Mr. Mercedes (Bill Hodges Trilogy, #1)(52)

If she remembers what happened last night, she doesn’t mention it. But then, she never does. Neither of them do.

We never talk about Frankie, either, Brady thinks. And if we did, what would we say? Gosh, too bad about that fall he took?

“Smells good,” she says. “Some for me?”

“All you want. Coffee?”

“Please. Lots of sugar.” She sits down at the table and stares at the television on the counter. It isn’t on, but she stares at it anyway. For all Brady knows, maybe she thinks it is on.

“You’re not wearing your uniform,” she says—meaning the blue button-up shirt with DISCOUNT ELECTRONIX on the pocket. He has three hanging in his closet. He irons them himself. Like vacuuming the floors and washing their clothes, ironing isn’t in Ma’s repertoire.

“Don’t need to go in until ten,” he says, and as if the words are a magic incantation, his phone wakes up and starts buzzing across the kitchen counter. He catches it just before it can fall off onto the floor.

“Don’t answer it, honeyboy. Pretend we went out for breakfast.”

It’s tempting, but Brady is as incapable of letting a phone ring as he is of giving up his muddled and ever-changing plans for some grand act of destruction. He looks at the caller ID and isn’t surprised to see TONES in the window. Anthony “Tones” Frobisher, the grand high panjandrum of Discount Electronix (Birch Hill Mall branch).

He picks up the phone and says, “It’s my late day, Tones.”

“I know, but I need you to make a service call. I really, really do.” Tones can’t make Brady take a call on his late day, hence the wheedling tone. “Plus it’s Mrs. Rollins, and you know she tips.”

Of course she does, she lives in Sugar Heights. The Cyber Patrol makes lots of service calls in Sugar Heights, and one of their customers—one of Brady’s customers—was the late Olivia Trelawney. He was in her house twice on calls after he began conversing with her beneath Debbie’s Blue Umbrella, and what a kick that was. Seeing how much weight she’d lost. Seeing how her hands had started to tremble. Also, having access to her computer had opened all sorts of possibilities.

“I don’t know, Tones . . .” But of course he’ll go, and not only because Mrs. Rollins tips. It’s fun to go rolling past 729 Lilac Drive, thinking: I’m responsible for those closed gates. All I had to do to give her the final push was add one little program to her Mac.

Computers are wonderful.

“Listen, Brady, if you take this call, you don’t have to work the store at all today, how’s that? Just return the Beetle and then hang out wherever until it’s time to fire up your stupid ice cream wagon.”

“What about Freddi? Why don’t you send her?” Flat-out teasing now. If Tones could have sent Freddi, she’d already be on her way.

“Called in sick. Says she got her period and it’s killing her. Of course it’s f*cking bullshit. I know it, she knows it, and she knows I know it, but she’ll put in a sexual harassment claim if I call her on it. She knows I know that, too.”

Ma sees Brady smiling, and smiles back. She raises a hand, closes it, and turns it back and forth. Twist his balls, honeyboy. Brady’s smile widens into a grin. Ma may be a drunk, she may only cook once or twice a week, she can be as annoying as shit, but sometimes she can read him like a book.

“All right,” Brady says. “How about I take my own car?”

“You know I can’t give you a mileage allowance for your personal vehicle,” Tones says.

“Also, it’s company policy,” Brady says. “Right?”

“Well . . . yeah.”

Schyn Ltd., DE’s German parent company, believes the Cyber Patrol VWs are good advertising. Freddi Linklatter says that anyone who wants a guy driving a snot-green Beetle to fix his computer is insane, and on this point Brady agrees with her. Still, there must be a lot of insane people out there, because they never lack for service calls.

Although few tip as well as Paula Rollins.

“Okay,” Brady says, “but you owe me one.”

“Thanks, buddy.”

Brady kills the connection without bothering to say You’re not my buddy, and we both know it.





3


Paula Rollins is a full-figured blonde who lives in a sixteen-room faux Tudor mansion three blocks from the late Mrs. T.’s pile. She has all those rooms to herself. Brady doesn’t know exactly what her deal is, but guesses she’s some rich guy’s second or third ex–trophy wife, and that she did very well for herself in the settlement. Maybe the guy was too entranced by her knockers to bother with the prenup. Brady doesn’t care much, he only knows she has enough to tip well and she’s never tried to slap the make on him. That’s good. He has no interest in Mrs. Rollins’s full figure.

She does grab his hand and just about pull him through the door, though.

“Oh . . . Brady! Thank God!”

She sounds like a woman being rescued from a desert island after three days without food or water, but he hears the little pause before she says his name and sees her eyes flick down to read it off his shirt, even though he’s been here half a dozen times. (So has Freddi, for that matter; Paula Rollins is a serial computer abuser.) He doesn’t mind that she doesn’t remember him. Brady likes being forgettable.