Spoonbenders

21

BUDDY

The World’s Most Powerful Psychic stands before the calendar with a crayon in his hand. Each numbered square, by convention, is a box to hold everything that will happen in those twenty-four hours. The boxes fill the page, but there’s no use looking back, or ahead. Not for him. The only square that means anything now is today’s.

A purplish pink circle already surrounds that square. He made the mark months ago, with this very crayon.

Zap.

He feels dizzy, as if he’s standing at the edge of a swimming pool, blindfolded. The endless chain of days past is jostling behind him, nudging him forward. Is the pool full, or empty? When he falls (and he will fall, he knows that much), will he smash into cement, or be cushioned by water? He doesn’t know. He doesn’t know and the not-knowing fills him with dread. This must be what it’s like for everyone else, every day, and he doesn’t know how they stand it.

It’s 6:30 in the morning, and he has so much to do before the future ends at 12:06 p.m. Some of these things he’s been thinking about for years. Images of the day’s events he’s saved like snapshots in a wallet. Some he drew years ago, at the kitchen table, while his mother encouraged him. But there are other events that are in shadow. He hasn’t looked too closely at them, because by remembering them clearly he’ll turn them from possibilities into certainties, and he doesn’t want everything locked down.

But oh, those shadows are scary. The idea of ricochets haunts him.

He lifts his hand, and isn’t surprised that it’s shaking. He steadies himself by focusing on the crayon. It’s his favorite color, a particular shade of pink. When his hand is steady again, he draws an X through the box that holds the day.

“You’re up early,” Irene says.

He puts the crayon away. Irene is still sleepy, still tired. Probably didn’t sleep well up in the attic room. She had to share the bed with Mary Alice. Irene puts a filter into the Mr. Coffee and reaches for the canister.

“I was thinking we should have a picnic,” he says. “Right here. Hot dogs for the kids. Hamburgers and brats for the adults.”

She looks over at him, a curious smile on her face. “Look at you, talking and all.”

“I was thinking two packs of hot dogs,” he says. “Then three or four pounds of ground beef, but…I don’t know. I don’t know how much people will eat.” The picnic, if it happens at all, will occur on the other side of history.

“Could you make Mom’s lamb sausage?” Irene asks. “You know, the ones with the feta and the mint?”

“Oh.” He’d remembered making patties out of ground meat, but had assumed he’d been making hamburgers. Huh.

“You don’t have to, if you’ve got your heart set on burgers,” Irene says.

“No, that’s fine.” Mom had learned a few Greek recipes, mostly at Frankie’s urging, and Buddy had memorized them. It would be good to do this on the anniversary of her death. “Could you go to the grocery store for me?”

He writes out the ingredients, tripling the usual recipe for the number of people in the house. And then he starts writing out the instructions. “Just in case,” he says. “I might not be able to…” He doesn’t finish the sentence.

“You look so nervous,” Irene says. “Don’t worry. It’s all going to work out.”

“What did you say?” He looks up. His eyes are awash in tears. Unexpected, uncalled for. One of the first surprises of the day.

“Oh, Buddy.” She reaches up and puts a hand on his neck. “I’m sorry. I know having lots of people around stresses you out.”

He takes a breath. There are so many plates to keep spinning, and some of them are beginning to wobble. “It is a lot to manage,” he says.

MATTY

He was flying over water. The slate blue water stretched to the horizon, into a golden smear of the rising sun, and he moved toward it along the brilliant, rippling path of the dawn road. He could feel nothing, hear nothing. There was no speed. It could be that he was not moving at all, simply hovering in place while the planet rotated beneath him. And at the thought of the planet, there it was, a blue-green orb glowing beneath his feet. So pretty. He glanced up, into the black of space, and noticed a star winking at him. Or was that Mars? He moved closer—

—and woke with a yelp.

A dream. Or was it? Could his astral self slip away while he was sleeping? What if it couldn’t find its way back? Another thing to worry about.

God he needed to pee.

He lay in the bunk bed, staring up at springs and slats. No new deliveries, thank goodness. The room was dark except for a crack in Buddy’s new metal window shades. What time was it?

Finally his bladder nudged him out of bed. When he climbed out of the bunk, the entire frame creaked and swayed. So maybe these weren’t the most permanent structures Buddy had built.

“Oh come on,” a voice above him said.

“Sorry,” Matty said.

Julian, the oldest of the Pusateris, made a dismissive noise through his teeth. Even in the dark he could roll his eyes. Matty had decided last night that he didn’t like him, and not just because the older boy had kicked his ass in Super Mario. Every time Uncle Buddy had walked in, Julian made a face. When Malice came down, he frowned at her and said, “Of course. A Goth.”

The other bunks, containing the two youngest Pusateris, were to his right, which meant the basement bathroom was off to his left. He started for it.

Julian said, “What’s the matter with you?”

“Nothing,” Matty said without looking back. He’d learned to deal with the random aggressions of older boys. School was a dog park, all the big dogs off the chain, the pups fending for themselves, and the teachers distant and useless. The trick was to keep your head down and keep moving.

“I mean all of you,” Julian said.

“Hey.” Matty wheeled to face him, propelled by a flash of anger. “You don’t know us.”

“I know what you are.” But he didn’t sound so sure. He seemed as surprised as Matty that someone younger and poorer would dare disagree with him.

“You don’t know shit. We were on TV. We’re the Amazing Telemachus Family.”

“Yeah, well do something amazing.” Julian hopped down. “I’m serious. Do something. Now.”

Matty stood his ground. “Ask me if I’ve got change for a five.”

“What?”

“Ask me. Then hand me a five-dollar bill.”

“Fuck you.”

Matty shrugged. “Fine. Forget it.”

“No, wait.” He reached into his jeans and brought out a nylon wallet. “I’ve got a ten. Will that do?”

Matty pretended to consider this. “All right. Now ask the question.”

“Do you, dick-muncher, have change for a ten?”

“Sure, mister fuckwad.” Matty folded the ten, palmed it, and unfolded the two-dollar bill. He gave it a snap and showed it to him. It was a blast to watch his face.

“What the fuck! Where’s my ten bucks? How’d you do that?”

“I’ll teach it to you for twenty,” Matty said.

“Deal.”

“Later,” Matty said. “I gotta pee.”

After the bathroom, he went upstairs. Uncle Buddy stood at the stove, twisting wads of cinnamon dough onto a cookie pan. “These will be done in a few minutes,” Buddy said. “Your mom went to the grocery store.”

“Thanks.” It was weird to have Uncle Buddy talk to him unprompted. Weird, but nice.

The house was quiet, everybody except Buddy still in their bedrooms, which was good, because Matty needed a little privacy. He went into the living room, where a half-naked Uncle Frankie lay on the couch like a drowned sailor tangled in sailcloth. Matty squatted next to him and touched his shoulder. Then he poked him.

Frankie opened one eye. It took a long time for consciousness to spread to the rest of his face.

“So?” Matty said.

“No money,” Frankie croaked.

“What?”

The second eye opened. “No. Money.”

“But the safe—”

“Empty. At least…” He shut his eyes again. “Anything useful.”

“No money,” Matty said wonderingly.

“What time is it?” Frankie asked.

“I don’t know. After eight?”

“Fuck.” Then: “Sorry.” He sat up, coughed hard. Then he looked Matty in the eye. “You didn’t see them move it or anything?”

“No! Every time somebody paid, he put it in the safe. I swear.”

Frankie looked at the floor. After a while, Matty said, “What are we going to do?”

“We’re not going to do anything,” Frankie said. “There’s nothing to do. We’re fucked.”

All this work, Matty thought. All this trouble, and there was nothing to show for it? Nothing he could give Mom?

Frankie was looking at something over Matty’s shoulder. Matty turned, and Malice was staring at them. She looked so much younger without her makeup, more fragile.

“Who are these guys?” she asked, and nodded at the window.

Matty stood up. A silver van had pulled into the driveway.

“Don’t let them in!” Matty said to Malice. He ran upstairs, thinking, They’ve come for me.

TEDDY

Someone pounded on his bedroom door. “Grandpa Teddy?” Matty said, his voice frantic. “Are you in there? Agent Smalls is here!”

Already? Teddy thought. They’d agreed on nine. “I’ll be right down,” he said. Fortunately he was already showered and dressed. He’d put on one of his best bespoke suits, a charcoal and black pinstripe merino, handmade downtown by none other than Frank DeBartolo. The tie was a purple paisley, the tie pin diamond. The gold cuff links were an award for distinguished service that he’d won from a Shriner in 1958. The final accessory remained to be chosen from the black velvet tray. But really, there was no choice at all.

