Besides, the basement’s his place. His control room.

In the end he realizes there’s only one thing to do. He grabs her under the arms and drags her toward the stairs. By the time he gets her there, her pajama pants have slid down, revealing what she sometimes calls (called, he reminds himself) her winky. Once, when he was in bed with her and she was giving him relief for a particularly bad headache, he tried to touch her winky and she slapped his hand away. Hard. Don’t you ever, she had said. That’s where you came from.

Brady pulls her up the stairs, a riser at a time. The pajama pants work down to her ankles and puddle there. He remembers how she did a sit-down march on the couch in her last extremity. How awful. But, like the thing about Jeff Probst sending flowers, it had its funny side, although it wasn’t the kind of joke you could explain to people. It was kind of Zen.

Down the hall. Into her bedroom. He straightens up, wincing at the pain in his lower back. God, she’s so heavy. It’s as if death has stuffed her with some dense mystery meat.

Never mind. Get it done.

He yanks up her pants, making her decent again – as decent as a corpse in vomit-soaked pj’s can be – and lifts her onto her bed, groaning as fresh pain settles into his back. When he straightens up this time, he can feel his spine crackling. He thinks about taking off her nightclothes and replacing them with something clean – one of the XL tee-shirts she sometimes wears to bed, maybe – but that would mean more lifting and manipulation of what is now just pounds of silent flesh hanging from bone coat-hangers. What if he threw his back out?

He could at least take off her top, that caught most of the mess, but then he’d have to look at her boobs. Those she did let him touch, but only once in a while. My handsome boy, she’d say on these occasions. Running her fingers through his hair or massaging his neck where the headaches settled, crouched and snarling. My handsome honeyboy.

In the end he just pulls the bedspread up, covering her entirely. Especially those staring, glaring eyes.

‘Sorry, Mom,’ he says, looking down at the white shape. ‘Not your fault.’

No. It’s the fat ex-cop’s fault. Brady bought the Gopher-Go to poison the dog, true, but only as a way of getting to Hodges and messing with his head. Now it’s Brady’s head that’s a mess. Not to mention the living room. He’s got a lot of work to do down there, but he has something else to do first.

30

He’s got control of himself again and this time his voice commands work. He doesn’t waste time, just sits down in front of his Number Three and logs on to Debbie’s Blue Umbrella. His message to Hodges is brief and to the point.

I’m going to kill you.

You won’t see me coming.

CALL FOR THE DEAD

1

On Monday, two days after Elizabeth Wharton’s death, Hodges is once more seated in DeMasio’s Italian Ristorante. The last time he was here, it was for lunch with his old partner. This time it’s dinner. His companions are Jerome Robinson and Janelle Patterson.

Janey compliments him on his suit, which already fits better even though he’s only lost a few pounds (and the Glock he’s wearing on his hip hardly shows at all). It’s the new hat Jerome likes, a brown fedora Janey bought Hodges on impulse that very day, and presented to him with some ceremony. Because he’s a private detective now, she said, and every private dick should have a fedora he can pull down to one eyebrow.

Jerome tries it on and gives it that exact tilt. ‘What do you think? Do I look like Bogie?’

‘I hate to disappoint you,’ Hodges says, ‘but Bogie was Caucasian.’

‘So Caucasian he practically shimmered,’ Janey adds.

‘Forgot that.’ Jerome tosses the hat back to Hodges, who places it under his chair, reminding himself not to forget it when he leaves. Or step on it.

He’s pleased when his two dinner guests take to each other at once. Jerome – an old head on top of a young body, Hodges often thinks – does the right thing as soon as the ice-breaking foolishness of the hat is finished, taking one of Janey’s hands in both of his and telling her he’s sorry for her loss.

‘Both of them,’ he says. ‘I know you lost your sister, too. If I lost mine, I’d be the saddest guy on earth. Barb’s a pain, but I love her to death.’

She thanks him with a smile. Because Jerome’s still too young for a legal glass of wine, they all order iced tea. Janey asks him about his college plans, and when Jerome mentions the possibility of Harvard, she rolls her eyes and says, ‘A Hah-vad man. Oh my Gawd.’

‘Massa Hodges goan have to find hisself a new lawnboy!’ Jerome exclaims, and Janey laughs so hard she has to spit a bite of shrimp into her napkin. It makes her blush, but Hodges is glad to hear that laugh. Her carefully applied makeup can’t completely hide the pallor of her cheeks, or the dark circles under her eyes.

When he asks her how Aunt Charlotte, Uncle Henry, and Holly the Mumbler are enjoying the big house in Sugar Heights, Janey grabs the sides of her head as if afflicted with a monster headache.

‘Aunt Charlotte called six times today. I’m not exaggerating. Six. The first time was to tell me that Holly woke up in the middle of the night, didn’t know where she was, and had a panic attack. Auntie C said she was on the verge of calling an ambulance when Uncle Henry finally got her settled down by talking to her about NASCAR. She’s crazy about stock car racing. Never misses it on TV, I understand. Jeff Gordon is her idol.’ Janey shrugs. ‘Go figure.’

‘How old is this Holly?’ Jerome asks.

‘About my age, but she suffers from a certain amount of … emotional retardation, I guess you’d say.’

Jerome considers this silently, then says: ‘She probably needs to reconsider Kyle Busch.’

‘Who?’

‘Never mind.’

Janey says Aunt Charlotte has also called to marvel over the monthly electrical bill, which must be huge; to confide that the neighbors seem very standoffish; to announce there is an awfully large number of pictures and all that modern art is not to her taste; to point out (although it sounds like another announcement) that if Olivia thought all those lamps were carnival glass, she had almost certainly been taken to the cleaners. The last call, received just before Janey left for the restaurant, had been the most aggravating. Uncle Henry wanted Janey to know, her aunt said, that he had looked into the matter and it still wasn’t too late to change her mind about the cremation. She said the idea made her brother very upset – he called it ‘a Viking funeral’ – and Holly wouldn’t even discuss it, because it gave her the horrors.

‘Their Thursday departure is confirmed,’ Janey says, ‘and I’m already counting the minutes.’ She squeezes Hodges’s hand, and says, ‘There’s one bit of good news, though. Auntie C says that Holly was very taken with you.’

Hodges smiles. ‘Must be my resemblance to Jeff Gordon.’

Janey and Jerome order dessert. Hodges, feeling virtuous, does not. Then, over coffee, he gets down to business. He has brought two folders with him, and hands one to each of his dinner companions.

‘All my notes. I’ve organized them as well as I can. I want you to have them in case anything happens to me.’

Janey looks alarmed. ‘What else has he said to you on that site?’

‘Nothing at all,’ Hodges says. The lie comes out smoothly and convincingly. ‘It’s just a precaution.’

‘You sure of that?’ Jerome asks.

‘Absolutely. There’s nothing definitive in the notes, but that doesn’t mean we haven’t made progress. I see a path of investigation that might – I repeat might – take us to this guy. In the meantime, it’s important that you both remain very aware of what’s going on around you at all times.’