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"How lasses perched on the end of his nose
"Just one," she said
He gave her a piece of paper on which to fill out her name and address She put down Mrs Jack Morrison, 1972 Linden avenue, Richinia across the top of the paper was Luxmore Motel, Santa Rosa, California
"Sweet little baby, yes she is!" The clerk reached over the registration desk to tickle Drummer under the chin Drury, and he squirmed restlessly in Mary&039;s arms
"My son," Mary said She dreay, and the clerk offered a chilly sot her room key "I&039;ll need a wake-up call," she decided "Five o&039;clock"
"Five o&039;clock Wake-up call for Room Twenty-six Got it, Mrs - " He checked the paper "Mrs Morrison" He pushed his glasses off his nose "ah cash in advance, please"
Mary paid hi into the cool, damp air of northern California It was just after two-thirty in the hts on I-101, which cut through Santa Rosa and headed north toward the redwood ranges a fifth of a hway 116 cut across the verdant, rolling hills toward the Pacific Ocean, and eleven ot into the Cherokee, drove it along the nated space She was too weary to care if the night clerk noticed that a wo The revolver in the bag over her shoulder, she unlocked the door of Room 26 and took Drummer in, then closed the door and bolted it
She was trele bed The curtains were decorated with faded blue roses, and stains ray carpet a red sticker on the television set cautioned that the X-rated closed-circuit channel should be viewed only by arette butts floating in the toilet She didn&039;t look at herself in the mirror That chore would be for later She sat down on the bed, and springs groaned The ceiling, was riddled with earthquake cracks That was California for you, she mused Thirty dollars for a ten-dollar room
God, her body hurt Her mind was tired; it craved a blank slate But there was still much to be done before she could sleep
She lay on her back next to Drun to them if you really noticed Like Chinese quill strokes Shouldn&039;t have spent that hour in Berkeley, she thought That was du through, but there was so about Berkeley that she couldn&039;t leave it without seeing the old places The Golden Sun coffee shop, where she had first met Jack, the Truck On Down head shop, where she and the other Stor pipes, Cody&039;s Bookstore, where political discussions of the Mindfuck State had e with care for the downtrodden masses, the Mad Italian pizzeria, where CinCin Oer and slip her brothers and sisters free pizzas: all those were still there, agednew paint, but still there, a vision of the world that used to be
a young world, Mary thought a world full of brave dreaet up in a minute Have to take a hot shoash her hair, and squeeze the watery yellow pus froet herself ready for Jack
But she was so tired, and all she wanted to do was crash It wouldn&039;t be right to let Jack see her like this, grimy with road dirt, her teeth unbrushed and her armpits foul That hy she&039;d stopped at the 7 Eleven just before the Oakland Bay Bridge; there was a sack in the Cherokee that she had to go get
Drury cry With an effort she roused herself, got his formula ready, and stuck the bottle&039;s nipple into his mouth as he sucked on it, he stared at her with eyes that were every bit as blue as Jack&039;s Kar to look at Drummer and see hi in the corner, next to a lamp with a crooked shade "You&039;re scared shitless, Mary irl aren&039;t youi"
"No," she answered, and the lie one "I&039;m not scared!" Mary said stridently She concentrated on feeding her baby Her stoht hand twitched around the baby&039;s bottle
The thought crept in again, as it had several times today, like a little black snake at a picnic: what if Jack weren&039;t one of those three h," she said to Druhtly on the nipple "It&039;s him in the picture Didi kneas him" She frowned Her head hurt when Didi&039;s face caraph with saw-toothed edges and another little black snake crawled into her realm of summer where was the bitchi
The bitch knew all about Lord Jack and Freestone Benedict Bedelia had told her So where was the bitch right now, as the clock ticked toward threei
When she found Jack, they would go away sorow soht and look at the stars It would be a mellow place, that farm where the three of them would live in a triad of love and harmony
She wanted that so very very badly
Mary finished feeding Dru heavy Hers were, too She lay with Drummer in the crook of her ar Have to get up and bathe, she thought Wash s, the heavy details of life
She closed her eyes
Jack alking toward her, wearing a white robe His golden hair hung over his shoulders, his eyes blue and clear, his face bearded and chiseled God was at his side, in black leather Mary could sh bay s behind Jack She knehere they were: the Thunder House, on Drakes Bay about forty miles from the Luxmore The beautiful chapel of love, the place of the Storm Front&039;s birth Jack walked across the pinewood floor, his feet in Birkenstock sandals He was sht with joy, and he reached out to take his gift
"She&039;s scared shitless," she heard God, that demon, say
Jack&039;s ar of a telephone ca
She blinked, her brain sluggish in its turn toward thinking Phone ringing Phone Right there, next to the bed She picked up the receiver "Yeahi"
"It&039;s five o&039;clock, Mrs Morrison"
"Okay Thanks" The clerk hung up Mary Terror&039;s heart began to hammer
The day had come
Her clothes were daeance She let Druot her suitcase and the 7 Eleven sack from the Cherokee The sky was still black, tendrils of littered up above; it was going to be a sunny, California-groovy day In the bathrooged, there were bruises on her knees and h wound was a dark, festered crust, yellow pus glistening in the dried blood The bite on her forearh to try to squeeze out soht fresh blisters of sweat up on her cheeks and forehead She turned on the shower&039;s taps,the water&039;s temperature to lukewarm, and she stepped into the shoith a new cake of soap she&039;d bought that smelted of strawberries
