Like he was in good hands now.
Arkasian didn't let go of his ha nd. "What I've said to you about my plans ...," he said.
"I don't spy for anybody," said Step. "And Ray Keene knows better than to ask me to." Though of course Ray could ask him to sneak around and run the programming behind Dicky's back, and Step would do that. I pretend to be so clean, but I'm really not.
That was what Step thought as he left the Agamemnon booth. I'm only somewhat clean. I only have some standards that won't bend. And if Arkasian had offered me enough money maybe I would have folded on all of them. He probably thinks I'm a good man who can be trusted, but I know that I can only be trusted until I think that being trustworthy won't get me what I want. Even as it is, I'm a sneak and a cheat, coming here to talk to one of Eight Bits Inc.'s most powerful competitors when it was Eight Bits that paid for me to come to this convention in the first place. I tricked them into paying for me to fly to a job interview with a rival. I'm even getting paid for the time that I spent here.
By rights I should share the idea for the atlas with Eight Bits Inc. My employment agreement says so, that any ideas I come up with while I work for them belong to them.
Then he thought: That's easy. All I have to do is propose the atlas to Dicky, and make him think that I really want to do it. He'll shoot it down. He'll kill it, just to spite me. If I get him to do it in writing, I'm home free. I'll have proof that I offered it to them and that clears me.
Sneaky. I'm so sneaky.
That night, Glass tried to get him to join him and the marketing guys and some young programmers at Apple who were working on software for the Lisa. They were going to drink their way through San Francisco, and Step begged off. "But we need a designated driver," said Glass.
"Take a cab," said Step.
"Oh, yeah," said Glass. "I forgot. This is a real city. Cabs."
So Step had the hotel room to himself when he called DeAnne and told her everything that had happened with Neddy Cranes and Dan Arkasian. He loved hearing the relief, the excitement in her voice. "It's not a sure thing," he said. "But the money for the 64 adaptation is."
Then she thought of something that could go wrong. DeAnne was good at thinking of things that could go wrong. "Only if you can get Eight Bits Inc. to stop working on their own 64 adaptation."
"I'll just tell them to stop."
"Right, you'll walk in and say, I sold it to Agamemnon."
"No, I'll just tell them that I won't sell it to them."
"And they'll ask why, since you work for them, and especially because they've got so much invested in it now."
"Not my fault."
"Not your fault, but then they fire you anyway because you're not a team player."
Step sighed. "This is all very complicated."
"It's all a matter of timing, isn't it," said DeAnne. "Because what if things come to a head about the 64 adaptation before we actually get a contract from Agamemnon, and then you tell Eight Bits Inc. they can't do it and they fire you and then you don't get the contract from Agamemnon after all."
"But what if the contract comes first and the 64 adaptation doesn't come to a head until after Ray decides not to develop for the PC and after Arkasian decides that he will develop for the PC."
"Everything depends on other people," said DeAnne.
"Everything always depends on other people," said Step. "And maybe the Lord is looking out for us a little.
Maybe God has a plan."
"Well, if he planned for you to work for Agamemnon, why didn't he get us to move to California instead of this side trip to Steuben? Or even leave us where we were? We were happy in Indiana. Stevie wasn't playing with imaginary friends there."
That was something new. "Imaginary friends?"
"I realized it today. I mean, it's been going on for weeks. Almost since we moved here. He comes home from school so morose, I don't think he has any friends there, I mean I've asked him who he plays with at school and he says, Nobody, but I didn't worry because then every now and then he says, Jack and I did this, or Scotty and I did that. So I thought, he does have friends, he just wants me to feel sorry for him."
"Heck, I didn't even know he talked at all."
"He's not a catatonic or anything, you know. Just depressed."
"Oh, well, that's OK."
"On Saturdays I've been spending time with you, doing the shopping we had to do, all the work, all the unpacking, you know? But this Saturday you were gone, and I was lonely, and so I just sat on the patio for a while reading that Anne Tyler book you got me while the kids played. Robbie and Elizabeth were playing two-man tag or something, anyway they were chasing each other everywhere, but Stevie just sort of sat there on the lawn, and then he wandered around, touching the fence, touching the wall of the house, stuff like that. It worried me. He used to play with the younger kids, and here he is still sulking or something and he doesn't play with them, even though Robbie kept coming up to him and saying, Play with us. Anyway, then I went inside and did the laundry and stuff, but I kept checking on the kids because that's what I do--
"Madame Conscientious."
"That's me, Junk Man. But what I'm saying is, I know Stevie never left the back yard and I know that no other kids were there. But then at supper I asked him, What were you playing there in the back yard today?
And he says, Jack and me were searching for buried treasure. And I say, You mean at school? Because that's where I thought Jack was. And he says, Jack doesn't go to school."
"Are you sure he understood what you were asking?"
"Yes. I mean, I asked him right then, Well when did you search for buried treasure with him? and he says, Today, and I say, Where? and he says, In the back yard mostly"
"Isn't he a little old for an imaginary friend?"
"Yes, Step, of course he is. Way too old. It worries me."
"Maybe he's just pretending that his friends from school are part of his imaginary game at home. You know, including them even though they aren't there."
"I'm not making this up, Step. He actually said that Jack doesn't go to school. Doesn't that sound like an imaginary friend?"
"I forgot that you said that he said that. I haven't had a chance to think about this the way you have."
"Step, he doesn't have any friends at school, apparently, and at home he's not playing with his brother and sister, he's playing with imaginary friends-even when the kids are right there, when I'm right there. Tonight I tried to get the kids to play Life with me, you know Stevie's always liked that game, but he wouldn't play. I made him play, but he wouldn't move his car or handle his mo ney, I ended up spinning for him even, like he was just a dummy player, and he just sat there staring off into space."
"Is he still punishing us for making him move and go to a new school?"
"What else can I think?" asked DeAnne.
"Things have to work out," said Step. "They have to work out so I can come home, work at home. So we can get life back the way it's supposed to be. I feel so helpless, so cut off, my boy is having these problems, he's so angry at us, and I can't do a thing, I'm trapped. How do other men do it? Going to work all the time? And then these housewives want to go to work just like the men, so they can be cut off from their families, too, when what should happen is all the men coming home, to put the family back together."
"I know, Step. At least that's how we need it to be."
"So pray for us tonight," said Step. "Pray for this contract to come through. For all the timing to be right."
"I don't know if I should be praying for things like that," said DeAnne. "It's so selfish."
"Listen," said Step, "even Christ expressed a personal preference before he said, Thy will be done."