Roadwork - Stephen King [40]
"So why do you need explosives?"
"I want to blow up a road."
Magliore looked at him with measured incredulity. All his emotions seemed larger than life; it was as if he had adopted his character to fit the magnifying properties of his glasses. "You want to blow up a road? What road?"
"It hasn't been built yet. " He was beginning to get a sort of perverse pleasure from this. And of course, it was postponing the inevitable confrontation with Mary.
"So you want to blow up a road that hasn't been built. I had you wrong, mister. You're not a fruitcake. You're a psycho. Can you make sense?"
Picking his words carefully, he said: "They're building a road that's known as the 784 extension. When it's done, the state turnpike will go right through the city. For certain reasons I don't want to go into-because I can't-that road has wrecked twenty years of my life. It's-"
"Because they're gonna knock down the laundry where you work, and your house?"
"How did you know that?"
"I told you I was gonna check you. Did you think I was kidding? I even knew you were gonna lose your job. Maybe before you did."
"No, I knew that a month ago," he said, not thinking about what he was saying. "And how are you going to do it? Were you planning to just drive past the construction, lighting fuses with your cigar and throwing bundles of dynamite out of your car window?"
"No. Whenever there's a holiday, they leave all their machines at the site. I want to blow them all up. And all three of the new overpasses. I want to blow them up, too."
Magliore goggled at him. He goggled for a long time. Then he threw back his head and laughed. His belly shook and his belt buckle heaved up and down like a chip of wood riding a heavy swell. His laughter was full and hearty and rich. He laughed until tears splurted out of his eyes and then he produced a huge comic-opera handkerchief from some inner pocket and wiped them. He stood watching Magliore laugh and was suddenly very sure that this fat man with the thick glasses was going to sell him the explosives. He watched Magliore with a slight smile on his face. He didn't mind the laughter. Today laughter sounded good.
"Man, you're crazy, all right," Magliore said when his laughter had subsided to chuckles and hitchings. "I wish Pete could have been here to hear this. He's never gonna believe it. Yesterday you call me a d-dork and t-today t-t-today " And he was off again, roaring his laughter, mopping his eyes with his handkerchief.
When his mirth had subsided again, he asked, "How were you gonna finance this little venture, Mr. Dawes? Now that you're no longer gainfully employed?"
That was a funny way to put it. No longer gainfully employed. When you said it that way, it really sounded true. He was out of a job. All of this was not a dream.
"I cashed in my life insurance last month," he said. "I'd been paying on a ten-thousand-dollar policy for ten years. I've got about three thousand dollars. "
"You've really been planning this for that long?"
"No," he said honestly. "When I cashed the policy in, I wasn't sure what I wanted it for. "
"In those days you were still keeping your options open, right? You thought you might burn the road, or machine-gun it to death, or strangle it, or-"
"No. I just didn't know what I was going to do. Now I know."
"Well count me out."
"What?" He blinked at Magliore, honestly stunned. This wasn't in the script. Magliore was supposed to give him a hard time, in a fatherly son of way. Then sell him the explosive. Magliore was supposed to offer a disclaimer, something like: If you get caught, I'll deny I ever heard of you.
"What did you say?"
"I said no. N-o. That spells no. " He leaned forward. All the good humor had gone out of his eyes. They were flat and suddenly small in spite of the magnification the glasses caused. They were not the eyes of a jolly Neapolitan Santa Claus at all.
"Listen," he said to Magliore. "If I get caught, I'll deny