flash. As I wobbled—my knees had gone loose, everything white—he caught me by the throat with a sharp upward thrust and forced me up on tiptoe so I was gasping for breath.
“Look here.” He was shouting in my face—his nose two inches from mine—but Popper was jumping and barking like crazy and the ringing in my ears had climbed to such a pitch it was like he was screaming at me though radio fuzz. “You’re going to call this guy—” rattling the paper in my face—“and say what I fucking tell you. Don’t make this any harder than it has to be because I will make you do this, Theo, no lie, I will break your arm, I will beat the everloving shit out of you if you don’t get on the phone right now. Okay? Okay?” he repeated in the dizzy, ear-buzzing silence. His cigarette breath was sour in my face. He let go my throat; he stepped back. “Do you hear me? Say something.”
I swiped an arm over my face. Tears were streaming down my cheeks but they were automatic, like tap water, no emotion attached to them.
My dad squeezed his eyes shut, then re-opened them; he shook his head. “Look,” he said, in a crisp voice, still breathing hard. “I’m sorry.” He didn’t sound sorry, I noted, in a clear hard remove of my mind; he sounded like he still wanted to beat the shit out of me. “But, I swear, Theo. Just trust me on this. You have to do this for me.”
Everything was blurred, and I reached up with both hands to straighten my glasses. My breaths were so loud that they were the noisiest things in the room.
My dad, hand on hips, turned his eyes to the ceiling. “Oh, come on,” he said. “Just stop it.”
I said nothing. We stood there for another long moment or two. Popper had stopped barking and was looking between us apprehensively like he was trying to figure out what was going on.
“It’s just… well you know?” Now he was all reasonable again. “I’m sorry, Theo, I swear I am, but I’m really in a bind here, we need this money right now, this minute, we really do.”
He was trying to meet my eyes: his gaze was frank, sensible. “Who is this guy?” I said, looking not at him but at the wall behind his head, my voice for whatever reason coming out scorched-sounding and strange.
“Your mother’s lawyer. How many times do I have to tell you?” He was massaging his knuckles like he’d hurt his hand hitting me. “See, the thing is, Theo—” another sigh—“I mean, I’m sorry, but, I swear, I wouldn’t be so upset if this wasn’t so important. Because I am really, really behind the eight ball here. This is just a temporary thing, you understand—just until the business gets off the ground. Because the whole thing could collapse, just like that—” snapped fingers—“unless I start getting some of these creditors paid off. And the rest of it—I will use to send you to a better school. Private school maybe. You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”
Already, carried away by his own rap, he was dialing the number. He handed me the telephone and—before anyone answered—dashed over and picked up the extension across the room.
“Hello,” I said, to the woman who answered the phone, “um, excuse me,” my voice scratchy and uneven, I still couldn’t quite believe what was happening. “May I speak to Mr., uh…”
My dad stabbed his finger at the paper: Bracegirdle.
“Mr., uh, Bracegirdle,” I said, aloud.
“And who may I say is calling?” Both my voice, and hers, were way too loud due to the fact that my dad was listening on the extension.
“Theodore Decker.”
“Oh, yes,” said the man’s voice when he came on the other end. “Hello! Theodore! How are you?”
“Fine.”
“You sound like you have a cold. Tell me. Do you have a bit of a cold?”
“Er, yes,” I said uncertainly. My dad, across the room, was mouthing the word Laryngitis.
“That’s a shame,” said the echoing voice—so loud that I had to hold the phone slightly away from my ear. “I never think of people catching colds in the sunshine, where you are. At any rate, I’m glad you phoned me—I didn’t have a good way to get in touch with you directly. I know things are probably still very hard. But I hope things are better than they were the last time I saw you.”
I was silent. I’d met this person?
“It was a