The man with the gun was now out of sight, but the drivers still stared after him as he went uphill toward Point Venuti's lunatics. Sunlight Gardener lifted his bullhorn and roared, 'Root him out! I want him rooted out!' He jabbed the bull-horn at another black-suited man, just raising his binoculars to look down the street in Jack's direction. 'You! Pig-brains! Take the other side of the street . . . and root that bad boy out, oh yes, that baddest baddest boy, baddest . . .' His voice trailed away as the second man trotted across the street to the opposite sidewalk, his pistol already lengthening his fist.
It was the best chance he'd ever get, Jack realized - nobody was facing down the length of the beach road. 'Hang on tight,' he whispered to Richard, who did not move. 'Time to boogie.' He got his feet up under him, and knew that Richard's back was probably visible above the yellow weeds and tall grass. Bending over, he burst out of the weeds and set his feet on the beach road.
In seconds Jack Sawyer was flat on his stomach in the gritty sand. He pushed himself forward with his feet. One of Richard's hands tightened on his shoulder. Jack wiggled forward across the sand until he had made it behind the first tall outcropping of rock; then he simply stopped moving and lay with his head on his hands, Richard light as a leaf on his back, breathing hard. The water, no more than twenty feet away, beat against the edge of the beach. Jack could still hear Sunlight Gardener screeching about imbeciles and incompetents, his crazy voice drifting down from uphill on Main Street. The Talisman urged him forward, urged him on, on, on . . .
Richard fell off his back.
'You okay?'
Richard raised a thin hand and touched his forehead with his fingers, his cheekbone with his thumb. 'I guess. You see my father?'
Jack shook his head. 'Not yet.'
'But he's here.'
'I guess. He has to be.' The Kingsland, Jack remembered, seeing in his mind the dingy facade, the broken wooden sign. Morgan Sloat would have holed up in the hotel he had used so often six or seven years ago. Jack immediately felt the furious presence of Morgan Sloat near him, as if knowing where Sloat was had summoned him up.
'Well, don't worry about him.' Richard's voice was paper-thin. 'I mean, don't worry about me worrying about him. I think he's dead, Jack.'
Jack looked at his friend with a fresh anxiety: could Richard actually be losing his mind? Certainly Richard was feverish. Up on the hill, Sunlight Gardener bawled 'SPREAD OUT!' through his bullhorn.
'You think - '
And then Jack heard another voice, one that had first whispered beneath Gardener's angry command. It was a half-familiar voice, and Jack recognized its timbre and cadence before he had truly identified it. And, oddly, he recognized that the sound of this particular voice made him feel relaxed - almost as if he could stop scheming and fretting now, for everything would be taken care of - before he could name its owner.
'Jack Sawyer,' the voice repeated. 'Over here, sonny.'
The voice was Speedy Parker's.
'I do,' Richard said, and closed his puffy eyes again and looked like a corpse washed up by the tide.
I do think my father is dead, Richard meant, but Jack's mind was far from the ravings of his friend. 'Over here, Jacky,' Speedy called again, and the boy saw that the sound came from the largest group of tall rocks, three joined vertical piles only a few feet from the edge of the water. A dark line, the high-tide mark, cut across the rocks a quarter of the way up.
'Speedy,' Jack whispered.
'Yeah-bob,' came the reply. 'Get yourself over here without them zombies seein you, can you? And bring your frien' along, too.'
Richard still lay face-up on the sand, his hand over his face. 'Come on, Richie,' Jack whispered into his ear. 'We have to move a little bit down the beach. Speedy's here.'
'Speedy?' Richard whispered back, so quietly Jack had trouble hearing the word.
'A friend. See the rocks down there?' He lifted Richard's head on the reedlike neck. 'He's behind them. He'll help us, Richie. Right now, we could use a little help.'
'I can't really see,' Richard complained. 'And I'm so tired . . .'
'Get on my back again.' He turned around and nearly flattened out on the sand. Richard's arms came over his shoulders and feebly joined.
Jack peered around the edge of the rock. Down the beach road, Sunlight Gardener stroked his hair into place as he strode toward the front door of the Kingsland Motel. The black hotel reared up awesomely. The Talisman opened its throat and called for Jack Sawyer. Gardener hesitated outside the door of the motel, swept both hands over his hair, shook his head, and turned smartly about and began walking much more rapidly back up the long line of limousines. The bull-horn lifted. 'REPORTS EVERY FIFTEEN MINUTES!' he screeched. 'YOU POINT MEN - TELL ME IF YOU SEE A BUG MOVE! I MEAN IT, YES I DO!'