clack left his office:
$40.15. So Clack was already up 225 bucks on his inheritance; his shares value was now
$60,225. But Walsh told him prices could go down, too.
Waiting for the elevator outside the lawyer’s offices, Mama looked at her check and asked
Clack, “Don’t this beat all, honey?”
“Sure the hell does.”
“You want to tell me what that lawyer said after I left?”
“You want to tell me what you got planned for your money?”
Mama said maybe it’d be best if neither of them was nosy.

“So when’s the job?” Clack asked Huey and Naldo.

The three of them were in the Rainbow Arcade, a bowling alley started by a pair of hippie
entrepreneurs back in the late ‘60s. When the place had opened, all of the pins were painted with
likenesess of authority figures. Richard Nixon was always the one-pin right out front, Spiro was
the two-pin, John Mitchell number three. You rolled a strike you could take out half of Tricky
Dick’s administration.
 It was great fun for the counterculture and a line of bowling was the cheapest in town. Power
to the people and all that. There were rumors that the low prices were subsidized by major
marijuana deals going down in a back room. The hippie owners were long gone by now, but the
bowling was still as cheap as you could find in Chicago, and Naldo and Huey preferred knocking
down pins to playing video games.
“Bowling’s got some muscle to it,” Naldo said. “You crank the ball way the hell up behind
you and let the fucker fly.”
“Make those pins explode like you threw a bomb,” Huey added gleefully.
They both made crashing sounds, flailed their arms about and banged off one another like
ricocheting pins. There were no other bowlers present at three a.m. to see the display.
Sitting back down and picking up his beer, Naldo opined, “You know, there was no bowling,
I bet a lot more people’d be throwing bricks through windows.”
“The furs,” Clack reminded them. “If the job’s off, tell me.”
Having some serious money for the first time in his life, he’d had second thoughts about
embarking on a life of crime. If he hadn’t already told his friends he’d help them, he would have
steered clear of the heist. NanoTech, Inc. had closed up 25¢ for the day, notching his holdings up
to $60,375. Talk about a great way to make money. Shit, just sit back and watch your stock
holdings snowball.
Problem was, you had to hold on to it to do that. You couldn’t sell it. But if he didn’t sell at
least a little, what the hell was he gonna live on in the meantime? So maybe being a lookout and
making a couple grand wasn’t such a bad idea after all.
“Job’s not off, man,” Huey told him.
“We’re just workin’ out the details,” Naldo informed Clack.
“What kind of details?” Clack asked.
The two working criminals looked at each other, trying to decide whether they should share
confidential information. The question was resolved with a pair of shrugs.
“We’re lookin’ for a fence,” Naldo said.
“A money man,” Huey added.
“Yeah, someone to buy all a the furs we steal.”
“They’re pretty, but we’re not takin’ them to wear.”
“How much is this guy, whoever you find, going to pay you?” Clack asked.
His question drew two stony stares. He put a placating hand up.
“I know, enough to pay me two grand.”
“That’s right,” Huey said.
“Okay, so you don’t want to tell me your end, even with us being old friends and all, I’ll
respect that. But humor me. What percentage of the take is this money man getting?”
“Ninety,” Naldo told him.
Clack whistled and said, “Wow.”
“It’s standard, man. He’s receivin’ stolen goods, has that risk, plus he has to unload them on
someone else,” Naldo continued.
Huey elaborated, “Us, we got cash in hand. Nobody can’t say it’s not our. We’re free ‘n’
clear, havin’ the times of our lives.”
Right back to where you started in a week or two even if everything goes perfectly, Clack
thought. He wondered ... nah, that’d be stupid. His money was legal and growing. Why would he
want to bankroll Huey and Naldo?
 On the other hand, if he paid them, say, 50K, and that was ten percent of the take, that’d
mean his ninety percent would be 450K. You got Bs in school, you could do the math in your
head. Of course, then he’d have to unload the furs.
“What about Cadmus?” Clack asked. “He doesn’t know any money men?”
“Only thing he’s doin’,” Naldo said, “is openin’ the door for us.”
“He’s not in a hurry, huh?”
Seemed funny to Clack. Guys like Huey and Naldo, and he had to assume Cadmus, usually
were off to the races the minute they got an idea.
“He said just call him when we’re ready to go,” Huey said.
“Just like we’ll call you,” Naldo told Clack.
The two of them, crayon-eaters, the brains of the outfit.

Mama had news for him. Sat on his bed and woke him up at 10 a.m. to tell him. She’d taken
off of work again. Clack interrupted what she wanted to tell him to ask how come.
Exasperated, Loris said, “Boy, you know what? The other day was the first time in 15 years I
missed a day a work. In case you never noticed, I’ve been a supervisor for the past ten years. I
may not make a pile of money, but I do get sick days. I’ve got more of ‘em piled up than a dog’s
got fleas. I’ve got weeks of vacation time coming, too. And today I just started taking some of it.
I’m going on a cruise.”
Clack didn’t remember who Mama’s boyfriend of the moment was, but she was usually
careful to take up only with guys who had jobs, not creeps who’d sponge off her. Made him feel
better that she wasn’t about to blow her whole bundle.
“When’re you leaving?” he asked.
“Tonight. Flying to Miami with Dexter.”
Somebody new. Clack would’ve remembered a name like Dexter.
“He’s a good guy?” Clack asked. “Won’t try to get fresh with you on that boat?”
Loris grinned and slapped her son’s shoulder.
“He better or I’ll throw him overboard and find someone else.”
Clack sat up and kissed his mother’s cheek.
“Have fun, Mama. You deserve it.”
He lay back down to get another hour’s sleep but his mother shook her head.
“No, sir, mister,” she said, standing up. “Rise and shine. I got you a job interview.”
Clack opened his eyes.
“Where at?”
“Life Is Nuts.” Where she worked. “Something nice came open.”
“What?”
A guy who’d worked in a car-wash, he’d normally not be too picky. But, man, he’d been to
Life Is Nuts. You put tons of pecans, almonds, cashews, peanuts, and all those other nuts
together and the smell could just about knock you down.
“A tree grader,” Mama said.
Clack’s face went blank. “A what?”
“For our high-end, extra fancy nuts. Someone’s gotta go around to our growers, pick out the
best trees with the best nuts. Then the grower sends us only the nuts from those trees for our
extra fancies.”
Clack never could have imagined such a job.
“How’m I supposed to know one tree from another?”
 “You’re gonna learn from Barry Taubman. He’s retiring in six months. So he’s got to train a
new man.”
Clack seized on the most obvious advantage of the job.
“So I’d be working outside of the warehouse?”
“Mostly. There’re about three months a year at the warehouse. The rest of the time you’d be
driving around the South, Texas, and California.”
Clack smiled widely.
“Yeah, I thought you’d like that,” Loris said. “There’s even a car that comes with the job.
Nothing fancy but new every year.”
Clack jumped out of bed.
“What time’s the interview?”
“Eleven-thirty. Barry’ll take you to lunch if you’re doing good that far.”
Clack ran to the bathroom. From the other side of the door, he called out, “How much does a
tree grader get paid?”
“A whole lot more than you’re making right now.”