He picked up the Daytona Rolex. It was the twin of the one Nick Pusateri had taken from him. The thing about twins, though; they were never truly identical, even if they looked it at first glance. One of them might be worth twenty grand, the other twenty bucks. Hard to tell unless you knew your watches. Nick didn’t, obviously. But it wasn’t just the fake diamonds that had fooled him. The man had trophy blindness. All Teddy had to do was act wounded when it was taken from him, and the gangster felt like he’d won something priceless, because of how much it had cost his enemy. He’d never suspect it was a fake, because that would mean admitting that his victory was fake. Once a man had committed emotionally to the con, it was near impossible to claw his way back to objectivity.

He fastened the watch to his wrist and felt the quality radiate up his arm. Trophies couldn’t blind if you knew exactly what they were worth.

He returned the tray to the safe, and tucked it below Maureen’s letters.

Downstairs, Frankie stood at the front door, blocking Destin Smalls from entering. Matty nervously hovered behind Frankie. “Let ’em in,” Teddy said. “Let’s get this over with.” He patted Matty on the shoulder. “Nothing to worry about. Trust me, all right?”

Frankie stepped aside, and Smalls ducked through the door. “We won’t take long,” he said.

“You knew Smalls was coming?” Frankie said, outraged. “With him?”

Him being G. Randall Archibald. The magician entered carrying a metal suitcase. Cliff Turner came in behind him with more cases in hand and a loop of electrical cable slung over one shoulder.

Archibald held out his hand to Matty. “A pleasure to meet you. I assure you, the entire process is painless.”

“What process?” Matty asked.

“A simple test of psionic potential,” Archibald said. “We’ll set up here by the couch.”

Buddy came into the room with a tray of cinnamon rolls drizzled with white goop, just like the ones in the mall. He set them on the coffee table and vanished without a word.

“How about some coffee?” Teddy asked. “Cliff?”

“That would be great, Teddy,” the man said.

Archibald raised his bushy eyebrows.

“Okay, you too,” Teddy said. To Frankie he said, “Son, could you tell Buddy to get some coffee for these boys, and a cup of warm water for Agent Smalls? Also, and this is just a suggestion, put on some pants.” Frankie looked like he was hungover. He wouldn’t have blamed the kid if he’d drunk heavily last night.

“I’m going upstairs,” Frankie said.

“Fine. Matty, could you talk to Buddy? And then why don’t you wait in the basement until we’re ready.” The boy was only too happy to skedaddle. Mary Alice went with him.

Cliff ferried in more cases from the van, and Archibald hopped about the room, stringing cables, plugging in devices, and turning on colored lights like a Christmas elf. Teddy took a seat to watch the show. God he wished he could smoke a cigarette, but the place was too full of disapproving women and impressionable children.

Graciella came down, looking casually elegant as always, wearing a light summer dress with her hair pinned back. She surveyed the living room and said, “Are we filming a documentary?”

Teddy introduced Graciella to Cliff, who didn’t know who she was, and Smalls, who pretended not to know. Archibald kissed her hand.

“Oh, I’ve heard of you,” Graciella said.

“Alas, my advance publicity cannot help me now,” said the little white gnome. “I’ve retired from the stage. And yet”—he vanished his handkerchief, and made it reappear—“I can’t help but perform in the presence of grace.”

“You’re worse than Teddy,” Graciella said approvingly. “Don’t let my sons see you do that, they’ll pester you all day.”

She pulled Teddy aside. “What in the world are they doing here?”

“I made a deal,” he said. “One test. If Matty scores well, Destin gets to report the results and keep his program running until Matty turns eighteen. Then, Matty gets to make his own decision.” He didn’t mention that he’d promised to keep the children away from Smalls, because that would require more explanations about how he wasn’t really breaking his promise.

“I mean today,” Graciella said. “If Nick shows up—”

“He won’t be able to do a thing. Look at all these people! So many witnesses! Plus, that man?” He nodded to Destin Smalls. “That man there is a government agent. There’s no one better to have hanging around the house in case your criminal-minded father-in-law shows up.”

She didn’t look reassured.

“I promise you,” he said. “No place safer.”

As Archibald and crew set up, children started popping out of the woodwork, many of them carrying squirt guns. The young ones kept asking what the men were doing. Teddy made up a different story each time: recording insect songs; freezing time; setting up for karaoke. That last was a mistake. The three little girls went crazy.

Three? Teddy thought.

“Where’s the microphone?” the Asian girl asked.

She could have been any age between seven and twelve. Teddy paged through the roster of children he knew to be in the house, sorted them by gender, age, and race, and came up empty. Graciella and Irene weren’t in the room.

“And who might you be?” Teddy asked.

“June,” she said.

“Hi, June.”

“June,” she said, slightly differently.

“June.”

She was already bored trying to correct him. “It’s not really karaoke, is it?”

“No, it’s not,” he admitted. “It’s for highly advanced psychometry. Do you live in the neighborhood?”

He didn’t get an answer. One of the twins shrieked in joy and sprinted from the room, and Not-Exactly-June gave chase.

That’s when Irene walked in the door, carrying two paper sacks of groceries.

IRENE

“What the fuck?”

The living room had been turned into a laboratory: black cases sprouting wires and cables; half a dozen small satellite dishes on tripods, like inverted umbrellas; control boxes on the coffee table and the floor.

Destin Smalls greeted her with a cheery hello, and G. Randall Archibald—the Astounding Archibald himself—waved at her from near the couch.

Teddy ushered her toward the kitchen. “Nothing to worry about, Irene. Just a little science.”

“Where’s Matty?”

“Downstairs, playing. Perfectly safe.”

She gave him a dark look. “You’re on top of this, right?”

“I’m offended you even asked. Off you go.”

Buddy passed her carrying a tray of coffee cups. Irene went into the kitchen with the groceries, where someone stood at the counter, chopping vegetables. The someone was Joshua.

He set down the knife and lunged forward, just in time to grab a bag as it slipped from her grasp.

“Hi,” he said.

Her body was having a full-on chemical reaction. She wanted to throw herself on him. She wanted to run away. She wanted him to run away, and then she’d catch him, tackle him, and squash him into the ground.

Her mouth eventually managed to make words. “What are you doing here?”

He set the bag on the counter. “You didn’t know I was coming?”

“Why the hell would I know you were coming?” Anger, even fake anger, was good. It gave her something to hold on to.

“Your brother invited us to a picnic,” he said.

“Buddy?” And then: “Us?” She flashed on the unknown child in the pack who’d run past her. “Jun is here?”

“Yeah. It was my weekend, and I figured, hey, adventure.”

She couldn’t think of what to say.

“He didn’t tell you,” Joshua said.

“Nope.”

He blew out through his lips. “Okay. I’m so sorry. We’ll go.”

“You can’t,” she said. “I’ve got four pounds of ground lamb shoulder in the car.”

“Four pounds?”

“I thought Buddy was overestimating, but it turns out, he may be right on target.”

“Right,” he said. “Us and the karaoke guys.”

He helped her carry in the groceries and put the perishables into the already crammed refrigerator. During the process she tried to figure out what was happening in her body and in her brain.

“So…” he said.

She stopped him. “Where’s Buddy?”

“Outside?” he said.

She took Joshua’s hand and pulled him outside. Buddy was in the yard, crouched over the same device he was working on yesterday. Two cables, one red and one blue, ran from it for a couple of yards, then vanished into the lawn.

“Buddy,” she said. He didn’t respond. “Buddy, look at me.”

He stood up reluctantly. The thing he’d been fiddling with was an orange canister. The cables terminated at a junction that was topped with a big red button.

“What is that, a bomb?” she asked.

Buddy’s eyes went wide. Then he shook his head.

“I’m kidding,” Irene said. “Buddy, I wanted you to meet Joshua in person. See, he and his daughter came all the way from Arizona.”

“We met,” Joshua said. “He was in the street when we pulled up.”

“That’s awfully nice,” she said.

“Don’t be mad at him,” Joshua said into her ear.

“Is there anyone else coming I should know about?” she asked Buddy. “Anyone else dropping by? You know, in case we need more lamb shoulder.”

Buddy grimaced.

“Who?” Irene demanded.

“Surprise,” he said quietly.

“Jesus Christ.”

The kids ran through again. Somehow they’d acquired water pistols, and the older kids were carrying giant Super Soakers, the AK-47s of squirt guns. Jun was grinning and yelling with the rest of them. Sooner or later, someone would be crying, but for right now they all seemed happy. Buddy eyed them, then covered the red button with a metal cap that snapped shut.

“The garage,” she said to Joshua, and took his hand again. There was no logical reason she needed to physically drag him around. It’s that she got a charge every time she touched him, fizzing up in her bloodstream.

