End of Watch (Bill Hodges Trilogy #3)(64)

There was an unreadable signature, hardly more than a scribble. Below that:

Lucky numbers for Dinah Scott:

1034=$25 gift certificate at Deb

1781=$40 gift card at Atom Arcade

1946=$50 gift certificate at Carmike Cinemas

7459=Wave 50cc moped-scooter (Grand Prize)

‘You actually believed this bullshit?’ Carl Scott asks.

Although the question is delivered with a smile, Dinah tears up. ‘All right, I’m stupid, so shoot me.’

Carl hugs her, kisses her temple. ‘Know what? I would have swallowed it at your age, too.’

‘Have you been checking the pink fish, Dinah?’ Hodges asks.

‘Yes, once or twice a day. That’s actually harder than the game, because the pink ones are fast. You have to concentrate.’

Of course you do, Hodges thinks. He likes this less and less. ‘But no numbers, huh?’

‘Not so far.’

‘Can I take that?’ he asks, pointing to the Zappit. He thinks about telling her he’ll give it back later, but doesn’t. He doubts if he will. ‘And the letter?’

‘On one condition,’ she says.

Hodges, pain now subsiding, is able to smile. ‘Name it, kiddo.’

‘Keep checking the pink fish, and if one of my numbers comes up, I get the prize.’

‘It’s a deal,’ Hodges says, thinking, Someone wants to give you a prize, Dinah, but I doubt very much if it’s a moped or a cinema gift certificate. He takes the Zappit and the letter, and stands up. ‘I want to thank you all very much for your time.’

‘Welcome,’ Carl says. ‘And when you figure out just what the hell this is all about, will you tell us?’

‘You got it,’ Hodges says. ‘One more question, Dinah, and if I sound stupid, remember that I’m pushing seventy.’

She smiles. ‘At school, Mr Morton says the only stupid question—’

‘Is the one you don’t ask, yeah. I’ve always felt that way myself, so here it comes. Everybody at North Side High knows about this, right? The free consoles, the number-fish, and the prizes?’

‘Not just our school, all the other ones, too. Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, Yik Yak … that’s how they work.’

‘And if you were at the concert and you could prove it, you were eligible to get one of these.’

‘Uh-huh.’

‘What about Betsy DeWitt? Did she get one?’

Dinah frowns. ‘No, and that’s kind of funny, because she still had her pictures from that night, and she sent one to the website. But she didn’t do it as soon as I did, she’s an awful procrastinator, so maybe they were all out. If you snooze, you lose type of thing.’

Hodges thanks the Scotts again for their time, wishes Dinah good luck with the play, and goes back down the walk to his car. When he slides behind the wheel, it’s cold enough inside to see his breath. The pain surfaces again: four hard pulses. He waits them out, teeth clamped, trying to tell himself these new, sharper pains are psychosomatic, because he now knows what’s wrong with him, but the idea won’t quite wash. Two more days suddenly seems like a long time to wait for treatment, but he will wait. Has to, because an awful idea is rising in his mind. Pete Huntley wouldn’t believe it, and Izzy Jaynes would probably think he needed a quick ambulance ride to the nearest funny farm. Hodges doesn’t quite believe it himself, but the pieces are coming together, and although the picture that’s being revealed is a crazy one, it also has a certain nasty logic.

He starts his Prius and points it toward home, where he will call Holly and ask her to try and find out if Sunrise Solutions ever sponsored a ’Round Here tour. After that he will watch TV. When he can no longer pretend that what’s on interests him, he’ll go to bed and lie awake and wait for morning.

Only he’s curious about the green Zappit.

Too curious, it turns out, to wait. Halfway between Allgood Place and Harper Road, he pulls into a strip mall, parks in front of a dry cleaning shop that’s closed for the night, and powers the gadget up. It flashes bright white, and then a red Z appears, growing closer and bigger until the slant of the Z colors the whole screen red. A moment later it flashes white again, and a message appears: WELCOME TO ZAPPIT! WE LOVE TO PLAY! HIT ANY KEY TO BEGIN, OR JUST SWIPE THE SCREEN!

Hodges swipes, and game icons appear in neat rows. Some are console versions of ones he watched Allie play at the mall when she was a little girl: Space Invaders, Donkey Kong, Pac-Man, and that little yellow devil’s main squeeze, Ms Pac-Man. There are also the various solitaire games Janice Ellerton had been hooked on, and plenty of other stuff Hodges has never heard of. He swipes again, and there it is, between SpellTower and Barbie’s Fashion Walk: Fishin’ Hole. He takes a deep breath and taps the icon.

THINKING ABOUT FISHIN’ HOLE, the screen advises. A little worry-circle goes around for ten seconds or so (it seems longer), and then the demo screen appears. Fish swim back and forth, or do loop-the-loops, or shoot up and down on diagonals. Bubbles rise from their mouths and flipping tails. The water is greenish at the top, shading to blue farther down. A little tune plays, not one Hodges recognizes. He watches and waits to feel something – sleepy seems the most likely.

The fish are red, green, blue, gold, yellow. They’re probably supposed to be tropical fish, but they have none of the hyper-reality Hodges has seen in Xbox and PlayStation commercials on TV. These fish are basically cartoons, and primitive ones, at that. No wonder the Zappit flopped, he thinks, but yeah, okay, there’s something mildly hypnotic about the way the fish move, sometimes alone, sometimes in pairs, every now and then in a rainbow school of half a dozen.