Firestarter(144)

Tarkington's voice ceased. He replaced his file, snapped his briefcase shut, put it between his feet again, and looked at them brightly, like a good student who has just given a winning recitation.

Irv lay against his pillow, feeling very weary. He, felt Tarkington's eyes on him, and that he didn't particularly mind, but Norma's eyes were on him as well, anxious and questioning.

You haff relatives in the old country, yesss? Irv thought. It was such a cliche that it was funny, but he didn't feel like laughing at all, somehow. How many removes before they're not your relatives anymore? Fourth-cousin remove? Sixth? Eighth? Christ on a sidecar. And if we stand up to this sanctimonious bastard and they ship those people off to Siberia, what do I do? Send them a postcard saying they're working in the salt mines because I picked up a little button and her daddy hitching on the road in Hastings Glen? Christ on a sidecar.

Dr. Hofferitz, who was nearly eighty, came slowly out of the back bedroom, brushing his white hair back with one gnarled hand. Irv and Norma, both glad to be jerked out of their memories of the past, looked around at him.

"She's awake," Dr. Hofferitz said, and shrugged. "She's not in very good shape, your little ragamuffin, but she is in no danger, either. She has an infected cut on her arm and another on her back, which she says she got crawling under a barbed wire fence to get away from 'a pig that was mad at her.'"

Hofferitz sat down at the kitchen table with a sigh, produced a pack of Camels, and lit one. He had smoked all his life, and, he had sometimes told colleagues, as far as he was concerned, the surgeon general could go f**k himself.

"Do you want something to eat, Karl?" Norma asked. Hofferitz looked at their plates. "No-but if I was to, it looks like you wouldn't have to dish up anything new," he said dryly. "Will she have to stay in bed for long?" Irv asked.

"Ought to have her down to Albany," Hofferitz said. There was a dish of olives on the table and he took a handful. "Observation. She's got a fever of a hundred and one. It's from the infection. I'll leave you some penicillin and some antibiotic ointment. Mostly what she needs to do is eat and drink and rest. Malnutrition. Dehydration." He popped an olive into his mouth. "You were right to give her that chicken broth, Norma. Anything else, she would have sicked it up, almost as sure as shooting. Nothing but clear liquids for her tomorrow. Beef broth, chicken broth, lots of water. And plenty of gin, of course; that's the best of those clear liquids." He cackled at this old joke, which both Irv and Norma had heard a score of times before, and popped another olive into his mouth. "I ought to notify the police about this, you know."

"No," Irv and Norma said together, and then they looked at each other, so obviously surprised that Dr. Hofferitz cackled again.

"She's in trouble, ain't she?"

Irv looked uncomfortable. He opened his mouth, then closed it again.

"Got something to do with that trouble you had last year, maybe?"

This time Norma opened her mouth, but before she could speak, Irv said, "I thought it was only gunshot wounds you had to report, Karl."

"By law, by law," Hofferitz said impatiently, and stubbed out his cigarette. "But you know there's a spirit of the law as well as a letter, Irv. Here's a little girl and you say her name is Roberta McCauley and I don't believe that anymore than I believe a hog will shit dollar bills. She says she scraped her back open crawling under barbed wire, and I got to think that's a funny thing to have happen to you on the way to your relatives, even with gas as tight as it is. She says she don't remember much of the last week or so, and that I do believe. Who is she, Irv?"

Norma looked at her husband, frightened. Irv rocked back in his chair and looked at Dr. Hofferitz.

"Yeah," he said finally, "she's part of that trouble from last year. That's why I called you, Karl. You've seen trouble, both here and back in the old country. You know what trouble is. And you know that sometimes the laws are only as good as the people in charge of them. I'm just saying that if you let out that little girl is here, it's going to mean trouble for a lot of people who haven't earned it. Norma and me, a lot of our kin... and her in there. And that's all I think I can tell you. We've known each other twenty-five years. You'll have to decide what you're going to do."

"And if I keep my mouth shut," Hofferitz said, lighting another cigarette, "what are you going to do?" Irv looked at Norma, and she looked back at him. After a moment she gave her head a bewildered little shake and dropped her eyes to her plate. "I dunno," Irv said quietly.

"You just gonna keep her like a parrot in a cage?" Hofferitz asked. "This is a small town, Irv. I can keep my mouth shut, but I'm in the minority. Your wife and you belong to the church. To the Grange. People come and people go. Dairy inspectors gonna drop by to check your cows. Tax assessor's gonna drop by some fine day-that bald bastard-to reassess your buildings. What are you gonna do? Build her a room down cellar? Nice life for a kid, all right."

Norma was looking more and more troubled.

"I dunno," Irv repeated. "I guess I have got to think on it some. I see what you're sayin... but if you knew the people that was after her..."

Hofferitz's eyes sharpened at this, but he said nothing.

"I got to think on it some. But will you keep quiet about her for the time being?"