"George Potter?" someone says, and George looks up. With his glass in one hand and his pitcher of suds in the other, he is a sitting duck.
"Yeah, what about it?" he asks, and then he is snatched by the arms and shoulders and yanked from his spot. His knees connect with the bottom of the table, overturning it. The spaghetti plate and the pitcher hit the floor. The plate shatters. The pitcher, made of sterner stuff, does not. A woman screams. A man says, "Yow!" in a low and respectful voice.
Potter holds on to his partly filled glass for a moment, and then Tom Lund plucks this potential weapon from his hand. A second later, Dale Gilbertson is snapping on the cuffs, and Dale has time to think that it's the most satisfying sound he's ever heard in his life. His tractor has finally gotten some traction, by God.
This deal is light-years from the snafu at Ed's; this is slick and tidy. Less than ten seconds after Dale asked the only question — "George Potter?" — the suspect is out the door and into the fog. Tom has one elbow, Bobby the other. Dale is still rattling off the Miranda warning, sounding like an auctioneer on amphetamines, and George Potter's feet never touch the sidewalk.
Jack Sawyer is fully alive for the first time since he was twelve years old, riding back from California in a Cadillac Eldorado driven by a werewolf. He has an idea that later on he will pay a high price for this regained vividness, but he hopes he will just button his lip and fork over when the time comes. Because the rest of his adult life now seems so gray.
He stands outside his truck, looking in the window at Henry. The air is dank and already charged with excitement. He can hear the blue-white parking lot lights sizzling, like something frying in hot juices.
"Henry."
"Affirmative."
"Do you know the hymn 'Amazing Grace'?"
"Of course I do. Everyone knows 'Amazing Grace.' "
Jack says, " 'Was blind but now I see.' I understand that now."
Henry turns his blind, fearfully intelligent face toward Jack. He is smiling. It is the second-sweetest smile Jack has ever seen. The blue ribbon still goes to Wolf, that dear friend of his wandering twelfth autumn. Good old Wolf, who liked everything right here and now.
"You're back, aren't you?"
Standing in the parking lot, our old friend grins. "Jack's back, that's affirmative."
"Then go do what you came back to do," Henry says.
"I want you to roll up the windows."
"And not be able to hear? I think not," Henry tells him, pleasantly enough.
More cops are coming, and this time the blue lights of the lead car are flashing and the siren is blurping. Jack detects a celebratory note to those little blurps and decides he doesn't have time to stand here arguing with Henry about the Ram's windows.
He heads for the back door of the police station, and two of the blue-white arcs cast his shadow double on the fog, one dark head north and one south.
Part-time officers Holtz and Nestler pull in behind the car bearing Gilbertson, Lund, Dulac, and Potter. We don't care much about Holtz and Nestler. Next in line is Jesperson and Tcheda, with Railsback and Morton Fine in the back seat (Morty is complaining about the lack of knee room). We care about Railsback, but he can wait. Next into the lot — oh, this is interesting, if not entirely unexpected: Wendell Green's beat-up red Toyota, with the man himself behind the wheel. Around his neck is his backup camera, a Minolta that'll keep taking pictures as long as Wendell keeps pressing the button. No one from the Sand Bar — not yet — but there is one more car waiting to turn into the already crowded lot. It's a discreet green Saab with a POLICE POWER sticker on the left side of the bumper and one reading HUGS NOT DRUGS on the right. Behind the wheel of the Saab, looking stunned but determined to do the right thing (whatever the right thing might be), is Arnold "the Mad Hungarian" Hrabowski.
Standing in a line against the brick wall of the police station are the Thunder Five. They wear identical denim vests with gold 5's on the left breast. Five sets of meaty arms are crossed on five broad chests. Doc, Kaiser Bill, and Sonny wear their hair in thick ponytails. Mouse's is cornrowed tonight. And Beezer's floods down over his shoulders, making him look to Jack a little like Bob Seger in his prime. Earrings twinkle. Tats flex on huge biceps.
"Armand St. Pierre," Jack says to the one closest the door. "Jack Sawyer. From Ed's?" He holds out his hand and isn't exactly surprised when Beezer only looks at it. Jack smiles pleasantly. "You helped big-time out there. Thanks."
Nothing from the Beez.
"Is there going to be trouble with the intake of the prisoner, do you think?" Jack asks. He might be asking if Beezer thinks it will shower after midnight.