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  Kevin paused on the sidewalk and stared at the house. What now? Walk up and tell Balinda that someone was about to blow up the dog? He closed his eyes. God, give me strength. You know how I hate this. Maybe he should just leave. If Balinda had a phone, he would have called instead. Maybe he could call the neighbors and—

  The door opened and Bob stepped out, grinning from ear to ear. “Hello, Kevin.”

  Bob wore a lopsided crew cut, undoubtedly Balinda’s doing. His beige slacks hung a full six inches above a pair of shiny black leather wing tips. His shirt was a dirty white and sported large lapels reminiscent of the seventies.

  Kevin grinned. “Hello, Bob. Can I see Damon?”

  Bob lit up. “Damon wants to see you, Kevin. He’s been waiting to see you.”

  “Is that so? Good, then. Let’s—”

  “Bobby, baby!” Balinda’s shrill voice cut through the front door. “You get back in here!” She appeared out of the shadows wearing red high heels and white pantyhose patched up with streaks of clear fingernail polish. Her white dress was lined with age-stained lace embedded haphazardly with a couple dozen fake pearls, the surviving remnant of what had once been hundreds. A large sun hat perched on jet-black hair that looked freshly dyed. A string of gaudy jewels hung around her neck. But it was the white makeup she applied to her sagging face and her bright ruby red lipstick that planted Balinda firmly in the category of the walking dead.

  She glared past heavily shadowed lids, studied Kevin for a moment, and then turned up her nose.

  “Did I say you could go out? Get in. In, in, in!”

  “It’s Kevin, Mama.”

  “I don’t care if it’s Jesus Christ, pumpkin.” She reached forward and straightened his collar. “You know how easily you catch cold, baby.”

  She ushered Bob toward the door.

  “He wants to see—”

  “Be nice for Princess.” She gave him a little shove. “In.”

  God bless her soul, Balinda really did intend good for that boy. She was misguided and foolish, certainly, but she loved Bob.

  Kevin swallowed and glanced at his watch. Two minutes. He cut for the gate while her back was still turned.

  “And just where does the stranger think he’s going?”

  “I just want to check on the dog. I’ll be gone before you know it.”

  He reached the gate and yanked it open.

  “Gone! You’ve turned running away into a new art form, haven’t you, college boy?”

  “Not now, Balinda,” he said calmly. His breathing came faster. She marched up behind him. He strode down the side of the house.

  “At least show a little respect when you’re on my grounds,” she said.

  He checked himself. Closed his eyes. Opened them. “Please, not now, Princess.”

  “That’s better. The dog’s fine. You, on the other hand, are not.”

  Kevin rounded the house and stopped. The familiar yard sat unchanged. Black. Balinda called it a garden, but the backyard was nothing more than one huge ash heap, albeit a fairly tidy ash heap, three feet deep at its center, tapering off to two feet along the fence. A fifty-five-gallon drum smoldered at the center of the yard—they were still burning. Burning, burning, every day burning. How many news-apers and books had been burned back here over the years? Enough for many tons of ash.

  The doghouse stood as it always had, in the back left corner. A toolshed sat unused and in terrible need of paint in the other corner. The ash had piled up against its door.

  Kevin stepped onto the hardened ash and then ran across the yard for the doghouse. Less than a minute. He dropped to one knee, peered into the doghouse, and was rewarded with a growl.

  “Easy, Damon. It’s me, Kevin.” The old black lab had grown senile and testy, but he immediately recognized Kevin’s voice. He whimpered and limped out. A chain was latched to his collar.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” Balinda demanded.

  “Good boy.” Kevin stuck his head into the old doghouse and squinted in the darkness. No bomb that he could see. He stood and walked around the small house.

  Nothing.

  “What is he doing, Princess?”

  Kevin turned back to the house at the sound of his uncle’s voice. Eugene stood on the back porch, staring out at him. He wore his customary English-style boots and riding pants complete with suspenders and a beret. The skinny man looked more like a jockey to Kevin, but in Balinda’s eyes, he was a prince. He’d worn the same outfit for at least ten years. Before that it was a Henry V outfit, awkward and clumsy on such a petite man.

