“They’re leaving right from school,” Michael said. “He said the car would be all right in the school parking lot.”
I could hear it in his voice again—his knowledge of the lie. After what had happened last fall, Arnie would no more leave Christine in a public parking lot than he would show up in Calc class naked.
“Uh-huh,” I said. “But if you should happen to look out the window and see her in the driveway anyhow, stay clear. Do you understand?”
“Yes, but—”
“Call my father first. Promise me.”
“All right, I promise… but Dennis—”
“Thank you, Michael.”
I hung up. My hands and feet were numb with the cold, but my forehead was slick with sweat. I pushed the door of the phone booth open with the tip of one crutch and worked my way back to Petunia.
“What did he say?” Leigh asked. “Did he promise?”
“Yes,” I said. “He promised and my dad will see that they get together. I’m pretty sure of that. If Christine goes for anyone tonight, it will have to be us.”
“All right,” she said. “Good.”
I threw Petunia into gear, and we rumbled away. The stage was set—as well as I could set it, anyway—and now there was really nothing to do but wait and see what would come.
We drove a-cross town to Darnell’s Garage through steady light snow, and I pulled into the parking lot at just past one that afternoon. The long, rambling building with its corrugated-steel sides was totally deserted, and Petunia’s bellyhigh wheels cut through deep, unploughed snow to stop in front of the main door. The signs bolted to that door were the same as they had been on that long-ago August evening when Arnie first drove Christine there—SAVE MONEY! YOUR KNOW-HOW, OUR TOOLS! Garage Space Rented by the Week, Month, or Year, and HONK FOR ENTRY—but the only one that really meant anything was the new one leaning in the darkened office window: CLOSED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE. Sitting in one corner of the snowy front lot was an old crumpled Mustang, one of the real door-suckers from the ’60s. Now it sat silent and broody under a shroud of snow.
“It’s creepy,” Leigh said in a low voice.
“Yeah. It sure is.” I gave her the keys I’d made at the Western Auto that morning. “One of these will do it.”
She took the keys, got out, and walked over to the door. I kept an eye in both rearview mirrors while she fumbled at the lock, but we didn’t seem to be attracting any undue attention. I suppose there is a certain psychology involved in seeing such a big, conspicuous vehicle—it makes the idea of something clandestine or illegal harder to swallow.
Leigh suddenly tugged hard on the door, stood up, tugged again, and then came back to the truck. “I got the key to turn, but I can’t get the door up,” she said. “I think it’s frozen to the ground or something.”
Great, I thought. Wonderful. None of this was going to come easily.
“Dennis, I’m sorry,” she said, seeing it on my face.
“No, it’s all right,” I said. I opened the driver’s door and performed another of my comical sliding exits.
“Be careful,” she said anxiously, walking beside me with her arm around my waist as I crutched carefully through the snow to the door. “Remember your leg.”
“Yes, Mother,” I said, grinning a little. I stood in profile to the door when I got there so I could bend down to the right and keep my weight off my bad leg. Bent over in the snow, left leg in the air, left hand holding onto my crutches, right hand grasping the roll-up door’s handle, I must have looked like a circus contortionist. I pulled and felt the door give a little… but not quite enough. She was right; it had iced up pretty good along the bottom. You could hear it crackling.
“Grab on and help me,” I said.
Leigh placed both of her hands over my right hand and we pulled together. That crackling sound became a little louder, but still the ice wouldn’t quite give up its grip on the foot of the door.
“We’ve almost got it,” I said. My right leg was throbbing unpleasantly, and sweat was running down my cheeks. “I’ll count. On three, give it all you’ve got. Okay?”
“Yes,” she said.
“One… two… three!”
What happened was the door came free of the ice all at once, with absurd, deadly ease. It flew upwards on its tracks, and I stumbled backward, my crutches flying. My left leg folded underneath me and I landed on it. The deep snow cushioned the fall somewhat, but I still felt the pain as a kind of silver bolt that seemed to ram upward from my thigh all the way to my temples and back down again. I clenched my teeth over a scream, barely keeping it in, and then Leigh was on her knees in the snow beside me, her arm around my shoulders.
“Dennis! Are you all right?”
“Help me up.”
She had to do most of the pulling, and both of us were gasping like winded runners by the time I was on my feet again with my crutches propped under me. Now I really needed them. My left leg was in agony.
“Dennis, you won’t be able to work the clutch in that truck now—”
“Yeah, I will. Help me back, Leigh.”
“You’re as white as a ghost. I think we ought to get you to a doctor.”
“No. Help me back.”
“Dennis—”
“Leigh, help me back!”
We inched our way back to Petunia through the snow leaving shuffling, troubled tracks in the snow behind us. I reached up, laid hold of the steering wheel, and did a chin-up to get in, scraping feebly at the running board with my right leg… and still, in the end, Leigh had to get behind me and put both hands on my kiester and shove. At last I was behind Petunia’s wheel, hot and shivering with pain. My shirt was wet with snowmelt and sweat. Until that day in January of 1979, I don’t think I knew how much pain can make you sweat.
I tried to jam down the clutch with my left foot and that silver bolt of pain came again, making me throw my head back and grind my teeth until it subsided a little.
“Dennis, I’m going down the street and find a phone and call a doctor.” Her face was white and scared. “You broke it again, didn’t you? When you fell?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “But you can’t do that, Leigh. It’ll be your folks or mine if we don’t end it now. You know that. LeBay won’t stop. He has a well-developed sense of vengeance. We can’t stop.”
“But you can’t drive it!” she wailed. She looked up into the cab at me, crying now. The hood of her parka had fallen back in our mutual struggle to get me up into the driver’s seat, where I now sat in magnificent uselessness. I could see a scatter of snowflakes in her dark blond hair.
“Go inside there,” I said. “See if you can find a broom, or a long stick of wood.”
“What good will that do?” she asked, crying harder.
“Just get it, and then we’ll see.”
She we into the dark maw of the open door and disappeared from view. I held onto my leg and sparred with terror. If I really had broken my leg again, there was a good chance I’d be wearing a built-up heel on my left foot for the rest of my life. But there might not even be that much of my life left if we couldn’t put a stop to Christine. Now there was a cheery thought.
Leigh came back with a push broom. “Will this do?” she asked.
“To get us inside, yes. Then we’ll have to see if we can find something better.”
The handle was the type that unscrews. I got hold of it, unthreaded it, and tossed the bristle end aside. Holding it in my left hand along my side—just another goddam crutch I pushed down the clutch with it. It held for a moment, then slipped off. The clutch sprang back up. The top of the handle almost bashed me in the mouth. Lookin good, Guilder. But it would have to do.
“Come on, get in,” I said.
“Dennis, are you sure?”
“As sure as I can be,” I said.
She looked at me for a moment, and then nodded. “Okay.”
She went around to the passenger side and got in. I slammed my own door, depressed Petunia’s clutch
