being a private again.”
“Your decision, of course. We need one more. You were recommended.”
“By who, if you don’t mind me—”
“We asked around. Frannie seems to think you’re pretty level. And Nick Andros talked—well, he doesn’t talk, but you know—to one of the men that came in with you. Judge Farris.”
Larry looked pleased. “The Judge gave me a recommendation, huh? That’s great. You know, you ought to have him. He’s smart as the devil.”
“That’s what Nick said. But he’s also seventy, and our medical facilities are pretty primitive.”
Larry turned to look at Stu, half smiling. “This committee isn’t quite as temporary as it looks on the face of it, is it?”
Stu smiled and relaxed a little. He still hadn’t really decided how he felt about Larry Underwood, but it was clear enough the man hadn’t fallen off a hayrick yesterday. “We-ell, let’s put it this way. We’d like to see our committee stand for election to a full term.”
“Preferably unopposed,” Larry said. His eyes on Stu were friendly but sharp—very sharp. “Can I get you a beer?”
“I better not. Had a few too many with Glen Bateman a couple nights ago. Fran’s a patient girl, but her patience only stretches so far. What do you say, Larry? Want to ride along?”
“I guess… oh hell, I say yes. I thought nothing in the world would make me happier than to get here and dump my people and let somebody else take over for a change. Instead, pardon my French, I’ve been just about bored out of my tits.”
“We’re having a little meeting tonight at my place to talk over the big meeting on the eighteenth. Think you could come?”
“Sure. Can I bring Lucy?”
Stu shook his head slowly. “Nor talk to her about it. We want to keep some of this stuff close for a while.”
Larry’s smile evaporated. “I’m not much on cloak-and-dagger, Stu. I better get that up front because it might save a hassle later. I think what happened in June happened because too many people were playing it a little too close. That wasn’t any act of God. That was an act of pure human fuckery.”
“That’s one you don’t want to get into with Mother,” Stu said. He was still smiling, relaxed. “As it happens, I agree with you. But would you feel the same way if it was wartime?”
“I don’t follow you.”
“That man we dreamed about. I doubt if he’s just gone away.”
Larry looked startled, considering.
“Glen says he can understand why nobody’s talking about that,” Stu went on, “even though we’ve all been warned. The people here are still shellshocked. They feel like they’ve been through hell to get here. All they want to do is lick their wounds and bury their dead. But if Mother Abagail’s here, then
Larry glanced at the doorway to the kitchen, but Lucy had gone outside to talk to Jane Hovington from next door.
“You think he’s after us,” he said in a low voice. “That’s a nice thought to have just before dinner. Good for the appetite.”
“Larry, I’m not sure of anything, myself. But Mother Abagail says it won’t be over, one way or the other, until he’s got us or we’ve got him.”
“I hope she’s not saying that around. These people would be headed for fucking Australia.”
“Thought you didn’t hold much with secrets.”
“Yeah, but this—” Larry stopped. Stu was smiling kindly, and Larry smiled back, rather sourly. “Okay. Your point. We talk it out and keep our mouths shut.”
“Fine. See you at seven.”
“Sure thing.”
They walked to the door together. “Thank Lucy for the invite again,” Stu said. “Frannie and I’ll take her up on it before long.”
“Okay.” As Stu reached the door, Larry said, “Hey.”
Stu turned back, questioning.
“There’s a boy,” Larry said slowly, “that came across from Maine with us. His name is Leo Rockway. He’s had his problems. Lucy and I sort of share him with a woman named Nadine Cross. Nadine’s a little out of the ordinary herself, you know?”
Stu nodded. There had been some talk about a peculiar little scene between Mother Abagail and the Cross woman when Larry brought his party in.
“Nadine was taking care of Leo before I ran across them. Leo kind of sees into people. He’s not the only one, either. Maybe there were always people like that, but there seems to be a little bit more of it around since the flu. And Leo… he wouldn’t go into Harold’s house. Wouldn’t even stay on the lawn. That’s… sort of funny, isn’t it?”
“It is,” Stu agreed.
They looked at each other thoughtfully for a moment and then Stu left to go home and get his supper. Fran seemed preoccupied herself during the meal, and didn’t talk much. And while she was doing the last of the dishes in a plastic bucket full of warm water, people began arriving for the first meeting of the Free Zone Ad Hoc Committee.
After Stu had gone over to Larry’s, Frannie rushed upstairs to the bedroom. In the corner of the closet was the sleeping bag she had carried across the country strapped to the back of her motorcycle. She had kept her personal belongings in a small zipper bag. Most of these belongings were now distributed through the apartment she and Stu shared, but a few still hadn’t found a home and rested at the foot of the sleeping bag. There were several bottles of cleansing cream—she had suffered a sudden rash of skin outbreaks after the deaths of her mother and father, but that had now subsided—a box of Stayfree Mini Pads in case she started spotting (she had heard that pregnant women sometimes did), two boxes of cheap cigars, one marked IT’S A BOY! and the other marked IT’S A GIRL! The last item was her diary.
She drew it out and looked at it speculatively. She had entered in it only eight or nine times since their arrival in Boulder, and most of the entries had been short, almost elliptical. The great outpouring had come and gone while they were still on the road… like afterbirth, she thought a little ruefully. She hadn’t entered at all in the last four days, and suspected that the diary might eventually have slipped her mind altogether, although she had firmly intended to keep it more fully when things settled down a little. For the baby. Now, however, it was very much on her mind once more.
Suddenly it seemed to her that the book had gained weight, and that the very act of turning back the pasteboard cover would cause sweat to pop out on her brow and… and…
She suddenly looked back over her shoulder, her heart beating wildly. Had something moved in here?
A mouse, scuttering behind the wall, maybe. Surely no more than that. More likely just her imagination. There was no reason, no reason at all, for her to suddenly be thinking of the man in the black robe, the man with the coathanger. Her baby was alive and safe and this was just a book and anyhow there was no way to tell if a book had been read, and even if there was a way, there would be no way to tell if the person who had read it had been Harold Lauder.
Still, she opened the book and began to turn slowly through its pages, getting shutterclicks of the recent past like black-and-white photographs taken by an amateur. Home movie of the mind.
