Christine (40 page)

He groped back behind him, touched Christine—her hard, cool, reassuring surface—and things dropped back into place again. He opened his eyes.

“There's only one other thing, really,” Junkins said, “and it's very subjective. Nothing you could put on a report. You're different this time, Arnie. Harder, somehow. It's almost as if you've put on twenty years.”

Arnie laughed, and was relieved to hear it sounded quite natural. “Mr. Junkins, you've got a screw loose.”

Junkins didn't join him in his laughter. “Uh-huh. I know it. The whole thing is screwy—screwier than anything I've investigated in the ten years I've been a detective. Last time, I felt like I could reach you, Arnie. I felt you were . . . I don't know. Lost, unhappy, groping around, trying to get out. Now I don't feel that at all. I almost feel like I'm talking to a different person. Not a very nice one.”

“I'm done talking to you,” Arnie said abruptly, and began walking toward the office.

“I want to know what happened,” Junkins called after him. “And I'm going to find out. Believe me.”

“Do me a favor and stay away from here,” Arnie said. “You're crazy.”

He let himself into the office, closed the door behind him, and noticed his hands weren't shaking at all. The room was stuffy with the smells of cigar and olive oil and garlic. He crossed in front of Will without speaking, took his time-card out of the rack, and punched in:
ka-thud.
Then he looked through the glass window and saw Junkins standing there, looking at Christine. Will said nothing. Arnie could hear the noisy engine of the big man's respiration. A couple of minutes later Junkins left.

“Cop,” Will said, and ripped out a long belch. It sounded like a chainsaw.

“Yeah.”

“Repperton?”

“Yeah. He thinks I had something to do with it.”

“Even though you were in Philly?”

Arnie shook his head. “He doesn't even seem to care about that.”

He's a smart cop then,
Will thought.
He knows the facts are wrong, and his intuition tells him there's something even wronger than that, so he's gotten further with it than most cops ever would, but he could spend a million years and not get all the way to the truth.
He thought of the empty car driving itself into stall twenty like some weird wind-up toy. The empty ignition slot turning over to
START
. The engine revving once, like a warning snarl, and then falling off.

And thinking of these things, Will did not trust himself to look Arnie in the face, even though his own experience in routine deceit was nearly lifelong.

“I don't want to send you to Albany if the cops are watching you.”

“I don't care if you send me to Albany or not, but you don't have to worry about the heat. He's the only cop I've seen, and he's crazy. He's not interested in anything but two cases of hit-and-run.”

Now Will's eyes did meet Arnie's: Arnie's gray and distant, Will's a faded no-color, the corneas a dim yellow; they were the eyes of an ancient tomcat who has seen a thousand mice turned inside out.

“He's interested in you,” he said. “I'd better send Jimmy.”

“You like the way Jimmy drives, do you?”

Will looked at Arnie for a moment and then sighed. “Okay,” he said. “But if you see that cop, you back off. And if you get caught holding a bag, Cunningham, it's your bag. Do you understand that?”

“Yes,” Arnie said. “Do you want me to do some work tonight, or what?”

“There's a '77 Buick in forty-nine. Pull the starter motor. Check the solenoid. If it seems okay, pull that too.”

Arnie nodded and left. Will's thoughtful eyes drifted from his retreating back to Christine. He had no business sending him to Albany this weekend and he knew it. The kid knew it too, but he was going to push ahead anyway. He had said he'd go, and he was now going to by-God do it. And if anything happened, the kid would stand up. Will was sure of it. There was a time when he surely wouldn't have done, but that time was past now.

He had heard it all on the intercom.

Junkins had been right.

The kid was harder now.

Will began to look at the kid's '58 again. Arnie would be taking Will's Chrysler to New York. While he was gone, Will would watch Christine. He would watch Christine and see what happened.

40

Arnie in Trouble

Rudolph Junkins and Rick Mercer of the Pennsylvania State Police detective division sat drinking coffee the following afternoon in a glum little office with paint peeling from the walls. Outside, a depressing mixture of snow and sleet was falling.

