The Dark Half

moment, and thought: He doesn't know. He really doesn't. The sparrows . . . they are still hidden from him. That secret is mine. 'Okay, we'll go for it.'

3

As the two men stood by the door, Liz realized she had just had the perfect opportunity to tell Alan about the knife under the couch . . . and had let it slip by.

  Or had she?

  She turned to him, and at that moment Thad called, 'Liz?'

    His voice was sharp. It held a commanding note he rarely used, and it seemed almost as if he knew what she was up to . . . and didn't want her to do it. That was impossible, of course. Wasn't it? She didn't know. She didn't know anything anymore.

   She looked at him, and saw Stark hand Thad the baby. Thad held Wendy close. Wendy put her arms around her father's neck as chummily as she had put them around Stark's.

  Now! Liz's mind screamed at her. Tell him now! Tell him to run! Now, while we've got the twins!

    But of course Stark had a gun, and she didn't think any of them were fast enough to outrun a bullet. And she knew Thad very well; she would never say it out loud, but it suddenly occurred to her that he might very well trip over his own feet.

  And now Thad was very close to her, and she couldn't even kid herself that she didn't understand the message in his eyes.

  Leave it alone, Liz, they said. It's my play.

    Then he put his free arm around her and the whole family stood in a clumsy but fervent fourway embrace.

   'Liz,' he said, kissing her coot lips. 'Liz, Liz, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry for this. I didn't mean for anything like this to happen. I didn't know. I thought it was . . . harmless. A joke.'

  She held him tightly, kissed him, let his lips warm hers.

  'It's okay,' she said. 'It will be okay, won't it, Thad?'

  'Yes,' he said. He drew away so he could look in her eyes. 'It's going to be okay.'

  He kissed her again, then looked at Alan.

  'Hello, Alan,' he said, and smiled a little. 'Changed your mind about anything?'

    'Yes. Quite a few things. I talked to an old acquaintance of Yours today.' He looked at Stark. 'Yours, too.'

  Stark raised what remained of his eyebrows. 'I didn't think Thad and I had any friends in common, Sheriff Alan.'

  'Oh, you had a very close relationship with this guy,' Alan said. 'In fact, he killed you once.'

  'What are you talking about?' Thad asked sharply.

    'It was Dr Pritchard I talked to. He remembers both of you very well. You see, it was a pretty unusual sort of operation. What he took out of your head was him.' He nodded toward Stark.

'What are you talking about?' Liz asked, and her voice cracked on the last word.

    So Alan told them what Pritchard had told him . . . but at the last moment he omitted the part about the sparrows dive-bombing the hospital. He did it because Thad hadn't said anything about the sparrows . . . and Thad had to have driven past the Williams place to get here. That suggested two possibilities: either the sparrows had been gone by the time Thad arrived, or Thad didn't want Stark to know they were there.

   Alan looked very closely at Thad. Something going on in there. Some idea. Pray to God it's a good one.

   When Alan finished, Liz looked stunned. Thad was nodding. Stark — from whom Alan would have expected the strongest reaction of all — did not seem much affected one way or the other. The only expression Alan could read on that ruined face was amusement.

  'It explains a lot,' Thad said. 'Thank you, Alan.'

  'It doesn't explain a goddam thing to me!' Liz cried so shrilly that the twins began to whimper.

  Thad looked at George Stark. 'You're a ghost,' he said. 'A weird kind of ghost. We're all standing here and looking at a ghost. Isn't that amazing? This isn't just a psychic incident; it's a goddam epic!'

  'I don't think it matters,' Stark said easily. 'Tell em the William Burroughs story, Thad. I remember it well. I was inside, of course . . . but I was listening.'

  Liz and Alan looked at Thad questioningly.

  'Do you know what he's talking about?' Liz asked.

  'Of course I do,' Thad said. 'Ike and Mike, they think alike.'

    Stark threw back his head and laughed. The twins stopped whimpering and laughed along with him. 'That's good, old hoss! That is gooood!'

   'I was — or perhaps I should say we were — on a panel with Burroughs in 1981. At the New School, in New York. During the Q-and-A, some kid asked Burroughs if he believed in life after death. Burroughs said he did — he thought we were all living it.'

   'And that man's smart,' Stark said, smiling. 'Couldn't shoot a pistol worth shit, but smart. Now — you see? You see how little it matters?'

  But it does, Alan thought, studying Thad carefully. It matters a lot. Thad's face says so . . . and the sparrows you don't know about say so, too.

    Thad's knowledge was more dangerous than even he knew, Alan suspected. But it might be all they had. He decided he had been right to keep the end of Pritchard's story to himself . . . but he still felt like a man standing on the edge of a cliff and trying to juggle too many flaming torches.

'Enough chit-chat, Thad,' Stark said.

    He nodded. 'Yes. Quite enough.' He looked at Liz and Alan. 'I don't want either of you trying anything . . . well . . . out of line. I'm going to do what he wants.'

'Thad! No! You can't do that!'

   'Shhh.' He put a finger across her lips. 'I can, and I will. No tricks, no special effects. Words on paper made him, and words on paper are the only things that will get rid of him.' He cocked his head at Stark. 'Do you think he knows this will work? He doesn't. He's just hoping.'

  'That's right,' Stark said. 'Hope springs eternal in the human tits.' He laughed. It was a crazy, lunatic sound, and Alan understood that Stark was also juggling flaming torches on the edge of a cliff.

  Sudden movement twitched in the corner of his eye. Alan turned his head slightly and saw a sparrow land on the deck railing outside the sweep of glass that formed the living room's western wall. It was joined by a second and a third. Alan looked back at Thad and saw the writer's eyes move slightly. Had he also seen? Alan thought he had. He had been right, then. Thad knew . . . but he didn't want Stark to know.

    'The two of us are just going to do a little writing and then say goodbye,' Thad said. His eyes shifted to Stark's ruined face. 'That is what we're going to do, isn't it, George?'

'You got it, guy.'

    'So you tell me,' Thad said to Liz. 'Are you holding back? Got something in your head? Some plan?'

    She stood looking desperately into her husband's eyes, unaware that between them, William and Wendy were holding hands and looking at each other delightedly, like long-lost relatives at a surprise reunion.

  You don't mean it, do you, Thad? her eyes asked him. It's a trick, isn't it? A trick to lull him, put his suspicions to sleep?

  No, Thad's gray gaze answered. Right down the line. This is what I want.

   And wasn't there something else, as well? Something so deep and hidden that perhaps she was the only one who could see it?

  I'm going to take care of him, babe. I know how. I can.

  Oh Thad, I hope you're right.

  'There's a knife under the couch,' she said slowly, looking into his face. 'I got it out of the kitchen while Alan and . . . and him . . . were in the front hall, using the telephone.'

  'Liz, Christ!' Alan nearly screamed, making the babies jump. He was not, in fact, as upset as he hoped he sounded. He had come to understand that if this business was to end in some way that did not mean total horror for all of them, Thad would have to be the one to bring it about. He had made Stark; he would have to unmake him.

  She looked around at Stark and saw that hateful grin surfacing on the remains of his face.

  'I know what I'm doing,' Thad said. 'Trust me, Alan. Liz, get the knife and throw it off the deck.'

  I have a part to play here, Alan thought. It's a bit part, but remember what the guy used to say in our college drama class — there are no small parts, only small actors. 'You think he's going to just let us go?' Alan asked incredulously. 'That he's going to trot off over the hill with his tail bobbing