stopped him, because he would have kept the knife. Everyone would have
been afraid. Even the cop. He could have pressed the waitress down on
the dirty tiles behind the counter, could have ravaged her as often as
he wanted . . .
He thought about the knife and the blood that would have been and about
the girl’s breasts and the feel of her body moving against him, and he
saw the stunned looks the others in the diner would have given him if
he had actually done it. And, gradually, the mood left him. His heart
grew quiet. His breath came less raggedly than it had.
He raised his head and unexpectedly caught sight of himself in the wide
rear-view mirror fixed beside the driver’s window. He looked into his
own eyes, and for a moment he knew where he was and what he was doing.
Suddenly lucid, he realized why he was following the Thunderbird, what
he intended to do to the people inside of it. And he knew it was all
wrong. He was sick, confused, disoriented.
Looking away from his own eyes, sickened by what he saw in them, he
discovered that the cop had come out of the diner and was walking toward
the van. Irrationally, he was certain the trooper knew everything. The
trooper somehow knew all that Leland would have liked to do to the girl
and all that he would do to the pair in the Thunderbird. The trooper
knew.
Leland started the van.
The trooper called to him.
Unable to hear what the man said, certain that he did not want to hear
it, Leland put the van in gear and tramped the accelerator.
The cop shouted again.
The truck jerked, stewed sideways, kicking up loose gravel.
Leland eased up on the gas and settled the machine. He drove out of the
lot and picked up speed going through the clutter of motels and service
stations.
He was breathing hard again. He was whimpering.
At the east end of the complex, he took the entrance ramp to Interstate
70 much faster than he should have. He did not check the traffic, but
drove unheedingly onto the throughway. Fortunately, both westbound
lanes were deserted.
Though in the back of his mind Leland knew that these roads were well
patrolled and even monitored by radar, he let the needle on the
speedometer climb and climb. When it hit close to a hundred, the van
trembled slightly and fell into its maximum pace like a thoroughbred
into the proper trot.
in the cargo space, the furniture rattled and banged against the walls.
A table lamp fell with a crash of broken glass.
Leland looked in the mirror. The cop either had not started after him
or had not started quickly enough. The road back there was empty.
Nevertheless, he held the van at a hundred miles an hour. The road
roared beneath him. The flat land spun past like rapidly changed stage
settings. And little by little the panic died in him. He gradually
lost the feeling that everyone was watching him, that everyone’s hand
was against him, that he was transparent, and that he was being
relentlessly pursued by forces connected with but not really identified
by that state policeman. As he barreled westward, he quickly became a
part of his machine once more. He guided it with a safe and measured
touch. When he had gone seven or eight miles, he let the speed fall
back to the legal limit; and even though only minutes had passed since
he left the diner, he could not recall what had made him panic in the
first place . . .
However, he suddenly did remember Doyle and Colin. The Thunderbird was
somewhere behind him, to the east. Perhaps it was still parked in the
shadow of that enormous sign at Harry’s Fine Food.
Even if it were on the road again, Doyle and the kid were miles to the
rear, out of sight. Leland did not like that at all.
He let his speed drop even further. As he began to realize that now
they were following him, his ever-present fear took on a familiar edge.