Barry got up on his elbows and gulped when Nut tipped the small glass bottle to his lips. Crow found it hard to look at. He’d seen baby lambs drink from nursing bottles in that same weak, I-can’t-do-it-myself way.
“Can he talk, Crow? If he can, give him the phone.”
Crow elbowed Jimmy aside and sat down beside Barry. “Rose. She wants to talk to you.”
He attempted to hold the phone next to Barry’s ear, but the Chink took it from him. Either the juice or the aspirin Nut had made him swallow seemed to have given him some strength.
“Rose,” he croaked. “Sorry about this, darlin.” He listened, nodding. “I know. I get that. I . . .” He listened some more. “No, not yet, but . . . yeah. I can. I will. Yeah. I love you, too. Here he is.” He handed the phone to Crow, then collapsed back onto the stacked pillows, his temporary burst of strength exhausted.
“I’m here,” Crow said.
“Has he started cycling yet?”
Crow glanced at Barry. “No.”
“Thank God for small favors. He says he can still locate her. I hope he’s right. If he can’t, you’ll have to find her yourselves. We have to have that girl.”
Crow knew she wanted the kid—maybe Julianne, maybe Emma, probably Abra—for her own reasons, and for him that was enough, but there was more at stake. Maybe the True’s continued survival. In a whispered consultation at the back of the Winnebago, Nut had told Crow that the girl had probably never had the measles, but her steam might still serve to protect them, because of the inoculations she would have been given as a baby. It wasn’t a sure bet, but a hell of a lot better than no bet at all.
“Crow? Talk to me, honey.”
“We’ll find her.” He shot the True’s computer maven a look. “Jimmy’s got it narrowed down to three possibles, all in a one-block radius. We’ve got pictures.”
“That’s excellent.” She paused, and when she spoke again her voice was lower, warmer, and perhaps the slightest bit shaky. Crow hated the idea of Rose being afraid, but he thought she was. Not for herself, but for the True Knot it was her duty to protect. “You know I’d never send you on with Barry sick if I didn’t think it was absolutely vital.”
“Yeah.”
“Get her, knock her the f**k out, bring her back. Okay?”
“Okay.”
“If the rest of you get sick, if you feel you have to charter a jet and fly her back—”
“We’ll do that, too.” But Crow dreaded the prospect. Any of them not sick when they got on the plane would be when they got off—equilibrium shot, hearing screwed blue for a month or more, palsy, vomiting. And of course flying left a paper trail. Not good for passengers escorting a drugged and kidnapped little girl. Still: needs must when the devil drives.
“Time you got back on the road,” Rose said. “You take care of my Barry, big man. The rest of them, too.”
“Is everyone okay at your end?”
“Sure,” Rose said, and hung up before he could ask her anything else. That was okay. Sometimes you didn’t need telepathy to tell when someone was lying. Even the rubes knew that.
He tossed the phone on the table and clapped his hands briskly. “Okay, let’s gas and go. Next stop, Sturbridge, Massachusetts. Nut, you stick with Barry. I’ll drive the next six hours, then you’re up, Jimmy.”
“I want to go home,” Jimmy Numbers said morosely. He was about to say more, but a hot hand grabbed his wrist before he could.
“We got no choice about this,” Barry said. His eyes were glittering with fever, but they were sane and aware. In that moment, Crow was very proud of him. “No choice at all, Computer Boy, so man up. True comes first. Always.”
Crow sat down behind the wheel and turned the key. “Jimmy,” he said. “Sit with me a minute. Want to have a little gab.”
Jimmy Numbers sat down in the passenger seat.
“These three girls, how old are they? Do you know?”
“That and a lot of other stuff. I hacked their school records when I got the pictures. In for a penny, in for a pound, right? Deane and Cross are fourteen. The Stone girl is a year younger. She skipped a grade in elementary school.”
“I find that suggestive of steam,” Crow said.
“Yeah.”
“And they all live in the same neighborhood.”
“Right.”
“I find that suggestive of chumminess.”
Jimmy’s eyes were still swollen with tears, but he laughed. “Yeah. Girls, y’know. All three of them probably wear the same lipstick and moan over the same bands. What’s your point?”
“No point,” Crow said. “Just information. Information is power, or so they say.”
Two minutes later, Steamhead Steve’s ’Bago was merging back onto Interstate 90. When the speedometer was pegged at sixty-five, Crow put on the cruise control and let it ride.
7
Dan outlined what he had in mind, then waited for Dave Stone to respond. For a long time he only sat beside Abra with his head lowered and his hands clasped between his knees.
“Daddy?” Abra asked. “Please say something.”
Dave looked up and said, “Who wants a beer?”