Firestarter(98)

So he maintained the fiction that he was taking her messages to Andy just as he was maintaining so many other fictions. It was true that he saw Andy quite often, but he saw him only on the TV monitors. It was true that Andy was cooperating with their tests, but it was also true that he was tipped over, unable to push a kid into eating a Popsicle. He had turned into a big fat zero, concerned only with what was on the tube and when his next pill was going to arrive, and he never asked to see his daughter anymore. Meeting her father face to face and seeing what they had done to him might stiffen her resistance all over again, and he was very close to breaking her now; she wanted to be convinced now. No, all things were negotiable except that. Charlie McGee was never going to see her father again. Before too long, Rainbird surmised, Cap would have McGee on a Shop plane to the Maui compound. But the girl didn't need to know that, either.

"You really think they'd let me see him?"

"No question about it," he responded easily. "Not at first, of course; he's their ace with you, and they know it. But if you went to a certain point and then said you were going to cut them off unless they let you see him-"He let it dangle there. The bait was out, a big sparkling lure dragged through the water. It was full of hooks and not good to eat anyway, but that was something else this tough little chick didn't know.

She looked at him thoughtfully. No more was said about it. That day.

Now, about a week later, Rainbird abruptly reversed his field. He did this for no concrete reason, but his own intuition told him he could get no further by advocacy. It was time to beg, as Br'er Rabbit had begged Br'er Fox not to be thrown into that briar patch.

"You remember what we was talkin about?" He opened the conversation. He was waxing the kitchen floor. She was pretending to linger over her selection of a snack from the fridge. One clean, pink foot was cocked behind the other so he could see the sole-a pose that he found curiously evocative of mid-childhood. It was somehow pre-erotic, almost mystic. His heart went out to her again. Now she looked back over her shoulder at him doubtfully. Her hair, done up in a ponytail, lay over one shoulder.

"Yes," she said, "I remember."

"Well, I been thinkin, and I started to ask myself what makes me an expert on givin advice," he said. "I can't even float a thousand-dollar bank loan for a car.",

"Oh, John, that doesn't mean anything-"

"Yes it does. If I knew something, I'd be one of those guys like that Hockstetter. College-educated." With great disdain she replied, "My daddy says any fool can buy a college education somewhere." In his heart, he rejoiced.

2

Three days after that, the fish swallowed the lure.

Charlie told him that she had decided to let them make their tests. She would be careful, she said. And she would make them be careful, if they didn't know how. Her face was thin and pinched and pale.

"Don't you do it," John said, "unless you've thought it all out."

"I've tried," she whispered.

"Are you doing it for them?"

"No!"

"Good! Are you doing it for you?"

"Yes. For me. And for my father."

"All right," he said. "And Charlie-make them play it your way. Understand me? You've shown them how tough you can be. Don't let them see a weak streak now. If they see it, they'll use it. Play tough. You know what I mean?"

"I... think so."

"They get something, you get something. Every time. No freebies." His shoulders slumped a bit. The fire went out of his eye. She hated to see him this way, looking depressed and defeated. "Don't let them treat you like they treated me. I gave my country four years of my life and one eye. One of those years I spent in a hole in the ground eating bugs and running a fever and smelling my own shit all the time and picking lice out of my hair. And when I got out they said thanks a lot, John, and put a mop in my hand. They stole from me, Charlie. Get it? Don't let them do that to you."

"I get it," she said solemnly. He brightened a little, then smiled. "So when's the big day?" "I'm seeing Dr. Hockstetter tomorrow. I'll tell him I've decided to cooperate,... a little. And I'll... I'll tell him what I want." "Well, just don't ask for too much at first. It's just like the carny at the midway, Charlie.

You got to show em some flash before you take their cash."

She nodded.

"But you show them who's in the saddle, right? Show them who's boss."

"Right."

He smiled more broadly. "Good kid!" he said.

3

Hockstetter was furious. "What the hell sort of game are you playing?" he shouted at Rainbird. They were in Cap's office. He dared to shout, Rainbird thought, because Cap was here to play referee. Then he took a second look at Hockstetter's hot blue eyes, his flushed cheeks, his white knuckles, and admitted that he was probably wrong. He had dared to make his way through the gates and into Hockstetter's sacred garden of privilege. The shaking-out Rainbird had administered after the blackout ended was one thing; Hockstetter had lapsed dangerously and had known it. This was something else altogether. He thought.

Rainbird only stared at Hockstetter.

"You've carefully set it up around an impossibility! You know damned well she isn't going to see her father! 'They get something, you get something,'" Hockstetter mimicked furiously. "You fool!"