The Dark Half - Stephen King [201]
He wrote for nearly forty minutes, picking up speed as he went along, his mind gradually filling up with the sights and sounds of the wedding party which would end with such a bang.
Finally he put the pencil down. He had written it blunt.
'Give me a cigarette,' he said.
Stark raised his eyebrows.
'Yes,' Thad said.
There was a pack of Pall Malls lying on the desk. Stark shook one out and Thad took it. The cigarette felt strange between his lips after so many years . . . too big, somehow. But it felt good. It felt right.
Stark scratched a match and held it out to Thad, who inhaled deeply. The smoke bit his lungs in its old merciless, necessary way. He felt immediately woozy, but he didn't mind the feeling at all.
Now I need a drink, he thought. And if this ends with me still alive and standing up, that's the first thing I'm going to have.
'I thought you quit,' Stark said.
That nodded. 'Me too. What can I say, George? I was wrong.' He took another deep drag and feathered smoke out through his nostrils. He turned his notebook toward Stark. 'Your turn,' he said.
Stark leaned over the notebook and read the last paragraph Thad had written; there was really no need to read more. They both knew how this story went.
Back in the house, Jack Rangely and Tony Westerman were in the kitchen, and Rollick should be upstairs now. All three of them were armed with Steyr-Aug semi-automatics, the only good machine-gun made in America, and even if some of the bodyguards masquerading as guests were very fast, the three of them should be able to lay down a fire-storm more than adequate to cover their retreat. Just let me out of this cake, Machine thought. That's all I ask.
Stark lit a Pall Mail himself, picked up one of his Berols, opened his own notebook . . . and then paused. He looked at Thad with naked honesty.
'I'm scared, hoss,' he said.
And Thad felt a great wave of sympathy for Stark — in spite of everything he knew. Scared. Yes, of course you are, he thought. Only the ones just starting out — the kids — aren't scared. The years go by and the words on the page don't get any darker . . . but the white space sure does get whiter. Scared? You'd be crazier than you are if you weren't.
'I know,' he said. 'And you know what it comes down to — the only way to do it is to do it.'
Stark nodded and bent over his notebook. Twice more he checked back at the last paragraph Thad had written . . . and then he began to write.
The words formed themselves with agonized slowness in Thad's mind.
Machine . . . had . . . never wondered . . .
A long pause, then, all in a burst:
. . . what it would be like to have asthma, but if anyone ever asked him after this . . .
A shorter pause.
. . . he would remember the Scoretti job.
He read over what he had written, then looked at Thad unbelievingly.
Thad nodded. 'It makes sense, George.' He fingered the corner of his mouth, which suddenly stung, and felt a fresh sore breaking there. He looked at Stark and saw that a similar sore had disappeared from the corner of Stark's mouth.
It's happening. It's really happening.
'Go for it, George,' he said. 'Knock the hell out of it.'
But Stark had already bent over his notebook again, and now he was writing faster.
2
Stark wrote for almost half an hour, and at last he put the pencil down with a little gasp of satisfaction.
'It's good,' he said in a low, gloating voice. 'It's just as good as can be.'
Thad picked up the notebook and began to read — and, unlike Stark, he read the whole thing. What he was looking for began to show up on the third page of the nine Stark had written.
Machine heard scraping sounds and stiffened, hands tightening on the Heckler & Sparrow, and then understood what they were doing. The guests — some two hundred of them — gathered at the long tables under