“I'm pretty sure this is going to be the weekend,” Junkins said. “That Chrysler has rolled every four or five weeks for the last eight months.”

“Just understand that busting Darnell and whatever bee you've got in your bonnet about that kid are two different things.”

“They're both the same thing to me,” Junkins replied. “The kid knows something. If I get him rattled, I may find out what it is.”

“You think he had an accomplice? Someone who used his car and killed those kids while he was at the chess tourney?”

Junkins shook his head. “No, goddammit. The kid has got exactly one good friend, and he's in the hospital. I don't know what I think, except that the car was involved . . . and he was involved too.”

Junkins put his Styrofoam coffee cup down and pointed at the man on the other side of the desk.

“Once we get that place closed down, I want a six-pack of lab technicians to go over it from stem to stern, inside and out. I want it up on a lift, I want it checked for dents, bumps, repaint . . . and for blood. That's what I really want, Rick. Just one drop of blood.”

“You don't like that kid, do you?” Rick asked.

Junkins uttered a bewildered little laugh. “You know, the first time I kind of did. I liked him and I felt sorry for him. I felt like maybe he was covering for somebody else who had something on him. But this time I didn't like him at all.”

He considered.

“And I didn't like that car, either. The way he kept touching it every time I thought I had him on the ropes. It was spooky.”

Rick said, “As long as you remember that Darnell is the guy I've got to bust. No one in Harrisburg has the slightest interest in your kid.”

“I'll remember,” Junkins said. He picked up his coffee again and looked at Rick grimly. “Because he's a means to the end. I'm going to nail the person who killed those kids if it's the last thing I ever do.”

“It may not even go down this weekend,” Rick said.

But it did.

• • •

Two plainclothes cops from Pennsylvania's State Felony Squad sat in the cab of a four-year-old Datsun pickup on the morning of Saturday, December 16, watching as Will Darnell'
s black Chrysler rolled out of the big door and into the street. A light drizzle was falling; it was not quite cold enough to be sleet. It was one of those misty days when it is impossible to tell where the lowering clouds end and the actual mist begins. The Chrysler was quite properly showing its parking lights. Arnie Cunningham was a safe driver.

One of the plainclothesmen lifted a walkie-talkie to his mouth and spoke into it. “He just came out in Darnell's car. You guys stay on your toes.”

They followed the Chrysler to I-76. When they saw Arnie get on the eastbound ramp with its Harrisburg sign, they turned up the westbound ramp, toward Ohio, and reported. They would get off I-76 one exit down the line and return to their original position near Darnell's Garage.

“Okay,” Junkins's voice came back, “let's make an omelette.”

• • •

Twenty minutes later, as Arnie was cruising east at a sedate and legal 50, three cops with all the right paperwork in hand knocked on the door of William Upshaw, who lived in the very much upscale suburb of Sewickley. Upshaw answered the door in his bathrobe. From behind him came the cartoon squawks of Saturday-morning TV.

“Who is it, honey?” his wife called from the kitchen.

Upshaw looked at the papers, which were court orders, and felt that he might faint. One ordered that all of Upshaw's tax records relating to Will Darnell (an individual) and Will Darnell (a corporation) be impounded. These papers bore the signature of the Pennsylvania Attorney General and a Superior Court judge.

“Who is it, hon?” his wife asked again, and one of his kids came to look, all big eyes.

Upshaw tried to speak and could raise only a dusty croak. It had come. He had dreamed about it, and it had finally come. The house in Sewickley had not protected him from it; the woman he kept at a safe distance in King of Prussia had not protected him from it; it was here: he read it in the smooth faces of these cops in their off-the-rack Anderson-Little suits. Worst of all, one of them was Federal—Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms. He produced a second ID, proclaiming him an agent of something called the Federal Drug Control Task Force.

