AS IT TURNS out, David has a plan for this. He reveals this as he occupies Hadley's passenger seat, his legs propped up on the dashboard, his hands behind his head. He sits like he's at the beach.
The plan, David explains as Hadley drives, involves David staying at Hadley's room for a week or two—depending on the circumstances—figuring out what the hell's going with Hadley, and luring out whatever big bad demon might be hiding under Hadley's bed. David mentions his address; Hadley starts driving there.
"You're not going to rob me and run off with my money, are you?" Hadley asks, partly-joking, but mostly serious.
"If I was going to, I would've done it a long time ago, don't you think?"
"Can't be too careful."
"I'll keep a tracking chip on me, if you're so concerned," David offers.
David goes onto talk about how he's going to do this, or that, but Hadley's tuning him out. The hows and whys don't matter to Hadley, nor do they interest him. What interests him is staying on the road, not running over little kids at the crossing, and keeping his hands on the wheel. David keeps talking, Hadley keeps driving.
"What happens if it doesn't work?" Hadley asks, interrupting David mid-explanation.
"If what doesn't work?" David asks.
"Your plan. What if whatever thing that got me last night doesn't come back? What if you can't lure it out?"
"Then I go ahead and find it."
"And how are you going to find it?"
"Don't worry about that," David assures. He finally takes his feet off the dashboard. "The problem is me staying over. How are you going to excuse that?"
"I won't have to," Hadley says. They stop at an intersection. "I'm going to sneak you in."
"So nobody checks your room?" David asks, eyebrow raised. "And how am I going to shower and eat and all that stuff?"
"Nobody checks my room," Hadley says. "Nobody except Marzia. And I'll convince her."
"Marzia?"
"My maid and cook."
"Ah," David says. "Light's green."
Hadley starts driving again, and David's lapsed into a silence. Hadley can only imagine how awkward it'll be, living and breathing side by side David, for two weeks. He'd rather be doing this with Vic. What must she think of him? Coward, for not calling her. Bigger coward for not explaining himself.
"Turn right," says David.
Hadley pulls up to a neighborhood he's never seen before, not in the city. It's a shabby neighborhood. Red brick cookie cutter houses, squashed and crammed next to each other, as far as the street goes down. At the far end of the street, a bunch of kids are having a snowball fight. Someone's walking a dog. A few people are outside of their respective homes, shoveling snow.
Compare and contrast with Hadley's neighborhood, where the only times he saw his neighbors were at awkward barbeques, where sometimes it seemed to him that any sign of human activity was something to be hidden and tucked away behind iron-wrought gates and greens hedges.