“So how come you got B’s in school and not A’s?” Barry Taubman asked Clack.
He and Clack had gone straight to lunch at a Macaroni Grill to have their interview. Barry’d
said, “Can’t stand the smell of the warehouse. When I’m not on the road, I go in once a week;
otherwise I work from home.”
Clack had been jazzed to hear that. If he could do the same thing, that’d be great. If he got
the job, that was. Right now, Barry, who didn’t look that old to Clack to be retiring, maybe
somewhere in his fifties, didn’t look like he was about to hand Clack the job with a pat on the
back. Guy was serious with his question about Clack’s grades.
So Clack gave him a straight answer.
“My mother always told me I had to do respectable work in school. I brought home B’s, she
was happy. Told me I’d done a good job.” He shrugged. “I guess B’s were what I thought I was
supposed to get.”
“Nobody ever set the bar higher for you, huh?”
The waitress brought their lunches. Barry was having lasagna and an iced tea; Clack had
ordered the angel hair pasta and a Coke. In response to the waitress asking, Barry told her
everything was fine. They wouldn’t need anything else for a while.
“Your mother told me how hard it was on you when your father left: moving up north, not
talking to anyone for months. She thought you might’ve suffered some developmental setbacks.
So I imagine she was pleased when you brought home B’s.”
Clack didn’t saying anything, but he wasn’t happy. He’d bet Mama had never told anyone at
work about her social life. But Clack had checked the price of NanoTech, Inc. before he’d left
for the interview. It was up another dime; with his shares that was another $150 in his till. He
wanted that money to keep right on growing. So he kept quiet instead of hitting Barry in the face
with the plate of lasagna he had in front of him.
“Your mother also told me you’re a very hard worker. That true?”
“Yes, it is.” Clack had wondered if he should call Barry sir. Now he was glad he’d decided
not to.
“Okay. Then what I want to know, do you think you can pull A’s working for me?”
“Are you going to explain things to me in plain English?”
A forkful of lasagna stopped halfway to Barry’s mouth. “Yeah.”
 “Are you going to ask me to do anything you haven’t already done?”
“No.”
“Do I look like someone your growers might take a natural dislike to?”
“You could stand a haircut.”
“I’ll get one.” Clack decided the job would be worth putting up with this guy for six months.
“You set the bar, Mr. Taubman, I’ll get over it. With room to spare.”
Taubman nodded. He ate his lasagna and kept on nodding.

Lunch ended with Taubman telling Clack he’d let him know tomorrow, but when Clack got
home he heard the phone ring as soon as he put his key in the lock. He opened the door and got
inside quick, but he let the phone go one more ring before he picked up. He didn’t want to seem
too anxious.
But the call was from his father’s lawyer, Cormac Walsh.
“Mr. McKinnon?”
Clack wasn’t used to hearing himself called that but he said, “Yes.”
“I did a bit of follow-up for you.”
“On what?”
“Your inheritance, the NanoTech, Inc. stock.”
“Why’d you do that?”
There was a moment’s pause before Walsh answered.
“I felt my efforts were in keeping with the spirit of your father’s request.”
“But you didn’t have to.”
“No, I followed the letter of your father’s instructions when we met. Would you like to hear
what I’ve learned or should I let it go?”
Clack realized he’d ticked Walsh off. Hadn’t meant to. He’d have to watch that.
“No, don’t let it go. I’d like to hear what you found out, and thanks.”
“You’re welcome. I sought out some friends who work in the securities markets.”
“Pardon.”
“People who might know something about NanoTech, Inc.”
“Did they?”
“I couldn’t tell you this if you didn’t already own the stock and if what I heard was a
certainty and not informed speculation, but two of the sources I checked have told me that your
stock will split two-for-one when the price hits $60.”
“What’s that mean?” Clack asked.
“It means that for every share you now hold you’ll have three after the split; your 1,500
shares will become 4,500 shares.”
“My money will triple?” Had to be some kind of catch.
“No, not immediately anyway. While your shares will triple, the value of each share will be
one-third of what it was before the split.”
“Well, what’s the big deal then?”
“Mr. McKinnon, have you started to calculate yet how much each one-cent increase in stock
value benefits you?”
Clack did the math. “Each penny puts me up 15 bucks.”
“And if you have 4,500 shares?”
“Oh, God, 45 bucks.”
 “Exactly. Now, as I’ve said, this split isn’t guaranteed. Nor is it assured the price of your
stock will get to $60. But you might want to watch the price of NanoTech, Inc. closely, and as
long as it’s heading in the right direction, you have an added incentive to hold on to every share.”
Damn straight, Clack thought. Then a question occurred to him.
“Mr. Walsh, when you were in school, did you get A’s?”
“Every class, every year.”
“Because you paid attention to the spirit of things.”
“That and I worked my backside off.”
“You think I could ask you a favor?”
“What’s that?”
Clack hated lying to the man, but felt he had to.
“Some friends of mine came around the other day. I hadn’t seen them for a long time, but
they asked if I had any money I could lend them.”
“You didn’t tell them —”
“No, no way. They were just interested in whatever I might be able to put my hands on. A
grand would make them happy, and that’s just what I was thinking about letting them have. They
told me I’d double my money fast. But here’s the thing: these guys, in the time I haven’t seen
them, I think they might’ve gotten into trouble. With the law, I mean. You think you could have
someone check them out before I do anything?”
“Give me their names,” Walsh said. “If they have criminal records, I’ll find out from a friend
with the police. In the meantime, don’t give them a cent.”
“I won’t,” Clack said.
And he gave the lawyer Huey and Naldo’s names.
Trying hard to start think like a guy who got A’s.

Not five minutes later, Naldo called. Gave Clack the creeps. Almost made him feel like
Naldo knew what Clack was doing. But what Naldo had to say made him forget about that.
“Job’s on, man.”
No way Naldo and Huey would involve him if they knew what he was doing. They’d come
looking for him.
“When?”
“Two nights from now.”
Clack thought that’d be enough time for Walsh to get back to him. He hoped so, anyway.
Naldo interpreted Clack’s silence another way.
“Hey, man, I sure the hell hope you’re not gettin’ cold feet. Huey ‘n’ me, we’re countin’ on
you.”
Clack just grunted. Which Naldo didn’t take as encouraging.
“Listen, man. We gotta have you. Can’t do the job without you. Who’s gonna let us know if
something starts going wrong, we don’t have you?”
Put it that way, Clack thought he wasn’t being offered enough money. He kept the notion to
himself, as silence seemed to be working pretty well for him right now.
Naldo managed to understand the unspoken message.
“Hey, man, you know what Huey ‘n’ me got planned?”
“No.”
“We’re goin’ to Mexico.”
“How come?”
 “How come? It’s goddamn gorgeous down there, that’s how come, and I speak the language,
and a dollar goes about ten times as far as it does up here. What we got planned, we’re gonna
rent a big old beach house. Be plenty of room for you to come, too. We’ll have lotsa pretty
señoritas sent in and party till we drop. Your two grand’ll seem like twenty down there. How’s
that sound?”
Sounded like Naldo was bullshitting him again.
“You found your money man?” Clack asked.
“Nah, Cadmus did.”
“Thought he was just opening the door.”
“Musta got tired a waitin’. Listen, man, I’m gonna call you in two days. You just be ready.”
Naldo hung up. Trusting Clack would do as he was told.
But Clack was thinking: Cadmus got itchy, huh?
He’d have to be checked out, too.

