He hadn't seen Arnie since the bust, or tried to call him on the telephone. At first he had thought to use his knowledge about Christine as a lever to keep Arnie's mouth shut if the kid weakened and took a notion to talk - God knew the kid could go a long way toward sending him to jail if he cooperated with the cops. It wasn't until after the police had landed everywhere that Will realized how much the kid knew, and he had had a few panicky moments of self-appraisal (something else that was upsetting because it was so foreign to his nature): had all of them known that much? Repperton, and all the hoody Repperton clones stretching back over the years? Could he actually have been so stupid?
No, he decided. It was only Cunningham. Because Cunningham was different. He seemed to understand things almost intuitively. He wasn't all brag and booze and bullshit. In a queer way, Will felt almost fatherly toward the boy - not that he would have hesitated to cut the kid loose if it started to look as if he was going to rock the boat. And not that I'd hesitate now, he assured himself.
On the TV, a scratchy black-and-white Scrooge was with the Cratchets. The film was almost over. The whole bunch of them looked like loonies, and that was the truth, but Scrooge was definitely the worst. The look of mad joy in his eye was not so different from the last look in the eye of a man Will had known twenty years before, a fellow named Everett Dingle who had gone home from the garage one afternoon and murdered his entire family.
Will lit a cigar. Anything to take the taste of the aspirator out of his mouth, that rotten taste. Lately it seemed harder than ever to catch his breath. Damned cigars didn't help, but he was too old to change now.
The kid hadn't talked - at least not yet he hadn't. They had turned Henry Buck, Will's lawyer had told him; Henry, who was sixty-three and a grandfather, would have denied Christ three times if they had promised him a dismissal Or even a suspended sentence in return. Old Henry Buck was sicking up everything he knew, which fortunately wasn't a great deal. He knew about the fireworks and cigarettes, but that had only been two rings of what had been, at one time, a six- or seven-ring circus encompassing booze, hot cars, discount firearms (including a few machine-guns sold to gun nuts and homicidal hunters who wanted to see if one 'would really tear up a deer like I heard'), and stolen antiques from New England. And in the last couple of years, cocaine. That had been a mistake; he knew it now. Those Colombians down in Miami were as -crazy as shithouse rats. Come to think of it, they were shithouse rats. Thank Christ they hadn't caught the kid holding a pound of coke.
Well, they were going to hurt him this time - how much or how little depended a great deal on that weird seventeen-year-old kid, and maybe on his weird car. Things were as delicately balanced as a house of cards, and Will hesitated to do or say anything, for fear he would change things for the worse. And there was always the possibility that Cunningham would laugh in his face and call him crazy.
Will got up, cigar clamped in his jaws, and shut off his television set. He should go to bed, but maybe he would have a brandy first. He was always tired now, but sleep came hard.
He turned toward the kitchen . . . and that was when the horn began to honk outside. The sound came over the howl of the wind in short, imperative blasts.
Will stopped cold in the kitchen doorway and belted his robe closed across his big stomach. His face was sharp and rapt and alive, suddenly the face of a much younger man. He stood there a moment longer.
Three more short, sharp honks.
He turned back, taking the cigar from his mouth, and walked slowly across the living room. An almost dreamlike sense of d泄j邪 vu washed over him like warm water. Mixed with it was a feeling of fatalism. He knew it was Christine out there even before he brushed the curtain back and looked out, She had come for him, as he supposed he knew she might.