“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I don’t need a computer.”
“See, I’ve got a 486 that I’ll be upgrading to a Pentium OverDrive Processor chip and adding 128K of motherboard cache RAM. I may go up to 256, but that’d probably be pointless unless I switched to UNIX, which they say is better optimized for using cache RAM than DOS or Windows. A monster, y’know? I mean, compared to the XT, for god’s sake.”
“I don’t need a computer,” Howard told him firmly.
“Well, okay. What time is it?”
Howard shook his head, dazed. “Just after one.”
“Where are you? What’s your address?”
“Well, I’m home right now, but you could meet me at my office, which is a little easier to—”
“No, your home, your home!”
Howard told him.
“Ainslee. Where’s Ainslee?”
“Two blocks north of Lawrence.”
“God!” the boy said. “I don’t know when I can get there. Three o’clock, four o’clock, something like that.”
“Whenever you get here will be fine,” Howard said, but the last half of the sentence was spoken into the dial tone.
When he saw the boy standing in the doorway in his Abercrombie & Fitch arctic explorer’s outfit, he expected him to look around the apartment and say, “God!” But he just looked around, his eyes wide with horror. Howard had spent the interval neatening the place up and airing it out, but he knew how shabby it must look to this spoiled child from Astor Street.
Finally he blinked and stepped inside. He was nearly as tall as Howard, scrawny, and had a long, astonished face that would probably be handsome someday, when he calmed down and grew up. He tore off a quilted helmet and made no attempt to reorder the spiky black hair that sprang out as if released from a trap. Howard helped him out of his parka and hung it in the closet.
“Can I get you something to drink? A Coke? Seven-Up?”
“Yuck,” the boy said.
Howard had made a special trip out through the snow for a selection of junk food and now felt a dark wrath well up from his stomach.
“Has anyone ever told you you’ve got the manners of a camel?”
This seemed to interest him. “A camel? No. Really?”
“Really.”
“You mean because I said yuck? I’m sorry. I’m just a very spontaneous person.”
“Yeah. Well, camels are very spontaneous too. You can hold it in a little. It won’t kill you. That’s what manners are for.”
“I never thought of it that way.”
Howard sighed. “Would you like to sit down?”
“Not really. I’d like to look around a little.”
“Go ahead.”
The young man did so, starting at one corner and sweeping his gaze up and down the walls until he’d made a complete circuit of the room. Then he walked over to a walnut sideboard that stood against the south wall. Howard winced as he opened the glasspaneled doors; he felt a special protectiveness for the old monstrosity, because Ada had had it from her grandmother and considered it a family heirloom. In their old apartment, it had contained a set of Haviland china. When Howard moved to the smaller apartment after Ada’s death, he sold the china, knowing he’d have no use for it. Now the sideboard held Howard’s collection of limp, dog-eared paperbacks.
Richard scanned the titles blank-faced and closed the doors. When he went on to open the drawer below, Howard asked him what the hell he was doing.
The boy looked up, puzzled. “I’m looking around. You said I could.”
It was the junk drawer, containing whatever didn’t belong somewhere else: household tools, a flashlight, old address books, calendars, receipts, and bank statements, lapsed insurance policies, a worn-out wallet, a Hamilton watch broken for two decades, a Smith & Wesson revolver (never fired or even loaded) that his brother-in-law had given him on his twenty-fifth birthday.
Howard breathed a furious sigh as the boy began paging his way through an old photo album to which no pictures had been added since 1967, when Ada learned she would never have children.
After putting the album back and closing the drawer, he crossed the room to survey the library books Howard kept on a chest of drawers beside his bed.
“Don’t you read anything but trash?”
“No,” Howard snapped.
He opened the top drawer and Howard said, “That’s just clothes.”
Richard nodded and went on to grope his way through each drawer while Howard watched, grinding his teeth.
“Nothing,” he said finally, straightening up from the bottom drawer.
“What were you expecting?”
“A ping or two.”
“A ping?”
The boy shrugged as if anyone with half a brain should know what a ping is.
“Would you like to sit down now?”
He looked around uneasily, as if the furniture might be infected with typhus, then sat in an upholstered chair Ada had bought at Marshall Field’s twenty years before.
“Did Ms. Purcell tell you what I’m looking for?” Howard asked, sitting down across from him.
“Yes.”
“Well, what do you think?”
“What do I think?”
Howard stifled a groan. “Do you have any suggestions for me?”
“Not at the moment. I’ve sort of lost track of what’s going on.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I mean, this is really a bad time. My folks are trying to railroad me into the University of Chicago, and I’m—”
“Excuse me, Richard. Is it all right if I call you Richard?”
“Sure, why not? If I can call you Harold.”
“Howard.”
“Howard. Sorry.”
“Richard, a minute ago you said you’d lost track of what was going on. Going on where?”
“Well, with the people you’re interested in.”
“And which people are those?”
Richard gave him a baffled look. “Now I don’t understand.”
