Part 2: Red Rover
Chapter 10

Morning found Roger Collins making his own acquaintance with Hallie's guest.

Passing briskly through the foyer bright and early, Roger turned at the sound of chains jingling down the staircase and then did a double-take as Buzz Hackett clumped into sight, thudding down the steps of Collinwood in his motorcycle boots. A pale, defeated-looking Hallie Stokes was beside him.

"Hey, man," Buzz rasped abruptly on seeing Roger, "You heard the plan?"

"I beg your pardon?" Roger asked icily, taking in Buzz Hackett and then narrowing his eyes at Hallie, who looked likely to drop right where she stood. "May I ask who the devil you are, and what you are doing here at this abnormal hour?" Roger said very loudly, bristling like a peacock. The tendons and veins in his neck began to swell, and his face darkened.

Buzz stopped where he was on the staircase and dropped his buttocks on a step, his legs sprawling before him as he sat.

"If it isn't daddy!" Buzz called. "How-de-do, dad! I'm looking for Carolyn but I'll be frigged if I can find her. She around? Where's her cot?"

"Her cot? You—how did you get into this house?"

Buzz jerked a thumb at Hallie. "Baby doll here let me in and look, man, she won't feed me, and it's the longest damned night I ever spent, right? So, where's the food?"

Astonished, Roger stared at Buzz. Everything about Roger was expanding—eyes, pupils, nostrils, chest, cords in his neck. Finally, his mouth.

"Hallie let you in?! What have you been doing—do you mean to say you've been here in Collinwood all NIGHT?"

"Well, yeah, and it's the pits, man, you know what I mean? I don't want this jellybean, she's too young to make the scene. It's Carolyn that I'm dating. I'm her old man," Buzz wavered to a halt, a little unsettled at the sight of the irate man before him. "So, can you like get Carolyn and tell her I'm here?" he finished lamely.

Roger marched toward Buzz and Hallie with a stern, set mouth. The girl was white to the lips and had brown circles beneath her eyes.

"I don't understand this, but you will leave now, right this moment! We don't feed sundry strangers and hangers-on!"

Buzz carelessly stretched out one leg, drawing the other up so that he could lay a lazy arm on the knee. "No can do, Magoo," Buzz replied. "And I ain't one of your sundry-bundries. I'm like Buzz Hackett and Carolyn's my o'l lady, and if she ain't here, dig up the old dame of the house, she'll remember me. And she'll probably cook me breakfast just to spite you."

Gasping, Roger mounted the steps quickly and grabbed the front of Buzz's jacket in both fists. "You will leave this house now, or I'll call the sheriff!"

"Call two sheriffs. Call LBJ! Here I'm stuck and here I stay. Shit, that rhymes."

Roger bodily lifted the younger man and hustled him down the steps. He wrestled Buzz to the door and wrenched it open, giving him a hard push. Buzz staggered out of the house, casting a rueful look over his shoulder.

"You keep clear of this house or you'll get much worse!" Roger cried, stepping back inside and slamming the door on his ejected guest.

He re-entered the foyer, taking a deep breath and angrily brushing off his clothes. Turning to give Hallie Stokes a healthy dressing-down, he found himself looking up once more into the face of Buzz Hackett, who was standing on the stairs beside the voiceless girl.

"Hejibip!" Roger snorted in shock. Buzz once again lowered his buttocks to sit on the step.

"Now, look," sighed Buzz, "no can do, daddy-o! I'm stuck here and that's that. Throw me out eleven more times, call the pigs! I can only go out the way I got in, and I don't wanna go out, see? So, you might as well toss the grub on the grill and start fryin', because the longer I wait, the hungrier I get, and pretty soon this whole show's gonna get nasty!"

"He won't go," moaned Hallie in a subdued voice. "I can't get rid of him."

Soon Elizabeth Stoddard entered the foyer, and was startled and resentful when she recognized who it was that Roger was haranguing. She turned away to call the police, but her brother stopped her.

"Liz," Roger called unsteadily, "watch this." Roger once more took hold of Buzz—not so roughly this time—took him to the door, pushed him outside, and closed the door. Then he looked up to the stairs.

Following his eyes, Elizabeth cried out to see Buzz yet again, sighing and stooping yet a third time to seat himself on the steps.

"It's a cosmic boomerang sort of thing, I don't know," confessed Buzz, resuming his seat. "I just can't get out of the house, so I'm stuck. I'm not that bad a guy, though you people have got me elected as the guru of doo-doo here. Who needs it? I mean, don't call the fuzz on Buzz, or it'll be a wild scene, you dig? And for just the umpty-somethingth time, do you or do you not have a kitchen in this house?"

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