The door opened wider and a man stepped out into the light rain, long-armed and lean, carrying a brown bag. Cody Stinson.
They both recognized him. “Now what?” Wish said.
“We call the cops as soon as he goes back inside.”
Stinson stretched, and as he approached a pool of light from an outdoor post, Paul saw that he was fully dressed in heavy boots and a jacket.
“He’s not going out in this,” Wish said. “Not on a bike.”
But he was. He pulled on goggles and a helmet, mounted the Harley, and, indifferent to the hellish commotion of its engine or, more likely, proud of it, revved a couple of times to warm it up and took off down the hill, leaving a drizzle trail.
Paul and Wish jumped back into the car. “Should we call the police?”
“And say what? Tell ’em to go looking for a guy on a motorcycle?” Paul asked, frustrated. “We need him back in his room tucked up tight in bed, or somewhere for more than five minutes so that they can swoop down and grab him without a slipup. Oh, great.” Pea-sized hail pelted Paul’s windshield. His wipers pushed futilely against the onslaught.
“You’re not supposed to eat in bed,” Nina told Bob, who balanced a bowl of tortilla chips and a plate of salsa on the sheet as he talked into the phone. He wore boxers and a towel draped around his neck.
Lately he had begun taking half-hour showers. As his teen years bore down on him, he had fallen into the grip of passions that he understood no better than Nina, passions about everything, from a certain kind of cereal to be eaten every morning for three months, to blue shoelaces ordered off the Net. He had suggested that he would like to dye his hair. His attention span for school subjects had dropped to about five minutes, but he could still surf the Net for hours with an intensity befitting a brain surgeon.
At the same time the blitheness of childhood left him, he began to suffer from a lack of confidence. He believed that he was ugly and socially maladroit, though he was strong and healthy with no particular drawbacks that Nina could see. In fact, she thought he might, with luck and a softening of his lantern jaw, grow up to be an attractive fellow.
However, there were a few years to go between now and then.
“So bye,” he said to the phone, and hung up. He dipped another chip, which dripped onto the sheet. He gave Nina a look.
“Was that a glare?” she said.
“All I did was look at you.”
Nina sat down on the bed. “Could I have some?” They ate a couple of chips. Bob wouldn’t look at her. He picked up the remote and an ancient episode of Friends popped up on cable TV. Nina felt the usual pangs. If only she had forbidden TV, maybe Bob would be happy and outgoing and an Eagle Scout.
Clothes and CDs covered every surface including the floor. She tried not to notice. Her run-in with Kevin had left her fuse short and her nerves shaky. “Was that Nikki?” she said in what she hoped was a casual tone.
“Uh huh.”
“How’s she doing?”
“Fine.” When she waited for more and the silence grew oppressive, he broke, adding, “Working on the Web site for that hard-core band from Sweden.”
“Will you be seeing her soon?”
Bob didn’t answer.
“Is she still doing home-schooling?”
“What do you care? Is that a problem for you?”
“I was just asking.” She had many questions about Nikki but didn’t dare ask them. She would have to find out somehow for herself without trampling further upon this mine-filled earth.
Bob munched on another chip. Hitchcock roamed over to his side of the bed and he patted the dog’s back.
“So how’s the band?”
“Defunkt.”
“What?”
“That’s our band name. Nikki finally came up with it. Like it?”
“It’s kind of unusual,” Nina said. “Hard to spell. But-”
“Defunkt with a k. Aw, you don’t care. Admit it. You don’t care about the band at all.”
“I do want to encourage your interest in music.” But not your interest in Nikki, she had to add to herself. “Any luck finding a bass player?”
“We’ll find one. Why are you cross-examining me? I confess, I did it to Colonel Mustard in the library. With a drumstick.” He scowled. “This isn’t court, Mom.”
“Bob, all I was trying to do was-”
Bob rolled off the bed. Hitchcock jumped up to meet him. “Think I’ll take a shower. Lay there as long as you want, Mom. Eat all the chips you want.” Mockery lurked in the words.
Why, you’re getting damn disrespectful, she said to his back as he disappeared into the bathroom. But she didn’t say it out loud. A bad influence was at work, no question, and this bad influence was cute, and maybe she’d be famous someday like Courtney Love, but Bob wasn’t going to be part of Nikki’s band much longer. Defunkt would soon live up to its name, she decided.
Hitchcock took a running leap onto Bob’s bed and the salsa did the merengue all over the sheets. Nina pushed the dog off. She wadded the sheets up into a dirty ball and tossed them into the hall. As she remade the bed, Bob whistled in the shower “The Little White Duck.” The children’s tune must have stuck in his brain from Andrea’s baby party.
She followed along with the whistling. The white duck on a lily pad, visited by a green frog, and then a buzzing black bug.
And along came the hissing red snake to frighten the other critters away.
What snakes were they turning up?
Unable to answer that question, she went back to whistling the innocent children’s song with its ominous undertone. Opening Bob’s window, she looked out into a late-night storm. Hail battered the roof like falling pebbles.
Paul gripped the wheel, struggling in vain to see something through his windshield. “We have no enemy but winter and rough weather, and man, those are serious enemies.” The hail splattered down like a million shards of breaking glass. He could hardly hear himself shout above the racket.
Wish shrugged. “When you live up here, you get used to it. It’s almost always sunny, except when it’s a blizzard.”
“Look, Cody’s motorcycle has just the one dim light fading into obscurity up ahead of us. He doesn’t care if he lives or dies, and that’s a dilemma, because I’d like to go on living at the moment. Where are we?” He gave the wheel a swift tilt to the right, narrowly avoiding a swimming pool in the middle of the road.
“Well…” Wish considered, then peered out the window to place himself. “We’re headed east on 267. He skipped a couple of side roads and seems to be going fast-”
“No shit!”
“-so he’s probably not planning to stop anytime soon. Anyway, there’s no major place to turn off after Northstar for miles. He’s heading for the lake.”
“If I can stay up with him past the Northstar turn, we’ll have a breather, maybe,” Paul said, pushing the accelerator down. “Then if he gets ahead, I can catch up without committing suicide.”
“Don’t you just love a solid V- 8,” Wish said, smiling, approving of the Mustang’s speed.
The speedometer crept up, and Paul used all the old tricks to keep himself from skidding off the road, two hands in proper formation on the steering wheel, cold sweat left unwiped on his brow.
“Most people don’t go out on nights like this,” Wish observed, arms folded calmly, “even if it isn’t three in the morning. More roadway for us.”
His nose as close to the windshield as he could get it, Paul cursed. “We lost him on that last curve. So quick-decision time. Turn right at Northstar or keep going toward King’s Beach?”
“I don’t gamble,” Wish said, “not much anyway, but somehow I can’t see any friend of his living at Northstar. Too ritzy. I bet on passing.”