Christine - Stephen King [57]
'Sure,' I said into the telephone. That whole stupid, ugly Freddy Darlington business had gone through my mind in maybe two seconds. 'I see what you mean, Arnie.'
'Good,' he said, relieved.
'Just watch out for your ass. And that goes double when you get back to school. Keep away from Buddy Repperton.'
'Yeah. You bet.'
'Arnie - '
'What?'
I paused. I wanted to ask him if Darnell had said anything about Christine being in his shop before, if he had recognized her. Even more, I wanted to tell him what had happened to Mrs LeBay and to her small daughter, Rita. But I couldn't. He would know right away where I had gotten the information. And in his touchy state over the damn car, he would be apt to think I had gone behind his back - and in a way I had. But to tell him I had might well mean the end of our friendship.
I had had enough of Christine, but I still cared for Arnie. Which meant that door had to be closed for good. No more creeping around and asking questions. No more lectures.
'Nothing,' I said. 'I was just going to say that I guess you found a home for your rustbucket. Congratulations.'
'Dennis, are you eating something?'
'Yeah, a chicken sandwich. Why?'
'You're chewing in my ear. It really sounds gross.'
I began to smack as loudly as I could. Arnie made puking sounds. We both got laughing, and it was good - it was like the old days before he married that numb fucking car.
'You're an asshole, Dennis.'
'That's right. I learned it from you.
'Get bent,' he said, and hung up.
I finished my sandwich and my Hawaiian Punch, rinsed the plate and the glass and went back into the living room, ready to shower and go to bed. I was beat.
Sometime during our phone conversation I had heard the TV go off and had assumed that my father had gone upstairs. But he hadn't. He was sitting in his recliner chair with his shirt open. I noticed with some unease how grey the hair on his chest was getting, and the way the reading lamp beside him shone through the -hair on his head and showed his pink scalp. Getting thinner up there. My father was no kid. I realized with greater unease that in five years, by the time I would theoretically finish college, he would be fifty and balding - a stereotype accountant. Fifty in five years if he didn't just drop dead of another heart attack. The first one had not been bad - no myocardial scarring, he had told me on the one occasion I had asked. But he did not try to tell me that a second heart attack wasn't likely. I knew it was, my mom knew it was, and he did too. Only Ellie still thought he was invulnerable - but hadn't I seen a question in her eyes once or twice? I thought maybe I had.
Died suddenly.
I felt the hairs on my scalp stir. Suddenly. Straightening up at his desk, clutching his chest. Suddenly. Dropping his racket on the tennis court. You didn't want to think those thoughts about your father, but sometimes they come. God knows they do.
'I couldn't help overhearing some of that,' he said.
'Yeah?' Warily.
'Has Arnie Cunningham got his foot in a bucket of something warm and brown, Dennis?'
'I I don't know for sure,' I said slowly. Because, after all, what did I have? Vapours, that was all.
'You want to talk about it?'
'Not right now, Dad, if it's okay.'
'It's fine,' he said. 'But if it as you said on the phone, if it gets heavy, will you for God's sake tell me what's happening?'
'Yes.'
'Okay.' I started for the Stairs and was almost there when he stopped me by saying, 'I ran Will Darnell's accounts and did his income-tax returns for almost fifteen years, you know.'
I turned back to him, really surprised.
'No. I didn't know that.'
My father smiled. It was a smile I had never seen before, one I would guess