Graciella’s Mercedes wagon took up most of the space. Irene popped the back hatch and gestured for him to sit beside her.

“Nice car,” Joshua said.

“It belongs to the mob,” she said. “Long story.”

They said nothing for perhaps half a minute. The air warmed between them.

“You left kind of suddenly,” Joshua said.

“I hope I didn’t get you fired,” she said.

“Me? No. Others, though…”

“Really?”

“The gender gap struck a nerve. The manager you interviewed with, Bob Sloane? Already gone. Technically he’s on leave, but that’s just until they finish the paperwork.”

“Wow.”

“I still don’t think they’re going to hire you, though,” he said.

“Thank you for being honest.”

“I’m trying.”

Do not kiss him, she thought. Kissing him would ruin everything.

“What are you doing here?” she asked.

“I’ve been trying to call. Did you get any of my messages?”

She looked away, embarrassed. “A few.”

“And you haven’t been online, either. You didn’t leave me any choice. I had to come.”

“I told you we were done.”

“But that’s all you said! You were so mad after the interview. You started packing, and all you’d say was that it wasn’t going to work out, we didn’t have a future, and you had to leave.”

“Because it’s true,” she said. “We’re just messing around. You’re not leaving Phoenix. You can’t. I don’t blame you for that.”

“So come to me.”

“I’ve got a job here,” she said.

“Aldi’s?”

She didn’t like the way he said that, even though she usually said the name with the same tone of disbelief: Aldi’s? “No. I’ve got a job offer with a company. As a—” It sounded ridiculous to say chief financial officer. “As head of finance.”

“Really? Irene, that’s great!”

“And I want to do it.”

“Of course you do,” he said. “I mean—” He took a breath. “I’m really happy for you.”

He was telling the truth. Even though it meant that she was choosing the job over him.

“I just want you to be happy,” he said. “You deserve to be happy.”

Also the truth. And she felt horrible.

“What we had was fun,” she said. “Those nights in Hotel Land—I loved that. But it wasn’t real life. It wasn’t serious.”

“I thought it was pretty damn serious,” he said.

“You need to find someone who can be with you and Jun. And I need someone who can handle me and Matty. This was never going to work out.” She kissed his cheek. “I enjoyed every minute of it, but it’s over.”

“Over?”

“I’m sorry,” she said. She kissed his cheek again. “So sorry.”

FRANKIE

Frankie had become a ghost to his wife. Loretta made up her hair as he talked, did her makeup. Ignored him as he dressed. Then she walked straight through him—or near enough.

He followed her downstairs. She said hello to Teddy, asked about the men in the living room (“Radon testing,” Teddy told her). She poured herself a cup of coffee and then walked out to the backyard.

The entire time, she’d never looked at Frankie, even as he said, over and over again, “Loretta, I’m sorry.”

Buddy had turned the back patio into an outdoor kitchen. Ground lamb sat out in big stainless steel bowls, and a plate held a mound of freshly chopped mint. God he loved Mom’s lamb sausage. Buddy was at the grill, wrapping potatoes in aluminum foil. Loretta thanked him for the breakfast rolls. He nodded and kept working.

Loretta lit a cigarette—her first, and favorite, smoke of the day. He stood beside her and they pretended to watch the kids playing. The medium-sized Pusateri boy had lost his Super Soaker and climbed a tree, and the younger ones were trying to shoot their smaller water pistols at him. Luckily they were ignoring the orange canister that sat on the lawn only a few feet away from the tree. Left over from one of Buddy’s projects no doubt. And knowing Buddy, it could have held anything, from compressed air to mustard gas.

After two minutes, Frankie broke—and broke the silence. “Come on, sweetie,” he said. “Please say something.”

If she’d just talk to him, he had a chance of winning her back. She’d been mad at him in the past—God yes, a hundred times—though never as completely, as thoroughly as she was now. But if she listened to him, he could find a crack in her anger, and slip in a few words. He could crowbar his way into her heart.

His greatest fear had always been exile. The day Loretta decided she’d had enough and left him, taking her love, and the girls, away from him. He knew that on his own he was nothing. Less than nothing: A subtraction. A black hole. A taker. If all that taking served no purpose, if he couldn’t turn around and pour it all back into his family, he was lost.

He said, “I did this for you, you know.”

That got her. She looked at him, and her disgust sliced through the smoke.

“For you and the girls,” he said.

“You lost the house,” she said. “For us.”

She spoke! He tried not to show his relief. “That’s true,” he said. “But the reason—”

“You made your children homeless.”

“Temporarily,” he said. “I’m going to make this right.”

She shook her head, her eyes on the middle distance. Took a drag on the cigarette. Exhaled. He’d become invisible again.

“Loretta…”

“No one would blame me if I left,” she said quietly. “When you went bankrupt and lost the business, my friends said I should leave. When you spent a year pretending to run a casino in our garage, I said nothing. I stayed silent even when you dropped a safe on my car.”

“The casino thing was only a few months,” he said. “And the safe was an accident.”

“But this. You borrow money from the mob? For what, Frankie. What the hell are you trying to do?”

Polly noticed them, and ran over, followed by Cassie and an older Chinese girl. They all carried bright-colored water pistols. “Can we sleep in the basement tonight? With Jun?”

“Jun lives in the desert,” Cassie said. “She sees scorpions all the time.”

“When’s the picnic?” Polly asked.

“Didn’t you just eat cinnamon rolls?” Loretta asked them.

“We want hot dogs,” Polly said.

The youngest Pusateri boy, who seemed to be the same age as the twins, gave up on trying to shoot his brother and ran over to them. “When are the hot dogs?”

Frankie said, “Go play, kids. The adults have to talk.” Smalls and the rest of the family were in the house, and Buddy wasn’t moving. He nodded toward the garage. “Give me two minutes,” he said to Loretta. “Please.”

He went in through the side door. He was surprised to see a long Mercedes station wagon—with the hatch up.

Loretta closed the garage door. She surprised him by talking first. “I know you love the girls. Mary Alice as much as the twins.”

“That’s true. And I love you. I’m going to make this right. I have plans. I’m going to get the house back, and things are going to be great.”

“I don’t need great,” Loretta said. “I don’t need you to be great. I just need you to be here.”

“I am here! I’m here for the family!”

“No, I don’t know where you are. And I’m not going wherever that is. I can’t live like this,” she said. “I can’t take—” They’d both heard the noise. An animal grunt.

Loretta frowned at the side window of the vehicle. Frankie turned. In the back of the wagon were two shapes. He leaned forward, put a hand on the glass.

Irene and some Chinese guy looked out at him. They were stretched out in the cargo area, and the skin-to-clothing ratio was higher than he would have expected.

God damn it. Was there nowhere in this place to be alone?

Loretta walked out of the garage.

“Now you decide to get laid?” Frankie said. “Jesus, Reenie.” He followed his wife into the yard, and hoped she’d still be his wife when the day was over.

22

BUDDY

The World’s Most Powerful Psychic will never be twenty-eight years old. He wonders if it’s the stress of the day that will kill him. For example: the damn window shades! The garden-level windows run along the patio, and yet again, the metal blinds he installed have been hauled open.

He’ll also never get to eat these lamb sausages. With Joshua’s help he managed to chop all the garlic, and on his own blended four pounds of ground meat and another pile of the mint-feta mixture, but now he’s almost out of time, and he has to make all the patties. He’s preparing the food outside because this is where (a) there’s enough room, and (b) he remembers doing the cooking for the morning.

Loretta walks out of the garage, looking sad, and Frankie comes out after, talking talking talking. He wants to tell them both that it will all work out, but he doesn’t know that, not really. After 12:06 today, they’ll be in uncharted territory.

He’s having trouble concentrating as time rolls closer to zero hour. And zero minute, and zero second. Though which second has always been a mystery. What knowledge he has is accurate, but it’s not precise. Exactitude escapes him.

He takes out his crayoned checklist and goes over it for the third time in ten minutes:

clean grill

squirt guns

drill (F’s bag)

compressor

window shades

potatoes

lamb patties

front door

potato salad?

basement door

hot dogs

other dog

window shades AGAIN

At the bottom, he scrawls an addition:

LOCK WINDOW SHADES!!!!

He checks his watch. The patties will have to wait. He goes inside to the kitchen sink, washes his hands, and walks into the living room.

Graciella spots Buddy and says, “Are you sure I can’t help?”

He waves her off, then remembers something. “When the doorbell rings, have Teddy answer it.” Then he grabs his toolbox from the hall closet and retrieves his drill from Frankie’s tool bag.

“Can we have the boy?” Archibald asks.

“Try to sound less ominous,” Teddy says. He calls for Matty, and he comes up from the basement, freshly showered and changed, but wary.

