"I mean... the red light. The eye."
"Looks like that to you too, huh? It's a flaw. Special from him. I'm not the smartest guy he's got, not even the smartest guy in good ole Lost Wages, not by a long shot. But I'm... shit, I guess you'd say I'm his mascot." He looked closely at Trash. "Maybe you too, who knows? Not me, that's for sure. He's a close one, Flagg is. Anyway, we heard about you special. Me and Whitney. That's not the regular drill at all. Too many comin in to take special notice of many." He paused. "Although I guess he could, if he wanted to. I guess he could take notice of just about anybody."
Trashcan Man nodded.
"He can do magic," Lloyd said, his voice becoming slightly hoarse. "I seen it. I'd hate to be the people against him, you know?"
"Yes," Trashcan said. "I saw what happened to The Kid."
"What kid?"
"The guy I was with until we got into the mountains." He shuddered. "I don't want to talk about it."
"Okay, man. Here comes your soup. And Whitney put a burger on the side after all. You'll love it. The guy makes great burgers, but try not to puke, okay?"
"Okay."
"Me, I got places to go and people to see. If my old buddy Poke could see me now, he'd never believe it. I'm busier'n a one-legged man in an ass-kickin contest. Catch you later."
"Sure," Trashcan said, and then added, almost timidly: "Thanks. Thanks for everything."
"Don't thank me," Lloyd said amiably. "Thank him."
"I do," Trashcan Man said. "Every night." But he was talking to himself. Lloyd was already halfway down the lobby, talking with the man who had brought the soup and the hamburger. Trashcan Man watched them fondly until they were out of sight, and then he began to chow down, eating ravenously until almost everything was gone. He would have been fine if he hadn't looked down into the soup bowl. It was tomato soup, and it was the color of blood.
He pushed the bowl aside, his appetite suddenly gone. It was all very well for him to tell Lloyd Henreid he didn't want to talk about The Kid; it was quite another thing to stop thinking about what had happened to him.
He walked over to the roulette wheel, sipping at the glass of milk that had come with his food. He gave the wheel an idle twist and dropped the little white marble into the dish. It rolled around the rim, then hit the slots below and began to racket back and forth. He thought about The Kid. He wondered if someone would come and show him which room was his. He thought about The Kid. He wondered if the ball would fetch up on a red number or a black one... but mostly he thought about The Kid. The bouncing, jittering ball caught in one of the slots, this time for good. The wheel came to a stop. The ball was sitting under the green double zero.
House spin.
On the cloudless, eighty-degree day when they headed west from Golden directly into the Rockies along Interstate 70, The Kid had given up Coors in favor of a bottle of Rebel Yell whiskey. Two more bottles sat between the two of them on the driveshaft hump, each neatly packed into an empty cardboard milk carton so the bottles wouldn't roll around and break. The Kid would nip at the bottle, chase the nip with a swallow of Pepsi-Cola, and then holler hot-damn! or yahoo! or sex-machine! at the top of his lungs. He remarked several times that he would piss Rebel Yell if he could. He asked Trashcan Man if he believed that happy crappy. Trashcan Man, pale with fright and still hung over from his three beers of the night before, said he did.
Even The Kid couldn't stampede along at ninety on these roads. He lowered his speed to sixty and muttered about the goddam f**king mountains under his breath. Then he brightened. "When we get over in Utah n Nevada, we'll make up plenty of lost time, Trashy. This little darlin'll do a hunnert n sixty on the flat. You believe that happy crappy?"
"Sure is a nice car," Trashcan said with a sick-doggy smile.
"Bet your ass." He nipped Rebel Yell. Chased it with Pepsi. Yelled yahoo! at the top of his lungs.
Trash stared morbidly out at the passing scenery, which was now washed with midmorning sunshine. The Interstate had been blasted right into the shoulder of the mountain, and at times they were traveling between huge cliffs of rock. The cliffs he had seen in his dream of the night before. After dark, would those red eyes open again?
He shuddered.
A short while later he became aware that their speed had dropped from sixty to forty. Then to thirty. The Kid was swearing monotonously and horribly under his breath. The deuce coupe wove in and out of steadily thickening traffic, all of it stalled and deadly silent.
"What the f**k is this?" The Kid raged. "What did they? All decide to die at ten thousand motherfuckin feet? Hey, you stupid f**ks, out my way! You hear me? Get the f**k out my way! "