“None.”
“There must be a way.”
“No.”
“There must be.”
“Why?” “Because he can’t be allowed to win.” Fogarty smiled.
“Why not?”
“Because he’s the bad guy, dammit! And we’re the good guys. Not
perfect, maybe, not without flaws, but we’re the good guys, all right.
And that’s why we have to win, because if we don’t, then the whole game
is meaningless.” Fogarty leaned back in his chair.
“My point exactly. It is all meaningless. We’re not good, and we’re
not bad, we’re just meat. We don’t have souls, there’s no hope of
transcendence for a slab of meat, you wouldn’t expect a hamburger to go
to Heaven after someone ate it.” She had never hated anyone as much as
she hated Fogarty at that moment, partly because he was so smug and
hateful, but partly because she recognized, in his arguments, something
perilously close to the things she had said to Bobby in the motel, after
she had learned about Thomas’s death. She had said there was no point
in having dreams, that they never came true, that death was always there
watching even if you were lucky enough to grasp your personal brass
ring. And loathing life, just because it led sooner or later to death
… well, that was the same as saying people were nothing but meat.
“We have just pleasure and pain,” the old physician said
“so it doesn’t matter who’s right or who’s wrong, who wins or loses.”
“What’s his weakness?” she demanded angrily.
“None I can see.” Fogarty seemed pleased by the hopelessness of their
position. If he had been practicing medicine in the early 1940s, he had
to be nearing eighty, though he looked younger. He was acutely aware of
how little time remained to him, and was no doubt resentful of anyone
younger; and given his cold perspective on life, their deaths at Candy
Pollard’s hands would entertain him.
“No weaknesses at all.” Bobby disagreed, or tried to.
“Some might say that his weakness is his mind, his screwed-up
psychology.” Fogarty shook his head.
“And I’d argue that he’s mad strength of his screwed-up psychology. He’s
used this business about being the instrument of God’s vengeance to
armor him self very effectively from depression and self-doubt and a
thing else that might trip him up.” In the wingback chair, Frank
abruptly sat up straight shook himself as if to cast off his mental
confusion thea dog might shake water from its sodden coat after coming
from the rain. He said,
“Where… Why do I… Is it is it… is it… ?”,Is it what, Frank?”
Bobby asked.
“Is it happening?” Frank said. His eyes seemed slowly be clearing.
“Is it finally happening?”,is what finally happening, Frank?” His voice
was hoarse.
“Death. Is it finally happening? Is i CANDY HAD crept quietly through
the house, into the hallway that led to the library. As he moved toward
the open door the left, he heard voices. When he recognized one of them
Frank’s, he could barely contain himself.
According to Violet, Frank was crippled. His control of telekinetic
talent had always been erratic, which is why Can had enjoyed some hope
of one day catching him and finishing him before he could travel to a
place of safety. Perhaps the moment of triumph had arrived.
When he reached the door, he found himself looking at the woman’s back.
He could not see her face, but he was sure it would be the same one that
had been suffused in a beautiful glow in Thomas’s mind.
Beyond her he glimpsed Frank, and saw Frank’s eyes widen at the sight of
him. If the mother-killer had been too confused to teleport out of
Candy’s reach, as Violet had claimed, he was now casting off that
confusion. He looked if he might pop out of there long before Candy
could lay a had on him.
Candy had intended to throw the library into a turmoil sending a wave of
energy through the doorway ahead of him setting the books on fire and
shattering the lamps, with the purpose of panicking and distracting the
Dakotas and Doc Fogarty, giving him a chance to go straight for Frank.
But now he was forced to change his plans by the sight of his brother