She tossed the portable down on the sofa dismissively. Snoop Doggy Dogg’s punchy rap immediately faded to a murmur. Jamie turned back to the window to hide his smile. Kevin would sooner have his wiener cut off than TV. He’d won. It wasn’t so much that he wanted to play with Kevin and Ronnie, but they sure didn’t want to play with him, and now they were going to have to.
Another bicyclist passed the house, going the other way this time. A different bike, nothing fancy, one of those old-fashioned drop-handlebar numbers. The guy was different too, older looking, with a beard and kind of long greasy hair, like that boyfriend of Mom’s who hadn’t worked out. The only thing the same was that as he passed, he turned to look at Jamie, as though he’d known all along he was standing there. It was kind of weird.
Footsteps clomped heavily up the narrow stairs from the basement. Jamie’s smile grew, then disappeared as he turned around to watch the payoff. Kevin slunk moodily into the living room, shoulders hunched, scowling at his mom, ignoring his younger brother. Three paces behind came Ronnie Ho, looking polite and concerned as always. What a jerk!
“I’m so sorry we didn’t come right away,” Ronnie said in his smarmy voice. “We were kind of locked into the game.”
Jamie’s mom smiled. She thought Ronnie Ho was “so polite.”
“That’s fine, Ronald. But listen, I need some quality time with the baby and Jamie is driving me up the wall. Can’t you guys do something with him?”
“Like what?” snarled Kevin.
After Ronnie’s smarm, Kevin sounded even more in-your-face than usual.
“Oh gee, I don’t know!” his mother exclaimed girlishly. “Whatever you guys do.”
“He’s just a kid!”
“So are you,” snapped his mom. Her voice had hardened right up. No more buddy-buddy stuff if he wasn’t going to buy into it. Kevin stared back at her angrily. Ronnie Ho stood looking on with an embarrassed smile, pretending that nothing was going on, or if it was then he hadn’t noticed. Jamie bet Chinese people would rather commit hara-kiri or whatever it was than throw a scene like this in front of guests. Well, screw ’em, bunch of F.O.B.s! This is America. Deal with it.
“Come on, guys!” their mother exclaimed wearily. “Go chase each other around in back or something.”
“It’s too cold.”
“Watch TV.”
She stood up, cradling the Accident.
“There’s nothing on but a bunch of dumb shows and crappy movies,” said Kevin, looking pointedly at the glowing screen in the corner.
“Well, let Jamie play your video game,” Mom suggested.
“He’s no good.”
“That’s because you never let me play,” Jamie protested loudly.
“Listen, I don’t care what you do, just get outta here, all right?” snapped their mom. “What’s the matter with you kids? Play hide-and-seek or something.”
She disappeared into the bedroom with the baby. Kevin looked at Ronnie Ho, rolling his eyes and shaking his head. Hide-and-seek! What planet did this woman live on? Kevin had long since moved on to sardines, where one person hid and everyone had to find them and then hide in the same place, which gave you a chance to kind of rub up against some of the good-looking babes. Hide-and-seek was for little kids.
“Or maybe you’d rather clean that room of yours?” his mother yelled threateningly from the next room.
Kevin leaned over and whispered something to Ronnie, who nodded.
“OK, we’ll play hide-and-seek,” he called back.
“You won’t play fair!” retorted Jamie. “You’ll make me be it and then goof off somewhere I can’t find you!”
“OK, you hide,” Kevin replied.
He beamed innocently at Jamie. Too innocently.
“You won’t come looking for me!” Jamie protested loudly.
He knew there had to be a catch, and he was determined not to be suckered by the older boys.
“Yes, we will,” replied Kevin. “And I bet we find you right away.”
“Oh yeah? How much?”
“A dollar.”
“A dollar?”
Jamie thought furiously. He was still sure it was a scam, the way they’d whispered to each other, but he couldn’t figure it out. And a dollar was a dollar.
“How long have you got to find me?” he demanded suspiciously.
“Twenty minutes.”
“Ten.”
“OK, fifteen.”
“Shoot, you can search the whole house in fifteen.”
“That’s the deal,” his brother said. “Take it or leave it.”
Jamie reflected for a moment. Then he nodded.
“OK.”
Kevin smiled swaggeringly at Ronnie Ho.
“We’ll be downstairs in my room,” he told Jamie. “We’ll give you a couple of minutes to get hid. C’mon, Ronnie.”
They disappeared. A few moments later the rap was up to strength again, making the floorboards quiver underfoot. Jamie set a fifteen-minute timer on the el-cheapo digital watch his dad had got free at some gas station and passed on to him. Then he headed for the stairs. Through the open bedroom door, he could hear his mom cooing and murmuring to the baby. The way she carried on, you’d have thought she’d wanted the damn thing.
Jamie started down the cramped, twisting stairs leading to the basement. He was careful to avoid the second and fifth steps, which creaked. When he was far enough down he checked the door to Kevin’s room. It was closed. He carried on down to the bare concrete floor of the basement. To his right, a door lay open into a utility room housing the washing machine, dryer and freezer. Straight ahead was the rec room containing the half-finished bar his dad had been building as part of a project to turn it into a den, even though he’d never even got around to carpeting the basement. Empty liquor bottles gathered dust on flimsy glass shelving. To the left was Jamie’s room, and next to it Kevin’s. They had the music on again in there, a strident twangy thumping beat that would cover any noises Jamie might make.
The center of the floor was occupied by the furnace, screened off with plywood paneling. Jamie walked slowly around it, inspecting the housing intently with eyes and fingers. A couple of months earlier the furnace had failed to light and they’d had to call the repairman. Jamie had been home from school with a sore throat the day he’d come. He’d watched from his bed as the guy removed a section of paneling and fiddled around with a vast array of cool-looking gadgets from his toolbox. Jamie had known about the hatch which gave access to the controls at the front of the furnace, but he had never suspected the existence of a removable panel at the side, used for servicing the jets. The joint ran right along one of the beveled black lines cut into the plywood to make it look like real planking. You’d never guess it was there, unless you knew. After the guy had gone, Jamie had taken it off himself and looked inside. The space was pretty small, but so was Jamie. Kevin would never find him there, not in a million years.
Upstairs, the doorbell rang. Jamie heard his mom’s footsteps on the boards overhead as she went to answer it. Then he saw the thin black crack in the plywood and the grubby marks of the repair guy’s fingers. He worked the panel loose and started to crawl inside.
It was more difficult than he’d thought. The surface of the furnace inside the hatch was covered in valves and pipes and stuff sticking out at crazy angles. It was tough to wriggle in between them, feet first, unable to see where he was going. The real problem, though, was replacing the panel from the inside. There was nothing to hold on to, and in the darkness it was tough to line up the metal tabs and slots which held it in place, particularly with your body twisted like a stick of licorice. He’d only managed to get one fastener in place when he heard the creak on the stairs.
He crouched there in the darkness, pressed up against the pipes and ducts of the furnace, waiting for his mom’s call. Probably it was some friend of Kevin’s, either that or Ronnie Ho’s dad was here to take him home. But instead of a voice he heard the shriller squeal of the other loose step. His mom must have realized they wouldn’t hear her calling over the music. It was kind of weird, though. Normally she would have phoned down. Mom didn’t set foot in the basement that much any more. It was their territory, now that Dad had gone. As long as they stayed out of her hair, she left them to their own devices.