'Yep, I bet you are. That Mace is a bitch, idn't it? I understand you saw service in Iraq. What was that like?'
'Hot.'
Junior yodeled again. Some of the water in the glass spilled on his wrist. Were his hands shaking a little? And that inflamed left eye was leaking tears at the corner. Junior, what the hell's wrong with you? Migraine? Something else?
'Did you kill anybody?'
'Only with my cooking.'
Junior smiled as if to say Good one, good one. 'You weren't any cook over there, Baaaarbic. You were a liaison officer. That was your job description, anyway. My dad looked you up on the Internet. There isn't a lot, but there's some. He thinks you were an interrogation guy. Maybe even a black ops guy. Were you like the Army's Jason Bourne?'
Barbie said nothing.
'Come on, did you kill anybody? Or should I ask, how many did you kill? Besides the ones you bagged here, I mean.'
Barbie said nothing.
'Boy, I bet this water is good. It came from the cooler upstairs. Chilly Willy!'
Barbie said nothing.
'You guys come back with all sorts of problems. At least that's what I breed and see on TV. Right or false? True or wrong?'
It isn't a migraine making him do that. At least not any migraine I ever heard of.
'Junior, how bad does your head hurt?'
'Doesn't hurt at all.'
'How long have you been having headaches?'
Junior set the glass carefully down on the floor. He was wearing a sidearm this evening. He drew it and pointed it through the bars at Barbie. The barrel was trembling slightly. 'Do you want to keep playing doctor?'
Barbie looked at the gun. The gun wasn't in the script, he was quite sure - Big Jim had plans for him, and probably not nice ones, but they didn't include Dale Barbara being shot in a jail cell when anybody from upstairs could rush down and see that the cell door was still locked and the victim unarmed. But he didn't trust Junior to follow the script, because Junior was ill.
'No,' he said. 'No doctoring. Very sorry'
'Yeah, you're sorry, all right. One sorry shack of sit.' But Junior seemed satisfied. He holstered the gun and picked up the glass of water again. 'My theory is that you came back all f**ked up from what you saw and did over there. You know, PTSS, STD, PMS, one of those. My theory is that you just snapped. That about right?'
Barbie said nothing.
Junior didn't seem very interested, anyway. He handed the glass through the bars. 'Take it, take it.'
Barbie reached for the glass, thinking it would be snatched away again, but it wasn't. He tasted it. Not cold and not drinkable, either.
'Go on,'Junior said. 'I only shook half a shaker in, you can deal with that, can't you? You salt your bread, don't you?'
Barbie only looked at Junior.
'You salt your bread? Do you salt it, motherfucker? Huh?'
Barbie held the glass out through the bars.
'Keep it, keep it,'Junior said magnanimously. 'And take this, too.' He passed the paper and pen through the bars. Barbie took them and looked the paper over. It was pretty much what he'd expected. There was a place for him to sign his name at the bottom.
He offered it back. Junior backed away in what was almost a dance step, smiling and shaking his head. 'Keep that, too. My dad said you wouldn't sign it right away, but you think about it. And think about getting a glass of water with no salt in it. And some food. Big old cheeseburger in paradise. Maybe a Coke. There's some cold in the fridge upstairs. Wouldn't you like a nice cone Cole?'
Barbie said nothing.
'You salt your bread? Go on, don't be shy. Do you, assface?'
Barbie said nothing.
'You'll come around. When you get hungry enough and thirsty enough, you will. That's what my dad says, and he's usually right about those things. Ta-ta, Baaaarbie!
He started down the hall, then turned back.
'You never should have put your hands on me, you know. That was your big mistake.'
As he went up the stairs, Barbie observed that Junior was limping a tiny bit - or dragging. That was it, dragging to the left and pulling on the banister with his right hand to compensate. He wondered what Rusty Everett would think about such symptoms. He wondered if he'd ever get a chance to ask.
Barbie considered the unsigned confession. He would have liked to tear it up and scatter the pieces on the floor outside the cell, but that would be an unnecessary provocation. He was between the cat's claws now, and the best thing he could do was be still. He put the paper on the bunk and the pen on top of it. Then he picked up the glass of water. Salt. Seeded with salt. He could smell it. Which made him think about how Chester's Mill was now... only hadn't it already been this way? Even before the Dome? Hadn't Big Jim and his friends been seeding the ground with salt for some time now?
Barbie thought yes. He also thought that if he got out of this police station alive, it would be a miracle.
Nonetheless, they were amateurs at this; they had forgotten the toilet. Probably none of them had ever been in a country where even a little ditchwater could look good when you were carrying ninety pounds of equipment and the temperature was forty-six Celsius. Barbie poured out the salt water in the corner of the cell. Then he pissed in the glass and set it under the bunk. Then he knelt in front of the toilet bowl like a man at his prayers and drank until he could feel his belly bulging.
13
Linda was sitting on the front steps when Rusty pulled up. In the backyard, Jackie Wettington was pushing the Little Js on the swings and the girls were urging her to push harder and send them higher.
Linda came to him with her arms out. She kissed his mouth, drew back to look at him, then kissed him again with her hands on his cheeks and her mouth open. He felt the brief, humid touch of her tongue, and immediately began to get hard. She felt it and pressed against it.