Free Devil's Plaything by Matt Richtel

What’s it to you? That was the first time I ever talked to him. The second time was in the alley. He said: “I need you to do me a favor.” I remember I looked at the back door, and I said: “Irving is just inside.” Did I tell you about Irving?
    PLEASE TELL ME ABOUT IRVING.
    Irving was my husband. Not at that time. But he became my husband. Then the man in the alley held out an envelope. It was white, and crisp. Just like you’d mail a letter in. It was sealed and it looked like it might be lumpy at the bottom. He said, “Can you hold on to this for me? I’ll come back for it. At some point, when it’s safe, I’ll come back for it.” I . . . May I pause for a second and say something unrelated to this story?
    DID YOU ASK ME A QUESTION?
    Yes. I asked if I could say something. What I want to say is that I appreciate your listening to me. But this is the part where I also wish I was talking to my grandson, or a human being. This part of the story is pretty dramatic, don’t you think?
    YOU HAVEN’T SAID ANYTHING FOR MORE THAN A MINUTE. WOULD YOU LIKE TO CONTINUE?
    The man handed me an envelope, and he said: “I’ll come back for this. Until I do, you absolutely cannot look inside. It’s not safe. Do you understand?” And I started to say something, and he gave me this look; it was brief, and so fierce. It felt like he was giving me a hug with his eyes. I shivered. I started to say something, and . . .
    ARE YOU STILL THERE?
    Hello, Lane.
    Harry. You brought tea? How nice of you.
    Lemon hibiscus. What are you doing?
    Nothing. Playing games, talking to this silly machine.
    What are you talking to it about?
    Nothing. History. The old days. Mythology.
    ARE YOU STILL THERE?

Chapter 11
    HUMAN MEMORY CRUSADE INTERNAL REPORT.
APRIL 30, 2010
    Subject: Lane Eliza Idle.
    Priority: One.
    Critical key word(s)/patterns recognized. Close monitoring advised. Do not yet terminate this subject.

Chapter 12
    I t is both endearing and tragic to be taunted by someone sucking periodically from an oxygen tank.
    â€œYour cell phone is older and less functional than my liver.”
    That is how I am greeted at Magnolia Manor’s recreation center. The taunter is Midnight Sammy, a retired professor of pop music and a softie at heart who is the most outwardly belligerent of Grandma’s inner circle. Midnight Sammy can express darkness whatever the hour.
    He’s bald, and so thin that the narrow black ties he wears most days look of relatively normal width. He moves his cataract-glazed stare from my Verizon phone to my battered backpack.
    â€œYou should try buying something made this century,” he says.
    â€œYou should get new hips,” I respond.
    It gets a giggle from Betty Lou, a towering woman whose son is the highest-ranking African American at the Federal Reserve Bank. Betty Lou has a gravelly voice I suspect came from chronic lung infections. The tenor lends to her regal demeanor, and so do the colorful necklaces she wears. Today’s is made up of clamshells and blue stones.
    â€œNathaniel, did you fall asleep here last night?” she asks me.
    â€œNo. Why?”
    â€œBecause that means you’re showing up two days in a row. And that’s miracle territory,” she says, and laughs. “Jesus lives.”
    â€œHallelujah,” Midnight Sammy says. “No resident here has had a consecutive-day visit since the earthquake of ’eighty-nine.”
    I lean in close to them. “We don’t come by more often because old people smell.”
    Sammy, Betty, and Harry Teelander—soft-spoken and observant, I always feel like he’s quietly studying me—belong to Grandma’s book club, the Bifocal Yokels. They haven’t actually read a book in more than a year, having gotten stuck on A Confederacy of Dunces . They spend time just hanging out, walking, chatting, enjoying one another’s company, and working