Christine

Things were going to be better all the way “around. He would mend his fences at home—in fact, could start tonight by watching some TV with his folks, just like in the old days. And he would win Leigh back. If she didn’t like the car, no matter how weird her reasons were, fine. Maybe he would, even buy another car sometime soon and tell her he had traded Christine in. He could keep Christine-here, rent space. What she didn’t know wouldn’t hurt her. And Will. This was going to be his last run for Will, this coming weekend. That bullshit had gone just about far enough; he could feel it. Let Will think he was a chicken if that’s what he wanted to think. A felony rap for interstate transport of unlicensed cigarettes and alcohol wouldn’t look all that hot on his college application, would it? A Federal felony rap. No. Not too cool.

He laughed a little. He did feel better. Purged. On his way over to the garage he ate his pizza even though it was cold. He was ravenous. It had struck him a bit peculiar that one piece was gone—in fact, it made him a bit uneasy—but he dismissed it. He had probably eaten it during that strange blank period, or maybe even thrown it out the window. Whoo, that had been spooky. No more of that shit. And he had laughed again, this time a little less shakily.

Now be got out of the car, slammed the door, and started toward Will’s office to find out what he had for him to do this evening. It suddenly occurred to him that tomorrow was the last day of school before the Christmas vacation, and that put an extra spring in his step.

That was when the side door, the one beside the big carport door, opened and a man let himself in. It was Junkins. Again.

He saw Arnie looking at him and raised a hand. “Hi, Arnie.”

Arnie glanced at Will. Through the glass, Will shrugged and went on eating his hoagie.

“Hello,” Arnie said. “What can I do for you?”

“Well, I don’t know,” Junkins said. He smiled, and then his eyes slid past Arnie to Christine, appraising, looking for damage. “Do you want to do something for me?”

“Not fucking likely,” Arnie said. He could feel his head starting to throb with rage again.

Rudy Junkins smiled, apparently unoffended.

“I just dropped by. How you been?”

He stuck out his hand. Arnie only looked at it. Not embarrassed in the slightest, Junkins dropped his hand, walked around to Christine, and began examining her again. Arnie watched him, his lips pressed together so tightly they were white. He felt a fresh pulse of anger each time Junkins dropped one of his hands onto Christine.

“Look, maybe you ought to buy a season ticket or something,” Arnie said. “Like to the Steelers games.”

Junkins turned and looked at him questioningly.

“Never mind,” Arnie said sullenly.

Junkins went on looking. “You know,” he said, it’s a hell of a strange thing, what happened to Buddy Repperton and those other two boys, isn’t it?”

Fuck it, Arnie thought. I’m not going to fool around with this shitter.

“I was in Philadelphia. Chess tourney.”

“I know,” Junkins said.

“Jesus! You’re really checking me out!”

Junkins walked back to Arnie. There was no smile on his face now. “Yes, that’s right,” he said. “I’m checking you out. Three of the boys I believe were involved in vandalizing your car are now dead, along with a fourth boy who was apparently just along for the ride on Tuesday night. That’s a pretty big coincidence. It’s nine miles too big for me. You bet I’m checking you out.”

Arnie stared at him, surprised out of his anger, uncertain. “I thought it was an accident… that they were liquored up and speeding and—”

“There was another car involved,” Junkins said.

“How do you know that?”

“There were tracks in the snow, for one thing. Unfortunately, the wind had blurred them too much for us to be able to get a decent photo. But one of the barriers at the Squantic Hills State Park gate was broken, and we found traces of red paint on it. Buddy’s Camaro wasn’t red. It was blue.”

He measured Arnie with his eyes.

“We also found traces of red paint embedded in Moochie Welch’s skin, Arnie. Can you dig that? Embedded. Do you know how hard a car has to hit a guy to embed paint in his skin?”

“You ought to go out there and start counting red cars,” Arnie said coldly. “You’ll be up to twenty before you get to Basin Drive, I guarantee it.”

“You bet,” Junkins said. “But we sent our samples to the FBI lab in Washington, where they have samples of every shade of paint they ever used in Detroit. We got the results back today. Any idea what they were? Want to guess?”

Arnie’s heart was thudding dully in his chest; there was a corresponding beat at his temples. “Since you’re here, I’d guess it was Autumn Red. Christine’s colour.”

“Give that man a Kewpie doll,” Junkins said. He lit a cigarette and looked at Arnie through the smoke. He had abandoned any pretence of good humour; his gaze was stony.