One of the better things about Chicago, Clack thought, if you liked to read, the mayor was a
madman about building libraries. There was a nice new one right in Clack’s neighborhood, not
three blocks from where he and Mama lived. It was the first time he’d ever been in it and he was
knocked out. Not just by the place but by the women working there. Librarians, the way he
remembered them, were women who looked like the next-door neighbor on TV sitcoms. Nice
but no threat to the star. But the mayor must’ve said, I’m putting up all these fancy libraries, I
want some lookers. Not that they weren’t sharp — all librarians seemed to be smart — but,
damn, they were fine, too.
About the nicest looking one, said her name was Gwen, was helping Clack.
He asked her where they kept their Reader’s Guide to Periodical Literature, the reference
books he’d used as a kid at his old library to find newspaper stories.
Gwen smiled at him like he’d said something funny.
“Well, we do have a set of Reader’s Guides down in the basement,” she said, “but why don’t
we just use the library’s LexisNexis Total Search account? You did say you wanted to look up a
newspaper story, didn’t you?”
“Yeah.” He gave her the name of the storage company and how the cops caught the animal
rights nuts who wanted to throw blood on all the fur coats. He didn’t actually say nuts in case
Gwen had something against fur, and he didn’t mention Cadmus. Clack didn’t want anyone
connecting him to the security guard.
Gwen was familiar with the story, got it pulled up on her computer, and printed it out for him
for 50¢. Slick as a whistle.
Prompted Clack to ask if she could pull up the latest business news on a company called
NanoTech, Inc.
He even thought to ask if LexisNexis had anything about his father, except Clack couldn’t
remember his daddy’s first name. He’d have to ask Mama or Cormac Walsh what it was. Be
interesting to know the story of the man who’d left him all that stock.
Clack took the printout of the storage company bust to a nearby table. First thing he did was
look at the picture of Cadmus Green. Guy looked tall and wiry, had close-cut hair, a sparse
goatee and suspicious eyes.
Naldo and Huey had to be crazy to trust this guy. Hell, they should’ve checked to see if the
dice were loaded before they shot craps with him. The way the newspaper story had it, Cadmus
had earned himself a $5,000 reward for helping to nab the animal rights vandals. Nice coin for
essentially doing your job, but not enough to buy your own fur coat, if you wanted a really nice
one.
But if you stopped two fools from breaking into the storage company and heisting a shitload
of coats, maybe that’d be worth a bigger reward. Give you the money you needed. Only this
time, you couldn’t have the cops waiting for the bad guys. That’d show you knew about the
crime up front. So what you’d have to do was —
Shit. This asshole was going to kill Naldo and Huey.
In his newspaper picture Cadmus had a rent-a-cop uniform on, gunbelt at his waist.
His story about finding a money man was just to get Naldo and Huey off their asses.
Had to be. No way Clack could see Cadmus Green letting two crayon-eaters tie him up, make
him look bad. The way Cadmus did things, he got to be the hero.
Clack jumped when a hand fell on his shoulder.
“Sorry about that,” Gwen said. “Didn’t mean to startle you.”
Her smile was apologetic but it made Clack’s heart race nonetheless.
She gave him another printout.
“Most recent article on NanoTech, Inc. I could find.”
“Thanks. How much I owe you?”
“It’s on me, for scaring you. Also, I took a peek at the article. Looks like an interesting
company.”
“You have any spare money,” he said, “maybe you should buy a few shares.”
Made him feel good to give Gwen a stock tip.

Clack called Naldo and Huey and told them to meet him at Danny’s Donuts.
“What for?” Huey asked.
“’Cause I’m buying.”
That was good enough for his friends.
It was ten at night. Mama and Dexter had just left for O’Hare and their red-eye flight to
Miami. Dexter had showed Clack the brochure for the cruise they were going to take. It was on a
big fancy sailing ship, like something from a long time ago, only rigged out with all the modern
touches and real nice state rooms. Clack could tell that Dexter was going to be one of the guys
who asked Mama to marry him. There’d been two or three before, but ...
But this time Clack was old enough to be out on his own. And Mama was looking to set him
up with a job that’d have him away from home most of the time. And would he want to be back
living with her when he got back to Chicago? Unh-uh.
No coincidence here. Mama was looking out for herself as much as him. Hell, she had to
figure with all that stock-money he’d been left he could have a down payment on his own house.
It almost made his head spin how fast things were moving. Was only a couple of days ago he’d
been a guy out of work who looked like he’d hit bottom. And now —
“Hey, man, here we are.”
Naldo slid into the booth beside Clack. Too close. Their legs were touching. Huey sat across
from Clack, giving him a look like he’d been watching Taxi Driver and was trying to look as
crazy as Robert De Niro. Huey’d always had a ten-yard head-start on that look and wasn’t doing
too bad with it. That was one thing, but Clack didn’t like Naldo rubbing up against him. He gave
Naldo a bump and moved him over some.
Didn’t keep Naldo from saying, “You ain’t chickenin’ out on us, man.”
Not asking Clack, telling him.
 Clack put a ten from the money Mama had left for him on the table and said, “Go get some
donuts. We’ll talk.”
Huey snatched up the money and they each got two donuts and a coffee. The shop was
closing in less than an hour. There was one guy behind the counter and no other customers in the
place.
Naldo and Huey came back to the booth and took the same seats they’d had before, but
Naldo didn’t crowd Clack this time.
“I took a look at this Cadmus guy of yours,” Clack told them.
Naldo and Huey stopped chewing; their mouths hung open.
“Not in person,” Clack said. “His picture was in the paper from that time he turned in the
animal rights crazies.”
Huey laughed, spraying bits of donut on the table.
“Our boy’s doin’ his homework,” he said.
Naldo grinned and took a drink of coffee.
“I got a couple questions,” Clack said.
“What?” Naldo asked, taking another bite of donut.
“That time you were shooting dice with Cadmus, who won?”
“He did,” Huey said.
“But we didn’t lose much,” Naldo added. “Only a few bucks.”
“Was all we had,” Huey confessed.
“What’s that got to do with anything?” Naldo said, getting angry.
Clack asked his other question. “When you met Cadmus in jail, what was he in for?”
“Manslaughter,” Huey answered. “Killed a guy in a bar fight.”
Naldo’s agitation continued to grow.
“Hey, shit, man. What’s this all about? We want you to be a lookout, not stick your nose up
everyone’s ass.”
One time, when they were kids, Clack and Naldo had gotten into a fight over a touch-football
game. Clack had tagged Naldo with two hands; Naldo had said it’d been only one hand. He
threw a punch at Clack that missed. Clack threw two back and bloodied Naldo’s nose and lip.
End of fight. Now Naldo was acting like he’d forgotten or jail had toughened him up.
“I’m trying to help you here,” Clack said.
“Maybe we don’t want your help.” Hearing himself, what he’d just said, Naldo quickly
added, “’Cept for bein’ our lookout, I mean.”
“I am looking out for you, but maybe that’s stupid of me. Get out of the way so I can go.”
“Hey, wait a minute,” Huey said. “How’re you lookin’ out for us?”
“Like this. Give Cadmus a call. Tell him you found your own money man, one who’ll give
you 20% of the furs’ value.”
“Ain’t nobody gonna do that,” Naldo said. He was still ticked, but he looked like he was
remembering the fight with Clack after all.
“Yeah, I know. That’s what you told me. All I’m saying is see what Cadmus has to say when
you tell him.”
Huey understood Clack’s intent if not his exact thoughts.
“What could it hurt?” he asked Naldo. “Just to see what Cadmus says.”
Naldo slid out of the booth and stood up. Better position to fight. Or run.
“I think our boy’s fuckin’ with us here.”
Clack got out of the booth, too.
 “Somebody is,” he said, “but it’s not me.”

