19

He wakes up at 2:19 A.M. by the bedside clock with the answer as bright in his mind as a neon bar sign. It’s risky but right, the kind of thing you do without hesitation or you don’t do at all. He goes into his office, a large pale ghost in boxer shorts. He powers up his computer. He goes to Debbie’s Blue Umbrella and clicks GET STARTED NOW!

A new image appears. This time the young couple is on what looks like a magic carpet floating over an endless sea. The silver rain is falling, but they are safe and dry beneath the blue umbrella. There are two buttons below the carpet, REGISTER NOW on the left and ENTER USERNAME on the right. Hodges clicks ENTER USERNAME, and in the box that appears he types kermitfrog19. He hits return and a new screen appears. On it is this message:

merckill wants to chat with you!

Do you want to chat with merckill?

Y N

He puts the cursor on Y and clicks his mouse. A box for his message appears. Hodges types quickly, without hesitation.

20

Three miles away, at 49 Elm Street in Northfield, Brady Hartsfield can’t sleep. His head thumps. He thinks: Frankie. My brother, who should have died when he choked on that apple slice. Life would have been so much simpler if things had happened that way.

He thinks of his mother, who sometimes forgets her nightgown and sleeps raw.

Most of all, he thinks of the fat ex-cop.

At last he gets up and leaves his bedroom, pausing for a moment outside his mother’s door, listening to her snore. The most unerotic sound in the universe, he tells himself, but still he pauses. Then he goes downstairs, opens the basement door, and closes it behind him. He stands in the dark and says, ‘Control.’ But his voice is too hoarse and the dark remains. He clears his throat and tries again. ‘Control!’

The lights come on. Chaos lights up his computers and darkness stops the seven-screen countdown. He sits in front of his Number Three. Among the litter of icons is a small blue umbrella. He clicks on it, unaware that he’s been holding his breath until he lets it out in a long harsh gasp.

kermitfrog19 wants to chat with you !

Do you want to chat with kermitfrog19?

Y N

Brady hits Y and leans forward. His eager expression remains for a moment before puzzlement seeps in. Then, as he reads the short message over and over, puzzlement becomes first anger and then naked fury.

Seen a lot of false confessions in my time, but this one’s a dilly.

I’m retired but not stupid.

Withheld evidence proves you are not the Mercedes Killer.

Fuck off, asshole.

Brady feels an almost insurmountable urge to slam his fist through the screen but restrains it. He sits in his chair, trembling all over. His eyes are wide and unbelieving. A minute passes. Two. Three.

Pretty soon I’ll get up, he thinks. Get up and go back to bed.

Only what good will that do? He won’t be able to sleep.

‘You fat fuck,’ he whispers, unaware that hot tears have begun to spill from his eyes. ‘You fat stupid useless fuck. It was me! It was me! It was me!’

Withheld evidence proves.

That is impossible.

He seizes on the necessity of hurting the fat ex-cop, and with the idea the ability to think returns. How should he do that? He considers the question for nearly half an hour, trying on and rejecting several scenarios. The answer, when it comes, is elegantly simple. The fat ex-cop’s friend – his only friend, so far as Brady has been able to ascertain – is a nigger kid with a white name. And what does the nigger kid love? What does his whole family love? The Irish setter, of course. Odell.

Brady recalls his earlier fantasy about poisoning a few gallons of Mr Tastey’s finest, and starts laughing. He goes on the Internet and begins doing research.

My due diligence, he thinks, and smiles.

At some point he realizes his headache is gone.

POISON BAIT

1

Brady Hartsfield doesn’t need long to figure out how he’s going to poison Jerome Robinson’s canine pal, Odell. It helps that Brady is also Ralph Jones, a fictional fellow with just enough bona fides – plus a low-limit Visa card – to order things from places like Amazon and eBay. Most people don’t realize how easy it is to whomp up an Internet-friendly false identity. You just have to pay the bills. If you don’t, things can come unraveled in a hurry.

As Ralph Jones he orders a two-pound can of Gopher-Go and gives Ralphie’s mail drop address, the Speedy Postal not far from Discount Electronix.

The active ingredient in Gopher-Go is strychnine. Brady looks up the symptoms of strychnine poisoning on the Net and is delighted to find that Odell will have a tough time of it. Twenty minutes or so after ingestion, muscle spasms start in the neck and head. They quickly spread to the rest of the body. The mouth stretches in a grin (at least in humans; Brady doesn’t know about dogs). There may be vomiting, but by then too much of the poison has been absorbed and it’s too late. Convulsions set in and get worse until the backbone turns into a hard and constant arch. Sometimes the spine actually snaps. When death comes – as a relief, Brady is sure – it’s as a result of asphyxiation. The neural pathways tasked with running air to the lungs from the outside world just give up.

Brady can hardly wait.

At least it won’t be a long wait, he tells himself as he shuts off his seven computers and climbs the stairs. The stuff should be waiting for him next week. The best way to get it into the dog, he thinks, would be in a ball of nice juicy hamburger. All dogs like hamburger, and Brady knows exactly how he’s going to deliver Odell’s treat.

Barbara Robinson, Jerome’s little sister, has a friend named Hilda. The two girls like to visit Zoney’s GoMart, the convenience store a couple of blocks from the Robinson house. They say it’s because they like the grape Icees, but what they really like is hanging out with their other little friends. They sit on the low stone wall at the back of the store’s four-car parking lot, half a dozen chickadees gossiping and giggling and trading treats. Brady has seen them often when he’s driving the Mr Tastey truck. He waves to them and they wave back.

Everybody likes the ice cream man.

Mrs Robinson allows Barbara to make these trips once or twice a week (Zoney’s isn’t a drug hangout, a thing she has probably investigated for herself), but she has put conditions on her approval that Brady has had no trouble deducing. Barbara can never go alone; she always must be back in an hour; she and her friend must always take Odell. No dogs are allowed in the GoMart, so Barbara tethers him to the doorhandle of the outside restroom while she and Hilda go inside to get their grape-flavored ice.

That’s when Brady – driving his personal car, a nondescript Subaru – will toss Odell the lethal burger-ball. The dog is big; he may last twenty-four hours. Brady hopes so. Grief has a transitive power which is nicely expressed by the axiom shit rolls downhill. The more pain Odell feels, the more pain the nigger girl and her big brother will feel. Jerome will pass his grief on to the fat ex-cop, aka Kermit William Hodges, and the fat ex-cop will understand the dog’s death is his fault, payback for sending Brady that infuriating and disrespectful message. When Odell dies, the fat ex-cop will know—

Halfway up to the second floor, listening to his mother snoring, Brady stops, eyes wide with dawning realization.

The fat ex-cop will know.

And that’s the trouble, isn’t it? Because actions have consequences. It’s the reason why Brady might daydream about poisoning a load of the ice cream he sells the kiddies, but wouldn’t actually do such a thing. Not as long as he wants to keep flying under the radar, that is, and for now he does.