The Prisoner's Dilemma (3 page)

For a moment Rhonda stared at the locked door, slowly shaking her head. And then, with laughter bubbling up in her throat, she began to clap.

M
r. Benedict was amused. This was hardly unusual. Sometimes, in fact, Mr. Benedict’s amusement sent him right off to sleep, for he had a condition called narcolepsy that caused him to nod off at unexpected moments. These episodes occurred most often when he experienced strong emotion, and especially when he was laughing. His assistants (who were also, as it happened, his adopted daughters) did what they could to protect him—he could hardly take two steps without Rhonda or Number Two shadowing him watchfully in case he should fall asleep and topple over—and Mr. Benedict guarded against such incidents himself by always wearing a green plaid suit, which he had discovered long ago to have a calming effect.

Nevertheless, the occasional bout of sudden sleep was inevitable, and as a result Mr. Benedict’s thick white hair was perpetually tousled, and his face, as often as not, was unevenly shaven and marked with razor nicks. (Unfortunately nothing was more comical, Mr. Benedict said, than the sight of himself in the shaving mirror, where his bright green eyes and long, lumpy nose—together with a false white beard of shaving lather—put him in mind of Santa Claus.) He also wore spectacles of the sturdiest variety, the better to protect against shattering in the event of a fall. But as the best kind of fall was one prevented, it was not uncommon to see an amused Mr. Benedict diligently suppressing his laughter. Such was the case now, as he sat at the dining room table with Rhonda and the children.

“The point of the exercise,” said Mr. Benedict, the corners of his mouth twitching, “was more philosophical than strategic, you see. More than anything, it was meant to be an examination of the consequences of one’s actions on others. Sticky, I am sure, could recite the aims of the original Prisoner’s Dilemma, but Rhonda and I had thought to adapt the game for our own purposes.” Here Mr. Benedict allowed himself a smile, adding, “Just as you did yourselves.”

The children, thus far pleased by Mr. Benedict’s response to their solution, began to feel uneasy. They sensed that they had overlooked something they ought not to have overlooked—a misgiving intensified by the appearance of Number Two, who just then came storming into the dining room. The young woman’s normally yellowish complexion had darkened almost to the same hue as her rusty red hair; and her expression, stern to begin with, positively radiated disapproval now. If the children didn’t know Number Two loved them, they might have thought she meant to put them on the curb and be done with them forever.

“With not one thought,” said Number Two, pointing her finger at them, “not a single thought for how your trick might affect Rhonda, what do you do? You pretend to go outside without
protection
? You pretend to climb out the window
on the third floor
? You—” She interrupted herself to bite angrily into an apple, which she chewed with great ferocity, glowering all the while.

Reynie could hear her teeth crunching and grinding all the way from his seat at the other end of the table. He wished he were sitting even farther away than that—preferably somewhere in the distant past. Number Two’s words had stung him like a slap. She was right. He had been so pleased with his idea that he hadn’t really considered whether it was a decent thing to do. Rhonda gave no sign of being upset, but during those first few moments she must have been worried—indeed, he had counted on it—and looking back on his decision, Reynie was ashamed.

“We’re sorry!” blurted Kate, who evidently felt the same way. “Oh, Rhonda, that was stupid of us! It seemed funny at the time, but—”

“It
was
funny,” Constance interjected. “Just because you’re sorry doesn’t mean it wasn’t funny.”

“Constance has a point,” said Rhonda with an easy smile. “But I do appreciate your apology, Kate, and I can see from the boys’ faces that they’re sorry as well. Really, it’s all right.”

“All right?” Number Two snarled. “When our only concern is for their safety? When our every thought and deed—”

“Number Two,” said Mr. Benedict gently, “I quite concur. But as we are pressed for time, would you be so kind as to fetch the duty schedule? We need to reconfigure it.”