  Balinda stood at the edge of the house, watching Kevin with wary eyes. The shade lifted in the window to her left—Kevin’s old room. Bob peered out. The past stared at him through those three sets of eyes.

  He looked down at his watch. Thirty minutes had come and gone. He reached down and patted the dog. “Good boy.” He unleashed him, tossed the chain to the side, and headed back for the gate.

  “What do you think you are doing with my property?” Balinda asked.

  “I thought he could use some exercise.”

  “You came all the way out here to let that old bat off his chain? What do you take me for? An idiot?” She turned to the dog, who was following Kevin. “Damon! Back in your house. Back!”

  The dog stopped.

  “Don’t just stand there, Eugene! Control that animal!”

  Eugene immediately perked up. He took two steps toward the dog and flung out a flimsy arm. “Damon! Bad dog! Get back. Get back immediately.”

  The dog just stared at them.

  “Try it with your horse training accent,” Balinda said. “Put some authority in your voice.”

  Kevin stared at them. It had been a long time since he’d seen them like this. They’d slipped into their role-playing on the fly. For the moment he didn’t even exist. It was hard to imagine he grew up with these two.

  Eugene stood as tall as his short frame would allow and expanded his chest. “I say, dog! To the kennel or the whip it’ll be. Be gone! Be thou gone immeeediately!”

  “Don’t just stand there; go after him like you mean it!” Balinda snapped. “And I really don’t think thou is appropriate with an animal. Growl or something!”

  Eugene crouched and took several long steps toward the dog, growling like a bear.

  “Not like an animal, you idiot!” Balinda said. “You look foolish! He’s the animal; you’re the master. Act like one. Growl like a man! Like a ruler.”

  Eugene pulled himself up again and thrust out an arm, snarling like a villain. “Back in the cage, you foul-mouthed vermin!” he cried hoarsely.

  Damon whimpered and ran back into his house.

  “Ha!” Eugene stood up, triumphant.

  Balinda clapped and giggled, delighted. “You see, didn’t I tell you? Princess knows—”

  A muffled explosion suddenly lifted the doghouse a foot into the air and dropped it back to the ground.

  They stood, Balinda at the corner, Bob in the window, Eugene by the porch, and Kevin in the middle of the yard, staring with incredulity at the smoldering doghouse.

  Kevin could not move. Damon?

  Balinda took a step forward and stopped. “Wha . . . what was that?”

  “Damon?” Kevin ran for the doghouse. “Damon!”

  He knew before he arrived that the dog was dead. Blood quickly darkened the ash at the door. He looked in and immediately recoiled. Bile crept up his throat. How was it possible? Tears sprang into his eyes.

  A screech filled the air. He looked back to see Balinda flying for the doghouse, face stricken, arms outstretched. He jumped back to avoid her rush. On the porch, Eugene was pacing and mumbling incoherently. Bob had his face planted on the window, wide-eyed.

  Balinda took one look into Damon’s smoking house and then staggered back. Eugene stopped and watched her. Kevin’s mind spun. But it wasn’t Damon that now made him dizzy. It was Princess. Not Princess—Mother!

  No! No, not Prince
ss, not Mother, not even Auntie! Balinda. The poor sick hag who’d sucked the life out of him.

  She turned to Kevin, eyes black with hate. “You!” she screamed. “You did this!”

  “No, Mother!” She’s not your Mother! Not Mother.

  “I—”

  “Shut your lying mouth! We hate you!” She flung her arm toward the gate. “Get out!”

  “You don’t mean that . . .” Stop it, Kevin! What do you care if she hates you? Get out.

  Balinda balled both hands to fists, dropped them to her sides, and tilted her head back. “Leave! Leave, leave, leave!” she screamed, eyes clenched.

  Eugene joined in, chanting with her in a falsetto voice, mimicking her stance. “Leave, leave, leave, leave!”

  Kevin left. Without daring to look at what Bob might be doing, he whirled around and fled for his car.

