Firestarter(112)

"And we're going to have a good talk. Do you also understand that?"

"Yes, a good talk."

"Is your car bugged?"

"Not at all."

Andy began to push again, a series of light taps. Each time he pushed, Cap flinched a little, and Andy knew there was an excellent chance that he might be starting an echo in there, but it had to be done.

"We're going to talk about where Charlie is being kept. We're going to talk about ways of throwing this whole place into confusion without locking all the doors the way the power blackout did. And we're going to talk about ways that Charlie and I can get out of here. Do you understand?"

"You're not supposed to escape," Cap said in a hateful, childish voice. "That's not in the scenario." "It is now, "Andy said, and pushed again. "Owwwww!" Cap whined... "Do you understand that?" "Yes, I understand, don't, don't do that anymore, it hurts!" "This Hockstetter-will he question my going to the funeral?" "No, Hockstetter is all wrapped up in the little girl. He thinks of little else these days."

"Good." It wasn't good at all. It was desperation. "Last thing, Captain Hollister. You're going to forget that we had this little talk." "Yes, I'm going to forget all about it."

The black horse was loose. It was starting its run. Take me out of here, Andy thought dimly. Take me out of here; the horse is loose and the woods are burning. The headache came in a sickish cycle of thudding pain.

"Everything I've told you will occur naturally to you as your own idea."

"Yes."

Andy looked at Cap's desk and saw a box of Kleenex there. He took one of them and began dabbing at his eyes with it. He was not crying, but the headache had caused his eyes to water and that was just as good.

"I'm ready to go now," he said to Cap.

He let go. Cap looked out at the alders again, thoughtfully blank. Little by little, animation came back into his face, and he turned toward Andy, who was wiping at his eyes a bit and sniffing. There was no need to overact.

"How are you feeling now, Andy?"

"A little better," Andy said. "But... you know... to hear it like that..."

"Yes, you were very upset," Cap said. "Would you like to have a coffee or something?"

"No, thanks. I'd like to go back to my apartment please."

"Of course. I'll see you out."

"Thank you."

22

The two men who had seen him up to the office looked at Andy with doubtful suspicion-the Kleenex, the red and watering eyes, the paternal arm that Cap had put around his shoulders. Much the same expression came into the eyes of Cap's secretary.

"He broke down and cried when he heard Pynchot was dead," Cap said quietly. "He was very upset. I believe I'll see if I can arrange for him to attend Herman's funeral with me. Would you like to do that, Andy?"

"Yes," Andy said. "Yes, please. If it can be arranged. Poor Dr. Pynchot." And suddenly he burst into real tears. The two men led him past Senator Thompson's bewildered, embarrassed aide, who had several blue-bound folders in his hands. They took Andy out, still weeping, each with a hand clasped lightly at his elbow. Each of them wore an expression of disgust that was very similar to Cap's-disgust for this fat drug addict who had totally lost control of his emotions and any sense of perspective and gushed tears for the man who had been his captor.

Andy's tears were real... but it was Charlie he wept for.

23

John always rode with her, but in her dreams Charlie rode alone. The head groom, Peter Drabble, had fitted her out with a small, neat English saddle, but in her dreams she rode bareback. She and John rode on the bridle paths that wove their way across the Shop grounds, moving in and out of the toy forest of sugarpines and skirting the duckpond, never doing more than an easy canter, but in her dreams she and Necromancer galloped together, faster and faster, through a real forest; they plunged at speed down a wild trail and the light was green through the interlaced branches overhead, and her hair streamed out behind her.

She could feel the ripple of Necromancer's muscles under his silky hide, and she rode with her hands twisted in his mane and whispered in his ear that she wanted to go faster... faster... faster.

Necromancer responded. His hooves were thunder. The path through these tangled, green woods was a tunnel, and from somewhere behind her there came a faint crackling "and

(the woods are burning)

a whiff" of smoke. It was a fire, a fire she had started, but there was no guilt-only exhilaration. They could outrace it. Necromancer could go anywhere, do anything. They would escape the foresttunnel. She could sense brightness ahead.

"Faster. Faster."

The exhilaration. The freedom. She could no longer tell where her thighs ended and Necromancer's sides began. They were one, fused, as fused as the metals she welded with her power when she did their tests. Ahead of them was a huge deadfall, a blowdown of white wood like a tangled cairn of bones. Wild with lunatic joy, she kicked at Necromancer lightly with her bare heels and felt his hindquarters bunch.

They leaped it, for a moment floating in the air. Her head was back; her hands held horsehair and she screamed-not in fear but simply because not to scream, to hold in, might cause her to explode. Free, free, free... Necromancer, I love you.