Number Two swung about and stalked into the kitchen. Even from a distance they could hear her fierce attacks on the apple; each bite sounded like a spade being thrust into gravel. Reynie suspected Mr. Benedict was giving her an opportunity to calm down.

“Our original plan,” Mr. Benedict told the children, “was to release you from kitchen duty next week, thereby offsetting any extra work you had to put in
this
week as a result of the exercise. We wanted the consequences to seem real, you see, to heighten the effect, but we didn’t actually intend to work you like galley slaves. This way Rhonda could tell you the truth, if not the entire truth, and perhaps keep Constance from seeing through the ruse. Constance might have seen through it anyway, of course—we thought
that
worth investigating, too. Ah, thank you so much,” he said as Number Two, somewhat calmer now, returned with the duty schedule.

“Why do we have to change the schedule?” asked Constance, who found the scheduling of duties even more insufferably tedious than the duties themselves. “Can’t we just keep it as it is?”

“Today is errand day,” Rhonda said. “That’s why we chose it for this particular exercise. We needed to reschedule duties, anyway.”

“I
thought
things were unusually quiet around here,” Sticky said. “Errand day—well, that explains it.”

Errand day was when all the adult houseguests went out to deal with shopping and business. These prized forays into Stonetown came but once every two or three weeks, always on a different day and never announced beforehand. The adults claimed this was for security reasons, and no doubt it was, but Reynie suspected they were also glad to avoid any begging and pleading, since the children were never allowed to go anywhere themselves.

Kate jumped to her feet. “Don’t bother with the schedule, Mr. Benedict. Let me take extra duty today. It’ll make me feel better.”

“Me, too,” said Reynie.

“Yeah… same here,” said Sticky, trying to sound upbeat despite the sinking feeling in his belly. Kitchen duty with Kate was exhausting—you had to work madly to keep up—and he generally avoided it when he could.

“Count me in!” chirped Constance, and everyone turned to her in astonishment. She burst into laughter at this, for of course she had only been kidding.

The good thing about kitchen duty on errand day was the reduced quantity of lunch dishes. With the exception of Mr. Benedict, who claimed responsibility for Constance, all of the children’s guardians were absent. Gone from the table were the Washingtons, Miss Perumal and her mother Mrs. Perumal, and Kate’s father Milligan, whose own errand was to protect the other guardians as they ran theirs.

The
bad
thing about kitchen duty on errand day was the notable lack of wonderful aromas in the air, for their friend Moocho Brazos—a former circus strong man and, more to the point, a marvelous cook—was also out running errands, which meant soup and sandwiches for lunch, and nothing baking in the oven.

“I wonder where they are right now,” said Kate, passing another well-scrubbed plate to Sticky, who had hardly started drying the last one.

“I hope they remember to bring us something,” called Constance from the pantry, where she was pretending to be busy. “I meant to give them a list.”

“They might have other priorities,” said Sticky, drying frantically. “My mom needs to talk to someone about a job she can do from home. Or, you know, from here—she hasn’t been able to work since September.” He frowned at the plate in his hand. “Sorry, Kate, I got this one kind of sweaty.”

Kate cheerfully scrubbed it again as Sticky (somewhat less cheerfully) mopped his brow with his sleeve. “Don’t worry, Constance!” she called. “They always bring us
something,
don’t they? They know it’s our only consolation for being stuck here while they’re out.”

Reynie, bearing a stack of dry dishes, paused on his way to the cupboard. “I’ll bet they had lunch on Stonetown Square,” he reflected wistfully. “They can probably smell the saltwater from the harbor.”

“And the dead fish,” Constance called. “And the gasoline fumes.”

Reynie shrugged. “At least dead fish and fumes would be something different.”

“Speaking of different,” said Kate with a grin, “I wonder how they look?”

The boys chuckled. They all knew the adults were compelled to wear disguises in public. For a secret agent like Milligan, disguises were run-of-the-mill—the children were rather used to seeing
him
transform into a stranger—but it was comical to imagine dear old Mrs. Perumal, for instance, or the burly, mustachioed Moocho Brazos, dressing up to conceal their identities.

