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At eight-thirty Thel list that Laura had composed and the information about the computer "I’ll be back to Laura and then Chris one last hug "You’ll really be safe here, Shane?"
"I think ill If they’d discovered ere staying here, they would’ve shown up sooner"
Stefan said, "Remember, Thelma, they’re ti, they could just jaunt forward to the moment e first arrived here In fact they could’ve been waiting for us e pulled into the motel on Wednesday The fact that we’ve stayed here so long une that this was our hideout"
"My head spins," Thel a major studio’s contract was coht and rain, still wearing the wig and the horn-rie teeth in her pocket, and she drove away in her gardener’s truck
Laura, Chris, and Stefan watched her fro , and Stefan said, "She’s a special person"
"Very," Laura said "I hope to God I haven’t endangered her"
"Don’t worry, Moh broad She always says so"
That night at nine o’clock, shortly after Thelma left, Laura drove to Fat Jack’s place in Anaheim The rain was not as heavy as it had been but fell in a steady drizzle The utters still overfloater that looked like oil in the queer light of the sodiu had crept in, too, not on little cat feet but slithering like a snake on its belly
She had been loath to leave Stefan at the motel But it was not wise for hiht in his debilitated condition Besides, he could do nothing to help her
Though Stefan remained behind, Chris accompanied Laura, for she would not be separated from him for the tione with her when she had first visited Fat Jack a year ago, when she’d bought the illegally modified Uzis, so the fat man would not be surprised to see him Displeased, yes, since Fat Jack was no lover of children, but not surprised
As she drove, Laura looked frequently in the rearview mirror, in the side mirrors, and took the ence that gave newShe could not afford to be broadsided by a dunderhead as driving too fast for the road conditions Police would put in an appearance at the scene of the crash, would routinely check out her license plates, and before they even arrested her, uns would materialize and kill her and Chris
She had left her own Uzi with Stefan, although he had protested However, she was unable to abandon him with no means of self-defense She still carried the 38 Chief’s Special And fifty spare rounds were distributed in the zippered pockets of her ski jacket
Near Disneyland, when the neon-drenched phantasoria of Fat Jack’s Pizza Party Palace appeared in the fog like the starship in Close Encounters of the Third Kind descending fro, Laura was relieved She pulled into the crowded parking lot and switched off the engine The windshield wipers stopped thu sheets Orange, red, blue, yellow, green, white, purple, and pink reflections of neon gli film of water, so Laura felt curiously as if she were inside one of those old-fashioned, gaudy jukeboxes from the 1950s
Chris said, "Fat Jack’s put up ht," Laura said
They got out of the car and looked up at the blinking, flashing, rippling, winking, grotesquely flamboyant facade of Fat Jack’s Pizza Party Palace Neon was not reserved solely for the na, the roofline every , and the front doors In addition there were a pair of giant neon sunglasses on one end of the roof, and a huge neon rocketship poised for takeoff on the other end, with neon vapors perpetually curling and sparkling beneath its exhaust jets The ten-foot-dia neon clown’s face was new
The quantity of neon was so great that every falling raindrop was brightly tinted, as if it was part of a rainbow that had broken apart at nightfall Every puddle shi, but it prepared the visitor for the inside of Fat Jack’s, which seelimpse of the chaos out of which the universe had foro The waiters and waitresses were dressed as clowns, ghosts, pirates, space trio in bear costu children with pizza-smeared faces In alcoves off the a of that electronic play served as backgroundchildren
"Asylum," Chris said
They were met inside the front door by the host, Dominick, as Fat Jack’s minority partner Dominick was tall, cadaverous, with mournful eyes, and he see her voice to be heard over the din, Laura asked for Fat Jack and said, "I called earlier I’m an old friend of his mother’s," which hat you were to say to indicate you wanted guns not pizza
Doh the cacophony without shouting "You’ve been here before, I believe"
"Good o"
"Please follow me," Doo through the cyclonic coood because that nized by one of the customers A door off the other side of the host’s foyer opened onto a corridor that led past the kitchen and the storeroom to Fat Jack’s private office Dominick knocked on the door, ushered them inside, and said to Fat Jack, "Old friends of yourman
Fat Jack took his nickname seriously and tried to live up to it He was five feet ten and weighed about three hundred and fifty pounds Wearing iray sweatpants and sweatshirt that fit hihtly as Spandex, he looked like the fat raph that dieters could buy to put on refrigerators to scare theerator
He sat in a baronial swivel chair behind a desk sized for hiet up "Listen to the little beasts" He spoke to Laura, ignored Chris "I put , had it specially soundproofed, and I can still hear the; it’s as if I’m just down the hall fro fun," Laura said, standing with Chris in front of the desk