Part 14 (1/2)

'I'm pretty sure, yeah.'

Sublime relief washed over the kid's face, and for a moment Sheridan felt sorry for him - h.e.l.l, he wasn't a monster or a maniac, for Christ's sake. But his markers had gotten a little deeper each time, and that b.a.s.t.a.r.d Mr. Reggie had no compunctions at all about letting him hang himself. It wasn't seventeen thousand this time, or twenty thousand, or even twenty-five thousand. This time it was thirty-five grand, a whole d.a.m.n marching battalion of iron men, if he didn't want a few new sets of elbows by next Sat.u.r.day.

He stopped in the back by the trash-compactor. n.o.body was parked back here. Good. There was an elasticized pouch on the side of the door for maps and things. Sheridan reached into it with his left hand and brought out a pair of blued-steel Kreig handcuffs. The loop-jaws were open.

'Why are we stopping here, mister?' the kid asked. The fear was back in his voice, but the quality of it had changed; he had suddenly realized that maybe getting separated from good old Popsy in the busy mall wasn't the worst thing that could happen to him, after all.

'We're not, not really,' Sheridan said easily. He had learned the second time he'd done this that you didn't want to underestimate even a six-year-old once he had his wind up. The second kid had kicked him in the b.a.l.l.s and had d.a.m.n near gotten away. 'I just remembered I forgot to put my gla.s.ses on when I started driving. I could lose my license. They're in that gla.s.ses-case on the floor there. They slid over to your side. Hand em to me, would you?'

The kid bent over to get the gla.s.ses-case, which was empty. Sheridan leaned over and snapped one of the cuffs on the kid's reaching hand as neat as you please. And then the trouble started. Hadn't he just been thinking it was a bad mistake to underestimate even a six-year-old? The brat fought like a timberwolf pup, twisting with a powerful muscularity Sheridan would not have credited had he not been experiencing it. He bucked and fought and lunged for the door, panting and uttering weird birdlike cries. He got the handle. The door swung open, but no domelight came on - Sheridan had broken it after that second outing.

Sheridan got the kid by the round collar of his Penguins tee-s.h.i.+rt and hauled him back in. He tried to clamp the other cuff on the special strut beside the pa.s.senger seat and missed. The kid bit his hand twice, bringing blood. G.o.d, his teeth were like razors. The pain went deep and sent a steely ache all the way up his arm. He punched the kid in the mouth. The kid fell back into the seat, dazed, Sheridan's blood on his lips and chin and dripping onto the ribbed neck of the tee-s.h.i.+rt. Sheridan locked the other cuff onto the strut and then fell back into his own seat, sucking the back of his right hand.

The pain was really bad. He pulled his hand away from his mouth and looked at it in the weak glow of the dashlights. Two shallow, ragged tears, each maybe two inches long, ran up toward his wrist from just above the knuckles. Blood pulsed in weak little rills. Still, he felt no urge to pop the kid again, and that had nothing to do with damaging the Turk's merchandise, in spite of the almost fussy way the Turk had warned him against that - demmege the goots end you demmege the velue, the Turk had said in his greasy accent.

No, he didn't blame the kid for fighting - he would have done the same. He would have to disinfect the wound as soon as he could, though, might even have to have a shot; he had read somewhere that human bites were the worst kind. Still, he couldn't help but admire the kid's guts.

He dropped the transmission into drive and pulled around the hamburger stand, past the drive-thru window, and back onto the access road. He turned left. The Turk had a big ranch-style house in Taluda Heights, on the edge of the city. Sheridan would go there by secondary roads, just to be safe. Thirty miles. Maybe forty-five minutes, maybe an hour.

He pa.s.sed a sign which read THANK YOU FOR SHOPPING THE BEAUTIFUL COUSINTOWN MALL, turned left, and let the van creep up to a perfectly legal forty miles an hour. He fished a handkerchief out of his back pocket, folded it over the back of his right hand, and concentrated on following his headlights to the forty grand the Turk had promised for a boy-child.