Her shampoo, also purchased at the 7 Eleven, left her hair with the aroirls hite teeth and shiny tresses The water and suds washed the grime off her body, but Mary left her wounds alone She had no electric dryer, so she toweled her hair and ran a coh it She swabbed under her ares Then she dressed in a clean pair of bluejeans - painfully tight on her swollen leg, but it couldn&039;t be helped - and a pale blue blouse with red stripes She shrugged into a black pullover sweater that had a mothball smell in it, but it made her look not so heavy She put on dean socks and her boots Then she reached down to the bottoan to fix her face It had been a while since she&039;d done this, and her right hand began to spasm, so she had to use the left, aardly as she worked, she watched herself in the , and it wasn&039;t hard to see the young girl who used to live in that face She wished her hair were long and blond again instead of reddish-brown and cropped short She recalled that he liked to curl her hair around his fingers There were dark hollows, purple as bruises, beneath her eyes Put a little more e on the cheeks, just a touch to give her face soood Blue eyeshadow on the puffy lids No, too ht sheen of rose-colored lipstick There all done
Twenty years fell away She looked at her face in the mirror, and she saw the chick Lord Jack loved He would love her twice as ht hi hiht ht throw up in her terror, but she hung on and the sickness passed She brushed her teeth twice, and gargled with Scope
It was nearing six o&039;clock It was tio to Freestone and find her future
Mary pinned the Smiley Face button, her talisman, on the front of her sweater Then she took her suitcase out to the Cherokee, the sky just beginning to turn a whiter shade of pale She went back for Drued hi in her chest "I love you," she whispered to him "Mama loves her baby" She left the key in the room and closed the door, and then she limped to the Cherokee with Druine in the silence of the dawn
Seventeen minutes before Mary Terror turned the key, a Cutlass with a new radiator had roared past the community of Navato, thirtynorth on I-101 at seventy reen hills of Marin County rose before the highway in the faint violet light, hundreds of houses nestled in their folds, houseboats on the calm water of San Pablo Bay, peace in the misty air
There was no peace within Laura The flesh of her face was drawn tight, her eyes glassy and sunken in her skull The fingers of her right hand had craht ordeal She had slept for two hours in the office of Marco&039;s Garage, and popped the last Black Cat between Sacrah her when she&039;d seen a sign pointing the route to Santa Rosa Just to the west of Santa Rosa was Mary&039;s destination, and hers as well The hway alot on her tail; she wasn&039;t slowing do, not even for Jesus or the saints Sacra ever since
So close, so close! God, what if Mary&039;s already found hiotten there hours before! Oh God, I&039;ve got to hurry! She glanced at the speedo to vibrate "Take it easy on &039;er," Marco had urged before Laura had pulled out of the garage near seven-thirty "Once a clunker, always a clunker! You go easy on the gas and oin&039;!"
She&039;d left him four hundred and fifty dollars richer Mickey, the retarded kid who liked Batman, had waved at her and hollered, "Con said 14 MI
The Cutlass hurtled on as the orange ball of the sun began to rise
WELCOME TO FREESTONE, THE HaPPY VaLLEY TOWN
Mary drove past the sign Orange light streaked the s of shfare Grassy hills rose around the tohich had not yet awakened It was a ss, a flashing caution light, a park with a bandshell The speed lis halted their sniffing on the sidewalk, and one of thean to bark noisily at Mary as she eased past Just beyond the caution light there was a gas station - still closed, at this hour - with a pay phone out front She pulled into the station, got out of the Cherokee, and checked the phone book
Cavanaugh, Keith and Sandy 502 Muir Road
Hudley, N 1219 Overkill Road
No ho for Dean Walker, but she had the address of his auto dealership Hudley&039;s wife had given her Dean Walker Foreign Cars 677 Meacham Street Was there a map of Freestone in the phone booki No, there was not She looked around for a street ht The street she stood on was Parkway, the cross street McGill
Mary tore out the listings for Cavanaugh and Hudley, and returned to the Cherokee "Going to find hiot back on Parkway, and continued slowly in the direction she&039;d been going "He ht be married," she told Drummer, and she checked her lipstick in the rearview uise You have to do soer King where I used to work &039;Thank you ma&039;am&039; &039;Yes sir, would you like fries with that siri&039; Those kind of things If he got married, it&039;s so he can hide better But nobody knows hi with a wo her to play a role Seei"
Oh, the things she and Jack would teach their son about life and the world would be miraculous!
The next cross street was Meachaht, beside a Crocker Bank, was a brick building with a fenced-in lot that held a couple of Jaguars, a black Porsche, an assortn with blue lettering said DEaN WaLKER FOREIGN CaRS
Mary pulled up to the front of the building It was dark, nobody at work yet She took the revolver fro&039;s plate glassOn the glass-fronted door was a sign that told her the place opened at ten and closed at five She decided that today it would open three hours and thirty-eight lass with the revolver handle an alarm screamed, but she&039;d been prepared for that because she&039;d already seen the electric contact wires She reached in, found the lock and twisted it, and then she pushed through the door In the small showroom stood a red Mercedes There was a couch with a coffee table where car azines and brochures were stacked On either side of a water cooler were two doors with nameplates One said JERRY BURNES and the other said DEaN WaLKER His office was locked The alar town up, so she had to hurry She was looking for so to batter the door open hen she saw a fra brass plaques Twobroadly at the caer man with his arm over the smaller one&039;s shoulder The caption read: "Freestone Businessht, with Civitan President Lyndon Lee"
Dean Walker was big and fleshy and had a slick sales and a power tie He was black