Firestarter(3)

"Gee, mister, I don't know-"

Which meant he thought it was law trouble.

"The deal only goes as long as you don't mention it to my little girl," Andy said. "The last two weeks She's been with me. Has to be back with her mother tomorrow morning."

"Visitation rights," the cabby said. "I know all about it."

"You see, I was supposed to fly her up."

"To Albany? Probably Ozark, am I right?"

"Right. Now, the thing is, I'm scared to death of flying. I know how crazy that sounds, but it's true. Usually I drive her back up, but this time my ex-wife started in on me, and... I don't know." In truth Andy didn't. He had made up the story on the spur of the moment and now it seemed to be leaded straight down a blind alley. Most of it was pure exhaustion.

"So I drop you at the old Albany airport, and as far as Moms knows, you flew, right?"

"Sure." His head was thudding.

"Also, as far as Moms knows, you're no plucka-plucka-plucka, am I four-oh?"

"Yes." Plucka-plucka-plucka? What was that supposed to mean? The pain was getting bad. "Five hundred bucks to skip a plane ride," the driver mused. "It's worth it to me," Andy said, and gave one last little shove. In a very quiet voice, speaking almost into the cabby's ear, he added, "And it ought to be worth it to you." "Listen," the driver said in a dreamy voice. "I ain't turning down no five hundred dollars.

Don't tell me, I'll tell you."

"Okay," Andy said, and settled back. The cab driver was satisfied. He wasn't wondering about Andy's half-baked story. He wasn't wondering what a seven-year old girl was doing visiting her father for two weeks in October with school in. He wasn't wondering about the fact that neither of them had so much as an overnight bag. He wasn't worried about anything. He had been pushed.

Now Andy would go ahead-and pay the price.

He put a hand on Charlie's leg. She was fast asleep. They had been on the go all afternoon-ever since Andy got to her school and pulled her out of her second grade class with some half-remembered excuse... grandmother's very ill... called home... sorry to have to take her in the middle of the day. And beneath all that a great, swelling relief. How he had dreaded looking into Mrs. Mishkin's room and seeing Charlie's seat empty, her books stacked neatly inside her desk. No, Mr. McGee... she went with your friends about two hours ago... they had a note from you... wasn't that all right? Memories of Vicky coming back, the sudden terror of the empty house that day. His crazy chase after Charlie. Because they had had her once before, oh yes.

But Charlie had been there. How close had it been? Had he beaten them by half an hour? Fifteen minutes? Less? He didn't like to think about it. He had got them a late lunch at Nathan's and they had spent the rest of the afternoon just going-Andy could admit to himself now that he had been in a state of blind panic-riding subways, buses, but mostly just walking. And now she was worn out.

He spared her a long, loving look. Her hair was shoulder length, perfect blond, and in her sleep she had a calm beauty. She looked so much like Vicky hat it hurt. He closed his own eyes.

In the front seat, the cab driver looked wonderingly at the five-hundred-dollar bill the guy had handed him. He tucked it away in the special belt pocket where he kept all of his tips. He didn't think it was strange that this fellow in the back had been walking around New York with a little girl and a five-hundred-dollar bill in his pocket. He didn't wonder how he was going to square this with his dispatcher. All he thought of was how excited his girlfriend, Glyn, was going to be. Glynis kept tell telling him that driving a taxi was a dismal, unexciting job. Well, wait until she saw his dismal, unexciting five-hundred-dollar bill.

In the back seat, Andy sat with his head back and his eyes closed. The headache was coming, coming, as inexorable as a riderless black horse in a funeral cortege. He could hear the hoof beats of that horse in his temples: thud... thud... thud.

On the run. He and Charlie. He was thirty-four years old and until last year he had been an instructor of English at Harrison State College in Ohio. Harrison was a sleepy little college town. Good old Harrison, the very heart of mid-America. Good old Andrew McGee, fine, upstanding young man. Remember the riddle? Why is a farmer the pillar of his community? Because he's always outstanding in his field.

Thud, thud thud riderless black horse with red eyes coming down the halls of his mind, ironshod hooves digging up soft gray clods of brain tissue, leaving hoofprints to fill up with mystic crescents of blood.

The cabby had been a pushover. Sure. An outstanding cab driver.

He dozed and saw Charlie's face. And Charlie's face became Vicky's face.

Andy McGee and his wife, pretty Vicky. They had pulled her fingernails out, one by one. They had pulled out four of them and then she had talked. That, at least, was his deduction. Thumb, index, second, ring. Then: Stop. I'll talk. I'll tell you anything you want to know. Just stop the hurting. Please. So she had told. And then... perhaps it had been an accident... then his wife had died. Well, some things are bigger than both of us, and other things are bigger than all of us.

Things like the Shop, for instance.

Thud, thud thud riderless black horse coming on, coming on, and coming on: behold, a black horse.

Andy slept.

And remembered.