Mr. Mercedes (52 page)

The screams are utterly delirious now. The audience is on its feet again, the roving spotlights once more skimming over the crowd. Brady can no longer see the band, but it doesn't matter. He already knows what's coming, because he was there at the load-in.

Lowering his voice to an intimate, amplified murmur, Cam Knowles says, “Well, you're gonna get that kiss tonight.”

Carnival music starts up—a Korg synthesizer set to play a calliope tune. The stage is suddenly bathed in a swirl of light: orange, blue, red, green, yellow. There's a gasp of amazement as the midway set starts to descend. Both the carousel and the Ferris wheel are already turning.

“THIS IS THE TITLE TRACK OF OUR NEW ALBUM, AND WE REALLY HOPE YOU ENJOY IT!”
Cam bellows, and the other instruments fall in around the synth.

“The desert cries in all directions,”
Cam Knowles intones.
“Like eternity, you're my infection.”
To Brady he sounds like Jim Morrison after a prefrontal lobotomy. Then he yells jubilantly:
“What'll cure me, guys?”

The audience knows, and roars out the words as the band kicks in full-force.

“BABY, BABY, YOU'VE GOT THE LOVE THAT I NEED . . . YOU AND I, WE GOT IT BAD . . . LIKE NOTHIN' THAT I EVER HAD . . .”

Brady smiles. It is the beatific smile of a troubled man who at long last finds himself at peace. He glances down at the yellow glow of the ready-lamp, wondering if he will live long enough to see it turn green. Then he looks back at the niggergirl, who is on her feet, clapping and shaking her tail.

Look at me, he thinks. Look at me, Barbara. I want to be the last thing you ever see.

39

Barbara takes her eyes from the wonders onstage long enough to see if the bald man in the wheelchair is having as much fun as she is. He has become, for reasons she doesn't understand,
her
man in the wheelchair. Is it because he reminds her of someone? Surely that can't be, can it? The only crippled person she knows is Dustin Stevens at school, and he's just a little second-grader. Still, there's
something
familiar about the crippled bald man.

This whole evening has been like a dream, and what she sees now also seems dreamlike. At first she thinks the man in the wheelchair is waving to her, but that's not it. He's smiling . . . and he's giving her the finger. At first she can't believe it, but that's it, all right.

There's a woman approaching him, climbing the aisle stairs two by two, going so fast she's almost running. And behind her, almost on her heels . . . maybe all this really
is
a dream, because it looks like . . .

“Jerome?” Barbara tugs Tanya's sleeve to draw her attention away from the stage. “Mom, is that . . .”

Then everything happens.

40

Holly's initial thought is that Jerome could have gone first after all, because the bald and bespectacled man in the wheelchair isn't—for the moment, at least—even looking at the stage. He's turned away and staring at someone in the center section, and it appears to her that the vile son of a bitch is actually flipping that someone the bird. But it's too late to change places with Jerome, even though he's the one with the revolver. The man's got his hand beneath the framed picture in his lap and she's terribly afraid that means he's ready to do it. If so, there are only seconds left.

At least he's on the aisle, she thinks.

She has no plan, the extent of Holly's planning usually goes no further than what snack she might prepare to go with her evening movie, but for once her troubled mind is clear, and when she reaches the man they're looking for, the words that come out of her mouth seem exactly right.
Divinely
right. She has to bend down and shout to be heard over the driving, amplified beat of the band and the delirious shrieks of the girls in the audience.

“Mike? Mike Sturdevant, is that you?”

Brady turns from his contemplation of Barbara Robinson, startled, and as he does, Holly swings the knotted sock Bill Hodges has given her—his Happy Slapper—with adrenaline-loaded strength. It flies a short hard arc and connects with Brady's bald head just above the temple. She can't hear the sound it makes over the combined cacophony of the band and the fans, but she sees a section of skull the size of a small teacup cave in. His hands fly up, the one that was hidden knocking Frankie's picture to the floor, where the glass shatters. His eyes are sort of looking at her, except now they're rolled up in their sockets so that only the bottom halves of the irises show.

