“Of course, if you pick the right incidents.”

He shakes his head again. “Let’s get back to you and make sure we pick the right incidents. Someone slashed the tires on your car sometime Wednesday night two weeks ago. Now on Wednesdays, you go over to a friend’s house for… fencing practice? Is that sword fighting or something?”

“They’re not real swords,” I say. “Just sport blades.”

“Okay. Do you keep them in your car?”

“No,” I say. “I store my things at Tom’s house. Several people do.”

“So the motive couldn’t have been theft, in the first place. And the following week, your windshield was broken while you were at fencing, a drive-by. Again, the attack’s on your car, and this time the location of your car makes it clear the attacker knew where you went on Wednesdays. And this third attack was accomplished on Wednesday night, between the time you got home from your fencing group and when you got up in the morning. The timing suggests to me that this is connected to your fencing group.”

“Unless it is someone who has only Wednesday night to do things,” I say.

He looks at me a long moment. “It sounds like you don’t want to face the possibility that someone in your fencing group—or someone who was in your fencing group—has a grudge against you.”

He is right. I do not want to think that people I have been meeting every week for years do not like me. That even one of them does not like me. I felt safe there. They are my friends. I can see the pattern Mr. Stacy wants me to see—it is obvious, a simple temporal association, and I have already seen it—but it is impossible. Friends are people who want good things for you and not bad ones.

“I do not…” My throat closes. I feel the pressure in my head that means I will not be able to talk easily for a while. “It is not… right… to… to… say… what… you are… not sure… is true.” I wish I had not said anything about Don before. I feel wrong about it.

“You don’t want to make a false accusation,” he says.

I nod, mute.

He sighs. “Mr. Arrendale, everyone has people that don’t like them. You don’t have to be a bad person to have people not like you. And it doesn’t make you a bad person to take reasonable precautions not to let other people hurt you. If there’s someone in that group who has a grudge against you, fair or unfair, that person still may not be the one who did this. I know that. I’m not going to throw someone into criminal rehab just because they don’t like you. But I don’t want you to get killed because we didn’t take this seriously.”

I still cannot imagine someone—Don—trying to kill me. I have not done anyone harm that I know of. People do not kill for trivial reasons.

“My point is,” Mr. Stacy says, “that people kill for all sorts of stupid reasons. Trivial reasons.”

“No,” I mutter. Normal people have reasons for what they do, big reasons for big things and little reasons for little things.

“Yes,” he says. His voice is firm; he believes what he is saying. “Not everyone, of course. But someone who would put that stupid toy in your car, with the explosive—that is not a normally sane person, Mr. Arrendale, in my opinion. And I am professionally familiar with the kind of people who kill. Fathers who knock a child into the wall for taking a piece of bread without permission. Wives and husbands who grab for a weapon in the midst of an argument about who forgot what at the grocery store. I do not think you are the sort of man who makes idle accusations. Trust us to investigate carefully whatever you tell us and give us something to work on. This person who is stalking you might stalk someone else another time.”

I do not want to talk; my throat is so tight it hurts. But if it could happen to someone else…

As I am thinking what to say and how, he says, “Tell me more about this fencing group. When did you start going there?”

This is something I can answer, and I do. He asks me to tell him how the practice works, when people come, what they do, what time they leave.

I describe the house, the yard, the equipment storage. “My things are always in the same place,” I say.

“How many people store their gear at Tom’s, instead of taking it back and forth?” he asks.

“Besides me? Two,” I say. “Some of the others do, if they’re going to a tournament. But three of us regularly. Don and Sheraton are the others.” There. I have mentioned Don without choking.

“Why?” he asks quietly.

“Sheraton travels a lot for work,” I say. “He doesn’t make it every week, and he once lost a complete set of blades when his apartment was broken into while he was overseas on business. Don—” My throat threatens to close again, but I push on. “Don was always forgetting his stuff and borrowing from people, and finally Tom told him to leave it there, where he couldn’t forget it.”

“Don. This is the same Don you told me about over the phone?”

“Yes,” I say. All my muscles are tight. It is so much harder when he is here in my office, looking at me.

“Was he in the group when you joined it?”

Yes.

“Who are some of your friends in the group?”

I thought they were all my friends. Emmy said it was impossible for them to be my friends; they are normal and I am not. But I thought they were. “Tom,” I say. “Lucia. Brian. M-Marjory…”

“Lucia is Tom’s wife, right? Who is this Marjory?”

I can feel my face getting hot. “She… she is a person who… who is my friend.”

“A girlfriend? Lover?”

Words fly out of my head faster than light. I can only shake my head, mute again.

