“Yes, sir. Thomas is the name.”
We shook hands, and he said, “May I call you Tom?”
“That’s as good as anything, sir.”
“Please call me Kipp.”
“Yes, sir.”
He would never need a knife to spread a pat of butter on his toast. That smile would quickly melt it.
“Have you had dinner?” he asked.
“Yes, sir. Back in Barstow.”
“We ran into Chandelle and Gideon outside the restaurant,” Mrs. Fischer told him.
Our host said, “That was an amazing thing they did last December in Pennsylvania.”
“Wasn’t it, dear? And for ever so long, poor Pennsylvania has needed something amazing to happen there.”
“We might be outnumbered, Edie, but we’re going to win this thing.”
“I’ve never doubted it,” Mrs. Fischer said.
“What thing?” I asked.
“The whole amazing thing!” Kipp declared with childlike delight. “Anyway, we were just about to have dinner when you showed up, but I hear you’re in a hurry.”
Mrs. Fischer said, “We’re in a terrible hurry, Kipp. Could you put dinner in stasis and help us first?”
“That’s exactly what we’ve done, we’ve put it in stasis.”
I knew what the word stasis meant: the state of equilibrium or inactivity caused by opposing equal forces. I suspected that Kipp didn’t simply mean that they had stowed dinner in a warming drawer.
Something huge and black burst into the foyer, and I let out a squeal of alarm that was no doubt identical to the sound that Little Miss Muffet made when a spider sat down beside her on that stupid tuffet.
Twenty-two
THE CREATURE SURPRISED ME, COMING FROM MY RIGHT side, but when I reeled back, I realized this was none other than Big Dog, because he was a really big dog, a black Great Dane with soulful brown eyes. He was the most humongous specimen of his breed that I’d ever seen, his head so large that you might have been able to do a handstand on it if you could have trained him for a circus act. His ears hadn’t been cropped when he was a puppy, which is a common practice among breeders; therefore, they didn’t stand up but folded forward as if they were the flaps on two velvet purses.
Kipp said, “Don’t be afraid, Tom. Big Dog is as gentle as a lamb—unless you mean to harm anyone in this house, which you don’t.”
“I definitely don’t, sir.”
“Just call him Big or Biggy, and let him smell you.”
I said, “Hey there, Biggy. Big Biggy. Good dog.”
The Dane snuffled at my jeans and sweater with such enthusiasm that I half thought he might vacuum them off my body.
Mrs. Fischer cooed to the dog: “Sweet Biggy Wiggy, him such a pretty, pretty boy.”
Suddenly done with me, whimpering with extreme doggy pleasure, Biggy collapsed at Mrs. Fischer’s feet. He rolled onto his back and bared his belly, tail swishing and thumping on the polished-mahogany floor in recognition of his old friend.
Mrs. Fischer knelt to rub the dog’s tummy, and Kipp said, “What do you need, Edie? Birth certificates, driver’s licenses, passports, somebody’s computer system hacked? Oh, and we’ve just got some of those insect spy drones the government doesn’t want the public to know about, complete with control stations.”
Biggy’s mouth had fallen open, revealing two curved archipelagos of white teeth in a sea of black gums. In his throat he made a deep purring sound, as though he had swallowed a house cat whole.
As always, Mrs. Fischer knew what she wanted. “Kipp, dear, we need one bulletproof vest for Tom. Then a police gun belt hung with four spare magazine pouches, two Mace holders, one snap pouch to hold a Talkabout, one stretch sheath with a little flashlight, no swivel holster. We need a double shoulder rig so the child can carry a pistol under each arm. We’ll need two Talkabouts, one for the gun belt, one for me. We don’t want Mace for the Mace holders, but two ten-shot units of pressure-stream sedative. For the pistols, we’ll need whatever you can match with sound suppressors. This job falls apart as soon as anyone hears a gunshot. Can you do all that?”
“What do you think?”
Getting up from the Great Dane, she said, “I think you can. Oh, and plenty of copper-jacketed hollow-point ammunition.”
Kipp grinned at me, clapped me on the shoulder, and said, “Tom, you must be planning a trip straight to Hell City.”
“I’m hoping it’s just a suburb, sir.”
“Come along. I want you to meet Mazie and the family. Then we’ll outfit you pronto.”
The sprawling house was furnished differently from what I had imagined and was much warmer and more welcoming than I expected. Intricate and beautifully worn Persian carpets on the hardwood floors. Antique Japanese cabinets. Pictorial Japanese screens on the walls. Shanghai Art Deco chairs and sofas upholstered in rich silks. Stained-glass and amber blown-glass lamps. And scattered here and there, large plush squeaky toys for a ginormous dog.