Lost Boys Part 10

But Step flung open the back door, gave both of the kids big loud smacks, then closed the door and ran for the plane. They were just closing the door when he got there, but they let him on. Compressed into his seat with his knees around his chin, he allowed himself to daydream a little about what might happen in San Francisco. All he needed to do was sell the rights to Hacker Snack to somebody who would pay him enough of an advance against earnings that he could afford to quit. He wasn't sure whether this was the kind of thing he ought to pray about, especially because his mood was so angry and vindictive, but he still had to say it, silently: G.o.d, make this go, please. Make this work. Set me free. Send me home.

Although Step had lived in the Bay area during much of his childhood, he had never been inside the Cow Palace before. Now, entering it for the first time, Step saw that it lived up to its name-a great barn of a building filled with rows of display booths like milking stalls. And every booth seemed to be making as much noise as possible. This was survival time, as well as strutting time-the computer business had been booming, but there were rumors that IBM's new PC was already threatening to take over the whole microcomputer market, driving developers of software and systems built to run with CP/M on the old Z80 chip to adapt or die, and everyone knew that IBM's half-secret Peanut project was going to blow out the home computers like the Commodore 64, just as surely as the 64 had swept away the Atari. So all that noise had a purpose-to grab reviewers and journalists and computer store buyers by the ears and drag them over to have a look at the new computer or the new joystick or the new game or the new word processor or the new computer dust cover that was going to revolutionize the world and make its developers as rich as Jobs and Wozniak. Or, failing that, at least as rich as Ray Keene.

And the people were there, in droves, eager to be dragged. It was hard getting through the aisles, and the noise of the computers had to be loud, to be heard over the monumental soughing of the crowd. Just when it seemed that human speech could not be made audible in this place, there came a voice, male but fairly high-pitched, with a harsh mid-western edge to it that threatened to shatter the bones of Step's inner ear: "What the h.e.l.l am I supposed to be impressed with about this?"

Step searched-against his will-for the source of this voice from h.e.l.l. It was a tall, lanky man whose red face attested to the potency of the free c.o.c.ktails in the SuperCalc suite. Step knew him at once-Neddy Cranes, a onetime Washington columnist who had occupied that broad range of the political spectrum between Benito Mussolini and Genghis Khan, and who now was best known for his long-winded, fascinating, and devastatingly influential monthly column in Code magazine.

"Mine," said d.i.c.ky immediately.

"No," said Ray Keene quietly.

Step watched how d.i.c.ky immediately stepped back to let Ray Keene go and face the tiger. But d.i.c.ky's outward compliance was not from the heart. Step could see how d.i.c.ky's jaw was clenched. How he held his pose of nonchalance a bit too long, with a bit too much effort. He hates Ray Keene, Step realized. And why shouldn't he? Ray undercuts him at every stage of his work. Ray undercuts everybody at every stage. But d.i.c.ky is determined to hang on. d.i.c.ky is determined to bear it, without showing Ray the slightest sign of resentment. But d.i.c.ky is also going to take it out on somebody.

Me.

Well, I won't be around when the ax falls, thought Step, unless of course the stupid, illegal attempt to steal Hacker Snack was the ax, in which case it's a dull blade indeed, since I never signed over the rights. No, the Hacker Snack project was almost certainly done with Ray's knowledge, so d.i.c.ky's nastiness toward me, when it comes, will take some other form. Some slyer, pettier form that will have no profit in it for anybody except for the nasty satisfaction it would give d.i.c.ky Northanger.

"You're not supposed to be impressed at all," Ray was saying to Neddy Cranes. "This is only something for the common people, not for computer experts with big expensive systems."

Ah, Ray was deft indeed, for Cranes could hardly let himself be painted as a computer elitist. His pose was that of the populist, looking out for the little guy. So the bandsaw voice came back again at top volume: "Don't tell me about common people! I can see you've got those little Commodore boxes here-paperweights, that's all they are, because you can't do a d.a.m.n thing with 'em! Stealing money from the little guy, that's what Commodore's doing, stealing money while Kmart drives the getaway car!"

"We're making sure that when people get this paperweight home, Mr. Cranes, they can run a full-fledged word processor on it, a word processor for which they paid no more than thirty bucks, and if they buy it direct from us, twenty bucks."

"What, is the manual an additional fee of fifty dollars?" demanded Cranes. "Or do people have to pay a hundred bucks to get the extra module that allows them to print things out?"

"It's all in the same package," said Ray. "Not a pretty package, of course. But that's part of why we can sell it cheap. Try it out."

