“Why don’t you just show us what’s in the bag,” I said.
Trevor slipped a laptop from inside it, opened it up, where the screen was already up and running.
“Wireless Internet connection,” he said, “so I can do this sort of thing from anyplace.”
“Amazing,” I said. “Do what?”
“You see this? This is a map of this quadrant of the city.”
Lawrence and I looked. He was right. There was Crandall and a five-block radius around it. And what looked to be a moving dot that was pulsing.
I pointed to it. “What’s that?”
“That’s Morpheus.”
“Morpheus?”
“My dog. His name’s Morpheus. It looks like he’s moving back this way.” The dot appeared to be traveling from one side of the street to the other. “He’s probably on the trail of a squirrel. Or looking for a place to take a whiz.”
“I don’t get it,” I said. “How can you do this?”
Trevor gave me a no-big-deal shrug. “There’s a tiny transmitter on his collar, and that sends the message to the satellite, and it shows up on here.” Looking at Lawrence, he said, “I’m sure you must have equipment like this for the kind of work you do.” Saying it like he knew Lawrence didn’t. Lawrence said nothing.
I still wasn’t buying it, until Trevor, looking up the street, jumped up and shouted, “Morpheus! Here, boy!”
And a black knee-high, scruffy-looking thing that was one part bulldog and at least five parts of something else came hurtling down the sidewalk, up our short drive, and threw itself at Trevor and into his arms.
“Hey, Morpheus, I was watching you all the time.” He wrapped his arms around the dog’s neck and nuzzled his face into the mutt’s, unconcerned about the slobber that was dripping onto his coat. He pointed to a quarter-size disc-like item clipped to the dog’s collar.
“That’s it there,” he said.
“How do you get this kind of stuff?” I asked.
Trevor stood up. “My dad. He’s in software. He’s rich. He puts stuff in the mail for me to play with.”
“You don’t live with your parents anymore?” I asked.
Trevor smiled. “My parents and I reached the conclusion that I was better off on my own.”
“Trevor, why don’t you cut the shit,” Lawrence said. “You’re not here looking for your dog.”
He cocked his head slightly to one side. “That’s quite true. I was hoping to run into Angie. I thought she might be interested in all this, and that she might like my dog, too.”
“Angie’s not here,” I said, although I could not be certain of that. I’d run in and out of the house pretty quickly, and if she was home, and knew Trevor was outside, she was probably hiding someplace in the basement.
“Well then, I’ll just give her a call later.” He slipped the sunglasses back over his eyes, slid the laptop back into the backpack and slung it over his shoulder, and said, “Come on, Morpheus, let’s go.”
Neither Lawrence nor I said anything as he and Morpheus headed up Crandall, the dog walking obediently at his master’s side. He was almost to the corner when he stopped and got into an old black Chevy, Morpheus hopping into the backseat. He started the car, turned around in a driveway, and headed back down the street past us. The car was rusted, without hubcaps, and rumbled as it drove by. Trevor didn’t glance our way.
Lawrence walked out into the street, studied the car as it trailed away, then walked back up the drive.
“I am definitely running a check on that kid,” Lawrence said. “Whether you want me to or not.”
I’d just had my first face-to-face encounter with Trevor, and I could honestly say I was not nuts about him. “I won’t try to stop you,” I said.
Lawrence got back into his car. “I’ll give you a call later, set things up for tonight at Brentwood’s. I’ve already talked to the cops. The moment we see anything, if we see anything, I call them. No chases tonight.”
“Good.”
He gave me a little salute, backed out of the drive, and sped off.
About the same time, Paul appeared, walking up the street from the south, no sunglasses, no trenchcoat, a pretty normal looking kid. He had his own backpack slung over his shoulder and was returning from his day at high school.
“Hey,” he said to me, and then his eyes landed on the Virtue. He stopped dead in his tracks and stared at it. There was no way I was going to let him drive it, not when he didn’t have his license yet. I prepared myself for an onslaught of argument.
Instead, he said, “Tell me this isn’t our car.”
I cocked my head. “Yeah, it is. I got it at the auction today. It’s a great car. Is there a problem?”
“I hope you’re not expecting me to drive that when I get my license. It’s one of those enviro-friendly cars. I’m surprised you were able to get it up the driveway. There’s nothing under the hood but gerbils.”
“It’s got a sunroof,” I said, but he was already walking past me into the house, snorting and shaking his head in disgust.
It’s a terrible burden, being the only one who wants to save the planet.