“Someone you wish was a girlfriend?”

I am seized into rigidity. Do I wish? Of course I wish. Dare I hope? No. I cannot shake my head or nod it; I cannot speak. I do not want to see the look on Mr. Stacy’s face; I do not want to know what he thinks. I want to escape to some quiet place where no one knows me and no one will ask questions.

“Let me suggest something here, Mr. Arrendale,” Mr. Stacy says. His voice sounds staccato, chopped into sharp little bits of sound that cut at my ears, at my understanding. “Suppose you really like this woman, this Marjory—”

This Marjory as if she were a specimen, not a person. The very thought of her face, her hair, her voice, floods me with warmth.

“And you’re kinda shy—okay, that’s normal in a guy who hasn’t had that many relationships, which I’m guessing you haven’t. And maybe she likes you, and maybe she just enjoys being admired from afar. And this other person—maybe Don, maybe not—is pissed that she seems to like you. Maybe he likes her. Maybe he just doesn’t like you. Whatever, he sees something he doesn’t like between the two of you. Jealousy is a pretty common cause of violent behavior.”

“I… do not… want… him… to be the one…” I say, gasping it out.

“You like him?”

“I… know… think… thought… I know… knew… him…” A sick blackness inside swirls around and through the warm feeling about Marjory. I remember the times he joked, laughed, smiled.

“Betrayal is never fun,” Mr. Stacy says, like a priest reciting the Ten Commandments. He has his pocket set out and is entering commands.

I can sense something dark hovering over Don, like a great thundercloud over a sunny landscape. I want to make it go away, but I do not know how.

“When do you get off work?” Mr. Stacy asks.

“I would usually leave at five-thirty,” I say. “But I have lost time today because of what happened to my car. I have to make that time up.”

His eyebrows go up again. “You have to make up time that you lost because of talking to me?”

“Of course,” I say.

“Your boss didn’t seem that picky,” Mr. Stacy says.

“It is not Mr. Aldrin,” I say. “I would make up the time anyway, but it is Mr. Crenshaw who gets angry if he thinks we are not working hard enough.”

“Ah, I see,” he says. His face flushes; he is very shiny now. “I suspect I might not like your Mr. Crenshaw.”

“I do not like Mr. Crenshaw,” I say. “But I must do my best anyway. I would make up the time even if he did not get angry.”

“I’m sure you would,” he says. “What time do you think you will leave work today, Mr. Arrendale?”

I look at the clock and calculate how much time I have to make up. “If I start back to work now, I can leave at six fifty-three,” I say. “There is a train leaving from the campus station at seven-oh-four, and if I hurry I can make it.”

“You aren’t riding on the train,” he says. “We’ll see that you have transport. Didn’t you hear me say we’re worried about your safety? Do you have someone you can stay with for a few days? It’s safer if you’re not in your own apartment.”

I shake my head. “I do not know anyone,” I say. I have not stayed at anyone’s house since I left home; I have always stayed in my own apartment or a hotel room. I do not want to go to a hotel now.

“We’re looking for this Don fellow right now, but he’s not easy to find. His employer says he hasn’t been in for several days, and he’s not at his apartment. You’ll be all right here for a few hours, I guess, but don’t leave without letting us know, okay?”

I nod. It is easier than arguing. I have the feeling that this is happening in a movie or show, not in real life. It is not like anything anyone ever told me about.

The door opens suddenly; I am startled and jump. It is Mr. Crenshaw. He looks angry again.

“Lou! What’s this I hear about you being in trouble with the police?” He glances around the office and stiffens when he sees Mr. Stacy.

“I’m Lieutenant Stacy,” the policeman says. “Mr. Arrendale isn’t in trouble. I’m investigating a case in which he is the victim. He told you about the slashed tires, didn’t he?”

“Yes—” Mr. Crenshaw’s color fades and flushes again. “He did. But is that any reason to send a policeman out here?”

“No, it’s not,” Mr. Stacy says. “The two subsequent attacks, including the explosive device placed in his automobile, are.”

“Explosive device?” Mr. Crenshaw pales again. “Someone is trying to hurt Lou?”

“We think so, yes,” Mr. Stacy says. “We are concerned about Mr. Arrendale’s safety.”

“Who do you think it is?” Mr. Crenshaw asks. He does not wait for an answer but goes on talking. “He’s working on some sensitive projects for us; it could be a competitor wants to sabotage them—”

“I don’t think so,” Mr. Stacy says. “There is evidence to suggest something completely unrelated to his workplace. I’m sure you’re concerned, though, to protect a valuable employee—does your company have a guest hostel or someplace Mr. Arrendale could stay for a few days?”

