Whitney's throat worked convulsively. His Adam's apple bobbed up and down like a monkey on a stick.
"We was Americans once!" Whitney cried at last. "This ain't how Americans act. I wasn't so much, I'll tell you that, nothin but a cook, but I know this ain't how Americans act, listening to some murderin freak in cowboy boots - "
A horrified, rustling gasp came from these new Las Vegans. Larry and Ralph exchanged a puzzled glance.
"That's what he is!" Whitney insisted. The sweat was running down his face like tears from the brushy edges of his flattop haircut. "You wanna watch these two guys ripped in two right in front of you, huh? You think that's the way to start a new life? You think a thing like that can ever be right? I tell you you'll have nightmares about it for the rest of your lives! "
The crowd murmured its assent.
"We got to stop this," Whitney said. "You know it? We got to have time to think about what... what..."
"Whitney." That voice, smooth as silk, little more than a whisper, but enough to silence the cook's faltering voice completely. He turned toward Flagg, lips moving soundlessly, his eye as fixed as a mackerel's. Now the sweat was pouring down his face in torrents.
"Whitney, you should have kept still." His voice was soft, but still it carried easily to every ear. "I would have let you go... why would I want you?"
Whitney's lips moved, but still no sound came out.
"Come here, Whitney."
"No," Whitney whispered, and no one heard his demurral except Lloyd and Ralph and Larry and possibly Barry Dorgan. Whitney's feet moved as if they had not heard his mouth. His sprung and mushy black loafers whispered through the grass and he moved toward the dark man like a ghost.
The crowd had become a slack jaw and staring eye.
"I knew about your plans," the dark man said. "I knew what you meant to do before you did. And I would have let you crawl away until I was ready to take you back. Maybe in a year, maybe in ten. But that's all behind you now, Whitney. Believe it."
Whitney found his voice one last time, his words rushing out in a strangled scream. "You ain't a man at all! You're some kind of a... a devil! "
Flagg stretched out the index finger of his left hand so that it almost touched Whitney Horgan's chin. "Yes, that's right," he said so softly that no one but Lloyd and Larry Underwood heard. "I am."
A blue ball of fire no bigger than the Ping-Pong ball Leo was endlessly bouncing leaped from the tip of Flagg's finger with a faint ozone crackle.
An autumn wind of sighs went through those watching.
Whitney screamed - but didn't move. The ball of fire lit on his chin. There was a sudden cloying smell of burning flesh. The ball moved across his mouth, fusing his lips shut, locking the scream behind Whitney's bulging eyes. It crossed one cheek, digging a charred and instantly cauterized trench.
It closed his eyes.
It paused above his forehead and Larry heard Ralph speaking, saying the same thing over and over, and Larry joined his voice to Ralph's, making it a litany: "I will fear no evil... I will fear no evil... I will fear no evil..."
The ball of fire rolled up from Whitney's forehead and now there was a hot smell of burning hair. It rolled toward the back of his head, leaving a grotesque bald strip behind it. Whitney swayed on his feet for a moment and then fell over, mercifully facedown.
The crowd released a long, sibilant sound: Aaaahhhh. It was the sound people had made on the Fourth of July when the fireworks display had been particularly good. The ball of blue fire hung in the air, bigger now, too bright to look at without slitting the eyes. The dark man pointed at it and it moved slowly toward the crowd. Those in the front row - a whey-faced Jenny Engstrom was among them - shrank back.
In a thundering voice, Flagg challenged them. "Is there anyone else here who disagrees with my sentence? If so, let him speak now! "
Deep silence greeted this.
Flagg seemed satisfied. "Then let - "
Heads began to turn away from him suddenly. A surprised murmur ran through the crowd, then rose to a babble. Flagg seemed completely caught by surprise. Now people in the crowd began to cry out, and while it was impossible to make out the words clearly, the tone was one of wonder and surprise. The ball of fire dipped and spun uncertainly.
The humming sound of an electric motor came to Larry's ears. And again he caught that puzzling name tossed from mouth to mouth, never clear, never all of one piece: Man... Can Man... Trash... Trashy...
Someone was coming through the crowd, as if in answer to the dark man's challenge.