Next to Brady, the girl with the stick-thin legs is staring at Holly, shocked. So is Barbara Robinson. No one else is paying any attention. They're on their feet, clapping and swaying and singing along.

“I WANT TO LOVE YOU MY WAY . . . WE'LL DRIVE THE BEACHSIDE HIGHWAY . . .”

Brady's mouth is opening and closing like the mouth of a fish that has just been pulled from a river.

“IT'S GONNA BE A NEW DAY . . . I'LL GIVE YOU KISSES ON THE MIDWAY!”

Jerome lays a hand on Holly's shoulder and shouts to be heard.
“Holly! What's he got under his shirt?”

She hears him—he's so close she can feel his breath puff against her cheek with each word—but it's like one of those radio transmissions that come wavering in late at night, some DJ or gospel-shouter halfway across the country.

“Here's a little present from Jibba-Jibba, Mike,” she says, and hits him again in exactly the same place, only even harder, deepening the divot in his skull. The thin skin splits and the blood comes, first in beads and then in a freshet, pouring down his neck to color the top of his blue 'Round Here tee-shirt a muddy purple. This time Brady's head snaps all the way over onto his right shoulder and he begins to shiver and shuffle his feet. She thinks, Like a dog dreaming about chasing rabbits.

Before Holly can hit him again—and she really really wants to—Jerome grabs her and spins her around. “He's out, Holly! He's out! What are you doing?”

“Therapy,” she says, and then all the strength runs out of her legs. She sits down in the aisle. Her fingers relax on the knotted end of the Happy Slapper, and it drops beside one sneaker.

Onstage, the band plays on.

41

A hand is tugging at his arm.

“Jerome?
Jerome!
”

He turns from Holly and the slumped form of Brady Hartsfield to see his little sister, her eyes wide with dismay. His mom is right behind her. In his current hyper state, Jerome isn't a bit surprised, but at the same time he knows the danger isn't over.

“What did you
do
?” a girl is shouting. “What did you
do
to him?”

Jerome wheels back the other way and sees the girl sitting one wheelchair in from the aisle reaching for Hartsfield. Jerome shouts,
“Holly! Don't let her do that!”

Holly lurches to her feet, stumbles, and almost falls on top of Brady. It surely would have been the last fall of her life, but she manages to keep her feet and grab the wheelchair girl's hands. There's hardly any strength in them, and she feels an instant of pity. She bends down close and shouts to be heard.
“Don't touch him! He's got a bomb, and I think it's hot!”

The wheelchair girl shrinks away. Perhaps she understands; perhaps she's only afraid of Holly, who's looking even wilder than usual just now.

Brady's shivers and twitches are strengthening. Holly doesn't like that, because she can see something, a dim yellow light, under his shirt. Yellow is the color of trouble.

“Jerome?” Tanya says. “What are you doing here?”

An usher is approaching. “Clear the aisle!” the usher shouts over the music. “You have to clear the aisle, folks!”

Jerome grasps his mother's shoulders. He pulls her to him until their foreheads are touching. “You have to get out of here, Mom. Take the girls and go. Right now. Make the usher go with you. Tell her your daughter is sick. Please don't ask questions.”

She looks in his eyes and doesn't ask questions.

“Mom?” Barbara begins. “What . . .” The rest is lost in the crash of the band and the choral accompaniment from the audience. Tanya takes Barbara by the arm and approaches the usher. At the same time she's motioning for Hilda, Dinah, and Betsy to join her.

Jerome turns back to Holly. She's bent over Brady, who continues to shudder as cerebral storms rage inside his head. His feet tapdance, as if even in unconsciousness he's really feeling that goodtime 'Round Here beat. His hands fly aimlessly around, and when one of them approaches the dim yellow light under his tee-shirt, Jerome bats it away like a basketball guard rejecting a shot in the paint.

“I want to get out of here,” the wheelchair girl moans. “I'm scared.”

Jerome can relate to that—he also wants to get out of here, and he's scared to death—but for now she has to stay where she is. Brady has her blocked in, and they don't dare move him. Not yet.