“No… I mean, you really think this is a serious threat?”

The policeman’s eyelids droop a little. “Mr. Crenshaw is it? I thought I recognized you from Mr. Arrendale’s description. If someone took the battery out of your car and replaced it with a device intended to explode when you opened the hood of the car, would you consider that a serious threat?”

“My God,” Mr. Crenshaw says. I know he is not calling Mr. Stacy his god. It is his way of expressing surprise. He glances at me, and his expression sharpens. “What have you been up to, Lou, that someone’s trying to kill you? You know company policy; if I find out you’ve been involved with criminal elements—”

“You’re jumping the gun, Mr. Crenshaw,” Mr. Stacy says. “There’s no indication whatever that Mr. Arrendale has done anything wrong. We suspect that the perpetrator may be someone who is jealous of Mr. Arrendale’s accomplishments—who would rather he be less able.”

“Resentful of his privileges?” Mr. Crenshaw says. “That would make sense. I always said special treatment for these people would rouse a backlash from those who suffer as a consequence. We have workers who see no reason why this section should have its own parking lot, gym, music system, and dining facility.”

I look at Mr. Stacy, whose face has stiffened. Something Mr. Crenshaw said has made him angry, but what? His voice comes out in a drawl that has an edge to it, a tone that I have been taught means some kind of disapproval.

“Ah, yes… Mr. Arrendale told me that you disapproved of supportive measures to retain the disabled in the workforce,” he says.

“I wouldn’t put it that way,” Mr. Crenshaw says. “It depends on whether they’re really necessary or not. Wheelchair ramps, that sort of thing, but some so-called support is nothing but indulgence—”

“And you, being so expert, know which is which, do you?” Mr. Stacy asks. Mr. Crenshaw flushes again. I look at Mr. Stacy. He does not look scared at all.

“I know what the balance sheet is,” Mr. Crenshaw says. “There’s no law that can compel us to go broke to coddle a few people who think they need foofaraws [1) завитушки, побрякушки (в одежде, архитектуре и т.п.); безделушки, мишура; 2) буча, суета, переполох, много шума из ничего] like… like that—” He points at the spin spirals hanging over my desk.

“Cost a whole dollar thirty-eight,” Mr. Stacy says. “Unless you bought ’em from a defense contractor.” That is nonsense. Defense contractors do not sell spin spirals; they sell missiles and mines and aircraft. Mr. Crenshaw says something I do not hear as I try to figure out why Mr. Stacy, who seemed generally knowledgeable except about permutations, would suggest buying spin spirals from a defense contractor. It is just silly. Could it be some kind of joke?

“… But it is the point,” Mr. Stacy is saying when I catch up to the conversation again. “This gym, now: it’s already installed, right? It probably costs diddly to maintain it. Now say you kick out this whole section—sixteen, twenty people maybe?—and convert it to… there’s nothing I can think of to do in the space taken up by even a large gym that will make you as much money as paying employer’s share of unemployment for that many people will. Not to mention losing your certification as a provider-employer for this disability class, and I’m sure you’re getting a tax break that way.”

“What do you know about that?” Mr. Crenshaw asks.

“Our department has disabled employees, too,” Mr. Stacy says. “Some disabled on the job and some hired that way. We had one flaming scuzzbucket of a city councilman, a few years ago, wanted to cut costs by getting rid of what he called freeloaders. I spent way too many off-duty hours working on the stats to show that we’d lose money by dumping ’em.”

“You’re tax-supported,” Mr. Crenshaw said. I could see his pulse pounding in one of the blood vessels on his red, shiny forehead. “You don’t have to worry about profit. We have to make the money to pay your damned salary.”

“Which I’m sure curdles your beer,” Mr. Stacy says. His pulse is pounding, too. “Now if you’ll excuse us, I need to talk to Mr. Arrendale—”

“Lou, you’ll make up this wasted time,” Mr. Crenshaw said, and went out, slamming the door behind him.

I look at Mr. Stacy, who shakes his head. “Now that’s a real piece of work. I had a sergeant like that once, years ago when I was just a patrolman, but he transferred to Chicago, thank God. You might want to look for another job, Mr. Arrendale. That one’s out to get rid of you.”

“I do not understand it,” I say. “I work—we all work—very hard here. Why does he want to get rid of us?” Or make us into someone else… I wonder whether to tell Mr. Stacy about the experimental protocol or not.

