Page 65 of Levi

The runner goes. Clean steal, beats the throw by a step.

“You called that.”

“Lucky guess.”

It goes long. Tied in the ninth. Tied in the tenth. Neither team can finish it and neither of us gets up to go to bed. I’m not following it close, and I don’t think he is either. The TV does the talking so we don’t have to. The innings stack up. Somewhere around the twelfth I realize I don’t know the score.

Somewhere in the thirteenth inning, he stretches and says, half asleep, “What time is the showing tomorrow? Is it still at noon? Get me up in the morning and I’ll go with you. Take a shower there and you can run me back here before the buyers arrive.”

“The showing moved,” I say. “Ten, not noon. The buyer flew in tonight. They’re staying over in Seaside, so there’s no morning drive to slow them down. Jonathan called me this evening and locked it for ten.”

“Ten.” He sits up a little. “Not noon?”

“Yeah. Is there a problem?”

The moment I ask, I remember.

“The check-in is at ten,” he says. “The one I told you about. Every morning, same time. I can’t change it.”

“On the phone?”

“Yeah.” He looks at me. “On the phone that stays at the house. It has to be at the house. That’s the point. It’s where I’m supposed to be.”

And there it is, laid out between us. Levi gets to the problem the same moment I do.

The phone never leaves the house. He has to answer it at ten. At ten the house is full of a potential buyer from Atlanta and me. Levi can’t be in the house. A strange man in a listing is the showing dead on the floor. The phone can’t come here. The instant it leaves that address, whoever’s watching the little dot knows he left.

“I can’t be in two places,” he says. “Damn.” The lightness in him is gone. I hate watching it. He’s already trying to figure out an answer. There isn’t one.

“Can I do it for you? I’m going to be in the house at ten anyway,” I say. “I’ll be standing in the room with your phone in it. Tell me what the check-in is, give me what I need to get into your phone, and I’ll send it. You stay here. The dot never moves. Whoever’s watching sees exactly what he expects to see.”

“It’s just one word,” he says finally. “He sends a text that says one word, status. I send back that I’m fine. Same thing every morning at ten. That’s all it’s ever been. If you do this, you’re lying to him to cover for me.”

“I sell people a story for a living,” I say. “I can certainly send one text.”

“Are you sure?”

“Of course. You’re staying here to help me. It’s the least I can do. Tell me your code.”

He gives me six digits at two in the morning. I type his passcode into my notes on my phone.

“One more thing,” he says. “If he calls instead of texts. Don’t answer it. Not ever. Doesn’t matter what it says on the screen, doesn’t matter if it rings ten times in a row.”

“He does that?”

“Once in a while. Spot checks. If I miss a call, that’s fine, that’s normal — I’m in the shower, I’m asleep. A missed call I can explain from now till Sunday.” He looks at me steady. “Your voice I can’t explain at all. If it rings, you let it ring, and you text him after. Missed the call, was in the shower, all good. Lowercase. No punctuation at the end. No emojis.”

“No punctuation? Ever?”

“He’d notice. I’ve been texting that man for eight years and I’ve never once used punctuation.”

“Lowercase, no punctuation, never answer.” I say it back like terms. “Anything else he’d notice?”

“Speed. Don’t answer the second it comes in. I never do. Give it a minute, two. Like I had to find the phone.”

“When you say you tell him you’re fine, are those the actual words?”

“The idea, not the words. Don’t type, I’m fine. That sounds like a hostage. You type two or three words. At the house. Lowercase, no period. He wants a location and a pulse. Give him both in three or four words and he’s gone.”