He slept with crumbs on his lips.
And dreamed of Josie Rinkenhauer.
6
Half an hour after it caught fire, old Reggie Gosselin’s barn was no more than a dying dragon’s eye in the booming night, waxing and waning in a black socket of melted snow. From the woods east of the Swanny Pond Road came the pop-pop-pop of rifle fire, heavy at first, then diminishing a little in both frequency and volume as the Imperial Valleys (Kate Gallagher’s Imperial Valleys now) pursued the escaped detainees. It was a turkey shoot, and not many of the turkeys were going to get away. Enough of them to tell the tale, maybe, enough to rat them all out, but that was tomorrow’s worry.
While this was going on-also while the traitorous Owen Underhill was getting farther and farther ahead of them-Kurtz and Freddy Johnson stood in the command post (except, Freddy supposed, it was now nothing but a Winnebago again; that feeling of power and importance had gone), flipping playing-cards into a hat.
No longer telepathic in the slightest, but as sensitive to the men under him as ever-that his command had been reduced to a single soldier really made no difference-Kurtz looked at Freddy and said, “Make haste slowly, buck-that’s one saw that’s still sharp.” “Yes, boss,” Freddy said without much enthusiasm.
Kurtz flipped the two of spades. It fluttered down through the air and landed in the hat. Kurtz crowed like a child and prepared to flip again. There was a knock at the “Bago’s door. Freddy turned in that direction, and Kurtz fixed him with a forbidding look. Freddy turned back and watched Kurtz flip another card. This one started out well, then went long and landed on the cap’s bill. Kurtz muttered something under his breath, then nodded at the door. Freddy, with a mental prayer of thanks, went to open it.
Standing on the top step was Jocelyn McAvoy, one of the two female Imperial Valleys. Her accent was soft country Tennessee; the face under the boy-cropped blonde hair was hard as stone. She was holding a spectacularly non-reg Israeli burp-gun by the strap. Freddy wondered where she had gotten such a thing, then decided it didn’t matter. A lot of things had ceased to matter, most of them in the last hour or so.
“Joss,” Freddy said. “What’s up with your bad self?” “Delivering two Ripley Positives as ordered.” More shooting from the woods, and Freddy saw the woman’s eyes shift minutely in that direction. She wanted to get back over there across the road, wanted to bag her limit before the game was gone. Freddy knew how she felt.
“Send them in, lassie,” Kurtz said. He was still standing over the cap on the floor (the floor that was still faintly stained with Cook’s Third Melrose’s blood), still holding the deck of cards in his hand, but his eyes were bright and interested. “Let’s see who you found.” Jocelyn gestured with her gun. A male voice at the foot of the stairs growled, “The fuck up there. Don’t make me say it twice.” The first man to step past Jocelyn was tall and very black. There was a cut down one of his cheeks and another on his neck. Both cuts had been clogged with Ripley. More was growing in the creases in his brow. Freddy knew the face but not the name. The old man, of course, knew both. Freddy supposed he remembered the names of all the men he had commanded, both the quick and the dead.
“Cambry!” Kurtz said, eyes lighting even more brightly. He dropped the playing cards into the hat, approached Cambry, seemed about to shake hands, thought better of it, and snapped off a salute instead. Gene Cambry did not return it. He looked sullen and disoriented. “Welcome to the justice League of America.”
“Spotted him running through the woods along with the detainees he was supposed to be guarding,” Jocelyn McAvoy said. Her face was expressionless; all her contempt was in her voice. “Why not?” Cambry asked. He looked at Kurtz. “You were going to kill me, anyway. Kill all of us. Don’t bother lying about it, either. I can see it in your mind.”
Kurtz wasn’t discomfited by this in the slightest. He rubbed his hands together and smiled at Cambry in a friendly way. “Do a good job and p’raps you’ll change my mind, buck. Hearts were made to be broken and minds were made to be changed, that’s a big praise God. Who else have you got for me, Joss?”
