![]() “All right! All right!” the man who was pretending to be Arthur Denker called querulously. His current ambition was to become a private detective when he grew up. Slippers, he deduced from the soft wish-wish sound. He had been pressing the doorbell for exactly seventy-one seconds when he finally heard shuffling footsteps. He listened for another thirty seconds and when the house remained silent he leaned on the bell, watching the sweep second hand on his Timex as he did so. Todd himself was always up by seven-thirty at the latest, even during summer vacation. He looked at his Timex watch (one of the premiums he had gotten for selling personalized greeting cards) and saw that it was twelve past ten. He took his finger off the bell and cocked his head a little, listening for footsteps. ![]() He could barely hear its muted burring, somewhere far off inside the small house. The bottom one said NO SOLICITORS, NO PEDDLERS, NO SALESMEN. It was an adult thought, and he always mentally congratulated himself when he had one of those. German efficiency, Todd thought, and his smile widened a little. There was a doorbell on the right-hand doorframe, and below the bell were two small signs, each neatly screwed into the wood and covered with protective plastic so they wouldn’t yellow or waterspot. At the top was a heavy wooden door with no window inside of a latched screen door. ![]() He put it under his arm and mounted the steps. He pushed down the bike’s kickstand with the toe of one Nike running-shoe and then picked the folded newspaper off the bottom step. He was still smiling, and his smile was open and expectant and beautiful. Todd brushed his blonde hair out of his eyes and walked the Schwinn up the cement path to the steps. The hedge was well-watered and well-clipped. It was white with green shutters and green trim. The house was a small bungalow set discreetly back on its lot. Now he brought his bike to a halt in front of 963 Claremont Street and stepped off it. If he’d done any better-straight A’s, for example-his friends might have begun to think he was weird. Straight A’s and B’s all the way up the line. Upshaw had scratched: “Todd is an extremely apt pupil.” He was, too. Her favorite was his final fourth-grade card, on which Mrs. She had kept all of Todd’s old school report cards in a folder. His mom had majored in French in college and had met Todd’s father when he desperately needed a tutor. His dad was an architectural engineer who made forty thousand dollars a year. He looked like the sort of boy who might whistle while he worked, and he often did so. They were the kind that come with your name printed inside-JACK AND MARY BURKE, OR DON AND SALLY, OR THE MURCHISONS. He also looked like the kind of kid who might sell greeting cards for premiums, and he had done that, too. He looked like the kind of kid who might have a paper route, and as a matter of fact, he did-he delivered the Santo Donato Clarion. He was smiling a summer vacation smile as he pedaled through the sun and shade not too far from his own house. He looked like the total all-American kid as he pedaled his twenty-six-inch Schwinn with the apehanger handlebars up the residential suburban street, and that’s just what he was: Todd Bowden, thirteen years old, five-feet-eight and a healthy one hundred and forty pounds, hair the color of ripe corn, blue eyes, white even teeth, lightly tanned skin marred by not even the first shadow of adolescent acne.
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