Carpington constantly checked his mirror, made another call on his cell, fiddled with the radio, blotted his brow. The two of us waited nearly ten minutes before a set of headlights appeared at the far end of the street, followed closely by a second. The two cars approached slowly. The first, a four-door imported sedan, drove past the Caddy and angled in front of it, while the second car, a small Lincoln, pulled up tight behind it. Carpington was effectively boxed in.
The driver of the Lincoln killed the lights and engine and got out. In the moonlight, I could see that it was Don Greenway, still in his suit. Carpington got out of the Cadillac, turning off the engine but leaving the headlights on. Rick, who got out of the import, shielded his eyes from the glare as he joined Greenway, who was standing in front of an already raving Carpington.
"She's dead!" he shouted. "This guy comes and sees me and tells me she's dead!"
"Roger, calm down," Greenway said, trying to maintain a normal tone of voice.
"How do you expect me to calm down? Stefanie's dead!"
"I only just heard about it myself," Greenway said. "The police were by the office."
"Look, I never signed on for anything like this! Spender was one thing, and I never wanted to go along with that, but this is too much!"
Rick said, "I think you should lower your voice, asshole. There's houses over that ridge people are living in, dickwad, and they might hear you."
"Maybe I don't care about that. Maybe it's too late to care about anything."
Greenway looked at Rick and nodded. Suddenly, Rick slapped Carpington across the face savagely, sending the councilman sprawling up against the side of his Caddy. Before he even had time to touch his cheek, Rick had him by the shirt and was dragging him across the mud-caked street in the direction of his car. Rick reached into his pocket, pulled out a set of remote keys, and popped the trunk on the sedan, which opened about an inch.
As Rick swung the trunk open a tiny light came on long enough for Carpington to see what was inside. There was barely time for him to scream "No!" before Rick had shoved him inside and slammed the trunk shut.
Chapter 21
Maybe, if I'd ever served my country in the military or something, I'd be more familiar with the sounds of a man screaming. Once, when called out around midnight to a particularly grisly highway accident as a young newspaper photographer, I listened while a man burned to death in a car, rescue crews unable to get close to him. The driver of a tanker truck had fallen asleep at the wheel and gone through a red light, virtually crushing a Chevette that was crossing its path. It was a wonder the man in the Chevette remained alive long enough for police and fire officials, and me, to arrive and hear him die. His final cries of anguish had stayed with me for a long time. Even now, some twenty years later, I can still hear him calling "Princess!" which I learned later was the nickname of the nine-year-old daughter he'd left behind.
And maybe those cries were worse than what I was hearing now. It's a tough one to call. But there was something about Carpington's screams that had nothing to do with pain. They were screams of outright terror and hysteria, and listening to them made my blood run cold. They were the screams - interspersed with cries of "Get me out!" and "Let me out!" - of a man finding himself locked in a trunk with his worst nightmare. The parked car bounced on its springs like it was being driven down a washboard road as Carpington rolled about and kicked and pounded at the trunk lid and walls.
It was hard to hear what Greenway and Rick were saying to each other, but they couldn't have looked more relaxed. At one point, Greenway pointed at the moon, and Rick looked up, nodded, as if to say "You're right, it is a beautiful moon tonight, isn't it?"
Finally, the screams not subsiding at all, Greenway nodded to Rick, who popped the trunk open and hauled Carpington out. I was surprised, frankly, to see him still alive. At the very least, I figured Quincy would already be in the process of squeezing the life out of him, which I'd have almost welcomed if it would have meant an end to the screaming. But aside from his clothes being all rumpled, and a cut on his face from bumping into something in the trunk, the councilman didn't look too bad.
Rick said, "Now, are you ready to calm down?"
"Yes, yes, thank you, thank you for getting me out of there."
"He's still pretty drowsy," Rick said. "Look at him, he's practically sleeping like a baby." He slapped Carpington in the face again. "I think you upset him."
"What, why isn't he moving more?" Carpington asked.
"He's on Prozac for Pythons. Merle and Jimmy gave him something, it's taking him a while to recover. But I think I can guarantee you that the next time we put you in there, if we have to put you in there, he's going to be right back to his old self."
"Okay," Carpington said. "Okay. That won't be necessary, I promise."
Greenway approached Carpington and slipped his arm around his shoulder like they were old friends. "Now, Roger, what's gotten you so upset tonight?"
"This man came to see me. He wanted to know about Stefanie, and he told me she was dead."
"Who was this man?" Greenway asked.
"I'm trying to remember his name. He said he lives in Valley Forest, on the street you named after yourself."
Rick cocked his head to one side. "Was his name Walker?"