Free Frankenstein by Dean Koontz Page B

people—”
    “Only one person,” Carson clarified.
    “—because you now have more to lose, so you do, than when you were single with no tyke in diapers.”
    After a silence, Carson said, “I suppose there could be a little truth in that.”
    “I suppose,” Michael agreed.
    “There’s not just a bit of a bit of truth in it,” Mary Margaret said, “it’s all truth, plain word for plain word, as sure as anything in Scripture.”
    Scout dropped her teddy bear and clutched at her father’s nose.
    Carson picked up the bear.
    Michael gently pried Scout’s thumb out of his nostril.
    “Do I have to say outright what conclusion this truth leads to?” Mary Margaret asked. “Then I will. If you’ve got so much to lose that a bit of risk makes you vomit all over people, then you don’t have the nerve for risk anymore. You’d best stick with simple divorce cases, bringing justice to wronged women.”
    “There’s not as much money in that kind of work,” said Carson.
    “But surely there’s more of it year by year.”
    “It’s not always the woman who’s wronged,” Michael said. “Men are sometimes the faithful ones.”
    Mary Margaret frowned. “And I would recommend we don’t take pride that we live in an age when such a thing is true.”
    As the nanny continued peeling and slicing apples, as Duke resumed his vigil in hope of charity or clumsiness, Carson asked about her brother: “Where’s Arnie?”
    “In the study,” said Mary Margaret, “doing what the name of the room implies. I’ve never seen a boy who took such pleasure in learning. It’s as admirable as it is unnatural.”
    Michael led the way from the kitchen to the study, carrying Scout, repeating, “Ga-ga-ga-ga-ga, ba-ba-ba-ba-ba,” to encourage the baby to babble again, but she only gazed at him with astonishment—blue eyes wide, mouth open—as if aghast that her father appeared to be a gibbering loon.
    “Don’t drop her,” Carson warned.
    “You’re becoming a fussbudget,” Michael said.
    “What did you call me?”
    “I didn’t call you anything. I just made an observation.”
    “If you weren’t carrying that baby, I’d make an observation.”
    To Scout, he said, “You are my little bulletproof vest.”
    Carson said, “I’d make an observation with my knee in your groin. Fussbudget, my ass.”
    “Your mother is a type A personality,” Michael told Scout. “Fortunately, the gene for that is not a dominant gene.”
    When they reached the study, they discovered that Arnie was no longer absorbed by his textbooks. He sat at a table, playing chess.
    His opponent, looming large over the game board, was Deucalion.

    
chapter
17

    Mr. Lyss was spooked. He looked as scared now as he looked angry earlier. His squinched face was still tight and knotted, but now you could see all the lines were worry lines.
    Nummy O’Bannon couldn’t sit on the lower bunk, it belonged to Mr. Lyss. So though embarrassed, he sat on the edge of the toilet that didn’t have a lid. He watched Mr. Lyss pace back and forth.
    Mr. Lyss had tried to talk to the people in the other two cells. None of them said a word.
    Then he shouted at them. He called them names like
numbnuts
, whatever that meant. They didn’t even glance at him.
    Finally he said he would cut off parts of them and then feed the parts to pigs. There weren’t pigs in the jail, but the threat was very convincing. Nummy believed it and shuddered. Mr. Lyss cursed the quiet people and insulted them. He spat at them. He shrieked at them while dancing in place in a most excitable way, like an angry troll in one of those fairy tales Grandmama sometimes read to Nummy.
    Mr. Lyss was not used to being ignored. He didn’t take it very well.
    After he calmed down, Mr. Lyss had stood at the bars between this cell and the next, watching the quiet people over there. From time to time, he shared facts he noticed with Nummy.
    “They’re all in pajamas or underwear, bathrobes. They must’ve