MATTHEW AND CASSIUS GO BOWLING

Things seemed a little...wrong...to Suzie Tomlin from the outset. The moment the two men walked through the door of the bowling alley, her heart skipped a beat and all the spit in her mouth dried up. There wasn't really anything overtly different about the pair--save for the fact that tall shambling beanpole was wearing all black and sunglasses at night, who was that again that sang that?--but, regardless, Suzie stepped back a bit from the counter as the men approached.

"Hey, fellas," she said, forcing cheeriness into her voice. "How's it going tonight?" Up close, her disquiet deepened. The tall guy just really really rubbed her the wrong way. He had to be at least six-and-a-half feet tall and his long skinny hands, she noticed, were as white as sheets of paper. And the sunglasses that he wore, shielding his eyes, made her even more nervous. She was relieved, then, when the shorter, scraggly-looking man spoke.

"Evening, ma'am," he said politely. "We're thinking of bowling a couple of games. My friend here has never bowled and so I figured I'd take him out for a little slice of Americana. Bowling. Apple pie. Mothers. What's more American, y'know?"

Suzie thought of a half-dozen things, right off the top of her head that were more American than bowling and apple pie and mothers, but she kept her tongue and simply nodded. "So, two games each, hon?"

The short guy nodded. The beanpole stood silently, staring straight ahead, Suzie figured, directly at her. Her skin felt like bugs were crawling busily to and fro and she rubbed her arms briskly and stepped away from the counter. "Do you guys need shoes?" she asked.

The short guy nodded and Suzie angled off towards the shoe rack. "What size, hon?"

***

Five minutes later, Matthew Yoosip and Cassius were on Lane 25, right against the wall. The bowling alley was mostly empty, which suited Yoosip just fine. He slipped on his alley rentals and sat down at the computer to enter the names. "Do you want to go first, Master?" he asked over his shoulder.

"What kind of ethablthment ith thith?" asked Cassius. Yoosip swung around on the chair and looked down at Cassius's stockinged feet. Cassisus's shielded eyes bored into Matthew. "They don't even have thoe'th that fit." He gestured at his feet; no shoes had fit his huge feet and so he, Cassius, four-hundred-and-fifty year-old Cassius--had to bowl in his socks.

"I apologize again, Master," said Yoosip. "I did not foresee this problem."

Cassius dismissed him with a slight wave of the hand and plucked his ball, like a feather, from the rack. "I'll go firtht."

***

From behind the counter, Suzie watched the two bowl. Her disbelief grew with each passing moment and she began to wonder if there were a hidden camera, somewhere. The little guy wasn't anything special; bowlers like him were a dime a dozen, here, at TipeRover Lanes. A strike here, a spare there, inconsistency and a bad temperment were all marked facets of his game.

The beanpole, though? The beanpole was a different story. His first throw had been a gutter ball and his reaction had been, at first comic, and then rather troubling. From her safe place, Suzie watched as the man had first stomped his stockinged foot and then seemed to stretch a couple inches higher and a few inches wider. Tricks of the lights, she told herself and she watched as the little man strode quickly to his side and animatedly conferred with him. The tall man seemed to shrink a bit and he fixed the smaller man with what could only be a glare from behind his Oakley sunglasses. He waited for the ball to return and then readied himself for his second throw.

The second throw was as bad, if not worse, than the first. Or so it had seemed. Starting out at a sharp angle toward the right gutter, the ball's only logical destination, as far as Suzie could discern, had been straight to Goose-egg Land. But then something strange had happened. Maybe it had been another trick of the light, she'd reasoned, but it had seemed to her that a black shadow had followed above the ball for about three-quarters of the alley and the ball had somehow corrected its own course--without the virtue of a spin--and had dead-eyed right into the pocket. The seven pin had stood a moment longer than the rest but then, as if blown over by a breeze, had toppled over. She looked back at the tall man, who seemed, momentarily, not as there.

"Tricks of the light," she murmured and turned to take care of a lovestruck couple who were settling their bill.

***