Step watched in awe as Ray got Neddy Cranes to set his fingers on the keys of a Commodore in order to write something using Scribe 64.

"Come on, let's get out of here," said Gla.s.s.

"Don't you want to see what Cranes thinks of Scribe?" asked Step.

"Come on!"

Gla.s.s was really agitated. Clearly he had no desire to stick around for Neddy's verdict. "I'm hungry."

"I'm not," said Step, but he followed Gla.s.s away from the booth, and when Gla.s.s found a line of people waiting for a hot dog that looked like it had been made in the 1950s from the a hooves and noses of diseased warthogs, Step stood in it with him and got a hot dog with mustard and onions.

"If you put this mustard on your car it'd take three paint jobs to cover it up," said Gla.s.s.

"That's OK. The onions are the secret ingredient in Ex-Lax."

They ate every bit of the hot dogs.

"Did you check us into our room?" asked Gla.s.s.

"What?" asked Step.

"Our room," said Gla.s.s. "When I got here I had to come straight to the booth, so my bag is under the table."

"We're sharing a room?" asked Step, horrified.

"d.i.c.ky said he told you," said Gla.s.s. "Ray says Eight Bits Inc. isn't big enough to fly first cla.s.s or have private hotel rooms."

"Bet your little b.u.t.t he's got a private room."

"No, his wife's with him," said Gla.s.s. "Hey, I knew you'd hate sharing, so I made sure they a.s.signed you with me. See, I'm not addicted to cigarettes, so I won't smoke in the room with you."

"Thanks," said Step. But it wasn't just the issue of smoking-it was the fact that Step loathed the idea of having no privacy. Undressing and dressing in front of someone else was unthinkable. He had hated it in high school even before he was old enough to go through the temple, and now that he wore the underclothes that symbolized the covenants he had made there, Step never put himself in a position to arouse questions or ridicule toward something that he took so seriously. If he had i been warned that he was going to share a room, he would at least have brought pajamas, so he could change in the bathroom and leave Gla.s.s thinking that he was simply shy. As it was, Step had no idea what he was going to do. Pay for his own private room? Right -- with nothing left on the Visa, that was likely!

"Man, it really bothers you, doesn't it," said Gla.s.s.

"Yes," said Step. "Not rooming with you, just sharing a room at all. I mean, they didn't tell me, not a hint. I don't share hotel rooms. I can't believe a company as cheap as this."

"I'd rather have my thousand-dollar bonus than a private room, I'll tell you that," said Gla.s.s.

Step looked at him oddly. "A thousand dollars?"

"I wasn't supposed to tell," said Gla.s.s. "Oops."

"How often do you get this?" asked Step.

"At the first of the year," said Gla.s.s. "Please, don't tell anybody else. d.i.c.ky told me that people would quit if they realized how big a bonus I was getting."

"Gla.s.s, a thousand dollars is nothing," said Step. "A thousand dollars is like peeing in your hand."

Gla.s.s looked at him-his turn to be stunned.

"Do you know what my royalties on Hacker Snack were, at its peak, every six months?"

Gla.s.s shook his head.

"Forty thousand," said Step. "And Scribe 64 has sold far more than Hacker Snack ever did."

Gla.s.s muttered something that might have been a prayer, because it was addressed to G.o.d, but Step didn't think the tone was reverent enough for that.

"By the way," said Step, "I told you what my royalties were in strict confidence, too."

"Right, no talkee, no tellee, no catchee h.e.l.lee," said Gla.s.s.

Step hadn't heard that since the days when Reader's Digest still published ethnic humor. "Where'd you pick that up?"

"My dad," said Gla.s.s. "Whenever I'm not paying attention, I turn into my dad."

That hot dog turned out to be supper. Contrary to any reasonable expectations, Ray didn't allow his people to have a supper break from duty in the booth. He, of course, with d.i.c.ky in tow, went to a fancy restaurant dinner for several of Eight Bits Inc.'s distributors, but that was business, as Ray patiently explained to Step-the eating part of it was merely incidental. And there'd be plenty of time to have supper at the hotel coffee shop after the show closed down for the night.

By the time they were through at the booth they were both too tired to hang out at the coffee shop long enough for a meal, and besides, the meals were not charged to the room-Step would have to pay cash and then turn in his receipts back in Steuben for a reimburs.e.m.e.nt. It seemed like a churlish limitation, but he was getting a pretty good idea by now of how Ray Keene was able to live so high off the earnings of, really, one best-selling program. Gla.s.s didn't mind skipping supper, either. He had apparently cleaned all the salted nut rolls out of the candy machine at work, so he had plenty to eat in the room. Step decided that he didn't like salted nut rolls, and said so, and thus could not eat any without shaming himself. It was a way of keeping himself from gaining any more weight than he had to on this trip.

