It was a perfect lift-off.
Atop the center roof peak, the weathervane spun madly.
The house rose slowly at first, then began to gather speed. It thundered upward on its flaring pad of blue fire, the front door clapping madly back and forth as it went.
‘My toys!’ Brian bleated, and Trent began to laugh wildly.
The house reached a height of thirty yards, seemed to poise itself for its great leap upward, then blasted into the rushing spate of night-black clouds.
It was gone.
Two shingles came floating down like large black leaves.
‘Look out, Trent!’ Laurie cried out a second or two later, and shoved him hard enough to knock him over. The rubber-backed welcome mat thwacked into the street where he had been standing.
Trent looked at Laurie. Laurie looked back.
‘That would’ve smarted like big blue heck if it’d hit you on the head,’ she told him, ‘so you just better not call me Sprat anymore, Trent.’
He looked at her solemnly for several seconds, and then began to giggle. Laurie joined in. So did the little ones. Brian took one of Trent’s hands; Lissa took the other. They helped pull him to his feet, and then the four of them stood together, looking at the smoking cellar-hole in the middle of the shattered lawn. People were coming out of their houses now, but the Bradbury children ignored them. Or perhaps it would be truer to say the Bradbury children didn’t know they were there at all.
‘Wow,’ Brian said reverently. ‘Our house took off, Trent.’
‘Yeah,’ Trent said.
‘Maybe wherever it’s going, there’ll be people who want to know about the Normans and the Sexies,’ Lissa said.
Trent and Laurie put their arms around each other and began to shriek with mingled laughter and horror . . . and that was when the rain began to pelt down.
Mr. Slattery from across the street joined them. He didn’t have much hair, but what he did have was plastered to his gleaming skull in tight little bunches.
‘What happened?’ he screamed over the thunder, which was almost constant now. ‘What happened here?’
Trent let go of his sister and looked at Mr. Slattery. ‘True Space Adventures,’ he said solemnly, and that set them all off again.
Mr. Slattery cast a doubtful, frightened look at the empty cellar-hole, decided discretion was the better part of valor, and retreated to his side of the street. Although it was still pouring buckets, In
did not invite the Bradbury children to join him. Nor did they care. They sat down on the curb, Trent and Laurie in the middle, Brian and Lissa on the sides.
Laurie leaned toward Trent and whispered in his ear: ‘We’re free.’
‘It’s better than that,’ Trent said. ‘She is.’
Then he put his arms around all of them — by stretching, he could just manage — and they sat on the curb in the pouring rain and waited for their mother to come home.
The Fifth Quarter
I parked the heap around the corner from Keenan’s house, sat in the dark for a moment, then turned off the key and got out. When I slammed the door, I could hear rust flaking off the rocker panels and dropping onto the street. It wasn’t going to be like that much longer.
The gun was in a bandolier holster and lay against my ribcage like a fist. It was Barney’s.45, and I was glad of that. It lent the whole crazy business a touch of irony. Maybe even a sense of justice.
Keenan’s house was an architectural monstrosity spread over a quarter-acre of land, all slanting angles and steep-sloped roofs behind an iron fence. He’d left the gate unlocked, as I’d hoped. Earlier I’d seen him calling someone from the living room, and a hunch too strong to deny told me it had been either Jagger or the Sarge. Probably the Sarge. The waiting was over; this was my night.
I walked to the driveway, staying close to the shrubbery and listening for any strange sound over the cutting whine of the January wind. There wasn’t any. It was Friday night, and Keenan’s sleep-in maid would be out having a jolly time at somebody’s Tupperware party. Nobody home but that bastard Keenan. Waiting for the Sarge. Waiting — although he didn’t know it yet — for me.
The carport was open and I slipped inside. The ebony shadow of Keenan’s Impala loomed. I tried the back door. The car was also open. Keenan wasn’t cut out to be a villain, I reflected; he was much too trusting. I got in the car, sat down, and waited.
Now I could hear the faint sound of jazz on the wind, very quiet, very good. Miles Davis, maybe. Keenan listening to Miles Davis and holding a gin fizz in one manicured hand. Nice for him.
It was a long wait. The hands on my watch crawled from eight-thirty to nine to ten. Time for a lot of thinking. I mostly thought about Barney, and that wasn’t strictly a matter of choice. I thought about how he looked in that small boat when I found him, staring up at me and making meaningless cawing noises. He’d been adrift for two days and looked like a boiled lobster. There was black blood encrusted across his midsection where he’d been shot.
He’d steered toward the cottage as best he could, but still it had been mostly luck. Lucky he’d gotten there, lucky he could still talk for a little while. I’d had a fistful of sleeping pills ready if he couldn’t talk. I didn’t want him to suffer. Not unless there was a reason for it, anyway. As it turned out, there was. He had a story to tell, a real whopper, and he told me almost all of it.
When he was dead, I went back to the boat and got his.45. It was hidden aft in a small compartment, wrapped in a waterproof pouch. Then I towed his boat out into deep water and sank it. If I could have put an epitaph over his head, it would have been the one about how there’s a sucker born every minute. Most of them are pretty nice guys, too, I bet — just like Barney. Instead, I started trying to find the men who capped him. It had taken six months to find
Keenan and to ascertain that Sarge was, at least, somewhere close by, but I’m a persistent little pup, and here I was.
At ten-twenty, headlights splashed up the curving driveway and I lay on the floor of the Impala. The newcomer drove into the carport, snuggling up close to Keenan’s car. It sounded like one of the old Volkswagens. The little engine died and I could hear Sarge grunting softly as he fought his way out of the little car. The porch light went on, and the sound of the door clicking open came to me.
Keenan: ‘Sarge! You’re late! Come on in and have a drink.’
Sarge: ‘Scotch.’
I’d unrolled the window before. Now I stuck Barney’s .45 through it, holding the stock with both hands. ‘Stand still,’ I said.
The Sarge was halfway up the porch steps. Keenan, the perfect host, had come out and was looking down at him, waiting for him to come up so he could after-you him into the house. They were both perfect silhouettes in the light spilling through from inside. I doubted if they could see much of me in the dark, but they could see the gun. It was a big gun.
‘Who the hell are you?’ Keenan asked.
‘Jerry Tarkanian,’ I said. ‘Move and I’ll put a hole in you big enough to watch television through.’
‘You sound like a punk,’ Sarge said. He didn’t move, though.
‘Just don’t move. That’s all you’ve got to worry about.’ I opened the Impala’s back door and got out carefully. The Sarge was staring at me over his shoulder and I could see the glitter of his little eyes. One hand was creeping up the lapel of his 1943-model double-breasted suit.
‘Oh, please,’ I said. ‘Get your fucking hands up, asshole.’
The Sarge put his hands up. Keenan’s already were.
‘Come down to the foot of the steps. Both of you.’
They came down, and out of the direct glare of the light I could see their faces. Keenan looked scared, but the Sarge might have been listening to a lecture on Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance. He was probably the one who had jobbed Barney.
‘Face the wall and lean on it. Both of you.’
Keenan: ‘If you’re after money . . . ‘
I laughed. ‘Well, I was going to start off by offering you a cut-rate deal on Tupperware, work my way up to the big stuff gradually, but you saw through me. Yeah, I’m after money. Four hundred and eighty thousand dollars, actually. Buried on a little island off Bar Harbor called Carmen’s Folly.’