Firestarter(9)

"Sal, honest to Christ I did!

Just ask your brother if you don't believe me! He'll-"

Charlie slipped the door shut, cutting off" the slightly whining sound of his voice. She was only seven, but she knew a snowjob when she heard one. She looked at the phone, and a moment later it gave up its change. This time she had the bag positioned perfectly and the coins cascaded to the bottom with a musical little jingling sound.

The serviceman was gone when she came out, and Charlie went into his booth. The seat was still warm and the air smelled nastily of cigarette smoke in spite of the fan.

The money rattled into her bag and she went on.

6

Eddie Delgardo sat in a hard plastic contour chair, looking "up at the ceiling and smoking. Bitch, he was thinking. She'll think twice about keeping her goddam legs closed next time. Eddie this and Eddie that and Eddie I never want to see you again and Eddie how could you be so crew-ool. But he had changed her mind about the old I-never-want-to-see-you-again bit. He was on thirty-day leave and now he was going to New York City, the Big Apple, to see the sights and tour the singles bars. And when he came back, Sally would be like a big ripe apple herself, ripe and ready to fall. None of that don't-you-have-any-respect-for-me stuff" went down with Eddie Delgardo of Marathon, Florida. Sally Bradford was going to put out, and if she really believed that crap about him having had a vasectomy, it served her right. And then let her go running to her hick schoolteacher brother if she wanted to. Eddie Delgardo would be driving an army supply truck in West Berlin. He would be-

Eddie's half resentful, half pleasant chain of daydreams was broken by a strange feeling of warmth coming from his feet; it was as if the floor had suddenly heated up ten degrees. And accompanying this was a strange but not completely unfamiliar smell... not something burning but... something singeing, maybe?

He opened his eyes and the first thing he saw was that little girl who had been cruising around by the phonebooths, little girl seven or eight years old, looking really ragged out. Now she was carrying a big paper bag, carrying it by the bottom as if it were full of groceries or something.

But his feet, that was the thing.

They were no longer warm. They were hot.

Eddie Delgardo looked down and screamed,

"Godamighty Jeesus!"

His shoes were on fire.

Eddie leaped to his feet. Heads turned. Some woman saw what was happening and yelled in alarm. Two security guards who had been noodling with an Allegheny Airlines ticket clerk looked over to see what was going on.

None of what meant doodly-squat to Eddie Delgardo. Thoughts of Sally Bradford and his revenge of love upon her were the furthest things from his mind. His army-issue shoes were burning merrily. The cuffs of his dress greens were catching. He was sprinting across the concourse, trailing smoke, as if shot from a catapult. The women's room was closer, and Eddie, whose sense of self preservation was exquisitely defined, hit the door straight-arm and ran inside without a moment's hesitation.

A young woman was coming out of one of the stalls, her skirt rucked up to her waist, adjusting her Underalls. She saw Eddie, the human torch, and let out a scream that the bathroom's tiled walls magnified enormously. There was a babble of "What was that?" and "What's going on?" from the few other occupied stalls. Eddie caught the paytoilet door before it could swing back all the way and latch. He grabbed both sides of the stall at the top and hoisted himself feet first into the toilet. There was a hissing sound and a remarkable billow of steam.

The two security guards burst in. "Hold it, you in there!" one of them cried. He had drawn his gun. "Come out of there with your hands laced on top of your head!" "You mind waiting until I put my feet out?" Eddie Delgardo snarled.

7

Charlie was back. And she was crying again. "What happened, babe?" "I got the money but... it got away from me again, Daddy... there was a man... a soldier... I couldn't help it..." Andy felt the fear creep up on him. It was muted by the pain in his head and down the back of his neck, but it was there. "Was... was there a fire, Charlie?"

She couldn't speak, but nodded. Tears coursed down her cheeks.

"Oh my God," Andy whispered, and made himself get to his feet.

That broke Charlie completely. She put her face in her hands and sobbed helplessly, rocking back and forth.

A knot of people had gathered around the door of the women's room. It had been propped open, but Andy couldn't see... and then he could. The two security guards who had gone running down there were leading a tough-looking young man in an army uniform out of the bathroom and toward the security office. The young man was jawing at them loudly, and most of what he had to say was inventively profane. His uniform was mostly gone below the knees, and he was carrying two dripping, blackened things that might once have been shoes. Then they were gone into the office, the door slamming behind them. An excited babble of conversation swept the terminal.

Andy sat down again and put his arm around Charlie. It was very hard to think now; his thoughts were tiny silver fish swimming around in a great black sea of throbbing pain. But he had to do the best he could. He needed Charlie if they were going to get out of this.

"He's all right, Charlie. He's okay. They just took him down to the security office. Now, what happened?"

Through diminishing tears, Charlie told him. Overhearing the soldier on the phone. Having a few random thoughts about him, a feeling that he was trying to trick the girl he was talking to. "And then, when I was coming back to you, I saw him... and before I could stop it... it happened. It just got away. I could have hurt him, Daddy. I could have hurt him bad. I set him on fire!"