“Sit over here,” Archibald says. “Right here on the couch.” To Buddy this sounds equally ominous.

Destin Smalls says to Matty, “Remember what I told you about your grandmother? Later, you’ll look back on this as the moment you stepped into her shoes.”

“What, high heels?” Teddy says, and Graciella laughs in her low, throaty way. Teddy does love an audience.

Archibald tapes electrodes to the backs of Matty’s hands, humming as he works. Matty sits very still, like a prisoner being prepped for the electric chair. Buddy has much to do, but he wants to see this part. And because he remembers seeing it, he knows he has enough time before he has to go downstairs to the fuse box.

“Now please, I want you to concentrate,” Archibald says to Matty. “Focus your attention on the silver van outside. Can you see it?”

“I can’t,” Matty says.

“Close your eyes, and do what you normally do when you’re remote-viewing.”

“That’s what I’m saying—I can’t do that.” He looks at Teddy. “I have a…routine I’ve got to follow.”

“What kind of routine?” Smalls asks. “Meditation? Some of our operatives—”

“You don’t need him to leave his body,” Teddy interrupts. “Just record his resting tau state and we can get down to business.”

“Will that give us what we need?” Smalls asks Archibald.

“One way to find out,” the tiny bald man says. He flips two switches on the control board, and puts his finger over a third button. “Beginning measurement…now.”

He presses the button. The needle of the biggest gauge slams into the red zone and stays there. A whine starts in one of the machines, and grows higher in pitch.

“Huh,” Archibald says.

A flash erupts from one of the devices. A loud pop! sounds from below, and all lights in the house go out.

Buddy hustles to the basement, where Mary Alice and Julian, Graciella’s oldest son, sit in front of the now-blank TV, holding game controllers. “What happened?” Mary Alice asks.

Buddy goes to the far wall, flips open the fuse box, and resets the circuit breakers. Lights come back on, as does the TV.

Buddy walks past them and sets to work on the window shades with the drill that he’s retrieved from Frankie’s tool bag. Each shade has a flange that rests against the wood. He doesn’t have time to be clever, so he drives screws directly through the flange into the wood. He really wishes he’d remembered this earlier. He could have made locking hooks. (Except he wouldn’t have made hooks, because he didn’t remember doing that. He was so tired of Future Buddy being such an idiot.)

After he’s finished, Julian says, “That was…loud.”

Buddy puts away the drill.

Julian says, “And it’s pretty dark in here.”

“It’s perfect,” Mary Alice says kindly. “Less glare.”

Buddy goes into the laundry room and gets down the supplies he bought a few weeks ago. One of them is a shallow metal dish. He fills that up at the utility sink and brings everything out to the big room. He sets the bowl on the floor, and hands Mary Alice the plastic bag. The girl looks confused.

Buddy’s sympathetic. For the longest time, this was the memory that most confused him. But now, it makes perfect sense. “I’ll be right back,” he says.

He hurries to Mrs. Klauser’s house and knocks on the front door. He can hear Miss Poppins barking in excitement, and a second, even higher-pitched noise. The yipping increases in intensity when Mrs. Klauser opens the door.

“I was wondering if I could borrow Mr. Banks,” he says.

She laughs. “Take him all day! I don’t know how you talked me into this. He’s a terror!” But she’s smiling. She’s more energetic than she’s been in months.

Buddy acknowledges Miss Poppins with a pat to the head, but then scoops up the ball of white fluff next to her. Mr. Banks is barely two months old, all head and paws, and his puppy coat is so soft. Buddy holds the little creature’s face to his own, and it licks his face. Mr. Banks still has that lovely puppy smell.

He carries the dog back to the house, and as soon as he enters the backyard he has the attention of every child. They rush him. Squealing.

“Don’t scare him,” Buddy says. “This is Mr. Banks. I wonder if you could take care of him for me, for just a while?”

This is a rhetorical question. They follow him as if he’s the Pied Piper, and he walks them into the basement. Even Matty, now freed from the smoking devices and the attention of the government men, has been attracted by the commotion.

Buddy says to Jun, “Have you ever taken care of a pet?”

She nods excitedly. “I have a cat.”

“Then you’re in charge. Don’t let them squash him.” He puts the puppy in her arms.

He does a quick head count: three Pusateris, the twins, Mary Alice, Matty, and Jun Lee. Eight is the correct number, so that’s a relief.

The children don’t notice him leaving, and no one squawks when he closes the steel door. He checks his watch. 11:32. So little time! He sets the timer beside the door to thirty minutes and presses enter. The magnetic locks engage with a reassuring thunk.

MATTY

He was still shaky after frying the house’s electrical system, but he had to admit that the puppy helped calm him down. When the lights blew, Grandpa Teddy had rushed over and unplugged him, over the objections of Destin Smalls. “One test!” Teddy said. “That was the deal.” They kept arguing, and Matty escaped to the basement with the other kids to play with the dog.

Even Malice was enjoying herself. Somehow she’d gotten possession of a bag of pet toys. Inside was a real bone, a rubber ball, and a selection of squeaker toys in the shape of small animals that Mr. Banks would supposedly be happy to kill. She distributed them to the younger kids, and they seemed more excited by them than the dog was.

After playing Santa, Malice sat down beside him. He realized that the smell of her also calmed him down.

“So,” she said, in a voice pitched so that only he could hear. “My mom and Frankie are probably getting a divorce.”

“Whoa. Really?”

“It doesn’t look good.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“Can you tell me now what you and Frankie have been up to?”

“Uh…”

“Because whatever it is, it got our house taken away from us.”

“I don’t know what he’s been—”

“Don’t say that. Don’t. If you fucking lie to me, I won’t be able to take it.”

“I don’t want to lie to you,” he said.

“So don’t. Just tell me. Please.”

He was not about to tell her about her dad, and the mobster thing. But it would be such a relief to have one person his own age know what he was going through. Especially if it was Malice.

He looked around. The room was full of kids, but they were all paying attention to the puppy.

“He was helping me,” Matty said. “Helping me do stuff.”

She waited for him to explain.

“I’m like Grandma Mo,” he said. “I can travel outside my body, and see things.”

“Are you fucking kidding me?” That might have sounded harsh from someone else, but the way she said it, it meant That’s amazing.

“You believe me?” he asked.

She rolled her eyes. “Jesus, Matty. I’m in the family. The shit I’ve seen?”

Relief flowed through him like cool water. He didn’t know what she meant by seeing shit; he hadn’t seen anything until something happened to him. Before that it was all family stories and rumors.

“I thought I was going crazy at first,” he said. “I’m getting better at it, but I still need…help. To make it happen. Psychologically, and uh, physically.”

“So that’s where I fit in,” Malice said.

He felt himself blush.

“It’s okay,” she said. “There’s nothing to be ashamed about. True, you’re a little young…”

“You think so?”

“Sure. But now it makes sense why you were so desperate. You needed to get high.”

It took him a moment to process this. “Right,” he said. “That’s where you came in.”

“Though I have to tell you, I’ve never seen someone smoke up and get such a boner.”

His throat seized, and he coughed.

“At the playground?” she said, oblivious to his distress. “Man, Janelle and I looked over and you were like, shwing!”

He covered his face. She leaned into his shoulder. “It’s okay, man. Janelle thinks you’re just a natural born perv, ever since the night in the attic.” He was so glad she was keeping her voice down.

“That was the first time,” he said.

“The first time you jerked off?”

He uncovered his face. “No!” Wait, did that make him sound more like a perv, or less? “The first time I left my body. And traveled.”

“Really? And to think, I was there.”

“Sometimes that’s the thing that gets me to travel,” he said. He couldn’t believe he was telling her this, but she was being so frank with him, so unfreaked out, that he wanted to tell her everything. “Certain emotions happen, and boom.”

“Sexual emotions.”

“Uh…yeah.”

“So you’re like the Hulk, but with hard-ons.”

“Oh God.”

“Horny Hulk.”

“Stop, please.”

She grinned at him. “It’s nothing to be ashamed of.”

“You’re being so cool about this,” he said.

“I just wanted to know what was going on,” she said. “All you have to do now is explain how Frankie helping you got us kicked out of our house.”

And just like that, the trap snapped shut.

“Spill it,” she said.

TEDDY

Give this to Destin Smalls: he was persistent. Even as Archibald and Cliff unplugged and disassembled equipment, he was arguing for a second test.

“Not going to happen,” Teddy said. “Not today.”

The doorbell rang. Graciella said to Teddy, “I think that’s for you.”

“Then this week,” Smalls said. “You and the boy, come to my office. We need a score, Teddy, a proper tau rating. This time we’ll do it with an industrial electrical system.”

“I promise you, we’ll come,” Teddy said.

