As the other guys lined up like a bunch of fucking sheep, Mort Whimple came waddling up on the run. “I just got the word, Ted!” he gasped. “They’re about two blocks from Willow. They’ll hit the mine road in about ten minutes, maybe fifteen.”
“Tell them to slow them down any way they can.” Cavanaugh looked irritably at his watch, then up at the sky. “Flat tire, anything.”
“They tell me Himebaugh’s still not with them,” the mayor said.
“Good,” was the first word of Ted’s reply, but Vince couldn’t hear the rest, because the mayor and Cavanaugh wandered off in a heads-down huddle. Something about the troopers coming by helicopter. Vince looked up. It was going to rain.
“Let’s go get Himebaugh,” Vince said to those who remained.
But the others split off from him. They didn’t make any excuses, they just edged away like he had some goddamn disease, strolled over to the ticketbooth and paid their dollars. “Come on, Vince,” said Sal Ferrero, smiling. Was he digging him? “Let’s watch this awhile, get something to drink, cool off.”
“You chickening out too, Sal?” Sal shrugged, looked embarrassed, wandered away. “Sal, goddamn you, man, I’m asking you for the last time! You coming, buddy, or ain’t you?”
“I’m not coming, Vince.”
“Well, fuck you then, you yellowbellied cocksucker!” Oh Jesus, it all boiled up in him, he was so mad he could have cried, and he could have killed Ferrero right there, could have thrown him to the dirt and battered his fucking brains out, and, trembling, he spun on Johnson and Lucci, the only two guys left — maybe they didn’t have a buck on them — and cried, “Let’s go, goddamn it!” And afraid they were going to bug out too, he added, “Himebaugh was a rich bastard. Maybe we’ll find something.” That kept them with him, okay, but he felt rotten about it. That sick thing was puffing up and filled his belly now.
They made it back to the edge of town just as the first carloads of newspaper and radio people were pulling out on the mine road. Everything was all mashed up. He blared and cursed and inched and bellowed, but finally ran into solid rivers of people who kicked his car and swore at him when he tried to move. They parked and walked, having a rough time of it against the tide, though Johnson and Lucci amused themselves feeling up every foreign female they squeezed by. It was getting dark and Vince thought he heard thunder.
At last they broke free of the mob, found their way back to Himebaugh’s place. Vince felt queasy, looked about nervously for cameras, but Johnson danced around waving at all the trees and shouting out his “earthling Ralphus” lines. Himebaugh’s front door was locked. Vince realized he didn’t know exactly what he was going to do if he found the man inside, but he put his shoulder to the door, and in three or four heaves it gave way. The moment it broke in, a big skinny black cat came streaking out, made Vince nearly jump out of his skin. “What the hell was that!”
“A little good luck,” said Lucci.
“That pussy looked like she might not a had no meat for awhile,” whined Johnson. Johnson wasn’t funny today. Just nasal and grating.
The house was nearly bare. Carpets still down, matted depressions where furniture had sat. A few heavy pieces remained. A couple paintings on the walls, books in the bookshelves. But everything showed signs of a quiet but permanent departure.
While Lucci and Johnson searched for loot, Bonali hunted Himebaugh. Didn’t want to find him, but he couldn’t quit the idea. Tried to remember the file busting him on the nose. The empty house was getting on his nerves. “Ho-lee shee-it!” cried Lucci just then, and Vince nearly squeaked out loud. “Hey, come here!”
Johnson and Bonali found him in the bathroom, staring into the tub. It was full of water. It was also full of dead cats. “I never knowed you could drown a cat without tyin’ a stone to him,” Johnson said.
“He must’ve held them under,” Vince reasoned. He tried to think of the antichrist, but it was getting all mixed up.
“Well,” cackled Johnson, “the cats are all yours, boys. I got mine.” He held up a bottle. Brandy.
“Jesus! Just what I need!” Vince said.
“Hunh-unh!” negated Johnson, tucking the bottle under his skinny arm and backing off.
“Unh-hunh!” argued Vince, and he and Lucci went for the flask.
“Okay, okay!” Johnson cried, going down hard. “Shit, boys, you’re swingin’ like you’re mad or somethin’!”
They split it, and when it was gone, they looked for more. Lucci found half a fifth near the tub, behind the stool, and Bonali discovered a whole one in the bookshelves. Outside, a storm had commenced to blow, and there wasn’t any point in going out there and getting wet, and that was how it was that the cops found them there in a state only bordering on consciousness.
There was nothing very wonderful about the days that followed either. Vince came down with the flu, which kept him in bed awhile, and Etta, in spite of everything, took care of him like always. When he could get up, he felt weak all the time, not up to anything more strenuous than sitting in his old rocker on the front porch. Ted Cavanaugh never came by about that special committee of course, though in his imaginings, Vince kept seeing that big red Lincoln pulling up at the curb. Out of boredom one morning, he did manage to drag himself back up the ladder and got the whole south side of the house painted. The paint was a little gommy. When he was through, he hardly realized he’d been painting, though he dreamt that night about falling off the ladder and woke up screaming for Angelo. Had no goddamn idea when he’d get to the other two sides.
Sal Ferrero came over while he still had the flu, and they apologized to each other. “I don’t know what happened to me that day, Sal.”
“I know, Vince. It was a crazy time. Anyhow, it’s over.”
It sure was. Sal dropped by about every second or third day after that. They bitched together about being out of work and no prospects, or talked over old times, and sometimes the Brunists came up, though they never felt exactly comfortable speaking about that. Sal filled Vince in on all that happened out there at the hill that day, about the rain and all those naked people, and how they got old Tiger Miller before the cops moved in, how in the big fight they overturned the TV dollies and busted the lamps, and how the bingo tent fell in, crushing a little child to death. “It’s awful, Sal.”
“Hard to realize it ever happened here.”
A lot of people got killed and hurt, and what did they do about it? Nothing. They put that old man Fisher in jail but let him right out again. Didn’t touch Castle. And all they did to Bruno was send him to the looneybin, put old Emilia in a rest home. Sent one kid up for nearly killing a couple cops. But that was all. The rest: scot-free. And now they were showing up on TV and whatnot all over the country. “It is hard to realize, Sal. I still can’t believe it.”
“They say Baxter’s even back in town again.”
“No kidding.” He wanted to explain to Sal about the emptiness, but somehow he didn’t have the words for it. Instead, Sal told him a story that was going around about how, when they still had all those wild wet Brunists packed into the jail here that night, a state trooper slipped into the women’s cell to play the stud bull and got pulled out an hour later half dead and raving mad.
Vince and Etta never went up to the Eagles anymore. He hated to see those faces up there, especially Johnson’s. They called him “The Mayor.” Vince spent the days rocking on the porch, the nights escaping west or into crime on the TV. He wished the daytime programs were better, so he didn’t ever have to do anything else. There was a strain between him and Etta most of the time, but watching TV, they were happy enough, and found themselves talking together about the programs.