“They pretty much did,” Holly says, “and the price didn’t help. I checked. A hundred and eighty-nine dollars, suggested retail, back in 2012. Ridiculous.”

Jerome tosses the Zappit from hand to hand. His face is grim, and he looks tired. Well, sure, Hodges thinks. He was building houses in Arizona yesterday. Had to rush home because his normally cheerful sister tried to kill herself.

Maybe Jerome sees some of this on Hodges’s face. “Barb’s leg will be fine. It’s her mind I’m a little worried about. She talks about blue flashes, and a voice she heard. Coming from the game.”

“She says it’s still in her head,” Holly adds. “Like some piece of music that turns into an earworm. It will probably pass in time, now that her game is broken, but what about the others who got the consoles?”

“With the badconcert website down, is there any way of finding out how many others did?”

Holly and Jerome look at each other, then give identical head shakes.

“Shit,” Hodges says. “I mean I’m not all that surprised, but still . . . shit.”

“Does this one give out blue flashes?” Jerome still hasn’t turned the Zappit on, just keeps playing hot potato with it.

“Nope, and the pink fish don’t turn into numbers. Try it for yourself.”

Instead of doing that, Jerome turns it over and opens the battery compartment. “Plain old double As,” he says. “The rechargeable kind. No magic there. But the Fishin’ Hole demo really makes you sleepy?”

“It did me,” Hodges says. He does not add that he was medicated up the wazoo at the time. “Right now I’m more interested in Babineau. He’s part of this. I don’t understand how that partnership came about, but if he’s still alive, he’s going to tell us. And there’s someone else involved, too.”

“The man the housekeeper saw,” Holly says. “The one who drives an old car with the primer spots. Do you want to know what I think?”

“Hit me.”

“One of them, either Dr. Babineau or the man with the old car, paid a visit to the nurse, Ruth Scapelli. Hartsfield must have had something against her.”

“How could he send anyone anywhere?” Jerome asks, sliding the battery cover back into place with a click. “Mind control? According to you, Bill, the most he could do with his teleki-whatzis was turn on the water in his bathroom, and it’s hard for me to accept even that. It could be just so much talk. A hospital legend instead of an urban one.”

“It has to be the games,” Hodges muses. “He did something to the games. Amped them up, somehow.”

“From his hospital room?” Jerome gives him a look that says be serious.

“I know, it doesn’t make sense, not even if you add in the telekinesis. But it has to be the games. Has to be.”

“Babineau will know,” Holly says.