of fact, that someone had been Arnie himself. The cartoon showed two hotrod atoms speeding toward each other and then slamming together. Presto! Instead of a lot of wreckage (and atom ambulances to take away the dead and wounded neutrons), critical mass, chain reaction, and one hell of a big bang.
Then I decided the memory of that cartoon really wasn't odd at all. Leigh had certain information I hadn't had before. The reverse was also true. In both cases a lot of it was guesswork, a lot of it was subjective feeling and circumstance . . . but enough of it was hard information to be really scary. I wondered briefly what the police would do if they knew what we did. I could guess: nothing. Could you bring a ghost to trial? Or a car?
'Dennis?'
'I'm thinking,' I said, 'Can't you smell the wood burning?'
'What do you know?' she asked again
Collision. Critical mass. Chain reaction. Kaboom.
The thing was, I was thinking, if we put our information together, we would have to do something or tell someone. Take some action. We -
I remembered my dream: the car sitting there in LeBay's garage, the motor revving up and then falling off, revving up again, the headlights coming on, the shriek of tyres.
I took her hands in both of mine. 'Okay,' I said. 'Listen. Arnie: he bought Christine from a guy who is dead now. A guy named Roland D. LeBay. We saw her on his lawn one day when we were coming home from work, and 'You're doing it too,' she said softly.
'What?'
'Calling it she.'
I nodded, not letting go of her hands. 'Yeah. I know. It's hard to stop. The thing is, Arnie wanted her - or it, or whatever that car is - from the first time he laid eyes on her. And I think now . . . I didn't then, but I do now . . . that LeBay wanted Arnie to have her just as badly, that he would have given her to him if it had come to that. It's like Arnie saw Christine and knew, and then LeBay saw Arnie and knew the same thing.'
Leigh pulled her hands free of mine and began to rub her elbows restlessly again. 'Arnie said he paid - '
'He paid, all right. And he's still paying. That is, if Arnie's left at all.'
'I don't understand what you mean.'
'I'll show you,' I said, 'in a few minutes. First, let me give you the background.'
'All right.'
'LeBay had a wife and daughter. This was back in the fifties. His daughter died beside the road. She choked to death. On a hamburger.'
Leigh's face grew white, then whiter; for a moment she seemed as milky and translucent as clouded glass.
'Leigh!' I said sharply. 'Are you all right?'
'Yes,' she said with a chilling placidity. Her colour didn't improve. Her mouth moved in a horrid grimace that was perhaps intended to be a reassuring smile. 'I'm fine.' She stood up. 'Where is the bathroom, please?'
'There's one at the end of the hall,' I said. 'Leigh, you look awful.'
'I'm going to vomit,' she said in that same placid voice, and walked away. She moved jerkily now, like a puppet, all the dancer's grace I had seen in her shadow now gone. She walked out of the room slowly, but when she was out of sight the rhythm of her stride picked up; I heard the bathroom door thrown open, and then the sounds. I leaned back against the sofa and put my hands over my eyes.
When she came back she was still pale but had regained a touch of her colour. She had washed her face and there were still a few drops of water on her cheeks.
'I'm sorry,' I said.
'It's all right. It just . . . startled me.' She smiled wanly. 'I guess that's an understatement.' She caught my eyes with hers. 'Just tell me one thing, Dennis. What you said. Is it true? Really true?'
'Yeah,' I said. 'It's true. And there's more. But do you really want to hear any more?'
'No,' she said. 'But tell me anyway.'
'We could drop it,' I said, not really believing it.
Her grave, distressed eyes held mine. 'It might be . . . safer . . . if we didn't,' she said.
'His wife committed suicide shortly after their daughter died.'
'The car . . . '
' . . . was involved.'
'How?'
'Leigh - '
'How?
So I told her - not just about the little girl and her mother, but about LeBay himself, as his