بخش 03 - فصل 01

PART 3: PETER AND THE WOLF 1

It’s Saturday afternoon in the city, and Hodges is at the movies with Holly. They engage in a lively negotiation while looking at the showtimes in the lobby of the AMC City Center 7. His suggestion of The Purge: Anarchy is rejected as too scary. Holly enjoys scary movies, she says, but only on her computer, where she can pause the film and walk around for a few minutes to release the tension. Her counter-suggestion of The Fault in Our Stars is rejected by Hodges, who says it will be too sentimental. What he actually means is too emotional. A story about someone dying young will make him think of Janey Patterson, who left the world in an explosion meant to kill him. They settle on 22 Jump Street, a comedy with Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum. It’s pretty good. They laugh a lot and share a big tub of popcorn, but Hodges’s mind keeps returning to Tina’s story about the money that helped her parents through the bad years. Where in God’s name could Peter Saubers have gotten his hands on over twenty thousand dollars?

As the credits are rolling¸ Holly puts her hand over Hodges’s, and he is a little alarmed to see tears standing in her eyes. He asks her what’s wrong.

‘Nothing. It’s just nice to have someone to go to the movies with. I’m glad you’re my friend, Bill.’

Hodges is more than touched. ‘And I’m glad you’re mine. What are you going to do with the rest of your Saturday?’

‘Tonight I’m going to order in Chinese and binge on Orange Is the New Black,’ she says. ‘But this afternoon I’m going online to look at more robberies. I’ve already got quite a list.’

‘Do any of them look likely to you?’

She shakes her head. ‘I’m going to keep looking, but I think it’s something else, although I don’t have any idea what it could be. Do you think Tina’s brother will tell you?’

At first he doesn’t answer. They’re making their way up the aisle, and soon they’ll be away from this oasis of make-believe and back in the real world.

‘Bill? Earth to Bill?’

‘I certainly hope so,’ he says at last. ‘For his own sake. Because money from nowhere almost always spells trouble.’