Bad Move

I nodded very slowly.

“So I was trying to find Stef tonight, she had something of Mr. Greenway’s I had to pick up, and went by her place, and when I couldn’t find her there, I decided to drop in on her mom. You met her, right?”

“Her mother, yes. And her brother.”

Rick nodded. “You meet Quincy?”

“We met.”

“I gave them Quincy. It was a gift, like. I love snakes. I think they’re really beautiful. Merle, that’s Stef’s mother? She’s a nice lady. We got to be friends when Stef and I were a thing, you know?”

“Yeah.”

“But Quincy’s been giving them a lot of trouble lately. He’s a bit of a handful, I admit, but he’s a good snake. So they asked me to take him off their hands for a while. You want to come out to the car and see him?”

I felt a chill. “No, like I said, we met.”

“I got him out in the trunk. Gonna take him back to my place. You’re sure you don’t want to come out, pet him?”

I shook my head.

“Because, if I don’t leave here with what I want, then I might insist that you come out and pet him.”

“I’m sure we can work something out.”

“Merle and Stef, they don’t talk that much, but Stef drops by once in a while, you know, so I thought, maybe she was over there. But she wasn’t, but Merle started talking about this man who came by, saying he had something that belonged to Stef, but he was acting kind of funny, and I got a bit suspicious, you know. And he left this e-mail address. So they let me use their computer so I could send you a little message.”

“Yes.”

He smiled. “So if you’ve got something of Stef’s, why don’t you just hand it over to me, and I’ll be on my way.”

“Okay,” I said. “That’s fine. Follow me.”

I led him out of the kitchen and down the hall to my study. He stepped into the room, looked around, his eyes landing on the various items of SF kitsch, and said, “Whoa, I missed this room when I took my tour. This is quite the setup you’ve got here.”

He leaned in close to the shelves to admire the models and trinkets and action figures, stepped back to check out the posters on the walls. “This here, I know this is a Batmobile, but which one?”

“From the animated series.”

“I always liked the one from the old TV show, you know, from the sixties, where they had the words ‘pow’ and ‘bam’ and everything, when they took punches at each other. It had the red pinstripes, and little bat symbols on the wheels? I always thought that one was cool. I had a little Dinky Toy of that one.”

“It was a Corgi, actually,” I said.

“Huh?”

“A Corgi toy, not a Dinky Toy. It’s right there, on the shelf above.”

He looked up. “Oh wow. Shit. That’s it. That’s the one I had as a kid.” He took it off the shelf and admired it. “Fuck me. That’s really cool.” He felt the heft of the metal model in the palm of his hand. I wanted to tell him to be careful with it but held my breath instead. “It’s a beauty, looks like it came right out of the box, still got the little antenna on it and everything.”

“Yeah, it’s mint.”

“Where did you get this? My stuff, from when I was a kid, my mom just threw it all out, I guess. Fuckin’ bitch.”

“That’s mine. I mean, it was mine when I was a boy. I’ve kept it all these years.”

The man nodded, impressed. “You keep your stuff nice.”

I shrugged. “Well, I try. I’ve saved a lot of toys and things from my childhood, some better than others.”

“Well, it looks like it really paid off.” And then he slid the Batmobile model into the pocket of his jean jacket and smiled at me. Just like that, daring me to ask him to put it back on the shelf.

“Wait a minute,” Rick said, looking at the books on the shelves, including several duplicate copies of the ones I’d written. “Zack Walker. Is that like Zachary Walker?”

“That’s right.”

“I know that name.” His eyebrows went together, like he was trying to remember something from a very long time ago. He pulled a copy of Missionary off the shelf. “Did you write this?”

I nodded. “That was my first book, yes.”

“Is this the one where those guys go to another planet and try to get the people to stop believing in God?”

“Yes, that’s the one.”

“Shit, I loved this book! I read it while I was inside.”

Inside? Inside what? Most people did their reading inside, unless they were taking their books with them to the beach in the summertime.

“Yeah, this was good,” Rick said. “I found it kind of spiritual, if you know what I mean. Man, I can hardly believe I’m meeting some hot-shit writer.”

“Well, not that hot shit, actually. My other books have done only so-so. But that one, it did the best, and I’m finishing up a sequel to it now.”

Rick’s eyes widened. “Are you kidding me? When I finished that book, I thought, Hey, what would happen next? Would the Earth guys suddenly get religion, or would they just be killed, you know, for not believing, or maybe back on Earth they’d send some more guys to see what happened to them, like in Planet of the Apes, you know, where they sent another astronaut after Charlton Heston found the Statue of Liberty on the beach there? Oh shit, I didn’t spoil the ending for you, did I?”

“I’ve seen it.”

“Check this out,” he said, reaching into his back pocket and digging out a silver cigarette lighter featuring the Star Trek insignia, the rounded upside-down “V” that was the symbol for the Federation of Planets, on the side. “Like it?” he said, turning it so I could see the emblem more clearly. “Got it from a guy inside. I looked after him, and he knew I liked Star Trek, so he gave it to me.”

There was the word again. I was starting to get an idea of what it meant to be “inside.”

“Sort of like you giving me this Batmobile,” he said, patting his jacket pocket. “Now I’ll do my best to look after your interests, too.”

I tried to smile.

“Now,” he said, getting back to the purpose of his visit, “how do you know Stefanie?” He put emphasis on the word “know.” “’Cause you don’t really strike me as her type, though I could be wrong.”

“No no,” I said. “I don’t know Stefanie at all.”

“Because I know she’s been seeing somebody else lately. Maybe even a couple people, you know.”

“Not me.”

“Uh-huh.”

“No, you see, her mother’s address? That was the only one I had for her. I did find something of hers, and I was just trying to return it, that’s all.”

“And what would that be?”

“Her purse.”

“And why do you have her fucking purse?”

“I found it,” I said. “She’d dropped it at a store.”

Rick nodded knowingly. “Did you have a good look at what’s inside that purse, Mr. Walker?”

“I looked at her license, so I could find a way to get in touch with her.”

Rick eyed me suspiciously. “I think you’re giving me a load of bullshit, you know that?”

“No, really, I have it.” I was about to dig it out for him when the phone on my desk rang. We looked at each other, neither of us knowing whether I should answer it, and then it rang again. I leaned over and looked at the call-display feature. “It’s my wife,” I said. “I better answer it.”

“I’m not here. Understand? Unless you’d like that phone cord wrapped around your neck.”

“Sure,” I said, unconsciously raising one hand to touch my neck while I reached for the receiver with the