“Zack, stay awake. We’ve got to get out of here. This guy’s crazy. I think he’s going to kill us, even if you give him this ledger he’s asking about. Do the police really have it? Because if they don’t, just give it to him. Give him whatever he wants.”

I nodded weakly. “I’ve got some more bad news,” I said.

“What?” she said, holding her breath.

“I don’t have anything for your birthday. I know you thought I was up to something, you know, about a gift. But I haven’t gotten to it yet.”

Sarah’s eyes glistened, and she sighed. “That’s okay,” she said. “It’s not actually until tomorrow.”

I attempted another nod. “We’ll pick something out later today. Something nice.”

“Sure,” she said, fighting to keep it together.

“And maybe after that, we’ll go out for dinner, come home and celebrate. I’m okay, you know.”

“You’re not okay. You need to get to a doctor.”

“No no, I mean, you know. My plumbing. It’s perfectly operational. I just had a lot on my mind, earlier.”

“Hey,” said Rick, strolling back into the kitchen. “This it?” he asked, and dumped a stack of white paper, several hundred pages’ worth, on the kitchen table. I struggled to look at it.

“Is this what?” I asked.

“The book. I was looking around in there, found this, it’s lots of typed pages, so I figured that was it.”

I knew that was it. “Yeah,” I said. “It’s yours. Go somewhere and read it.”

“Naw, I’ll just take it with me. But just tell me, since the last chapter’s missing, how does it end?”

I blinked to get some blood out of my eye. “It turns out there is no God after all,” I said.

Rick nodded. “Fuck, is that supposed to be some sort of surprise ending? I could have told you that.”

Chapter 27

27

“i hope you don’t mind but I’m also going to take some of your toys with me,” Rick said, motioning in the direction of my study. “You’ve got some of the neatest stuff in there. I love that Klingon warship, and you’ve got some terrific little Star Wars spaceships.” He came over, looked at me. “Can I ask you a question?”

Still taped into the chair, I raised my head feebly. “Go ahead.”

“Which do you think is better? Star Trek or Star Wars?”

“I don’t know,” I said, looking at Sarah, tied up in her chair across from me on the other side of the kitchen table, who’d already seen too much to be surprised by this line of questioning. “Which do you think is better?”

“I think Star Trek.”

“Me, too.”