Mr. Mercedes (Unnamed Trilogy #1)(66)

16

Hodges is making scrambled eggs when Janey comes into the kitchen on Saturday morning in her white robe, her hair wet from the shower. With it combed back from her face, she looks younger than ever. He thinks again, Forty-four?

“I looked for bacon, but didn’t see any. Of course it might still be there. My ex claims that the great majority of American men suffer from the disease of Refrigerator Blindness. I don’t know if there’s a help line for that.”

She points at his midsection.

“Okay,” he says. And then, because she seems to like it: “Yeah.”

“And by the way, how’s your cholesterol?”

He smiles and says, “Toast? It’s whole grain. As you probably know, since you bought it.”

“One slice. No butter, just a little jam. What are you going to do today?”

“Not sure yet.” Although he’s thinking he’d like to check in with Radney Peeples out in Sugar Heights if Radney’s on duty and being Vigilant. And he needs to talk to Jerome about computers. Endless vistas there.

“Have you checked the Blue Umbrella?”

“Wanted to make you breakfast first. And me.” It’s true. He woke up actually wanting to feed his body rather than trying to plug some empty hole in his head. “Also, I don’t know your password.”

“It’s Janey.”

“My advice? Change it. Actually it’s the advice of the kid who works for me.”

“Jerome, right?”

“That’s the one.”

He has scrambled half a dozen eggs and they eat them all, split right down the middle. It has crossed his mind to ask if she had any regrets about last night, but decides the way she’s going through her breakfast answers the question.

With the dishes in the sink, they go on her computer and sit silently for nearly four minutes, reading and re-reading the latest message from merckill.

“Holy cow,” she says at last. “You wanted to wind him up, and I’d say he’s fully wound. Do you see all the mistakes?” She points out complartment and uynlocked. “Is that part of his—what did you call it?—stylistic masking?”

“I don’t think so.” Hodges is looking at wouldn’tr and smiling. He can’t help smiling. The fish is feeling the hook, and it’s sunk deep. It hurts. It burns. “I think that’s the kind of typing you do when you’re mad as hell. The last thing he expected was that he’d have a credibility problem. It’s making him crazy.”

“Er,” she says.

“Huh?”

“Crazier. Send him another message, Bill. Poke him harder. He deserves it.”

“All right.” He thinks, then types.

17

When he’s dressed, she walks down the hall with him and treats him to a lingering kiss at the elevator.

“I still can’t believe last night happened,” he tells her.

“Oh, it did. And if you play your cards right, it might happen again.” She searches his face with those blue eyes of hers. “But no promises or long-term commitments, okay? We take it as it comes. A day at a time.”

“At my age, I take everything that way.” The elevator doors open. He steps in.

“Stay in touch, cowboy.”

“I will.” The elevator doors start to close. He stops them with his hand. “And remember to BOLO, cowgirl.”

She nods solemnly, but he doesn’t miss the twinkle in her eye. “Janey will BOLO her ass off.”

“Keep your cell phone handy, and it might be wise to program nine-one-one on your speed dial.”

He drops his hand. She blows him a kiss. The doors roll shut before he can blow one back.

His car is where he left it, but the meter must have run out before the free parking kicked in, because there’s a ticket stuck under the windshield wiper. He opens the glove compartment, stuffs the ticket inside, and fishes out his phone. He’s good at giving Janey advice that he doesn’t take himself—since he pulled the pin, he’s always forgetting the damned Nokia, which is pretty prehistoric, as cell phones go. These days hardly anyone calls him anyway, but this morning he has three messages, all from Jerome. Numbers two and three—one at nine-forty last night, the other at ten-forty-five—are impatient inquiries about where he is and why he doesn’t call. They are in Jerome’s normal voice. The original message, left at six-thirty yesterday evening, begins in his exuberant Tyrone Feelgood Delight voice.

“Massah Hodges, where you at? Ah needs to jaw to y’all!” Then he becomes Jerome again. “I think I know how he did it. How he stole the car. Call me.”

Hodges checks his watch and decides Jerome probably won’t be up quite yet, not on Saturday morning. He decides to drive over there, with a stop at his house first to pick up his notes. He turns on the radio, gets Bob Seger singing “Old Time Rock and Roll,” and bellows along: take those old records off the shelf.

18

Once upon a simpler time, before apps, iPads, Samsung Galaxies, and the world of blazing-fast 4G, weekends were the busiest days of the week at Discount Electronix. Now the kids who used to come in to buy CDs are downloading Vampire Weekend from iTunes, while their elders are surfing eBay or watching the TV shows they missed on Hulu.

This Saturday morning the Birch Hill Mall DE is a wasteland.