I put the phone down slowly and thought about cars that still kept moving even when you lifted their driving wheels off the ground. Sort of spooky. It was spooky, all right, and McCandless still had the scars to prove it. That made me remember something George LeBay had told me. He had a scar to show from his association with Roland D. LeBay, as well. And as he grew older, his scar had spread.
PART III: CHRISTINE - TEENAGE DEATH-SONGS Chapter 45 NEW YEAR'S EVE
For this daring young star met his death
while in his car,
No one knows the reason why -
Screaming tyres, flashing fire, and gone
was this young star,
O how could they let him die?
Still, a young man is gone, but his legend
lingers on,
For he died without a cause . . .
- Bobby Troupe
I called Arnie on New Year's Eve. I'd had a couple of days to think about it, and I didn't really want to do it, but I had to see him. I had come to believe I wouldn't be able to decide anything until I actually saw him again for myself, And until I had seen Christine again. I had mentioned the car to my father at breakfast, casually, as if in passing, and he told me that he believed all the cars that had been impounded in Darnell's Garage had now been photographed and returned.
Regina Cunningham answered the phone, her voice stiff and formal. 'Cunningham residence.'
'Hi, Regina, it's Dennis.'
'Dennis!' She sounded both pleased and surprised. For a moment it was the voice of the old Regina, the one who gave Arnie and me peanut butter sandwiches with bits of bacon crumbled into them (peanut butter and bacon on stone-ground rye, of course). 'How are you? We heard that they sprung you from the hospital.'
'I'm doing okay,' I said. 'How about you?'
There was a brief silence, and then she said, 'Well, you know how things have been around here.'
'Problems,' I said. 'Yeah.'
'All the problems we missed 'in earlier years,' Regina said. 'I guess they just piled up in a corner and waited for us.'
I cleared my throat a little and said nothing.
'Did you want to talk to Arnie?'
'If he's there.'
After another slight pause, Regina said, 'I remember that in the old days you and he used to swap back and forth on New Year's Eve, seeing the New Year in. Was that what you were calling about, Dennis?' She sounded almost timid, and that was not like the old full-steam-ahead Regina at all.
'Well, yeah,' I said. 'Kid stuff, I know, but - '
'No!' she said, sharply and quickly. 'No, not at all! If Arnie ever needed you, Dennis - needed some friend now is the time. He . . . he's upstairs now, sleeping. He sleeps much too much. And he's . . . he's not . . . he hasn't .
'Hasn't what, Regina?'
'He hasn't made any of his college applications! she burst out, and then immediately lowered her voice, as if Arnie might overhear. 'Not a single one! Mr Vickers, the guidance counsellor at school, called and told me! He scored 700s on his college boards, he could get into almost any college in the country - at least he could have before this - this trouble . . .' Her voice wavered toward tears, and then she got hold of herself again. 'Talk to him, Dennis. If you could spend the evening with him tonight . . . drink a few beers with him and just . . . just talk to him. . . '
She stopped, but I could tell there was something more. Something she needed to say and couldn't.
'Regina,' I said. I hadn't liked the old Regina, the compulsive dominator who seemed to run the lives of her husband and son to fit her own timetable, but I liked this distracted, weepy woman even less. 'Come on. Take it easy, okay?'
I'm afraid to talk to him,' she said finally. 'And Michael's afraid to talk to him. He . . . he seems to explode if you cross him on some subjects. At first it was only his car; now it's college too. Talk to him, Dennis, please.' There was another short pause, and then, almost casually, she brought out the heart of her dread: 'I think we're losing him.'
'No, Regina, hey - '
'I'll get him,' she said abruptly, and the phone clunked down. The wait seemed to stretch out. I crooked the phone between my