“You can trust him,” Graciella said. And oh, that warmed his heart. A woman defending his honor. She was a much better woman than his honor deserved.

The doorbell rang again.

Smalls said to her, “Don’t you remember how you met? He was conning you. This is Teddy the Greek. He took his name from the Greek deal, his specialty. He only changed his name when—”

“Enough of that!” Teddy said. Smalls had never lost his urge to expose him, embarrass him. Well, Teddy got the girl, didn’t he? Everybody fell in love with Maureen, but he was the only one she loved back. That was a trump card Destin could never beat.

Teddy opened the door, and the air in his chest turned to ice.

It was Nick Pusateri Senior.

He stood on the tile step, looking sweaty, eyes glittering like a crazy man. That toupee probably trapped heat like a World War II helmet. Behind him, Barney loomed unhappily.

Teddy struggled to put on a smile. “What can I do for you, boys?” Only long training kept his voice from breaking.

“Mind if we come in?” Nick asked.

“I’d love to invite you in,” Teddy said, lying desperately. “But we’re having a family event.”

“That’s who I’ve come for,” Nick said. “Family.” He shoved Teddy in the chest, palm out, and sent him stumbling. Teddy regained his balance and Nick said, “You’re moving a little better now, looks like.”

Oh God, he was in the room. The devil had never gotten into the house before. Of all his failings over the years, Teddy had never allowed that to happen.

Smalls and Graciella had gotten to their feet. Archibald was watching from beneath his big eyebrows. Barney was trying to count heads and count threats. Nick, though, was staring at Graciella.

“What the fuck is she doing here?” Nick said. His voice was strangled by outrage. Teddy had never seen him this angry, this out of control.

“She is standing right here,” Graciella said.

“She’s my guest,” Teddy said. His mind raced. If Nick wasn’t here for his family, then he was after Teddy’s. “What do you want, Nick?”

“I’m here to return something,” Nick said. He nodded to Barney. The big bartender lifted his hand, and Teddy tensed. But it wasn’t a gun; it was a large yellow flashlight with a bee logo stamped on the side. Nick said, “This looks familiar, don’t it? A lot like the fucking bee on little Frankie’s fucking van.”

Teddy put a befuddled smile on his face. What had Frankie done? Did he go to the tavern and say something stupid? Threaten something stupid?

“Well, I thank you for bringing it by. I didn’t know he’d lost it, but I’m sure he appreciates—”

“You think I’m a fucking idiot?” Nick asked.

Destin Smalls stepped forward. He was the only one in the room bigger than Nick or Barney, and Teddy was happy to have him there. Barney and the agent locked eyes like two steam engines on the same track.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Teddy said. “Honestly.”

“You think you can fucking break into my bar and I won’t know it’s you? The fact that you sent your fuckup son doesn’t make a difference.”

“I didn’t send Frankie anywhere. Calm down, Nick, let’s discuss this like—”

“Fuck you, Teddy.”

“—gentlemen.” The only problem being that Nick was no gentleman, he was a sociopath. With a gun. His shirt covered the bulk of some kind of pistol tucked into his waistband.

“There are kids here,” Teddy said, lowering his voice. “Your grandsons among them.”

“Give ’em back!” Nick shouted. His eyes were jumping, and his hand had moved to rest on that lump under his shirt. What was he thinking, showing up here in broad daylight, ready to blow? He was losing it. Maybe it was the stress of waiting for the feds to knock at his door. The threat of his business—no, his entire way of life—vanishing with the bang of a gavel. “Right fucking now!”

“Give what back?” Teddy asked. “I’m being honest, here. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“The fucking teeth.”

“Teeth?” Archibald said.

“It’s a long story,” Graciella said. She walked up to Nick, and Teddy was proud of how calm she looked. She was terrified of the old man—she’d told him so—but you couldn’t tell.

She opened her purse, and took out a plastic bag. “Here. The other half. Now you have them all—all the evidence. I just wanted my sons to be kept clear.”

“Now the rest of them! Bring me my lunch box!”

Teddy said, “That’s all of them. The ones we brought you, and those. That’s it.”

“Frankie,” Nick said. “Bring his ass in here, now.”

“I’m not going to do that,” Teddy said.

Destin Smalls had moved around the edge of the coffee table. “It’s time for you to leave,” he said. “Now.”

“Who the fuck is this guy?” Nick said.

“Destin Smalls, federal agent,” Smalls said. “I repeat, it’s time—”

“Shut up,” Nick said. He raised his arm, and the bang shook the walls. Smalls fell back onto the coffee table with a crash. Cliff shouted and Graciella screamed, though Teddy could hardly hear them over the ringing in his ears.

“Fuck this,” Nick said. He did not put the pistol away. “I’ll get him myself.”

IRENE

“What the hell?” Irene said. Teddy’s yell had carried into the garage, followed by a loud pop. Now there were more angry shouts—from men whose voices she didn’t recognize.

“And everything had been going so well,” Joshua said.

It had been going well—very well—at least until Frankie and Loretta had interrupted them. Then suddenly it was the night back in high school, in the backseat of the Green Machine with Lev Petrovski, when the patrolman tapped on the window. Joshua, however, was magnitudes better at making love than Lev had ever been. After the interruption, they picked up where they’d left off—no sense stopping the race when they were that close to the finish line—but now this. It sounded like a fight had broken out.

Of course there could be no such thing as a normal picnic with her family. Why expect sane behavior on the one day her boyfriend came to visit? Joshua would never want to get tangled up in this nonsense. He’d never want to expose Jun to these people. He’d leave Irene, no matter how good the car sex.

“This changes nothing,” Irene said. She tugged on her shorts. Outside, Loretta screamed.

“Of course not,” Joshua said. He managed to pull up his pants before she opened the garage side door.

The yard was full of angry. Loretta was shouting at a couple of men whose backs were to Irene, and Frankie was trying to step between them. Then she realized who the men were.

“Holy fuck,” Irene said. “That’s Nick Pusateri.” Before she could explain to Joshua who that was, the kitchen door burst open, and more people rushed out: first her father, then Graciella, and a moment later, G. Randall Archibald.

There was something in Pusateri’s hand. Then he stepped forward and smashed Frankie in the face with it, and her brother went down.

“He’s got a gun!” Joshua said to her.

Oh God, she thought. Where were the kids? She needed to make sure none of the kids came out here.

“Go around to the front of the house,” Irene said to Joshua. He started to object and she said, “Listen. Round up Jun and the girls. Shit, all the kids.”

“Right,” he said. He ran for the gap between the garage and the house.

Too late, she thought. And call 911!

Nick Pusateri aimed the pistol at Frankie, who lay on his side, covering his bloody nose.

“Hey!” Irene shouted. She marched across the lawn. “Pusateri! Look at me!”

Nick glanced behind him. “Jesus, not you too.”

“Just tell me what you want, and we’ll get it for you.”

“I want what this motherfucker stole from me.” She kept walking toward him slowly. “Do that, and nobody gets hurt.”

Nick Pusateri, to her complete lack of surprise, was lying again.

FRANKIE

It was as if someone had thrown a bucket of paint into his face, and the shade was named Blinding Pain. He’d read the term “pistol whip” in crime novels and never imagined precisely what that meant. He certainly never imagined it would happen to him.

What stung even more than the blow was the unfairness of it. He didn’t have any of Nick’s money, so how could he pay him back? Frankie had stolen nothing, yet everything was going to be taken from him. He was back in the parking lot of the White Elm, after the Royal Flush had been yanked away from him. Nick and Barney were just like Lonnie. Bullies.

But worse, this time his humiliation would be witnessed not just by his sister and brother, but by the woman he loved. He only hoped that the girls weren’t seeing this, too.

Loretta crouched and put her arms around Frankie. Irene and Nick Senior were yelling at each other, something about teeth. It made no sense.

Nick yelled, “Shut up!” at Irene, then shook the gun at Frankie with renewed vigor. “Where is it?”

“Where’s what?” Frankie said. His voice was muffled by blood and damaged cartilage, but he tried to sound sincere—because he sincerely had no idea what Nick was talking about.

“My fucking lunch box!”

An idea dawned. “Lunch box?” It came out lun bod, but Nick got the idea.

“What did I just fucking say?”

“Put down the gun,” another voice said. It was Archibald. He’d drawn his own pistol.

Nick blinked at it. “What the fuck is that, a toy?” He looked at Barney to make sure he was seeing it, too. “Some kinda Buck Rogers shit?”

“I assure you, it’s no toy,” Archibald said. “This, my friend, is a micro-lepton gun.”

Nick said, “What the fuck is a lepton?”

