Dreamcatcher(173)

Henry, why did Duddits say Jonesy wants war? What war?

Henry tried to send the answer telepathically, but Owen could no longer hear him. The patches of byrus on Owen's face had all turned white, and when he scratched absently at his cheek, he pulled clumps of the stuff out with his nails. The skin beneath looked chapped and irritated, but not really hurt. Like getting over a cold, Henry marvelled. Really not more serious than that.

'He didn't say war, Owen.'

'War,' Duddits agreed from the back seat. He leaned forward to look at the big green sign reading 95 SOUTHBOUND. 'Onesy ont war.

Owen's brow wrinkled; a dust of dead byrus flakes sifted down like dandruff. 'What - '

'Water,' Henry said, and reached back to pat Duddit's bony knee. 'Jonesy wants water is what he was trying to say. Only it's not Jonesy who wants it. It's the other one. The one he calls Mr Gray.'

16

Roberta went into Duddits's room and began to pick up the litter of his clothes  -  the way he left them around drove her crazy, but she supposed she wouldn't have to worry about that anymore. She had been at it scarcely five minutes before a weakness overcame her legs, and she had to sit in his chair by the window. The sight of the bed, where he had come to spend more and more of his time, haunted her. The dull morning light on the pillow, which still bore the circular indentation of his head, was inexpressibly cruel.

Henry thought she'd let Duddits go because they believed the future of the whole world somehow hinged on finding Jonesy, and finding him fast. But that wasn't it. She had let him go because it was what Duddits wanted. The dying got signed baseball caps; the dying also got to go on trips with old friends.

But it was hard.

Losing him was so hard.

She put her handful of tee-shirts to her face in order to blot out the sight of the bed and there was his smell: Johnson's shampoo, Dial soap, and most of all, worst of all, the arnica cream she put on his back and legs when his muscles hurt.

In her desperation she reached out to him, trying to find him with the two men who had come like the dead and taken him away, but his mind was gone.

He's blocked himself off from me, she thought. They had enjoyed (mostly enjoyed) their own ordinary telepathy over the years, perhaps only different in minor degree from the telepathy most mothers of special children experienced (she had heard the word rapport over and over again at the support-group meetings she and Alfie sometimes attended), but that was gone now. Duddits had blocked himself off, and that meant he knew something terrible was going to happen.

He knew.

Still holding the shirts to her face and inhaling his scent, Roberta began to cry again.

17

Kurtz had been okay (mostly okay) until they saw the road-flares and blue police lightbars flashing in the grim morning light, and beyond it, a huge semi lying on its side like a dead dinosaur. Standing out front, so bundled up his face was completely invisible, was a cop waving them toward an exit ramp.

'Fuck!' Kurtz spat. He had to fight an urge to draw the nine and just start spraying away. He knew that would be disaster  -  there were other cops running around the stalled semi  -  but he felt the urge, all but ungovernable, just the same. They were so close! Closing in, by the hands of the nailed-up Christ! And then stopped like this! 'Fuck, f**k, f**k!'

'What do you want me to do, boss?' Freddy had asked. Impassive behind the wheel, but he had drawn his own weapon  -  an automatic rifle  -  across his lap. 'If I nail it, I think we can skate by on the night. Gone in sixty seconds.'

Again Kurtz had to fight the urge to just say Yeah, punch it, Freddy, and if one of those bluesuits gets in the way, bust his gut for him. Freddy might get by . . . but he might not. He wasn't the driver he thought he was, that Kurtz had already ascertained. Like too many pilots, Freddy had the erroneous belief that his skills in the sky were mirrored by skills on the ground. And even if they did get by, they'd be marked. And that was not acceptable, not after General Yellow-Balls Randall had hollered Blue Exit. His Get-Out-of-Jail-Free card had been revoked. He was strictly a vigilante now.

Got to do the smart thing, he thought. That's why they pay me the big bucks.

'Be a good boy and just go the way he's pointing you,' Kurtz said. 'In fact, I want you to give him a wave and a big thumb's-up when you take the ramp. Then keep moving south and get back on the turnpike at your earliest opportunity.' He sighed. 'Lord love a duck.' He leaned forward, close enough to Freddy to see the whitening fuzz of Ripley in his right ear. He whispered, ardent as a lover, 'And if you ditch us, laddie-buck, I'll put a round in the back of your neck.' Kurtz touched the place where the soft nape joined the hard skull. 'Right here.'

Freddy's wooden-Indian face didn't change. 'Yes, boss.' Next, Kurtz had gripped the now-nearl- - comatose Perlmutter by the shoulder and had shaken him until Pearly's eyes at last fluttered open.

'Lea' me 'lone, boss. Need to sleep.'

Kurtz placed the muzzle of his nine-millimeter against the back of his former aide's head. 'Nope. Rise and shine, buck. Time for a little debriefing.'

Pearly had groaned, but he had also sat up. When he opened his mouth to say something, a tooth had tumbled out onto the front of his parka. The tooth had looked perfect to Kurtz. Look, Ma, no cavities.

Pearly said that Owen and his new buddy were still stopped, still in Derry. Very good. Yummy. Not so good fifteen minutes later, as Freddy sent the Humvee trudging down another snow-covered entrance ramp and back onto the turnpike. This was Exit 28, only one interchange away from their target, but a miss was as good as a mile.