Mr. Mercedes (Unnamed Trilogy #1)(130)

“Jerome,” he says.

The boy doesn’t reply. He’s staring at the ticket receipt on the computer screen, and when Hodges puts his hand on Jerome’s shoulder, it’s like touching a stone.

“Jerome.”

Slowly, Jerome turns around. His eyes are huge. “We been so stupid,” he whispers.

“Call your moms.” Hodges’s voice remains calm, and it’s not even that much of an effort, because he’s in deep shock. He keeps seeing the ball bearing. And the slashed vest. “Do it now. Tell her to grab Barbara and the other kids she brought and beat feet out of there.”

Jerome pulls his phone from the clip on his belt and speed-dials his mother. Holly stares at him with her arms crossed tightly over her br**sts and her chewed lips pulled down in a grimace.

Jerome waits, mutters a curse, then says: “You have to get out of there, Mom. Just take the girls and go. Don’t call me back and ask questions, just go. Don’t run. But get out!”

He ends the call and tells them what they already know. “Voicemail. It rang plenty of times, so she’s not talking on it and it’s not shut off. I don’t get it.”

“What about your sister?” Hodges says. “She must have a phone.”

Jerome is hitting speed-dial again before he can finish. He listens for what seems to Hodges like an age, although he knows it can only be ten or fifteen seconds. Then he says, “Barb! Why in hell aren’t you picking up? You and Mom and the other girls have to get out of there!” He ends the call. “I don’t get this. She always carries it, that thing is practically grafted to her, and she should at least feel it vibra—”

Holly says, “Oh shit and piss.” But that’s not enough for her. “Oh, f**k!”

They turn to her.

“How big is the concert place? How many people can fit inside?”

Hodges tries to retrieve what he knows about the Mingo Auditorium. “Seats four thousand. I don’t know if they allow standees or not, I can’t remember that part of the fire code.”

“And for this show, almost all of them are girls,” she says. “Girls with cell phones practically grafted to them. Most of them gabbing away while they wait for the show to start. Or texting.” Her eyes are huge with dismay. “It’s the circuits. They’re overloaded. You have to keep trying, Jerome. You have to keep trying until you get through.”

He nods numbly, but he’s looking at Hodges. “You should call your friend. The one in the security department.”

“Yeah, but not from here. In the car.” Hodges looks at his watch again. Ten of seven. “We’re going to the MAC.”

Holly clenches a fist on either side of her face. “Yes,” she says, and Hodges finds himself remembering what she said earlier: They can’t find him. We can.

In spite of his desire to confront Hartsfield—to wrap his hands around Hartsfield’s neck and see the bastard’s eyes bulge as his breath stops—Hodges hopes she’s wrong about that. Because if it’s up to them, it may already be too late.

32

This time it’s Jerome behind the wheel and Hodges in back. Olivia Trelawney’s Mercedes gathers itself slowly, but once the twelve-cylinder engine gets cranking, it goes like a rocket . . . and with the lives of his mother and sister on the line, Jerome drives it like one, weaving from lane to lane and ignoring the protesting honks of the cars around him. Hodges estimates they can be at the MAC in twenty minutes. If the kid doesn’t pile them up, that is.

“Call the security man!” Holly says from the passenger seat. “Call him, call him, call him!”

As Hodges takes his Nokia out of his jacket pocket, he instructs Jerome to take the City Bypass.

“Don’t backseat-drive me,” Jerome says. “Just make the call. And hurry.”

But when he tries to access his phone’s memory, the f**king Nokia gives a single weak tweet and then dies. When was the last time he charged it? Hodges can’t remember. He can’t remember the number of the security office, either. He should have written it down in his notebook instead of depending on the phone.

Goddam technology, he thinks . . . but whose fault is it, really?

“Holly. Dial 555-1900 and then give me your phone. Mine’s dead.” Nineteen hundred is the department. He can get Windom’s number from Marlo again.

“Okay, what’s the area code here? My phone’s on—”

She breaks off as Jerome swerves around a panel truck and drives straight at an SUV in the other lane, flashing his lights and yelling, “Get out of the way!” The SUV swerves and Jerome skates the Mercedes past with a coat of paint to spare.

“—on Cincinnati,” Holly finishes. She sounds as cool as a Popsicle.

Hodges, thinking he could use some of the drugs she’s on, recites the area code. She dials and hands her phone to him over the seat.

“Police Department, how may I direct your call?”

“I need to talk to Marlo Everett in Records, and right away.”

“I’m sorry, sir, but I saw Ms. Everett leave half an hour ago.”

“Have you got her cell number?”

“Sir, I’m not allowed to give that information ou—”

He has no inclination to engage in a time-consuming argument that will surely prove fruitless, and clicks off just as Jerome swings onto the City Bypass, doing sixty. “What’s the holdup, Bill? Why aren’t you—”