Without remorse - Tom Clancy [153]
What, then?
'Well, I brought my toolbox. I'm pretty good on diesels. Aside from our little friend, how was work?'
'A good day,' Sandy said, glad again for the distraction. 'We discharged one we were really worried about. Little black girl, three, fell out of her crib. Doctor Rosen did a wonderful job on her. In a month or two you'll never know she was hurt at all'
'Sam's a good troop,' Kelly observed. 'Not just a good doc - he's got class, too.'
'So's Sarah.' Good troop, that's what Tim would have said.
'Great lady.' Kelly nodded, turning left onto North Avenue. 'She did a lot for Pam,' he said, this time reporting facts without the time for reflection. Then Sandy saw his face change again, freezing in place as though he'd heard the words from another's voice.
The pain won't ever go away, will it? Kelly asked himself. Again he saw her in his mind, and for a brief, cruel second, he told himself - lied, knowing it even as it happened - that she was beside him, sitting there on the right seat. But it wasn't Pam, never would be again. His hands tightened on the plastic of the steering wheel, the knuckles suddenly white as he commanded himself to set it aside. Such thoughts were like minefields. You wandered into them, innocent, expecting nothing, then found out too late that there was danger. It would be better not to remember, Kelly thought. I'd really be better off that way. But if without memories, good and bad, what was life, and if you forgot those who mattered to you, then what did you become? And if you didn't act on those memories, what value did life have?
Sandy saw it all on his face. A changeling, perhaps, but not always guarded. You're not a psychopath. You feel pain and they don't - at least not from the death of a friend. What are you, then?
CHAPTER 18
Interference
'Do it again,' he told her.
Thunk.
'Okay, I know what it is,' Kelly said. He leaned over her Plymouth Satellite, jacket and tie off, sleeves rolled up. His hands were already dirty from half an hour's probing.
'Just like that?' Sandy got out of her car, taking the keys with her, which seemed odd, on reflection, since the damned car wouldn't start. Why not leave them in and let some car thief go mast she wondered.
'I got it down to one thing. It's the solenoid switch.'
'What's that?' she asked, standing next to Kelly and looking at the oily-blue mystery that was an automobile engine.
'The little switch you put the key in isn't big enough for all the juice you need to turn the starter, so that switch controls a bigger one here.' Kelly pointed with a wrench. 'It activates an electromagnet that closes a bigger switch, and that one lets the electricity go to the starter motor. Follow me so far?'
'I think so.' Which was almost true. 'They told me I needed a new battery.'
'I suppose somebody told you that mechanics love to -'
'Jerk women around 'cuz we're so dumb with cars?' Sandy noted with a grimace.
'Something like that. You're going to have to pay me something, though,' Kelly told her, rummaging in his toolbox.
'What's that?'
'I'm going to be too dirty to take you out to dinner. We have to eat here,' he said, disappearing under the car, white shirt, worsted slacks and all. A minute later he was back out, his hands dirty. 'Try it now.'
Sandy got back in and turned the key. The battery was down a little but the engine caught almost at once.
'Leave it on to charge things up.'
'What was it?'
'Loose wire. All I did was tighten it up some.' Kelly looked at his clothes and grimaced. So did Sandy. 'You need to take it into the shop and have a lock washer put on the nut. Then it shouldn't get loose again.'
'You didn't have to -'
'You have to get to work tomorrow, right?' Kelly asked reasonably.