Things were going to be better all the way around. He would mend his fences at home—in fact, could start tonight by watching some TV with his folks, just like in the old days. And he would win Leigh back. If she didn’t like the car, no matter how weird her reasons were, fine. Maybe he would, even buy another car sometime soon and tell her he had traded Christine in. He could keep Christine here, rent space. What she didn’t know wouldn’t hurt her. And Will. This was going to be his last run for Will, this coming weekend. That bullshit had gone just about far enough; he could feel it. Let Will think he was a chicken if that’s what he wanted to think. A felony rap for interstate transport of unlicensed cigarettes and alcohol wouldn’t look all that hot on his college application, would it? A Federal felony rap. No. Not too cool.
He laughed a little. He did feel better. Purged. On his way over to the garage he ate his pizza even though it was cold. He was ravenous. It had struck him a bit peculiar that one piece was gone—in fact, it made him a bit uneasy—but he dismissed it. He had probably eaten it during that strange blank period, or maybe even thrown it out the window. Whoo, that had been spooky. No more of that shit. And he had laughed again, this time a little less shakily.
Now he got out of the car, slammed the door, and started toward Will’s office to find out what he had for him to do this evening. It suddenly occurred to him that tomorrow was the last day of school before the Christmas vacation, and that put an extra spring in his step.
That was when the side door, the one beside the big carport door, opened and a man let himself in. It was Junkins. Again.
He saw Arnie looking at him and raised a hand. “Hi, Arnie.”
Arnie glanced at Will. Through the glass, Will shrugged and went on eating his hoagie.
“Hello,” Arnie said. “What can I do for you?”
“Well, I don’t know,” Junkins said. He smiled, and then his eyes slid past Arnie to Christine, appraising, looking for damage. “Do you want to do something for me?”
“Not fucking likely,” Arnie said. He could feel his head starting to throb with rage again.
Rudy Junkins smiled, apparently unoffended.
“I just dropped by. How you been?”
He stuck out his hand. Arnie only looked at it. Not embarrassed in the slightest, Junkins dropped his hand, walked around to Christine, and began examining her again. Arnie watched him, his lips pressed together so tightly they were white. He felt a fresh pulse of anger each time Junkins dropped one of his hands onto Christine.
“Look, maybe you ought to buy a season ticket or something,” Arnie said. “Like to the Steelers games.”
Junkins turned and looked at him questioningly.
“Never mind,” Arnie said sullenly.
Junkins went on looking. “You know,” he said, it’s a hell of a strange thing, what happened to Buddy Repperton and those other two boys, isn’t it?”
Fuck it, Arnie thought. I’m not going to fool around with this shitter.
“I was in Philadelphia. Chess tourney.”
“I know,” Junkins said.
“Jesus! You’re really checking me out!”
Junkins walked back to Arnie. There was no smile on his face now. “Yes, that’s right,” he said. “I’m checking you out. Three of the boys I believe were involved in vandalizing your car are now dead, along with a fourth boy who was apparently just along for the ride on Tuesday night. That’s a pretty big coincidence. It’s nine miles too big for me. You bet I’m checking you out.”
Arnie stared at him, surprised out of his anger, uncertain. “I thought it was an accident… that they were liquored up and speeding and—”
“There was another car involved,” Junkins said.
“How do you know that?”
“There were tracks in the snow, for one thing. Unfortunately, the wind had blurred them too much for us to be able to get a decent photo. But one of the barriers at the Squantic Hills State Park gate was broken, and we found traces of red paint on it. Buddy’s Camaro wasn’t red. It was blue.”
He measured Arnie with his eyes.
“We also found traces of red paint embedded in Moochie Welch’s skin, Arnie. Can you dig that? Embedded. Do you know how hard a car has to hit a guy to embed paint in his skin?”
“You ought to go out there and start counting red cars,” Arnie said coldly. “You’ll be up to twenty before you get to Basin Drive, I guarantee it.”
“You bet,” Junkins said. “But we sent our samples to the FBI lab in Washington, where they have samples of every shade of paint they ever used in Detroit. We got the results back today. Any idea what they were? Want to guess?”
Arnie’s heart was thudding dully in his chest; there was a corresponding beat at his temples. “Since you’re here, I’d guess it was Autumn Red. Christine’s colour.”
“Give that man a Kewpie doll,” Junkins said. He lit a cigarette and looked at Arnie through the smoke. He had abandoned any pretence of good humour; his gaze was stony.
Arnie clapped his hands to his head in an exaggerated gesture of exasperation. “Autumn Red, great. Christine’s a custom job but there were Fords from 1959 to 1963 painted Autumn Red, and Thunderbirds, and Chevrolet offered that shade from 1962 to 1964, and for a while in the mid-fifties you could get a Rambler painted Autumn Red. I’ve been working on my ’58 for half a year now, I get the car books; you can’t do work on an old car without the books, or you’re screwed before you start. Autumn Red was a popular choice. I know it”—he looked at Junkins fixedly—“and you know it, too. Don’t you?”
Junkins said nothing; he only went on looking at Arnie in that fixed, stony, unsettling way. Arnie had never seen looked at in that way by anyone in his life, but he recognized the gaze, He supposed anyone would. It was a look of strong, frank suspicion. It scared him. A few months ago—even a few weeks ago—that was probably all it would have done. But now it made him furious as well.
“You’re really reaching. Just what the hell have you got against me anyway, Mr Junkins? Why are you on my ass?” Junkins laughed and walked around in a large half-circle. The place was entirely empty except for the two of them out here and Will in his office, finishing his hoagie and licking olive oil off his hands and still watching them closely.
“What have I got against you?” He said. “How does first-degree murder sound to you, Arnie? Does that grab you with any force?”
Arnie grew very still.
“Don’t worry,” Junkins said, still walking. “No big tough cop scene. No menacing threats about going downtown—except in this case downtown would be Harrisburg. No Miranda card. Everything is still fine for our hero, Arnold Cunningham.”
“I don’t understand any of what you’re—”
“You… understand. PLENTY!” Junkins roared at him. He had stopped next to a giant yellow hulk of a truck—another of Johnny Pomberton’s dumpsters-in-the-making. He stared at Arnie. “Three of the kids who beat on your car are dead. Autumn Red paint samples were taken at both crime scenes, leading us to believe that the vehicle the perpetrator used in both cases was at least in part Autumn Red. And gee whiz! It just turns out that the car those kids trashed is mostly Autumn Red. And you stand there and push your glasses up on your nose and tell me you don’t understand what I’m talking about.”
“I was in Philadelphia when it happened,” Arnie said quietly. “Don’t you get that? Don’t you get that at all?”
“Kiddo,” Junkins said flipping his cigarette away, “that’s the worst part of it. That’s the part that really stinks.”
“I wish you’d get out of here or put me under arrest or something. Because I’m supposed to punch in and do some work.”