'Next thing he says, Andy, break his nose,' Sonny said.
'That's right,' Jack said. 'Break my nose, Andy. Shoot me, Sonny. The cops are coming, Gardener's gone, and they're going to find the three of you standing over a corpse in a strait-jacket.' He paused, and amended: 'A corpse in a strait-jacket with a broken nose.'
'Hit him, Andy,' Sonny said.
Andy Warwick moved from the door to where Jack sat, strait-jacketed, his pants and underpants puddled around his ankles.
Jack turned his face openly up to Warwick's.
'That's right, Andy,' he said. 'Hit me. I'll hold still. Hell of a target.'
Andy Warwick balled up his fist, drew it back . . . and then hesitated. Uncertainty flickered in his eyes.
There was a digital clock on Gardener's desk. Jack's eyes shifted to it for a moment, and then back to Warwick's face. 'It's been four minutes, Andy. How long does it take a guy to back a car out of the garage? Especially when he's in a hurry?'
Sonny Singer bolted out of Sunlight Gardener's chair, came around the desk, and charged at Jack. His narrow, secretive face was furious. His fists were balled up. He made as if to hit Jack. Warwick, who was bigger, restrained him. There was trouble on Warwick's face now - deep trouble.
'Wait,' he said.
'I don't have to listen to this! I don't - '
'Why don't you ask Casey how close those sirens are getting?' Jack asked, and Warwick's frown deepened. 'You've been left in the lurch, don't you know that? Do I have to draw you a picture? It's going bad here. He knew it - he smelled it! He's leaving you with a bag. From the sounds upstairs - '
Singer broke free of Warwick's half-hearted hold and clouted Jack on the side of the face. His head rocked to one side, then came slowly back.
' - it's a big, messy bag,' Jack finished.
'You shut up or I'll kill you,' Sonny hissed.
The digits on the clock had changed.
'Five minutes now,' Jack said.
'Sonny,' Warwick said with a catch in his voice. 'Let's get him out of that thing.'
'No!' Sonny's cry was wounded, furious . . . ultimately frightened.
'You know what the Rev'rend said,' Warwick said rapidly. 'Before. When the TV people came. Nobody can see the strait-jackets. They wouldn't understand. They - '
Click! The intercom.
'Sonny! Andy!' Casey sounded panicky. 'They're closer! The sirens! Christ! What are we supposed to do?'
'Let him out now!' Warwick's face was pallid, except for two red spots high on his cheekbones.
'Reverend Gardener also said - '
'I don't give a f**k what he also said!' Warwick's voice dropped, and now he voiced the child's deepest fear: 'We're gonna get caught, Sonny! We're gonna get caught!'
And Jack thought that now he could hear sirens, or perhaps it was only his imagination.
Sonny's eyes rolled toward Jack with horrible, trapped indecision. He half-raised the gun and for one moment Jack believed Sonny was really going to shoot him.
But it was six minutes now, and still no honk from the Godhead, announcing that the deus ex machina was now boarding for Muncie.
'You let him loose,' Sonny said sulkily to Andy Warwick. 'I don't even want to touch him. He's a sinner. And he's a queer.'
Sonny retreated to the desk as Andy Warwick's fingers fumbled with the strait-jacket's lacings.
'You better not say anything,' he panted. 'You better not say anything or I'll kill you myself.'
Right arm free.
Left arm free.
They collapsed bonelessly into his lap. Pins and needles coming back.
Warwick hauled the hateful restraint off him, a horror of dun-colored canvas and rawhide lacings. Warwick looked at it in his hands and grimaced. He darted across the room and began to stuff it into Sunlight Gardener's safe.
'Pull up your pants,' Sonny said. 'You think I want to look at your works?'
Jack fumbled up his shorts, got the waistband of his pants, dropped them, and managed to pull them up.
Click! The intercom.
'Sonny! Andy!' Casey's voice, panicked. 'I hear something!'
'Are they turning in?' Sonny almost screamed. Warwick redoubled his efforts to stuff the strait-jacket into the safe. 'Are they turning in the front - '
'No! In the chapel! I can't see nothing but I can hear something in the - '
There was an explosion of shattering glass as Wolf leaped from the darkness of the chapel and into the studio.
18
Casey's screams as he pushed back from the control board in his wheel-footed chair were hideously amplified.