'They had been camped on a farm in East Milford for four days. Same sort of deal as the one they had with that hemorrhoid Arncaster. The cop I talked to said he'd been keeping pretty close tabs on them and that they appeared to have moved on just that morning.'
'After the old man touched you.'
'Right.'
'Do you think he knew you were going to be there? In that particular restaurant?'
'I never took my folks there before,' Hopley said. 'It was an old place that had just been renovated. Usually we go to a dago place way on the other side of town. It was my mother's idea. She wanted to see what they did to the rugs or the paneling or something. You know how women are.'
'You didn't answer my question. Do you think he knew you were going to be there?'
There was a long, considering silence from the slumped shape in the Eames chair. 'Yes,' Hopley said at last. 'Yes, I do. More insanity, Halleck, right? Good thing no one's keeping score, isn't it?'
'Yes,' Billy said. 'I guess it is.' A peculiar little giggle escaped him. It sounded like a very small shriek.
'Now, what's this idea of yours, Halleck? I don't sleep much these days, but I usually start tossing and turning right around this time of night.'
Asked to bring out in words what he had only thought about in the silence of his own mind, Billy found himself feeling absurd - his idea was weak and foolish, not an idea at all, not really, but only a dream.
'The law firm I work for retains a team of investigators,' he said. 'Barton Detective Services, Inc.'
'I've heard of them.'
'They are supposed to be the best in the business. I ... That is to say . . .'
He felt Hopley's impatience radiating off the man in waves, although Hopley did not move at all. He summoned what dignity he had left, telling himself that he surely knew as much about what was going on as Hopley, that he had every bit as much right to speak; after all, it was happening to him too.
'I want to find him,' Billy said. 'I want to confront him. I want to tell him what happened., I ... I guess I want to come completely clean. Although I suppose if he could do these things to us, he may know anyway.'
'Yes,' Hopley said.
Marginally encouraged, Billy went on: 'But I still want to tell him my side of it. That it was my fault, yes, I should have been able to stop in time - all things being equal, I would have stopped in time. That it was my wife's fault, because of what she was doing to me. That it was Rossington's fault for whitewashing it, and yours for going easy on the investigation and then humping them out of town.'
Billy swallowed.
'And then I'll tell him it was her fault, too. Yes. She was jaywalking, Hopley, and so okay, it's not a crime they give you the gas chamber for, but the reason it's against the law is that it can get you killed the way she got killed.'
'You want to tell him that?'
'I don't want to, but I'm going to. She came out from between two parked cars, didn't look either way. They teach you better in the third grade.'
'Somehow I don't think that babe ever got the Officer Friendly treatment in the third grade,' Hopley said. 'Somehow I don't think she ever went to the third grade, you know?'
'Just the same,' Billy said stubbornly, 'simple common sense -'
'Halleck, you must be a glutton for punishment,' -the shadow that was Hopley said. 'You're losing weight now - do you want to try for the grand prize? Maybe next time he'll stop up your bowels, or heat your bloodstream up to about a hundred and ten degrees, or -'
'I'm not just going to sit in Fairview and let it happen!' Billy said fiercely. 'Maybe he can reverse it, Hopley. Did you ever think of that?'
'I've been reading up on this stuff,' Hopley said. 'I guess I knew what was happening almost from the time the first pimple showed up over one of my eyebrows. Right where the acne attacks Always started when I was in high school - and I used to have some pisser acne attacks back then, let me tell you. So I've been reading up on it. Like I said, I like to read. And I have to tell you, Halleck, that there are hundreds of books on casting spells and curses, but very few on reversing them.'
'Well, maybe he can't. Maybe not. Probably not, even. But I can still go to him, goddammit. I can stare him in the face and say, "You didn't cut enough pieces out of the pie, old man. You should have cut out a piece for my wife, and one for your wife, and while we're at it, old man, how about a piece for you? Where were you while she was walking into the street without looking where she was going? If she wasn't used to in-town traffic, you must have known it. So where were you? Why weren't you there to take her by the arm and lead her down to the crosswalk on the corner? Why -'
'Enough,' Hopley said. 'If I was on a jury, you'd convince me, Halleck. But you forgot the most important factor operating here.'
'What's that?' Billy asked stiffly.
'Human nature. We may be victims of the supernatural, but what we're really dealing with is human nature. As a police officer - excuse me, former police officer - I couldn't agree more that there's no absolute right and absolute wrong; there's just one gray shading into the next, lighter or darker. But you don't think her husband's going to buy that shit, do you?'