The Dark Half(138)

Leave it alone, Liz, they said. It's my play.

Then he put his free arm around her and the whole family stood in a clumsy but fervent four-way embrace.

'Liz,' he said, kissing her coot lips. 'Liz, Liz, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry for this. I didn't mean for anything like this to happen. I didn't know. I thought it was . . . harmless. A joke.'

She held him tightly, kissed him, let his lips warm hers.

'It's okay,' she said. 'It will be okay, won't it, Thad?'

'Yes,' he said. He drew away so he could look in her eyes. 'It's going to be okay.'

He kissed her again, then looked at Alan.

'Hello, Alan,' he said, and smiled a little. 'Changed your mind about anything?'

'Yes. Quite a few things. I talked to an old acquaintance of Yours today.' He looked at Stark.

'Yours, too.'

Stark raised what remained of his eyebrows. 'I didn't think Thad and I had any friends in

common, Sheriff Alan.'

'Oh, you had a very close relationship with this guy,' Alan said. 'In fact, he killed you once.'

'What are you talking about?' Thad asked sharply.

'It was Dr Pritchard I talked to. He remembers both of you very well. You see, it was a pretty unusual sort of operation. What he took out of your head was him.' He nodded toward Stark.

'What are you talking about?' Liz asked, and her voice cracked on the last word. So Alan told them what Pritchard had told him . . . but at the last moment he omitted the part about the sparrows dive-bombing the hospital. He did it because Thad hadn't said anything about the sparrows . . . and Thad had to have driven past the Williams place to get here. That suggested two possibilities: either the sparrows had been gone by the time Thad arrived, or Thad didn't want Stark to know they were there.

Alan looked very closely at Thad. Something going on in there. Some idea. Pray to God it's a good one.

When Alan finished, Liz looked stunned. Thad was nodding. Stark - from whom Alan would have expected the strongest reaction of all - did not seem much affected one way or the other. The only expression Alan could read on that ruined face was amusement.

'It explains a lot,' Thad said. 'Thank you, Alan.'

'It doesn't explain a goddam thing to me!' Liz cried so shrilly that the twins began to whimper. Thad looked at George Stark. 'You're a ghost,' he said. 'A weird kind of ghost. We're all standing here and looking at a ghost. Isn't that amazing? This isn't just a psychic incident; it's a goddam epic!'

'I don't think it matters,' Stark said easily. 'Tell em the William Burroughs story, Thad. I remember it well. I was inside, of course . . . but I was listening.'

Liz and Alan looked at Thad questioningly.

'Do you know what he's talking about?' Liz asked.

'Of course I do,' Thad said. 'Ike and Mike, they think alike.'.Stark threw back his head and laughed. The twins stopped whimpering and laughed along with

him. 'That's good, old hoss! That is gooood!'

'I was - or perhaps I should say we were - on a panel with Burroughs in 1981. At the New School, in New York. During the Q-and-A, some kid asked Burroughs if he believed in life after death. Burroughs said he did - he thought we were all living it.'

'And that man's smart,' Stark said, smiling. 'Couldn't shoot a pistol worth shit, but smart. Now

- you see? You see how little it matters?'

But it does, Alan thought, studying Thad carefully. It matters a lot. Thad's face says so . . . and the sparrows you don't know about say so, too.

Thad's knowledge was more dangerous than even he knew, Alan suspected. But it might be all they had. He decided he had been right to keep the end of Pritchard's story to himself . . . but he still felt like a man standing on the edge of a cliff and trying to juggle too many flaming torches.

'Enough chit-chat, Thad,' Stark said.

He nodded. 'Yes. Quite enough.' He looked at Liz and Alan. 'I don't want either of you trying anything . . . well . . . out of line. I'm going to do what he wants.'

'Thad! No! You can't do that!'

'Shhh.' He put a finger across her lips. 'I can, and I will. No tricks, no special effects. Words on paper made him, and words on paper are the only things that will get rid of him.' He cocked his head at Stark. 'Do you think he knows this will work? He doesn't. He's just hoping.'

'That's right,' Stark said. 'Hope springs eternal in the human tits.' He laughed. It was a crazy, lunatic sound, and Alan understood that Stark was also juggling flaming torches on the edge of a cliff.

Sudden movement twitched in the corner of his eye. Alan turned his head slightly and saw a sparrow land on the deck railing outside the sweep of glass that formed the living room's western wall. It was joined by a second and a third. Alan looked back at Thad and saw the writer's eyes move slightly. Had he also seen? Alan thought he had. He had been right, then. Thad knew . . . but he didn't want Stark to know.

'The two of us are just going to do a little writing and then say goodbye,' Thad said. His eyes shifted to Stark's ruined face. 'That is what we're going to do, isn't it, George?'

'You got it, guy.'

'So you tell me,' Thad said to Liz. 'Are you holding back? Got something in your head? Some plan?'