The Stand:BOOK III(6)

Almost sane.

But she just couldn't believe it.

"Hey, Jurgens!" Jenny called up brassily. "Did you fall asleep up there, or are you just playing with yourself?"

Dayna leaned over the cherry-picker's low railing and looked down at Jenny's upturned face. Gave her the finger. Jenny laughed. Dayna went back to her streetlamp bulb, struggling to snap it in, and by the time she had it right, it was time to knock off for the day. On the ride back to the garage, she was quiet and preoccupied …  quiet enough for Jenny to comment on it.

"Just got nothing to say, I guess," Dayna told her with a half-smile.

It couldn't have been Tom.

Could it?

"Wake up! Wake up! Goddammit, wake up, you bitch!"

She was coming out of murky sleep when a foot caught her in the small of the back, knocking her out of the big round bed and onto the floor. She came awake at once, blinking and confused.

Lloyd was there, looking down at her with cold anger. Whitney Horgan. Ken DeMott. Ace High. Jenny. Only Jenny's usually open face was also blank and cold.

"Jen-?"

No answer. Dayna got up on her knees, dimly aware of her nakedness, more aware of the cold circle of faces looking down at her. The expression on Lloyd's face was that of a man who has been betrayed and has discovered the betrayal.

Am I dreaming this?

"Get the fuck dressed, you lying, spying bitch!"

Okay, so it was no dream. She felt a sinking terror in her stomach that seemed almost preordained. They had known about the Judge, and now they knew about her. He had told them. She glanced at the clock on the night table. It was quarter of four in the morning. The Hour of the Secret Police, she thought.

"Where is he?" she asked.

"Around," Lloyd said grimly. His face was pale and shiny. His amulet lay in the open V of his shirt. "You'll wish he wasn't before long."

"Lloyd?"

"What."

"I gave you VD, Lloyd. I hope it rots off."

He kicked her just below the breastbone, knocking her on her back.

"I hope it rots off, Lloyd."

"Shut up and get dressed."

"Get out of here. I don't dress in front of any man."

Lloyd kicked her again, this time in the bicep of her right arm. The pain was tremendous and her mouth drew down in a quivering bow but she didn't cry out.

"You in a little hot water, Lloyd? Sleeping with Mata Hari?" She grinned at him with tears of pain standing in her eyes.

"Come on, Lloyd," Whitney Horgan said. He saw murder in Lloyd's eyes and now stepped forward quickly and put a hand on Lloyd's arm. "We'll go in the living room. Jenny can watch her get dressed."

"And what if she decides to jump out the window?"

"She won't get the chance," Jenny said. Her broad face was dead blank, and for the first time Dayna noticed she was wearing a pistol on her hip.

"She can't anyway," Ace High said. "The windows up here are just for show, didn't you know that? Sometimes big losers at the tables get wanting to take a high dive, and that would be bad publicity for the hotel. So they don't open." His eyes fell on Dayna, and they held a touch of compassion. "Now you, babe, you're a real big loser."

"Come on, Lloyd," Whitney said again. "You're going to do something you'll be sorry for later-kick her in the head or something-if you don't get out of here."

"Okay." They went to the door together, and Lloyd looked back over his shoulder. "He's going to make it bad for you, you bitch."

"You were the crappiest lover I ever had, Lloyd," she said sweetly.

He tried to lunge back at her, but Whitney and Ken DeMott held him back and drew him through the doorway. The double doors closed with a low snicking sound.

"Get dressed, Dayna," Jenny said.

Dayna stood up, still rubbing the purpling bruise on her arm. "You people like that?" she asked. "Is that where you're at? People like Lloyd Henreid?"

"You were the one sleeping with him, not me." Her face showed an emotion for the first time: angry reproach. "You think it's nice to come over here and spy on folks? You deserve everything you're going to get. And, sister, you're going to get a lot."

"I was sleeping with him for a reason." She drew on her panties. "And I was spying for a reason."

"Why don't you just shut up?"

Dayna turned and looked at Jenny. "What do you think they're doing here, girl? Why do you think they're learning to fly those jets out at Indian Springs? Those Shrike missiles, do you think they're so Flagg can win his girl a Kewpie doll at the country fair?"

Jenny pressed her lips tightly together. "That's none of my business."