'You'll be sorry,' the kid said.

Sheridan looked impatiently around at him, pulled from a dream in which he had just won twenty straight hands and had Mr. Reggie groveling at his feet for a change, sweating bullets and begging him to stop, what did he want to do, break him?

The kid was crying again, and his tears still had that odd pinkish cast, even though they were now well away from the bright lights of the mall. Sheridan wondered for the first time if the kid might have some sort of communicable disease. He supposed it was a little late to start worrying about such things, so he put it out of his mind.

'When my Popsy finds you you'll be sorry,' the kid elaborated.

'Yeah,' Sheridan said, and lit a cigarette. He turned off State Road 28 and onto an unmarked stretch of two-lane blacktop. There was a long marshy area on the left, unbroken woods on the right.

The kid pulled at the handcuffs and made a sobbing noise.

'Quit it. Won't do you any good.'

Nevertheless, the kid pulled again. And this time there was a groaning, protesting sound Sheridan didn't like at all. He looked around and was amazed to see that the metal strut on the side of the seat - a strut he had welded in place himself - was twisted out of shape. s.h.i.+t! he thought. He's got teeth like razors and now I find out he's also strong as a f.u.c.king ox. If this is what he's like when he's sick, G.o.d forbid I should have grabbed him on a day 'when he was feeling well.

He pulled over onto the soft shoulder and said, 'Stop it!'

'I won't!'

The kid yanked at the handcuff again and Sheridan saw the metal strut bend a little more. Christ, how could any kid do that?

It's panic, he answered himself. That's how he can do it.

But none of the others had been able to do it, and many of them had been a lot more terrified than this kid by this stage of the game.

He opened the glove compartment in the center of the dash. He brought out a hypodermic needle. The Turk had given it to him, and cautioned him not to use it unless he absolutely had to. Drugs, the Turk said (p.r.o.nouncing it drocks) could demmege the merchandise.

'See this?'

The kid gave the hypo a glimmering sideways glance and nodded.

'You want me to use it?'

The kid shook his head at once. Strong or not, he had any kid's instant terror of the needle, Sheridan was happy to see.

'That's very smart. It would put out your lights.' He paused. He didn't want to say it - h.e.l.l, he was a nice guy, really, when he didn't have his a.s.s in a sling - but he had to. 'Might even kill you.'

The kid stared at him, lips trembling, cheeks papery with fear.

'You stop yanking the cuff, I put away the needle. Deal?'

'Deal,' the kid whispered.

'You promise?'

'Yes.' The kid lifted his lip, showing white teeth. One of them was spotted with Sheridan's blood.

'You promise on your mother's name?'

'I never had a mother.'

's.h.i.+t,' Sheridan said, disgusted, and got the van rolling again. He moved a little faster now, and not only because he was finally off the main road. The kid was a spook. Sheridan wanted to turn him over to the Turk, get his money, and split.

'My Popsy's really strong, mister.'

'Yeah?' Sheridan asked, and thought: I bet he is, kid. Only guy in the old folks' home who can bench-press his own truss, right?

'He'll find me.'

'Uh-huh.'

'He can smell me.'

Sheridan believed it. He could smell the kid. That fear had an odor was something he had learned on his previous expeditions, but this was unreal - the kid smelled like a mixture of sweat, mud, and slowly cooking battery acid. Sheridan was becoming more and more sure that something was seriously wrong with the kid . . . but soon that would be Mr. Wizard's problem, not his, and caveat emptor, as those old fellows in the togas used to say; caveat f.u.c.king emptor.

Sheridan cracked his window. On the left, the marsh went on and on. Broken slivers of moonlight glimmered in the stagnant water.

'Popsy can fly.'

'Yeah,' Sheridan said, 'after a couple of bottles of Night Train, I bet he flies like a sonofab.i.t.c.hin eagle.'

'Popsy - '

'Enough of the Popsy s.h.i.+t, kid - okay?'

The kid shut up.