Holly is ahead of Jerome, as she so often is. “You have to stay still for now, honey,” she tells the wheelchair girl. “Chill out and enjoy the concert.” She's thinking how much simpler this would be if she'd managed to kill him instead of just bashing his sicko brains halfway to Peru. She wonders if Jerome would shoot Hartsfield if she asked him to. Probably not. Too bad. With all this noise, he could probably get away with it.

“Are you
crazy
?” the wheelchair girl asks wonderingly.

“People keep asking me that,” Holly says, and—very ­gingerly—she begins to pull up Brady's tee-shirt. “Hold his hands,” she tells Jerome.

“What if I can't?”

“Then OJ the motherfucker.”

The sell-out audience is on its feet, swaying and clapping. The beachballs are flying again. Jerome takes one quick glance behind him and sees his mother leading the girls up the aisle to the exit, the usher accompanying them. That's one for our side, at least, he thinks, then turns back to the business at hand. He grabs Brady's flying hands and pins them together. The wrists are slippery with sweat. It's like holding a couple of struggling fish.

“I don't know what you're doing, but do it fast!” he shouts at Holly.

The yellow light is coming from a plastic gadget that looks like a customized TV remote control. Instead of numbered channel buttons, there's a white toggle-switch, the kind you use to flip on a light in your living room. It's standing straight up. There's a wire leading from the gadget. It goes under the man's butt.

Brady makes a grunting sound and suddenly there's an acidic smell. His bladder has let go. Holly looks at the peebag on his lap, but it doesn't seem to be attached to anything. She grabs it and hands it to the wheelchair girl. “Hold this.”

“Eeuw, it's
pee
,” the wheelchair girl says, and then: “It's
not
pee. There's something inside. It looks like clay.”

“Put it down.” Jerome has to shout to be heard over the music. “Put it on the floor.
Gently
.” Then, to Holly: “Hurry the hell up!”

Holly is studying the yellow ready-lamp. And the little white nub of the toggle-switch. She could push it forward or back and doesn't dare do either one, because she doesn't know which way is
off
and which way is
boom
.

She plucks Thing Two from where it was resting on Brady's stomach. It's like picking up a snake that's bloated with poison, and takes all her courage. “Hold his hands, Jerome, you just hold his hands.”

“He's
slippery
,” Jerome grunts.

We already knew that, Holly thinks. One slippery son of a bitch. One slippery
motherfucker
.

She turns the gadget over, willing her hands not to shake and trying not to think of the four thousand people who don't even know their lives now depend on poor messed-up Holly Gibney. She looks at the battery cover. Then, holding her breath, she slides it down and lets it drop to the floor.

Inside are two double-A batteries. Holly hooks a fingernail onto the ridge of one and thinks, God, if You're there, please let this work. For a moment she can't make her finger move. Then one of Brady's hands slips free of Jerome's grip and slaps her upside the head.

Holly jerks and the battery she's been worrying pops out of the compartment. She waits for the world to explode, and when it doesn't, she turns the remote control over. The yellow light has gone out. Holly begins to cry. She grabs the master wire and yanks it free of Thing Two.

“You can let him go n—” she begins, but Jerome already has. He's hugging her so tight she can hardly breathe. Holly doesn't care. She hugs him back.

The audience is cheering wildly.

“They think they're cheering for the song, but they're really cheering for us,” she manages to whisper in Jerome's ear. “They just don't know it yet. Now let me go, Jerome. You're hugging me too tight. Let me go before I pass out.”

42

Hodges is still sitting on the crate in the storage area, and not alone. There's an elephant sitting on his chest. Something's happening. Either the world is going away from him or he's going away from the world. He thinks it's the latter. It's like he's inside a camera and the camera is going backwards on one of those dolly-track things. The world is as bright as ever, but getting smaller, and there's a growing circle of darkness around it.

He holds on with all the force of his will, waiting for either an explosion or no explosion.

One of the roadies is bending over him and asking if he's all right. “Your lips are turning blue,” the roadie informs him. Hodges waves him away. He must listen.

Music and cheers and happy screams. Nothing else. At least not yet.