Part IV, Chapterlet 2

When they pull up outside of Ray’s apartment—‘the Chang kid’ has a first name that she knows and knows that Tino knows because they played foursquare together for Christ’s sake—when they pull up, Tino turns the car off and just sits there in the dark with the headlights off and Kennedy listens to the engine ticking and rattling in the cold. Her mom said once that that sound was made by a fan or something that was still spinning. Kennedy herself is superstitious about causes and avoids pinning things down with causes. This serves her lateral thinking well, the Sad Man says, but he always says it like there’s something funny about lateral thinking, and then he normally says that with a little focus, she could be a great strategist. Anyway, getting pinned down by causes is a good way to end up playing defense—which is something she pretty much despises in chess, especially the top-level, nationally ranked speed chess that she plays. She’s currently ranked number 12 nationally, in under 16s. It’s something of a riddle to her why speed chess players aren’t as good as regular players, or why the Sad Man can beat her at whatever kind of game easily, even tiddly winks she’s sure, but always takes as much time as he can—there’s never anything left on his clock at the end of the game. A riddle, sure, but the kind of riddle that pins you down, gets you thinking about causes instead of now, and now is definitely when Tino is reaching over her and opening the glove box and pulling out this claw hammer. The hammer is a regular hammer but it has weird, discolored tape on the handle. Tino’s holding it, looking over into the apartment complex. Kennedy thinks about saying something. Then something kind of clicks, and she realizes that her best bet is to let him go and do this completely stupid thing that he’s going to do and also that her best bet is to not be fucking there and witness/ be an accomplice to this incredibly ill-advised action, as Bones would no doubt say. But the idea is much bigger than that. She can’t quite get hold of it, but she can hear that clicking echoing around inside the idea and she doesn’t know what to think.