Wolves of the Calla - Stephen King [268]
It was the cactuses they were talking about, or rather that Slightman was talking about. He called them boom-flurry, and wanted to know what had gotten them all fashed.
“Almost certainly more rock-cats, sai,” Andy said in his complacent, slightly prissy voice. Eddie said Andy reminded him of a robot named C3PO in Star Wars, a movie to which Jake had been looking forward. He had missed it by less than a month. “It’s their mating season, you know.”
“Piss on that,” Slightman said. “Are you telling me boom-flurry don’t know rock-cats from something they can actually catch and eat? Someone’s been out here, I tell you. And not long since.”
A cold thought slipped into Jake’s mind: had the floor of the Dogan been dusty? He’d been too busy gawking at the control panels and TV monitors to notice. If he and Oy had left tracks, those two might have noticed already. They might only be pretending to have a conversation about the cactuses while they actually crept toward the bunkroom door.
Jake took the Ruger out of the docker’s clutch and held it in his right hand with his thumb on the safety.
“A guilty conscience doth make cowards of us all,” Andy said in his complacent, just-thought-you’d-like-to-know voice. “That’s my free adaptation of a—”
“Shut up, you bag of bolts and wires,” Slightman snarled. “I—” Then he screamed. Jake felt Oy stiffen against him, felt his fur begin to rise. The bumbler started to growl. Jake slipped a hand around his snout.
“Let go!” Slightman cried out. “Let go of me!”
“Of course, sai Slightman,” Andy said, now sounding solicitous. “I only pressed a small nerve in your elbow, you know. There would be no lasting damage unless I applied at least twenty foot-pounds of pressure.”
“Why in the hell would you do that?” Slightman sounded injured, almost whiny. “En’t I doing all you could want, and more? En’t I risking my life for my boy?”
“Not to mention a few little extras,” Andy said silkily. “Your spectacles…the music machine you keep deep down in your saddlebag…and, of course—”
“You know why I’m doing it and what’d happen to me if I was found out,” Slightman said. The whine had gone out of his voice. Now he sounded dignified and a little weary. Jake listened to that tone with growing dismay. If he got out of this and had to squeal on Benny’s Da’, he wanted to squeal on a villain. “Yar, I’ve taken a few little extras, you say true, I say thankya. Glasses, so I can see better to betray the people I’ve known all my life. A music machine so I won’t have to hear the conscience you prate about so easy and can get to sleep at night. Then you pinch something in my arm that makes me feel like my by-Riza eyes are going to fall right out of my by-Riza head.”
“I allow it from the rest of them,” Andy said, and now his voice had changed. Jake once more thought of Blaine, and once more his dismay grew. What if Tian Jaffords heard this voice? What if Vaughn Eisenhart heard it? Overholser? The rest of the folken? “They heap contumely on my head like hot coals and never do I raise a word o’ protest, let alone a hand. ‘Go here, Andy. Go there, Andy. Stop yer foolish singing, Andy. Stuff yer prattle. Don’t tell us of the future, because we don’t want to hear it.’ So I don’t, except of the Wolves, because they’d hear what makes em sad and I’d tell em, yes I would; to me each tear’s a drop of gold. ‘You’re nobbut a stupid pile of lights n wires,’ they say. ‘Tell us the weather, sing the babby to sleep, then get t’hell out o’ here.’ And I allow it. Foolish Andy am I, every child’s toy and always fair game for a tongue-whipping. But I won’t take a tongue-whipping from you, sai. You hope to have a future in the Calla after the Wolves are done with it for another few years, don’t you?”
“You know I do,” Slightman said, so low Jake could barely hear him. “And I deserve it.”
“You and your son, both say thankya, passing your days in the Calla, both say commala! And that can happen, but it depends on more than the death of the outworlders. It depends on my silence. If you want it, I