  6

  THE AIR IS STUFFY. Too hot for such a cool day. Richard Slater, as he has decided to call himself this time, strips out of his clothes and hangs them in the one closet beside the desk. He crosses the dark basement in his bare feet, pulls open the old chest freezer, and takes out two ice cubes. Not really cubes—they are frozen into small balls instead of squares. He found the unusual ice trays in a stranger’s refrigerator once and decided to take them. They are wonderful.

  Slater walks into the center of the room and sits down on the concrete. A large white clock on the wall ticks quietly. It’s 4:47. He will call Kevin in three minutes, unless Kevin himself makes a phone call, in which case he’ll remotely terminate the connection and then call Kevin back. Short of that, he wants to give Kevin a little time to digest things. That is the plan.

  He lies back, flat on the cool cement, and places one ice ball in each eye socket. He’s done a lot of things over the years—some of them horrible, some of them quite splendid. What do you call tipping a waitress a buck more than she deserves? What do you call tossing a baseball back to the kid who mistakenly throws it over the fence? Splendid, splendid.

  The horrible things are too obvious to dwell on.

  But really his whole life has been practice for this particular game. Of course, he always says that. There’s something about being in a contest of high stakes that makes the blood flow. Nothing quite compares. Killing is just killing unless there’s a game to the killing. Unless there is an end game that results in some kind of ultimate victory. Extracting punishment involves making someone suffer, and death ends that suffering, cheating the true pain of suffering. At least this side of hell. Slater shivers with the excitement of it all. A small whimper of pleasure. The ice hurts now. Like fire in his eyes. Interesting how opposites can be so similar. Ice and fire.

  He counts off the seconds, not in his conscious mind, but in the background, where it doesn’t distract him from thought. They have some pretty good minds on their side, but none quite like his. Kevin is no idiot. He will have to see which FBI agent they send. And of course the real prize exudes brilliance: Samantha.

  Slater opens his mouth and says the name slowly. “Samantha.”

  He’s been planning this particular game for three years now, not because he needed the time, but because he’s been waiting for the right timing. Then again, the wait has given him more than enough opportunity to learn far more than he needs to know. Kevin’s every waking move. His motivations and his desires. His strengths and his weaknesses. The truth behind that delightful little family of his.

  Electronic surveillance—it’s amazing how technology has advanced even in the last three years. He can put a laser beam on a window at a great distance and pick up any voices inside the room. They will find his bugs, but only because he wants them to. He can talk to Kevin any moment of the day on his own phone without being detected by a third party. When the police get around to finding the transmitter he affixed to the telephone line down from Kevin’s house, he will resort to alternatives. There are limits, of course, but they won’t be reached before the game expires. Pun intended.

  Two minutes have passed and his eyes are numb from the ice. Water leaks down his cheeks and he reaches his tongue up to touch it. Can’t. One more minute.

  The fact is, he’s thought of everything. Not in a criminal kind of let’s-do-a-bank-robbery-and-think-of-everything-so-they-won’t-catch-us way. But in a more fundamental way. Precise motivations and countermoves. Like a chess match that will be played in response to another’s moves. This method is far more exhilarating than taking a club to someone else’s pieces and declaring yourself the victor.

  In a few days, Kevin will be a shell of himself, and Samantha . . .

  He chuckles.

  There is no way they can possibly win.

  Time’s up.

  Slater sits up, catches what’s left of the ice balls as they fall from his eyes, tosses them into his mouth, and stands. The clock reads 4:50. He walks across the room to an old metal desk lit by a single shadeless lamp. Thirty watts. A policeman’s hat sits on the desk. He reminds himself to put it in the closet.

  The black phone is connected to a box, which will prevent tracing. Another remote box hides at the hub that services this house. The cops can trace all they like. He is invisible.

  “Are we ready, Kevin?”

  Slater picks up the phone, flips a switch on the scrambler, and dials the cell phone he’s instructed Kevin to keep with him.

