“I don’t have a fucking clue,” Don said.
“Those Blowtorch Brigades, or whatever they call themselves . . . have there been any reports from them of burning cocoons that turned into flying bugs?”
“Not that I know of. But maybe they’re not reporting it.”
“Yeah, maybe.” Eric licked his lips. “Yeah, there’s no reason why she’d be different.”
No, there wasn’t any reason why Old Essie would be different from every other sleeping woman in the world. But Don could think of one reason why things in Dooling might be different. Things might be different here because there was a special woman here, one who slept without growing a cocoon around her. And who woke up again.
“Come on,” Don said. “We’ve got work to do on Ellendale Street. Bitch-bags to count. Names to write down. This here . . . this never happened. Right, partner?”
“Right. Absolutely.”
“You’re not going to talk about it, are you?”
“Jesus, no!”
“Good.”
But I might talk about it, Don thought. Not to Terry Coombs, though. It had only taken Don a couple of days to come to the conclusion that the man was next door to useless. A what-did-you-call-it, a figurehead. And he seemed to have a drinking problem, which was truly pathetic. People who couldn’t control their urges repulsed Don. That guy Frank Geary, though, the one Terry had appointed his chief deputy . . . that one was a thinking cat, and he was keenly interested in the Evie Black woman. He’d have her sprung soon, if not already. He was the one to talk to about this, if talking had to be done.
But he needed to think about it first.
Very carefully.
“Don?”
They were back in the truck. “Yeah, kid?”
“Did she see us? It seemed like she saw us.”
“No,” said Don. “She didn’t see nothing, just exploded. Don’t be a pussy, Junior.”
2
Terry said he wanted to go home and think about their next move. Frank, who was pretty sure the acting sheriff’s next move would be lying down to sleep it off, said that was a good idea. He saw Terry to his front door, then drove directly to the sheriff’s station. There he found Linny Mars pacing circles with a laptop in her hands. There was a crust of white powder around her nostrils. Her cheeks were colored a hectic red. Her eyes were bleary and sunken. From the laptop came the all-too-familiar sounds of chaos.
“Hi, Pete.”
She had been calling him Pete since yesterday. Frank didn’t bother correcting her. If he did, she’d remember he was Frank for a few minutes, then revert to Pete. Short-term memory loss was common among the women who were still awake. Their frontal lobes were melting like butter in a hot pan. “What are you watching?”
“YouTube vids,” she said, not slowing her circuit of the office. “I could watch at my desk, I know, Gertrude’s screen is much bigger, but every time I sit down I start to float away. Walking is better.”
“Gotcha. What’s on?” Not that he really needed an update. Frank knew what was going on: bad things.
“Clips from Al Jazeera. All the news networks are going crazy, but Al Jazeera’s absolutely shitting themselves. The whole Mideast is on fire. Oil, you know. Oil wells. At least no nukes yet, but somebody over there will pop one eventually, don’t you think?”
“I don’t know. Linny, I wonder if you could look something up for me. I tried on my phone and couldn’t get anywhere. I guess prison personnel’s pretty cagey about their personal info.”
Linny was walking faster now, still staring at her laptop, which she held out in front of her like a chalice. She stumbled over a chair, almost fell, righted herself, and forged onward. “The Shias are fighting the Sunnis, and ISIL is fighting them both. Al Jazeera had a panel of commentators on, and they seem to think it’s because the women are gone. They say that without females to protect, though their idea of protection sure isn’t mine, some central psychological underpinning of Judaism and Islam is gone. Like both of those things are the same. Basically still blaming the women, even after they’ve gone to sleep. Bonkers, huh? In England—”
Enough news of the world, Frank thought. He clapped his hands repeatedly in front of Linny’s face. “I need you to do your job for a minute, hon. Could you do that for me?”
She snapped to attention. “Absolutely! What do you need, Pete?”
“Terry asked me to get an address for Lawrence Hicks. He’s the assistant warden up at Correctional. Can you find that for me?”
“Walk in the park, piece of cake, can of corn. Got all their phone numbers and addresses. In case there’s trouble up there, you know.”
But it didn’t turn out to be a walk in the park, after all. Not in Linny’s current state. Frank waited patiently as she sat at her desk, first trying one file and backing out, then another, then a third, shaking her head and cursing the computer as people did even when it was their own fault. Once she started to nod off and he saw a fine white thread spinning out of her ear. He clapped his hands again in front of her nose. “Concentrate, Linny, okay? This could be important.”
Her head jerked up. The thread snapped off, floated, disappeared. She gave him a loopy smile. “Roger that. Hey, remember that night we went line-dancing at Halls of Ivy over in Coughlin, and they kept playing that ‘Boot-Scootin’ Boogie?’?”
Frank had no idea what she was talking about. “I sure do. Lawrence Hicks. Address.”
She finally got it. Sixty-four Clarence Court, on the south side of town. Just about as far from the prison as you could get, and still be a Dooling resident.
“Thanks, Linny. Better get some coffee.”
“I think I’ll settle for Colombian marching powder instead of Colombian roast. Works better. God bless the Griner brothers.”
The phone rang. Linny grabbed the receiver. “Police!” For about three seconds she listened, then hung up.
“They keep calling to ask. ‘Is it true that there’s a woman up at the prison—’ Blah, blah, blah. Do I look like the newspaper?” She gave him a desperately unhappy smile. “I don’t know why I bother staying awake. I’m just postponing the inevitable.”
He bent down and rubbed her shoulder with his fingertips, didn’t know he was going to do it until it was done. “Hang in. There might be a miracle waiting around the next bend in the road. You won’t know until you get there.”
Linny started to cry. “Thanks, Dave. That’s a nice thing to say.”
“I’m a nice man,” Frank said, who did try to be nice, but found that it wasn’t always possible. In the long run, he suspected niceness didn’t pull the plow. Frank didn’t like that. It didn’t give him any pleasure. He wasn’t sure Elaine had ever grasped that he didn’t actually enjoy losing his temper. But he saw how it was. Someone had to pull the plow, and in Dooling, that was him.
He left, feeling sure that the next time he saw Linny Mars, she would be in a cocoon. What some of the deputies had started calling bitch-bags. He didn’t approve of the term, but he didn’t stop them. That was Terry’s job.
He was the sheriff, after all.
3