The Zero Hour

Baumann rented a tiny apartment in Sarah’s neighborhood, because the telephone there was serviced by the same central office that serviced hers. There was nothing in this tiny apartment but a telephone and a call diverter. It recorded every single conversation made on Sarah’s telephone line, and when the call terminated it dialed out to Baumann’s apartment off Sutton Place. Now it was almost as if he had an extension in Sarah’s apartment.

When she talked on the phone, he could hear everything she said.

CHAPTER SIXTY-NINE

By the time Leo Krasner arrived at his apartment, there were several messages on his answering machine responding to the notices he had posted not half an hour earlier. By midafternoon he had received eighteen calls from secretaries and other office workers (sixteen female, two male) at the Manhattan Bank.

One by one he returned the calls.

“The term paper’s on a computer disk,” he told the first secretary, “but my computer’s busted. Thing is, I need some really good editing-you know, just go through it, correct the spelling errors, grammatical mistakes, punctuation, all that junk. Thirty pages.”

But he needed it done tomorrow, by the end of the day. It was urgent. Who else but a desperate business-school student would pay three hundred bucks for an hour’s work?

The one he finally settled on said she did not have a home computer, but would work on it tomorrow during her coffee breaks and her lunch hour. She promised to be done by the end of the business day.

They agreed to meet at the cappuccino bar in the Manhattan Bank Building atrium, first thing in the morning.

CHAPTER SEVENTY

On the way to Central Park, just before noon the next day, Jared sulked. Two new friends from the Y went to a video arcade after camp got out every day, unaccompanied by an adult, and they had invited Jared. “Look, I’m sorry, but the answer is no,” Sarah said. “I’m glad you have some new friends, but I don’t want you going out unless a grown-up is with you, or Brea, or me.”

“It’s like two blocks away from the Y,” he protested. “And it’s not like it’s just me alone. There’s three of us.”

“No. Look what happened to you in the park when I let you go off by yourself-”

“Jesus Christ,” Jared said, sounding like his father. “You’re being ridiculous.”

“Hey,” she said. “You heard me. The answer is no.”

“That’s just stupid.”

“That’s just careful,” she said as they crossed the street to the park. “I don’t want anything happening to you.”

He raised his voice. “How come you always treat me like I’m a baby?”

Brian approached, wearing a sweatshirt. He gave Sarah a peck on the cheek, patted Jared on the shoulder. “I’m ready, coach.”

“Yeah,” Jared said sullenly.

Sarah left them there and went to work, arranging to meet them at the same spot in exactly two hours.

Jared taught Brian the fundamentals of going out to catch a pass. “You start running first,” Jared said. “Then I throw it.”

“Okay,” Brian said as he took off. The ball came soaring toward him. He dove for it and missed. The ball spiraled into the air, while he slipped in the mud and tumbled onto his back. Jared burst out laughing, then Brian started laughing.

Both of them grass-stained and covered in mud, laughing. They sat in the grass, as Brian caught his breath. He put his arm around Jared. “You know, my parents were divorced when I was a boy, too,” he said.

“Really?”

“Yeah. I know how lousy it is. And-well, this is something I’ve never told anybody before. When I was nine-just a year older than you-my parents fought all the time. All the time. They got divorced when I was ten, but it took them years, years of fighting. And one day when I was nine years old, I got so tired of them constantly fighting that I ran away from home.”

“Really?” Jared said, rapt.

“That’s right. I just packed my favorite toys and some clothes and packed them in a bag, and then I got on a bus and rode for an hour, to the end of the line.”

“Far away?”

Baumann nodded, imagining a Canadian boyhood, enjoying the lying, which he knew was convincing. “And I spent the night in a field, and the next morning I got back on the bus and went home. By then my parents were terrified. Seemed as if the whole town was looking for me. The police sent cars around to find me.”

“What did your parents do? Were they mad?”

“Oh, very. Very angry. But for a day they were united, a team. For that one day they stopped fighting. They were worried about me. So, you know, you should try to look at things from your mom’s point of view. She worries about you, because she loves you. There’s a lot on her mind, and she’s doing some dangerous work, isn’t she?”

“Yeah,” Jared said. “I guess.”

“I mean, she told me she’s in charge of a group of people who are looking for someone. Did she ever tell you anything about her work?”

“A little bit, I guess.”

“So you know she worries a lot, right?”

Jared shrugged.

“What did she tell you?”

CHAPTER SEVENTY-ONE