Clack set the clock-radio for seven the next morning. Just in case Barry Taubman called
early. He didn’t want the guy’s call waking him up, having him sound all groggy like a lazy
asshole who slept the whole day away.
Taubman didn’t call early but a messenger rang Clack’s doorbell at 8:00 a.m. Gave him a
manilla envelope from Cormac Walsh with Clack’s name on it and the inscription: Client
Information, Confidential and Privileged. Clack had to sign for the envelope.
He took the envelope inside and put it on the kitchen table. Looked at it for about ten
minutes. Had a cup of coffee. Wasn’t in a hurry to open it.
He’d had the idea after leaving Danny’s last night that what he should do, and it’d be the last
thing he’d do, was call up the storage company. Ask for personnel or human resources or
whatever the hell they called it there. Say you’ve got a guy named Cadmus Green working for
you. You know he once killed a guy in a bar fight? He mention that on his job application?
Get Cadmus’s ass fired before he could kill Huey and Naldo.
Fucker’d never know who ratted him out.
Unless he got to talking with Huey and Naldo and they let it slip.
Clack was reaching for the manilla envelope when the phone rang.
“McKinnon?” It was Taubman. “You’ve got the job if you want it.”
“When do I start?” Clack asked.
“You the church-going type?”
“Only when my mother wants company.”
“Okay, then. We leave Sunday morning six o’clock. Meet me at the warehouse.”
“Don’t I have to fill out any papers? Job application or tax stuff?”
Taubman laughed.
“Your mother took care of all that for you. She called me after our lunch and told me you
could have made A’s if she’d pushed you harder. So I decided to take her word for it.”
Clack said, “Good. See you Sunday.”
He hung up and opened the envelope from Cormac Walsh.

Saturday afternoon, the day of the job, Huey called Clack at home.
“Hey, man, it all right if I drop by for a minute?”
Huey was asking if Clack’s mother was home. He and Naldo knew she didn’t think much of
them. After reading Huey’s and Naldo’s rap sheets just now, neither did Clack.
He said, “Just you?”
“Yeah, Naldo’s got this thing. Anytime we do a job, he spends a few hours right before
gettin’ laid.”
“In case it’s a long time till the next time?”
“You never know, man.”
“No, you don’t, but you can try.”
“What?”
“When do you want to come by?”
“Ten minutes if that’s okay.”
“Yeah, but you can’t stay long.”
Clack wanted Huey to think he wouldn’t be alone for more than a few minutes — just in case
he and Naldo had some stunt planned. But Huey came alone. He looked around like Loris might
pop out of the next room. When they were kids, she’d yelled at Huey and Naldo a few times to
wipe their feet before they came into her house.
“So what’s up?” Clack asked.
“Gotta give you this.” He handed an EZTalk walkie-talkie to Clack. “Remember, man, it
works up to half-mile away. But that’s too far for you to watch what’s happenin’ after me ‘n’
Naldo go into the building.”
Huey told Clack his observation post would be kitty-corner to the storage company’s main
entrance.
Clack asked, “Cadmus is letting you in the front door?”
“Yeah, man, that’s what he said.” It took Huey a minute, but he noticed Clack’s frown. “Hey,
we ain’t stupid. The place’ll be closed. Nobody’ll see us.”
“Nobody inside maybe,” Clack said. “How about outside?”
“That’s what you’ll be there for.”
“What? I see somebody who sees you go inside, I’m supposed to kill him?”
“Don’t be crazy. Just give us a buzz if someone looks too interested.”
“Wouldn’t it be simpler to go in the back way? Less of a chance anyone would see you at all.
Hell, you wouldn’t even need me. Save yourselves a couple grand.”
Clack was trying to give Huey a chance, but he didn’t take it.
“No, man, we need you. Tell you what, I’ll give you an extra K outta my cut.”
Clack asked, “You tell Cadmus you had a new money man?”
Huey brightened. “Yeah, we did.”
“And?”
“He said don’t bother. He’d get us 20% from his guy.”
“But you and Naldo said nobody’d do that.”
“Cadmus said he’d make his guy do it. He also said he’d drop his share a the take from a
third to a quarter, since me ‘n’ Naldo are doin’ the hard part. Now, we’re gonna be able to buy
ourselves a beach house down in Mexico.”
Clack had to stop himself from shaking his head.
He asked, “You ever know anybody in jail who fucked over a friend?”
Huey’s eyes narrowed to slits as he looked at Clack.
“Guys I know would never do that.”
“Okay.”
Huey’d just blown the last chance Clack was going to give him.
He told Clack the time they’d be going into the storage company. They’d give him a buzz on
his EZTalk right before they went through the door. He’d buzz them back to let them know he
was in position.
“I’m standing where you want, you could look over your shoulders. But I just stand on a
street corner, I might as well have a sign around my neck. Acting suspiciously, you know?”
Huey went for a hard look.
“You better—”
“I’ll decide where I stand. You buzz me, I’ll buzz you back. That’s it. Take it or leave it.”
Huey clenched his fists. It was plain he wished Naldo was there to back him up.
“You just remember who your friends are,” he said, leaving.
“Sure,” Clack replied. “I’ll do that.”
 Naldo looked around. Streetlights had just come on. Didn’t look like going in the front door
of the storage company was going to be any problem at all. Wasn’t a soul in sight. Sure as hell,
Clack wasn’t just across the street.
“That bastard,” Naldo said bitterly.
“He said he’d be around,” Huey reminded him.
“Oh, yeah? Let’s see.”
He pressed the squelch button of his EZTalk.
Got a buzz right back.
Huey grinned. “See.”
Naldo still didn’t like that he couldn’t see Clack, but conceded, “Long as he’s nearby.”
“He’ll come when we call him,” Huey said.
The two robbers pulled the turtleneck collars of their shirts up to cover their faces. Cadmus
had told them the place had security cameras. They took out their guns. They were supposed to
clip Cadmus on the head, just enough to split his scalp, get a decent amount of blood flowing,
and then tie him up. Cadmus had told them to practice on each other, how hard they should hit
him. Get their touch right.
But Naldo and Huey weren’t that stupid.
They weren’t going to bop one another with their pistols. For that matter, they weren’t going
to conk Cadmus either. They were going to shoot the motherfucker. In the head, in the heart,
anywhere else they got the chance.
They’d talked about smoking the guy from the start. Cadmus let them into the place, that was
all they needed from him. They surely didn’t need him around to rat them out if something went
wrong; hell, that was what they did. And the two of them had agreed if they kept on ripping off
people they were bound to kill someone sooner or later, so why not now?
Good old Clack had only reinforced their decision.
Asking Cadmus could he get them 20% on the merchandise — and him saying, yeah, no
problem. How about I give you a bigger cut of the take, too? Bullshit. Guy was looking to rip
them off. Pull his rent-a-cop gun on them when they weren’t looking and BANG-BANG.
Only thing they couldn’t figure, was Cadmus going to say he’d stopped a robbery, be the
hero again, or did he have another play in mind?
Didn’t matter because soon as the bastard opened the door Naldo stuck his gun in Cadmus’s
ear and pulled the trigger. Turned out Cadmus did have something tricky in mind because his
body hadn’t even hit the floor before three black guys — all of them wearing full-length minks
— came around a corner blasting away. Naldo and Huey gave as good as they got but what
everybody got was dead.
There was blood all over the coats the black guys were wearing, which had to please the
animal rights people, if no one else. Just before he died, Naldo managed to push the squelch
button on his EZTalk twice, the signal to tell Clack to come on the run.
The plan had been to eliminate Clack as a witness, too, after they’d taken care of Cadmus.
But by the time Naldo croaked Clack hadn’t shown up.
Hadn’t even buzzed back, the bastard.

