“You're kidding. What did he say to you?”
“Among other things that he had a son, namely, specifically, Zeb.”
Completely silent, Janice bowed her head and lifted her right hand to her eyes. She looked as if she were about to say something, but instead she just sat there, completely silent.
“Well?” asked Todd. “Is it true?”
Janice shrugged.
“So he's possible dad number two?”
She nodded.
“Any other candidates?”
She shook her head.
He said, “That's kind of what I assumed.” “And that's kind of why I didn't tell you. I didn't know how,” she finally said. “What happened between Pat and me, well, it wasn't pretty, I can say that much. We were—”
“Later,” said Todd, standing and walking toward her. “I don't need the gory details, but if you want to tell me, tell me later.”
“Are…are we still friends?”
“The best. That is, if you can forgive me and my temper.” “Well, it is something you need to work on.” Janice pushed herself up from the overstuffed chair, and Todd wrapped his arms around her thin body, holding her tightly against himself. Outside of his small family—his mother and brother, who both lived in distant states—he shared more history with Janice than any other person in the world. They'd gone from youthful love and lust to avoidance and distance, then all the way back to a profound kind of respect and love, a familial kind that could never be broken. As he held her in his arms, his face nuzzled in her thick hair, her face pressed against his chest, Todd couldn't help but wonder if the thing that had always been binding them wasn't cosmic destiny, but simply and actually a child.
Janice asked, “So you want to know where Zeb is?” “That's kind of a loaded question. We're not only legally obligated to contact the police with any information we have, but I'm dating a cop. I promised I'd give Rawlins a call as soon as we spoke.”
They broke apart. There just wasn't any easy way of doing this, thought Todd, as he drifted into the center of the room. Glancing at Janice, he not only saw the worry on her face, but knew she was contemplating all the legal ramifications as well. She said, “Todd, don't you see how easily this could get out of control? My God, it'd scare Zeb to death if he thought he was wanted by the cops. And what if Rawlins can't control all this, what if the police descend upon Zeb and haul him down to the police station for questioning? You of all people know how terrifying that is. What if they want to hold him overnight? Not only would he be separated from Ribka, I might not be able to take her.”
“I hadn't thought about that.”
But she was right. The authorities could easily insist on placing Ribka in a foster home, which would shatter the already spooked Zeb.
“Todd, you and I both know that Zeb didn't try to kill anyone, so how can we protect him as much as possible?”
Todd thought for a moment. “Okay, let's do it this way. Let me call Rawlins down at the police station. I won't tell him anything, not over the phone anyway. I'll just get together with him and then bring him to talk to Zeb. No one else involved. Zeb's going to have to talk with the police sooner or later, so it might as well be sooner and it might as well be Rawlins.”
“I don't think we have any other choice.” She rolled her eyes. “I guess that makes me not only Zeb's birth mother but his birth lawyer too.”
“So dispense with the secrecy—where's Zeb?”
“Down at the Gay Times.”
“Oh, great, so much for maternal instincts, sending your son and granddaughter down to a gay bar.”
“Listen to yourself, Todd, you sound like Rush Limbaugh.”
“Gee, thanks.”
They discussed the logistics and decided upon a reasonable plan, which Todd hoped to God made sense. Janice then gave him Jeff's dressing room phone number and dashed to the upstairs bathroom.
“Just call and check on Zeb, will you?” she asked as she hurried out of the room.
Of course he would, replied Todd, as he sat down on the living room couch and picked up the phone. He dialed the number and a deep voice answered on the first ring.
“Miss Crystal's dressing room.”
“Hi, Jeff, it's me, Todd.”
“Well, hello, my darling Mr. Manly Man. What a wonderful treat to hear your suave voice. Do you miss me or are you just calling for a fashion tip? On a bright wintry day like today I recommend blazing blues to go with your brilliant eyes.”
“Thanks, Jeff,” began Todd, “but Janice just wanted me to see how everything is.”
