He pushed away from the table and stood. “You can’t do this,” he said.
“Now you’re just repeating yourself,” Everett said.
“Paxton,” Rhonda said kindly. “I’ll talk to you again when you’re feeling more like yourself. Go back to Chicago. Take some time. You’re going to see that I’m doing right by you
“I’m not going anywhere,” Pax said. But then he was walking away, back into the dark of the building.
Deke’s house was only a block from where he’d parked. Pax knocked hard on the double-height door and a low voice called him in.
Donna and two beta women looked up at him. They were sitting in the living room, the betas on the couch. They’d all been gazing at something Donna held in the palm of one hand. At first he thought it was a napkin or lump of cloth, but then he saw a tiny red arm reach up and he realized it was a baby.
“Paxton,” Donna said. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.” Jesus, he was tired of people asking him that. “It’s just hot.” He’d felt a little nauseous on the walk over, and as soon as he’d stepped into the air-conditioning he’d immediately broken into a sweat.
“Paxton, this is my cousin Jocelyn, and her friend April. And this is Celia.” She turned her hand so that he could see the girl’s face. She was perfectly bald, with mottled, red-orange skin. Her eyes were closed, and her little mouth hung open.
“She’s beautiful,” Pax said to the women on the couch. Both of them were the color of raspberry syrup. He had no idea which one was Jocelyn, and if Jocelyn was the mother. He also didn’t know if the baby really was beautiful for a beta; he’d only recognized that she was cute in the way of babies from so many species, from meerkat pups to ducklings.
“She’s only a month old,” Donna said softly.
“One month old today,” one of the beta women said.
They made small talk for a couple of minutes, all of it about babies, which Pax knew nothing about. Donna didn’t offer to let him hold the child, thank God. She rocked it in her big hand and talked to it in that rumbling voice.
“So is Deke around?” Pax asked finally.
“He’s at the shop,” Donna said. When he looked blank she said, “Alpha Furniture. Just go up Main and take a left on High Street. Listen for power tools and stop when you get to the fire truck-can’t miss it.”
“Nice meeting you,” Pax said to the betas. “Congratulations.”
Outside, he untucked his shirt and used it to mop his face. The shop was only a few blocks away, but it was uphill. He decided to drive.
An old-fashioned fire truck was parked in front of a garage like an old dog napping in the sun. It was thirty or forty years old, shiny and red and braced with white ladders, and fronted by a chrome bumper like a fat lip. Like so many antique vehicles it seemed smaller than it ought to be, maybe seven-eighths actual size. The small, round- roofed cab was topped by a single red cylinder light like a Shriner’s cap.
The garage was attached to another building the size of a barn. ALPHA FURNITURE was painted in big blue letters on the slanted roof. Through an open bay door came the high whine of a power saw. Deke’s Jeep was parked out front alongside another Jeep and a Chevy pickup with a roof peeled off like the lid of a can.
Pax walked up to the open door. An old argo man was pushing with one hand an enormous plank down a table saw; another, younger argo was catching the split ends. The man doing the pushing was about seven feet tall, shorter than most of the argos. His right arm ended in a stump at the elbow. Maybe he’d lost it to a saw, but more likely something had gone wrong during the Changes; not all body parts took to the transformation. After the plank had cleared he noticed Pax standing in the doorway.
“I’m looking for Deke?” Pax called.
The young argo gestured toward the far end of the building, where space had been sectioned off by plastic sheets hanging from the ceiling. Pax picked his way across the room through projects in various states of completion. Everything was giant-sized: bed frames, tables, chairs. At the far end much of the space was taken up by church pews, a dozen huge oak slabs with high backs. Most were still raw wood, but two had been lacquered and polished to a buttery gleam.
He reached the plastic sheets and stepped through a part in the curtains. Deke sat at an enormous desk, staring grimly at a computer screen.
“Cool fire truck,” Pax said.
“Oh, hey there, P.K.” He leaned back from the screen. Pax caught a glimpse of a spreadsheet. “Yeah, that’s Bart. A 1974 Pierce. A town in Kentucky donated it to us. It was worth more to them as a tax write-off.”
Pax nodded at the screen. “If this is a bad time…”
“No, no. Just paying the bills. I’d been hoping for some bank stuff to come through, but-never mind. Sit down, P.K. I’m glad you found the place.”
“Donna gave me directions.” There was nothing in the room but a pair of paint-stained barstools the size of step ladders. Pax leaned over one with his elbows on the seat. “She was at the house with some beta women and their baby-she said it was her cousin?”
“Shit. How was she doing?”
“Donna? Fine, why?”
“Donna and babies… It’s hard for her sometimes, to be around them.”
“She looked fine,” Pax said. “Happy.” At least she didn’t look
Deke looked back at the screen as if he couldn’t remember what he’d been working on. “Last night. I’m pretty sure they’re from Jo Lynn. She talked about things only a real beta would know about, and a couple things she mentioned…”
“What?”
“They were personal things. Stuff only Jo Lynn would know.” He sat up, changing the subject. “The rest of it, well, Weygand wasn’t kidding when he said that Bewlay talked a lot about this parallel evolution stuff. Pages and pages of it. Gets kind of freaky. If I didn’t think it was Jo I wouldn’t believe a word of it. Like the stuff about genetic engineering.”
“Not that shit again,” Pax said. After the Changes, one of the most popular of the conspiracy theories was that someone was experimenting with them. The Russians, their own government, aliens. Half the town probably still thought that.
“Yeah, I know,” Deke said. “I just was hoping to find something that would tell me what happened. What was going on in her head.”
“Like what?”
“A suicide note?” He tapped at the keyboard with the eraser end of a pencil and the spreadsheet window minimized. “No, not really. But maybe some clue that she was upset, suicidal.” He shook his head. “I don’t know, man. I’m just bangin’ around in the dark.” He looked at Pax. “So how you feeling today?”
“I need your help,” Pax said. “I need you to help me get my father out of Rhonda’s place.”
“Wait a minute,” Deke said. “Back up.”
Pax told him about the visit to the Home, the conversation with Rhonda, the papers she’d taken from the house. He’d started pacing.
“And even if I did sign them,” Pax said, “I didn’t give them to her.”
“Did you leave the door open behind you?”
“Fuck, I don’t know! I was in kind of a hurry, if you remember. You called me.”
Deke looked away. The muscles of his jaw worked beneath chalky skin. “It doesn’t matter,” he said. “The papers, how she got them, all of that. Rhonda isn’t the problem.”
“Then who the fuck
Deke swung his big head around and regarded him squarely. After a long moment he said, “It’s not your father you’re wanting, Paxton.”
Pax stepped back, his face hot. “You don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”
“Listen, man. What you’re feeling is chemical. A few days ago you couldn’t wait to get out of here, and now
