“I didn’t do that.”
“Yeah, well, you did the rest, and that’s enough.”
Connor thinks about Lev waiting for him back at the field of junk and begins to feel sick.
“I followed your career, man, until they said you died—but I never believed it, not for a minute. A guy like you don’t get taken down so easy.”
“It wasn’t a career,” Connor says, disgusted by this guy’s particular brand of hero worship, but it’s as if he doesn’t hear Connor.
“You tore up the world. I could do that too, y’know? Just need the opportunity. And maybe a partner in crime who knows what he’s doing. Knows how to mess with the powers that be. You know where I’m going with this, right? Sure you do—you’re too smart not to know. I always knew if we’d met, we’d be friends. We’d click—kindred spirits and all that.” Then he laughs. “The Akron AWOL in my storm cellar. Can’t be an accident. It was fated, man! Fated!”
“You kicked me in the nuts. That wasn’t fate; it was your foot.”
“Yeah, sorry about that. But, see, I had to do something or you’d just leave. It hurts, I know, but there’s no real damage. I hope you won’t take it the wrong way.”
Connor laughs bitterly at that. He can’t help himself. He wonders if anyone saw the attack happen. If someone did, they didn’t care, or at least they didn’t care enough to stop it.
“Friends don’t tie friends up in a cellar,” Connor points out.
“Yeah, sorry about that, too.” But he makes no move to untie him. “Here’s the quandary. You know what a quandary is, right? Sure you do. See, if I untie you, you’ll probably bolt. So I have to convince you I’m the real deal. A decent guy in spite of knocking you out and tying you up. I gotta make you see that a friend like me is hard to find in this screwed-up world and that this is the place where you want to be. You don’t gotta run anymore. See, nobody looks for nobody in Heartsdale.”
His captor stands and paces, gesturing with his hands. His eyes get wide as he talks as if he’s telling a campfire story. He’s not even looking at Connor anymore as he weaves his little fantasy. Connor just lets him talk, figuring in his verbal diarrhea, he might expel some piece of information that Connor can use.
“I got it all figured out,” he continues. “We’ll dye your hair as dark as mine. I know a guy who’ll do pigment injections in your eyes on the cheap so they’ll look the same hazel as mine—although I can see one of your eyes is slightly different from the other, but we can get them to match, right? Then we’ll tell folks you’re my cousin from Wichita, on account of everyone knows I got family in Wichita. With my help, you’ll disappear so good, no one’ll know you’re not dead.”
The thought of being made to look like this guy in any way is almost as unpleasant as a kick to the groin. And disappearing in Heartsdale? That’s the stuff of nightmares. Yet in spite of everything, Connor dredges up the warmest smile he can muster.
“You say you want to be friends, but I don’t even know your name.”
He looks offended. “It was on my name tag at the market. Don’t you remember?”
“I didn’t notice.”
“Not too observant, are you? A guy in your situation should learn to be more observant.” And then he adds, “Not your situation here. I mean your situation out there.”
Connor waits until his captor finally says, “Argent. Like Sergeant without the S. It means money in French. Argent Skinner at your service.”
“Of the Wichita Skinners.”
Argent looks a bit shocked and increasingly suspicious. “You heard of us?”
Connor considers toying with him, but decides that Argent won’t look kindly upon it once he figures it out. “No—you said so before.”
“Oh, right.”
Now Argent just stares at him, grinning until the trapdoor swings open and someone else clambers down the steps. The woman looks somewhat like Argent, but a couple of years older, taller, and a little doughier—not fat, but a bit heavyset and unshapely. Dowdy—if a woman so young could be called dowdy. Her expression is a bit vaguer than Argent’s, if indeed that’s possible.
“Is that him? Can I see him? Is it really him?”
Suddenly Argent’s whole demeanor changes. “You shut your stupid hole!” he shouts. “You want the whole world to know who we got visitin’?”
“Sorry, Argie.” Her broad shoulders seem to fold at the reprimand.
Connor quickly sizes her up to be Argent’s older sister. Twenty-two or twenty-three, although she carries herself much younger. The slack expression on her face speaks of a dullness that isn’t her fault, although Argent clearly blames her for it.
“You want to keep us company, then go sit in the corner and be quiet.” Argent turns back to Connor. “Grace has got a problem using her indoor voice.”
“We’re not indoors,” Grace insists. “The shelter’s in the yard, and that’s outside the house.”