When Gla.s.s went into the bathroom, Step got on the phone and called home--collect, since Eight Bits Inc. had arranged for all the phones to be blocked against long-distance calls charged to the room. DeAnne sounded tired-it was well after midnight in North Carolina, but Step knew she wouldn't sleep, or at least wouldn't sleep well, until he called. "Sorry I didn't call before," he said. "They didn't exactly give me time."

"That's OK," she said. "I wanted to hear your voice tonight anyway. I miss you."

"I've only been gone twelve hours," he said. "I work longer days than that half the time."

"I know," she said. "Why d'you think I miss you?" Then she seemed to force herself to wake up a little more. "Talk to any other companies today?"

"They have me sharing a room with Gla.s.s here."

"Gla.s.s? Oh, the wizard kid."

"Actually, he's a combination knight and thief."

"What?"

"Nothing, he's just into Dungeons and Dragons and that's his character, a knight who's also a thief."

"Real Round Table material," she said.

"And he's-what was it?-chaotic but good."

"Ah, to be young again," she said. "Still, even if you can't talk out loud, you can answer my questions. Did you talk to any other companies about Hacker Snack?"

"Nope," he said.

"Too busy?"

"Yep," he said.

"What about tomorrow?"

"Same thing, probably."

"Oh no!"

"It'll happen somehow or other," he said. Though he was not at all sure he could bring it off. "How are things with the kids?"

"Fine," she said. "Call me tomorrow, OK? And I'm sorry you have to share a room. I know how you hate having a roommate."

"There's one exception," he said.

"Yes, but you hated having me for a roommate at first."

"Not after you finally stopped leaving shoes out in the middle of every room in the house."

"Now that you're away I've taken every pair I own and spread them all over, just to celebrate."

"Ah, the cat's away."

"This mouse does all her best playing when you're here," she said, in a cuddly voice that made him both h.o.r.n.y and resentful at the same time. If she could act s.e.xy after midnight when he was away, why couldn't she ever bring it off when he was home? He quelled the thought at once.

"How's the baby?" he asked.

"No kicks since that first one, but he sloshes a little now and then."

"Come on, you can't really feel that."

"Can so."

"So he's a swimmer?"

"I can wait awhile for the kicking, to tell the truth. Elizabeth nearly broke my ribs from the inside."

"Well, get your sleep now," he said.

"I know, it's long distance, but I miss you," she said.

"Love you, Fish Lady," said Step.

"Love you, Junk Man," said DeAnne.

"You hang up first," he said.

"No, you," she said.

When they were younger, just courting, that game could go on for a long time-a hundred and fifty dollars worth, in fact, the summer that she went to San Francisco to work while he was still getting his master's at the Y. Wiped out what little he had saved from the fellowship job, writing papers that went out under a full professor's name with not a single improvement from the old coot and not a speck of credit for Step, since he wasn't even ,a doctoral candidate yet. But even with no money, Step cadged twenty bucks from his folks and drove out and picked her up from the friend's house where she'd been staying in Orinda, and took her to meet his aunt and uncle in San Mateo, and then drove her home. It was on that drive home to Utah that he had proposed to her. And she had said thank you, let me think about it. Four and a half months of thinking-it was two days before New Year's when she said yes. A miracle they ever got married. But his mom was sure it was a marriage planned by G.o.d. "G.o.d never said he'd make life easy," Mom always said.

But they weren't kids anymore, and the game couldn't go on. He would have to hang up first, even though he knew that it hurt her feelings a little bit that he was always the one who could hang up first. I wouldn't be, he told her once, if you'd just hang up for once. But she couldn't do that either, apparently.

He hung up.

"Fish Lady?" asked Gla.s.s.

Step could not believe he would be rude enough to admit so openly that he had been listening.

"Oh," said Step, "was I talking that loud? I hoped I'd be quiet enough that you wouldn't be forced to hear what I was saying."

"Naw," said Gla.s.s, oblivious to the implied rebuke. So much for the Miss Manners method.

"Give me a salted nut roll," said Step.

"I thought you hated them," said Gla.s.s.

Oh, yes, thought Step. I'm not eating them. "Yeah, I didn't want to eat it, I wanted to break it into pieces and jam them into every aperture of your body."

"Kinky," said Gla.s.s.

"If you don't listen in to my phone calls, I won't listen in to yours."