“The micro-lepton gun,” Archibald said, in a calm, teacherly voice, “disrupts torsion fields, the medium by which psychic energies propagate. When targeted at a psionic individual, it permanently destroys their ability to generate such fields. But when aimed at a non-psionic, it causes instant stroke and paralysis.”

Nick stared at him. “You guys are fucking nuts.”

Frankie couldn’t disagree with that. “Look, I don’t want the lunch box,” he said to Nick. “You can have it. It’s in my van.” At least, that was where he last remembered seeing it. He was pretty distraught last night.

“I’ll get it,” Buddy said. He’d stepped out from behind the tree. Frankie didn’t even know he was there.

“Do it,” Nick Pusateri said. To Frankie he said, “But not you. You stay put. Anything happens, you get shot first, you prick.”

That’s when Loretta started screaming at the mob captain of the western suburbs.

23

BUDDY

He hurries past the van. He told Nick Pusateri Senior that he was going to the vehicle to get the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles lunch box, but that’s a lie. In the driveway is a yellow Super Soaker. He picks it up, and it’s as full of water as he remembered. Thank goodness.

He didn’t think the end would be this hard. Mostly because he didn’t try to think about it all. A gift of his final moments being so hectic, so crammed full of detail, was that it made it impossible to ruminate. To brood. Even now, there are so many things he has to do, he barely has room in his head for thoughts of the Zap.

But it’s there. He can hear the noise, and it’s the last thing he remembers before the future goes black. His heart shrivels in despair. The world is going to go on without him.

He checks his watch. 11:55. Eleven minutes to go, or maybe less. He can only remember the position of the minute hand. Why didn’t he pay more attention in that final moment? It would be really really useful to know the exact second that history stopped.

At the front door he aims the Super Soaker at the tile and starts squeezing the trigger. Empties the whole tank onto the tile until it’s gleaming. The water doesn’t run off. He’d laid the tile slightly concave, just enough to hold a shallow pool.

He tiptoes over the water and goes into the living room. Clifford Turner is crouched over Destin Smalls, pressing his wadded-up jacket against the man’s shoulder. Smalls is moaning in pain. Buddy feels terrible about Smalls. But he could see no way around that—it was a fact of the day that was impossible to change.

He goes back to the kitchen wall phone and dials. Before anyone picks up, Joshua Lee runs into the room. He’s sprinted all the way around the house, come in through the front door. “The kids!” he says, nearly out of breath. “Where are the kids?”

“Safe,” Buddy says, then holds up a finger for silence. The operator, a woman, says, “Nine-one-one, what is your emergency?”

He wants to say, The future is dying. He wants to tell her, I’m about to be erased.

Instead, he repeats what he remembers saying: “There’s been a shooting. The gunman’s still here. Please send the police.”

Joshua says, “Where’s Jun? Where are the children?”

“Downstairs,” Buddy says. In fact, he can hear one of them banging on the basement door. He hands the phone to him. “Tell the operator whatever she needs to know.”

He walks out to the backyard, circling around the clump of angry people without looking at them. Nick Pusateri says, “Hey! Where the hell is the bag?”

Buddy marches toward the tree, ignoring him. His heart thuds in his chest. Finally he reaches the spot he remembers, beside the air compressor. He’s part of a special triangle. On one vertex stands a septuagenarian mobster holding a .45 automatic. On the other, a retired stage magician aiming a psi-based beam weapon. And at the third point of the triangle, the World’s Most Powerful Psychic, and a tank of air.

In the middle of this triangle stand Irene, Frankie, and Loretta. Loretta is threatening to cut off the balls of the mob boss of the western suburbs.

Buddy flips open the metal guard to the pressure switch, exposing the button, and checks his watch. It’s 11:57, and the second hand is swooping down the right side of the dial.

MATTY

“It won’t open,” Julian said. “What’s the matter with this place?”

“Shut up, Julian,” Malice said. She was at the window, her ear pressed to the metal shades. They’d all heard the bang from upstairs. Matty had told the older kids that it was Archibald’s equipment blowing up again, but now he wasn’t sure. Malice said, “There’s a bunch of people yelling, and I can’t tell what it’s about.”

“Don’t scare the kids,” Matty said. But he didn’t have to worry about them. All five of the younger kids were fascinated by Mr. Banks—and the puppy was fascinated right back. It stood on Luke’s chest, aggressively licking his face, which made Adrian and the girls fall out with laughter. Cassie and Polly seemed especially giddy, bordering on the manic. A Beanie Baby come to life! It was a Labor Day miracle.

Matty twisted the door handle and pulled, but the door didn’t budge. “That’s weird,” he said.

“Told you,” Julian said. He pushed Matty aside and tried again.

Malice said, “We’ve got to get out there.” She looked worried. He’d never seen Malice like this. Her default mode, except when she was with her friends, was Profound Disinterest.

“I’m sure somebody will hear us eventually,” he said.

“Fuck that.” She pushed him into the laundry room and closed the door behind them. “You need to go look. Out there.”

Then he realized what she meant. “I can’t just go,” he said. “It takes…preparation.”

“They’re hurting my dad!”

“Okay, okay. Do you have some pot?”

“We don’t have time for that,” she said. “Give me your hand.” She took his palm and jammed it against her left boob.

“Whoa!” he exclaimed.

“How’s that?” she asked. Pretty great, he thought. But that wasn’t what she was asking.

She studied his face. “Don’t worry, I’ll hold you up.”

“Okay, but I still can’t just—”

She grabbed his crotch.

He jumped in surprise. His body, however, hadn’t moved. Suddenly he was floating three feet away from it, his psyche intermingled with a shelf full of cleaning products. Malice still had her hand on his crotch. His body’s jaw went slack, and then it began to slump. Malice grabbed it around its chubby waist and lowered it to the floor so that its back was propped against the washing machine.

“Get out there,” Malice said to it. His eyes had rolled back in his head, but his face retained an expression of amazement.

He spun in midair and zipped through the room full of children, through the metal blinds, and into the backyard. His family was gathered by the tree. Mom and Frankie were trying to hold back Loretta, while Buddy hovered nervously behind them, his hand resting on a machine. Across from them stood two men: the bartender from the tavern, and the old guy with the fifties hairdo who’d been in Mitzi’s office. Ancient Elvis. He was waving a gun, and Matty thought: He’s going to shoot Loretta.

Then Teddy stepped in front of the men, and Matty thought: No, Elvis is going to shoot my grandfather.

TEDDY

When he was younger and stupider, Teddy thought that getting gunned down would be the perfect capstone to his career. The Sun-Times would write up his life story, and the world would finally learn about the greatest card mechanic in Chicago. But that was before he met Maureen, before she gave him these children—who, unfortunately, had all decided to congregate in front of a madman.

“You can’t win,” Teddy said. “You’re outgunned.”

Nick laughed. “You mean that guy?”

Archibald still aimed the micro-lepton gun at Nick. But the weapon was less than useless to a non-psychic. He’d been lying when he said it caused stroke and paralysis. Teddy believed in the power of suggestion, but Nick was beyond suggestion, and well into the realm of mania.

“No, I mean—” A flash of light, like the reflection off a watch crystal, distracted him. It flickered from the house to a spot in front of him. Which made no sense, because light had to reflect off something to be seen, and this will o’ the wisp—was already gone. A trick of the light. Or of his aging mind.

“He means us,” Irene said. “We’re the Amazing Telemachus Family, asshole. And you’re screwed.”

“Step aside,” Nick said.

“No dice,” Teddy said. Suddenly Graciella was beside him. He said, “Honey, let me—”

“Honey?!” Nick shouted.

“Go home,” Graciella said to Nick.

“Oh, I’m going home. Go get the boys. They’re coming home with me.”

“That’s not going to happen,” Graciella said.

“I’ll kill you where you stand,” Nick said. “I’ll kill all of you.”

Without turning his head, Teddy said, “Irene?”

She put her hand on his shoulder—and did not squeeze. Not a bluff, then. Nick really was that crazy. Teddy would have to appeal to a higher power.

“Barney,” he said. “You really going to go to the electric chair for this guy?”

The bartender sighed deeply. Then he said, “Come on, Nick. Let’s go.”

Nick wheeled on him. “What did you say?”

Barney grabbed the pistol in both hands, and yanked it out of Nick’s grip. It was the bravest thing Teddy had ever seen.

“We’re done here,” Barney said.

“God damn it!” Nick screamed, and he threw himself onto the bartender.

Both men had their hands on the pistol, Barney at the grip, Nick with both hands around the barrel. Nick wrenched it sideways, and for an awful moment the gun was pointed at Teddy. Then for a worse moment it jerked toward Graciella. Teddy pulled her to him—

—and the ground exploded beneath their feet.

He didn’t have time to even shout.

