[Better send her across, Shorts I'm warning you."] ["No.
I'll fuck you over, Shorts. I'll fuck you over big-time. And I'll fuck your friends over. Do you get me? Do you-] Ralph suddenly raised one hand to shoulder height with the palm turned inward toward the side of his head, as if he meant to administer a karate chop. He brought it down and watched, amazed, as a tight blue wedge of light flew off the tips of his fingers and sliced across the street like a thrown spear. Doc #3 ducked just in time, clapping one hand to McGovern's Panama to keep it from flying off. The blue wedge skimmed two or three inches over that small, clutching hand and struck the front window of the Burry-Burry.
There it spread like some supernatural liquid, and for a moment the dusty glass became the brilliant, perfect blue of today's sky. It faded after only a moment and Ralph could see the women inside the laundromat again, folding their clothes and loading their washers exactly as if nothing had happened.
The bald dwarf straightened, rolled his hands into fists, and shook them at Ralph. Then he snatched McGovern's hat off his head, stuck the brim in his mouth, and tore a bite out of it. As he performed this bizarre equivalent of a child's tantrum, the sun struck splinters of fire from the lobes of his small, neatly made ears. He spat out the chunk of splintery straw and then clapped the hat back on his head.
[That dog was mine, Shorts! I was gonna play with her. I guess maybe I'll have to play with You instead, huh? You and your asshole friends."
["Get out of here.")] [Cuntlicker! Fucked your mother and licked her cunt!] Ralph knew where he had heard that charming sentiment before: Ed
Deepneau, out at the airport, in the summer of '92. It wasn't the sort of thing you forgot, and all at once he was terrified.
What in God's name had he stumbled into?
Ralph lifted his hand to the side of his head again, but something inside had changed. He could bring it down in that chopping gesture again, but he was almost Positive that this time no bright blue flying wedge would result.
The doc apparently didn't know he was being threatened with an empty gun, however. He shrank back, raising the hand holding the scalpel in a shielding gesture. The grotesquely bitten hat slipped down over his eyes, and for a moment he looked like asta cmelodrama version of Jack the Ripper... one who might have been working out pathologic inadequacies caused by extreme shortness.
[Gonna get you for this, Shorts You wait. You]. just wait! No Short-Timer runs the game on me.
But for the time being, the little bald doctor had had enough. He wheeled around and ran into the weedy lane between the laundromat and the apartment house with his dirty, too-long smock flapping and snapping at the legs of his jeans. The brightness slipped out of the day with him. Ralph marked its passage to a large extent with senses he had never before even suspected. He felt totally awake, totally energized, and almost exploding with delighted excitement.
I drove it off, by God! I drove the little sonofawhore off! He had no idea what the creature in the white smock really was, but he knew he had saved Rosalie from it, and for now that was enough.
Nagging questions about his sanity might creep back in tomorrow morning, as he sat in the wing-chair looking down at the deserted street below... but for the time being, he felt like a million bucks.
"You saw him, didn't you, Rosalie? You saw the nasty little-" He looked down, saw that Rosalie was no longer sitting by his heel, and looked up in time to see her limping into the park, head down, right leg slueing stiffly off to the side with every pained stride.
"Rosalie!" he shouted. "Hey, girl!" And, without really knowing why-except that they had just gone through something extraordinary together-Ralph started after her, first just jogging, then running, finally sprinting all out.
He didn't sprint for long. A stitch that felt like a hot chrome needle buried itself in his left side, then spread rapidly across the left half of his chest wall. He stopped just inside the park, standing bent over at the intersection of two paths, hands clamped on his legs just above the knees. Sweat ran into his eyes and stung like tears.