Part 6 (1/2)
The boy looked up, and Rourke gave him a nod, driving on. He pa.s.sed the post office; the street angled slightly toward the town square.
He stopped the Harley beside the curb, staring at what he saw. It was just as he'd seen it from above-a band flaying, some younger people dancing, clogging or step-dancing, children running and playing, some tugging on their mothers-perhaps two hundred people in all around the square.
He turned off the key for the Harley. He couldn't help himself as he sat there, listening to the music, but hearing different music-a song he and Sarah had always called their own song, danced to so many times. In the faces of the strange children, Rourke saw the faces of his own. What he couldn't stop, what he felt-tears-a world gone.
Had Sarah seen him, he smiled, she would have thought he was almost human.
The blue-gra.s.s band had stopped, and a record player was humming through the loudspeakers; there was the scratching sound of a needle against plastic, then a country song, and through a momentary niche in the wall of humanity surrounding the center of the square he saw more children-girls in green-and-white plaid dresses with short skirts and petticoats that made the skirts stand away from their legs, the oldest of the girls perhaps twelve, the youngest looking to be Annie's age-five or so.
Boys in green slacks and white s.h.i.+rts and green bow ties-only a few boys (hough-stood beside them, all in a rank. They started dancing; clogging, it was called.
Rourke srnelled something, then turned and looked to his right. A gleaming truck, the kind that would come to factories to bring coffee and doughnuts and hamburgers, was parked at the edge of the square.
He saw a sign above the open side that formed a counter-the sign read, c.o.kE.
Rourke walked toward the truck. A little girl pa.s.sed him, coming from the truck, a half-eaten hot dog in her right hand, yellow mustard around her mouth and dribbling down her chin.
Rourke automatically felt his pockets. He still carried his money clip-but was there anything in it? ”Yes,” he murmured. Something just hadn't made him give away or throw away money. He pulled out a ten and walked over to the truck.
”What]] ya have, mister?''''
”Ahh-two hot dogs and a c.o.ke. Make it three hot dogs.”
”You new in town, ain't ya? Related to anyone 'round here?”
”What's the occasion?” Rourke asked, something making him evade the question. He jerked his thumb toward the town square behind him.
”It's the Fourth of July, mister. Ain't you got no calendar?”
”I-I've been camping-up in the mountains. Kind of lost track of time.”
”I reckon you have.” The man smiled, handing Rourke the three hot dogs in a small white cardboard box. Rourke handed him the ten-dollar bill and took the c.o.ke, then started away.
”Hey!”
Rourke turned around.
”You forgot your change!”
”Keep it,” Rourke told him. ”Maybe I'll wan! another hot dog later.”
Rourke turned and spat his cigar b.u.t.t into a trash can near him. He walked across the square a short way, finding a tree and leaning against it, listening to the music, seeing the children clog. He took a bite from the hot dog nearest him in the box, the c.o.ke set down beside Jiim on the ground. It wasn't near the Fourth of July.
The man who had sold him the hot dogs wasn't from here, either-he had said ”you” not ”y'all” and that went with the territory. Rourke had made the speech pattern as midwest em.
Maybe it was the Russians-something that would be a trap. But for whom?
The town, the dancing, the Fourth of July. If he wasn't crazy, all of them were.
He wasn't crazy, he reminded himself, feeling the comfort of his guns under his jacket as he nudged his upper arms against his body. ”I'm not crazy,” he verbalized. The hot dog had tasted good and he started to eat the second one, dismissing any worry it was drugged. The little girl was dancing around, helping the doggers; the only thing apparently wrong with her being terminal mustard stains. . . .
Rourke sipped at his c.o.ke-it was real Coca-Cola. He hadn't had any since- He worked along the perimeter of the crowd, watching the faces, the genuine smiles. He nudged against a man and the man turned, smiled, and said, ”Hey!”
It was the universal southern greeting that Rourke had learned long ago as a transplanted northerner.
”Hi.” Rourke smiled, as the man turned away to watch the clogging. This was a second group of doggers, dressed the same but in red and white rather than green and white. The green- and white-clad girls and boys stood at the edge of the crowd now, watching the others.
Rourke saw a face; it was the only face not smiling. It looked promising, he thought, and gravitated toward the woman belonging to it. As he neared the woman,” the clogging stopped- abruptly-and an announcer, a fat man wearing a red-and white-checkered cowboy s.h.i.+rt and a straw cowboy hat, said through the microphone, ”Let's give these little folks a big, big hand!” Rourke held his cup in his teeth a moment and applauded, then kept moving toward the woman with the unsmiling face.
Slower country music started to play and the crowd started splitting up.
Rourke cut easily through the wave of people now, some of them gravitating toward the edge of the square, some pairing off and dancing to the music.
The woman with the unsmiling face apparently wasn't with anyone; she turned and started away. Rourke downed the rest of his c.o.ke and tossed the cup into a trash can nearby, then called out to her. ”Hey-ahh.” The woman turned around.
Rourke stopped, a few feet from her, saying, ”I, ahh-”
”Y'all want to dance?” she smiled.
”All right.” Rourke nodded, stepping closer to her.
She slung her handbag in the crook of her left arm on its straps. Rourke took her right hand in his left, his right arm encircling her wais*- She was about forty, pretty enough, but not a woman who seemed to try to be pretty at all.
Her face was smiling, but not her eyes.
”Who are you?” She smiled, coming into his arms.
”John-my name's John,” he told her.
”You're carrying a gun, John,” she whispered, her head close to his chest.
”I read a lot of detective stories. I'm the librarian. I know.”
”You oughta read more,” he told her softly. ”I'm carrying two.”
”Ohh-all right, John.”
”Hasn't anyone heard about World War III here?” he asked her, smiling as they danced their way nearer the blue-gra.s.s band.
”If anyone else heard you mention the war, John, the same thing would happen to you that happened to all the rest of them. We'll talk later, at my place.”
”Ohh.” Rourke nodded. He wondered who the rest of them had been. As he held the woman's hand when they danced, he automatically feit her pulse; it was rapid and strong. . . .
Nehemiah Rozhdestvenskiy stepped down from the aircraft to the sodden tarmac of the runway surface. ”The weather-it is insane,” he shouted to the KGB man with him.
”Yes, Comrade Colonel.” THe man nodded, offering an umbrella, but the rain-chillingly cold-had already soaked him, and Rozhdestvenskiy watched, almost amused, as a strong gust of wind caught up the umbrella and turned it inside out.
He shook his head, and ran through the puddles toward the waiting au tomobile. He read the name on it as he entered. ”Suburban.” He ran the name through his head-it was a type of Chevrolet. . . .