'The State Attorney General won't think so, given your motive. We're not talking about some half-assed cook-up in a mobile home; this is the General Motors of meth.'
'By the end of the day,' Rennie said, 'Perkins's computer will be destroyed. Hers, as well. I suppose there may be a copy of certain papers in Duke's home safe - meaningless, of course; vicious, politically motivated garbage from the mind of a man who always loathed me - and if so, the safe will be opened and the papers will be burned. For the town's good, not mine. This is a crisis situation. We all need to pull together.'
'Brenda passed on a copy of that file before she died.'
Big Jim grinned, revealing a double row of tiny teeth. 'One confabulation deserves another, Mr Barbara. Shall I confabulate?'
Barbie spread his hands: Be my guest.
'In my confabulation, Brenda comes to see me and tells me that same thing. She says she gave the copy of which you speak to Julia Shumway. But I know it's a lie. She may have meant to, but she did not. Even if she had - ' He shrugged. 'Your cohorts burned down Shumway's newspaper last night. That was a bad decision on their part. Or was it your idea?'
Barbara repeated: 'There 15 another copy. I know where it is. If you waterboard me, I will confess that location. Loudly.'
Rennie laughed. 'Put with great sincerity, Mr Barbara, but I've spent my whole life dickering, and I know a bluff when I hear one. Perhaps I should just have you summarily executed. The town would cheer.'
'How loudly, if you did it without discovering my co-conspirators first? Even Peter Randolph might question that decision, and he's nothing but a dumb and frightened lickspittle.'
Big Jim stood up. His hanging cheeks had gone the color of old brick. 'You don't know who you're playing with here.'
'Sure I do. I saw your kind again and again in Iraq. They wear turbans instead of ties, but otherwise they're just the same. Right down to the blather about God.'
'Well, you've talked me out of waterboarding,' Big Jim said. 'It's a sha|me, too, because 1 always wanted to see it firsthand.'
'I'll bet.'
'For now we'll just keep you in this cozy cell, all right? I don't think you'll eat much, because eating interferes with thinking. Who knows? With constructive thinking, you may come up with better reasons for me to allow you to go on living. The names of those in town who are against me, for instance. A complete list. I'll give you forty-eight hours. Then, if you can't convince me otherwise, you'll be executed in War Memorial Plaza with the entire town looking on. You'll serve as an object lesson.'
'You really don't look well. Selectman.'
Rennie studied him gravely. 'It's your kind that causes most of the trouble in the world. If I didn't think your execution would serve this town as a unifying principle and a much-needed catharsis, I'd have Mr Thibodeau shoot you right now.'
'Do that and it all comes out,' Barbie said. 'People from one end of this town to the other will know about your operation. Try getting a consensus at your motherfucking town meeting then, you tinpot tyrant:.'
The veins swelled on the sides of Big Jim's neck; another beat in the center of his forehead. For a moment he looked on the verge of exploding. Then he smiled. 'A for effort, Mr Barbara. But you lie.'
He left. They all left. Barbie sat on his bunk, sweating. He knew how close to the edge he was. Rennie had reasons to keep him alive, but not strong ones. And then there was the note delivered by Jackie Wettington and Linda Everett. The expression on Mrs Everett's face suggested that she knew enough to be terrified, and not just for herself. It would have been safer for him to try and escape using the knife. Given the current level of professionalism in the Chester's Mill PD, he thought it could be done. It would take a little luck, but it could be done.
He had, however, no way of telling them to let him try it on his own.
Barbie lay down and put his hands behind his head. One question nagged him above all others: what had happened to the copy of the VADER file meant for Julia? Because it hadn't reached her; about that he was sure Rennie had been telling the truth.
No way of knowing, and nothing to do but wait.
Lying on his back, looking up at the ceiling, Barbie began to do it.
PLAY THAT DEAD BAND SONG
1
When Linda and Jackie came back from the PD, Rusty and the girls were sitting on the front step waiting for them. The Js were still in their nighties - light cotton ones, not the flannels they were used to at this time of year. Although it was still not quite seven a.m., the thermometer outside the kitchen window had the temperature at sixty-six degrees.
Ordinarily, the two girls would have flown down the walk to embrace their mother far in advance of Rusty, but this morning he beat them by several yards. He seized Linda around the waist and she wrapped her arms around his neck with almost painful tightness - not a hello-handsome hug, but a drowner's grip.
'Are you all right?' he whispered in her ear.
Her hair brushed up and down against his cheek as she nodded. Then she drew back. Her eyes were shining. 'I was sure Thibodeau would look in the cereal, it was Jackie's idea to spit in it, that was genius, but I was certain - '
'Why is mommy crying?'Judy asked. She sounded ready to cry
herself.
'I'm not,' she said, then wiped her eyes. 'Well, maybe a little. Because I'm so happy to see your dad.'
'We're all happy to see him!' Janelle told Jackie. 'Because my Daddy, HE'S THE BOSS!'
'News to me,' Rusty said, then kissed Linda on the mouth, hard.
'Lips-kissin!' Janelle said, fascinated. Judy covered her eyes and giggled.
'Come on, girls, swings,' Jackie said. 'Then you get dressed for school.'
'I WANT TO LOOPIE DA LOOP!' Janelle screamed, leading the way.
'School?' Rusty asked. 'Really?'
'Really,' Linda said. 'Just the little ones, at East Street Grammar. Half a day. Wendy Goldstone and Ellen Vanedestine volunteered to take classes. K through three in one room, four through six in another. I don't know if any actual learning will happen, but it'll give the kids a place to go, and a sense of normalcy. Maybe.' She looked up at the sky, which was cloudless but had a yellowish tinge all the same. Like a blue eye with a cataract growing on it, she thought. 'I could use some normalcy myself. Look at that sky'