Howard paused, sensing that this was one of those moments when everything could go to hell if he put a foot wrong. “When you know what’s going on—when you’re keeping track—what is it you know?”
“Oh.” The boy waved his hands in the air. “Movements. Where the nexus is going to be. Where the heat is. You know.”
“No, Richard, to be truthful, I don’t.”
Bewildered, Richard sent his gaze around the room as if he were following the flight of a bat. “You really are confusing me, Howard. You talked to Denise, didn’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Then I don’t get it. She said you were looking to get in with the yoo-hoos.”
“The what?”
Richard sprang up out of his chair quivering. “Look, don’t do this to me. You’re freaking me out. Really.”
“I’m sorry, Richard. But who the hell are the yoo-hoos?”
The boy groaned, grabbed two handfuls of hair, and tried to twist his head off. “Ohhh, that Denise! I’m going to kill her. I’m absolutely going to kill her!”
“Take it easy, son.”
“Where’s your phone? I’m going to give her such a blast!
“Not right now, Richard, please. Sit down and tell me what this is all about.”
“It’s about a goddamned betrayal, that’s what it’s about.” But he sat down calmly enough.
“So who are the yoo-hoos?”
“I see what she’s trying to do, all right. She told me you were a stone, of course, but I took it for granted that she would have explained all this. This is her idea of a test.”
“She told you I was a stone?”
“That’s just our slang. A stone is someone who’s only aware in the usual way.”
“You mean not a clairvoyant.”
“I consider that a bullshit word, personally.”
“Okay. And where does that leave us?”
He sighed. “I guess it leav
es us here, Howard: I spend ten minutes telling you about the yoo-hoos, then you tell me I’m a fruitcake, then I go home.”
“I won’t do that, Richard, I promise you.”
“I’m leaving.”
“Hold on. Think about this for a second. I went to your friend Denise to—”
“Ex-friend.”
“To learn something. That’s straight. I went to her to learn something and I went with an open mind. And she said you could help me. Give me the benefit of a doubt, okay? I didn’t ask her about yoo-hoos, because I’ve never even heard of a yoo-hoo. If she told you to tell me about yoo-hoos—”
“She didn’t say to tell you about them. She said you wanted to get in with them. In which case you’re a lunatic.”
Howard spread his hands in a pathetic gesture. “There, you see? You’re afraid I might call you a bad name, and then you call me a bad name. But look: Am I bleeding? I can take it, Richard. I’m not made of sugar and neither are you. So relax.”
The boy frowned, obviously muddled by this weird appeal.
“Look,” Howard went on, “according to Denise, I want to get in with these yoo-hoos. Should I argue with that? I don’t even know what it means, for God’s sake. At least tell me what it means!”
“I just call them yoo-hoos,” Richard replied sullenly. “That’s just my name for them.”
“Go on.”
“I’ll get her for this.”
“Go on, Richard. Please.”
“Okay. Goddammit. Here’s the way it is: Not all the people on the bus are human people.”
Howard blinked. “What are they then?”
“Yoo-hoos.”
“And what is a yoo-hoo?”
“One of the people on the bus who isn’t human.”
“That isn’t much help, Richard.”
“I don’t know what else to tell you.”
“Well … where do they come from?”
“From the same place the rest of us come from.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean they’re natives. They belong here just the way we do.”
“How can you tell that?”
“From the way they act.”
“How do they act?”
“Just like everybody else.”
“What do they look like?”
Richard eyed him with disgust. “What do you think I’m going to say? That they’re pink with little green antennae growing out of their heads?”
“No, I’m just trying to find out how to recognize them.”
“You can’t recognize them. I can. They look just like everybody else. Sometimes they dress a little different, but you wouldn’t notice that unless you know who they are.”
“Okay. And how do you recognize them?”
“Different ping. Different resonance entirely. It’s very obvious, really, like the difference between crystal and mud.”
“They have a resonance like mud?”
“It’s like mud to me—thick, heavy. Impenetrable.”
“How many of them are there?”
“I have no idea.”
“Well, how many have you seen?”
“You mean in my whole life? I don’t know. Maybe a thousand. I’ve never kept track.”
Howard thought for a moment. “You said you see them on buses. Only on buses?”
“On buses, on the street, in cars. You never see them in museums or book shops or movie theaters. You never see them at football games or concerts or plays. At least I haven’t. I’ve seen them at restaurants a few times. They’re usually on the move.”
“Where are they going?”
“Where they go. To the next nexus. To the next hot spot.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Well, look. A year ago people from all over the world—I mean human people—were converging on Barcelona. Maybe the yoo-hoos wondered why.”
“Why were people converging on Barcelona?”
“For the 1992 summer Olympics, of course.”
“Ah.” Howard nodded sluggishly, feeling lost. “And what are you saying about the yoo-hoos?”
“That they converge too. When something’s going on in their circle.”
“Something such as what?”
“Such as I don’t know what. Something as relevant to them as the Olympics are to us.”
