of a sort - the place where LeBay and Christine had killed my friend's mind and taken over his life.
'I can't wait to get out of here,' Leigh said, looking around nervously.
'Really? I kind of like it. I was thinking of moving in.' I caressed her shoulder and looked deeply into her eyes. 'We could start a family,' I breathed.
She held up a fist. 'Want me to start a nosebleed?'
'No, that's all right. For what it's worth, I can't wait to get out of here, either.' I drove Petunia the rest of the way inside. I found that I could run the clutch pretty well using the O-Cedar mop . . . in first gear, at least. The handle had a tendency to bend, and I would have preferred something thicker, but it would have to do unless we could find something better in the meantime.
'We've got to turn off the lights again,' I said, killing the engine. 'The wrong people might see them.'
She got out and turned them off while I swung Petunia in a wide circle and then carefully backed it up until the rear end almost touched the window between the garage and Darnell's office. Now the big truck's snout was pointing directly back at the open overhead door through which we had entered.
With the lights off, the shadows descended again. The light coming in through the open door was weak, muted by the snow, white and without strength. It spread on the oil-stained, cracked concrete like a pie-wedge and simply died halfway across the floor.
'I'm cold, Dennis,' Leigh called from Darnell's office. 'He's got the switches for the heat marked. Can I turn them on?'
'Go ahead,' I called back.
A moment later the garage whispered with the sound of the blowers. I leaned back against the seat, gently running my hands over my left leg. The material of my jeans was stretched smoothly over the thigh, tight and without a wrinkle. The sonofabitch was swelling. And it hurt. Christ, did it hurt.
Leigh came back and climbed up beside me. She told me again how terrible I looked, and for some reason my mind cross-patched and I thought of the afternoon Arnie had brought Christine down here, of the be-bop queen's husband yelling for Arnie to get that hunk of junk out from in front of his house, and of Arnie telling me the guy was a regular Robert Deadford. How we had gotten the giggles. I closed my eyes against the sting of tears.
With nothing to do but wait, time slowed down. It was quarter of two, then two o'clock. Outside, the snow had thickened a little, but not much. Leigh got out of the truck and pushed the button that trundled the door back down. That made it even darker inside.
She came back, climbed up, and said, 'There's a funny gadget on the side of the door - see it? It looks just like the electronic garage door-opener we used to have when we lived in Weston.'
I sat up suddenly. Stared at it. 'Oh,' I said. 'Oh, Jesus.'
'What's the matter?'
'That's just what it is. A garage door-opener. And there's one of the transmitter gadgets on Christine. Arnie mentioned that to me Thanksgiving night. You've got to break it, Leigh. Use the handle of that push broom.'
So she got down again, picked up the broom-handle, and stood below the electric eye gadget, looking up and bashing at it with the handle. She looked like a woman trying to kill a bug near the ceiling. At last she was rewarded with a crunch of plastic and a tinkle of glass.
She came back slowly, tossing the broom-handle aside and got up beside me. 'Dennis, don't you think it's time you told me exactly what you've got in mind?'
'What do you mean?'
'You know what I mean,' she said, and pointed at the closed overhead door. Five square windows in a line three-quarters of the way up its height let in minimal light through dirty glass. 'When it gets dark you plan to open that door again, don't you?'
I nodded. The door itself was wood, but it was braced with hinged steel strips, like the inner gate of an old-time elevator. I'd let her in, but once the door was shut, Christine wouldn't be able to bash her way out again. I hoped. It made me cold to think how close we'd come to overlooking the electronic door-opener.
Open the door at dusk, yes. Let Christine in, yes. Close the door again.