The Regulators - Stephen King [8]
Johnny Marinville stops playing his guitar to watch the van slide past. He can't see inside because the windows are polarized, but the thing on the roof looks like a chrome-plated radar dish, goddamned if it doesn't. Has the CIA landed on Poplar Street? Across from him, Johnny sees Brad Josephson standing on his lawn, still holding his hose in one hand and his Shopper in the other. Brad is also gaping after the slow-moving van (Is it a van, though? Is it?), his expression a mixture of wonder and perplexity.
Arrows of sun glint off the bright red paint and the chrome below the dark windows, arrows so bright they make Johnny wince.
Next door to Johnny, David Carver is still washing his car. He's enthusiastic, you have to give him that; he's got that Chevy of his buried in soapsuds all the way to the wiper-blades.
The red van rolls past him, humming and glinting.
On the other side of the street, the Reed twins and their gal pals stop their front-lawn Frisbee game to look at the slow-rolling van. The kids make a rectangle; in the center of it sits Hannibal, panting happily and awaiting his next chance to snatch the Frisbee.
Things are happening fast now, although no one on Poplar Street realizes it yet.
In the distance, thunder rumbles.
Gary Ripton barely notices the van in his rearview mirror, or the bright yellow Ryder truck which turns left from Hyacinth on to Poplar, pulling on to the tarmac of the E-Z Stop, where the Carver kids are still standing by Buster the red wagon and squabbling over whether Ralph will be pulled up the hill by his sister or not. Ralph has agreed to walk and keep silent about the magazine with Ethan Hawke on the cover, but only if his dear sister Margrit the Maggot gives him all of the candybar instead of just half.
The kids break off their argument, noticing the white steam hissing out of the Ryder truck's grille like dragon's breath, but Gary Ripton pays zero attention to the Ryder truck's problems. His attention is focused on one thing and one thing only: delivering the crazy ex-copper's Shopper and then getting away unscathed. The ex-copper's name is Collier Entragian, and he is the only person on the block with a NO TRESPASSING sign on his lawn. It's small, it's discreet, but it's there.
If he killed a couple of kids, how come he's not in jail? Gary wonders, and not for the first time. He decides he doesn't care. The ex-cop's continued freedom isn't his business on this sultry afternoon; survival is his business.
With all this on his mind, it's no wonder Gary doesn't notice the Ryder truck with the steam pouring out of the grille, or the two kids who have momentarily ceased their complicated negotiations concerning the magazine, the 3 Musketeers bar, and the red wagon, or the van coming down the hill. He is concentrating on not becoming a psycho cop's next victim, and this is ironic, since his fate is actually approaching from behind him.
One of the van's side windows begins to slide down.
A shotgun barrel pokes out. It is an odd colour, not quite silver, not quite gray. The twin muzzles look like the symbol for infinity colored black.
Somewhere beyond the blazing sky, afternoon thunder rumbles again.
From the Columbus Dispatch, July 31st, 1994:
MEMBERS OF
TOLEDO FAMILY
SLAIN IN SAN JOSE
Four Killed in Suspected Gang
Drive-by; Six-Year-Old Survives
SAN JOSE (AP) A family vacation to northern California ended in tragedy yesterday when four members of a Toledo family were slain in a hail of gunfire, victims of what San Jose police speculate may have been misdirected gang violence. Killed in the drive-by shooting were William Garin, 42, June Garin, 40, and two of their three children: John Garin, 12, and Mary Lou Garin, 10. The Garins were visiting Joseph and Roxanne Calabrese, friends from college. The Calabreses were in the back yard at the time of the shooting and were not injured. Also uninjured was six-year-old Seth Garin, who was playing in the back-yard sandbox. According to Joseph