Trash froze on his hands and knees. He made wee-wee in his pants, and his mind dissolved into a madly fluttering black bird of panic.
He turned around little by little, the tendons in his neck creaking like the hinges of a door in a haunted house. And there stood The Kid, resplendent in an iridescent shirt of green and gold and a pair of sunfaded cords. There was a .45 in each hand and a horrible grimace of hate and rage on his face.
"I was just chuh-checkin down this way," Trashcan Man heard himself saying. "To make sure the cuh-cuh-coast was clear."
"Sure - on your hands and knees you was checkin, dinkweed. I'll clear your motherfuckin coast. Stand up here."
Trashcan somehow gained his feet and kept them by holding on to the doorhandle of a car on his right. The twin bores of The Kid's matched set of .45s looked every bit as big as the twin bores of the Eisenhower Tunnel. He was looking at death now. He knew that. There were no right words to avert it this time.
He offered up a silent prayer to the dark man: Please... if it be your will... my life for you!
"What's up there?" The Kid asked. "A wreck?"
"A tunnel. It's jammed solid. That's why I came back, to tell you. Please - "
"A tunnel," The Kid groaned. "Jesus-hairy-ole-baldheaded-Christ! " The scowl returned. "Are you lyin to me, you f**kin fairy?"
"No! I swear I'm not! The sign said Eeesenhoover Tunnel. I think that's what it said, but I have trouble with long words. I - "
"Shut your dough-hole. How far?"
"Eight miles. Maybe even more."
The Kid was silent for a moment, looking west along the turnpike. Then he fixed Trashcan Man with a glittery gaze. "You trine to tell me this traffic jam's eight miles long? You lyin sack of shit!" The Kid thumbed the triggers on both guns up to half-cock. Trashcan, who wouldn't have known half-cock from full c**k and full c**k from a bag of frogs, screeched like a woman and put his hands over his eyes.
"No kidding! " he screamed. "No kidding! I swear! I swear! "
The Kid looked at him for a long time. At last he lowered the hammers on his guns.
"I'm gonna kill you, Trashy," he said, smiling. "I'm gonna take your motherfuckin life. But first we're gonna walk back to that pileup we squeaked by this morning. You're gonna push the van over the edge. Then I'm gonna go back and find another way around. Not gonna leave my f**kin car," he added petulantly. "Nohow no way."
"Please don't kill me," Trashcan whispered. "Please don't."
"If you can get that VW van over the side in less'n fifteen minutes, maybe I won't," The Kid said. "You believe that happy crappy?"
"Yes," Trash said. But he had gotten a good look into those preternaturally glittering eyes, and he did not believe it at all.
They walked back to the pileup, Trashcan Man walking in front of The Kid on wobbling rubber legs. The Kid walked mincingly, his leather jacket creaking softly in its secret folds. There was a vague, almost sweet smile on his doll-like lips.
By the time they got to the pileup, dusk was almost gone. The VW Microbus was on its side, the corpses of the three or four occupants a tangle of arms and legs that was mercifully hard to see in the fast-failing light. The Kid walked past the van and stood on the shoulder, looking at the place they had edged by some ten hours before. One of the deucey's tire tracks was still there, but the other had crumbled away with the embankment.
"Nope," The Kid said with finality. "Never make it by here again unless we do some movin and groovin first. Don't tell me, I'll tell you."
For one brief moment, Trashcan Man entertained the notion of rushing at The Kid and trying to push him over the edge. Then The Kid turned around. His guns were drawn and pointing casually at Trashcan's midriff.
"Say, Trashy. You was thinkin evil thoughts. Don't try to tell me no different. I can read you like a motherfuckin book."
Trashcan shook his head violently back and forth in protest.
"Don't you make a mistake with me, Trashy. That's the one thing in this wide world you don't want to do. Now get pushing on that van. You got fifteen minutes."
There was an Austin parked nearby on the broken centerline. The Kid pulled open the passenger door, casually ripped out the bloated corpse of a teenage girl (her arm came off in his hand and he tossed it aside with the absent air of a man who has finished with the turkey drumstick he has been nibbling on), and sat down on the bucket seat with his feet out on the pavement. He gestured good-humoredly with his guns at the slumped, shuddering form of the Trashcan Man.