Freddy regarded the second figure with amazement. Also with pleasure. The Ripley could not have found a better home, in his humble opinion. Nobody liked the son of a bitch much in the first place.
“Sir… boss… I don’t know why I’m here… I was in proper pursuit of the escapees when this… this… I’m sorry, I have to say it, when this officious bitch pulled me out of the sweep area and…”
“He was running with them,” McAvoy said in a bored voice. “Running with them and infected up the old wazoo.”
“A he!” said the man in the doorway. “A total lie! I’m perfectly clean! One hundred per cent-”
McAvoy snatched off the watchcap her second prisoner was wearing. The man’s thinning blond hair was much thicker now, and appeared to have been dyed red.
“I can explain, sir,” Archie Perlmutter said, his voice fading even as he spoke. “There is… you see… Then it died away entirely.
Kurtz was beaming at him, but he had donned his filter-mask again-they all had-and it gave his reassuring smile an oddly sinister look, the expression of a child molester inviting a little kid in for a piece of pie.
“Pearly, it’s going to be all right,” Kurtz said. “We’re going for a ride, that’s all. There’s someone we need to find, someone you know-”
“Owen Underhill,” Perlmutter whispered.
“That’s right, buck,” Kurtz said. He turned to McAvoy. “Bring this soldier his clipboard, McAvoy. I’m sure he’ll feel better once he has his clipboard. Then you can carry on hunting, which I feel quite sure you’re eager to do.”
“Yes, boss.”
“But first, watch this-a little trick I learned back in Kansas.” Kurtz sprayed the cards. In the crazy blizzard-wind coming through the door, they flew every whichway. Only one landed faceup in the hat, but it was the ace of spades.
7
Mr Gray held the menu, looking at the lists of stuff-meatloaf, sliced beets, roast chicken, chocolate silk pie-with interest and an almost total lack of understanding. Jonesy realized it wasn’t just not knowing how food tasted; Mr Gray didn’t know what taste was. How could he? When you cut to the chase, he was nothing but a mushroom with a high IQ.
Here came a waitress, moving under a vast tableland of frozen ash-blonde hair. The badge on her not inconsiderable bosom read WELCOME TO DYSART’s, I AM YOUR WAITRESS DARLENE.
“Hi, hon, what can I get you?”
“I’d like scrambled eggs and bacon. Crisp, not limp.”
“Toast?”
“How about canpakes?”
She raised her eyebrows and looked at him over her pad. Beyond her, at the counter, the State Trooper was eating some kind of drippy sandwich and talking with the short-order cook.
“Sorry-cakepans, I meant to say.”
The eyebrows went higher. Her question was plain, blinking at the front of her mind like a neon sign in a saloon window: was this guy a mushmouth, or was he making fun of her?
Standing at his office window, smiling, Jonesy relented.
“Pancakes,” Mr Gray said.
“Uh-huh, I sort of figured. Coffee with that?”
“Please.”
She snapped her pad closed and started away. Mr Gray was back at the locked door of Jonesy’s office at once, and furious all over again.
How could you do that? he asked. How could you do that from in there? An ill-natured thump as Mr Gray hit the door. And he was more than angry, Jonesy realized. He was frightened, as well. Because if Jonesy could interfere, everything was in jeopardy.
I don’t know, Jonesy said, and truthfully enough. But don’t take it so hard. Enjoy your breakfast. I was just fucking with you a little.
Why? Still furious. Still drinking from the well of Jonesy’s emotions, and liking it in spite of himself. Why would you do that?
Call it payback for trying to roast me in my office while I was sleeping, Jonesy said.
With the restaurant section of the truck stop almost deserted, Darlene was back with the food in no time. Jonesy considered seeing if he could gain control of his mouth long enough to say something outrageous (Darlene, can I bite your hair? was what came to mind), and thought better of it.
She set his plate down, gave him a dubious look, then started away. Mr Gray, looking at the bright yellow lump of eggs and the dark twigs of bacon (not just crispy but almost incinerated, in the great Dysart’s tradition) through Jonesy’s eyes, was feeling the same dubiety.