There was one other item in the glove compartment: an issue of TV Guide with Fred Astaire and Barrie Chase on the cover. For probably the dozenth time since I’d bought the magazine at the newsstand on upper Main Street, I turned to the Friday listings. 8 PM, Channel 2: The New Adventures of Ellery Queen, George Nader, Les Tremayne. “So Rich, So Lovely, So Dead.” A conniving stockbroker (Whit Bissell) stalks a wealthy heiress (Eva Gabor) as Ellery and his father investigate.
I put it into the bag with the other stuff-mostly for good luck-then got out, locked my car, and set out for Wyemore Lane. I passed a few mommies and daddies trick-or-treating with children too young to be out on their own. Carved pumpkins grinned cheerfully from many stoops, and a couple of stuffed straw-hat-wearing dummies stared at me blankly.
I walked down Wyemore Lane in the middle of the sidewalk as if I had every right to be there. When a father approached, holding the hand of a little girl wearing dangly gypsy earrings, mom’s bright red lipstick, and big black plastic ears clapped over a curly-haired wig, I tipped my hat to Dad and bent down to the child, who was carrying a paper bag of her own.
“Who are you, honey?”
“Annette Foonijello,” she said. “She’s the prettiest Mouseketeer.”
“And you’re just as pretty,” I told her. “Now what do you say?”
She looked puzzled, so her father leaned over and whispered in her ear. She brightened into a smile. “Trigger-treat!”
“Right,” I said. “But no tricks tonight.” Except for the one I hoped to play on the man with the hammer.
I took a Payday from my bag (I had to paw past the gun to get it), and held it out. She opened her bag and I dropped it in. I was just a guy on the street, a perfect stranger in a town that had been beset by terrible crimes not long ago, but I saw the same childlike trust on the faces of both father and daughter. The days of candy
doctored with LSD were far in the future-as were those of DO NOT USE IF SEAL IS BROKEN.
The father whispered again.
“Thank you, mister,” Annette Foonijello said.
“Very welcome.” I winked to Dad. “You two have a great night.”
“She’ll probably have a bellyache tomorrow,” Dad said, but he smiled. “Come on, Punkin.”
“I’m Annette!” she said.
“Sorry, sorry. Come on, Annette.” He gave me a grin, tipped his own hat, and they were off again, in search of plunder.
I continued on to 202, not too fast. I would have whistled if my lips hadn’t been so dry. At the driveway I risked one quick look around. I saw a few trick-or-treaters on the other side of the street, but no one who was paying the slightest attention to me. Excellent. I walked briskly up the driveway. Once I was behind the house, I breathed a sigh of relief so deep it seemed to come all the way from my heels. I took up my position in the far right corner of the backyard, safely hidden between the garage and the hedge. Or so I thought.
I peered into the Dunnings’ backyard. The bikes were gone. Most of the toys were still there-a child’s bow and some arrows with suction-cup tips, a baseball bat with its handle wrapped in friction tape, a green Hula Hoop-but the Daisy air rifle was missing. Harry had taken it inside. He meant to bring it when he went out trick-or-treating as Buffalo Bob.
Had Tugga given him shit about that yet? Had his mother already said you take it if you want to, it’s not a real gun? If not, they would. Their lines had already been written. My stomach cramped, this time not from the twenty-four-hour bug that was going around, but because total realization-the kind you feel in your gut-had finally arrived in all its bald-ass glory. This was actually going to happen. In fact, it was happening already. The show had started.
I glanced at my watch. It seemed to me that I’d left the car in the church parking lot an hour ago, but it was only quarter to six. In the Dunning house, the family would be sitting down to supper… although if I knew kids, the younger ones would be too excited to eat much, and Ellen would already be wearing her Princess Summerfall Winterspring outfit. She’d probably jumped into it as soon as she got home from school, and would be driving her mother crazy with requests to help her put on her warpaint.
I sat down with my back propped against the rear wall of the garage, rummaged in my bag, and brought out a Payday. I held it up and considered poor old J. Alfred Prufrock. I wasn’t so different, although it was a candybar I wasn’t sure I dared to eat. On the other hand, I had a lot to do in the next three hours or so, and my stomach was a rumbling hollow.