IRENE

Later, when she had time to think it through, she still wouldn’t be able to decide what had occurred in what order. In the moment, however, everything seemed to happen at once: she screamed, her father and Graciella vanished, a gun fired.

The gun. Nick and Barney were still fighting over it, grunting like bears. She couldn’t tell who was winning. The men had become a tangle of arms, a furious, tumbling mass.

What the hell had happened to her father? A hole had appeared where they stood.

No, reappeared. Buddy had dug it early in the summer. But hadn’t he filled it in? Irene and Frankie and Loretta stood frozen. Two more feet closer and they’d have fallen in, too. And Buddy—

Buddy lay on the ground behind her.

For a long moment, her body was paralyzed. Then, with no memory of moving, she was on her knees beside him. Buddy lay still, his head turned away from her. Frankie and Loretta hadn’t noticed he was down; their attention was riveted to the fighting men.

The gun went off a second time, followed by another sound. She flinched, and then realized the second sound was the sha-ring of metal on metal: a ricochet.

Buddy’s eyes were open. He was looking at the orange canister. His hand rested against its side as if it were a dog that needed soothing. His other hand lay on his chest.

She touched his face. “Are you okay? Talk to me.”

“I’m not sure,” he said. “Was anyone else hit? I couldn’t remember everything. I couldn’t see it all. I’m so sorry.”

Anyone else? Irene thought. She looked down at his hand, the way he was pressing it to his shirt.

“It’s almost time,” he said.

She realized that he wasn’t looking at the canister, he was looking at his watch.

Someone screamed in rage. She looked up. Nick Pusateri had gotten the gun. He held it up as if it were a starter’s pistol. His toupee had been pulled back from his scalp, but it was still stitched to the back of his head; it hung over the back of his neck like a pelt.

Barney lay on the ground, holding his throat.

“Fuck you all,” Nick said. The barrel of the gun jerked in his unsteady hand. Pull the trigger, and he might hit Frankie or Loretta. Point a few degrees higher, and only the tree would get it. Drop a few degrees, and Irene and Buddy could be shot.

Irene had time to think, Yes, he’s telling the truth. We are all fucked.

FRANKIE

He couldn’t take his eyes off the gun. It twitched and weaved, commanding his attention like a pinball. The fact that a man was holding it was almost immaterial.

Buddy lay on the ground behind him, probably shot. Irene perched over him, talking, though he couldn’t hear what she was saying. The gun was everything.

When he played pinball, there’d been many moments when the ball was moving too fast, pinging around the table, responding only to the physics of bumper and rail. Every game, no matter how good it had been up till then, ended the same way: the ball dropping between the paddles, heading for the drain, and not a thing he could do about it. The waiting almost made him drowsy.

He sensed Nick’s hand tensing on the trigger. He saw the gun nose toward him. It was a relief, really. Then the mouth of the barrel moved a few centimeters, and he realized that the bullet would miss him.

The gun fired. And fired again, and again. That quick.

Loretta said, “Oh.” She looked down, and her eyes widened.

A wad of silver hovered in the air a few inches from her chest. The bullets had nestled together. As she watched, they became mercurial, smoothing into a perfect little ball bearing. Then gravity resumed, and the ball dropped to the ground.

“Jesus fucking…” Nick stepped back, mouth slack, unable to finish the curse. He was afraid. Afraid like Lonnie. Then he turned and ran toward the house, still holding the gun.

Irene said, “Frankie.”

He glanced behind him. Irene crouched beside Buddy, who lay on the ground holding his chest.

“The kids,” she said.

Oh God. The children were in the house.

“Get that fucker,” Loretta said.

Nick had reached the back patio. Archibald stepped forward and Nick shouted and pointed the gun at his face. Then he yanked open the door and vanished inside. Frankie heard a second shout a moment later.

“Take care of Buddy!” Frankie yelled to Loretta, and sprinted for the house. He lurched inside and had to stop short. A dark-haired man knelt on the kitchen floor, holding a hand to his bloody mouth. It was the guy Irene had been having sex with in the station wagon.

“Guh,” the boyfriend said.

“He’s got a gun. I know.”

“No. Guh.” The boyfriend lifted his hand. He was holding Nick’s pistol.

“How the hell did you do that?”

“That way,” the guy said, and pointed toward the living room.

Nick had reached the front door. Were the kids out front? Then Nick pushed through the door—and went tumbling. His feet flew into the air, and he hit the ground.

People used to say to Frankie, You look like a wrestler, ever do time on the mat? And Frankie would tell them fight stories, about how it was nothing like professional wrestling. Nobody flies off the ropes. Nobody throws “atomic drops.” No, a real wrestler puts you on the ground and chokes you out.

Frankie had never been a wrestler, real or otherwise. But he’d watched a lot of TV.

Two seconds later, he launched himself from the front door and dropped onto Nick Pusateri like Andre the fucking Giant.

24

BUDDY

He’s trying to concentrate despite all the distractions. The pain in his chest is terrifying, and Irene’s tearful face makes him want to soothe her, but there’s no time.

He squints at his watch. The second hand is climbing, climbing. Finally it reaches the notch that stands for the twelve. It’s 12:02. He imagines the sound of the magnetic lock disengaging on the basement door, but he’s too far away to hear it. Worse, he has no memory of the children emerging safely from the bunker he built for them. He only can remember the next sixty seconds.

It’s not an interesting memory. Mostly it involves him lying here on the ground, with Irene crying over him. And he remembers his father calling out for help.

So far, the plan is working, if obeying the dictates of faulty memory can be called a plan. For the last seven months he’s lived in a state of stress, constantly worried that he was forgetting a key detail, or that he’d misunderstood some part of the vision. The rest of the time he was afraid that he was remembering too much, locking in the future when he needed to leave more in the shadows, allowing free will to…be free. Either way was a trap. When he was a boy, he saw so much, and changed nothing. Nothing to the better anyway. What if, by trying to see less, he made everything worse?

Irene brushes the tears from his eyes. “It’s okay,” she says. “I’m here.”

“I’m glad,” he says.

Loretta, weeping mascara, leans over him and says, “I’ll call nine-one-one.” He doesn’t tell her he’s already called them. It will make her feel useful if she can help.

Irene puts her hand on his. “I’m going to need to take a quick look, okay?”

He remembers this moment, so how can he stop her? Soon she’ll do whatever she wants. He moves his hand out of the way.

She sees the hole in his shirt. She frowns.

“It’s okay,” he says. Meaning it doesn’t hurt, too much.

She undoes a button, then another. “What is this, Buddy?”

“Mom gave it to me,” he says.

She lifts the medal from his chest. He winces, because the impact has bruised him. Then she looks at his skin. There’s no blood.

“You’re one lucky son of a bitch,” she says.

“No,” he says. “I’m not.”

MATTY

He slammed back into his body so hard that it shook the washing machine. He opened his eyes, and Malice was squatting in front of him, her worried face inches from his.

“I heard gunshots!” she said. “What’s happening?”

Oh God, what wasn’t happening? “There was an explosion, and Grandpa Teddy fell, and then your dad got shot—”

“What?!”

“But not shot! Now he’s in the front yard, and they’re fighting—”

Julian yelled, “The door opened!”

Malice bolted from the laundry room. Matty pushed himself to his feet, feeling dizzy. The kids had stopped playing with Mr. Banks. Jun cradled him in her arms. The other kids looked scared.

Malice ran out the door, and Polly and Cassie chased after her. “Front yard!” Malice yelled.

“Don’t go out there!” Matty said.

Julian gave him a scornful look and left the room. Matty turned to Jun. “You’re in charge. Don’t let Luke and Adrian go up there, okay?”

“I’m older than she is!” Luke said.

Matty ran up the stairs, and saw Malice, the twins, and Julian running toward the front door. “Stop!” he yelled. “They have guns!” They ignored him and ran to the front lawn.

Frankie straddled Nick Pusateri, punching down. Nick had his forearms up, protecting his face.

The twins screamed. Frankie glanced over his shoulder. His face was covered with blood, as it had been when Matty had seen him in the backyard. The girls screamed again. “Get back,” Frankie said.

And in that moment Nick hit him hard across the jaw. Frankie fell onto his side. Nick pushed himself to his feet. He looked twice as old as he had a few minutes ago. The toupee had vanished, exposing a skull that was hairless except for a fringe at the temple.

“That’s the guy who shot your dad,” Matty said. Shot at, he should have said. He hadn’t had time to explain what he’d seen.

Nick stepped to Frankie. Malice yelled, “Get the fuck away from him!” The twins resumed their miniature screams. Nick raised a boot. The pants pulled up, showing the red flames stitched onto the black leather.

Behind Matty, Julian said, “Pop-Pop?”

