The Dark Half

listening with all his concentration, striving to pick up some faint, almost inaudible sound, 'What do you — ?' she began.

'Hush your mouth a second, hon,' Stark told her. 'Just put a sock in it.'

    Faintly, she heard the sound of a flock of birds taking wing. The sound was impossibly distant, impossibly beautiful. Impossibly free.

    She stood there looking at him, her heart pounding too fast, wondering if she could break loose from him. He wasn't exactly in a trance, or anything like that, but his attention was certainly diverted. She could run, maybe. If she could get a gun —

His rotten hand stole around one of her wrists again.

   'I can get inside your man and look out, you know. I can feel him thinking. I can't do that with you, but I can look at your face and make some real good guesses. Whatever you're thinking right now, Beth, you want to remember those cops . . . and your kids. You do that, it's gonna help you keep this in perspective.'

'Why do you keep calling me that?'

   'What? Beth?' He laughed. It was a nasty sound, as if he'd gotten gravel caught in his throat. 'It's what he'd call you, if he was smart enough to think of it, you know.'

  'You're cr — '

  'Crazy, I know. This is charmin, darlin, but we'll have to defer your opinions on my sanity until later. Too much happening right now. Listen: I have to call Thad, but not at his office. Phone there might be tapped. He doesn't think it is, but the cops might have done it without telling him. Your man is a trusting sort of fellow. I'm not.' 'How can you — ?'

   Stark leaned toward her and spoke very slowly and carefully, as a teacher might speak to a slow first-grader. 'I want you to stop pickin this bone with me, Beth, and answer my questions. Because if I can't get what I need out of you, maybe I can get it out of your twins. I realize they can't talk yet, but maybe I can teach them. A little incentive does wonders.'

    He was wearing a quilted vest over his shirt in spite of the heat, the kind with many zippered pockets favored by hunters and hikers. He pulled down one of the side zippers where some cylindrical object bulged the polyester quilting. He took out a small gas torch. 'Even if I can't teach em to talk, I bet I could teach em to sing. I bet I could teach em to sing just like a couple of larks. You might not want to face that music, Beth.'

  She tried to take her gaze away from the torch, but it wouldn't go. Her eyes followed it helplessly as he switched it back and forth from one gloved hand to the other. Her eyes seemed nailed to the nozzle.

  'I'll tell you anything you want to know,' she said, and thought:

  For now.

   'That's good of you,' he said, and stowed the gas torch back in its pocket. The vest pulled a little to the side when he did it, and she saw the butt of a very big handgun. 'Very sensible, too, Beth. Now listen. There's somebody else there today, in the English department. I can see him as clearly as I can see you right now. Short little fella, white hair, got a pipe in his mouth almost as big as he is. What's his name?'

    'It sounds like Rawlie DeLesseps,' she said drearily. She wondered how he could know Rawlie was there today . and decided she didn't really want to know.

  'Could it be anyone else?'

  Liz thought it over briefly and then shook her head. 'It must be Rawlie.'

  'Have you got a faculty directory?'

  'There's one in the telephone table drawer in the living room.'

   'Good.' He had slipped past her almost before she realized he was moving — the oily cat-grace of this decaying piece of meat made her feet a little sick — and plucked one of the long knives from the magnetized runners. Liz stiffened. Stark glanced at her and that caught-gravel sound came from his throat again. 'Don't worry, I ain't gonna cut you. You're my good little helper, aren't you? Come on.'

  The hand, strong but unpleasantly spongy, slid around her wrist again. When she tried to pull away, it only tightened. She stopped pulling at once and allowed him to lead her.

  'Good,' he said.

    He took her into the living room, where she sat on the sofa, and hugged her knees in front of her. Stark glanced at her, nodded to himself, and then turned his attention to the telephone. When he determined that there was no alarm wire — and that was sloppy, just sloppy — he slashed the cords the state police had added: the one going to the trace-back gadget and the one that went down to the voice-activated recorder in the basement.

