Wizard and glass - Stephen King [223]
“She does.” Jonas tossed the towel into the bathroom, crossed to the bed, and took his shirt from where it hung on one of the footposts. Beyond him, Coral glanced up, gave his naked back a single greedy look, then went back to her work once more. Jonas slipped into his shirt. “How are things at Citgo, Clay?”
“Quiet. But it’ll get noisy if certain young vagabundos poke their nosy noses in.”
“How many are out there, and how do they set?”
“Ten in the days. A dozen at night. Roy or I are out once every shift, but like I say, it’s been quiet.”
Jonas nodded, but he wasn’t happy. He’d hoped to draw the boys out to Citgo before now, just as he’d hoped to draw them into a confrontation by vandalizing their place and killing their pigeons. Yet so far they still hid behind their damned Hillock. He felt like a man in a field with three young bulls. He’s got a red rag, this would-be torero, and he’s flapping it for all he’s worth, and still the toros refuse to charge. Why?
“The moving operation? How goes that?”
“Like clockwork,” Reynolds said. “Four tankers a night, in pairs, the last four nights. Renfrew’s in charge, him of the Lazy Susan. Do you still want to leave half a dozen as bait?”
“Yar,” Jonas said, and there was a knock at the door.
Depape jumped. “Is that—”
“No,” Jonas said. “Our friend in the black robe has decamped. Perhaps he goes to offer comfort to the Good Man’s troops before battle.”
Depape barked laughter at that. By the window, the woman in the nightgown looked down at her knitting and said nothing.
“It’s open!” Jonas called.
The man who stepped in was wearing the sombrero, serape, and sandalias of a farmer or vaquero, but the face was pale and the lock of hair peeking out from beneath the sombrero’s brim was blond. It was Latigo. A hard man and no mistake, but a great improvement over the laughing man in the black robe, just the same.
“Good to see you, gentlemen,” he said, coming in and closing the door. His face—dour, frowning—was that of a man who hasn’t seen anything good in years. Maybe since birth. “Jonas? Are you well? Do things march?”
“I am and they do,” Jonas said. He offered his hand. Latigo gave it a quick, dry shake. He didn’t do the same for Depape or Reynolds, but glanced at Coral instead.
“Long days and pleasant nights, lady.”
“And may you have twice the number, sai Latigo,” she said without looking up from her knitting.
Latigo sat on the end of the bed, produced a sack of tobacco from beneath his serape, and began rolling a cigarette.
“I won’t stay long,” he said. He spoke in the abrupt, clipped tones of northern In-World, where—or so Depape had heard—reindeer-fucking was still considered the chief sport. If you ran slower than your sister, that was. “It wouldn’t be wise. I don’t quite fit in, if one looks closely.”
“No,” Reynolds said, sounding amused. “You don’t.”
Latigo gave him a sharp glance, then returned his attention to Jonas. “Most of my party is camped thirty wheels from here, in the forest west of Eyebolt Canyon . . . what is that wretched noise inside the canyon, by the way? It frightens the horses.”
“A thinny,” Jonas said.
“It scares the men, too, if they get too close,” Reynolds said. “Best to stay away, cap’n.”
“How many are you?” Jonas asked.
“A hundred. And well armed.”
“So, it’s said, were Lord Perth’s men.”
“Don’t be an ass.”
“Have they seen any fighting?”
“Enough to know what it is,” Latigo said, and Jonas knew he was lying. Farson had kept his veterans in their mountain boltholes. Here was a little expeditionary force where no doubt only the sergeants were able to do more with their cocks than run water through them.
“There are a dozen at Hanging Rock, guarding the tankers your men have brought so far,” Latigo said.
“More than needed, likely.”
“I didn’t risk coming into this godforsaken shitsplat of a town in order to discuss my arrangements with you, Jonas.”
“Cry your pardon, sai,” Jonas replied, but perfunctorily. He sat on the floor next to Coral’s rocker and began to roll a smoke of his own. She put her knitting