Referring disdainfully to the murdered couple, Clocker said, “Who cares,
for God’s sake? They were nothing but a couple of fucking Klingons
anyway.”
Oslett had been referring not to the victims but to the fact that Alfie
was more than merely a renegade now, was an untraceable renegade, thus
jeopardizing the organization and everyone in it. He had no more pity
for the dead man and woman than did Clocker, felt no responsibility for
what had happened to them, and figured the world, in fact, was better
off without two more nonproductive parasites sucking on the substance of
society and hindering traffic in their lumbering home on wheels. He had
no love for the masses. As he saw it, the basic problem with the
average man and woman was precisely that they were so average and that
there were so many of them, taking far more than they gave to the world,
quite incapable of managing their own lives intelligently let alone
society, government, the economy, and the environment.
Nevertheless, he was alarmed by the way Clocker had phrased his contempt
for the victims. The word
“Klingons” made him uneasy because it was the
name of the alien race that had been at war with humanity through so
many television episodes and movies in the Star Trek series before
events in that fictional far future had begun to reflect the improvement
of relations between the United States and the Soviet Union in the real
world. Oslett found Star Trek tedious, insufferably boring. He never
had understood why so many people had such a passion for it. But
Clocker was an ardent fan of the series, unabashedly called himself a
“Trekker,” could reel off the plots of every movie and episode ever
filmed, and knew the personal histories of every character as if they
were all his dearest friends. Star Trek was the only topic about which
he seemed willing or able to conduct a conversation, and as taciturn as
he was most of the time, he was to the same degree garrulous when the
subject of his favorite fantasy arose.
Oslett tried to make sure that it never arose.
Now, in his mind, the dreaded word
“Klingons” clanged like a firehouse
bell.
With the entire organization at risk because Alfie’s trail had been
lost, with something new and exquisitely violent loose in the world, the
return trip to Oklahoma City through so many miles of lightless and
unpeopled land was going to be bleak and depressing. The last thing
Oslett needed was to be assaulted by one of Clocker’s exhaustingly
enthusiastic monologues about Captain Kirk, Mr. Spock, Scotty, the rest
of the crew, and their adventures in the far reaches of a universe that
was, on film, stuffed with far more meaning and moments of sophomoric
enlightenment than was the real universe of hard choices, ugly truths,
and mindless cruelty.
“Let’s get out of here,” Oslett said, pushing past Clocker and heading
for the front of the Road King. He didn’t believe in God, but he prayed
nonetheless ardently that Karl Clocker would subside into his usual
self-absorbed silence.
Cyrus Lowbock excused himself temporarily to confer with some colleagues
who wanted to talk to him elsewhere in the house.
Marty was relieved by his departure.
When the detective left the dining room, Paige returned from the window
and sat once more in the chair beside Marty.
Although the Pepsi was gone, some of the ice cubes had melted in the
mug, and he drank the cold water. “All I want now is to put an end to
this. We shouldn’t be here, not with that guy out there somewhere,
loose.”
“Do you think we should be worried about the kids?”
. . . need . . . my Charlotte, my Emily . . .
Marty said, “Yeah. I’m worried shitless.”
“But you shot the guy twice in the chest.”
“I thought I’d left him in the foyer with a broken back, too, but he got
up and ran away. Or limped away. Or maybe even vanished into thin air.
I don’t know what the hell’s going on here, Paige, but it’s wilder than
anything I’ve ever put in a novel. And it’s not over, not by a long