“What has been happening, Marty?”
Fearful but still gracious, halting but sincere, Jimmy Stewart in a
Hitchcock film, “It’s complicated, Vic, it’s all . . . it’s screwy,
unbelievable, I half don’t believe it myself. It’d take an hour to tell
you, and I don’t have an hour, don’t have an hour, no sir, not now, I
sure don’t.
My kids, these kids, they’re in danger, Vic, and God help me if anything
happens to them. I wouldn’t want to live.”
He can see that his new manner is having the desired effect.
He hustles the kids the last few steps to the car, confident that the
neighbor isn’t going to stop them.
But Vic follows, splashing through a puddle. “Can’t you tell me
anything?”
Opening the back door of the Buick, ushering the girls inside, he turns
to Vic once more. “I’m ashamed to say this, but it’s me put them in
danger, me, their father, because of what I do for a living.”
Vic looks baffled. “You write books.”
“Vic, you know what an obsessive fan is?”
Vic’s eyes widen, then narrow as a gust of wind flings raindrops in his
face. “Like that woman and Michael J. Fox a few years ago.”
“That’s it, that’s right, like Michael J. Fox.” The girls are both in
the car. He slams the door. “Only it’s a guy bothering us, not some
crazy woman, and tonight he goes too far, breaks in the house, he’s
violent, I had to hurt him. Me. You imagine me having to hurt any
body, Vic? Now I’m afraid he’ll be back, and I’ve got to get the girls
away from here.”
“My God,” Vic says, totally suckered by the tale.
“Now that’s all I have time to tell you, Vic, more than I have time to
tell you, so you just . . . you just . . . you go back inside there
before you catch your death of pneumonia. I’ll call you in a few days,
I’ll tell you the rest.”
Vic hesitates. “If we can do anything to help–”
“Go on now, go on, I appreciate what you’ve done already, but the only
thing more you can do to help is get out of this rain.
Look at you, you’re drenched, for heaven’s sake. Go get out of this
rain, so I don’t have to worry about you comin’ down with pneumonia on
account of me.”
Joining Marty at the back of the BMW, where he had dropped the bags,
Paige put down the third suitcase and the Mossberg. When he unlocked
and raised the trunk lid, she saw the three boxes inside.
“What’re those?”
He said, “Stuff we might need.”
“Like what?”
“I’ll explain later.” He heaved the suitcases into the trunk.
When only two of the three would fit, she said, “The stuff I’ve packed
is all bare necessities. At least one box has to go.”
“No. I’ll put the smallest suitcase in the back seat, on the floor,
under Emily’s feet. Her feet don’t reach the floor anyway.”
Halfway to the house, Vic looks back toward the Buick.
Still playing Jimmy Stewart, “Go on, Vic, go on now. There’s Kathy on
the stoop, gonna catch her death, too, if you don’t get inside, the both
of you.”
He turns away, rounds the back of the Buick, and only looks at the house
again when he reaches the driver’s door.
Vic is on the stoop with Kathy, too far away now to prevent his escape,
with or without a gun.
He waves at the Delorios, and they wave back. He gets into the Buick,
behind the steering wheel, the oversize raincoat bunching up around him.
He pulls the door shut.
Across the street, in his own house, lights are aglow upstairs and down.
The imposter is in there with Paige. His beautiful Paige. He can’t do
anything about that, not yet, not without a gun.
When he turns to look into the back seat, he sees that Charlotte and
Emily have already buckled themselves into the safety harnesses.
They are good girls. And so cute in their yellow raincoats and matching
vinyl hats. Even in their picture, they are not this cute.