End of Watch (Bill Hodges Trilogy #3)(62)

‘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.”’

‘I don’t think that’s so funny,’ Angie says. ‘You all could have been killed.’

‘There must have been more to it than that,’ Hodges says.

‘Sure. It said that there were like two thousand kids there, a lot of them at their first concert, and they got screwed out of the experience of a lifetime. Although, um, screwed wasn’t the word they used.’

‘I think we can fill in that blank, dear one,’ Carl says.

‘And then it said that ’Round Here’s corporate sponsor had received a whole bunch of Zappit game consoles, and they wanted to give them away. To, you know, kind of make up for the concert.’

‘Even though that was almost six years ago?’ Angie looks incredulous.

‘Yeah. Kind of weird, when you think of it.’

‘But you didn’t,’ Carl said. ‘Think of it.’

Dinah shrugs, looking petulant. ‘I did, but it seemed okay.’

‘Famous last words,’ her father says.

‘So you just … what?’ Hodges asks. ‘Emailed in your name and address and got that’ – he points to the Zappit – ‘in the mail?’

‘There was a little more to it than that,’ Dinah says. ‘You had to, like, be able to prove you were actually there. So I went to see Barb’s mom. You know, Tanya.’

‘Why?’

‘For the pictures. I think I have mine somewhere, but I couldn’t find them.’

‘Her room,’ Angie says, and this time she’s the one with the eye-roll.

Hodges’s side has picked up a slow, steady throb. ‘What pictures, Dinah?’

‘Okay, it was Tanya – she doesn’t mind if we call her that – who took us to the concert, see? There was Barb, me, Hilda Carver, and Betsy.’