He watched her walk away. Then between long swallows, he studied his beer as though it meant something.
Later, when he had only an empty bottle to study, Noah left Francene a tip larger than the total of his two-beer check.
Outside, an upwash of urban glow overlaid a yellow stain on the blackness of the lower sky. High above, unsullied, hung a polished-silver moon. In the deep pure black above the lunar curve, a few stars looked clean, so far from Earth.
He walked eastward, through the warm gusts of wind stirred by traffic, alert for any indication that he was under surveillance. No one followed him, not even at a distance.
Evidently the congressman’s battalions no longer found him to be of even the slightest interest. His apparent cowardice and the alacrity with which he had betrayed his client confirmed for them that he was, by the current definition, a good citizen.
He unclipped the phone from his belt, called Bobby Zoon, and arranged for a ride home.
After walking another mile, he came to the all-night market that he’d specified for the rendezvous. Bobby’s Honda was parked next to a collection bin for Salvation Army thrift shops.
When Noah got into the front passenger’s seat, Bobby — twenty, skinny, with a scraggly chin beard and the slightly vacant look of a long-term Ecstasy user — was behind the steering wheel, picking his nose.
Noah grimaced. “You’re disgusting.”
“What?” Bobby asked, genuinely surprised by the insult, even though his index finger was still wedged in his right nostril.
“At least I didn’t catch you playing with yourself. Let’s get out of here.”
“That was cool back there,” Bobby said as he started the engine. “Absolutely arctic.”
“Cool? You idiot, I liked that car.”
“Your Chevy? It was a piece of crap.”
“Yeah, but it was my piece of crap.”
“Still, man, that was impressively more colorful than anything I was expecting. We got more than we needed.”
“Yeah,” Noah acknowledged without enthusiasm.
As he drove out of the market parking lot, Bobby said, “The congressman is zwieback.”
He’s what?”
“Toast done twice.”
“Where do you get this stuff?”
“What stuff?” Bobby asked.
“This zwieback crap.”
“I’m always working on a screenplay in my head. In film school, they teach you everything’s material, and this sure is.”
“Hell is spending eternity as the hero in a Bobby Zoon flick.”
With an earnestness that could be achieved only by a boy-man with a wispy goatee and the conviction that movies are life, Bobby said, “You’re not the hero. My part’s the male lead. You’re in the Sandra Bullock role.”
Chapter 4
Down through the high forest to lower terrain, from night-kissed ridges into night-smothered valleys, out of the trees into a broad planted field, the motherless boy hurries. He follows the crop rows to a rail fence.
He is amazed to be alive. He doesn’t dare to hope that he has lost his pursuers. They are out there, still searching, cunning and indefatigable.
The fence, old and in need of repair, clatters as he climbs across it. When he drops to the lane beyond, he crouches motionless until he is sure that the noise has drawn no one’s attention.
Previously scattered clouds, as woolly as sheep, have been herded together around the shepherd moon.
In this darker night, several structures loom, all humble and yet mysterious. A barn, a stable, outbuildings. With haste, he passes among them.
The lowing of cows and the soft whickering of horses aren’t responses to his intrusion. These sounds are as natural a part of the night as the musky smell of animals and the not altogether unpleasant scent of straw-riddled manure.
Beyond the hard-packed barnyard earth lies a recently mown lawn. A concrete birdbath. Beds of roses. An abandoned bicycle on its side. A grape arbor is entwined with vines, clothed with leaves, hung with fruit.
Through the tunnel of the arbor, and then across more grass, he approaches the farmhouse. At the back porch, brick steps lead up to a weathered plank floor. He creaks and scrapes to the door, which opens for him.
He hesitates on the threshold, troubled by both the risk that he’s taking and the crime he’s intending to commit. His mother has raised him with strong values; but if he’s to survive this night, he will have to steal.
Furthermore, he is reluctant to put these people — whoever they may be — at risk. If the killers track him to this place while he’s still inside, they won’t spare anyone. They have no mercy, and they dare not leave witnesses.
Yet if he doesn’t seek help here, he’ll have to visit the next farmhouse, or the one after the next. He is exhausted, afraid, still lost, and in need of a plan. He’s got to stop running long enough to think.
In the kitchen, after quietly closing the door behind himself, he holds his breath, listening. The house is silent. Evidently, his small noises haven’t awakened anyone.
Cupboard to cupboard, drawer to drawer, he searches until he discovers candles and matches, which he considers but discards. At last, a flashlight.
He needs several items, and a quick but cautious tour of the lower floor convinces him that he will have to go upstairs to find those necessities.
At the foot of the steps, he’s paralyzed by dread. Perhaps the killers are already here. Upstairs. Waiting in the dark, waiting for him to find them. Surprise.
Ridiculous. They aren’t the type to play games. They’re vicious and efficient. If they were here now, he’d already be dead.
He feels small, weak, alone, doomed. He feels foolish, too, for continuing to hesitate even when reason tells him that he has nothing to fear other than getting caught by the people who live here.
Finally, he starts up toward the second floor. The stairs softly protest. As he ascends, he stays close to the wall, where the treads are less noisy.
At the top is a short hallway. Four doors.
The first door opens on a bathroom. The second lends to a bedroom; hooding the flashlight to dim and more tightly focus the beam, he enters.
A man and a woman lie in the bed, sleeping soundly. They snore in counterpoint: he an oboe with a split reed; she a whistling flute.
On a dresser, in a small decorative tray: coins and a man’s wallet. In the wallet, the boy finds one ten-dollar bill, two fives, four ones.
These are not rich people, and he feels guilty about taking their money. One day, if he lives long enough, he will return to this house and repay his debt.
He wants the coins, too, but he doesn’t touch them. In his nervousness, he’s likely to jingle or drop them, rousing the farmer and his wife.
The man grumbles, turns on his side… but doesn’t wake.
Retreating quickly and silently from the bedroom, the boy sees movement in the hall, a pair of shining eyes, a flash of teeth in the hooded beam of light. He almost cries out in alarm.
A dog. Black and white. Shaggy.
He has a way with dogs, and this one is no exception. It nuzzles him and then, panting happily, leads him along the hallway to another door that stands ajar.
Perhaps the dog came from this room. Now it glances back at its new friend, grins, wags its tail, and slips across the threshold as flu-idly as a supernatural familiar ready to assist with some magical enterprise.
Affixed to the door is a stainless-steel plaque with laser-cut letters:
STARSHIP COMMAND CENTER, CAPTAIN CURTIS HAMMOND.
Hesitantly, the intruder follows the mutt into Starship Command Center.
This is a boy’s room, papered with large monster-movie posters. Display shelves are cluttered with collections of science-fiction action figures and models of ornate but improbable spaceships. In one corner a life-size plastic model of a human skeleton hangs from a metal stand, grinning as if death is great fun.