The use of disguises and other security precautions were well-known to the children, who always pressed for every detail of the outings. They knew the routine by heart, and in lieu of actually getting to go out themselves they often went over it in their minds:

First Milligan would contact his personal sentries—a group of trusted agents posted throughout the neighborhood—to ensure they had seen nothing suspicious in the vicinity. Then he would distribute empty cardboard boxes and bags to the other adults, and with a casual word to the courtyard guard about “a project at Mr. Benedict’s other property,” he would escort his charges to a small house across the street. This house, with its narrow front yard and modest porch, looked as tidy and well-maintained as any in the neighborhood, but in reality its interior was in an awful state of disrepair. Mr. Benedict had purchased it years ago, not to be inhabited but to serve as a cover for the entrance to a secret tunnel.

Milligan would lift open the cellar doors at the side of the house. The doors were made of flimsy wood, set slantwise to the ground and held closed with a simple, sliding metal bolt—the sort of cellar doors that suggest nothing more important lies beyond them than dusty fruit jars and discarded boots. In the cellar itself, however, was another door, this one made of steel, with a lock Milligan said could not be picked and to which only he possessed a key. This door opened onto the secret tunnel—a narrow, damp passageway that stretched several blocks and ended beneath the Monk Building, a typically drab and unremarkable office building downtown.

At the Monk Building the adults would mount several flights of a dark stairway (with Mr. Washington supporting Mrs. Washington and Moocho carrying her wheelchair) until they reached a hidden anteroom, where they caught their breath and donned their disguises. The anteroom opened by means of a secret door into an office that belonged to Mr. Benedict, and in its wall were tiny peepholes that allowed Milligan to ensure the office was empty. (He didn’t want them stumbling unexpectedly upon an astonished custodian.) Finally, when he was sure the coast was clear, Milligan would lead the adults through the office, down the Monk Building’s seldom used public stairs, and at last out the building’s front doors.

It was hard to imagine exactly how they felt as they stepped out onto the plaza in the heart of Stonetown’s business district. Perhaps they broke into wide smiles at the prospect of a day’s freedom. Or perhaps they were overcome with a sad nostalgia, remembering the days before they had ever heard of Mr. Curtain. But just as likely they would be glancing warily about and hoping not to draw attention. They must feel uncommonly strange in their disguises.

“Do you ever worry about them?” Sticky murmured after a pause, and Reynie and Kate returned his sober gaze. They could hear Constance rattling around in the pantry.

“Sometimes,” Reynie admitted. “But I remind myself that the authorities are on high alert, and there’s been no activity reported anywhere near Stonetown—”

“And Milligan can spot a Ten Man a mile away,” Kate put in. “And he can do more than
spot
him, if it comes to that.”

The boys nodded, even though the last time Milligan encountered Mr. Curtain’s henchmen he’d needed several weeks to recover from the injuries. The circumstances had been different then—they knew because they’d been there—and they quite shared Kate’s confidence in her father.

“You’re right,” Sticky said. “They couldn’t be safer if they had a dozen guards.”

“Yes, they’re fine,” Reynie said. “I’m sure they’re fine.”

“Of course they are,” said Kate.

They spoke without real conviction, however, for though the adults were surely as safe as could be expected under the circumstances, the question remained: How safe
was
that, exactly?

Kate pulled the plug in the sink, and in troubled silence the friends watched the sudsy water drain away.

Constance emerged from the pantry with a half-empty sleeve of cheese crackers, her cheeks bulging like a chipmunk’s. “What’re you wooking at?” she said, spewing crumbs.

“Nothing,” said the others at once, and Constance scowled. It infuriated her when they tried to protect her. They couldn’t help themselves, though, nor were their reasons entirely selfless: Constance was always difficult, but when she grew anxious she was perfectly unbearable.