From a Buick 8(24)

It sat there with its Buick headlights staring and its Buick grille sneering. It sat there on its fat and luxy whitewalls, and inside was a dashboard full of frozen fake controls and a wheel almost big enough to steer a privateer. Inside was something that made the barracks dog simultaneously howl in terror and yank forward as if in the grip of some ecstatic magnetism. If it had been cold in there before, it no longer was; Sandy could see sweat shining on the faces of the other two men and feel it on his own.

It was Huddie who finally said it out loud, and Sandy was glad. He felt it, but never could have put that feeling into words; it was too outrageous.

'Fucking thing ate im,' Huddie said with flat certainty. T don't know how that could be, but I think he came in here by himself to take another look and it just . . . somehow . . . ate im.'

Curt said, 'It's watching us. Do you feel it?'

Sandy looked at the glassy headlight eyes. At the down-turned, sneering mouth full of chrome teeth. The decorative swoops up the sides, which could almost have been sleek locks of slick hair. He felt something, all right. Perhaps it was nothing but childish awe of the unknown, the terror kids feel when standing in front of houses their hearts tell them are haunted. Or perhaps it was really what Curt said. Perhaps it was watching them. Gauging the distance.

They looked at it, hardly breathing. It sat there, as it would sit for all the years to come, while Presidents came and went, while records were replaced by CDs, while the stock market went up and a space shuttle exploded, while movie-stars lived and died and Troopers came and went in the Troop D barracks. It sat there real as rocks and roses. And to some degree they all felt what Mister Dillon had felt: the draw of it. In the months that followed, the sight of cops standing there side by side in front of Shed B became common. They would stand with their hands cupped to the sides of their faces to block the light, peering in through the windows running across the front of the big garage door. They looked like sidewalk superintendents at a building site. Sometimes they went inside, too (never alone, though; when it came to Shed B, the buddy system ruled), and they always looked younger when they did, like kids creeping into the local graveyard on a dare.

Curt cleared his throat. The sound made the other two jump, then laugh nervously. 'Let's go inside and call the Sarge,' he said, and this time

CHAPTER 3

NOW:

Sandy

'. . . and that time I didn't say anything. Just went along like a good boy.'

My throat was as dry as an old chip. I looked at my watch and wasn't exactly surprised to see that over an hour had gone by. Well, that was all right; I was off duty. The day was murkier than ever, but the faint mutters of thunder had slid away south of us.

'Those old days,' someone said, sounding both sad and amused at the same time ? it's a trick only the Jews and the Irish seem to manage with any grace. 'We thought we'd strut forever, didn't we?'

I glanced around and saw Huddie Rover, now dressed in civilian clothes, sitting on Ned's left. I don't know when he joined us. He had the same honest Farmer John face he'd worn through the world back in '79, but now there were lines bracketing the corners of his mouth, his hair was mostly gray, and it had gone out like the tide, revealing a long, bright expanse of brow. He was, I judged, about the same age Ennis Rafferty had been when Ennis did his Judge Crater act. Huddie's retirement plans involved a Winnebago and visits to his children and grandchildren. He had them everywhere, so far as I could make out, including the province of Manitoba. If you asked ? or even if you didn't ? he'd show you a US map with all his proposed routes of travel marked in red.

'Yeah,' I said. 'I guess we did, at that. When did you arrive, Huddie?'

'Oh, I was passing by and heard you talking about Mister Dillon. He was a good old doggie, wasn't he? Remember how he'd roll over on his back if anyone said You're under arrest?'

'Yeah,' I said, and we smiled at each other, the way men do over love or history.

'What happened to him?' Ned asked.

'Punched his card,' Huddie said. 'Eddie Jacubois and I buried him right over there.' He pointed toward the scrubby field that stretched up a hill north of the barracks. 'Must be

fifteen years ago. Would you say, Sandy?'

I nodded. It was actually fourteen years, almost to the day.

'I guess he was old, huh?' Ned asked.

Phil Candleton said, 'Getting up there, yes, but ? '

'He was poisoned,' Huddie said in a rough, outraged voice, and then said no more.

'If you want to hear the rest of this story ? ' I began.

'I do, 'Ned replied at once..

' ? then I need to wet my whistle.'

I started to get up just as Shirley came out with a tray in her hands. On it was a plate of thick sandwiches ? ham and cheese, roast beef, chicken ? and a big pitcher of Red Zinger iced tea. 'Sit back down, Sandy,' she said. 'I got you covered.'

'What are you, a mind reader?'

She smiled as she set the tray down on the bench. 'Nope. I just know that men get thirsty when they talk, and that men are always hungry. Even the ladies get hungry and thirsty from time to time, believe it or not. Eat up, you guys, and I expect you to put away at least two of these sandwiches yourself, Ned Wilcox. You're too damn thin.'

Looking at the loaded tray made me think of Bibi Roth, talking with Tony and Ennis while his crew ? his children, much older than Ned was now ? drank iced tea and gobbled sandwiches made in the same kitchenette, nothing different except for the color of the tiles on the floor and the microwave oven. Time is also held together by chains, I think.