“Just fabulous. You can tell that dyke hen that we arrived at the Gay Times a few minutes ago and I'm doing my makeup—brilliant red lipstick, some nice rouge, and great eye shadow, a nummy evening blue. My rehearsal starts in fifteen minutes.”
“I think she's more concerned about Zeb and Ribka.”
“Well, you tell her that I think she should spend as much time worrying about her cosmetics as she does about them. Father and daughter are wonderful though. Not to worry. In fact, they're right here dozing.”
“Great.” Todd wondered how much to tell him and decided the less, the better. “If Zeb wakes up you can tell him that Janice is on the way down.”
“Oh, fab. I love an audience. Ta-ta.”
Todd had hung up when, his hand still on the receiver, the phone rang again. Although he wondered if he should, he impulsively answered it halfway through the first ring.
“Hello?” he said.
“Yes, Janice Gray, please.”
“Who's calling?”
“This is Denise from her office downtown.”
Great, thought Todd. That was all they needed, a call regarding some court case or divorce settlement or whatever. He could easily imagine her getting tied up on the phone over some petty issue.
“Listen,” said Todd, “we're on the way out. Can Janice call you back on my car phone in just a few minutes?”
“Of course. Just make sure she calls. It's urgent.”
“Right.”
He hung up, and by the time he had his coat on she was on her way down the stairs.
“I thought I heard the phone,” she said. “Was it a hangup?”
“No, I answered. It was Denise from your office calling on some business.”
Janice rolled her eyes. “Being a lawyer is just so much fun I can't stand it.”
“I told her you'd call her back on my car phone. We should get going. I'll call Rawlins from the car too. That way I can keep the conversation short and not explain much.”
Janice went to the front hall, where she put on her coat and boots again. Just as they were about to leave, Todd eyed the control panel of her security system.
“This time,” he said, “I think it would not only be advisable to lock the doors but also set the alarm.”
Giving him a snide look, she said, “You sound like my father.”
Janice went up to the panel, a small plastic box with a keypad in the center, and punched in her security code. Immediately, however, the system started squawking and a digitized voice began barking.
“Warning, system error! Phone lines not accessible! Warning, system error!”
“God, I'm sick of the way this thing yaks at me,” muttered Janice.
She re-entered the code, but the same thing happened again, the system sounding the same warning.
“What's that mean?” asked Todd.
“Beats me. It's never done that before.”
“When did you last set the alarm?”
“I don't know.”
“Have you set it since that guy broke in?”
“No.” Janice paused in thought. “No, I guess not. You guys were here last night, and I didn't set it earlier today.”
Todd rubbed his forehead and tried to recall what little he knew about these things. Last summer when he was still at Channel 7, he'd done a special report on security systems and how they operated. He'd not only talked about the different ty
pes—from the standard models to the newer wireless ones— he'd also pointed out what the consumer needed to look for in a good system.
“Don't these things usually have a main panel or central box?” he asked.
“Sure, it's downstairs in the laundry room.”
Exactly where that guy had broken in the other night. Had he tampered with anything?
“Maybe I'm being paranoid, but let's check it out,” said Todd.
From the front hall Janice led the way through the kitchen and down the basement stairs. Todd followed her as she flicked on a light, continued past a small storage room, and then entered the laundry room, a large space with a pile of dirty clothes mounting beneath the spout of the laundry chute. The first thing Todd did was check the window, which looked just as he'd left it, still covered with plastic and nailed board.
“The main panel's right here,” said Janice.
A gray metal box fastened to the wall, it looked like a fuse box except that it was locked. Several wires came out of the top and were connected with another that led to the outer wall of the house.
“Is that your phone line?” Todd asked.
“Um, it looks like it, doesn't it?” Janice's eyes followed the wire to the wall. “Yeah, that's it. I think the phone box is just outside on the side of the house.”
Janice reached up to a ledge, felt around, and then pulled down a hidden key, which she used to open the panel. Inside were a variety of wires and connections, all of which looked reasonably confusing yet orderly. Todd studied the mass of electronics, but couldn't make sense of any of it.
