on his back, grimaced, and then rolled further, onto his other side and away from them. "A man gets tired of being hit when he's down and hog-tied."
Laurel's face grew not just warm but hot this time. She bit her lip and said nothing. She felt like crying. How was she supposed to handle someone like this? How? First the man seemed as crazy as a bedbug, and then he seemed as sane as could be. And meanwhile, the whole world - Mr Toomy's BIG PICTURE - had gone to hell.
"I bet you were scared of your dad, weren't you, Mr Toomy?"
Craig looked back over his shoulder at Dinah, startled. He smiled again, but this smile was different. It was a rueful, hurt smile with no public relations in it. "This time you win the cigar, miss," he said. "I was terrified of him."
"Is he dead?"
"Yes."
"Was he LYING DOWN ON THE JOB? Did the langoliers get him?"
Craig thought for a long time. He remembered being told that his father had had his heart attack while in his office. When his secretary buzzed him for his ten o'clock staff meeting and there was no answer, she had come in to find him dead on the carpet, eyes bulging, foam drying on his mouth.
Did someone tell you that? he wondered suddenly. That his eyes were bugging out, that there was foam on his mouth? Did someone actually tell you that - Mother, perhaps, when she was drunk - or was it just wishful thinking?
"Mr Toomy? Did they?"
"Yes," Craig said thoughtfully. "I guess he was, and I guess they did."
"Mr Toomy?"
"What?"
"I'm not the way you see me. I'm not ugly. None of us are."
He looked at her, startled. "How would you know how you look to me, little blind miss?"
"You might be surprised," Dinah said.
Laurel turned toward her, suddenly more uneasy than ever... but of course there was nothing to see. Dinah's dark glasses defeated curiosity.
3
The other passengers stood on the far side of the waiting room, listening to that low rattling sound and saying nothing. It seemed there was nothing left to say.
"What do we do now?" Don asked. He seemed to have wilted inside his red lumberjack's shirt. Albert thought the shirt itself had lost some of its cheerfully macho vibrancy.
"I don't know," Brian said. He felt a horrible impotence toiling away in his belly. He looked out at the plane, which had been his plane for a little while, and was struck by its clean lines and smooth beauty. The Delta 727 sitting to its left at the jetway looked like a dowdy matron by comparison. It looks good to you because it's never going to fly again, that's all. It's like glimpsing a beautiful woman for just a moment in the back seat of a limousine - she looks even more beautiful than she really is because you know she's not yours, can never be yours.
"How much fuel is left, Brian?" Nick asked suddenly. "Maybe the burn-rate isn't the same over here. Maybe there's more than you realize."
"All the gauges are in apple-pie working order," Brian said. "When we landed, I had less than 600 pounds. To get back to where this happened, we'd need at least 50,000."
Bethany took out her cigarettes and offered the pack to Bob. He shook his head. She stuck one in her mouth, took out her matches, and struck one.
It didn't light.
"Oh-oh," she said.
Albert glanced over. She struck the match again... and again... and again. There was nothing. She looked at him, frightened.
"Here," Albert said. "Let me."
He took the matches from her hand and tore another one loose. He struck it across the strip on the back. There was nothing.
"Whatever it is, it seems to be catching," Rudy Warwick observed.
Bethany burst into tears, and Bob offered her his handkerchief.
"Wait a minute," Albert said, and struck the match again. This time it lit... but the flame was low, guttering, unenthusiastic. He applied it to the quivering tip of Bethany's cigarette and a clear image suddenly filled his mind: a sign he had passed as he rode his ten-speed to Pasadena High School every day for the last three years. CAUTION, this sign said. TWO-WAY TRAFFIC AHEAD.
What in the hell does that mean?
He didn't know... at least not yet. All he knew for sure was that some idea wanted out but was, at least for the time being, stuck in the gears.