From a Buick 8(65)

It had been at least two and a half years since Troop D had kept a day-in-and-out watch on the Buick, because by late 1979 or early 1980 they had decided that, with reasonable precautions, there wasn't much to worry about. A loaded gun is dangerous, no argument, but you don't have to post an around-the-clock guard on one to make sure it won't shoot by itself. If you put it up on a high shelf and keep the kiddies away, that's usually enough to do the trick.

Tony bought a vehicle tarp so anyone who came out back and happened to look in the shed wouldn't see the car and ask questions (in '81 a fellow from the motor-pool, a Buick-fancier, had offered to buy it). The video camera stayed out in the hutch, mounted on its tripod and with a plastic bag pulled over it to keep it free of moisture, and the chair was still there (plus a good high stack of magazines beneath it), but Arky began to use the place more and more as a gardening shed. Bags of peat and fertilizer, pallets of sod, and flower-planters first began to crowd the Buick-watching stuff and then to crowd it out. The only time the hutch reverted to its original purpose was just before, during, and after one of the lightquakes.

June in The Year of the Fish was one of the most beautiful early summer months in Sandy's memory ? the grass lush, the birds all in tune, the air filled with a kind of delicate heat, like a teenage couple's first real kiss. Tony Schoondist was on vacation, visiting his daughter on the west coast (she was the one whose baby had caused all that trouble). The Sarge and his wife were trying to mend a few fences before they got broken down entirely. Probably not a bad plan. Sandy Dearborn and Huddie Royer were in charge while he was gone, but Curtis Wilcox ? no longer a rookie ? was boss of the Buick, no doubt about that. And one day in that marvelous June, Buck Flanders came to see him in that capacity.

'Temp's down in Shed B,' he said.

Curtis raised his eyebrows. 'Not exactly the first time, is it?'

'No,' Buck admitted, 'but I've never seen it go down so fast. Ten degrees since this morning.'

That got Curt out to the shed in a hurry, with the old excited light in his eyes. When he put his face to one of the windows in the roll-up front door, the first thing he noticed was the tarp Tony had bought. It was crumpled along the driver's side of the Buick like a scuffed-up rug. It wasn't the first time for that, either; it was as if the Buick sometimes trembled (or shrugged) and slid the nylon cover off like a lady shrugging off an evening wrap by lifting her shoulders. The needle on the round thermometer stood at 61.

'It's seventy-four out here,' Buck said. He was standing at Curt's elbow. 'I checked the thermometer over by the bird-feeder before coming in to see you.'

'So it's actually gone down thirteen degrees, not ten.'

'Well, it was sixty-four in there when I came to get you. That's how fast it's going down. Like a . . . a cold front setting in, or something. Want me to get Huddie?'

'Let's not bother him. Make up a watch-roster. Get Matt Babicki to help you. Mark it . . . um, "Car Wash Detail", Let's get two guys watching the Buick the rest of the day, and tonight as well. Unless Huddie says no or the temp bounces back up.'

'Okay,' Buck said. 'Do you want to be on the first stand?'

Curt did, and quite badly ? he sensed something was going to happen ? but he shook his head. 'Can't. I have court, then there's that truck-trap over in Cambria.' Tony would have screamed and clutched his head if he had heard Curt call the weigh-in on Highway 9 a truck-trap, but essentially that was what it was. Because someone was moving heroin and cocaine from New Jersey over that way, and the thinking was that it was moving in some of the independent truckers' loads. 'Truth is, I'm busier'n a one-legged man in an ass-kicking contest. Damn!'

He struck his thigh with his fist, then cupped his hands to the sides of his face and peered in through the glass again. There was nothing to see but the Roadmaster, sitting in two bars of sunlight that crisscrossed on the long dark blue hood like the contending beams of spotlights.

'Get Randy Santerre. And didn't I see Chris Soder mooning around?'

'Yeah. He's technically off duty, but his wife's two sisters are still visiting from over Ohio and he came here to watch TV.' Buck lowered his voice. 'Don't want to tell you your business, Curt, but I think both those guys are jagoffs.'

'They'll do for this. They'll have to. Tell them I want regular reports, too. Standard Code D. And I'll call in by landline before I leave court.'

Curt took a final, almost anguished look at the Buick, then started back to the barracks, where he would shave and get ready for the witness stand. In the afternoon he'd be poking in the backs of trucks along with some boys from Troop G, looking for coke and hoping nobody decided to unlimber an automatic weapon. He would have found someone to swap with if there had been time, but there wasn't.

Soder and Santerre got Buick-watching duty instead, and they didn't mind. Jagoffs never do. They stood beside the hutch, smoking, shooting the shit, taking the occasional look in at the Buick (Santerre too young to know what to expect, and he never lasted long in the PSP, anyway), telling jokes and enjoying the day. It was a June day so simple and so simply beautiful that even a jagoff couldn't help but enjoy it. At some point Buck Flanders spelled Randy Santerre; a little later on, Orville Garrett spelled Chris Soder. Huddie came out for the occasional peek. At three o'clock, when Sandy came in to drop his ass in the SC's chair, Curtis Wilcox finally got back and spelled Buck out by Shed B. Far from rebounding, the shed's temperature had rolled off another ten degrees by then, and off-duty Troopers began to clog the lot out back with their personal vehicles. Word had spread. Code D.