“I see. And you know where they’re converging?”
“I usually have a pretty good idea. If I’m paying attention.”
“How can you tell?”
“It’s hard to explain. Have you ever had the experience of learning a new word and then seeing it in the next thing you read?”
“I don’t recall.”
“It’s called synchronicity. Once when I was little I went to a movie with my folks and someone in it used the word pedantic. I asked what it meant and they told me. And the next day I read it in a book. I’m sure I’d never seen it before. That’s happened to me lots of times. Denise says it’s a common experience.”
“So?”
“So this is a little like that. It isn’t really, but it’s a little like it. I’ll be sitting there doing my homework or something and I’ll think, ‘Oh, it’s southern Missouri this time. Something’s happening in southern Missouri.’ Then when I look back, I see there were a lot of little signs. Somebody talking in an accent I’d never heard before. A story in the newspaper. Something written on a wall in the subway. A matchbook cover left on a lunch counter. A song on the radio.”
“And you mean these things are about southern Missouri? The matchbook cover? The song on the radio?”
Richard squirmed uncomfortably in his chair. “No, not really. None of them may have anything to do with southern Missouri. But they add up to southern Missouri.” He shrugged. “It’s hard to explain.”
“I believe it. Why do you call them yoo-hoos, by the way?”
“Oh.” He looked away, embarrassed. “I don’t remember why I started calling them that. Denise says it’s reverse magic: they’re the people you don’t say ‘yoo-hoo’ to.”
“You’ve never talked to them?”
“God, no.”
“Why not?”
“I just wouldn’t care to.”
“Do they seem dangerous?”
“Not exactly. The ping says, ‘Keep off.’ ”
“I see. And what do other people do—the stones? Do the stones keep off?”
“Generally, but not always. The yoo-hoos seem to like talking to the stones. Sometimes. When they want to.”
“But they don’t talk to you.”
“No, we ignore each other completely.”
“I see.… And what does Denise call the yoo-hoos?”
“She calls them yoo-hoos.”
“She sees them herself?”
“Everyone sees them, Howard. They’re not invisible.”
“I mean, can she pick them out?”
“No.”
“What does she think they are?”
The question seemed to bewilder him. “I don’t know.”
“What do you think they are?”
Richard stared at him as if the question were in a foreign language. “What do you think water buffalo are, Howard? What do you think palm trees are?”
“I don’t understand your question.”
“I don’t understand yours either.”
“Let me ask it another way. Do you think the yoo-hoos are demons?”
Richard’s eyebrows shot up toward his hairline. “Good God. And what are demons, exactly?”
“Well, I don’t know.”
“Neither do I.”
Howard sank back in his chair, suddenly overwhelmed by an illumination so powerful that it had come to him almost as a physical blow. He looked at the boy and groaned, though he didn’t hear himself doing it. His eyes closed and he listened, appalled, to the questions he’d been asking for the past half hour. He knew then that the revelation was no deception: money is a mind-killing drug as surely as alcohol or hero
in. Like those drugs, it does worse: it rots character, it undermines all integrity. For half an hour Howard Scheim had been gravely—even aggressively—interrogating someone about yoo-hoos. Because, in order to fulfill a senile fantasy, an old fool in Evanston was drooling money.
He had never before tasted the nauseating bile of self-loathing, and he wondered now if he’d ever be able to get it out of his mouth.
He gradually became aware that Richard was squeaking and hopping around in front of him like a puppet on strings. He looked up and asked him what was wrong.
“My God! You scared me to death! Are you all right? I thought you were having a heart attack. You went completely white!”
“I’m all right,” Howard said wearily. “It wasn’t a heart attack, it was an integrity attack. It’s okay.”
“Look, I’m sorry if I came on like a smart-ass. Honest to God, I don’t know how to answer the questions you’re asking me.”
“Be at peace, Richard. It’s not your fault, not at all your fault. The questions were stupid questions.”
“Well, I don’t know about that,” the boy protested gallantly and added, “Can I get you something?”
“No, I’m really all right.”
“I was ready to start giving you CPR.”
Howard smiled weakly.
“Look, I’ll keep my eyes open, okay? You want me to do that?”
“You mean to find the yoo-hoos’ next nexus?” He had the feeling that, at this point, it would take more energy to call the boy off than to let him go ahead. “Sure,” he said. “That’ll be fine, Richard.”
CHAPTER 7
Dear Aaron:
I’m enclosing a check for $19,648, which represents the balance of the $20,000 you advanced to me a few days ago, after expenses (see receipts attached) and a fee based on two days of work on the matter we discussed (see invoice attached).
Ordinarily I would include a detailed account of my activities on your behalf (and I will provide one if you wish), but I’m hoping you’ll take my word for it that these activities simply demonstrated the complete futility of pursuing this investigation.
I know you must be asking yourself how two days of work could possibly be adequate to
Howard ripped the letter in two, wadded the pieces into a ball, and threw it across the room.