“Our information is that you keep an office in your home,” the Federal cop said. He looked—what? Twenty-six? Thirty? Had he ever had to worry about what you were going to do when you had three kids and a wife who liked nice things maybe a little too much? Bill Upshaw didn't think so. When you had those things to think about, your face didn't stay that smooth. Your face only stayed that smooth when you could indulge in the luxury of grand thoughts—law and order, right and wrong, good guys and bad guys.

He opened his mouth to answer the Federal cop's question and produced only another dusty croak.

“Is this information correct?” the Federal cop asked patiently.

“Yes,” Bill Upshaw croaked.

“And another office at 100 Frankstown Road in Monroeville?”

“Yes.”

“Hon, who
is
it?” Amber asked, and came into the hallway. She saw the three men standing on the stoop and pulled the neck of her housecoat closed. The cartoons blared.

Upshaw thought suddenly, almost with relief,
It's the end of everything.

The kid who had come out to see who had come to visit so early on a Saturday morning suddenly burst into tears and fled for the safety of the SuperFriends on channel 4.

• • •

When Rudy Junkins received the news that Upshaw had been served and that all the papers pertaining to Darnell, both at Upshaw's Sewickley home and his Monroeville office, had been impounded, he led half a dozen state cops in what he supposed would have been called a raid in the old days. Even during the holiday season the garage was moderately busy on Saturday (although it was by no means the bustling place it became on summer weekends), and when Junkins raised a battery-powered loudhailer to his lips and began to use it, perhaps two dozen heads whipped around. They would have conversation enough out of this to last them into the new year.

“This is the Pennsylvania State Police!”
Junkins cried into the loudhailer. The words echoed and bounced. He found, even at this instant, that his eyes were drawn to the white-over-red Plymouth sitting empty in stall twenty. He had handled half a dozen murder weapons in his time, sometimes at the scene, more frequently in the witness box, but just looking at that car made him feel cold.

Gitney, the IRS man who had come along for this particular sleighride, was frowning at him to go on.
None of you know what this is about. None of you.
But he raised the loudhailer to his lips again.

“This place of business is closed! I
repeat, this place of business is closed! You may take your vehicles if they are in running order—if not, please leave quickly and quietly! This place is closed!”

The loudhailer made an amplified
click
as he turned it off.

He looked toward the office and saw that Will Darnell was talking on the telephone, an unlit cigar jammed in his face. Jimmy Sykes was standing by the Coke machine, his simple face a picture of confused dismay—he didn't look much different from Bill Upshaw's kid at the moment before he burst into tears.

• • •

“Do you understand your rights as I have read them to you?” The cop in charge was Rick Mercer. Behind them, the garage was empty except for four uniformed cops, who were doing paperwork on the cars which had been impounded when the garage was closed.

“Yeah,” Will said. His face was composed; the only sign of his upset was his deepening wheeze, the fast rise and fall of his big chest under his open-throated white shirt, the way he held his aspirator constantly in one hand.

“Do you have anything to say to us at this time?” Mercer asked.

“Not until my lawyer gets here.”

“Your lawyer can meet us in Harrisburg,” Junkins said.

Will glanced at Junkins contemptuously and said nothing. Outside, more uniformed police had finished affixing seals to every door and window of the garage except for the small side door. Until the state of impound ceased, all traffic would use that door.

“This is the craziest thing I ever heard of,” Will Darnell said at last.

“It'll get crazier,” Mercer said, smiling sincerely. “You're going away for a very long time, Will. Maybe someday they'll put you in charge of the prison motor pool.”

“I know you,” Will said, looking at him. “Your name is Mercer. I knew your father well. He was the crookedest cop that ever came out of King's County.”

The blood fell out of Rick Mercer's face and he raised his hand.

“Stop it, Rick,” Junkins said.

“Sure,” Will said. “You guys have your fun. Make your jokes about the prison motor pool. I'll be back here doing business in two weeks. And if you don't know it, you're even stupider than you look.”