Clack had mixed feelings about the whole thing.

He’d gone out with Gwen last night — after he’d given Huey and Naldo the one buzz he’d
promised them and dumped the walkie-talkie in the Chicago River. For a first date, it’d been
great. Gwen was as much fun to talk to as she was to look at. Gave him the titles of a lot of good
books he should read. He hadn’t tried to get physical at all, knowing he’d be leaving town the
next day, telling her that he was going, too. She took it all right, appreciated him being honest
and a gentleman. Told him to send her some postcards. Gave him a kiss when they said
goodnight.
Some kiss. Hell, he was going to miss her.
More than he could say for Naldo and Huey.
The story of the bloodbath at the storage company was all over the early morning news.
People who ran the TV station figured their viewers wouldn’t mind looking at a massacre first
thing Sunday morning. Right there with the four dead black guys were Naldo and Huey.
Some people you just couldn’t help.
Not that he’d wanted to all that much after reading their rap sheets.
His two childhood friends had been convicted twice on armed robbery charges. By all rights,
they still should have been in jail. Only both times they got their sentences reduced to slaps on
the wrist by implicating other guys as the instigators of the crimes. Naldo and Huey had just been
the dopes who’d gone along for the ride.
The two guys doing the long stretches were named Eddy Corgan and Patrick Nash.
Eddy and Pat had also been grade school classmates of Naldo and Huey.
So this time it was Clack’s turn to be the fall guy.
Unless they actually pulled off the job.
In that case, Clack figured, they’d try to kill him. Maybe drown him down in Mexico.
Somebody honked a car horn and Clack look up. Barry Taubman. Clack had made sure to get
to the warehouse 15 minutes early. The way he wanted it, he’d try to be one step ahead of
Taubman whenever he could. The other thing he had in mind was telling himself it’d be only six
months he’d have to spend with the guy.
If his NanoTech, Inc. stock kept going up, that’d make things easier, too.
Clack slid into the passenger seat of Barry’s car. Just a vanilla Ford sedan, but it had a leather
interior. Life Is Nuts paid for the gas and insurance, too.
“Good to see you’re on time.,” Barry said. “I stopped for orange juice and donuts.”
“Thanks,” Clack said, taking the cup Barry offered.
“We’ll deduct the cost from your first paycheck. Hey, just kidding.”
Clack smiled. Told himself: six months.
Barry pulled out. As soon as they got onto the Kennedy Expressway heading south, Barry
started telling Clack all about the job. What he should look for in the way of trees and nuts.
“After you get familiar with things,” Barry went on, “we’ll work individually, cover more
trees in less time. You have any questions, you can contact me with this.”
He reached back into a bag on the back seat and took out an EZTalk.
“You know how to use it?” Barry asked.
Clack told him what a guy making A’s would say.
“No.”
Pretended he’d never seen anything like it.

