At the corner of Main Street and Union Road, she tossed the key once more-and missed. She heard the metal edge ring as it struck the sidewalk behind her, but when she turned she couldn’t see the trinket anywhere.
Emma Thorp bent over and braced her arms on the kitchen table. She accidentally knocked aside an empty coffee cup. It fell off the table and shattered on the tile floor.
Kicking the fragments out of his way, Salsbury stepped in behind her and with both hands stroked the graceful curve of her back.
Bob watched, smiling primly.
Jeremy watched, amazed.
Tat-tat-tat-tat-tat: the power, Miriam, his mother, the whores, Dawson, Klinger, women, vengeance – . . Ricocheting thoughts.
She looked over her shoulder at him.
“I’ve always wanted one of you like this.” He giggled. He could not suppress it. He felt good. “Scared of me. Of me!”
Her face was pale and streaked with tears. Her eyes were wide.
Lovely,” he said.
“I don’t want you touching me.”
“Miriam used to say that. But with Miriam it was an order. She never begged.” He touched her.
She was covered with gooseflesh.
“Don’t stop crying,” he said. “I like you crying.”
She wept, not quietly but uncontrollably and unashamedly, as if she were a child-or as if she were in agony.
As he prepared to enter her, he heard someone shout just beyond the window. Startled, he said, “Who-”
The kitchen door crashed open. A boy, no older than Jeremy Thorp, came inside, shouting at the top of his voice and wind-milling his thin arms.
At the edge of the Thorp property, Rya tossed the key and missed it again.
Two errors out of forty catches isn’t so bad, she thought. In fact that’s major league talent. Rya Annendale of the Boston Red Sox! Didn’t sound bad. Not bad at all. Rya Annendale of the Pittsburgh Pirates! That was even better.
This time she saw where the key fell in the grass. She went straight to it and picked it up.
When the door flew open and the boy charged in like a dangerous animal breaking free of its cage, Salsbury stepped away from the woman and pulled up his trousers.
“You let go of her!”
The boy collided with him.
“Get out of here! Now! Out!”
Under attack, Salsbury staggered backwards. He was strong enough to handle the boy, but he was suffering from surprise and confusion; and he had lost his balance. When he backed into the refrigerator, still trying to button the waistband of his slacks, the boy pummeling him, he realized that it was ridiculous for him, of all people, to retreat. “I am the key.”
The boy hit him. Called him names.
Desperate, Salsbury fought back, seized him by the wrists and struggled with him. “I am the key!”
“Mr. Thorp! Jeremy! Help me!”
“Stay right where you are,” Salsbury told them.
They didn’t move.
He swung the boy around, reversing their positions, and slammed him against the refrigerator. Bottles and cans and jars rattled loudly on the shelves.
Very young children would not have been affected by the subliminal program that had been played for Black River. Below the age of eight, children were not sufficiently aware of death and sex to respond to the motivational equations that the subceptive films established in older individuals. Furthermore, although the vocabulary had been made as simple as possible since the Hoibrook-Rossner-Picard indoctrination, a child had to have at least a third-grade reading ability to be properly impressed by the block-letter messages that established the key-lock code phrases. But this boy was older than eight, and he should respond.
Through clenched teeth Salsbury said, “I’m the key, damn you”
Halfway across the lawn, atop the grape arbor, a robin bounced along the interlocking vines, stopped after every second or third hop, cocked its head, and peered between the leaves. Rya paused to watch him for a moment.
Panic.
He had to guard against panic.
But he had made a fatal mistake, and he might have the power taken away from him.
– No. It was a serious mistake. Granted. Very serious. But not fatal. He must not panic. Keep cool.