The Regulators - Stephen King [80]
'Suppose they see cops, Mrs Reed?' Brad asked. 'The police may have decided the greenbelt is their best approach to the street.'
'Safest to stay away,' Johnny said. 'Any cops we run into are apt to be . . . well, nervous. Nervous cops have been known to hurt innocent people. They never mean to, but it's better to be safe. Avoid accidents.'
'Are you coming with us, Mr Marinville?' Jim asked.
'Yes.'
Neither twin said anything, but Johnny liked the relief he saw in their eyes.
Cammie gave Johnny a forbidding look — Are you done? May I get back to business? it said — and then resumed her instructions. 'Go to Anderson Avenue. If everything looks all right there . . . ' she faltered a moment, as if realizing how unlikely that was, and then pushed on ' . . . ask to use someone's phone and call the police. But if Anderson Avenue's like it is here, or if things seem even the slightest bit . . . well . . . '
'Hinky,' Johnny said. In Vietnam they'd had as many words for the feeling she was talking about as Indians had for variations in the weather, and it was funny how they all came back, turning on like neon signs in a dark room. Hinky. Weirded-out. Bent. Snafu'd. Dinky-dau. Yeah, doc, it's all coming back to me now. Pretty soon I'll be whipping a bandanna into a rope and tying it around my forehead to keep back the sweat, maybe leading the congregation in the Fish Cheer.
Cammie was still looking at her boys. Johnny hoped she'd hurry up. They were still looking back at her with respect (and a little fear), but most of what she had to say from this point on would go in one ear and out the other just the same.
'If you don't like what you see on Anderson Avenue, use that pipe you know about. Get over to Columbus Broad. Call the police. Tell them what's happened here. And don't you even think of coming back to Poplar Street!'
'But Mom — ' Jim began.
She reached up and seized his lips, pinching them shut. Not painfully, but firmly. Johnny could easily imagine her doing the same thing when the twins were ten years younger, only bending down to do it.
'You save "but Mom" for another time,' she said. 'This time you just mind Mom. Get to a safe place, call the police, then stay put until this craziness is over. Got it?'
They nodded. Cammie nodded back and let go of Jim's lips. Jim was smiling an embarrassed smile — ohboy, that's my ma — and blushing to the tips of his ears. He knew better than to remonstrate, however.
'And be careful,' she finished. Something came into her eyes — an urge to kiss them, Johnny thought, or maybe just an urge to call the whole thing off while she still could. Then it was gone.
'Ready, Mr Marinville?' Dave asked. He was looking enviously at the gun dangling at the end of his brother's arm. Johnny suspected they would not be too far down the path through the greenbelt before he asked to carry it a while.
'Just a second,' he said, and knelt down in front of Ralphie. Ralphie backed away until his little butt was flush against the wall, then looked at Johnny over his thumb. Down here at Ralphie's level, the smell of urine and fear was so strong it was jungly.
From his pocket Johnny took the figure he'd found in the upstairs hall — the alien with the big eyes, the horn of a mouth, and the stiff strip of yellow hair running up the center of his otherwise bald head. He held it in front of Ralphie's eyes. 'Ralphie, what's this?'
For a moment he didn't think the boy was going to answer. Then, slowly, he reached out with the hand that wasn't anchored in his mouth and took it. For the first time since the shooting had begun, a spark of life showed in his face. 'That's Major Pike,' he said.
'Oh?'
'Yes. He's a Canopalean.' He pronounced this word carefully, proudly. 'That means he's a nailien. But a good nailien. Not like No Face.' A pause. 'Sometimes he drives Bounty's Power Wagon. Major Pike wasn't with them, was he?' Tears overspilled Ralphie's eyes, and Johnny suddenly remembered the story every kid used to know about