“He’s a power-hungry SOB,” Mr. Stacy says. “That kind are always out to make themselves look good and someone else look bad. You’re sitting there doing a good job quietly, no fuss. You look like someone he can kick around safely. Unluckily for him, this other thing’s happened to you.”

“It does not feel lucky,” I say. “It feels worse.”

“Probably does,” Mr. Stacy says. “But it’s not. This way, see, your Mr. Crenshaw has to deal with me—and he’ll find his arrogance doesn’t go far with the police.”

I am not sure I believe this. Mr. Crenshaw is not just Mr. Crenshaw; he is also the company, and the company has a lot of influence on city policy.

“Tell you what,” Mr. Stacy says. “Let’s get back to those incidents, so I can get out of your hair and you don’t have to stay later. Have you had any other interactions with Don, however trivial, that indicated he was upset with you?”

It seems silly, but I tell him about the time Don stood between Marjory and me at practice and about Marjory calling him a real heel even though he cannot be literally a heel.

“So what I’m hearing is a pattern here of your other friends protecting you from Don, making it clear that they don’t like how he treats you, is that right?”

I had not thought of it that way. When he says it, I can see the pattern as clearly as any on my computer or in fencing, and I wonder why I did not see it before. “He would be unhappy,” I say. “He would see that I am treated differently than he is, and—” I stop, struck suddenly by another pattern I have not seen before. “It’s like Mr. Crenshaw,” I say. My voice goes up; I can hear the tension in it, but it is too exciting. “He does not like it for the same reason.” I stop again, trying to think it through. I reach out and flip on my fan; the spin spirals help me think when I am excited.

“It is the pattern of people who do not really believe we need supports and resent the supports. If I—if we—did worse, they would understand more. It is the combination of doing well and having the supports that upsets them. I am too normal—” I look back at Mr. Stacy; he is smiling and nodding. “That is silly,” I say. “I am not normal. Not now. Not ever.”

“It may not seem that way to you,” he says. “And when you do something like you did with that old catchphrase about coincidence and enemy action, you are clearly not average… but most of the time you look normal and act normal. You know, I even thought—what we were told back in the psych classes we had to take was that autistic people were mostly nonverbal, reclusive, rigid.” He grins. I do not know what the grin means when he has just said so many bad things about us. “And here I find you driving a car, holding down a job, falling in love, going to fencing meets—”

“Only one so far,” I say.

“All right, only one so far. But I see a lot of people, Mr. Arrendale, who function less well than you and some who look to function at the same level. Doing it without supports. Now I see the reason for supports and the economy of them. It’s like putting a wedge under the short leg of a table—why not have a solid, foursquare table? Why endure a tippy unstable surface when such a little thing will make it stable? But people aren’t furniture, and if other people see that wedge as a threat to them… they won’t like it.”

“I do not see how I am a threat to Don or to Mr. Crenshaw,” I say.

“You personally may not be. I don’t even think your supports are, to anyone. But some people don’t think too well, and it’s easy for them to blame someone else for anything that’s wrong in their own lives. Don probably thinks if you weren’t getting preferential treatment he’d be successful with that woman.”

I wish he would use her name, Marjory. “That woman” sounds as if she had done something wrong.

“She probably wouldn’t like him anyway, but he doesn’t want to face that—he’d rather blame you. That is, if he’s the one doing all this.” He glances down at his pocket set. “From the information we have on him, he’s had a series of low-level jobs, sometimes quitting and sometimes being fired… his credit rating’s low… he could see himself as a failure and be looking for someone to blame for everything.”

I never thought of normal people as needing to explain their failures. I never thought of them as having failures.

“We’ll send someone to pick you up, Mr. Arrendale,” he says. “Call this number when you’re ready to leave for home.” He hands me a card. “We aren’t going to post a guard here, your corporate security’s good enough, but do believe me—you need to be careful.”

It is hard to go back to work when he is gone, but I focus on my project and accomplish something before it is time to leave and call for a ride.

Pete Aldrin took a deep breath after Crenshaw left his office, in a rage about the “stuck-up cop” who had come to interview Lou Arrendale, and picked up the phone to call Human Resources. “Bart—” That was the name Paul had suggested in Human Resources, a young and inexperienced employee who would certainly ask around for directions and help. “Bart, I need to arrange some time off for my entire Section A; they’re going to be involved in a research project.”

“Whose?” Bart asked.

“Ours—first human trial of a new product aimed at autistic adults. Mr. Crenshaw considers this a top priority in our division, so I’d really appreciate it if you’d expedite setting up indefinite leave. I think that’d be best; we don’t know how long it will take—”

“For all of them? At once?”

