Firestarter(36)

"Did I say I wanted to talk to the owner, sis?"

She was starting to be frightened now, and that was okay with OJ. "N-no."

"That's right. Because I want to talk to you, not to some guy that's been out in the kitchen scrambling eggs and making Alpoburgers all morning." He took the picture of Andy and Charlie out of his pocket and handed it to her, not letting go of her wrist. "You recognize them, sis? Serve them their breakfast this morning, maybe?"

"Let go. You're hurting me." All the color had gone out of her face except for the whore's rouge she had tricked herself up with. Probably she had been a cheerleader in high school. The kind of girl who laughed at Orville Jamieson when he asked them out because he had been president of the Chess Club instead of quarterback on the football team. Bunch of cheap Lowville whores. God, he hated New York. Even New York City was too f**king close.

"You tell me if you waited on them or if you didn't. Then I'll let go. Sis."

She looked briefly at the picture. "No! I didn't. Now let-"

"You didn't look long enough sis. You better look again."

She looked again. "No! No!" she said loudly. "I've never seen them! Let me go, can't you?" The elderly jd in the cut-rate Mammoth Mart leather jacket sauntered over, zippers jingling, thumbs hooked in his pants pockets. "You're bothering the lady," he said. Bruce Cook gazed at him with open, wide-eyed contempt. "Be careful we don't decide to bother you next, pizza-face," he said. "Oh," the old kid in the leather jacket said, and his voice was suddenly very small. He moved away quickly, apparently remembering that he had pressing business on the street.

Two old ladies in a booth were nervously watching the little scene at the counter. A big man in reasonably clean cook's whites-Mike, the owner, presumably-was standing in the kitchen doorway, also watching. He held a butcher knife in one hand, but he held it with no great authority.

"What do you guys want?" he asked.

"They're feds," the waitress said nervously. "They-"

"Didn't serve them? You're sure?" OJ asked. "Sis?"

"I'm sure," she said. She was nearly crying now.

"You better be. A mistake can get you five years in jail, sis." "I'm sure," she whispered. A tear spilled over the bottom curve of one eye and slipped down her cheek. "Please let go. Don't hurt me anymore."

OJ squeezed tighter for one brief moment, liking the feel of the small bones moving under his hand, liking the knowledge that he could squeeze harder yet and snap them... and then he let go. The diner was silent except for the voice of Stevie Wonder coming from the Seeberg, assuring the frightened patrons of the Hastings Diner that they could feel it all over. Then the two old ladies got up and left in a hurry.

OJ picked up his coffee cup, leaned over the counter, poured the coffee on the floor, and then dropped the cup, which shattered. Thick china shrapnel sprayed in a dozen different directions. The waitress was crying openly now.

"Shitty brew," OJ said.

The owner made a halfhearted gesture with the knife, and OJ's face seemed to light up.

"Come on, man," he said, half-laughing. "Come on. Let's see you try."

Mike put the knife down beside the toaster and suddenly cried out in shame and outrage: "I fought in Vietnam! My brother fought in Vietnam! I'm gonna write my congressman about this! You wait and see if I don't!" OJ looked at him. After a while Mike lowered his eyes, scared. The two of them went out. The waitress scooched and began to pick up broken pieces of coffee cup, sobbing. Outside, Bruce said, "How many motels?"

"Three motels, six sets of tourist cabins," OJ said, looking down toward the blinker. It fascinated him. In the Lowville of his youth there had been a diner with a plaque over the double Silex hotplate and that plaque had read IF YOU DON'T LIKE OUR TOWN, LOOK FOR A TIMETABLE. How many times had he longed to pull that plaque off the wall and stuff" it down someone's throat?

"There are people checking them out," he said as they walked back toward their light-blue Chevrolet, part of a government motor pool paid for and maintained by tax dollars "We'll know soon now."

4

John Mayo was with an agent named Ray Knowles. They were on their way out along Route 40 to the Slumberland Motel. They were driving a late model tan Ford, and as they rode up the last hill separating them from an actual view of the motel, a tire blew.

"Shit-fire," John said as the car began to pogo up and down and drag to the right. "That's f**king government issue for you. Fucking retreads." He pulled over onto the soft shoulder and put on the Ford's four-way flashers. "You go on," he said. "I'll change the goddam tire."

"I'll help," Ray said. "It won't take us five minutes."

"No, go on. It's right over this hill, should be."

"You sure?"

"Yeah. I'll pick you up. Unless the spare's flat, too. It wouldn't surprise me."

A rattling farm truck passed them. It was the one OJ and Bruce Cook had seen leaving town as they stood outside the Hastings Diner.

Ray grinned. "It better not be. You'd have to put in a requisition in quadruplicate for a new one."

John didn't grin back. "Don't I know it," he said glumly.