Hideaway

A clatter and rustle arose as the garbage bag was pulled out of the waste can.
    Already damp with perspiration, Redlow began to gush sweat as he listened to the kid return through the pitch-black house. He appeared in the living room again, partly silhouetted against the pale-gray rectangle of a window.
    “How can you see?” the detective asked, dismayed to hear a faint note of hysteria in his voice when he was struggling so hard to maintain control of himself. He was getting old. “What—are you wearing night-vision glasses or something, some military hardware? How in the hell would you get your hands on anything like that?”
    Ignoring him, the kid said, “There isn't much I want or need, just food and changes of clothes. The only money I get is when I make an addition to my collection, whatever she happens to be carrying. Sometimes it's not much, only a few dollars. This is really a help. It really is. This much should last me as long as it takes for me to get back to where I belong. Do you know where I belong, Mr. Redlow?”
    The detective did not answer. The kid had dropped down below the windows, out of sight. Redlow was squinting into the gloom, trying to detect movement and figure where he had gone.
    “You know where I belong, Mr. Redlow?” the kid repeated.
    Redlow heard a piece of furniture being shoved aside. Maybe an end table beside the sofa.
    “I belong in Hell,” the kid said. “I was there for a while. I want to go back. What kind of life have you led, Mr. Redlow? Do you think, when I go back to Hell, that maybe I'll see you over there?”
    “What're you doing?” Redlow asked.
    “Looking for an electrical outlet,” the kid said as he shoved aside another piece of furniture. “Ah, here we go.”
    “Electrical outlet?” Redlow asked agitatedly. “Why?”
    A frightening noise cut through the darkness: zzzzrrrrrrrrrr.
    “What was that?” Redlow demanded.
    “Just testing, sir.”
    “Testing what?”
    “You've got all sorts of pots and pans and gourmet utensils out there in the kitchen, sir. I guess you're really into cooking, are you?” The kid rose up again, appearing against the backdrop of the dim ash-gray glow in the window glass. “The cooking—was that an interest before the second divorce, or more recent?”
    “What were you testing?” Redlow asked again.
    The kid approached the chair.
    “There's more money,” Redlow said frantically. He was soaked in sweat now. It was running down him in rivulets. “In the master bedroom.” The kid loomed over him again, a mysterious and inhuman form. He seemed to be darker than anything around him, a black hole in the shape of a man, blacker than black. “In the c-closet. There's a w-w-wooden floor.” The detective's bladder was suddenly full. It had blown up like a balloon all in an instant. Bursting. “Take out the shoes and crap. Lift up the back f-f-floorboards.” He was going to piss himself. “There's a cash box. Thirty thousand dollars. Take it. Please. Take it and go.”
    “Thank you, sir, but I really don't need it. I've got enough, more than enough.”
    “Oh, Jesus, help me,” Redlow said, and he was despairingly aware that this was the first time he had spoken to God—or even thought of Him—in decades.
    “Let's talk about who you're really working for, sir.”
    “I told you—”
    “But I lied when I said I believed you.”
    Zzzzrrrrrrrrrrrr.
    “What is that?” Redlow asked.
    “Testing.”
    “Testing what, damn it?”
    “It works real nice.”
    “What, what is it, what've you got?”
    “An electric carving knife,” the kid said.

6
    Hatch and Lindsey drove home from dinner without getting on a freeway, taking their time, using the coast road from Newport Beach south, listening to K-Earth 101.1 FM, and singing along with golden oldies like “New Orleans,” “Whispering Bells,” and “California Dreamin'.” She couldn't remember when they had last harmonized with the radio, though in the old days they had done it all the time. When he'd been three, Jimmy had known all the words to “Pretty Woman.” When he was four he could sing “Fifty Ways to Leave Your Lover” without missing a line. For the first time in five years, she could think of Jimmy and still feel like singing.
    They lived in Laguna Niguel, south of Laguna Beach, on the eastern side of the coastal hills, without an ocean view but with the benefit of sea breezes that moderated summer heat and winter chill. Their neighborhood, like