Blackwater Sound by James W. Hall

Braswell, trying to confirm a few items of interest. Nothing like that.”
    Charlie leaned forward and laid a hand on Peretti’s.
    â€œ Tranquilo , Arnold.”
    Arnold jerked his hand away.
    Lawton was staring down at the device. There was a blue button and a green one beside it. On one side of the contraption there was a small cone like a megaphone, or the speaker on an old Victrola, andbehind the cone a bird’s nest of wires, and those tubes connected to the circuit boards.
    Lawton remembered what it reminded him of. The microwave oven he’d taken apart, trying to repair. There on his workbench in the garage, all those circuit boards and wires and transistors. He had no idea what any of it was. Never even got the thing put back together.
    Lawton snuck his right hand into the box and pressed the blue button but nothing happened.
    Beside him Arnold was staring out the window muttering to himself. Lawton tried pressing the green button and still nothing.
    â€œLook,” Brandy said. “I don’t know why you’re getting worked up. Julie’s a professional. They do big stories all the time without leaking anything.”
    She pouted at Arnold. Then turned the pout on Charlie.
    Lawton could feel the box humming on his lap. It hadn’t been humming before. So at least he’d gotten it started. Revving a little. Maybe what he should do now, he should press both buttons at once.
    â€œHow about my name?” Arnold said. “You happen to let that slip?”
    Brandy pressed her lips together, fluttering her lashes. It was probably how she’d gotten out of trouble in the past. But it wasn’t working with Arnold.
    â€œYou did, didn’t you? You told them my fucking name.”
    Brandy gave a guilty nod.
    â€œJesus God,” Arnold said. “You fucking idiots.”
    Lawton slid his hand inside the box and pressed both buttons at once. The hum deepened. It sounded like a tuning fork held close to the ear. Lawton could feel his knee joints buzzing.
    Across the room the television made a pop and went black.
    At the bar, the two men with cell phones jerked them away from their ears. One man tapped his phone against his palm, then pressed it against his ear again. He shrugged and set the thing on the bar. The bartender was fiddling with the remote, trying to get the TV onagain. The Christmas lights twinkling along the top shelf of liquor bottles had gone out.
    Arnold grabbed Lawton’s wrist and pulled his hand out of the box.
    â€œAw, shit, Lawton, what’d you do?”
    â€œNothing.”
    Arnold looked across the room at the dead television.
    Then he snatched the blueprint off the table and slid it into the envelope. He prodded Lawton with his knee and the old man slid out of the booth, and Arnold got out after him.
    â€œWait a minute,” the kid said. “Let’s talk about this like adults. Nothing’s changed. Not really.”
    â€œThe fuck it hasn’t.”
    Brandy was looking at the blank television.
    â€œThat’s what it does? It turns off televisions?”
    Arnold stood there a moment staring at the two of them.
    â€œPeretti, you’re overreacting, man.”
    Arnold headed for the door. Lawton padded behind him, lugging the box.
    Outside in the daylight, Arnold halted and took the box out of Lawton’s hands. Overhead a jetliner was roaring into a thin spray of clouds, lifting off, heading east out toward the Atlantic.
    Lawton said, “So what is this thing, some kind of ray gun?”
    Arnold looked at him for a second or two.
    â€œYeah, I guess that’s what it is. Yeah, a ray gun.”
    â€œWhat’s the range on this baby?”
    â€œNow that’s the question, isn’t it? That’s the million-dollar question.”
    Lawton glanced up at the rumbling sky, then back at his friend.
    â€œAll right,” Arnold said. “Come on, old buddy. I need to get you home.”
    â€œYou said we were