Stephen King - End of Watch

‘That’s right, the man-woman. Or, to give her sexual preference its scientific name, Ruggus munchus .’

‘No.’ The whine has become a whisper. ‘I’m going to stay right here.’

Brady raises the gun, the barrel now visible within the blown-out remains of the makeshift silencer. ‘If you think I really need you, you’re making the worst mistake of your life. And the last one.’

Babineau says nothing. This is a nightmare, and soon he will wake up.

‘Do it, or tomorrow the housekeeper will find you lying dead next to your wife, unfortunate victims of a home invasion. I would rather finish my business as Dr Z – your body is ten years younger than Brooks’s, and not in bad shape – but I’ll do what I have to. Besides, leaving you to face Kermit Hodges would be mean of me. He’s a nasty man, Felix. You have no idea.’

Babineau looks at the elderly fellow in the mended parka and sees Hartsfield looking out of Library Al’s watery blue eyes. Babineau’s lips are trembling and wet with spittle. His eyes are rimmed with tears. Brady thinks that with his white hair standing up around his head as it is now, the Babster looks like Albert Einstein in that photo where the famous physicist is sticking his tongue out.

‘How did I get into this?’ he moans.

‘The way everybody gets into everything,’ Brady says gently. ‘One step at a time.’

‘Why did you have to go after the girl?’ Babineau bursts out.

‘It was a mistake,’ Brady says. Easier to admit that than the whole truth: he couldn’t wait. He wanted the nigger lawnboy’s sister to go before anyone else blotted out her importance. ‘Now stop fucking around and look at the fishies. You know you want to.’

And he does. That’s the worst part. In spite of everything Babineau now knows, he does.

He looks at the fish.

He listens to the tune.

After awhile he goes into the bedroom to dress and get money out of the safe. He makes one more stop before leaving. The bathroom medicine cabinet is well stocked, on both her side and his.

He takes Babineau’s BMW, leaving the old Malibu where it is for the time being. He also leaves Library Al, who has gone to sleep on the sofa.

Around the time Cora Babineau is opening her front door for the last time, Hodges is sitting down in the living room of the Scott family’s home on Allgood Place, just one block over from Teaberry Lane, where the Robinsons live. He swallowed a couple of painkillers before getting out of the car, and isn’t feeling bad, all things considered.

Dinah Scott is on the sofa, flanked by her parents. She looks quite a bit older than fifteen tonight, because she’s recently back from a rehearsal at North Side High School, where the Drama Club will soon be putting on The Fantasticks . She has the role of Luisa, Angie Scott has told Hodges, a real plum. (This causes Dinah to roll her eyes.) Hodges is across from them in a La-Z-Boy very much like the one in his own living room. From the deep divot in the seat, he deduces it is Carl Scott’s normal evening roost.

On the coffee table in front of the sofa is a bright green Zappit. Dinah brought it down from her room right away, which allows Hodges to further deduce that it wasn’t buried under sports gear in her closet, or left under the bed with the dust bunnies. It wasn’t sitting forgotten in her locker at school. No, it was where she could lay her hands on it at once. Which means she’s been using it, old-school or not.

‘I’m here at the request of Barbara Robinson,’ he tells them. ‘She was struck by a truck today—’

‘Omigod,’ Dinah says, a hand going to her mouth.

‘She’s okay,’ Hodges says. ‘Broken leg is all. They’re keeping her overnight for observation, but she’ll be home tomorrow and probably back in school next week. You can sign her cast, if kids still do that.’

Angie puts an arm around her daughter’s shoulders. ‘What does that have to do with Dinah’s game?’

‘Well, Barbara had one, and it gave her a shock.’ Based on what Holly told Hodges while he was driving over here, that’s no lie. ‘She was crossing a street at the time, lost her bearings for a minute, and bammo. A boy pushed her clear, or it would have been much worse.’

‘Jesus,’ Carl says.

Hodges leans forward, looking at Dinah. ‘I don’t know how many of these gadgets are defective, but it’s clear from what happened to Barb, and a couple of other incidents we know of, that at least some of them are.’

‘Let this be a lesson to you,’ Carl says to his daughter. ‘The next time someone tells you a thing’s free, be on your guard.’

This prompts another eye-roll of the perfect teenage variety.

‘The thing I’m curious about,’ Hodges says, ‘is how you came by yours in the first place. It’s kind of a mystery, because the Zappit company didn’t sell many. They were bought out by another company when it flopped, and that company went bankrupt in April two years ago. You’d think the Zappit consoles would have been held for resale, to help pay the bills—’

‘Or destroyed,’ Carl says. ‘That’s what they do with unsold paperbacks, you know.’

‘I’m actually aware of that,’ Hodges says. ‘So tell me, Dinah, how did you get it?’

‘I went on the website,’ she says. ‘I’m not in trouble, am I? I mean, I didn’t know, but Daddy always says ignorance of the law is no excuse.’

‘You’re in zero trouble,’ Hodges assures her. ‘What website was this?’

‘It was called badconcert.com. I looked for it on my phone when Mom called me at rehearsal and said you were coming over, but it’s gone. I guess they gave away all the ones they had.’

‘Or found out the things were dangerous, and folded their tents without warning anyone,’ Angie Scott says, looking grim.

‘How bad could the shock be, though?’ Carl asks. ‘I opened up the back when Dee brought it down from her room. There’s nothing in there but four rechargeable double As.’

‘I don’t know about that stuff,’ Hodges says. His stomach is starting to hurt again in spite of the dope. Not that his stomach is actually the problem; it’s an adjacent organ only six inches long. He took a moment after his meeting with Norma Wilmer to check the survival rate of patients with pancreatic cancer. Only six percent of them manage to live five years. Not what you’d call cheery news. ‘So far I haven’t even managed to re-program my iPhone’s text message alert so it doesn’t scare innocent bystanders.’

‘I can do that for you,’ Dinah says. ‘Easy-peasy. I have Crazy Frog on mine.’

‘Tell me about the website first.’

‘There was a tweet, okay? Someone at school told me about it. It got picked up on lots of social media sites. Facebook… Pinterest… Google Plus… you know the ones I’m talking about.’

Hodges doesn’t, but nods.

‘I can’t remember the tweet exactly, but pretty close. Because they can only be a hundred and forty characters long. You know that, right?’

‘Sure,’ Hodges says, although he barely grasps what a tweet is. His left hand is trying to sneak its way to the pain in his side. He makes it stay put.

‘This one said something like…’ Dinah closes her eyes. It’s rather theatrical, but of course she just did come from a Drama Club rehearsal. ‘“Bad news, some nut got the ’Round Here concert canceled. Want some good news? Maybe even a free gift? Go to badconcert.com.”’ She opens her eyes. ‘That’s probably not exact, but you get the idea.’

‘I do, yeah.’ He jots the website name in his notebook. ‘So you went there…’

‘Sure. Lots of kids went there. It was kind of funny, too. There was a Vine of ’Round Here singing their big song from a few of years ago, “Kisses on the Midway,” it was called, and after about twenty seconds there’s an explosion sound and this quacky voice saying, “Oh damn, show canceled.”’