Orson Card - Lost Boys

"Fine," he said. "If I'm not there, tell it to whoever answers the phone, they'll be expecting it."

He got in his car and drove off. DeAnne and Step went back in the house, sat down at the kitchen table, and wrote down their list of names. People who had reason, or thought they had reason, to hate the Fletchers as of the time they got that record in the mail. Mrs. Jones, Dicky Northanger, Lee Weeks, Roland McIntyre. They debated back and forth about including Dolores LeSueur's name, but they finally did. It was ludicrous to think of Dolores LeSueur as a serial killer- it was ludicrous to think of a woman as a serial killer-but the list had to be complete or why make it?

They phoned it in. As Douglas had said, the man on the phone was expecting them, and he was thorough and businesslike. And then it was done.

Step and DeAnne faced each other across the table. "What a Sunday," said Step.

"This is going to sound awful," said DeAnne, "because that serial killer is still out there somewhere, but ... I feel better now."

"Me too," said Step. And then he laughed in relief. "Stevie isn't crazy. All that shit from Dr. Weeks-forgive me, but a spade's a spade-that's all back in the crock it came from. Whatever's going on in Stevie's life, it isn't made up and we didn't cause it and he isn't crazy. It's the real world that he's living in, only just as we thought, he sees it more deeply and truly than the rest of us. And when you think about it, it's kind of sweet, isn't it? I mean, whatever happened to these lost boys, they still live on in Stevie's mind. He imagines them and he's made playmates out of them, he's made friends out of them. And I'm not afraid of them anymore."

"I'm still afraid," said DeAnne. "I can't help that."

"Well, so am I-of the killer."

" I wish we lived somewhere else," said DeAnne. "I wish we could take Stevie away from this place."

"Me too," said Step. "But this is the place where the doctors know about Zap. This is the ward that fasted and prayed for him. The rest of us can live anywhere, but Zap is already part of the life of this place. Those people in our ward, you think they're going to watch Zap grow up and think, What a strange- looking kid, why can't he hold his head up? No. They're going to say, we know that boy, he's one of us. We'll never find that anywhere else, DeAnne."

"I know," she said. "I know." But she was not yet comforted.

"The danger is still here," said Step, touching the newspaper article again. "But it's not pointed at us. I mean, it's like the article says, a child in Steuben is still far more likely to be killed in a traffic accident or a gunshot accident than to be a victim of this killer. Parents have to be less trusting of strangers for a while, that's all. And we were already nearly paranoid, so I think we'll be fine."

She nodded.

"And we can't afford to move, DeAnne. Unless you think it's worth abandoning everything and scurrying home to your parents' basement."

"I guess I'm just thinking, I don't want to be a grownup anymore. I want to go home and have mom and dad take care of me." She laughed at herself. "It's hard to be mom and dad. Isn't it? Because anything you decide might be wrong."

"Heck, everything we decide will be wrong," said Step, "because no matter what we do, something bad will happen later. So I refuse to regret any of it. I don't regret taking the job with Eight Bits and I don't regret quitting. I don't regret all those expensive tests they ran on Zap, because we had to know. I especially don't regret that day when I saw you talking on the phone and I thought I had never seen anything so beautiful as my wife being kind to someone else who was in need."

She leaned over to him and put her arms around him and rested her head on his chest for a moment. "You make me feel so good."

"And think of this," said Step. "We not only got some assur ance that nobody in our house is crazy, but we also got our bedroom cleaned for the first time since we moved in."

She pretended to bite him through his shirt, and then sat back up. "Well, no matter what I feel, it's time to feed Zap, if I can wake him up. I'm beginning to think if I didn't wake him up for meals he'd sleep the rest of his life away."

"I know the feeling," said Step. He carefully refrained from pointing out to her that she had just called the baby Zap. He did that the first time she called Elizabeth Betsy, and she had made it a point never to call her that again, so the poor kid was growing up thinking that she was one person to men and another person to women.

Which might not be that far from reality, of course, given the way society worked. Pretty soon he'd probably give in and stop calling Betsy Betsy, so she'd have the same name to everybody. But he thought Zap was a great name, at least until he was old enough to complain about it, and if he could get DeAnne to slip into using it, too, that would be nice.

Step stayed in the kitchen and looked mindlessly at the newspaper for a moment. Then he realized that they had both lists out on the table-the list of Stevie's friends and the list of people who might hate him enough to send an anonymous threat. He got up and put them in a high cupboard. No matter what Douglas had said, Step wasn't really happy with either list. He'd much rather that everybody on both lists just leave his family alone.

Late that same Sunday night the phone rang. DeAnne woke up and sleepily answered it. She listened for a moment. "It's late," she said. "I think he's asleep. Oh, no, he isn't. He's right here." She held out the phone to Step. "S'for you," she said. She was back to sleep almost before he got the phone out of her hand.

"This is Step Fletcher," he said. "Who am I speaking to?"

"Hey, this is Glass, Step. Remember me? From Eight Bits Inc.?"

"Yeah, of course," said Step. "Isn't this a little late to be calling, though? I mean, it's almost midnight."

"Well, see, this isn't exactly a social call. They only let me make one phone call, and I thought about it for a minute, and you were kind of my best choice. Or at least I sure hope you are."

"Best choice for what?"

"I'm down at the police station. I need a ride home. Can I explain it to you later? I'm not arrested or anything, I just don't want to be driven home in a police car, you know? It looks bad, people ask questions."

"If you're not arrested, then how come you only get one phone call?"

"Oh, like, that was just theatre. You know? Just making it more dramatic than it is. It's really nothing.

Except that I need a friend right now, you know? To pick me up and then not tell anybody where he picked me up."

"I won't lie for you," said Step.

"Oh, right, I knew that," said Glass. "But see, you don't work at Eight Bits Inc. anymore and you haven't exactly been keeping in touch so I figure, who's going to ask you? And you aren't going to go calling people up and telling them, right?"

"I don't know where the police station is," said Step.

"Well it's right downtown. Corner of Center and Church. Big city-county building, you can't miss it. I'll just meet you out front so you don't have to park and come in."

When Step hung up the phone, DeAnne roused enough to murmur, "Who was it?"

"Glass. Roland McIntyre. He's been picked up by the police for questioning and now he wants a ride home."

DeAnne's eyes opened now. "He was on our list."

"Yeah, well, I guess he was on another list, too, eh?"

Step made it to the city-county building in ten minutes, and, as he had promised, Glass was standing out in front. He looked forlorn in his plaid short-sleeve shirt and thick glasses.

"Nice car," said Glass as he slid in.

"It takes a lot of hard work to get the rust holes just right," said Step. "But hey, this one runs and the other one's always in the shop. Where to?"