Matty could feel the tug of his body back at the house. He’d made Uncle Frankie promise to keep his mom away from the backyard when she came home from work. He’d started to ask why, and then abruptly said, “Don’t worry about it. I’ll handle it. You do what you do.”
The bar was depressing him. Mitzi’s door was closed, and no one was making a move to walk in. He decided to take one quick pass through, just to make sure the safe wasn’t hanging open, and then head home to face Frankie’s wrath. He was drifting toward the door when the bartender pointed at a customer, and the man got up and started walking toward Mitzi’s office. Was Frankie right after all, and payday was on?
Matty slipped through the wall into Mitzi’s office and was surprised to see somebody new behind the desk. The man was at least as old as Mitzi and Grandpa Teddy, but looked like an Elvis left too long in the sun: gray pompadour, white teeth, beef-jerky arms. His clothing was period, too. His black short-sleeve shirt had flames on it, as if he were ready not so much to hop into a ’57 Chevy but to become one.
The guy from the bar didn’t sit down. He handed over an envelope, and Ancient Elvis pulled out the cash, sorted it in front of him, slapping the bills onto the desk as if sure he was going to catch the guy stiffing him.
Mitzi wasn’t like that. She would barely glance at the money, just run her finger across it while it was still in the envelope, and then talk politely to the client. Sometimes everybody was all smiles. Sometimes the client had to start explaining.
Evidently the money added up. Elvis waved the customer away and turned toward the safe before the guy was out of the room. Then he picked up a scrap of paper, and started dialing.
Matty zipped forward.
Elvis pulled open the safe, still holding the scrap of paper. Matty stretched himself, willing his invisible eyeballs closer.
28. 11. And—thumb. Elvis’s fat, grease-stained digit covered the only digit Matty cared about.
“Thumb, thumb, thumb…” Matty chanted.
The man swung his head toward the door—maybe someone had knocked?—and then dropped the paper. Matty swooped down, tried to focus on the digits, and the man snatched it off the floor.
“Oh come on!” Matty yelled. What he wouldn’t do for a pair of spirit tongs. Anything.
The door opened, and Mr. Pompadour started talking to the next client. Matty looked forlornly at the safe—and then realized the door was still open.
Still open.
Matty flew a few feet and turned until he could see the face of the door. The dial was still resting at the last number:
33.
“Twenty-eight, eleven, thirty-three,” Matty said.
He spun, held up his ghost hands. “Twenty-eight, eleven, thirty-three!” Pompadour and the new guest talked on, oblivious.
Matty zipped through the roof, chanting the digits to himself so he wouldn’t forget. He stretched out his arms like Superman and headed for home. God, he loved flying. And now, he knew Grandma Mo had loved it, too. Screw Destin Smalls. Let the evil government agents come for him. He was going to save Frankie! Save his mom!
Two blocks from home, he zoomed low over rooftops, buzzed a series of parked cars. Something about one of the vehicles pinged on his cannabis-fogged brain. He hovered in the air, turned back.
A silver van was parked under a tree. Then the driver’s side door opened, and a gray-haired black man stepped out. Cliff Turner. He put his hands on his hips, looked up at the tree, then turned—and locked eyes with Matty.
Turner nodded slowly, and then saluted.
Matty, in a panic, was snapped back into his body like a yo-yo. He shouted and opened his eyes and saw—
—Grandpa Teddy.
He sat in a lawn chair, legs crossed, hat on his knee.
Matty jumped up. “Grandpa!”
His grandfather held up a hand. “Settle down. You’re not—”
Matty spun around. The silver van was so close. He could be here any minute.
“What’s the matter with you?” Grandpa Teddy asked.
Matty tried to calm himself. “Nothing,” he said.
“You know, marijuana can cause paranoia.” Grandpa Teddy held the nub of the joint between two fingers. “I had to pinch it out. You don’t want to waste it. It’s expensive.”
“I’m sorry. I know!” There were no sirens. No squeal of tires in the driveway. Just a quiet backyard, a couple of empty hammocks, and his grandfather. How long had he been watching? Long enough to pull out a chair at least. Thank God Matty hadn’t been using his original travel method.
“Easy now, you’re not in trouble,” Grandpa Teddy said. “How long have you been at this?”
“I just tried it a couple times.”
He chuckled. “Not talking about the smoke. I’ve seen that look before, Matty.”
That look. Of course Grandpa Teddy would recognize a trance. He’d been married to the greatest clairvoyant and astral traveler of all time. He may have been the one to deliver her letter.
“You seemed pretty deep,” his grandfather said. “How far away were you?”
“Not far.” Matty didn’t know what to do with his hands. Should he sit down? Lean nonchalantly against the garage? No. No way could he pull off nonchalant. Chalant was the best he could do.
Grandpa Teddy, though, seemed perfectly relaxed. “What’s the farthest you’ve gone?”
“Uh…” Matty was having trouble concentrating. Were Turner and Smalls driving here, right now?
“Just estimate,” Grandpa Teddy said.
“How far is the lake?”
“That’s pretty good.”
“Is it?”
“For a thirteen-year-old it’s God damn amazing.”
Amazing. He was amazing. He didn’t even bother to mention that he was fourteen now.
“So tell me,” Grandpa Teddy said. “Why are you still shaking like a leaf?”
Matty didn’t want to say. But he was too terrified not to. “The government. They just spotted me. While I was, you know.”
“The government? Who?”
“His name’s Clifford Turner. He works with Destin Smalls? He looked straight at me. He saw me.”
“Well I’ll be damned. Cliff actually has some talent.”
“You know him?”
“Oh, I know him. Good guy. Just didn’t think he had it in him.” Grandpa Teddy did not seem as shocked as he should have been. But wasn’t he the master of the poker face? “And how did you catch their names? Did he talk to you?”
“Not this time.”
“This time? This has happened before?”
“No, not like that.” Matty quickly told him about meeting Smalls and Turner weeks ago, when they stopped him on the sidewalk. He talked fast, imagining SWAT teams converging on this location.
“Did Smalls threaten you?” Grandpa Teddy asked.
“No! I mean, not physically. He just said he could turn me off. Turn my power off. Like a light switch, he said.”
“Jesus,” Teddy said. “The God damn micro-lepton gun.”
“What’s a micro—?”
“A million-dollar boondoggle. Don’t you worry about it. Does anybody else know what you can do?”
“Uncle Frankie.”
“You went to Frankie with this? Your mother I could understand, but—”
“I could never tell Mom. But Frankie, I knew he would be…excited.”
Teddy grunted in agreement. “Probably right about your mother, too.” He looked at the joint in his hand. “And this helps, does it?”
Matty nodded.
“Someone should do some research into that.”
“What do we do?”
Teddy smiled. Was it the “we”? He said, “Your cover’s blown, kid. Destin Smalls is going to use you as his ticket back into the game.”