“They may go through the protocol staggered; I’m not sure yet. I’ll let you know when the consent forms are signed. But it’ll be at least thirty days—”

“I don’t see how—”

“Here’s the authorization code. If you need Mr. Crenshaw’s signature—”

“It’s just not—”

“Thanks,” Aldrin said, and hung up. He could imagine Bart looking puzzled and alarmed both, then running off to his supervisor to ask what to do. Aldrin took a deep breath, then called Shirley in Accounting.

“I need to arrange for direct deposit of Section A’s salaries into their banks while they’re on indefinite leave—”

“Pete, I told you: that’s not how it works. You have to have clearance—”

“Mr. Crenshaw considers it a top priority. I have the project authorization code and I can get his signature—”

“But how am I supposed to—”

“Can’t you just say they’re working at a secondary location? That wouldn’t require any changes to the existing departmental budgets.”

He could hear her sucking her teeth over the phone. “I could, I guess, if you told me where the secondary location was.”

“Building Forty-two, Main Campus.”

A moment’s silence, then, “But that’s the clinic, Pete. What ate you trying to pull? Double-dipping for company employees as research subjects?”

“I’m not trying to pull anything,” Aldrin said as huffily as he could. “I’m trying to expedite a project Mr. Crenshaw feels strongly about. They won’t be double-dipping if they get the salary and not the honoraria.”

“I have my doubts,” Shirley said. “I’ll see what I can do.”

“Thanks,” Aldrin said, and hung up again. He was sweating; he could feel it running down his ribs. Shirley was no novice; she knew perfectly well that this was an outrageous request, and she would sound off about it.

Human Resources, Accounting… Legal and Research had to come next. He rummaged through the papers Crenshaw had left until he found the chief scientist’s name on the protocol. Liselle Hendricks… not, he noticed, the man who had been sent to talk to the volunteers. Dr. Ransome was listed as “physician liaison, recruitment” in the list of associated technical staff.

“Dr. Hendricks,” Aldrin said a few minutes later. “I’m Pete Aldrin, over in Analysis. I’m in charge of Section A, where your volunteers are coming from. Do you have the consent forms ready yet?”

“What are you talking about?” Dr. Hendricks asked. “If you want volunteer recruitment, you need Extension three-thirty-seven. I don’t have anything to do with it.”

“You are the chief scientist, aren’t you?”

“Yes…” Aldrin could imagine the woman’s puzzled face.

“Well, I’m just wondering when you’ll send over the consent forms for the volunteers.”

“Why should I send them to you?” Hendricks asked. “Dr. Ransome is supposed to take care of that.”

“Well, they all work here,” Aldrin said. “Might be simpler.”

“All in one section?” Hendricks sounded more surprised than Aldrin expected. “I didn’t know that. Isn’t that going to give you some problems?”

“I’ll manage,” Aldrin said, forcing a chuckle. “After all, I’m a manager.” She did not respond to the joke, and he went on. “Now the thing is, they haven’t all made up their minds. I’m sure they will, what with… one thing and another, but anyway—”

Hendricks’s voice sharpened. “What do you mean, with one thing and another? You’re not putting pressure on them, are you? It would not be ethical—”

“Oh, I wouldn’t worry about that,” Aldrin said. “Of course no one can be forced to cooperate, we’re not talking about any kind of coercion, of course, but these are difficult times, economically speaking, Mr. Crenshaw says—”

“But… but—” It was almost a splutter.

“So if you could get those forms to me promptly, I’d really appreciate it,” Aldrin said, and hung up. Then he quickly dialed Bart, the man Crenshaw had told him to contact.

“When are you going to have those consent forms?” he said. “And what kind of schedule are we talking about? Have you talked to Accounting about the payroll issues? Have you talked to Human Resources?”

“Er… no.” Bart sounded too young to be important, but he was probably a Crenshaw appointee. “I just thought, I think Mr. Crenshaw said he—his section—would be taking care of the details. All I was supposed to do was make sure they qualified for the protocol over here. Consent forms, I’m not sure we have them drafted yet—”

Aldrin smiled to himself. Bart’s confusion was a bonus; any manager might easily go over the head of such a disorganized little twit. He had his excuse now for calling Hendricks; if he was lucky—and he felt lucky—no one would realize which one he’d called first.

Now the question was when to go higher. He would prefer to carry the whole tale just when rumors were beginning to rise that high, but he had no idea how long that took. How long would Shirley or Hendricks sit on the new data he’d given them before doing anything? What would they do first? If they went straight upstairs, top management would know in a few hours, but if they waited a day or so, it might be as long as a week.

His stomach churned; he ate two antacid tablets.