"Will it be none of your business if they use the jets to fly over the Rockies next spring and the missiles to wipe out everyone living there?"

"I hope they do. It's us or you people; that's what he says. And I believe him."

"They believed Hitler, too. But you don't believe him; you're just scared gutless of him."

"Get dressed, Dayna."

Dayna pulled on her slacks, buttoned them, zipped them. Then she put her hand to her mouth. "I …  I think I'm going to throw up …  God! … " Clutching her long-sleeved blouse in her hand, she turned and ran into the bathroom and locked the door. She made loud retching noises.

"Open the door, Dayna! Open it or I'll shoot the lock out of it!"

"Sick-" She made another loud retching noise. Standing on tiptoe, she felt along the top of the medicine cabinet, thanking God she had left the knife and its spring clip up here, praying for another twenty seconds-

She had the clip. She strapped it on. Now there were other voices in the bedroom.

With her left hand she turned on the water in the basin. "Just a minute, I'm sick, dammit!"

But they weren't going to give her a minute. Someone dealt the bathroom door a kick and it shuddered in its frame. Dayna clicked the knife home. It lay along her forearm like a deadly arrow. Moving with desperate speed, she yanked the blouse on and buttoned the sleeves. Splashed water on her mouth. Flushed the toilet.

Another kick dealt to the door. Dayna twisted the knob and they burst in, Lloyd looking wild-eyed, Jenny standing behind Ken DeMott and Ace High, her pistol drawn.

"I puked," Dayna said coldly. "Too bad you couldn't watch it, huh?"

Lloyd grabbed her by the shoulder and threw her out into the bedroom. "I ought to break your neck, you cunt."

"Remember your master's voice." She buttoned the front of her blouse, sweeping them with her flashing eyes. "He's your dog-god, isn't that right? Kiss his ass and you belong to him."

"You better just shut up," Whitney said gruffly. "You're only making it worse for yourself."

She looked at Jenny, unable to understand how the openly smiling, bawdy day-girl could have changed into this blank-faced night-thing. "Don't you see that he's getting ready to start it all over again?" she asked them desperately. "The killing, the shooting …  the plague? "

"He's the biggest and the strongest," Whitney said with curious gentleness. "He's going to wipe you people off the face of the earth."

"No more talk," Lloyd said. "Let's go."

They moved to take her arms, but she stepped away, holding her arms across her body, and shook her head. "I'll walk," she said.

The casino was deserted except for a number of men with rifles, sitting or standing by the doors. They seemed to find interesting things to look at on the walls, the ceilings, and the bare gaming tables as the elevator doors opened and Lloyd's party stepped out, herding Dayna along.

She was taken to the gate at the end of the rank of cashiers' windows. Lloyd opened it with a small key and they stepped through. She was herded quickly through an area that looked like a bank: there were adding machines, wastebaskets full of paper tapes, jars of rubber bands and paper clips. Computer screens, now gray and blank. Cash drawers ajar. Money had spilled out some of them and lay on the tile floors. Most of the bills were fifties and hundreds.

At the rear of the cashiers' area, Whitney opened another door and Dayna was led down a carpeted hallway to an empty receptionist's office. Tastefully decorated. Free-form white desk for a tasteful secretary who had died, coughing and hacking up great green gobbets of phlegm, some months ago. A picture on the wall that looked like a Klee print. A mellow light-brown shag rug. The antechamber to the seat of power.

Fear trickled into the hollows of her body like cold water, stiffening her up, making her feel awkward. Lloyd leaned over the desk and flicked the toggle switch there. Dayna saw that he was sweating lightly. "We have her, R.F."

She felt hysterical laughter bubbling up inside her and was helpless to stop it-not that she cared. "R.F.! R.F.! Oh, that's good! Ready when you are, C.B.!" She went off into a gale of giggles, and suddenly Jenny slapped her.

"Shut up!" she hissed. "You don't know what you're in for."

"I know," Dayna said, looking at her. "You and the rest, you're the ones who don't know."

A voice came out of the intercom, warm and pleased and cheerful. "Very good, Lloyd, thanks. Send her in, please."

"Alone?"

"Yes indeed." There was an indulgent chuckle as the intercom cut off. Dayna felt her mouth dry up at the sound of it.