He opened his eyes and the first thing he saw was that little girl who had been cruising around by the phonebooths, little girl seven or eight years old, looking really ragged out. Now she was carrying a big paper bag, carrying it by the bottom as if it were full of groceries or something.
But his feet, that was the thing.
They were no longer warm. They were hot.
Eddie Delgardo looked down and screamed,
“Godamighty Jeesus!”
His shoes were on fire.
Eddie leaped to his feet. Heads turned. Some woman saw what was happening and yelled in alarm. Two security guards who had been noodling with an Allegheny Airlines ticket clerk looked over to see what was going on.
None of what meant doodly-squat to Eddie Delgardo. Thoughts of Sally Bradford and his revenge of love upon her were the furthest things from his mind. His army-issue shoes were burning merrily. The cuffs of his dress greens were catching. He was sprinting across the concourse, trailing smoke, as if shot from a catapult. The women’s room was closer, and Eddie, whose sense of self preservation was exquisitely defined, hit the door straight-arm and ran inside without a moment’s hesitation.
A young woman was coming out of one of the stalls, her skirt rucked up to her waist, adjusting her Underalls. She saw Eddie, the human torch, and let out a scream that the bathroom’s tiled walls magnified enormously. There was a babble of “What was that?” and “What’s going on?” from the few other occupied stalls. Eddie caught the paytoilet door before it could swing back all the way and latch. He grabbed both sides of the stall at the top and hoisted himself feet first into the toilet. There was a hissing sound and a remarkable billow of steam.
The two security guards burst in. “Hold it, you in there!” one of them cried. He had drawn his gun. “Come out of there with your hands laced on top of your head!” “You mind waiting until I put my feet out?” Eddie Delgardo snarled.
7
Charlie was back. And she was crying again. “What happened, babe?” “I got the money but… it got away from me again, Daddy… there was a man… a soldier… I couldn’t help it…” Andy felt the fear creep up on him. It was muted by the pain in his head and down the back of his neck, but it was there. “Was… was there a fire, Charlie?”
She couldn’t speak, but nodded. Tears coursed down her cheeks.
“Oh my God,” Andy whispered, and made himself get to his feet.
That broke Charlie completely. She put her face in her hands and sobbed helplessly, rocking back and forth.
A knot of people had gathered around the door of the women’s room. It had been propped open, but Andy couldn’t see… and then he could. The two security guards who had gone running down there were leading a tough-looking young man in an army uniform out of the bathroom and toward the security office. The young man was jawing at them loudly, and most of what he had to say was inventively profane. His uniform was mostly gone below the knees, and he was carrying two dripping, blackened things that might once have been shoes. Then they were gone into the office, the door slamming behind them. An excited babble of conversation swept the terminal.
Andy sat down again and put his arm around Charlie. It was very hard to think now; his thoughts were tiny silver fish swimming around in a great black sea of throbbing pain. But he had to do the best he could. He needed Charlie if they were going to get out of this.
“He’s all right, Charlie. He’s okay. They just took him down to the security office. Now, what happened?”
Through diminishing tears, Charlie told him. Overhearing the soldier on the phone. Having a few random thoughts about him, a feeling that he was trying to trick the girl he was talking to. “And then, when I was coming back to you, I saw him… and before I could stop it… it happened. It just got away. I could have hurt him, Daddy. I could have hurt him bad. I set him on fire!”
“Keep your voice down,” he said. “I want you to listen to me, Charlie. I think this is the most encouraging thing that’s happened in some time.” “Y-you do?” She looked at him in frank surprise.
“You say it got away from you,” Andy said, forcing the words. “And it did. But not like before. It only got away a little bit. What happened was dangerous, honey, but… you might have set his hair on fire. Or his face.”
She winced away from that thought, horrified. Andy turned her face gently back to his.
“It’s a subconscious thing, and it always goes out at someone you don’t like,” he said. “But… you didn’t really hurt that guy, Charlie. You…” But the rest of it was gone and only the pain was left. Was he still talking? For a moment he didn’t even know.
Charlie could still feel that thing, that Bad Thing, racing around in her head, wanting to get away again, to do something else. It was like a small, vicious, and rather stupid animal. You had to let it out of its cage to do something like getting money from the phones… but it could do something else, something really bad.
(like mommy in the kitchen oh mom I’m sorry)
before you could get it back in again. But now it didn’t matter. She wouldn’t think about it now, she wouldn’t think about
(the bandages my mommy has to wear bandages because i hurt her)
any of it now. Her father was what mattered now. He was slumped over in his TV chair, his face stamped with pain. He was paper white. His eyes were bloodshot.
Oh, Daddy, she thought, I’d trade even-Steven with you if I could. You’ve got something that hurts you but it never gets out of its cage. I’ve got something that doesn’t hurt me at all but oh sometimes I get so scared-
“I’ve got the money,” she said. “I didn’t go to all the telephones, because the bag was getting heavy and I was afraid it would break.” She looked at him anxiously. “Where can you go, Daddy? You have to lie down.”.
Andy reached into the bag and slowly began to transfer the change in handfuls to the pockets of his corduroy coat. He wondered if this night would ever end. He wanted to do nothing more than grab another cab and go into town and check them into the first hotel or motel in sight… but he was afraid. Cabs could be traced. And he had a strong feeling that the people from the green car were still close behind.
He tried to put together what he knew about the Albany airport. First of all, it was the Albany County Airport; it really wasn’t in Albany at all but in the town of Colonie. Shaker country-hadn’t his grandfather told him once that this was Shaker country? Or had all of them died out now? What about highways? Turnpikes? The answer came slowly. There was a road… some sort of Way. Northway or Southway, he thought.
He opened his eyes and looked at Charlie. “Can you walk aways, kiddo? Couple of miles, maybe?” “Sure.” She had slept and felt relatively fresh. “Can you?” That was the question. He didn’t know. “I’m going to try,” he said. “I think we ought to walk out to the main road and try to catch a ride, hon.” “Hitchhike?” she asked.
He nodded. “Tracing a hitchhiker is pretty hard, Charlie. If we’re lucky, we’ll get a ride with someone who’ll be in Buffalo by morning.” And if we’re not, we’ll still be standing in the breakdown lane with our thumbs out when that green car comes rolling up.
“If you think it’s okay,” Charlie said doubtfully.
“Come on,” he said, “help me.”
Gigantic bolt of pain as he got to his feet. He swayed a little, closed his eyes, then opened them again. People looked surreal. Colours seemed too bright. A woman walked by on high heels, and every click on the airport tiles was the sound of a vault door being slammed.