never have gone along in the first place, knowing what the outcome must be. Why take a test you’re bound to fail? So he couldn’t have known. No one had known. Until the moment of truth, no one could ever know. The people at 322 Carson Street didn’t know, Russ didn’t know, Pat himself didn’t know. That’s why he was going, to find out. That’s what the whole thing was about.
“You got the time?”
It was the girl across the aisle. Pat checked his watch.
“I’ve got a quarter of two.”
The girl made a face.
“I could really use a rest stop.”
She straightened up, turning away from him. For a moment Pat was tempted to try to keep the conversation going. It would help pass the time, and take his mind off what was going to happen when he arrived. But that was against the rules of engagement.
His palms were sweaty. He rubbed them against the smooth, faded denim over his thighs. If only he had the gun with him. Knowing that it was tucked up in his bag, up on the rack, would make him feel better. Just knowing it was there. The gun was solid enough, at least, while the rest of it sometimes seemed kind of flaky. It was one thing back home with the others, everyone buying into it and no distractions. Everything made perfect sense then, as Los expounded the scriptures, laying out their hidden meanings and making you see how it all related to your own life. But out here, bombarded by headlines and billboards and neon signs and reader boards and electronic counters telling you how much Americans had saved by switching to MCI, there were moments when Pat felt himself losing touch. Everything seemed brighter and louder and faster and more confusing than he remembered. Sometimes he found himself reeling under the onslaught of sensations, even though there was nothing really happening, just a bunch of people hanging out in some greasy spoon where the bus stopped. Above all, it was the people who bothered him. There were too many of them, and they were too different. He had to struggle to recall that this was all an illusion, repeating the lines of scripture he’d memorized as part of his self-reprogramming exercise.
That’s why they hadn’t let him take the gun, of course. They had it all figured out. As it was, there was nothing to tie him in to them. If he flipped out and went to the police, he would have nothing to give them but a story so crazy that no one would believe it for a moment. He didn’t even know where Russ was staying. All he knew was the address of the house they were going to hit, and that wouldn’t mean anything until afterward. And afterward he would be guilty of first-degree murder, videoed in the act by Russ, a permanent record of his initiation which would send him straight to the gas chamber or the electric chair or however they did it in Georgia.
When he thought about it now, that seemed kind of crazy too, having to come all this way, spending days and days on buses, and all because his dad had happened to be posted to Fort Benning the year Pat was born. In fact his childhood had resembled this cross-country journey more than it did his destination. The family had moved when he was two, and he’d never been back. He couldn’t remember a damn thing about Georgia, but he had plenty of memories of other places all over the States, mostly unhappy. His sister had taken new homes and schools in her stride, settling down and making friends, the perfect military brat. For Pat it had been a struggle. By the time he was ten, his life already seemed like a school notebook full of botched attempts, unfinished assignments that never got beyond the first paragraph.
That’s why he was so determined not to screw this one up. It wasn’t so much the Secret itself that attracted him. If he was honest, he felt the same about that as he did about Dale. Looked at in one way, it was a really neat idea which explained everything, and he was proud to be one of the chosen few to whom it had been revealed. But if he closed his eyes and looked again, it could seem no more part of him than a new set of clothes, a really zippy outfit that made him look and feel great, but which he could put on or take off depending on how he felt.
Maybe it would be different after his initiation. Anyway, what really mattered wasn’t that but the sense of belonging. For the first time in his life, Pat had a real home and real friends, a stable center and a shared sense of purpose. For that, he was ready to kill, even to die. If he had to go back to the life he was leading before they’d taken him in, he’d be as good as dead anyway.
He lay back and closed his eyes, trying to imagine what the house would look like. It was impossible, of course. It might be large or small, old or new, stucco or brick or wood or aluminum siding. At the moment it was just a number and a street name, but somewhere up ahead of him, getting closer every minute, was a real building on a real block, with real people living in it. Only they weren’t real. Either that, or he wasn’t. Soon he would find out.
A crinkling sound drew his attention. The girl across the aisle was opening a package of cookies. She saw him watching her.
“You want one?”
He hesitated just a second, then smiled.
“Sure.”
She moved over to the empty seat next to the aisle, her long legs dangling down, and handed him the bag.
“Going all the way?” she asked.
He nodded.
“You?”
“Uh huh.”
Beneath the open flaps of the leather jacket, Pat could see her breasts outlined against the T-shirt she had on. They were small and tight, with slightly raised nipples.
“Visiting your family?” he asked.
She shook her head, stirring her dank, bleached hair, the roots already growing out a mousy brown.
“Other way around,” she said.
Her accent was lightly spiced with the sweet sensuality of the South. Pat remembered her getting on in some small town they’d stopped at in the middle of the night.
“How do you mean?”
“I got sick and tired of running interceptions on all the passes my stepdad kept throwing at me.”
Pat frowned.
“You mean he tried to …”
“He sure did. He tried
“Did you tell your mom?”
“Uh huh. She said it was all God’s will. Meaning, this guy is my meal ticket, so just play along and keep him sweet so I can sit around here all day without having to do jack shit. So I figured I could do better on my own. This way, if I end up having to peddle my ass, at least I get to keep the cash. You want another cookie?”
Pat took one.
“So you’ve run away from home?” he said. “Jesus.”
All his own fears of rootless dispossession rose up like a waking nightmare. But the girl merely shrugged.
“It’s not that big a deal. I took about fifty bucks and my mother’s charge card. I can forge her signature real easy and it’ll be a couple of weeks before she even notices it’s gone. Till then, I aim to go spastic with the plastic. How ’bout you?”
Pat opened his mouth and closed it again.
“I’m … Well, I … I guess I’m kind of in the same position myself. I lost my job, see. And I heard Atlanta was a good place to find work, so I thought I’d head on down there and see if maybe something will go right for a change.”
The girl nodded.
“You got a place to stay?”
Pat shook his head.
“You?”
“Nope.”
They were silent for a while.
“Listen,” she said at last. “You want to do me a favor? When the bus gets in, you want to make it look like we’re together? Thing is, all these pimps hang around the bus station looking for fresh meat. A friend from school came down last year, real nice person but the worst buckteeth you ever saw. I mean this little gal could eat corn
