"There are some other things - "
"When I want to talk about other things, I'll ask about other things." Flagg's voice was rising, getting uncomfortably close to a scream. Lloyd had never seen such a radical shift in temperament, and it scared him badly. "Right now I want a status report on Indian Springs and you better have it for me, Lloyd, for your sake you better have it!"
"All right," Lloyd muttered. "Okay." He fumbled his notebook out of his hip pocket, and for the next half hour they talked about Indian Springs, the National Guard jets, and the Shrike missiles. Flagg began to relax again - although it was hard to tell, and it was a very bad idea to take anything at all for granted when you were dealing with the Walkin Dude.
"Do you think they could overfly Boulder in two weeks?" he asked. "Say... by the first of October?"
"Carl could, I guess," Lloyd said doubtfully. "I don't know about the other two."
"I want them ready," Flagg muttered. He got up and began to pace around the room. "I want those people hiding in holes by next spring. I want to hit them at night, while they're sleeping. Rake that town from one end to the other. I want it to be like Hamburg and Dresden in World War II." He turned to Lloyd and his face was parchment white, the dark eyes blazing out of it with their own crazy fire. His grin was like a scimitar. "Teach them to send spies. They'll be living in caves when spring comes. Then we'll go over there and have us a pig hunt. Teach them to send spies."
Lloyd found his tongue at last. "The third spy - "
"We'll find him, Lloyd. Don't worry about that. We'll get the bastard." The smile was back, darkly charming. But Lloyd had seen an instant of angry and bewildered fear before that smile reappeared. And fear was the one expression he had never expected to see there.
"We know who he is, I think," Lloyd said quietly.
Flagg had been turning a jade figurine over in his hands, examining it. Now his hand froze. He became very still, and a peculiar expression of concentration stole over his face. For the first time the Cross woman's gaze shifted, first toward Flagg and then hastily away. The air in the penthouse suite seemed to thicken.
"What? What did you say?"
"The third spy - "
"No," Flagg said with sudden decision. "No. You're jumping at shadows, Lloyd."
"If I've got it right, he's a friend of a guy named Nick Andros."
The jade figurine fell through Flagg's fingers and shattered. A moment later Lloyd was lifted out of his chair by the front of his shirt. Flagg had moved across the room so swiftly that Lloyd had not even seen him. And then Flagg's face was plastered against his, that awful sick heat was baking into him, and Flagg's black weasel eyes were only an inch from his own.
Flagg screamed: "And you sat there and talked about Indian Springs? I ought to throw you out that window! "
Something - perhaps it was seeing the dark man vulnerable, perhaps it was only the knowledge that Flagg wouldn't kill him until he got all of the information - allowed Lloyd to find his tongue and speak in his own defense.
"I tried to tell you!" he cried. "You cut me off! And you cut me off from the red list, whatever that is! If I'd known about that, I could have had that f**king retard last night!"
Then he was flung across the room to crash into the far wall. Stars exploded in his head and he dropped to the parquet floor, dazed. He shook his head, trying to clear it. There was a high humming noise in his ears.
Flagg seemed to have gone crazy. He was striding jerkily around the room, his face blank with rage. Nadine had shrunk back into her chair. Flagg reached a knickknack shelf populated with a milky-green menagerie of jade animals. He stared at them for a second, seeming almost puzzled by them, and then swept them all off onto the floor. They shattered like tiny grenades. He kicked at the bigger pieces with one bare foot, sending them flying. His dark hair had fallen over his forehead. He flipped it back with a jerk of his head and then turned toward Lloyd. There was a grotesque expression of sympathy and compassion on his face - both emotions every bit as real as a three-dollar bill, Lloyd thought. He walked over to help Lloyd up, and Lloyd noticed that he stepped on several jagged pieces of broken jade with no sign of pain... and no blood.
"I'm sorry," he said. "Let's have a drink." He offered a hand and helped Lloyd to his feet. Like a kid doing a temper tantrum, Lloyd thought. "Yours is bourbon straight up, isn't it?"
"Fine."
Flagg went to the bar and made monstrous drinks. Lloyd demolished half of his at a gulp. The glass chattered briefly on the end table as he set it down. But he felt a little better.