Dreamcatcher(190)

The idea of Owen's catching Jonesy/Mr Gray filled Kurtz with panic. 'Archie, listen to me carefully.'

'I'm thirsty,' Perlmutter whined. 'I'm thirsty, you son of a bitch.'

Kurtz held the Pepsi bottle up in front of Perlmutter's eyes, then slapped away Perlmutter's hand when Pearly reached for it.

'Do Henry, Owen, and Dud-Duts know Jonesy and Mr Gray have stopped?'

'Dud-dits, you old fool!' Perlmutter snarled, then groaned with pain and clutched at his stomach, which was on the rise again. 'Dits, dits, Dud-dits! Yes, they know! Duddits helped make Mr Gray hungry! He and Jonesy did it together!'  

'I don't like this,' Freddy said.

Join the club, Kurtz thought.

'Please, boss,' Pearly said. 'I'm so thirsty.'

Kurtz gave him the bottle, watched with a jaundiced eye as Perlmutter drained it.

'495, boss,' Freddy announced. 'What do I do?'

'Take it,' Perlmutter said. 'Then 90 west.' He burped. It was loud but blessedly odorless. 'It wants another Pepsi. It likes the sugar. Also the caffeine.'

Kurtz pondered. Owen knew their quarry had stopped, at least temporarily. Now Owen and Henry would sprint, trying to make up as much of that ninety to a hundred-minute lag as they could. Consequently, they must sprint, as well.

Any cops who got in their way would have to die, God bless them. One way or the other, this was coming to a head.

'Freddy.'

'Boss.'

'Pedal to the metal. Make this bitch strut, God love you. Make her strut.'

Freddy Johnson did as ordered.

20

There was no barn, no corral, no paddock, and instead Of OUT-?OF-STATE LICS the sign in the window showed a photograph of the Quabbin Reservoir over the legend BEST BAIT, WHY WAIT?, but otherwise the little store could have been Gosselin's all over again: same ratty siding, same mud-brown shingles, same crooked chimney dribbling smoke into the rainy sky, same rusty gas-pump out front. Another sign leaned against the pump, this one reading NO GAS BLAME THE RAGHEADS.

On that early afternoon in November the store was empty save for the proprietor, a gentleman named Deke McCaskell. Like most other folks, he had spent the morning glued to the TV. All the coverage (repetitive stuff, for the most part, and with that part of the North Woods cordoned off, no good pictures of anything but Army, Navy, and Air Force hardware) had led up to the President's speech. Deke called the President Okeefenokee, on account of the f**ked - up way he'd been elected  -  couldn't anybody down there f**king count? Although he had not exercised his own option to vote since the Gipper (now there had been a President), Deke hated President Okeefenokee, thought he was an oily, untrustworthy motherf*cker with big teeth (good-looking wife, though), and he thought the President's eleven o'clock speech had been the usual blah-dee-blah. Deke didn't believe a word old Okeefenokee said. In his view, the whole thing was probably a hoax, scare tactics calculated to make the American taxpayer more willing to hike defense spending and thus taxes. There was nobody out there in space, science had proved it. The only aliens in America (except for President Okeefenokee himself, that was) were the beaners who swam across the border from Mexico. But people were scared, sitting home and watching TV. A few would be in later for beer or bottles of wine, but for now the place was as dead as a cat run over in the highway.

Deke had turned off the TV half an hour ago  -  enough was enough, by the Christ  -  and when the bell over his door jangled at quarter past one, he was studying a magazine from the rack at the back of the store, where a sign proclaimed B 21 OR B GONE. This particular periodical was titled Lasses in Glasses, a fair title since all the lasses within were wearing spectacles. Nothing else, but glasses, sí.

He looked up at the newcomer, started to say something like 'How ya doin' or 'Roads gettin slippery yet,' and then didn't. He felt a bolt of unease, followed by a sudden certainty that he was going to be robbed . . . and if robbery was all, he'd be off lucky. He never had been robbed, not in the twelve years he'd owned the place  -  if a fellow wanted to risk prison for a handful of cash, there were places in the area where bigger handfuls could be had. A guy would have to be . . .

Deke swallowed. A guy would have to be crazy, he'd been thinking, and maybe this guy was, maybe he was one of those maniacs who'd just offed his whole family and then decided to ramble around a bit, kill a few more folks before turning one of his guns on himself.

Deke wasn't paranoid by nature (he was lumpish by nature, his ex-wife would have told you), but that didn't change the fact that he felt suddenly menaced by the afternoon's first customer. He didn't care very much for the fellows who sometimes turned up and loafed around the store, talking about the patriots or the Red Sox or telling stories about the whoppers they'd caught up to the Reservoir, but he wished for a few of them now. A whole gang of them, actually.

The man just stood there inside the door at first, and yeah, there was something wrong with him. He was wearing an orange hunting coat and deer season hadn't started yet in Massachusetts, but that could have been nothing. What Deke didn't like were the scratches on the man's face, as if he had spent at least some of the last couple of days going cross-country through the woods, and the haunted, drawn quality of the features themselves. His mouth was moving, as though he was talking to himself. Something else, too. The gray afternoon light slanting in through the dusty front window glinted oddly on his lips and chin.