Inside the Horizon office, Snowden could tell it was Halloween because Lester wore a black suit, orange shoes, plastic ghost cuff links, and a large pumpkin on his tie with a smirk much like Snowden's own.
"The importance of style is not to impress, nor to conform to the expectations of the masses, Snowman. It is to manifest an aspect of your soul externally."
Lester walked around his office whistling. It made him seem relaxed. Too relaxed, it suddenly seemed, and Snowden was hit with the guilty thought that Lester had seen Piper's article, that he knew where she got the idea and, when he least expected it, Lester would fire him. It was an attractively paranoid thought, but it made Snowden smile to himself at its absurdity almost immediately. Everybody knew no one read the New Holland Herald. It was absolutely dreadful. That was the existential beauty of the paper: It was reading material for illiterates.
"Can any child, or at least one that a Horizon employee recommends, be admitted to the little Leaders League?" Snowden asked to get his mind off of it. This question had actually been planned in bed that morning, made moot by Baron Anderson soon after, and was only offered to inspire further questions, as it did. Snowden, in the mood for the catharsis of confession, told Lester all of it. What the boy's beatings sounded like through the floor, the shade of Jifar's bruising the night before, how gentle the kid was, Baron Anderson's implicit threat of blackmail, and even a description of what the bastard's voice sounded like singing "Brick House."
Into his folded hands Lester nodded. Snowden was down to the detail that the hairy freak had the nerve to reek of Johnson & Johnson's Baby Shampoo when Lester stood up to close his office door, went to the file drawers behind his desk, and opened one.
"That's the apartment directly below yours. Is that B. Anderson?"
"That's him. That's the guy, Baron Anderson."
"Arrested 1989, Disposal of Stolen Property. Again in '93 and '97, same thing. The guy's a fence. He works at a pawn shop at 117th and 2nd."
"How do you have all that? Did it come up on his credit report when he applied for the apartment?"
"We have information on all our residents with criminal backgrounds. You wouldn't believe how helpful having strong connections with the parole board can be, with a mission like ours. Look here, Mr. Anderson has been investigated twice in the past four years by Child Welfare for endangerment. Two different social workers," Lester read. Snowden kept waiting for something that pointed to some great Explanation, something that would solve the situation and absolve him of further action. "Apparently the man is very neat." Lester looked up, impressed. "Both visited in response to complaints by neighbors. No female relatives to take the boy in, no easy answers. Neither case worker saw fit to recommend difficult ones, either. Very clean, though. They both mentioned that."
"That's great. The geniuses at Child Welfare. See, that's why I would never bother calling those people in the first place, they just make things worse. Cleanliness. Oh, the place is really clean, so. . whatever. Cleanliness is what matters." In response to Snowden's remarks Lester checked his fingernails, shrugged like it might be possible to argue that point successfully.
"Look, you really want to address this situation?" Lester asked. "You really want to take care of it, like a man, and put this guy in his place? Then it's not a problem. I know how to handle so-called men like this: You put the fear of God in his black ass, if you'll pardon me. If it means that much to you, we'll just go in there and make him understand in his own language that if he doesn't stop taking out his aggressions on the boy, we'll take ours out against him."
Snowden was laughing at it, the image in his mind, the insanity of it. "OK, I like it. No really, it is very good. The only thing is, we're not exactly the type to inspire 'the fear of God,' are we? The fear of gosh, maybe."
"Snowball. Don't underestimate the cowardice of bullies, or the element of surprise. I have keys to all the Horizon properties, correct? Next time he has one of his bathroom concerts, we'll arrive. Tonight, for instance, would be perfect. We're having a Halloween party for the students, just tell this boy to come, get him away from this. It's dirty work, there's no shame in flinching from it. Trust me though, a threat to their own mortal coil is the only thing bad people understand. This will work; it always does. Think of it as property management in its purest form."
Snowden, whose only alternative idea was to get Jifar to shove a couple of five-dollar bills in his dad's pocket to attract the Chupacabra, said, "Sounds like a plan."
It was a bad idea. At the time Snowden agreed to it, it was a bad-yet-tempting idea, but the tempting part didn't last long. After Snowden had walked an excited four-foot Chupacabra (or four-foot mutant frog — Jifar wasn't married to any one interpretation of his costume) over to the Horizon little Leaders League Halloween Party, after it had gotten dark outside, Lester's plan no longer seemed tempting at all. It was just bad. Snowden left his boss voice mails hinting at his new opinion, but there was no return call. Snowden was on the phone to give it one more try when he walked from his kitchen to his living room and saw Lester right there. Sitting on Snowden's couch. Legs folded, dime-size embroidered black cats hissing a line up his gray socks. The only changes to his earlier attire were black gloves and a matching hair net that made it look like a giant spiderweb had formed over his head.
"See? I know how to enter quietly. Mr. Anderson does sing a bit loud, doesn't he? I just heard him in your bathroom. You were right, a weak baritone under the delusion he's a tenor. Dreadful. Let's go get him."
Lester's hand on Baron Anderson's doorknob moved slower than the minute hand on his watch. When the door finally cracked open, the whining first bars of "Let's Get It On" jumped out. They walked inside. Lester started taking off his shoes so Snowden imitated him. The stench of sesame oil was so strong it conjured images of sesame seeds as big as almonds. The apartment was dark, nothing but the light from the windows and the illumination coming from the bathroom down the hall. From it, Baron Anderson yelled, "We are all sensitive people / With so much to give!" Lester lined up both sets of shoes along the door perfectly before rising, walking toward the light, the sound, the man.
"There's nothing wrong with me!" Baron Anderson declared into his microphone, and then Lester kicked open the door.
Lester walked into that bathroom like it was a hotel lobby. His first action a deft swat to the power button on the stereo machine by the tub. "We are the ghosts of Halloween past!" he declared into its silence. Baron Anderson covered his genitals. Considering the situation, Snowden thought this was a rather odd first response. That Lester was smiling as much as he was, that was odd as well.
Anderson noticed Snowden behind the odd man, cursed directly at him as he moved a hand from his groin to grab the side of the tub to lift himself up to attack. He managed to make it to the bent-kneed position of an upright Neanderthal before Lester could remove his snub-nose pistol from his coat and push it to the side of Baron Anderson's head.
It was a bad idea. I don't put myself in the middle of these situations, Snowden assured himself, these situations hunt me down and swallow me.
"Now you relax. That's your job right now, relaxing. Lay back down. You ask nice, we can even turn on the hot water if you start to get cold. It is kind of cold in here, isn't it? You cold, ghost?" Lester turned back to Snowden to ask him, pushing his gun farther into Baron Anderson's temple as he did so.
"I'm fine, sir," Snowden told him. Snowden was near the toilet. It called and teased him as every liquid inside Snowden all of a sudden wanted out.