“What is wrong with you.” Mary asked him. “Just what in the hell is wrong with you.”
“Nothing,” Johnny said. “Well, a broken nose, but I guess that isn’t what you meant, is it.”
Billingsley tilted the bottle back with a short, sharp flick of the wrist that looked as practiced as a nurse’s injection technique, and then coughed. Tears welled in his eyes. He put the mouth of the bottle to his lips again, and Johnny snatched it away. “Nope, I don’t think so, oldtimer.”
He offered the bottle to Ralph, who took it, looked at it, then bit off a quick swallow.
Ralph then offered it to Mary.
“Go on,” Ralph said. His voice was quiet, almost humble. “Better if you do.”
She looked at Johnny with hateful, perplexed eyes, then took a nip from the bottle. She coughed, holding it away from her and looking at it as if it were toxic. Ralph took it back, plucked the cap from Billingsley’s left hand, and put it back on. During this, Johnny opened the bottle of aspirin, shook out half a dozen, bounced them in his hand for a moment, then tossed them into his mouth.
“Come on, Doe,” he said to Billingsley. “Lead the way. — They started down the street, Johnny telling them as they went why he had all but broken his neck to get his cellular phone back. The coyotes on the other side of the street got up and paced them. Johnny didn’t care for that much, but what were they supposed to do about it. Try shooting at them. Pretty noisy. At least there was no sign of the cop. And if they saw him before they made it down to the movie theater, they could always duck into one of these other places. Any old port in a storm.
He swallowed, grimacing at the burn as the half—liquefied aspirin slid down his throat, and tried to put the bottle into his breast pocket. It bumped the top of the phone. He took it out, put the bottle of pills in its place, started to shove the cellular into his pants pocket, then decided it couldn’t hurt to try again. He pulled the antenna and flipped the phone open. Still no transmission—bars. Zilch “You really think that was your friend.” David asked.
“I think so, yes.”
David held out his hand. “Could I try it.”
Something in his voice. His father heard it, too. Johnny could see it in the way the man was looking at him.
“David. Son. Is something wr-”
“Could I try it please.”
“Sure, if you want.” He held the useless phone out to the boy, and as David took it, Johnny saw three transmis-sion-bars appear beside the S. Not one or two but three.
“Son of a bitch!” he breathed, and grabbed the phone back. David, who had been studying the keypad func-tions, saw him reaching a moment too late to stop him.
The moment the cellular phone was back in Johnny’s hand, the transmission-bars disappeared again, leaving only the S.
They were never there in the first place, you know that, don’t you. You hallucinated them. You—“Give it back!” David shouted. Johnny was stunned by the anger in his voice.
The phone was snatched away again, but not too fast for him to see the transmission-bars reappear, glowing gold in the dark.
“This is so damned dumb,” Mary said, looking first back over her shoulder, then at the coyotes across the street. They had stopped when the people had. “But if it’s the way you want to play it, why don’t we just drag a table out and get drunk in the middle of the fucking street.”
No one paid any attention. Billingsley was still looking at the bottle of Beam. Johnny and Ralph were staring at the kid, who was stuttering his finger on the NAME/MENU button with the speed of a veteran video-game player, hurrying past Johnny’s agent and ex-wife and editor, finally getting to STEVE.
“David, what is it.” Ralph asked.
David ignored him and turned urgently to Johnny. “Is this him, Mr. Marinville. Is the guy with the truck Steve.”
“Yes.”
David pushed SEND.
Steve had heard of being saved by the bell, but this was ridiculous.
Just as his fingers found the doorhandle-and he could hear Cynthia grabbing for hers on the other end of the seat-the cellular telephone gave out its nasal, demanding cry: Hmeep!
Hmeep!
Steve froze. Looked at the phone. Looked across the seat at Cynthia, whose door was actually open a little. She was staring back at him, the grin on her lips fading.
Hmeep! Hmeep!
“Well.” she asked. “Aren’t you going to answer that.” And there was something in her tone, something so wifely, that he laughed.
Outside, the wolf pointed its nose into the darkness and howled, as if it had heard Steve’s laughter and dis-approved. The coyotes seemed to take that howl as a signal. They got up and disappeared back the way they bad come, walking into the blowing dust with their heads lowered. The, scorpions were already gone. If, that was, they had been there at all.
They might not have been; his bead felt like a haunted house, one filled with hallucjna-tions and false memories instead of ghosts.
Hmeep! Hmeep!
He grabbed the phone off the dashboard, pushed the SEND button, and put it to his ear.
He stared out at the wolf as he did it. And the wolf stared back. “Boss. Boss, that you.”
Of course it was, who else would be calling him. Only it wasn’t. It was a kid.
“Is your name Steve.” the kid asked.
“Yes. How’d you get the boss’s phone. Where-”
“Never mind that,” the kid said. “Are you in trouble. You are, aren’t you.”
Steve opened his mouth. “I don’t-” Closed it again. Outside, the wind screamed around the cab of the Ryder truck. He held the little phone to the side of his face and looked over an oozing lump of buzzard at the wolf. He saw the chunk of statue lying in front of it as well. The crude images of intermingled sex and violence which had filled his mind were fading, but he could remember the power they had exercised over him the way he could remember certain vivid nightmares.
“Yeah,” he said. “I guess you could say that.”
“Are you in the truck we saw.”
“If you saw a truck, likely that was us, yeah. Is my boss with you.”
“Mr. Marinville’s here. He’s okay. Are you all right.”
“I don’t know,” Steve said. “There’s a wolf, and he brought this thing… it’s like a statue, only-”
Cynthia’s hand darted into the lower part of his vision and honked the horn. Steve jumped. At the entrance to the cafe parking lot, the wolf jumped, too. Steve could see its muzzle draw back in a snarl. Its ears flattened against its skull.
Doesn’t like the horn, he thought. Then another thought came, one of those simple ones that made you want to slam your hand against your own forehead, as if to punish your laggard brains. If it won’t get out of the way, I can run the fucker over, can’t I.
Yes. Yes, he could. After all, he was the one with the truck.
“What was that.” the kid asked sharply. Then, as if realizing that was the wrong question: “Why are you doing that.”
“We’ve got company. We’re trying to get rid of it.”
Cynthia honked the horn again. The wolf got to its feet. Its ears were still laid back. It looked pissed, but it also looked confused. When Cynthia honked the horn a third time, Steve put both of his hands over hers and helped. The wolf looked at them a moment longer, its head cocked and its eyes a nasty yellow-green in the glare of the headlights.
Then it bent, seized the piece of statuary in its teeth, and disappeared back the way it had come.
Steve looked at Cynthia, and she looked back at him. She still looked scared, but she was smiling a little just the same.
“Steve.” The voice was faint, dodging in and out of static-bursts. “Steve, are you there.”
“Yes.”
“Your company.”
“Gone. For the time being, at least. The question is, what do we do next. Any suggestions.”
“I might have.” Damned if it didn’t sound as if maybe he was smiling, too.
“What’s your name, kid.” Steve asked.