The second reason was even simpler: he chose to believe he was dreaming. There was some part of him which knew this wasn't true, but the idea was still easier to believe than the evidence of his senses; he didn't even want to consider a world which might admit the presence of a Mr. Gaunt. It would be easier-safer-to just close down his thinking processes for awhile and march along to the conclusion of this business. If he did that, he might eventually wake up to the world he had always known. God knew that world had its dangers, but at least he understood it.
He hammered the tops back onto the crate of pistols and the crate of ammo. Then he went over to the stored automobile and grasped the canvas tarpaulin, which was also covered with a mantle of dust. He pulled it off... and for a moment he forgot everything else in wonder and delight.
It was a Tucker, all right, and it was beautiful.
The paint was canary yellow. The streamlined body gleamed with chrome along the sides and beneath the notched front bumper.
A third headlight stared from the center of the hood, below a silver ornament that looked like the engine of a futuristic express train.
Ace walked slowly around it, trying to eat it up with his eyes.
There was a pair of chromed grilles on either side of the back deck; he had no idea what they were for. The fat Goodyear whitewalls were so clean they almost glowed under the hanging lights.
Written in flowing chrome script across the back deck were the words "Tucker Talisman." Ace had never heard of such a model.
He had thought the Torpedo was the only car Preston Tucker had ever turned out.
You have another problem, old buddy-there are no license plates on this thing. Are you going to try getting all the way back to Maine in a car that sticks out like a sore thumb, a car with no plates, a car loaded with guns and explosive devices?
Yes. He was. It was a bad idea, of course, a really bad idea... but the alternative-which would involve trying to f**k over Mr.
Leland Gaunt-seemed so much worse. Besides, this was a dream.
He shook the keys out of the envelope, went around to the trunk, and hunted in vain for a keyhole. After a few moments he remembered the movie with Jeff Bridges and understood. Like the German VW Beetle and the Chevy Corvair, the Tucker's engine was back here. The trunk was up front.
Sure enough, he found the keyhole directly under that weird third headlight. He opened the trunk. It was indeed very cozy, and empty except for a single object. It was a small bottle of white dust with a spoon attached to the cap by a chain. A small piece of paper had been taped to the chain. Ace pulled it free and read the message which had been written there in teeny capital letters:
Ace followed orders.
5
Feeling much better with a little of Mr. Gaunt's incomparable blow lighting up his brain like the front of Henry Beaufort's Rock-Ola, Ace loaded the guns and the clips of ammo into the trunk. He put the crate of blasting caps into the back seat, pausing for just a moment to inhale deeply. The sedan had that incomparable newcar smell, nothing like it in the world (except maybe for pu**y), and when he got behind the wheel, he saw that it was brand new: the odometer of Mr. Gaunt's Tucker Talisman was set at 00000.0.
Ace pushed the ignition key into the slot and turned it.
The Talisman started up with a low, throaty, delightful rumble.
How many horses under the hood? He didn't know, but it felt like a whole herd of them. There had been lots of automotive books in prison, and Ace had read most of them. The Tucker Torpedo had been a flathead six, about three hundred and fifty cubic inches, a lot like the cars Mr. Ford had built between 1948 and 1952. It had had something like a hundred and fifty horses under the hood.
This one felt bigger. A lot bigger.
Ace felt an urge to get out, go around back, and see if he could worry the hood open... but it was like thinking too much about that crazy name-Yog-whatever. Somehow it seemed like a bad idea. What seemed like a good idea was to get this thing back to Castle Rock just as fast as he could.
He started to get out of the car to use the door control, then honked the horn instead, just to see if anything would happen.
Something did. The door trundled silently up on its rails.
There's a sound sensor around someplace for sure, he told himself, but he no longer believed it. He no longer even cared. He shifted into first and the Talisman throbbed out of the garage. He honked again as he started down the rutty path to the hole in the fence, and in the rearview mirror he saw the garage lights go out and the door start to descend. He also caught a glimpse of his Challenger, standing with its nose to the wall and the crumpled tarp on the floor beside it.
He had an odd feeling that he was never going to see it again. Ace found he didn't care about that, either.
6