Dead Water Zone - Kenneth Oppel [11]
“I’m sure you can,” Paul said quickly; he didn’t want any raised hackles.
“You don’t believe me?”
“I do. Really.” He didn’t want a scene.
“I can get anything I want out of this town. I’ll get your computer. I’m going to further your education, Paul. You can do a project on it when you get back to school—something on bristol board maybe. But it might take a day or two.”
Paul couldn’t help smiling. “Um, all right.”
But Monica was shaking her head angrily. “Forget it, Armitage. It’s time for him to go.”
“What are you talking about?” asked Armitage.
“I’ve got a bad feeling about this. There was an unmarked helicopter out there. He said it spooked him yesterday as he was coming here. And there it was again when we were leaving the boathouse. Am I the only person who sees a connection? For all we know, this brother of his could be wanted by the cops.”
“He’s not—” Paul began to protest.
“They got a good look at me, Armitage, and I don’t like that. You shouldn’t either. If they trace him here, we go down.”
“Paranoid,” her brother said dismissively.
“What the hell’s wrong with you?” she demanded.
“They were probably just standard pass-overs.”
“You’re getting careless.”
“I’m not getting careless. I know exactly what I’m doing! I’m staying real sharp. All you have to do is go through people’s pockets, okay? The rest is for me to worry about!”
“What about your rule? No strangers on the pier.”
“You brought him, Monica.”
“For one night. I felt sorry for him, okay? And now I’m getting edgy.”
Paul could only watch, mortified. He’d grown up with tense silences, unspoken words, dark looks at the dinner table. People weren’t supposed to fight like this, especially not in public. People were supposed to keep it in.
“You’re talking crap!” Armitage said. “I haven’t screwed up yet. I’m holding things together for us—better than Mom ever did.”
“Shut up, Armitage!”
“Mom’s not here anymore! Good thing, too, ’cause she was useless!”
“She taught you,” Monica said coldly. “Stealing—and lots of other things, too.”
“Yeah, she did. And then she let it all fall apart!”
Monica seemed to lose all her fire. She shrugged indifferently. “So you want me to stick around here all day, that it?”
“I wanted you to have a look at the cabin cruiser, anyway,” said Armitage. “The engine’s been acting up, and you know it better than anyone else. Work some magic with it, okay?”
It was a kind of peace offering, but Monica didn’t seem particularly pleased. “Fine, but I’m not going to babysit the boy genius.”
“I don’t need a babysitter,” Paul said quietly.
Monica shook her head wearily. “You sure as hell do. I’m just sorry we don’t have any board games.”
* * *
“Have you finished?” Paul asked.
“Not yet.”
Board games were a passion with Sam. The most complicated ones, war games, with rule books as thick as school texts, boards that folded out over half the living room floor, and hundreds of tiny cardboard counters with symbols and numbers in every corner.
“You said you wouldn’t take so long this time.”
“I’m almost done.”
Paul rolled his eyes. Sam seemed to spend an eternity analyzing every possibility. Paul didn’t have the patience for games that dragged on all afternoon and sometimes longer. He couldn’t take it all that seriously. Besides, he always got decimated.
“Ready,” Sam proclaimed.
“Let’s hear it, General,” said Paul sarcastically.
Sam read out his orders, expertly annihilating Paul’s best tanks and artillery. Paul shook his head, dazed. Sam always seemed to be three or four moves ahead of him. Paul didn’t stand a chance. He reluctantly read out his orders and actually fired mistakenly on his own troops.
“This is boring,” he said.
“It’s just getting good,” Sam said distractedly, already studying the board for his next set of victorious moves.
“Boring,” Paul said again.
“You’re not concentrating,” Sam scolded him. “Honestly, Paul, you have to think it through.”
“Let’s go outside.”
Sam sighed. “You’re just angry because you’re losing.”
“I’m not