‘Yes.’
‘You perhaps understand your bitch of a mother a little better now, do you?’
‘Yes,’ Bobby said for the third time. By now he was nearly moaning. ‘I guess I do.’
‘That’s enough,’ Ted said. ‘Stop it.’
But the voice wouldn’t. Not yet. ‘You’ve learned how to be a coward, Bobby . . . haven’t you?’
‘Yes!’ he cried, still with his face against Ted’s shirt. ‘A baby, a little chickenshit baby, yes yes yes! I don’t care! Just let me go home!’ He drew in a great long unsteady breath and let it out in a scream. ‘I wANT MY MOTHER!’ It was the howl of a terrified littlun who has finally glimpsed the beast from the water, the beast from the air.
‘All right,’ the low man said. ‘Since you put it that way. Assuming your Teddy-bear confirms that he’ll go to work with a will and not have to be chained to his oar as previously.’
‘I promise.’ Ted let go of Bobby. Bobby remained as he was, clutching Ted with panicky tightness and pushing his face against Ted’s chest, until Ted pushed him gently away.
‘Go inside the poolhall, Bobby. Tell Files to give you a ride home. Tell him if he does that, my friends will leave him alone.’
‘I’m sorry, Ted. I wanted to come with you. I meant to come with you. But I can’t. I’m so sorry.’
‘You shouldn’t be hard on yourself.’ But Ted’s look was heavy, as if he knew that from tonight on Bobby would be able to be nothing else.
Two of the yellowcoats grasped Ted’s arms. Ted looked at the one standing behind Bobby
— the one who had been caressing the nape of Bobby’s neck with that horrible sticklike finger. ‘They don’t need to do that, Cam. I’ll walk.’
‘Let him go,’ Cam said. The low men holding Ted released his arms. Then, for the last time, Cam’s finger touched the back of Bobby’s neck. Bobby uttered a choked wail. He thought, If he does it again I’ll go crazy, I won’t be able to help it. I’ll start to scream and I won’t be able to stop. Even if my head bursts open I’ll go on screaming. ‘Get inside there, little boy. Do it before I change my mind and take you anyway.’
Bobby stumbled toward The Corner Pocket. The door stood open but empty. He climbed the single step, then turned back. Three of the low men were clustered around Ted, but Ted was walking toward the blood-clot DeSoto on his own.
‘Ted!’
Ted turned, smiled, started to wave. Then the one called Cam leaped forward, seized him, whirled him, and thrust him into the car. As Cam swung the DeSoto’s back door shut Bobby saw, for just an instant, an incredibly tall, incredibly scrawny being standing inside a long yellow coat, a thing with flesh as white as new snow and lips as red as fresh blood. Deep in its eyesockets were savage points of light and dancing flecks of darkness in pupils which swelled and contracted as Ted’s had done. The red lips peeled back, revealing needly teeth that put the alleycat’s to shame. A black tongue lolled out from between those teeth and wagged an obscene goodbye. Then the creature in the yellow coat sprinted around the hood of the purple DeSoto, thin legs gnashing, thin knees pumping, and plunged in behind the wheel. Across the street the Olds started up, its engine sounding like the roar of an awakening dragon. Perhaps it was a dragon. From its place skewed halfway across the sidewalk, the Cadillac’s engine did the same. Living headlights flooded this part of Narragansett Avenue in a pulsing glare. The DeSoto skidded in a U-turn, one fenderskirt scraping up a brief train of sparks from the street, and for a moment Bobby saw Ted’s face in the DeSoto’s back window.
Bobby raised his hand and waved. He thought Ted raised his own in return but could not be
sure. Once more his head filled with a sound like hoofbeats.
He never saw Ted Brautigan again.
‘Bug out, kid,’ Len Files said. His face was cheesy-white, seeming to hang off his skull the way the flesh hung off his sister’s upper arms. Behind him the lights of the Gottlieb machines in the little arcade flashed and flickered with no one to watch them; the cool cats who made an evening specialty of Corner Pocket pinball were clustered behind Len Files like children.