“Listen, Neil,” he said, “I’ll give you this much. If you can prove to me that something funny is probably going to happen here—if you can give me one piece of real evidence—then I’ll do what I can to help. But as it is, the way things stand, I have to tell you that I’m powerless.”

Neil looked unhappy. But he nodded and said, “Okay, George. I guess you’re right. It sounds crazy, and maybe it is crazy.”

Sergeant Murray fitted his cap onto his sweaty pink head. “They said that Thomas Alva Edison was crazy, didn’t they? Just think about that.”

Neil said quietly, “There’s a difference between being a genius inventor and a frightened father, George.”

*

He went back home. Susan and Toby were sitting at the kitchen table. Susan was finishing her supper, corned beef hash and home fries, and Toby was drawing. As Neil came in the back door, Susan looked up and said, “Well?”

He came over and kissed her, and ruffled Toby’s hair. “What do you think? He said he was sorry, but he couldn’t spare the manpower. The taxpayers wouldn’t stand for it.”

“Even though the taxpayers’ children might get hurt?”

“Susan, he didn’t believe me. Not one word.”

“Did he try to believe you?”

Neil shrugged. “I guess he made a token effort. But it’s pretty farfetched stuff. I sat there and I listened to myself trying to convince him, and the more I told him the stupider it all sounded.”

She put down her fork and went to the stove. She dolloped hash onto a plate for him, and set out a dish of crackers and cheese. They didn’t eat too fancy these days, because of the way Neil’s business was going, but they managed. Weekends, they sometimes ate steak, especially if he had a new order to refit a yacht, but there wasn’t much demand for a one-man craftsman around Bodega Bay.

Neil washed his hands at the kitchen faucet and sat down. He asked, “How are you doing, Toby?”

“I’m okay,” said Toby, without looking up.

“What are you drawing there? It looks like some kind of a spaceship.”

Toby crooked his arm around his picture so that Neil couldn’t see. “It’s a secret,” he said.

Neil started to eat. Susan sat next to him and watched him with concern and a little pain. She touched his hand as it rested on the table, and gently stroked his suntanned knuckles.

She said, “Did you really believe that old man yourself? You don’t think he was pulling your leg?”

“Why should he?”

“For the sake of a drink, and a joke with his friends after you’d gone. I mean, you know what Doughty’s like with his stories. Why should Billy Ritchie be any better?”