Back to Table of Contents

Chapter 12: Tech Support
Derek Jarvis woke up, his head pounding, in a mountain cabin he had never seen before,
and then he found the note about the bomb.
The cabin is booby-trapped. If you try to leave without following instructions, you’ll be
blown to bits. Use the phone for help. It’s your only chance to survive. You get only one call, and
that call is preset on speed dial #1. If you’re feeling stupid, go ahead and disregard these
instructions. We have champagne on ice to toast the detonation.
Jarvis was a businessman with a reputation for making enemies— and laughing at them—but
he’d never thought things would come to this.
He turned the note over to see if there was any sign of who had written it.
All he found was a postscript.
One more thing. The bomb is on a timer. No telling when it might go off. Adds to the
suspense, don’t you think?
Jesus.
Jarvis wondered if the sonofabitch who put him in the cabin had at least left him some aspirin
for his headache. Wait a minute. He looked once more at the front side of the note. It wasn’t
some lone maniac who had done this to him. The note said we have champagne on ice. Two or
more SOBs had put him in this fix.
Hell, it might have been enough people to fill a football stadium. Jarvis was a guy who
bought companies, stripped them drown to their core assets, threw thousands of people out of
work, and hired hundreds back at one-third the wages and no benefits. The stockholders in DeJa,
Inc. made out like bandits and Jarvis lived like the bandit king.
Not that he promoted himself in those terms.
He styled himself as the Charles Darwin of capitalism. Making American business fit to
withstand the onslaught of international competition. This public persona conveniently
overlooked the fact he outsourced every job he could.
Jarvis studied the phone that stood in a charger cradle on the table where he’d found the note.
It was an Iridium 9550A, the same model he owned. It might be his phone. With text messaging
and a distress signal key. Had those bastards had thought of—
Yeah, of course they had. They were hoping he’d get tricky and blow himself up. Laugh
themselves silly while they slurped their champagne. The best joke would be if he went boom
while he was talking on his own phone.
But the fact that he was familiar with the Iridium told him a few things. The phone’s battery
would last thirty hours on standby; the charger wasn’t plugged in. Glancing around, he didn’t see
an electrical outlet in the cabin. If he played along, pressed #1, and got somebody on the phone,
he’d have three hours to talk. Assuming the battery started at a full charge.
So, the way the game had likely been set up, he’d have thirty hours at the outside before the
phone became inoperative and the timer on the bomb went off. No, wait. He didn’t know how
long the phone had been sitting there before he'd woken up. Safer to think he had maybe twenty-
four hours at the most. Yeah, a day, that would be more like it.
Or the bastards might have figured he’d hit #1 right away. Set the bomb to blow with that in
mind: the three-hour talking limit for the phone. He might have already wasted ten minutes of
the last three hours of his life. Those fuckers.
God, his head hurt. He had to get something to ease the pain or he didn’t stand a chance.
First, though, he had to focus. He studied his surroundings.
 The place was a shit-hole. It got blown up, the property loss wouldn’t come to a thousand
dollars. The cabin was square, maybe fifteen feet each way. The rafters, walls, and floorboards
were all made of the same rough pine. There was one door and one window. The window was set
in the wall to the left of the door and had no curtains. Bright sunlight reflecting off virgin snow
streamed through the smudged pane of glass and revealed every slipshod detail of the place’s
construction.
Including the fact that the door had no lock. Just a latch.
Jarvis moved closer and studied the latch. It was a lift-and-pull setup, as primitive as you
could get. No lock at all. He looked over his shoulder. No need to lock this place. The only
furnishings were a bare, pee-stained mattress on which he'd lain and the scarred oak table on
which the phone rested.
Those two things and a small Styrofoam cooler in the far corner.
Jarvis looked back at the door. Lifting the latch and walking out looked like the easiest thing
in world. This whole damn situation, even if he had no idea how he’d wound up in the middle of
it, could all be a big joke. Or the bomb could be rigged to the other side of the door where he
couldn’t see it.
He went to the window to see what was out there.
A lot of damn big mountains was what. Heavy with snow and thick with evergreens. The
mountains were far too tall for the Eastern U.S. Somewhere west then: the Rockies, the
Cascades, the Sierra Nevada. That meant someone had gone to a lot of trouble to haul him all the
way across the country—if he was still in the U.S.—because the last place he remembered being
was Boston.
Home.
The thought he might never see his beautiful Beacon Hill townhouse again hit him like a
steel-toed boot to the gut. Beacon Hill itself had been all but leveled long ago, but the Olympian
perspective of the neighborhood’s residents was eternal: They looked down on the rest of the
world as a matter of course.
Now, here he was trapped in an oversized outhouse.
There was no way he could allow it to be the place where he met his end.
He stepped over to the cooler and reached for it, but stopped short.
What if the bomb was in there? Lift the lid and goodbye, Derek.
Sonofabitch. Anything he touched might trigger the bomb. Maybe, he thought, it was the
kidnappers intent to paralyze him with fear until they blew him to bits. Well, to hell with that. To
hell with them, too. He lifted the lid and saw three objects inside, none of which appeared to be
explosive.
There was a full liter bottle of spring water, the cap seal intact. An empty liter bottle of the
same brand of water, not capped at all. That was to be his toilet, he assumed. And, thank God, a
tin of twelve Bayer aspirin tablets.
He took the bottle of water and the aspirin tin to the soiled mattress, being careful to sit
between the pee stains. That was when he took notice of what he was wearing: a red plaid wool
shirt, worn blue jeans, and down-at-the-heel work boots. A workman's clothes. Someone had
thought to humiliate him in every regard. He opened the tin and sniffed the tablets. Aspirin. He
popped two into his mouth and washed them down with the water, after sniffing that, too.
From where he sat, he looked directly at the phone.
And the note, the edges of which now curled up.
 He looked back at the window. Maybe that was the way out. He could see no wiring on it. No
sensor or alarm. But then this was a wireless world. You could pick up your Iridium 9550A and
call anywhere in the world.
He tried to think of where pressing #1 would get him.
Maybe a direct line to his kidnappers who would laugh and tell him to kiss his ass goodbye
while they detonated their bomb.
If that was their plan, so be it.
He’d get in a last, “Fuck you,” before they could kill him.
Derek Jarvis got to his feet, grabbed the phone, and pressed #1.
And he heard the bomb go off.

He heard the bomb go off?

Come on. Nobody heard the blast that killed them.
Then Jarvis heard the first ring of the phone call. So he still had to be alive.
A voice said in accented English, “Superintendent Aasim Vaze.”
Jarvis recognized the accent and asked, “Have I called India?”
The voice repeated, “This is Superintendent Aasim Vaze.” And then elaborated, “Head of the
Lucknow Police Department.” And then very clearly stated, “Uttar Pradesh, India.”
Jarvis heard a rumbling outside and asked, “Could you please hold for just a second?”
Without waiting for the Indian’s assent, he hurried to the window. He saw, in the distance, an
avalanche scour the side of a peak. Then came the bang of a second explosion on another far off
mountain, followed by another avalanche. Jarvis realized what he was seeing: the work of a ski
patrol eliminating hazardous conditions.
“Hello,” came the voice from the phone. “Are you still there?”
Jarvis raised the Iridium to speak, just as he noticed what looked like a manila envelope
stuck to a tree not far from the cabin. Turning away from the window, he said, “Yes, I’m here.
My name is Derek Jarvis. And you said your name is Aasim Vaze, and you’re the superintendent
of police in Lucknow, India.”
A man who never forgot or forgave a grudge, Jarvis had a faultless memory.
“That is correct,” Vaze replied.
Jarvis said, “I’m calling, sir, in the hope you can save my life. Do you know anything about
bombs?”
When Vaze spoke there was a note of interest in his voice.
“What kind of bomb?”
“Let me start at the beginning,” Jarvis told him.

The problem with that was Jarvis wasn’t sure where to begin. The last clear memory he had
before waking up in the cabin was being at his cigar club: The Smoke-Filled Room. He started
from there and told Superintendent Vaze the rest.
“Do you smoke alone?” the superintendent asked.
“At times. I also smoke with friends.”
“And casual acquaintances?”
The question made Jarvis frown.
“Yes, now that you mention it. Sometimes a new member of the club will stop by my table
and introduce himself.”
“When was the last time that happened?”
 Jarvis’s frown deepened. “The last time was … Damnit, did someone spike my cigar?”
“Perhaps he offered you one of his.”
That was it. Exactly what happened. Only he couldn’t recall the bastard’s name or face.
With his memory, that meant the cigar must have been drugged.
Vaze said, “Your CIA tried to kill Fidel Castro using exploding cigars. It’s not surprising
someone has revisited the idea with a new twist.”
Jarvis heard the Indian cop chuckle and he didn’t like it.
“You think this is funny, the situation I’m in?” Jarvis asked.
“I think it is ironic. You see, I am presently barricaded in my office, trying to keep a number
of my enemies out. I told them I have a bomb.”
“Good God,” Jarvis said. “Do you?”
“I’ll keep that to myself. But I was expecting a call from an English journalist so I could
make my predicament an international cause célèbre. But then you rang my office instead.”

