The Stand:BOOK III(15)

"Yeah. They are. I don't think Freddy Campanari is going to live to see the sun go down. That leaves two pilots, me and Andy. Tell him that, and tell him something else when he gets back. I want that fuck Trashcan Man gone. That's my price for staying."

Lloyd gazed at Carl Hough. "Is it?"

"You're damn well told."

"Well, I tell you, Carl," Lloyd said. "I can't pass that message on. If you want to give orders to him, you'll have to do it yourself."

Carl looked suddenly confused and a little afraid. Fear sat strangely on that craggy face. "Yeah, I see your point. I'm just tired and fucked over, Lloyd. My face hurts like hell. I don't mean to take it out on you."

"That's okay, man. It's what I'm here for." Sometimes he wished it wasn't. Already his head was starting to ache.

Carl said, "But he's gotta go. If I have to tell him that, I will. I know he's got one of those black stones. He's ace-high with the tall man, I guess. But, hey, listen." Carl sat down and put his helmet on a baccarat table. "Trash was responsible for that fire. My Christ, how're we ever going to get those planes up if one of the big guy's men is torching the fucking pilots?"

Several people passing through the lobby of the Grand glanced uneasily over at the table where Lloyd and Carl sat.

"Keep your voice down, Carl."

"Okay. But you see the problem, don't you?"

"How sure are you that Trash did it?"

"Listen," Carl said, leaning forward, "he was in the motor pool, all right? In there for a long time. Lots of guys saw him, not just me."

"I thought he was out someplace. In the desert. You know, looking for stuff."

"Well, he came back, all right? That sand-crawler he takes out was full of stuff. God knows where he gets it, I sure don't. Well, he had the guys in stitches at coffee break. You know how he is. To him, weaponry is like candy is to a kid."

"Yeah."

"The last thing he showed us was one of those incendiary fuses. You pull the tab, and there's this little burst of phosphorus. Then nothing for half an hour or forty minutes, depending on the size of the fuse, all right? You get it? Then there's one hell of a fire. Small, but very intense."

"Yeah."

"So okay. Trashy's showin us, just about droolin over the thing, in fact, and Freddy Campanari says, ‘Hey, people who play with fire wet the bed, Trash.' And Steve Tobin-you know him, he's funny like a rubber crutch-he says, ‘You guys better put away your matches, Trashy's back in town.' And Trash got really weird. He looked around at us, and he muttered under his breath. I was sitting right next to him and it sounded like he said, ‘Don't ask me about old lady Semple's check no more.' That make any sense to you?"

Lloyd shook his head. Nothing about the Trashcan Man made much sense to him.

"Then he just left. Picked up the stuff he was showing us and took off. Well, none of us felt very good about it. We didn't mean to hurt his feelings. Most of the guys really like Trash. Or they did. He's like a little kid, you know?"

Lloyd nodded.

"An hour later, that goddam fuel truck goes up like a rocket. And while we were picking up the pieces, I happened to look up and there's Trashy over in his sand-crawler by the barracks building, watching us with binoculars."

"Is that all you've got?" Lloyd asked, relieved.

"No. It ain't. If it was, I wouldn't even have bothered to come see you, Lloyd. But it got me thinking about how that truck went up. That's just the sort of thing you use an incendiary fuse for. In Nam, the Cong blew up a lot of our ammo dumps just that way, with our own fucking incendiary fuses. Stick it under the truck, on the exhaust pipe. If no one starts the truck up, it goes when the timer runs out. If someone does, it goes when the pipe gets hot. Either way, ka-boom, no more truck. The only thing that didn't fit was there's always a dozen fuel trucks in the motor pool, and we don't use them in any particular order. So after we got poor old Freddy over to the infirmary, John Waite and I went over there. John's in charge of the motor pool and he was just about pissing himself. He'd seen Trash in there earlier."

"He was sure it was Trashcan Man?"

"With those burns all the way up his arm, it's kind of hard to make a mistake, wouldn't you say? All right? No one thought anything of it then. He was just poking around, and that's his job, ain't it?"

"Yes, I guess you'd have to say it is."

