Mr. Mercedes (Unnamed Trilogy #1)(132)

Hodges punches the roof of the Mercedes. “What happened to HUMAN FUCKING BEINGS?”

Just as the Golden Arches of McDonald’s appear ahead on the right, the fembot tells Hodges he can reach the MAC’s Security Department by dialing three-two.

He does so. The phone rings four times, then is picked up. What he hears makes him wonder if he is losing his mind.

“Hello, and thank you for calling the Midwest Culture and Arts Complex,” the fembot says cordially. “Where we make life better and all things are possible.”

33

“Why isn’t the show starting, Mrs. Robinson?” Dinah Scott asks. “It’s already ten past seven.”

Tanya thinks of telling them about the Stevie Wonder concert she went to when she was in high school, the one that was scheduled to start at eight and finally got underway at nine-thirty, but decides it might be counterproductive.

Hilda’s frowning at her phone. “I still can’t get Gail,” she complains. “All the darn circuits are b—”

The lights begin to dim before she can finish. This provokes wild cheering and waves of applause.

“Oh God, Mommy, I’m so excited!” Barbara whispers, and Tanya is touched to see tears welling in her daughter’s eyes. A guy in a BAM-100 Good Guys tee-shirt struts out. A spotlight tracks him to center stage.

“Hey, you guys!” he shouts. “Howya doin out there?”

A fresh wave of noise assures him that the sellout crowd is doing just fine. Tanya sees the two ranks of Wheelchair People are also applauding. Except for the bald man. He’s just sitting there. Probably doesn’t want to drop his picture, Tanya thinks.

“Are you ready for some Boyd, Steve, and Pete?” the DJ host inquires.

More cheers and screams.

“And are you ready for some CAM KNOWLES?”

The girls (most of whom would be struck utterly dumb in their idol’s actual presence) shriek deliriously. They’re ready, all right. God, are they ready. They could just die.

“In a few minutes you’re going to see a set that’ll knock your eyes out, but for now, ladies and gentlemen—and especially you girls—give it up for . . . ’ROUND . . . HEEERRRRE!!!”

The audience surges to its feet, and as the lights on the stage go completely dark, Tanya understands why the girls just had to have their phones. In her day, everyone held up matches or Bic lighters. These kids hold up their cell phones, the combined light of all those little screens casting a pallid moonglow across the bowl of the auditorium.

How do they know to do these things? she wonders. Who tells them? For that matter, who told us?

She cannot remember.

The stage lights come up to bright furnace red. At that moment, a call finally slips through the clogged network and Barbara Robinson’s cell vibrates in her hand. She ignores it. Answering a phone call is the last thing in the world she wants to do right now (a first in her young life), and she couldn’t hear the person on the other end—probably her brother—even if she did. The racket inside the Mingo is deafening . . . and Barb loves it. She waves her vibrating phone back and forth above her head in big slow swoops. Everyone is doing the same, even her mom.

The lead singer of ’Round Here, dressed in the tightest jeans Tanya Robinson has ever seen, strides onstage. Cam Knowles throws back a tidal wave of blond hair and launches into “You Don’t Have to Be Lonely Again.”

Most of the audience remains on its feet for the time being, holding up their phones. The concert has begun.

34

The Mercedes turns off Spicer Boulevard and onto a feeder road marked with signs reading MAC DELIVERIES and EMPLOYEES ONLY. A quarter of a mile up is a rolling gate. It’s closed. Jerome pulls up next to a post with an intercom on it. The sign here reads CALL FOR ENTRY.

Hodges says, “Tell them you’re the police.”

Jerome rolls down his window and pushes the button. Nothing happens. He pushes it again and this time holds it. Hodges has a nightmarish thought: When Jerome’s buzz is finally answered, it will be the fembot, offering several dozen new options.

But this time it’s an actual human, albeit not a friendly one. “Back’s closed.”

“Police,” Jerome says. “Open the gate.”

“What do you want?”

“I just told you. Open the goddam gate. This is an emergency.”

The gate begins to trundle open, but instead of rolling forward, Jerome pushes the button again. “Are you security?”

“Head custodian,” the crackly voice returns. “If you want security, you gotta call the Security Department.”

“Nobody there,” Hodges tells Jerome. “They’re in the auditorium, the whole bunch of them. Just go.”

Jerome does, even though the gate isn’t fully open. He scrapes the side of the Mercedes’s refurbished body. “Maybe they caught him,” he says. “They had his description, so maybe they already caught him.”

“They didn’t,” Hodges says. “He’s in.”

“How do you know?”

“Listen.”

They can’t pick up actual music yet, but with the driver’s window still down, they can hear a thudding bass progression.

“The concert’s on. If Windom’s men had collared a guy with explosives, they would have shut it down right away and they’d be evacuating the building.”