“Well,” said Todd, “at least it doesn't look like anyone's pried open the box and tampered with anything.”
“Let's try it again.”
Janice led the way out, turning off the lights as they went. Upstairs, they returned through the kitchen and to the front hall. And when Janice punched in the security code a third time it worked.
The digitized voice said: “System armed, level three.”
“That's weird,” commented Todd.
“Yeah, well the electronics world baffles me,” replied Janice. “Come on, we've got thirty seconds to get out the door before the alarm system is activated.”
But it was more than weird, thought Todd as they hustled out the door. Something was striking him as wrong, yet he couldn't figure out what. When he'd done that piece on security systems he'd compiled a list of cardinal rules, and something about Janice's system violated, Todd was sure, one of those.
“What's the matter?” asked Janice as she locked the door behind them.
“I don't know, but you should get the security people over here to take a look at it.”
“Sure.”
Squinting as the bright sun reflected off the snow, Todd hurried down the front walk to his Cherokee. As they climbed in his vehicle and he started it up, he realized he had one more question for Janice, this one of an entirely different nature and one he needed to ask before he dropped her off at the Gay Times.
Pulling into the street, Todd said, “You know, there's something else I've been meaning to ask you.”
“Such as?”
“What blood type are you?”
“My blood type? B.”
“Oh.”
“Why?” And then she understood. “Wait a minute, this is about Zeb, isn't it?”
“Of course.”
34
She'd never thought about it, but Suzanne had no idea how hard it would be to rent a car. First of all, she was only nineteen, so every one of the girls—they couldn't have been any older than her!—at every single one of the car rental agencies said she was too young. Secondly, they all said she had to have a major credit card, which Suzanne most certainly did not, her father and every one of The Elders considering such things far too worldly. And thirdly, she needed to have a driver's license, which of course she didn't have either because, after all, whoever needed let alone wanted to leave The Congregation?
It was just so frustrating. She'd managed to get her dad's car to the airport, fly all the way to the Minneapolis/St. Paul airport, and now how was she going to get to her husband and baby? This couldn't happen. When the very last of the car rental places turned her down, Suzanne, in desperation, had pulled out her wad of cash and dropped it right on the counter.
“Here,” said Suzanne, shoving a pile of bills at the girl, who like Suzanne had a thick mane of bright blond hair. “I've got lots of bucks. Why don't you just give me a car and keep the extra money for yourself?”
On one of the very few television shows Suzanne had ever seen, some crook had bribed a county clerk and gotten some secret information. And Suzanne now saw the temptation burning in the other girl's eyes as that young woman stared at the pile of one-hundred-dollar bills. After a long moment, however, the girl shook her head and snapped herself out of it.
“No. No, I can't. That…that wouldn't be right.”
“Oh, come on,” begged Suzanne, looking as desperate as possible and trying to force her eyes to well up with tears. “I need to get to my baby. She's just a few months old. And…and she's sick.”
“But you don't understand. I can't take your money, because the computer won't release a car to you unless I enter all the proper information and numbers. I'm really sorry. I'd love to help you, but there's nothing I can do unless I put in a credit card and driver's license number.”
“But…but what am I going to do?”
“If you've got so much money, why even rent a car? It just snowed a whole lot last night and the roads are terrible. Why don't you just take a taxi?”
“Oh.” Suzanne, who'd never even been in a cab, hadn't thought of it. “How do I do that?”
The girl at the desk looked at her as if she were from Mars and said, “You just go outside to the taxi stand. There's a whole line of ‘em.” The girl hesitated, then added, “Are you from outstate?”
“Out what?”
“Outstate. You act like you don't know anything, like you're from the country. You know, you better watch where you flash that money around. This isn't Chicago, but it's not Mayberry R.F.D. either.”
“Mayberry what?” asked Suzanne, wiping her eyes.