Nick glanced at the door, lowered his boot. Maybe it was seeing his grandson. Maybe it was finally hearing the sirens. Either way, he stepped back, breathing hard. Then he looked around as if getting his bearings. He turned and shambled toward a gleaming, finned sedan that looked like it had just driven off a Plymouth showroom in 1956.

Frankie moaned, tried to sit up. Matty said, “He’s getting away.”

Malice said to the twins, “Girls. Look at me.” Cassie and Polly were crying, but they listened. “Girls, you know that thing that you’re never supposed to do?”

Cassie nodded. Polly pushed a hand across her nose.

Malice pointed at the car.

“Really?” Polly asked.

“Do it,” Malice said.

“Okay,” Cassie said.

Nick got within twenty feet of the Plymouth when the hood catapulted from the frame in a shower of sparks. It spun away, end over end. The car battery was on fire. And then the entire engine burst into flame.

Nick stopped walking. He stared at the car for a long moment, and then he sat down in the grass.

TEDDY

Dying by gunshot was one thing. But he’d never expected to be blown up.

There’d been a whump, and then the ground opened beneath their feet, and he and Graciella had plummeted. They landed, tangled in each other—and bounced. Then they came down again, and her elbow slammed into his ribs. It was the pain that convinced him he wasn’t dead.

They’d landed on a stack of mattresses.

Dirt pattered upon their faces. Before they could get the air back into their lungs, they heard gunshots. He’d never used the word “fusillade” before, but he’d just experienced it. Then Frankie had run past the hole without looking down, and there was no noise except for the distant peal of sirens.

Finally they wiped the dirt from their faces, and got breath back into their lungs. Graciella asked the obvious. “What happened?”

“Buddy,” Teddy answered.

“We’ve got to get out,” Graciella said. “The boys are up there.” Even covered in dirt, even wild with anxiety for her sons, she was beautiful.

He looked for a way up. The hole was more than a hole; it had structure. The dirt walls were lined by four-by-fours, spaced every few feet and cross-braced. A wooden frame at the mouth anchored an array of hydraulic pistons. Those had been keeping the door closed, until they suddenly, and violently, weren’t.

It was a God damn tiger trap.

Teddy had known about the hole, he’d watched Buddy dig it, but he’d thought the kid had filled it in, not covered the trapdoor with turf. Somebody could have been killed!

“Can you climb out?” Graciella asked him.

“Hmm,” he said, as if seriously considering it. If he were younger, he might be able to scamper up those cross-braces until the handholds were blocked by the door, then leap manfully and pull himself up. He wondered if he’d ever been that young. Or manful.

Instead, he yelled for help. And again. Eventually two heads appeared at the lip of the grave: Archibald and Clifford.

“Is everyone okay?” Graciella said.

“I was going to ask you the same question,” Archibald said.

Clifford said, “The shooting’s over. The police are here. Destin’s wounded, but he’s fine.”

“The children are fine, too,” Archibald said.

Graciella didn’t look relieved. “Get me out. Now.”

“Is there nobody under seventy up there?” Teddy asked.

“Do you want help or not?” Archibald said.

Teddy made a basket of his hands, and stooped to allow Graciella to step into it. The men above hauled her up and out. Goodness, she had lovely legs. He was almost sad that they hadn’t spent more time down here, trapped like miners after a cave-in. They could have bonded while they waited for lunch to be lowered on ropes.

Archibald and Cliff had to lie on their bellies to reach him. “Just a moment,” Teddy said. He plucked the Borsalino from where it had come to rest against the dirt wall. He brushed it off and set it firmly on his head.

“Now,” he said. The men pulled him up by both arms, and he felt the stitches of the sleeves of the DeBartolo popping at his shoulders.

Archibald and Cliff hauled him onto the grass like a porpoise from a tank. By the time he got to his feet, Graciella had reached the house, calling her sons’ names.

Then Teddy saw Buddy. Irene sat beside him, tears in her eyes.

Not Buddy, Teddy thought. He couldn’t take it if Buddy was hurt. He was their innocent. Maureen’s most beloved.

Teddy glared at Archibald. “I thought you said—”

“I meant the little children,” he said.

IRENE

She saw Dad and Graciella being pulled from the hole, and everything clicked. The evidence was laid out across the house and grounds. The instant sinkhole. The metal, ricochet-proof window blinds. The medal around his chest.

She leaned close to her brother. “You did this, didn’t you? You saw it all.”

“Is everybody okay?” he asked desperately.

“Everybody’s okay,” Joshua said. She looked up. He was studying her with a desperate, worried expression. Jun was at his side, holding a white puppy. Where the hell had that come from? And why hadn’t Joshua run? All this craziness, and he was worried about her. He’d come looking for her.

“How about Dad?” Buddy asked.

“He’s fine, Buddy! He’s fine!”

He burst into fresh tears.

“It’s okay, it’s okay,” she said, holding him. “You did good. Look, Dad’s coming.” He was marching toward them, scowling. Dad’s worried face was a lot like his angry face, so it was hard to read his mood.

“I saved one of them, at least,” he said.

“You saved them all, Buddy. All the—”

Oh. He meant one of his parents.

“I think I want to rest now,” he said.

“Just don’t go to sleep.”

“It’s not that kind of tired,” he said. “I can’t keep on like this. Knowing. I’m worried all the time.”

Oh God. All the time? This explained so much about Buddy.

“I’m so sorry,” she said. “I didn’t know. Watching out for you guys—that was supposed to be my job.”

“You don’t understand,” he said. “I can’t take it anymore.”

She heard the truth of it in his voice—and recoiled from it. “I know it feels that way right now,” she said. “But someday soon—”

“I don’t want to know about someday. I don’t want to know about any of it anymore. I just want it to…stop. There’s something you’re going to do for me now, Reenie.”

Dad said, “What the hell is he talking about?” He loomed over them, grimacing. Up close, there was no ambiguity: Buddy was distraught.

“Don’t pretend like you don’t know,” Archibald said.

“That thing,” Irene said to the magician. She glanced at his hand. “Does that work?”

“Absolutely,” Archibald said.

“You’re telling the truth,” Irene said. She wanted Buddy to hear that.

The pistol, this micro-lepton gun, looked like something she’d find at the Ben Franklin dime store when she was a kid. Irene reached up, palm open. Archibald’s eyes narrowed. Then he placed it in her hand.

The gun was surprisingly heavy. Buddy watched her as she weighed it.

“This is irrevocable,” Archibald said to Buddy. “Do you understand?”

He looked at the weapon wistfully, as if he’d found an old photograph of someone he’d half forgotten. She’d assumed for years that Buddy’s gift had vanished with Mom’s death. After the funeral he never called another Cubs game, never wrote another lottery number. If he’d ever missed his moments at the Wonder Wheel, waiting for the applause of the crowd, he never spoke of it. In twenty years, he’d hardly spoken at all. But the wheel never stopped spinning. He’d carried the knowledge of it, alone, silently.

She pointed the gun at his head, where she imagined his great power came from.

Buddy looked at his watch, then held up a finger. “Wait,” he said.

FRANKIE

His daughters stared down at him as if he were a strange fish washed up on the shore of Lake Michigan. He wondered how bad he looked. His nose was certainly not where it ought to be. Several teeth were jostling for new positions. One eyelid had closed for the season.

“You were brave,” Cassie said.

“And so strong!” Polly said.

Red and blue lights flashed against the side of the house. Mary Alice crouched beside his head.

“Did we get him?” Frankie asked. His voice didn’t sound at all normal.

“Oh, we got him, Dad,” Mary Alice said. “The government guy just put a knee in his back.”

“That’s good,” he said.

They were still broke. Still homeless. But Mary Alice had called him Dad. So that was something. He felt like Odysseus, returned home at last, to find his family waiting for him.

Then he remembered.

“Buddy.” He sat up—and almost fell back again when a rib stabbed his side. “Help me up.”

“What about Buddy?” Matty asked. The kid held a fire extinguisher. He’d been putting out flaming patches of grass and the stray bits of burning auto parts.

“Now. Please.”

Frankie hobbled through the house, Mary Alice and Matty holding him up. In the backyard, his family surrounded the spot where Buddy lay. “Is he okay?” Frankie yelled. “Answer me!”

G. Randall Archibald stepped back, and he could see Irene holding the micro-lepton to Buddy’s temple.

“Reenie!” Frankie said. “What the fuck are you doing?”

Irene ignored him. Buddy looked at him and smiled. “You’re okay,” he said.

“Ready now?” Irene asked Buddy.

He glanced at his watch. “Twelve-oh-six,” he said. “Perfect.”

Frankie said, “Would somebody please—”

Irene squeezed the trigger. The gun discharged with an electrical buzz and pop:

Zap.