Each of the other men, Sonny, Doc, the Kaiser, and even Beezer, have also connected Little Nancy's death with Black House, and the same speculations about comparative size and weight have passed through their minds. However, Sonny Cantinaro, Doc Amberson, Kaiser Bill Strassner, and especially Beezer St. Pierre assume that whatever poison surrounded Black House had been concocted in a laboratory by human beings who knew what they were doing. These four men derive the old, primitive reassurance from one another's company that they have enjoyed since college; if anything makes them feel a touch uneasy, it is that Mouse Baumann, not Beezer, leads their column. Even though Beezer let Mouse wave him back, Mouse's position contains a hint of insurrection, of mutiny: the universe has been subtly disordered.
Twenty yards from the back end of the Maxton property, Sonny decides to put an end to this farce, guns his Softail, roars past his friends, and moves up parallel to Mouse. Mouse glances at him with a trace of worry, and Sonny motions to the side of the road.
When they have all pulled over, Mouse says, "What's your problem, Sonny?"
"You are," Sonny says. "Either you missed the turnoff, or your whole story's all f**ked up."
"I said I wasn't sure where it is." He notices with nearly immeasurable relief that Little Nancy's dead hands no longer grip his shoulders.
"Of course not. You were ripped on acid!"
"Good acid."
"Well, there's no road up ahead, I know that much. It's just trees all the way to the old f**ks' home."
Mouse ponders the stretch of road ahead as if the road just might be up there, after all, although he knows it is not.
"Shit, Mouse, we're practically in town. I can see Queen Street from here."
"Yeah," Mouse says. "Okay." If he can get to Queen Street, he thinks, those hands will never fasten on him again.
Beezer walks his Electra Glide up to them and says, "Okay what, Mouse? You agree it's farther back, or is the road somewhere else?"
Frowning, Mouse turns his head to look back down the highway. "Goddamn. I think it's along here somewhere, unless I got totally turned around that day."
"Gee, how could that have happened?" says Sonny. "I looked at every inch of ground we passed, and I sure as hell didn't see a road. Did you, Beezer? How about a NO TRESPASSING sign, you happen to see one of those?"
"You don't get it," Mouse says. "This shit doesn't want to be seen."
"Maybe you shoulda gone to Ward D with Sawyer," Sonny says. "People in there appreciate visionaries."
"Can it, Sonny," Beezer says.
"I was there before, and you weren't," Mouse says. "Which one of us knows what he's talking about?"
"I've heard enough out of both of you guys," Beezer says. "Do you still think it's along here somewhere, Mouse?"
"As far as I can recollect, yeah."
"Then we missed it. We'll go back and check again, and if we don't find it, we'll look somewhere else. If it's not here, it's between two of the valleys along 93, or in the woods on the hill leading up to the lookout. We have plenty of time."
"What makes you so sure?" Sonny asks. Mild anxiety about what they might come across is making him belligerent. He would just as soon go back to the Sand Bar and down a pitcher of Kingsland while messing with Stinky's head as waste his time goofing along the highways.
Beezer looks at him, and his eyes crackle. "You know anywhere else there's enough trees to call it a woods?"
Sonny backs down immediately. Beezer is never going to give up and go back to the Sand Bar. Beezer is in this for keeps. Most of that has to do with Amy, but some of it relates to Jack Sawyer. Sawyer impressed the shit out of Beezer the other night, that's what happened, and now Beezer thinks everything the guy says is golden. To Sonny, this makes no sense at all, but Beezer's the one who calls the shots, so for now, Sonny guesses, they will all run around like junior G-men for a while. If this adopt-a-cop program goes on for more than a couple of days, Sonny plans to have a little chat with Mouse and the Kaiser. Doc will always side with Beezer no matter what, but the other two are capable of listening to reason.
"All right, then," Beezer says. "Scratch from here to Queen Street. We know there's no f**kin' road along that stretch. We'll go back the way we came, give it one more shot. Single file the whole way. Mouse, you're point man again."
Mouse nods and prepares himself to feel those hands on his shoulders again. Gunning his Fat Boy, he rolls forward and takes his place at the head of the line. Beezer moves in behind him, and Sonny follows Beezer, with Doc and the Kaiser in the last two slots.
Five pairs of eyes, Sonny thinks. If we don't see it this time, we never will. And we won't, because that damned road is halfway across the state. When Mouse and his old lady got buzzed on the Ultimate, they could go for hundreds of miles and think they'd taken a spin around the block.