He knows me, I was the one selling him what Mcwhortle told me.'
'Well,' Laura said, taking another slug of her scotch, 'I guess that's that. With Mcwhortle gone, the whole caper comes to a screeching halt.'
I stared at her. 'Not necessarily,' I said slowly. 'I know the name of the chemist.'
'Oh my God!' Laura cried. 'Mcwhortle may be dead, but we're still alive.'
We talked it over, excited, with dreams of a big score. At first we figured that the two of us, working together, could somehow get a sample of the ZAP pill from the chemist. But then we realized that even if we could, we wouldn't know what to do with it. We just didn't have the contacts and the know-how to sell it for heavy bucks.
'We'll have to bring Willie in on the deal,' Laura said finally. 'I wish the two of us could manage it ourselves, but that's a pipe dream.
Willie has the experience, he'll know how to finagle it.'
'You trust him?' I asked her.
'Absolutely,' she said, grinning. 'Because I know something about him that'll keep him honest.'
'Okay,' I said. 'I'll give him a call and tell him to get over here right away.'
'Don't bother,' Laura said. 'He's waiting for me at my place. Let's go.'
We took Laura's wheels, a Ford Taurus, figuring there was no point in driving two cars. We were at her condo in twenty minutes, and when we walked in together I thought William K.
Brevoort was going to faint.
' What's going on here?' he said in a cracked voice.
We made him sit down, and Laura fixed drinks, which we all badly needed.
Willie had heard of Mcwhortle's death and figured his hopes of making a mint on the ZAP pill were just as dead. He said he naturally thought he'd have to dump me as a source of information-and what else did he have?
'I'll tell you what we've got,' Laura said. 'Jess knows the name of the chemist working on that cockamamy pill.'
Brevoort looked at me. 'Is that straight?' he said.
I nodded.
'What's his name?' he asked eagerly.
I let him sweat a minute, pretending I was thinking it over.
'Even thirds on the profits?' I said finally. 'You, Laura, and me?'
'My word on it,' he said. 'And I don't cross ladies, it's not my style.
What's his name, Jess?'
'Barrow. Mcwhortle called him Greg, so I guess it's Gregory Barrow.'
Laura jerked and slopped her drink. 'Barrow?' she said. 'Has he got a wife named Mabel? Mabel Barrow is a good customer of mine at the store.
I've got her address and phone number.'
'I'll check it out,' Willie the Weasel said. 'If Mabel is his wife, it could give us an opening to Greg.'
'And then?' I asked him.
He thought a moment, and I could almost see his grifter's gears turning.
'Jess, maybe you can arrange to meet him accidentally on purpose when his wife isn't around. Come on to him hot and heavy, and hook him. You know how.'
'What if he doesn't go for me?'
'He will,' Brevoort said confidently. 'He's a man, isn't he?'
CHESTER BARROW never told this to anyone, but I don't think my parents are my real parents. I think I was adopted. I mean I'm so different from them that it makes sense, that they're not my real mother and father. And they don't treat me like the other kids I know get treated by their parents. They don't beat me up or anything like that, but they don't treat me like I was really their own kid.
I think my real mother and father were killed in a plane crash when I was little. Like we were all flying someplace neat like Disney World, and this plane got engine trouble and crashed.
And while it was going down my real mother and father held me in their arms and protected me so I wouldn't get hurt when we hit, and I wasn't but they were both killed.
So then the police advertised if anyone wanted to adopt a little kid whose real parents were killed in a plane crash, and that's how I came to live with my mother and father, because they didn't have any kids of their own. But they've never told me I was adopted and that my real father was an astronaut and my real mother was a movie star who gave up her job so she could be my mother. I think that's what happened.
If they were my real mother and father and loved me, I wouldn't want to run away, would I? So that proves it.
When Tania told me her uncle was going to give her a hundred dollars so we could run away, that was keen. He said we should take a cab out to where he lived, and he would pay the driver, and then he would give us the money and we could go anywhere we liked.
Tania and I talked about it a lot, and we decided we would go to Alaska, like I wanted, but first we would go to Disney World, which was closer and which we had never seen. All the kids we knew had been, and they were always bragging on it.
'When should we go? ' Tania asked me. 'I think we should set a time because Mother wants me to start taking piano lessons.'
'I think we should go before school starts,' I told her.
'Like if we go during vacation, we could leave in the morning, and then they probably won't know we're gone till that night. But if we go after school starts, then they'll call our parents right away when they take attendance and we're not there.'
'That's very true,' Tania said. 'We should have a head start before they notice we've gone and maybe call the police. Chet, what do you think I should wear? ' I didn't know what she meant and shrugged.
'What you always wear, I guess,' I said. 'Like shorts and a T. , 'No,' she said, 'I can't wear that for traveling. Maybe I'll wear jeans and my nylon jacket because the nights might get chilly. And I'll put my dress-up things in my suitcase.'
'Suitcase?' I said. 'What do you need a suitcase for? It'll just get in the way.'
'I'll need more clothes than what I'm wearing, and so will you. Have you got a suitcase?'
'I got like a bag,' I said. 'It's cloth but it holds a lot.'
'Then you should pack it, Chet,' she said. 'And don't forget all your favorite things.'
'Like what?'
'Well, maybe your little radio. And what about your stamp collection?'
'I forgot about that,' I said. 'It's in big books. I guess I'll have to leave them. I can always start a new collection when we get to Alaska.'
'How long do you think it'll take us to get there?'
I thought awhile. 'It depends,' I said.
That night I looked around my bedroom and Tania was right, I did have a lot of favorite things. Like I had a rock I had found that looked like it had gold in it, and some swell shells I had picked up on the beach, and a plastic skull I had bought at a flea market with my allowance. I knew I'd never be able to take all that stuff with me, and I felt like crying but I didn't.
Then something started that I couldn't figure out. It was the beginning of August, and Tania and I were talking almost every day about running away and making plans. Right then it seemed to me that my mother and father got a lot more friendlier.
Like Mom was bubbly almost all the time and would make jokes and kid around with me. And my father would ask me what I had done that day, and he even g bill bought me a really cool fishing cap with this Ion that shaded your eyes. They both seemed a lot nicer, and one night we all went to Bobby Rubino's for ribs.
I didn't know why they were acting like that. I told Tania about it, and she said they were probably just going through a phase.
'What's a phase?' I asked her.
'It's like a thing that doesn't last long,' she said. 'And then they go back the way they were.'
