Please.’
‘No problem, man,’ Chuck said cheerfully, and whumped down on the sofa. He hooked a hassock over with one foot. ‘Couldn’t drag Patty within a mile of that place with a twenty-foot towin chain. You put a scare into her.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Johnny said. He felt sick and chilly with relief. ‘I’m sorry but I’m glad.’
‘You had some kind of a flash, didn’t you?’ Chuck looked at Johnny, then at his father, and then slowly back to Johnny. ‘I felt it. It was bad.’
‘Sometimes people do. I understand it’s sort of nasty.’
‘Well, I wouldn’t want it to happen again,’ Chuck said. ‘But hey… that place isn’t really going to burn down, is it?’
‘Yes,’ Johnny said. ‘You want to just keep away.’
‘But…’ He looked at his father, troubled. ‘The senior class reserved the whole damn place.
The school encourages that, you know. It’s safer than twenty or thirty different parties and a lot of people drinking on the back roads: There’s apt to be …’ Chuck fell silent for a moment and then began to look frightened. ‘There’s apt to be two hundred couples there,’
he said. ‘Dad…’
‘I don’t think he believes any of this,’ Johnny said.
Roger stood up and smiled. ‘Well, let’s take a ride over to Somersworth and talk to the manager of the place,’ he said. ‘It was a dull lawn party, anyway. And if you two still feel the same coming back, we can have everyone over here tonight.’
He glanced at Johnny.
‘Only condition being that you have to stay sober and help chaperon, fellow.’
‘I’ll be glad to,’ Johnny said. ‘But why, if you don’t believe it?’
‘For your peace of mind,’ Roger said, ‘and for Chuck’s And so that, when nothing happens tonight, I can say I told you so and then just laaaugh my ass off.’
‘Well, whatever, thanks.’ He was trembling worse than ever now that the relief had come, but his headache had retreated to a dull throb.
‘One thing up front, though,’ Roger said. ‘I don’t think we stand a snowball’s chance in hell of getting the owner to cancel on your unsubstantiated word, Johnny. This is probably one of his big business nights each year.’
Chuck said, ‘Well, we could work something out…’
‘Like what?’
‘Well, we could tell him a ……. spin some kind of yarn …
‘Lie, you mean? No, I won’t do that. Don’t ask me, Chuck.’
Chuck nodded. ‘All right.’
‘We better get going,’ Roger said briskly. ‘It’s quarter of five. We’ll take the Mercedes over to Somersworth.’
3.
Bruce Carrick, the owner-manager, was tending bar when the three of them came in at five-forty. Johnny’s heart sank a little when he read the sign posted outside the lounge doors: PRIVATE PARTY THIS EVENING ONLY 7 PM TO CLOSING SEE YOU
TOMORROW.
Carrick was not exactly being run into the ground. He was serving a few workmen who were drinking beer and watching the early news, and three couples who were having cocktails. He listened to Johnny’s story with a face that grew ever more incredulous.
When he had finished, Carrick said: ‘You say Smith’s your name?’
‘Yes, that’s right.’
‘Mr. Smith, come on over to this window with me.’
He led Johnny to the lobby window, by the cloakroom door.
‘Look out there, Mr. Smith, and tell me what you see.
Johnny looked out, knowing what he would see. Route 9 ran west, now drying from a light afternoon sprinkle. Above, the sky was perfectly clear. The thunderheads had passed.
‘Not much. At least, not now. But…
‘But nothing.’ Bruce Carrick said. ‘You know what I think? You want to know frankly? I think you’re a nut. Why you picked me for this royal screwing I don’t know or care. But if you got a second, sonny, I’ll tell you the facts of life. The senior class has paid me six hundred and fifty bucks for this bash. They’ve hired a pretty good rock ‘n roll band, Oak, from up in Maine. The food’s out there in the freezer, all ready to go into the microwave.
The salads are on ice. Drinks are extra, and most of these kids are over eighteen and can drink all they want … and tonight they will, who can blame them, you only graduate from a high school once. I’ll take in two thousand dollars in the lounge tonight, no sweat. I got two extra barmen coming in. I got six waitresses and a hostess. If I should cancel this