  Kevin ran to his car and started it before it occurred to him that he had nowhere to go. If he had Samantha’s cell number, he would have called her. He almost called Milton but couldn’t get past the thought of the cops turning this house into a crime scene. It was inevitable, though—he had to report the bomb. Not telling Milton about Slater’s true demand had been one thing; covering up a second bomb was in a whole different league. He considered returning to explain the dog’s death to Balinda, but he didn’t have the stomach to face her, much less form an explanation that would make any sense.

  The explosion had been muffled by the doghouse—none of the neighbors seemed to have heard. If they had, they weren’t running around saying so.

  Kevin sat in his car, running his fingers through his hair. A sudden fury spread through his bones. The phone in his pocket buzzed loudly against his leg and he jumped.

  Slater!

  It buzzed again. He fumbled for the cell phone, pulled it out, flipped it open.

  “Hello?”

  “Hello.”

  “You . . . you didn’t have to do that,” Kevin said, voice wavering. He hesitated and then continued quickly. “Are you the boy? You’re the boy, aren’t you? Look, I’m here. Just tell me what—”

  “Shut up! What boy? Did I tell you to lecture me? Did I say, ‘I feel badly in need of a lecture at this time, college Kevin?’ Don’t ever do that again. You’ve broken the don’t-speak-to-me-unless-engaged rule several times now, college boy. The next time, I kill something that walks on two legs. Consider it negative reinforcement. Understand?”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s better. And I think it’s best not to tell the cops about this one. I know I said you could after the fact, but this little bonus was just something I planned in the event you weren’t a good listener, which you were so quick to confirm. Mum’s the word on this one. Okay?”

  Don’t tell the cops? How could he—

  “Answer me!”

  “O . . . okay.”

  “Tell Balinda to keep her trap shut too. I’m sure she’ll agree. She won’t want the cops searching through the house, now, will she?”

  “No.” So Slater knew about Balinda.

  “The games are on. I’m the bat; you’re the ball. I keep slugging until you confess. Lock and load.”

  Kevin desperately wanted to ask him what he meant by that word: confess. But he couldn’t. He could hear Slater breathing on the other end.

  “Samantha’s coming down,” Slater said in a soft voice. “That’s good. I can’t decide whom I despise more, you or her.” The line clicked and Slater was gone. Kevin sat in silent shock
. Whoever Slater was, he seemed to know everything. Balinda, the dog, the house. Samantha. He exhaled and closed his fingers to a fist to steady their trembling.

  This is really happening, Kevin. Someone who knows is going to blow the lid off. What falls but never breaks? What breaks but never falls? Night and day. In life he’s your friend, but death is the end. In life the dog was a friend, but death was the end of him. But there was more. Something Slater wanted him to confess was night and day, and life and death. What?

  Kevin slammed the steering wheel with his fist. What, what?

  “What boy?” Slater had said. What boy? So then he wasn’t the boy?

  Dear God . . . Dear God . . . Dear God what? He couldn’t even think straight to pray. He put his head back and took several long, calming breaths. “Samantha. Samantha.” She would know what to do. Kevin closed his eyes.

  Kevin was eleven years old when he first saw the boy who wanted to kill him.

  He and Samantha had become the very best of friends. What made their friendship most special was that their trips into the night remained a secret. He saw other kids now and then, but he never talked to them. Mother didn’t like that. But as far as he knew, she never did discover his little secret about the window. Every few nights, whenever they’d planned, or sometimes when Sam would tap on his window, or even sometimes when he went out and tapped on Sam’s window, he would sneak out and meet her.

  He didn’t tell Sam what was happening inside the house. He wanted to, of course, but he couldn’t tell her the worst of it, although he wondered whether she might have guessed anyway. His time with Sam was special because it was the only part of his life that wasn’t about the house. He wanted to keep it that way.

  The private school Sam attended held classes year-round, so she was always busy during the day, but Kevin knew he could never sneak out during the day anyway. Mother would find out.

  “Why don’t you ever want to play at the park?” Sam asked him one night as they walked through the greenway. “You’d get along great with Tommy and Linda.”