He glanced around at them, his eyes intelligent, sardonic . . . and trapped. Abruptly he raised his aspirator to his mouth and breathed in deeply.

“Get this bag of shit out of here,” Mercer said. He was still white.

• • •

“Are you all right?” Junkins asked. They were sitting in an unmarked state Ford half an hour later. The sun had decided to come out and shone blindingly on melting snow and wet streets. Darnell's Garage sat silent. Darnell's records—and Cunningham's street-rod Plymouth—were safely penned up inside.

“That crack he made about my father,” Mercer said heavily. “My father shot himself, Rudy. Blew his head off. And I always thought . . . in college I read . . .” He shrugged. “Lots of cops eat the gun. Melvin Purvis did it, you know. He was the man who got Dillinger. But you wonder.”

Mercer lit a cigarette and drew smoke downstairs in a long, shuddery breath.

“He didn't know anything,” Junkins said.

“The
fuck
he didn't,” Mercer said. He unrolled his window and threw the cigarette out. He unclipped the mike under the dash. “Home, this is Mobile Two.”

“Ten-four, Mobile Two.”

“What's happening with our carrier pigeon?”

“He's on Interstate Eighty-four, coming up on Port Jervis.” Port Jervis was the crossover point between Pennsylvania and New York.

“New York is all ready?”

“Affirmative.”

“You tell them again that I want him northeast of Middletown before they grab him, and his toll-ticket taken in evidence.”

“Ten-four.”

Mercer put the mike back and smiled thinly. “Once he crosses into New York, there's not a question in the world about it being Federal—but we've still got first dibs. Isn't that beautiful?”

Junkins didn't answer. There was nothing beautiful about it—from Darnell with his aspirator to Mercer's father eating his gun, there was nothing beautiful about it. Junkins was filled with a spooky feeling of inevitability, a feeling that the ugly things were not ending but only just beginning to happen. He felt halfway through a dark story that might prove too terrible to finish. Except he had to finish it now, didn't he? Yes.

The terrible feeling, the terrible image persisted: that the first time he had talked to Arnie Cunningham, he had been talking to a drowning man, and the second time he had talked to him the drowning had happened—and he was talking to a corpse.

• • •

The cloud cover over western New York was breaking, and Arnie's spirits began to rise. It always felt good to get away from Libertyville, away from . . . from everything. Not even the knowledge that he had contraband in the trunk could quench that feeling of lift. And at least it wasn't dope this time. Far in the back of his mind—hardly even acknowledged, but there—was the idle speculation about how things would be different and how his life would change if he just dumped the cigarettes and kept on going. If he just left the entire depressing mess behind.

But of course he wouldn't. Leaving Christine after he had put so much into her was of course impossible.

He turned up the radio and hummed along with something current. The sun, weakened by December but still trying to be bold, broke cover entirely and Arnie grinned.

He was still grinning when the New York State Police car pulled up beside him in the passing lane and paced him. The loudspeaker on top began to chant,
“This is for the Chrysler! Pull over, Chrysler! Pull over!”

Arnie looked over, the grin fading from his lips. He stared into a pair of black sunglasses. Copglasses. The terror that seized him was deeper than he would have believed any emotion could be—and it wasn't for himself. His mouth went totally dry. His mind went into a blurring overdrive. He saw himself tramping the gas pedal and running for it, and perhaps he would have done it if he had been driving Christine . . . but he wasn't. He saw Will Darnell telling him that if he got caught holding a bag, it was
his
bag. Most of all he saw Junkins, Junkins with his sharp brown eyes, and knew this was Junkins's doing.

He wished Rudolph Junkins was dead.

“Pull over, Chrysler! I'm not talking to hear my own voice! Pull over right now!”

Can't say anything,
Arnie thought incoherently as he veered over into the breakdown lane. His balls were crawling, his stomach churning madly. He could see his own eyes in the rearview, wall-eyed with fear behind his glasses—not for him, though. Not for him. Christine. He was afraid for Christine. What they might do to Christine.