“I really can’t tie up this line long,” Superintendent Vaze said.

“Didn’t you hear me say my life is at stake?” Jarvis asked.
“I did, and I told you mine is also in peril,” Vaze responded. “Publicizing my situation might
be the only thing that will save me.”
“You’re going to rely on the media to save you?” Jarvis couldn’t believe this guy.
“The BBC.” The Indian’s English took on a British gloss.
Jarvis couldn’t help himself, he laughed.
“Best of luck to you, Mr. Jarvis,” Vaze told him.
“No, wait! I didn’t tell you the most important thing about me. I’m wealthy.”
Just as when he’d mentioned the bomb, Jarvis heard the interest in Vaze’s voice.
“Millions or billions?” the cop asked.
“Billions,” Jarvis replied. “Lots of them.”

Jarvis went back to the window. Yeah, that was a manila envelope stuck to the base of a fir
tree out there. He wondered if the bomb was in there. It would have to be pretty small to fit
inside the envelope. And at that distance, could a small bomb do him any harm?
“Mr. Jarvis,” Vaze said with irritation, “I asked if you know of our caste system.”
Jarvis regained focus. He usually didn’t let his mind wander.
“Yes, I have a cursory knowledge. I do business in your country.”
Hearing his own words, started Jarvis off down another divergent path. Something he’d just
said was important. But he didn’t want to lose the thread of the conversation again. He brought
his attention back to the superintendent.
“I am a member of the Kshatriya caste,” Vaze said. “The warrior caste.”
Jarvis said, “I thought all that was outlawed by your constitution.”
“Yes, of course, it is. And all Americans are created equal.”
This time both men laughed.
“My point is,” Vaze continued, “despite your money, I think you are a Vaishya, a merchant.”
Jarvis had no trouble reading between the lines: The damn Indian considered him an inferior.
“On your side of the world, perhaps,” he said. “Over here, I’m what is known as a Boston
Brahman.”
Putting the uppity cop right back in his place.
Which, oddly enough, he seemed to appreciate.
 “That is a very good thing to know. Perhaps we can help each other.”
That was when it hit Jarvis, the idea that had teased him earlier.
Vaze was his tech support line.

“You see,” Superintendent Vaze said, “I earned my current position by both merit and
bribery.”
Jarvis was surprised by Vaze’s candor, but then he might be blown to pieces soon, too.
“Tell me about the merit,” Jarvis said.
“Before becoming superintendent, I was the inspector in charge of our encounter squad.”
“Encounter squad?”
“You Americans might call it a shootout squad.”
“Is that what you do?” Jarvis asked. “Shoot people?”
“Criminals, yes.”
“Then that’s what we’d call it. Why don’t you just make arrests?”
“Our courts are corrupt and overburdened with cases.”
“Your courts are corrupt, and you got your job through bribery?”
Some country, Jarvis thought. But who cared as long as the labor was cheap?
“I understand the same flaws afflict the United States, Mr. Jarvis.”
“Yes, they do. But so far we manage without encounter squads.”
And American labor was getting cheaper all the time, too.
“Yes, so far. Would you like me to continue?” Vaze asked.
Jarvis didn’t want to alienate the man, not before he got out of the cabin.
“Please do.”
“As head of the encounter squad, I killed eighty-six members of criminal syndicates. What
you Americans would call mafias.”
The guy didn’t sound like he was bragging, Jarvis thought. He came across like a ballplayer
saying, yeah, he hit .340 for the season, but he figured he could bat near .400 next year.
“Very impressive, superintendent. So why did you have to pay your bribe?”
“Because that is our tradition. New recruits to the police pay 150,000 to 300,000 rupees for
their jobs; I paid two million rupees for mine.”
Jarvis did the math. The superintendent had paid a little better than fifty-one thousand dollars
for his job. From what any good American businessman knew of Indian pay scales, he could
conclude…
“That’s a bit more than your annual salary, isn’t it?”
“My government salary.”
“Of course. Through your own thrift and ingenuity, you’ve prospered.”
“I would never admit this to anyone else,” Vaze said, “but there may be a Vaishya
somewhere in my lineage.”
Jarvis said, “Meaning you’ve done so well someone else has come along and offered your
sponsor a bigger bribe to take your place. And dispose of you in the bargain.”
“A precise reading, I’m afraid. All that’s keeping this evil plan from succeeding is my
enemies are unable, at the moment, to find underlings willing to sacrifice their own lives.”
“But you and I know they will,” Jarvis said. “There are always hotshots who thinks they can
beat the odds.”
 “Another unfortunate truth. So you see, I really must ring off. Plead my case to the world that
in India even our system of corruption is being corrupted. The government won’t like that; it
could be bad for business.”
Jarvis could, indeed, see that.
But he suggested an alternative to Vaze. “How about you offer your boss a mega-bribe to
stay on the job? You think thirty-nine million rupees would do it?”
A million bucks.
Jarvis had tipped a yacht broker that much for finding him the right boat.
“You are a Brahman indeed, Mr. Jarvis. Yes, I think that would do the trick.”
“But first we get me out of my box,” Jarvis said.

