The Regulators - Stephen King [98]
Scared for them, too.
'I am very sorry,' the kid says, still rapping it out as if it was on cue-cards in front of him. 'I have asked my Dad for forgiveness, I have asked Lord Jesus for forgiveness, and now I am asking you for forgiveness.'
I got my act together enough then to take the wagon from him — I was so wrought-up I almost dropped it on my toes — and told him that no spankings would be required.
'The boy also has to apologize to your son,' Mr Hobart said. He looks like Moses with a clean-shaven face and a good haircut, if you can imagine Moses in a double-vented three-piece from Sears. After the things that have been going around here for the last few months, I have no problem imagining anything. That's part of my trouble. 'If you'll just lead us to him, Mrs Wyler — '
I'll be damned if the self-righteous SOB didn't start trying to push his way right in! I pushed him right back, I can tell you. (Almost dropped Dream Floater again in the process, too.) The last thing I wanted was that fat little thief standing in front of the Stalky Little Boy. What I wanted was for them to be out of my house, and quick. Before either their voices or their emotional vibes (and tho he wasn't crying, Hob art was at least as upset as his kid, maybe more) could wake him up.
'Seth's not my son, he's my nephew,' I said, 'and he's taking a nap right now.'
'Very good,' Hobart says, giving a stiff little nod. 'We will come back later. Is tonight convenient? If not, I can bring Hugh back tomorrow afternoon. I can ill afford to take off a second afternoon — I work at the stamping mill in Ten Mile, you know — but God's business must always take precedence over man's.'
His voice kept getting louder while he was talking, the way the voices of guys like him always seem to, it's like they can't tell you they've got to take a shit without turning it into a sermon. I started to feel really scared about Seth waking up, all this time, I swear it's true, the kid's looking around like he wants to see if there's anything else worth hawking. I'd say the day is going to come when Hughie winds up on some shrinky-dink's couch, except that people like the Hobarts don't believe in shrinks, do they?
I herded them out the door kept them going right down the walk, I mean I was on a roll. The kid, meanwhile, is asking, 'Do you forgive me? Do you forgive me?' over over again, like a broken record. By the time I got them down to the sidewalk, I realized I was furious with both of them. Not just because of the hell we've been through but because they both acted like I was somehow responsible for the thieving little fart's immortal soul. Plus I kept remembering the way his eyes were going everywhere, seeing what we had in our house that he didn't have in his.
I'm pretty sure — almost positive, actually — that a lot of Seth's 'strange powers' have a very short range, like the radio transmitters they used to have at the drive-ins, the ones that piped the movie sound directly into your car radio. So when I got them down to the street, I felt safe (relatively safe, anyway) to ask how Hugh Hobart had come to lift Seth's Power Wagon in the first place.
Père and fils exchanged a glance at that. It was a funny, uneasy glance, and I realized neither of them much minded the idea of a spanking or even a visit from the cops, but they didn't like the idea of talking about the actual theft itself. Not one little bit. No wonder the fundamentalists hate the Catholics so much. The idea