"So me and John start to look over the rest of the fuel trucks. And holy shit, there's an incendiary fuse on every one of them. He put them on the exhaust pipes just below the fuel-tanks themselves. The reason the truck we were using went first was because the exhaust pipe got hot, like I just told you, all right? But the others were getting ready to go. Two or three were starting to smoke. Some of the trucks were empty, but at least five of them were full of jet fuel. Another ten minutes and we would have lost half the goddam base."

Oh Jesus, Lloyd thought mournfully. It really is bad. Just about as bad as it can get.

Carl held up his blistered hand. "I got this pulling one of the hot ones. Now do you see why he's got to go?"

Lloyd said hesitantly, "Maybe someone stole those fuses out of the back of his sand-crawler while he was taking a leak or something."

Carl said patiently: "That's not how it happened. Someone hurt his feelings while he was showing off his toys, and he tried to burn us all up. He damn near succeeded. Something's got to be done, Lloyd."

"All right, Carl."

He spent the rest of the afternoon asking around about Trash-had anyone seen him or know where he might be? Guarded looks and negative answers. Word had gotten around. Maybe that was good. Anyone who did see him would be quick to report it, in hopes of having a good word put in on their behalf with the big guy. But Lloyd had a hunch that no one was going to see Trash. He had given them a little hotfoot and had gone running back into the desert in his sand-crawler.

He looked down at the solitaire game spread out in front of him and carefully controlled an urge to sweep the whole thing onto the floor. Instead, he cheated out another ace and went on playing. It didn't matter. When Flagg wanted him, he would just reach out and gather him up. Old Trashy was going to end up riding a crosspiece just like Hec Drogan. Hard luck, guy.

But in his secret heart, he wondered.

Things had happened lately that he didn't like. Dayna, for instance. Flagg had known about her, that was true, but she hadn't talked. She had somehow escaped into death instead, leaving them no further ahead in the matter of the third spy.

That was another thing. How come Flagg didn't just know about the third spy? He had known about the old fart, and when he had come back from the desert he had known about Dayna, and had told them exactly how he was going to handle her. But it hadn't worked.

And now, Trashcan Man.

Trash wasn't a nobody. Maybe he had been back in the old days, but not anymore. He wore the black man's stone just as he himself did. After Flagg had crisped that bigmouth lawyer's brains in L.A., Lloyd had seen Flagg lay his hands on Trashcan's shoulders and tell him gently that all the dreams had been true dreams. And Trash had whispered, "My life for you."

Lloyd didn't know what else might have passed between them, but it seemed clear that he had wandered the desert with Flagg's blessing. And now Trashcan Man had gone berserk.

Which raised some pretty serious questions.

Which was why Lloyd was sitting here alone at nine in the evening, cheating at solitaire and wishing he was drunk.

"Mr. Henreid?"

Now what? He looked up and saw a girl with a pretty, pouty face. Tight white shorts. A halter that didn't quite cover the areolae of her nipples. Sexpot type for sure, but she looked nervous and pale, almost ill. She was biting compulsively at one of her thumbnails, and he saw that all her nails were bitten and ragged.

"What."

"I …  I have to see Mr. Flagg," she said. The strength went rapidly out of her voice, and it ended as a whisper.

"You do, huh? What do you think I am, his social secretary?"

"But …  they said …  to see you."

"Who did?"

"Well, Angie Hirschfield did. It was her."

"What's your name?"

"Uh, Julie." She giggled, but it was only a reflex. The scared look never left her face, and Lloyd wondered wearily what sort of shit was up in the fan now. A girl like this wouldn't ask for Flagg unless it was very serious indeed. "Julie Lawry."

"Well, Julie Lawry, Flagg isn't in Las Vegas now."

"When will he be back?"

"I don't know. He comes and goes, and he doesn't wear a beeper. He doesn't explain himself to me, either. If you have something, give it to me and I'll see that he gets the message." She looked at him doubtfully and Lloyd repeated what he had told Carl Hough that afternoon. "It's what I'm here for, Julie."

"Okay." Then, in a rush: "If it's important, you tell him I'm the one told you. Julie Lawry."

"Okay."

"You won't forget?"

"No, for Chrissake! Now what is it?"

She pouted. "Well, you don't have to be so mean about it."

He sighed and put the handful of cards he had been holding down on the table. "No," he said. "I guess I don't. Now, what is it?"

"That dummy. If he's around, I figure he's spying. I just thought you should know." Her eyes glinted viciously. "Motherfucker pulled a gun on me."