NOS4A2(97)

He had his hand on it when he tuned in on the music playing over the airport sound system. It was, improbably, that old Johnny Mathis song “Sleigh Ride.” Improbable because Boston was roughly as temperate as Venus on that particular afternoon in July; it made Lou sweat just looking outside. Not only that—the airport sound system had been rocking something else right up until the moment the phone rang. Lady Gaga or Amanda Palmer or something. Some cute lunatic with a piano.

Lou had his phone out but paused to look at the woman at the next table, a MILF who bore a scant resemblance to Sarah Palin.

“Dude,” Lou said, “you hear that?” Pointing at the ceiling. “They’re playing Christmas music! It’s the middle of the summer!”

She froze with a forkful of coleslaw halfway to her bee-stung lips and stared at him with a mixture of confusion and unease.

“The song,” Lou said. “You hear that song?”

Her brow furrowed. She regarded him the way she might’ve regarded a puddle of vomit—something to avoid.

Lou glanced at his phone, saw Wayne on the caller ID. That was curious; they had just been texting a few minutes ago. Maybe Vic was back from her ride on the Triumph and wanted to talk to him about how it was running.

“Never mind,” Lou said to Almost Sarah Palin, and waved a hand in the air, dismissing the subject.

He answered.

“What up, dawg?” Lou said.

“Dad,” Wayne said, his voice a harsh whisper. He was struggling not to cry. “Dad. I’m in the back of a car. I can’t get out.”

Lou felt a low, almost gentle ache, behind his breastbone, in his neck, and, curiously, behind his left ear.

“What do you mean? What car?”

“They’re going to kill Mom. The two men. There’s two men, and they put me in a car, and I can’t get out of the backseat. It’s Charlie Manx, Dad. And someone in a gasmask. Someone—” He screamed.

In the background Lou heard a string of popping sounds. His first thought was firecrackers. But it wasn’t firecrackers.

Wayne cried, “They’re shooting, Dad! They’re shooting at Mom!”

“Get out of the car,” Lou heard himself say, his voice strange, thin, too high. He was hardly aware he had come to his feet. “Just unlock the door and run.”

“I can’t. I can’t. It won’t unlock, and when I try and get in the front seat, I just wind up in the back again.” Wayne choked on a sob.

Lou’s head was a hot-air balloon, filled with buoyant gases, lifting him up off the floor toward the ceiling. He was in danger of sailing right out of the real world.

“The door has to unlock. Look around, Wayne.”

“I have to go. They’re coming back. I’ll call when I can. Don’t call me, they might hear it. They might hear even if I turn it to mute.”

“Wayne! Wayne!” Lou screamed. There was a strange ringing in his ears.

The phone went dead.

Everyone in the food court was staring at him. No one was saying anything. A pair of security cops were approaching, one of them with his hand resting on the molded plastic grip of his .45.

Lou thought, Call the state police. Call the New Hampshire State Police. Do it right now. But when he lowered the phone from his face to dial 911, it slipped from his hand. And when he bent to reach for it, he found himself grabbing at his chest, the pain there suddenly doubling, jabbing at him with sharp edges. It was as if someone had fired a staple gun into one tit. He put his hand on the little table to steady himself, but then his elbow folded and he went down, chin-first. He caught the edge of the table, and his teeth clacked together, and he grunted and collapsed onto the floor. His shake went with him. The wax cup exploded, and he sprawled into a cold, sweet puddle of vanilla ice cream.

He was only thirty-six. Way too young for a heart attack, even with his family history. He had known he would pay for not getting the salad.





Lake Winnipesaukee


WHEN THE GASMASK MAN APPEARED WITH HIS GUN, VIC TRIED TO backpedal but couldn’t seem to get a signal to her legs. The barrel of the gun held her in place, was as captivating as a mesmerist’s pocketwatch. She might as well have been buried in the ground up to her hips.

Then Manx stood up between her and the gunman and the .38 went off and Manx’s left ear tore apart in a red flash.

Manx screamed—a wretched cry, not of pain but of fury. The gun went off a second time. Vic saw the agitated mist swirl to her right, a very straight line of cleared air running through it to mark the passage of the bullet.

If you stand here one moment longer, he will shoot you to death in front of Wayne, her father told her, his hand in the small of her back. Don’t stand here and let Wayne see that.

She darted a look at the car, through the windshield, and her son was there, in the backseat. His face was flushed and rigid, and he was furiously swiping one hand in the air at her: Go, go! Get away!

Vic didn’t want him to see her running either, leaving him behind. All the other times she had failed him before were nothing to this final, unforgivable failure.

A thought lanced through her, like a bullet tunneling through mist: If you die here, no one can find Manx.

“Wayne!” she shouted. “I’ll come! Wherever you go, I’ll find you!”

She didn’t know if he heard her. She could hardly hear herself. Her ears whined, shocked into something close to deafness by the roar of the Gasmask Man’s .38. She could barely hear Manx yelling to Shoot her, shoot her already!