Hitchers by Will McIntosh Page B

psychiatrist would probably want to know what sorts of things I was blurting. I wrote down what I’d just said, and some of the others I remembered.
    â€œYou all know the comic strip Toy Shop , right?” Letterman asked his audience.
    â€œWhat?” I looked up at the TV, my heart suddenly pounding.
    â€œNice old strip, right?” Letterman said. “Cute kids running a toy store.” I couldn’t believe it. Letterman was talking about my strip.
    â€œHave any of you read Toy Shop recently?” Murmurs rolled through the audience.
    â€œUnbelievable,” I whispered.
    â€œWell in case you missed it, Finn Darby, the grandson of the guy who started the strip, has made a few changes. For example he added a talking toy robot werewolf doll to the cast.” Letterman paused for laughter. “A talking toy robot werewolf doll .” He enunciated
each word in that droll mock-incredulous tone. “Word is he’ll be making more changes in upcoming strips, including adding another new character: a badger roadkill clown cashier.” A symbol crash punctuated the punchline as Letterman swung his arm like a pitcher getting loose.
    I dragged a hand through my hair, trying to grasp this. I’d just been mentioned on Letterman.
    When I resurrected Toy Shop two years ago, no one noticed. It was like I’d pushed an old, comfortable piece of furniture back into place—people were happy enough to sit in it, but no one had missed it. There’d been a few little features in magazines, a filler feature on NPR. When I overhauled the strip, it had gotten a little more attention. But Letterman? This was unbelievable.
    Inspired, I cloistered myself in my studio and worked on another strip. The vocalizations continued to squeeze from my throat. I wrote them down.
    That stuck up son of a bitch Schulz . (I sounded like my grandfather. I have nothing but respect for Charles Schulz.)
    You’re never going to make it with that attitude.
    Bend that elbow, Danny. I paid for a whole drink . (I’m not much of a drinker—a glass of wine, maybe one martini after a long day. I don’t know any bartenders by name. Again, I sounded like my grandfather, who made a point of knowing every bartender within twenty miles of his house by name.)
    As I was putting the finishing touches on my second strip of the night (a blistering pace for me), I was interrupted by a call from my mother.
    â€œAre you watching the news? They found them,” Mom said.
    â€œWho?” I asked, then instantly realized it was a stupid question.
    â€œThe nuts who carried out the attack. The news people are yammering back and forth without much information to report, but they found the guys—that much is clear.”
    I hurried into the living room and dug around in the couch cushions for the remote. “When will they know who it was?”

    â€œThey’re waiting for the police to make a statement.”
    I located the remote, clicked on the TV to a shot of an empty dais packed with microphones.
    â€œWho the hell do you think you’re talking to? ” I croaked, startling myself. I would never get used to that horrible sound.
    â€œOh, Jesus, Finn,” Mom said. “It doesn’t sound any better. Is the medication making it any better?”
    â€œNot really,” I said. The cameras shifted to a figure coming out of police headquarters. “Here he is.” A red-eyed chief of police with a bushy mustache stepped in front of the microphones.
    I was nervous, as if learning the identity of the killers could somehow make the situation better or worse. Or maybe it was that this felt personal; the killer or killers had taken my two closest friends.
    Mom and I stayed on the phone, but stayed silent as the police chief told us who it was. It wasn’t Al-Qaeda, or China, the Tea Partiers, or Russia. It was four men, each with a different reason for doing what they did. When the SWAT team