The conversation between Daphne and Frank Marrity would have ended at least an hour ago, and Frank Marrity would be asleep by now in his truck in the hospital parking lot.
Derek knew vividly what had taken place at the hospital. Frank Marrity had fallen asleep over Tristram Shandy in a chair in Daphne's room, but he had awakened when a man peeked in at the door of the room; the man had apologized and walked away down the corridor, but by that time Daphne had been awake too.
She had been uncommunicative before she'd gone to sleep, presumably woozy from the anesthetic; but now she had seemed alert, and not happy to see her father in the room.
There was a pad on the desklike table by her bed, Derek knew, and Daphne had written on it, u cut my throat in letters that tore the sheet of paper in a couple of places.
Frank Marrity, poor doomed soul, had said something like, "I had to, you were choking." coughing, she wrote. "Daphne," Marrity had protested, "no, you weren't coughing, you were choking. You would have died. I love you, I saved your life." She'd had to tear off the torn sheet of paper to write more, and then she had written: I was OK — u cut my throat — dont want to be alone w u. And of course after he had protested again that he had done it to save her, that he loved her, she had written I hate you.
At that point, Derek knew, Frank Marrity had stumbled blindly out to his truck and eventually gone to sleep on the seat, with some serious drinking indicated in the near future.
Probably one gang or the other had put microphones in the hospital room, and taped Marrity's half of the conversation. Derek Marrity didn't need to hear a recording of it.
One pair of taillights shone on the dark highway a hundred yards ahead of him, and in his rearview mirror two swaying headlights were coming up fast. It didn't look like a police car — probably a drunk. Good, thought Derek as he steered into the slower right-hand lane, any cops who are out here tonight will go after him, and ignore this sedate old Rambler. If it is old. I forget.
Then a new white Honda came up fast from a dark street on the right and rocked into a squealing right turn directly in front of Derek; he wrenched the wheel to the left, but suddenly the car that had been a hundred yards ahead was braking hard, and looming up fast in front of him in the left lane; and the car speeding up from behind swung wide to the left, as if to pass Derek, but instead of shooting on past in the empty oncoming lanes, its hood dipped as it abruptly slowed.
Derek stamped on the brake and the tires screeched as he braced himself against the wheel. The old Rambler rocked to a halt, shaking on its suspension. His vodka bottle tumbled out from under the seat and rapped his left heel.
His face was cold with sudden sweat. They've got me bracketed, he thought tensely — I could shift to reverse, but I know I wouldn't get away in this old wreck. I can talk to them, I can make a deal with them — they won't be rough, they've got no reason to be rough with an old man—
The Rambler was still shaking, in fact it was shaking so rapidly that the motion was a harsh vibration now, accompanied by a loud rattling hiss like a rain of fine gravel on the roof and the hood and even in the ashtray, though the windshield showed empty black night; only because it moved so fast did he notice the needle on the temperature gauge swing to the right.
And somehow he was getting an electric shock from the plastic steering wheel.
Derek's heart was racing, and he kept his foot pressed on the brake as he would cling to a tree trunk in a hurricane.
Then the shaking and the noise and the electric current were gone, and he almost fell forward against the wheel as if they'd been a pressure he'd been leaning against.
The Rambler was stopped, though the engine was still running. He made himself uncramp his hands from the wheel and focus his eyes out through the windshield, and he saw that his car was positioned diagonally across the center divider lines in the middle of the highway.
No other cars were visible at all, up or down the wide light-pooled lanes; no lighted signs, just an anonymous band of blue neon far away in the dark. The night was perfectly silent except for the grumble of the Rambler's idling engine. Shakily he reached for the key to turn it off, then noticed that the temperature-gauge needle was back down in its usual ten o'clock position.
Did I pass out? he wondered, his forehead still chilly with sweat. And did the guys in those other cars just leave?
Derek started the engine and cautiously lifted his foot from the brake and stepped on the gas pedal, and the car jumped forward. For a moment he thought the stress must have knocked a valve or lifter back into its proper position, and that the car was running uncharacteristically well; then he realized that it was his right leg that was performing smoothly.
His heart was still hammering in his chest, and he tried to take deep breaths. When he had straightened the car in the left lane and got it moving steadily at thirty miles per hour, he reached down and pressed his fist against his right thigh.
It didn't hurt at all.
He steered the Rambler across the right lane to the curb in front of a lightless cinder-block thrift store, clanked the shift lever into park, and cautiously climbed out of the car, leaving the engine running.
In the chilly night air he took two steps out into the street, then two steps back. Then he stood on his right foot and hopped around in a circle.
His teeth were cold, for his mouth was open; he realized that he was grinning like a fool.
He did three deep-knee bends, then crouched and crossed his arms and tried to kick like a dancing Russian. He tumbled over onto his back on the cold asphalt, but he was laughing and bicycling both legs in the air.
At last he rolled lithely to his feet and slid back into the driver's seat.
"I'm as giddy as a drunken man," he panted, quoting Ebeneezer Scrooge.
He took a deep breath and let it out, staring at the dark low buildings and roadside pepper trees that dwindled with perspective in the big volume of night air in front of him.
But in fact he wasn't drunk. This was sobriety — not the shaky, anxious sobriety of a few hours or days, but the easy clarity of months without the stuff.
She must have died after all, he thought. I can go to the hospital now. And — and I no longer have any reason to hate hospitals! And there are lots and lots of things I've got to tell Frank Marrity — he's going to be a very wealthy, healthy, contented man.
North of the San Bernardino city limits, Waterman Avenue becomes Rim of the World Highway as it curls steeply up into the mountains around Lake Arrowhead. The turns are sharp and the drops below the guardrails are often precipitous; the steep mountain shoulders are furred with towering pine trees, but at 3:00 a.m. the only view was of the lights of San Bernardino, far below to the south, dimmed and reddened now by veils of smoke. Forest fires on the other side of the mountain lit the fumey sky like a Hieronymus Bosch painting of Hell. Aurora Infernalis, thought Denis Rascasse.
The bus was pulled off the highway at Panorama Point, a wide sand-paved rest area, and Rascasse and Golze stood in the smoky darkness outside the bus, a yard back from the knee-high rail. The abyss below the stout railing was called Devil's Canyon, East Fork.
Golze glanced back toward the bus. "How's our boy, Fred?" he called.
From one of the opened windows in the dark bus came the driver's voice: "Breathing, through his nose."