“Listen, just be careful with all that money.”
“Oh. Oh, okay.”
Dragging her duffel bag with her gun packed inside, Suzanne headed out into the cold. Even though there was a double-decker road up above and it was dark down here, they'd liberally spread salt, so it was damp and slushy. Noisy too, noted Suzanne, as she dashed through the traffic, following the signs to the taxi stand, where a guy ushered her into a yellow cab.
“Where to?” asked the driver, a burly guy with dark hair and a dark, stubbly beard.
“Minneapolis.”
“Very good, dear. That's where you just flew into—the Mini-Apple. So don't keep me in suspense. Where do you want to go in this fair city?”
“Oh.”
Suzanne reached into her purse and pulled out the piece of paper, which she calmly unfolded as the cab sped away from the terminal. On it was simply written a name.
“I want to go to the Fourth Church of Christ.”
“That's very nice that you want to go to church. Very, very nice, but where the heck is it? I don't even know where the First or Second or Third Church of Christ is, let alone the Fourth. Don't you got, you know, the address?”
“Actually, I don't know. But here—here's the phone number.”
“Oh, brother. You from outstate or something?”
“No. No, I'm from out in Colorado.”
The lack of address was a problem that proved only a minor delay. The driver took sympathy on Suzanne and called his dispatcher, who in turn looked up the church's address in the phone book. And then they were on their way, speeding along the slushy freeway and into south Minneapolis.
“Sorry, I don't know much about this stuff,” apologized Suzanne. “I've never even been in a taxi before.”
“Well, isn't this a
grand day in paradise.”
Suzanne kind of liked this, sitting in the back and being driven along. It was as if you were famous or something. Here she had a driver and all she had to do was tell him where to go and he'd take her there, no questions asked. She didn't even have to try to figure out which direction to go. And with this guy driving she didn't have to worry about the slippery roads either. The girl at the car rental place was right, this was the thing to do. Peering forward, she saw the little machine up front, saw the numbers adding up. So what. She had enough money to keep this taxi for a whole week, maybe a month. Zeb was going to like this, her arriving in style and everything. It wasn't taking that long, really. Maybe only fifteen minutes later the driver was steering off the freeway and into a neighborhood.
“I'm gonna stick to the main roads ‘cause a lot of the side streets haven't been plowed yet. It won't take too long though. Don't worry.”
She didn't, and he was right, it didn't take long. Ten minutes later they were speeding up a street named after a country, France. Cool. A smile blossomed on Suzanne's face. Zeb was right to leave The Congregation. And she was right to follow him. Everything was going to be different—namely, her dad wasn't going to be telling her what to do every second of every day—and everything was going to be good.
The taxi driver turned right on a small street that had been plowed, but then he immediately began to slow down.
“Whoa, what's going on at this church of yours, young lady?”
“Huh?”
“Looks like the police have suddenly found God too.”
Suzanne leaned forward and peered out the windshield. Down the block she could see a small, snow-covered church, but instead of presenting a picture of serenity, Suzanne saw a street of chaos. There were three or four police cars parked in the snow and cops standing all over the place. Bright yellow tape was strung from tree to tree, and off to the side a bunch of people in puffy winter parkas were standing around in the drifts, pointing and watching and gossiping.
“Dear Jehovah,” she gasped.
She immediately panicked. She'd been right there last night when her father had called Zeb's father and given him the name and telephone number that Zeb had called from. So what had happened? Surely Rick had gone after Zeb. And for sure Paul had gone along too. But they wouldn't have hurt Zeb, would they? Suddenly Suzanne felt herself wanting to burst into tears. From time to time disobedient members of The Congregation had gotten into trouble for things like reading forbidden books or listening to rock music stations, and those punishments had ranged from scrubbing the bakery floor to washing dishes for a month to being locked in the prayer closet for up to six hours. But…but what would Zeb's father do to Zeb for taking Ribka and running away? Would he find forgiveness and love, or…or would he hurt him?
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