  'You know how to behave, and that's very important,' Stark said to the top of Liz's bent head. 'Now, listen. I'm gonna find this Rawlie DeLesseps's number and have a brief little pow-wow with Thad. And while I do that, you're gonna go upstairs and pack whatever duds and other things your babies will need down at your summer place. When you're finished, roust em and bring em on down here.'

  'How did you know they were — ?'

    He smiled a little at her look of surprise. 'Oh, I know your schedule,' he said. 'I know it better than you do, maybe. You get cm up, Beth, and get cm ready, and bring cm down here. I know the layout of the house as well as I know your schedule, and if you try to get away from me, honey, I will know. There's no need to dress cm; just pack what they'll need and bring cm down in their didies. You can dress cm later, after we're on our merry way.'

  'Castle Rock? You want to go to Castle Rock?'

  'Uh-huh. But you don't need to think about that now. All you need to think about right now is that if you're longer than ten minutes by my watch, I'll have to come upstairs to see what's keeping you.' He looked at her levelly, the dark glasses creating skull-like eyesockets below his peeling, oozing brow. 'And I'll come with my little blowtorch lit and ready for action. You understand?'

  'I . . . yes.'

    'Above all, Beth, you want to remember one thing. If you cooperate with me, you are going to be all right. And your children will be all right.' He smiled again. 'Bein a good mother like you are, I suspect that's much more important to you. I only want you to know better than to try gettin clever with me. Those two state cops arc out there in the back of their bubblemobile, drawing flies, because they had the bad luck to be on the tracks when my express was comin through. There's a bunch of dead cops in New York City who had the same sort of bad luck . . . as you well know. The way to help yourself, and your kids — and Thad, too, because if he does what I want, he's gonna be fine — is to stay dumb and helpful. You understand?'

'Yes,' she said hoarsely.

    'You may get an idea. I know how that can happen when a person feels like his back's to the wall. But if you do get one, you want to shoo that idea right away. You want to remember that, although I may not look so hot, my ears are great. If you try to open a window, I'll hear it. If you try to take out a screen, I'll hear that. Bethie, I'm a man who can hear the angels singin in heaven and the devils screamin in the deepest holes of hell. You have to ask yourself if you dare take the chance. You're a smart woman. I think you'll make the right decision. Move, girl. Get goin.'

    He was looking at his watch, actually timing her. And Liz bounded for the stairs on legs which felt nerveless.

6

She heard him speak briefly on the telephone downstairs. There was a long pause, and then he began to speak again. His voice changed. She didn't know who he had talked to before the pause Rawlie DeLesseps, maybe — but when he began to speak again, she was almost positive Thad was on the other end. She couldn't make out the words and didn't dare go to the extension phone, but she was still sure it was Thad. There was no time for eavesdropping, anyway. He had asked her to ask herself if she dared chance crossing .him. She did not.

  She threw diapers into the diaper-bag, clothes into a suitcase. She swept the creams, baby powder, Handi-Wipes, diaper pins, and other odds and ends into a shoulder—bag.

  The conversation had ended downstairs. She was heading for the twins, about to wake them, when he called up to her.

  'Beth! It's time!' 'I'm coming!' She lifted Wendy, who began to cry sleepily.

  'I want you down here — I'm expecting a telephone call, and you're the sound effects.'

   But she barely heard this last. Her eyes were fixed on the plastic diaper-pin caddy on top of the twins' bureau.

  Lying beside the caddy was a bright pair of sewing scissors.

  She put Wendy back in her crib, threw a glance at the door, and then hurried across to the bureau. She took the scissors and two of the diaper pins. She stuck the pins in her mouth like a woman making a dress, and unzipped her skirt. She pinned the scissors to the inside of her panties, then zipped the skirt again. There was a small bulge where the handle of the scissors and the heads of the pins were. She didn't think an ordinary man would notice, but George Stark was not an ordinary man. She left her blouse hanging out. Better.

  'Beth! ' The voice was on the verge of being angry now. Worse, it was coming