She thought she ought to call the station. Talk him out of trouble. She knew him best. Knew what his buttons were. God only knew what “Frankburg” would say to him.

174

“Do you want to introduce yourself?” asked Penny.

“In a minute. Can I say this is going to be a great day?”

“Um . . . yes.”

“This is going to be a great day.”

“Okay. Good,” said Penny.

“That was good,” said Ali.

“Well, I truly believe it’s going to be a great day,” said Edward. “Don’t you?”

“Yes, I’m sure it’ll work out very well,” said Ali.

“Okay. I’m right here for you.”

“Well, thank you.”

“My pleasure.”

“You’ve got a natural radio voice. Hasn’t he got a natural radio voice, Penny?”

“Um. Yes.”

“See? Penny agrees with me about your natural radio voice.”

“Thank you.”

There was a pause.

“Do you want to introduce yourself now?” said Penny.

“Yes. My name is Activist 346 of TWA, the Third World Army.”

He winked at Ali.

Penny clicked. “Fight the Good Fight.”

Ali clicked. Her weeping fake fireman.

Tamy clicked and regretted putting him through that time. She’d been given a raise following the show but it didn’t seem worth it now.

173

I would’ve clicked too but I couldn’t hear my radio over the noise of the airplane. And I was too scared to think of it. Scared scared scared.

172

Clara wondered if someone had made a Taking Hostages tape. Or if her ex-fireman was doing other experiments on the sly. If so, then she reckoned there was some competition out there.

171

“What’s your name?” asked Penny Lock.

“You don’t need to know my name.”

“I thought it might be nice for the listeners to know your name.”

“Nice? What do you mean nice?”

“Well, it’s nice to know people’s names.”

“What’s nice about it?”

“It’s just nice.”

“Nice. Jeez.”

“Names is for tombstones, isn’t it?” said Ali.

“Yeah,” said my brother, smiling.

“We know Dr. Frankburg’s name,” said Penny.

“Sure we do,” said my brother, winking again.

“So what’s yours?”

“You don’t need to know my fucking name.”

Tamy instinctively went for the mute switch.

“Stay still, what are you doing?”

“Sorry,” said Tamy. “I didn’t think. I have to blank out swearing. Station policy.”

“Don’t touch anything. Leave the switches alone.”

“I’m sorry.”

170

John stared at the guy with the gun in his hand. Saw how alive his eyes were. How quick and twitchy his movements were. How he kept switching the gun from hand to hand to wipe the sweat off his palms and onto his coat. John thought he should do that too, in his act, switch the gun from hand to hand. And sweat more.

“What do you think we should do?” asked John in a whisper.

“Tell the magic guy to shut up,” said my brother.

“Sorry,” said John.

“Why are you here anyway?”

“This is John, he’s looking for his wife.”