Rundown by Michael Cadnum Page A

exclamation points.”
    â€œMy God, what if Dr. Theobald wrote this poem and he’s going to recite it out loud.” She was wide-awake—I could almost hear the sheets slithering off her.
    It would be easy to think that Cass had picked Danny out of a catalog, a glossy sampler of handsome guys sure to make bucks. She met him at a Monday Night Football party in Palo Alto, the pony keg nearly empty. They had volunteered to go out for more Miller Lite, and they missed the second half, never came back with so much as a bag of pretzels. Danny believed in God, could read German, and had once owned a budgie named Fatty. He told me he’d teach me how to play five-card draw, and every time he saw me he asked how Marta was doing, was I still running.
    I was imagining demanding sexual practices, urgent appetites. “Danny’s used to having everything his way,” Cass said, not about to be bought off with a change of subjects.
    I sensed that I was trespassing, but tiptoed ahead. “Danny’s insistent,” I hazarded.
    Thinking about Danny calmed her, like he was a familiar bedtime story. “If I say I don’t want halibut, it has those bones that scratch your throat, he just laughs and has the fish man weigh out the biggest halibut on ice.”
    â€œDanny cooks?”
    â€œNo, he expects me to bone this creature the size of a hog, because he thinks food runs in the family.” The word family seemed to trigger associations. “Why is it,” she asked, “neither you nor I can sing?”
    It isn’t very dark in my bedroom at night. Headlights stroke the blank ceiling, and when you sense someone downstairs you can lie awake thinking it’s almost dawn, when it’s just one A.M. I wondered how much more of this I could stand, waiting for everyone to discover the truth.
    For a quiet house, this place makes a good deal of noise, gentle, rustling, whispering sounds, Dad home, Dad hungry. I was aching for sleep, thirsty for it. I lay there wide awake, thinking, Where would I go once they knew.
    I got up way before dawn and sweated six miles on the machine in the cellar. The last half mile I upped the speed so fast that I was nearly thrown off the machine backward, the belt whining. Dad had tacked an alpine scene on the wall. You ran toward a snowy slope, a meadow bursting with green, flowers like yellow stars.
    I bumped into Dad as he stood waiting his turn. He looked baggy eyed and worn. There was definite pudge around his middle inside his gray T-shirt. He says he puts on weight just holding his breath.
    He started the machine but didn’t get on it, the black belt humming along unoccupied. The machine burst into action at the speed I had previously set, and he looked at me with mock horror, leaning into the button until the machine was ticking along sedately, three miles an hour, nothing.
    â€œYour mother and I had a chance to talk last night,” he said, not getting on the machine yet. “She has a good idea.”
    â€œMom is full of ideas.”
    â€œBut this is one you’ll like,” he said, starting to run.

Chapter 19
    â€œI think it’s just awful the police won’t leave you alone,” called Mrs. Emmit over the hum of the van. “They should leave you in peace.”
    Marta’s dad swore at a truck that changed lanes too quickly. He cocked his head to yell into the back of the van, where Marta and I were swaying with the motion of the stop-and-go traffic. “You have to be a certain type of person to be a cop.”
    I felt a little defensive about my own two detectives, and offered, “They just try to do their job.”
    â€œNo, they don’t,” said Mr. Emmit, ready to launch into a story about an officer he had seen bullying a homeless person, or maybe a meter maid with a snippy attitude. Mrs. Emmit said something, a sharp whisper, and Mr. Emmit put his shoulders up, like a turtle. “You’re right,