“You goshdarn bet,” the cleaning woman said. She set her Windex bottle down, crossed to the doors (sparing Ralph a final dark look which said You’re old but I just goshdarn bet you still have a penis down there somewhere), and went out.
As soon as she was gone, Lois leaned over the desk. “Barbara, my friend and I have to talk to Gretchen this morning,” she said.
“Face-to-face.”
“She’s not here. She’s at High Ridge.”
“Tell us how to get there.”
Richards’s gaze drifted to Ralph. He found her gray, pupilless eyesockets profoundly unsettling. It was like looking at a piece of classic statuary which had somehow come to life. Her dark-green aura had paled considerably as well. ht. It’s been temporarily overlaid by Lois’s gray, that’s all.
Lois glanced briefly around, followed Barbara Richards’s gaze to Ralph, then turned back to her again. “Yes, he’s a man, but this time it’s okay. I promise you that. Neither one of us means any harm to Gretchen Tillbury or any of the women at High Ridge, but we have to talk to her, so tell us how to get there.” She touched Richards’s hand again, and more gray flashed up Richards’s arm.
“Don’t hurt her,” Ralph said.
“I won’t, but she’s going to talk.” She bent closer to Richards.
“Where is it? Come on, Barbara.”
“You take Route 33 out of Derry,” she said. “The old Newport Road. After you’ve gone about ten miles, there’ll be a big red fart-nhouse on your left. There are two barns behind it. You take your first left after that-” The cleaning woman came back in. “Peter didn’t hear-” She stopped abruptly, perhaps not liking the way Lois was bent over her friend’s desk, perhaps not liking the blank look in her friend’s eyes.
“Barbara? Are you all ri-”
“Be quiet,” Ralph said in a low, friendly voice. “They’re talking.”
He took the cleaning woman’s arm just above the elbow, feeling a brief but powerful pulse of energy as he did so. For a moment all the colors in the world brightened further. The cleaning woman’s name was Rachel Anderson. She’d been married once, to a man who’d beaten her hard and often until he disappeared eight years ago. Now she had a dog and her friends at WomanCare, and that was enough.
“Oh sure,” Rachel Anderson said in a dreamy, thoughtful voice.
“They’re talking, and Peter says everything’s okay, so I guess I better just be quiet.”
“What a good idea,” Ralph said, still holding her upper arm lightly, Lois took a quick look around to confirm Ralph had the situation under control, then turned back to Barbara Richards once again.
“Take a left after the red farmhouse with the two barns. Okay, I’ve got that. What then?”
“You’ll be on a dirt road. It goes up a long hill-about a mile and a half-and then ends at a white farmhouse. That’s High Ridge.
It’s got the most lovely view-”
“I’ll bet,” Lois said. “Barbara, it was great to see you again. Now my friend and I-”
“Great to see you, too, Lois,” Richards said in a distant, uninterested voice.
“Now my friend and I are going to leave. Everything is all right.”
“Good.”
“You won’t need to remember any of this,” Lois said.
“Absolutely not.”
Lois started to turn away, then turned back and plucked up the piece of paper she had taken from her purse. It had fallen to the desk when Lois grabbed the woman’s wrist.
“Why don’t you go back to work, Rachel?” Ralph asked the cleaning lady. He let go of her arm carefully, ready to grab it again at once if she showed signs of needing reinforcement.
“Yes, I better go back to work,” she said, sounding much more friendly. “I want to be done here by noon, so I can go out to High Ridge and help make signs.”
Lois joined Ralph as Rachel Anderson drifted back to her cart of cleaning supplies. Lois looked both amazed and a little shaky.
“They’ll be okay, won’t they, Ralph?”
“Yes, I’m sure they will be. Are you all right? Not going to faint or anything like that?”
“I’m okay. Can you remember the directions?”
“Of course-she’s talking about the place that used to be Barrett’s Orchards. Carolyn and I used to go out there every fall to pick apples and buy cider until they sold out in the early eighties. To think that’s High Ridge.”
“Be amazed later, Ralph-I really am starving to death.”
“All right. What was the note, by the way? The note about the niece with the full scholarship at UNH?”
She flashed him a little smile and handed it to him. it was her light-bill for the month of September.
“Were you able to leave your message?” the security guard asked as they came out and started down the walk.
“Yes, thanks,” Lois said, turning on the megawatt smile again.
She kept moving, though, and her hand was gripping Ralph’s very tightly. He knew how she felt; he hadn’t the slightest idea how long the suggestions they had given the two women would hold.
“Good,” the guard said, following them to the end of the walk, “This is gonna be a long, long day. I’ll be glad when it’s over.
You know how many security people we’re gonna have here from noon until midnight? A dozen. And that’s just here. They’re gonna have over forty at the Civic Center-that’s in addition to the local COPS.”
And it won’t do a damned bit of good, Ralph thought.
“And what for? So one blonde with an attitude can run her mouth.”
He looked at Lois as if he expected her to accuse him of being a male sexist oinker, but Lois only renewed her smile.
“I hope everything goes well for you, Officer,” Ralph said, and then led Lois back across the street to the Oldsmobile. He started it up and turned laboriously around in the WomanCare driveway, expecting either Barbara Richards, Rachel Anderson, or maybe both of them to come rushing out through the front door, eyes wild and fingers pointing. He finally got the Olds headed in the right direction and let out a long sigh of relief. Lois looked over at him and nodded in sympathy.
“I thought I was the salesman,” Ralph said, “but man, I’ve never seen a selling job like that.”
Lois smiled demurely and clasped her hands in her lap.
They were approaching the hospital parking-garage when Trigger came rushing out of his little booth, waving his arms. Ralph’s first thought was that they weren’t going to make a clean getaway after all-the security guard with the clipboard had tipped to something suspicious and phoned or radioed Trigger to stop them. Then he saw the look-out of breath but happy-and what Trigger had in his right hand.
It was a very old and very battered black wallet. It flapped open and closed like a toothless mouth with each wave of his right arm.
“Don’t worry,” Ralph said, slowing the Olds down.
“I don’t know what he wants, but I’m pretty sure it’s not trouble.
At least not yet.”
“I don’t care what he wants. All I want is to get out of here and eat some food. If he starts to show you his fishing pictures, Ralph, I’ll step on the gas pedal myself,”
“Amen,” Ralph said, knowing perfectly well that it wasn’t fishing pictures Trigger Vachon had in mind. He still wasn’t clear on everything, but one thing he knew for sure: nothing was happening by chance. Not anymore. This was the Purpose with a vengeance. He pulled up beside Trigger and pushed the button that lowered his window. It went down with an ill-tempered whine.
“Eyyy, Ralph!” Trigger cried. “I t’ought I missed you!”
“What is it, Trig? We’re in kind of a hurry-”
“Yeah, yeah, dis won’t take but a second. I got it right here in my wallet, Ralph.
Man, I keep all my paperwork in here, and I never lose a ting out of it.”
He spread the old billfold’s limp jaws, revealing a few crumpled bills, a celluloid accordion of pictures (and damned if Ralph didn’t catch a glimpse of Trigger holding up a big bass in one of them), and what looked like at least forty business cards, most of them creased and limber with age. Trigger began to go through these with the speed of a veteran bank-teller counting currency.