"Yeah, well, I do, too. Want to hear the tape with me?" "Nothing would please me more."
She went with Pete down the corridor to the audio room. Pete stopped en route in the lunchroom for a cup of late-day, bottom-of-the-pot coffee sludge, with four Equals. Cat graciously declined. She and Pete went into the audio room, which was in her opinion the least unpleasant place on the premises. It was ten degrees cooler and not quite as relentlessly lit. They sat in the synthetic-plush gray chairs. Aaron had cued the tape for them. Pete punched the button.
/
His poor mother must have been hearing those words ever since puberty turned her sweet little boy sullen and strange and fetid. Had some mother out there started wondering yet?
Silence. She could picture him all over again, desperate little wanker with a room full of slasher-movie posters, summoning his courage. Nothing out of the ordinary, nothing at all.
/
She had in fact messed up, then. The moment a caller referred to anyone else, it was an automatic red tag. Any caller who claimed to be receiving instructions from a friend, from Jesus, from the dog next door or the radio transmissions that came through the fillings in his teeth, got promoted to the next level of seriousness. This one had been vague enough he wasn't
Had she been making a list? Probably. Had she paid more attention to her list than she had to the caller? Hoped not.
" Tm in the family,'" she said." 'We gave up our names.' What's that about?"
"Your guess is as good as mine."
"Is there a rock band with lyrics like that?"
"We're checking."
"Good."
"The family. What family?"
"The Brady Bunch. The Mafia. IBM. You know."
Right. She'd had one just the other day. Mild-voiced citizen who'd said he was going to start driving around the country and running down illegal immigrants, under orders from Katie Couric. They tended to like the idea of working for celebrities or international corporations.
I do," Cat said. "I do know."