Christine (51 page)

"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 much, 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 failing; 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 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 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 sleigh-ride, 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 boot 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. Cop-glasses. 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.

His panic-stricken mind spun up a kaleidoscope of jumbled images. College application forms with the words REJECTED—CONVICTED FELON stamped across them. Prison bars, blued steel. A judge bending down from a high bench, his face white and accusing. Big bull queers in a prison yard looking for fresh meat. Christine riding the conveyor into the car-crusher in the junkyard behind the garage.

And then, as he stopped the Chrysler and put it in park, the State Police car pulling in behind him (and another, appearing like magic, pulling in ahead of him), a thought came from nowhere, full of cold comfort:
Christine can take care of herself.

Another thought came as the cops got out and came toward him, one holding a search warrant in his hand. It also seemed to come from nowhere, but it reverberated in Roland D. LeBay's raspy, old man's tones:

And she'll take care of you, boy. All you got to do is go on believing in her and she'll take care of you.

Arnie opened the car door and got out a moment before one of the cops could open it.