Dreamcatcher(187)

Don't cry Jonesy, he says, and the words are clear, in his mind they always are, it is only his stupid mouth that mushes them up. Don't cry, I'm not lost.

Eyes closed. Arms crossed.

In Jonesy's office, beneath the dreamcatcher, Duddits plays the game.

14

'I've got the dog,' Henry said. He sounded exhausted. 'The one Perlmutter's homed in on. I've got it. We're a little bit closer. Christ, if there was just a way to slow them down!'

It was raining now, and Owen could only hope they'd be south of the freeze-line if it went over to sleet. The wind was gusting hard enough to sway the Hummer on the road. It was noon, and they were between Saco and Biddeford. Owen glanced into the rearview mirror and saw Duddits in the back seat, eyes closed, head back, skinny arms crossed on his chest. His complexion was an alarming yellow, but a thin line of bright blood trickled from the comer of his mouth.

'Is there any way your friend can help?' Owen asked.

'I think he's trying.'

'I thought you said he was asleep.'

Henry turned, looked at Duddits, then looked at Owen. 'I was wrong,' he said.

15

Jonesy dealt the cards, threw two into the crib from his hand, then picked up the other hand and added two more.

'Don't cry, Jonesy. Don't cry, I'm not lost.'

Jonesy glanced up at the dreamcatcher, quite sure the words had come from there. 'I'm not crying, Duds. Fuckin allergies, that's all. Now I think you want to play - '

'Two,' said the voice from the dreamcatcher.

Jonesy played the deuce from Duddits's hand  -  not a bad lead, actually  -  then played a seven from his own. That made nine. Duddits had a six in his hand; the question was whether or not -

'Six for fifteen,' said the voice from the dreamcatcher. 'Fifteen for two. Kiss my bender!'

Jonesy laughed in spite of himself It was Duddits, all right, but for a moment he had sounded just like the Beav. 'Go on and peg it, then.' And watched, fascinated, as one of the pegs on the board rose, floated, and settled back down in the second hole on First Street.

Suddenly he understood something.

'You could play all along, couldn't you, Duds? You used to peg all crazy just because it made us laugh.' The idea brought fresh tears to his eyes. All those years they'd thought they were playing with Duddits, he had been playing with them. And on that day behind Tracker Brothers, who had found whom? Who had saved whom?

'Twenty-one,' he said.

'Thirty-one for two.' From the dreamcatcher. And once again the unseen hand lifted the peg and played it two holes farther on. 'He's blocked to me, Jonesy.'

'I know.' Jonesy played a three. Duddits called thirteen, and Jonesy played it out of Duddits's hand.

'But you're not. You can talk to him.'

Jonesy played his own deuce and pegged two. Duddits played, pegged one for last card, and Jonesy thought: Outpegged by a retard  -  what do you know. Except this Duddits wasn't retarded. Exhausted and dying, but not retarded.

They pegged their hands, and Duddits was far ahead even though it had been Jonesy's crib. Jonesy swept the cards together and began to shuffle them.

'What does he want, Jonesy? What does he want besides water?'

Murder, Jonesy thought. He likes to kill people. But no more of that. Please God, no more of that.

'Bacon,' he said. 'He does like bacon.'

He began to shuffle the cards . . . then froze as Duddits filled his mind. The real Duddits, young and strong and ready to fight.

16

Behind them, in the back seat, Duddits groaned loudly. Henry turned and saw fresh blood, red as byrus, running from his nostrils. His face was twisted in a terrible cramp of concentration. Beneath their closed lids, his eyeballs rolled rapidly back and forth.

'What's the matter with him?' Owen asked. 'I don't know.'

Duddits began to cough: deep and racking bronchial sounds. Blood flew from between his lips in a fine spray.

'Wake him up, Henry! For Christ's sake, wake him up!'

Henry gave Owen Underhill a frightened look. They were approaching Kennebunkport now, no more than twenty miles from the New Hampshire border, a hundred and ten from the Quabbin Reservoir. Jonesy had a picture of the Quabbin on the wall of his office; Henry had seen it. And a cottage nearby, in Ware.

Duddits cried out: a single word repeated three times between bursts of coughing. The sprays of blood weren't heavy, not yet, the stuff was coming from his mouth and throat, but if his lungs began to rupture -

'Wake him up! He says he's aching! Can't you hear him - '

'He's not saying aykin.'

'What, then? What?'

'He's saying bacon.'

17

The entity which now thought of itself as Mr Gray  -  who thought of himself as Mr Gray  -  had a serious problem, but at least it (he) knew it.

Forewarned is forearmed was how Jonesy put it. There were hun?dreds of such sayings in Jonesy's storage cartons, perhaps thousands. Some of them Mr Gray found utterly incomprehensible  -  A nod's as good as a wink to a blind horse was one such, What goes around comes around was another  -  but forewarned is forearmed was a good one.

His problem could be best summed up with how he felt about Jonesy . . . and of course that he felt at all was bad enough. He could think Now Jonesy is cut off and I have solved my problem; I have quarantined him just as their military tried to quarantine us. I am being followed  -  chased, intact  -  but barring engine trouble or a flat tire, neither group of followers has much chance of catching me. I have too great a lead.