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He’s okay. They just took him down to the security office. Now, what happened?”
    Through diminishing tears, Charlie told him. Overhearing the soldier on the phone. Having a few random thoughts about him, a feeling that he was trying to trick the girl he was talking to. “And then, when I was coming back to you, I saw him … and before I could stop it … it happened. Itjust got away. I could have hurt him, Daddy. I could have hurt him bad. I set him on fire! ”
    â€œKeep your voice down,” he said. “I want you to listen to me, Charlie. I think this is the most encouraging thing that’s happened in some time.”
    â€œY-you do?” She looked at him in frank surprise.
    â€œYou say it got away from you,” Andy said, forcing the words. “And it did. But not like before. It only got away a little bit. What happened was dangerous, honey, but … you might have set his hair on fire. Or his face.”
    She winced away from that thought, horrified. Andy turned her face gently back to his.
    â€œIt’s a subconscious thing, and it always goes out at someone you don’t like,” he said. “But … you didn’t really hurt that guy, Charlie. You …” But the rest of it was gone and only the pain was left. Was he still talking? For a moment he didn’t even know.
    Charlie could still feel that thing, that Bad Thing, racing around in her head, wanting to get away again, to do something else. It was like a small, vicious, and rather stupid animal. You had to let it out of its cage to do something like getting money from the phones … but it could do something else, something really bad
    (like mommy in the kitchen oh mom i’m sorry)
    before you could get it back in again. But now it didn’t matter. She wouldn’t think about it now, she wouldn’t think about
    ( the bandages my mommy has to wear bandages because i hurt her)
    any of it now. Her father was what mattered now. He was slumped over in his TV chair, his face stamped with pain. He was paper white. His eyes were bloodshot.
    Oh, Daddy, she thought, I’d trade even-Steven with you if I could. You’ve got something that hurts you but it never gets out of its cage. I’ve got something big that doesn’t hurt me at all but oh sometimes I get so scared—
    â€œI’ve got the money,” she said. “I didn’t go to all the telephones, because the bag was getting heavy and I was afraid it would break.” She looked at him anxiously. “Where can we go, Daddy? You have to lie down.”
    Andy reached into the bag and slowly began to transfer the change in handfuls to the pockets of his corduroy coat. He wondered if this night would ever end. He wanted to do nothing more than grab another cab and go into town andcheck them into the first hotel or motel in sight … but he was afraid. Cabs could be traced. And he had a strong feeling that the people from the green car were still close behind.
    He tried to put together what he knew about the Albany airport. First of all, it was the Albany County Airport; it really wasn’t in Albany at all but in the town of Colonie. Shaker country—hadn’t his grandfather told him once that this was Shaker country? Or had all of them died out now? What about highways? Turnpikes? The answer came slowly. There was a road … some sort of Way. Northway or Southway, he thought.
    He opened his eyes and looked at Charlie. “Can you walk aways, kiddo? Couple of miles, maybe?”
    â€œSure.” She had slept and felt relatively fresh. “Can you?”
    That was the question. He didn’t know. “I’m going to try,” he said. “I think we ought to walk out to the main road and try to catch a ride, hon.”
    â€œHitchhike?” she asked.
    He nodded. “Tracing a hitchhiker is pretty hard, Charlie. If we’re lucky, we’ll get a ride with someone who’ll be