“Uh, here,” I say, pushing an imaginary button in Balder’s back.
“Who’s your Caddy!” he says, bright and chirpy.
Arthur’s eyes grow to the size of quarters. He laughs, slapping his knees. “Who’s your Caddy! Now don’t that beat all!”
“Every Jeep’s cheap!” Balder chirps.
“Amazing,” Arthur says. That sharky mind of his is circling something.
“Oh yeah,” Gonzo adds. “You can get ’em programmed to say all kinds of things.”
“No kidding? Say, listen. I might be able to forget you’re not eighteen if you could leave me this guy. Somethin’ like ’is would bring in all sorts of customers. We could do commercials!”
“This one’s not quite right yet,” I say. “Few bugs in the system.”
Arthur’s face goes mean. “Well, that’s a gall-darn shame. You boys sure woulda looked fine in that Caddy.”
“You can get another! You can get another!” Balder says in his adopted parrot voice.
“Right! I can send you a brand-new one as soon as I get to Montana. To my dad’s workshop. My dead dad’s workshop. His workers are still there. Working. Then you can program it to say things in your voice.”
“Well now. That is a fine idea. Gen’lemen, you got yourselves a car.”
Ten minutes later, with the papers signed and the money in his yellowed fingers, Arthur shows us back out to the lot and the Caddy’s brought round. A secretary wiggles out of the front seat. She’s all in pink, like somebody who got stuck in a cotton-candy machine for a night.
“Here you go, now,” she says, dropping the keys in my hand. “Y’all be careful.”
Arthur takes hold of her arm. “Carol, hold on a minute. You have got to see this. These fellas have a toy—well, you just have to see it.”
He pushes on Balder, hard, in the stomach. I can see that our gnomy friend is pissed. He’s not going to talk. No way. But Arthur keeps pushing. “Come on, now. Say somethin’, dammit!”
“Yeah, see, the bugs—” I start to explain.
“He was talkin’ fine a minute ago. I’ll get the sumbitch working.”
Arthur picks him up and shakes so hard Balder’s whole face flushes bright red. I can see from the set of Arthur’s thin lips that he’s determined. He’s not letting our gnome down till he dances for Daddy. “Come on, now,” he says, giving Balder one last, hard shake. “Do somethin’ else, dangit!”
And that’s when Balder pees on him.
* * *
We pull the Caddy into the parking lot of a Toys Mahal and duck inside. I stand guard while Gonzo rips open a Life-Sized Surfer Sammy box, switching out Balder’s pee-wet pants for Sammy’s black, neoprene surfer leggings complete with dragon etchings up the side. Some kid is in for a bad birthday.
“We’re gonna get caught,” Gonzo says, looking around like a man hunted.
“Not if you stay cool,” I say.
“They’ll take us to jail. It’ll go down on our permanent records and we’ll never go to college. We’ll end up flipping burgers for the rest of our miserable, nonproductive lives.”
“I’m almost in,” Balder says. “There.” He looks great. Like a guru of the lawn. “Take the board, too.”
“That’s stealing,” Gonz argues.
“Who got you a Cadillac?”
“Give him the board,” I say.
Balder hops on it, bending his knees, fighting imaginary waves. “Wicked.”
“How did you get the idea to Star Fighter him?” Gonzo asks once we’re on the road and sharing a drive-thru meal together in the front seat. “What if he’d seen the movie?”
“It was a calculated risk,” Balder says. He’s camped out in the spacious back like the king he thinks he is.
“How did you even know about Star Fighter in the first place?” Gonzo asks.
“One of my kidnappers was a devotee of science fiction. He took me to those—what are they called? Fields of battle where people dress as Visigoths and androids and those marauding teddy bears who are strangely lethal?”
“Teddy Vamps,” Gonzo fills in. “Dude, you’ve been to all the cons! All right.”
“Indeed. I have been photographed with the one they worship as a god, Silas, son of Fenton,” he says, mentioning the name of the director revered by millions.
“Silas Fenton? You took a picture with Silas Fucking Fenton? Oh my God! Balder! You sly little kick-butt gnome. You are the man!”
