made him cough. Same with Scotch, although that tasted more mediciney. And beer … he didn’t know about other brands, but Dad’s Carling Black Label was bitter. He couldn’t imagine ever liking beer.
Give him Pepsi any day.
“Let’s get to work.”
They had al the pieces to the Heathkit H-89 laid out on a card table. The company had been bought and had stopped making the kits, but Steve’s
father had picked up this 1979 model for a bargain price. Jack couldn’t wait to get it assembled and up and running. It looked so much cooler than Dad’s
Apple because it was al one piece: keyboard, monitor, and floppy drive al in the same casing.
According to the instructions they were almost halfway there. They’d have been further along if Steve had been more help. But he’d developed this thing
for liquor.
He hadn’t always been like this. In fact he’d never been like this before he went away to that Pennsylvania soccer camp last month. He was a great
soccer player, and because of that he tended to get teamed up with older players. Jack had a feeling some of those older players had introduced Steve to
hard liquor and it had flipped some sort of switch in his head.
“Why don’t you put off your cocktail or whatever until we’ve got the CPU instal ed.”
The Heathkit came with a Z-80 processor, whatever that was, which was the heart and brain of the computer. If they didn’t instal it correctly, nothing
would work.
“Okay, okay.”
He took a long swig before placing the can on the far corner of the table, then he moved up beside Jack to study the diagram. Jack was a little worried
about him.
“Stil don’t know why you want to ruin the taste of a Pepsi.”
“Wel , the booze tastes too bad to drink straight.”
“Then why—?”
“Because maybe I like the way it makes me feel, okay?” he said with an edge in his voice.
Obviously Steve didn’t like talking about it. Maybe he knew he had a problem. Jack tried warning him off another way.
“Sooner or later your dad’s going to notice his bottles getting empty, and since they can’t be emptying themselves …”
Steve gave a dismissive wave. “My dad’s too busy at the Lodge to notice.”
Jack couldn’t hide his surprise. “The Lodge? Your father’s a member of the
Steve shrugged. “Yeah. Like forever. Why?”
“Nothing.”
But Jack’s mind whirled. Just a little while ago when Steve had asked if his father had known the dead man, Mr. Brussard had said he’d “heard of him.”
But if they were both members of the Lodge, wouldn’t he have more than heard of him?
1
Professor Nakamura lived on the other side of Route 206 in the wel -to-do area of Johnson—the most recently developed section, where they had real
sidewalks and curbs and where homes tended to be bigger and more lavish than regular folks’. Since it occupied the westernmost end of town, as far as
possible from Old Town on the east, its residents had started cal ing their neighborhood “New Town.” The name never caught on with anyone else.
A little after nine-thirty, Weezy swung by Jack’s place with the cube and the two of them biked down Quakerton Road. They had plenty of time so they
rode slowly, weaving back and forth as they talked.
Jack told her what Kate had said about the identity of the corpse and how he had the Lodge’s seal branded on his back.
“The Ancient Septimus Fraternal Order,” Weezy said, shaking her head. “Should have known.”
“Why should you have known?”
“Al right, I should have