The superintendent had a good memory, too. He recalled what Jarvis had told him the size of
the cabin was: 15X15.
“A space as small as that will not require a very big explosion to both kill you and destroy
the structure.” The Indian cop had also recalled hearing the place was shoddily built.
“How big?” Jarvis asked.
“With a military-grade plastic explosive, a lump not much bigger than your fist. Assuming
you have a normal hand, but—”
“But what?”
Vaze continued, “As its name implies, this explosive has great plasticity. A fairly small
quantity might be stretched without breaking around the interior perimeter of your cabin.”
“If it’s spread out thin like that, would it still kill me?” Jarvis asked.
“Quite nicely. Imagine being at the center of a square with four shock waves rushing toward
you at more than 8,000 meters per second.”
Unfortunately for Jarvis, he did just that, and almost dropped the phone.
But then Vaze told him, “Plastic explosives require a detonator.”
“What’s that?”
“One of two things: a smaller explosion, such as a detonator cord or a blasting cap,to set off
the larger explosion, or a spark.”
“What kind of a spark?”
“Electrical.”
“But this dump doesn’t have any electricity.”
Vaze didn’t respond immediately, and Jarvis heard a horrendous racket originating in India.
Sounded like gunfire. Christ Almighty, had someone just killed his tech support guy? It would be
bad enough if he had to call back and start over, but if he didn’t even have that opt—
“Mr. Jarvis?” Vaze was back, breathing a little hard.
“Yes, I’m here. Are you all right?”
“Just a bit of a probe from the opposition. I had to send a few brash fellows on to their next
lives. Got a bit nicked myself. I’m afraid I’ll have to double the fee I require.”
Bastard, Jarvis thought. At the same time, though, he admired Vaze’s shrewdness.
Fucker had more than one Vaishya in his family tree.
“Done. Now what about the detonator?”
“Oh, yes. In fact, there is an electrical device in your cabin. You are holding it in your hand.”
Horrified, Jarvis held the Iridium at arm’s length and gaped at it.
He was still able to hear Vaze tell him. “Whatever you do, don’t disconnect. I’m afraid I’m
going to be busy again for the next few minutes.”
 In a natural progression for a man in his position, Jarvis thought of all the things that might
go wrong. Vaze might get killed. The battery in the phone might die and set off the bomb. The
phone might be the bomb and blow his head off. He put it down in a corner of the cabin, grabbed
the stinking mattress and covered himself with it in the far corner. Undoubtedly a futile gesture,
but you did what you could. He thought of something else he could do. He tipped the oaken table
on its side and put it in front of the phone. Another barrier. The he went back to crouching
behind the mattress.
None of which was going to him any good if he had a heart attack before the bomb went off.
Which he just about did when he heard a loud BOOM. He prayed it hadn’t come from the phone,
that it was just the ski patrol coming closer, clearing a nearby slope of unstable snow. But he had
to know for sure what happened.
He emerged from behind the mattress and went to the window. He didn’t see any signs of a
new planned avalanche. He did see the manila envelope again. The damn thing was really
beginning to annoy him. But he didn’t have time for it now. Overcoming enormous
apprehension, he crossed to the phone and picked it up.
“Superintendent Vaze,” he asked in soft voice, “are you there?”
There was no answer.
Jarvis could almost smell smoke and charred flesh in Lucknow.
But if he wasn’t supposed to break the connection, wouldn’t breaking it from Vaze’s end also
be fatal for him?
The superintendent came back on the phone.
“Mr. Jarvis,” he said, “things are getting a bit sticky here. It looks as though there’ll be no
escape for me now.”
“You set off your bomb?”
“One of them. Took out enough of the blighters to buy myself a respite of an hour or two.
But I’ve killed too many of them now for bribery to remain a viable notion. I’m afraid I’ve also
cast myself in too unfavorable a light to get any international media sympathy.”
Jarvis thought fast. “Is there anyone you might like me to send your seventy-eight million
rupees to?”
Vaze chuckled.
“You do not believe you will be reincarnated, Mr. Jarvis?”
“If there’s an afterlife, superintendent, I’m afraid mine will be in a broiler.”
The Indian must have liked the image. He laughed again.
“I do have a favorite mistress,” he said. “She could use the money.”
Vaze provided a name and address. Jarvis committed them to memory and promised to
provide the funds—if Vaze got him safely out of the cabin.
The superintendent told Jarvis his theory. Once Jarvis had opened the phone connection
between them, they had to keep it open to prevent the bomb in the cabin from going off. More
than likely, they also had to keep their dialogue going to prevent the detonation.
Jarvis said, “You mean if you’d been away from the phone a little longer…”
“I really was killing them as fast as I could, Mr. Jarvis, I assure you.”
“Yes, of course. This is all just starting to wear on my nerves. But if we have to keep talking,
how do I get away?”
“I have an idea,” Vaze said. “I will patch a third party into our call. A male with an American
accent.”
“How are you going to do that?”
 “As you suggested, Mr. Jarvis, I have invested my money wisely. One of my holdings is a
call-answering enterprise named Friendly Tech. Perhaps you’ve heard of it.”
“Are you kidding?” Jarvis asked. “I use Friendly Tech for all my outsourced tech calls.”
And in that instant both men knew what had brought them together.

“It’s a conspiracy,” Jarvis said. “Everybody who’s ever gotten pissed off talking to Friendly
Tech, they’re taking it out on both of us.”
Vaze said, “They are the ones who bribed the chief minister to dispose of me.”
“And they wanted me to be on the phone with you when you died,” Jarvis said. “So I’d hear
my tech support call get cut off and know I was cooked, too.”
“May all these swine be reborn as Dalits with leprosy,” Vaze snarled.
“Damn right. But if you help me get out of here, I’ll make it my life’s work to hunt down
every last one of them, and I have the means to do it.”
“An encounter squad to destroy these criminals? Yes, that is perfect.”
Vaze worked his end of the telecom system to bring what sounded to Jarvis like a California
surfer dude into the conversation.
“I’m sorry, man…I mean, Mr. Vaze, what do you want me to say?”
“It does not matter, Rajiv,” the superintendent told. “Just wait until I tell you, then read your
script.”
“Right, man.”
“Mr. Jarvis,” Vaze said, “may Shiva the destroyer guide your efforts.”
Jarvis liked that. Thought if he got out alive he might have to alter his world view.
“Thanks. First thing, though, I send the money to your mistress. How much time do you
think I have once I put the phone down?”
“The bastards might be using voice recognition software,” Vaze said. “Rajiv might not fool it
for long. Figure no more than thirty seconds.”
“Right,” Jarvis said. “I’ll get even for us.”
Superintendent Aasim Vaze replied, “Vengeance. Now go. Rajiv, read your script.”
Derek Jarvis dropped the phone, yanked the door open, and ran from the cabin.
The last thing he heard from India was an American sounding voice saying, “Hi, this is Kyle,
may I have your name please? Mary? How may I help you, Mary?”

The snow was thigh-deep on Jarvis and he didn’t quite get all the way behind the big fir tree
in time. So he got to see what happened. Four bombs went off: bang, bang, bang, bang. The
phone must have been the detonator and the plastic explosives had to be stretched around the
outside of the cabin. Jarvis thought the choreography of the controlled demolition was a thing of
beauty. Each wall fell inward: one, two, three, four. And the roof dropped neatly atop the pile.
Apparently, the cabin had been built with more care than he’d appreciated.
Had he been inside, he’d have been smashed flat.
After the shock waves had turned him into putty.
As it was, it looked like he was going to have a hell of a time getting off the mountain on
foot. He might wind up dying anyway. Without redeeming his promises to Inspector Vaze.
He braced an arm against the fir tree and lay his head against it as a wave of self-pity washed
over him. Then something more tangible struck him; something pointed poked his forehead. He
looked up and saw the corner of the manila envelope he’d seen from the cabin.
 He grabbed it, pulled it off the tree, and tore it open. Inside he found another Iridium 9550A
and another note. The note told him to use the phone to get help to determine which of the paths
down the mountain the ski patrol had set with explosives, which paths his lunatic captors had
mined, and the single path the was his only hope for survival.
That was when Derek Jarvis knew. He would never have his revenge. And whatever time he
had left to live would be spent making calls to tech support.

###

About the Author

Joseph Flynn is a Chicagoan, born and raised, currently living in central Illinois with his wife
and daughter. He is the author of The Concrete Inquisition, Digger, The Next President, Hot
Type, Farewell Performance, Gasoline Texas, The President’s Henchman, and The Hangman’s
Companion.

Read free excerpts of Joe’s books by visiting his website at: http://www.josephflynn.com or
his author's page at Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/StrayDogPress

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