Mr. Mercedes (Unnamed Trilogy #1)(139)

Inside are two double-A batteries. Holly hooks a fingernail onto the ridge of one and thinks, God, if You’re there, please let this work. For a moment she can’t make her finger move. Then one of Brady’s hands slips free of Jerome’s grip and slaps her upside the head.

Holly jerks and the battery she’s been worrying pops out of the compartment. She waits for the world to explode, and when it doesn’t, she turns the remote control over. The yellow light has gone out. Holly begins to cry. She grabs the master wire and yanks it free of Thing Two.

“You can let him go n—” she begins, but Jerome already has. He’s hugging her so tight she can hardly breathe. Holly doesn’t care. She hugs him back.

The audience is cheering wildly.

“They think they’re cheering for the song, but they’re really cheering for us,” she manages to whisper in Jerome’s ear. “They just don’t know it yet. Now let me go, Jerome. You’re hugging me too tight. Let me go before I pass out.”

42

Hodges is still sitting on the crate in the storage area, and not alone. There’s an elephant sitting on his chest. Something’s happening. Either the world is going away from him or he’s going away from the world. He thinks it’s the latter. It’s like he’s inside a camera and the camera is going backwards on one of those dolly-track things. The world is as bright as ever, but getting smaller, and there’s a growing circle of darkness around it.

He holds on with all the force of his will, waiting for either an explosion or no explosion.

One of the roadies is bending over him and asking if he’s all right. “Your lips are turning blue,” the roadie informs him. Hodges waves him away. He must listen.

Music and cheers and happy screams. Nothing else. At least not yet.

Hold on, he tells himself. Hold on.

“What?” the roadie asks, bending down again. “What?”

“I have to hold on,” Hodges whispers, but now he can hardly breathe at all. The world has shrunk to the size of a fiercely gleaming silver dollar. Then even that is blotted out, not because he’s lost consciousness but because someone is walking toward him. It’s Janey, striding slow and hipshot. She’s wearing his fedora tipped sexily over one eye. Hodges remembers what she said when he asked her how he had been so lucky as to end up in her bed: I have no regrets . . . Can we leave it at that?

Yeah, he thinks. Yeah. He closes his eyes, and tumbles off the crate like Humpty off his wall.

The roadie grabs him but can only soften the fall, not stop it. The other roadies gather.

“Who knows CPR?” asks the one who grabbed Hodges.

A roadie with a long graying ponytail steps forward. He’s wearing a faded Judas Coyne tee-shirt, and his eyes are bright red. “I do, but man, I’m so stoned.”

“Try it anyway.”

The roadie with the ponytail drops to his knees. “I think this guy is on the way out,” he says, but goes to work.

Upstairs, ’Round Here starts a new song, to the squeals and cheers of their female admirers. These girls will remember this night for the rest of their lives. The music. The excitement. The beachballs flying above the swaying, dancing crowd. They will read about the explosion that didn’t happen in the newspapers, but to the young, tragedies that don’t happen are only dreams.

The memories: they’re the reality.

43

Hodges awakens in a hospital room, surprised to find himself still alive but not at all surprised to see his old partner sitting at his bedside. His first thought is that Pete—hollow-eyed, needing a shave, the points of his collar turning up so they almost poke his throat—looks worse than Hodges feels. His second thought is for Jerome and Holly.

“Did they stop it?” he rasps. His throat is bone-dry. He tries to sit up. The machines surrounding him begin to beep and scold. He lies back down, but his eyes never leave Pete Huntley’s face. “Did they?”

“They did,” Pete says. “The woman says her name is Holly Gibney, but I think she’s really Sheena, Queen of the Jungle. That guy, the perp—”

“The perk,” Hodges says. “He thinks of himself as the perk.”

“Right now he doesn’t think of himself as anything, and the doctors say his thinking days are probably over for good. Gibney belted the living shit out of him. He’s in a deep coma. Minimal brain function. When you get on your feet again, you can visit him, if you want. He’s three doors down.”

“Where am I? County?”

“Kiner. The ICU.”

“Where are Jerome and Holly?”

“Downtown. Answering a shitload of questions. Meanwhile, Sheena’s mother is running around and threatening her own murder-spree if we don’t stop harassing her daughter.”

A nurse comes in and tells Pete he’ll have to leave. She says something about Mr. Hodges’s vital signs and doctor’s orders. Hodges holds up his hand to her, although it’s an effort.

“Jerome’s a minor and Holly’s got . . . issues. This is all on me, Pete.”

“Oh, we know that,” Pete says. “Yes indeed. This gives a whole new meaning to going off the reservation. What in God’s name did you think you were doing, Billy?”

“The best I could,” he says, and closes his eyes.