Down in the Zero

'What do you mean?'

'The color of your eyes, your hair, maybe your height, I don't know. Physical characteristics. And your basic intelligence. Some hard–wired personality traits, stuff like that.'

'What's 'hard–wired'?'

'You know how some folks have a basically happy temperament, some are more stubborn than others…like that. Nothing major.'

'You mean that?'

'It's true. You can pass along DNA, but not behavior, understand? Blue eyes, blond hair…sure. But if a rapist and a murderer got together and made a baby, and if that baby got raised by good citizens, the kid would be one too, see? You get what you raise, not what you breed.'

'But with horses, they always breed the champions. To get better horses.'

'Those aren't better horses, kid. They're horses better at doing the stuff people want them to do, see? If you put those blueblood, inbred nags out on a prairie, they'd be the first ones the wolves would take down.'

He sat there for a couple of minutes, playing something around in his head, more alert and focused than I'd ever seen him. 'In school, we had that. Genetics. I don't remember much about it. Hell, I don't remember much about any of it.'

'You passed all your courses?' I asked him. Shifting gears, setting up to blindside him.

'Sure,' he said, with a 'Doesn't everybody?' look.

'What are you going to college for?'

'I don't know. My mother says if I learn anything, it will be good. You can always use what you learn, that's what she said.'

'But she doesn't care what?'

'I don't think so. She never said.'

'What does your mother do now?'

'I'm not exactly sure,' the kid said. 'Something with international finance— that's why she travels so much.'

'She travels alone?'

'I…guess so. She never said.'

The kid was relaxed, talking. Softened around the edges from all the guidance–counselor questions. I lit a smoke, blew a stream at the ceiling. 'Who's Charm?' I asked.

'She's Fancy's sister. Her twin sister, actually, but they don't look alike. She…' He gave me a puzzled look. 'How do you know about her? Was she here?'

'No. There was a phone call for her. Last night. On this,' I said, getting up and bringing the cellular phone back from the closet.

'That's one of Mother's phones,' he said, recognizing it.

'One of them?'

'Yeah, she has a whole bunch. She gives them to people who work for her on jobs. So she can reach out for them anytime she wants. They have special batteries and all.'

'Does Charm work for your mother?'

'Charm? No. What would she do for her?'

'I don't know. What about Fancy?'

'Her either. I mean, they don't really work, either of them. Charm rides, and Fancy has her plants.'

'Rides?'

'Horses. Like in shows. She jumps them too. I think she was supposed to be in the Olympics, but she hurt herself last year.'

I opened the cellular phone— there was no number on it. 'Do you know the number for this phone?' I asked him.

'Let me see it.'

I handed it over. He turned it so he could see the back. 'Yeah, this is hers, for sure. See?'

On the back was the number 4, stenciled on in white paint. 'She left a list somewhere around here,' he said. 'Let me think for a minute.'

He got up, went into the living room. I could hear him opening drawers in the antique desk, rummaging around. He came back with a piece of paper in his hand, gave it to me. It was a list. Next to number 4 there was a local phone number. 'Let's try it,' I told the kid, handing the phone to him. I walked over to the wall phone, punched in the number from the list. The cellular phone buzzed. The kid opened it up, said 'Hello.' I could hear him through the receiver.

'Bingo,' I told him. 'Do you know where she keeps any of the others ?'

'Well, I guess some people have them with them. But maybe there's another one or two around. How come?'