بخش 03 - فصل 28

28

The word to turn on the lights is control, but although he speaks it three times, the basement remains in darkness. Brady realizes the voicerecognition program isn’t working because he doesn’t sound like himself, and is it any wonder? Any fucking wonder at all? He uses the switch instead and goes down, first shutting

the door–and the beastly sounds coming from the living room–behind him. He doesn’t even try to voice-ac his bank of computers, just turns on his Number Three with the button behind the monitor. The countdown to Total Erasure appears and he stops it by typing in his password. But he doesn’t seek out poison antidotes; it’s far

too late for that, and now that he’s sitting here in his safe place, he allows himself to know it. He also knows how this happened. She was good yesterday, staying sober long enough to make a nice supper for them, so she rewarded herself today. Got schnockered, then decided she’d better eat a little something to soak up the

booze before her honeyboy got home. Didn’t find anything in the pantry or the refrigerator that tickled her fancy. Oh but say, what about the minifridge in the garage? Soft drinks wouldn’t interest her, but perhaps there were snacks. Only what she found was even better, a Baggie filled with nice fresh hamburger.

It makes Brady think of an old saying–whatever can go wrong, will go wrong. Is that the Peter Principle? He goes online to find out. After some investigation he discovers it’s not the Peter Principle but Murphy’s Law. Named after a man named Edward Murphy. The guy made aircraft parts. Who knew?

He surfs a few other sites– actually quite a few–and plays a few hands of solitaire. When there’s a particularly loud thump from upstairs, he decides to listen to a few tunes on his iPod. Something cheery. The Staple Singers, maybe. And as “Respect Yourself” plays in the middle of his head, he goes on Debbie’s Blue

Umbrella to see if there’s a message from the fat ex-cop.