million years and not get all the way to the truth. He thought of the empty car driving itself into stall twenty like some weird wind-up toy. The empty ignition slot turning over to START, The engine revving once, like a warning snarl, and then failing off.
And thinking of these things, Will did not trust himself to look Arnie in the face, even though his own experience in routine deceit was nearly lifelong.
“I don’t want to send you to Albany if the cops are watching you.”
“I don’t care if you send me to Albany or not, but you don’t have to worry about the heat. He’s the only cop I’ve seen, and he’s crazy. He’s not interested in anything but two cases of hit-and-run.”
Now Will’s eyes did meet Arnie’s: Arnie’s grey and distant, Will’s a faded no-colour, the corneas a dim yellow; they were the eyes of an ancient tomcat who has seen a thousand mice turned inside out.
“He’s interested in you,” he said. “I’d better send Jimmy.”
“You like the way Jimmy drives, do you?”
Will looked at Arnie for a moment and then sighed. Okay,” he said. “But if you see that cop, you back off. And if you get caught holding a bag, Cunningham, it’s your bag. Do you understand that?”
“Yes,” Arnie said. “Do you want me to do some work tonight, or what?”
“There’s a ’77 Buick in forty-nine. Pull the starter motor. Check the solenoid. If it seems okay, pull that too.”
Arnie nodded and left. Will’s thoughtful eyes drifted from his retreating back to Christine. He had no business sending him to Albany this weekend and he knew it. The kid knew it too, but he was going to push ahead anyway. He had said he’d go, and he was now going to by-God do it. And if anything happened, the kid would stand up. Will was sure of it. There was a time when he surely wouldn’t have done, but that time was past now.
He had heard it all on the intercom.
Junkins had been right.
The kid was harder now.
Will began to look at the kid’s ’58 again. Arnie would be taking Will’s Chrysler to New York. While he was gone, Will would watch Christine. He would watch Christine and see what happened.
40
ARNIE IN TROUBLE
With Naugahyde bucket seats in front and back,
Everything’s chrome, man, even my jack,
Step on the gas, she goes
Waaaaahhhh—I’ll let you look,
But don’t touch my custom machine
Rudolph Junkins and Rick Mercer of the Pennsylvania State Police detective division sat drinking coffee the following afternoon in a glum little office with paint peeling from the walls. Outside, a depressing mixture of snow and sleet was falling.
“I’m pretty sure this is going to be the weekend,” Junkins said. “That Chrysler has rolled every four or five weeks for the last eight months.”
“Just understand that busting Darnell and whatever bee you’ve got in your bonnet about that kid are two different things.”
“They’re both the same thing to me,” Junkins replied. “The kid knows something. If I get him rattled, I may find out what it is.”
“You think he had an accomplice? Someone who used his car and killed those kids while he was at the chess tourney?”
Junkins shook his head. “No, goddammit. The kid has got exactly one good friend, and he’s in the hospital. I don’t know what I think, except that the car was involved… and he was involved too.”
Junkins put his Styrofoam coffee cup down and pointed at the man on the other side of the desk.
“Once we get that place closed down, I want a six-pack of lab technicians to go over it from stem to stern, inside and out. I want it up on a lift, I want it checked for dents bumps, repaint… and for blood. That’s what I really want, Rick. Just one drop of blood.”
“You don’t like that kid much, do you?” Rick asked.
Junkins uttered a bewildered little laugh. “You know, the first time I kind of did. I liked him and I felt sorry for him. I felt like maybe he was covering for somebody else who had something on him. But this time I didn’t like him at all.” He considered.
“And I didn’t like that car, either. The- way he kept touching it every time I thought I had him on the ropes. It was spooky.”
Rick said, “As long as you remember that Darnell is the guy I’ve got to bust. No one in Harrisburg has the slightest interest in your kid.”
“I’ll remember,” Junkins said. He picked up his coffee again and looked at Rick grimly. “Because he’s a means to the end. I’m going to nail the person who killed those kids if it’s the last thing I ever do.”
“It may not even go down this weekend,” Rick said.
But it did.
Two plainclothes cops from Pennsylvania’s State Felony Squad sat in the cab of a four-year-old Datsun pickup on the morning of Saturday, December 16, watching as Will Darnell’s black Chrysler rolled out of the big door and into the street. A light drizzle was failing; it was not quite cold enough to be sleet. It was one of those misty days when it is impossible to tell where the lowering clouds end and the actual mist begins. The Chrysler was quite properly showing its parking lights. Arnie Cunningham was a safe driver.
One of the plainclothesmen lifted a walkie-talkie to his mouth and spoke into it. He just came out in Darnell’s car. You guys stay on your toes.”
They followed the Chrysler to I-76. When they saw Arnie get on the eastbound ramp with its Harrisburg sign, they turned up the westbound ramp, toward Ohio, and reported. They would get off I-76 one exit down the line and return to their original position near Darnell’s Garage.
“Okay Junkins voice came back let’s make an omelette.”
Twenty minutes later, as Arnie was cruising east at a sedate and legal 50, three cops with all the right paperwork in hand knocked on the door of William Upshaw, who lived in the very much upscale suburb of Sewickley. Upshaw answered the door in his bathrobe. From behind came the cartoon squawks of Saturday- morning TV.
“Who is it, honey?” his wife called from the kitchen.
Upshaw looked at the papers, which were court orders and felt that he might faint. One ordered that all of Upshaw’s tax records relating to Will Darnell (an individual) and Will Darnell (a corporation) be impounded. These papers bore the signature of the Pennsylvania Attorney General and a Superior Court judge.
“Who is it, hon?” his wife asked again, and one of his kids came to look, all big eyes.
Upshaw tried to speak and could raise only a dusty croak. It had come. He had dreamed about it, and it had finally come, The house in Sewickley had not protected him from it; the woman he kept at a safe distance in King of Prussia had not protected him from it; it was here: he read it in the smooth faces of these cops in their off-the- rack Anderson Little suits. Worst of all, one of them was Federal—Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms. He produced a second ID, proclaiming him an agent of something called the Federal Drug Control Task Force.
“Our information is that you keep an office in your home,” the Federal cop said. He looked—what? Twenty- six? Thirty? Had he ever had to worry about what you were going to do when you had three kids and a wife who liked nice things maybe a little too much? Bill Upshaw didn’t think so. When you had those things to think about, your face didn’t stay that smooth. Your face only stayed that smooth when you could indulge in the luxury of grand
