Thinner

by Stephen King

  They walked back to the Buick. Ginelli opened the driver's-side door while the girl stood there. And as he leaned in, taking the .38 out of the shoulder holster with one hand and pushing the wire lid-holder off the Ball jar with the other, he felt the girl's mood abruptly change from bitter exultation to one of sudden wariness. Ginelli himself was pumped up, his emotions and intuitions turned outward and tuned to an almost exquisite degree. He seemed to sense her first awareness of the crickets, the surrounding darkness, the ease with which she had been split off from the others, by a man she had never seen before, at a time when she should have known better than to trust any man she'd never seen before. For the first time she was wondering why 'Ellis Stoner' hadn't brought the papers down to the camp with him if he was so hot to get an ID on Halleck. But it was all too late. He had mentioned the one name guaranteed to cause a knee-jerk spasm and hate and to blind her with eagerness.

  'Here we are,' Ginelli said, and turned back to her with the gun in one hand and the glass Ball jar in the other.

  Her eyes widened again. Her breasts heaved as she opened her mouth and drew in breath.

  'You can start to scream,' Ginelli said, 'but I guarantee it will be the last sound you ever hear yourself make, Gina.'

  For a moment he thought she would do it anyway ... and then she let the breath out in a long sigh.

  'You're the one working for that pig,' she said. 'Hans satte sig pa -'

  'Talk English, whore,' he said almost casually, and she recoiled as if slapped.

  'You don't call me a whore,' she whispered. 'No one is going to call me a whore.' Her hands - those strong hands - arched and hooked into claws.

  'You call my friend William a pig, I call you a whore, your mother a whore, your father an asshole-licking toilet hound,' Ginelli said. He saw her lips draw back from her teeth in a snarl and he grinned. Something in that grin made her falter. She did not exactly look afraid - Ginelli told Billy later that he wasn't sure then if it was in her to look afraid but some reason seemed to surface through her hot fury, some sense of who and what she was dealing with.

  'What do you think this is, a game?' he asked her. 'You throw a curse onto someone with a wife and a kid, you think it is a game? You think he hit that woman, your gramma, on purpose? You think he had a contract on her? You think the Mafia had a contract put out on your old grandmother? Shit!'

  The girl was now crying with rage and hate. 'He was getting a jerk-off job from his woman and he ran her down in the street! And then they ... they han tog in pojken whitewash him off -but we got him fixed. And you will be next, you friend of pigs. It don't matter what -'

  He pushed the glass cap off the top of the wide-mouthed jar with his thumb. Her eyes went to the jar for the first time. That was just where he wanted them.

  'Acid, whore,' Ginelli said, and threw it in her face. 'See how many people you shoot with that slingshot of yours when you're blind.'

  She made a high, windy screeching sound and clapped her hands over her eyes, too late. She fell to the ground. Ginelli put a foot on her neck.

  'You scream and I'll kill you. You and the first three of your friends to make it up here.' He took the foot away. 'It was Pepsi-Cola.'

  She got to her knees, staring at him through her spread fingers, and with those same exquisitely tuned, almost telepathic senses, Ginelli knew that she hadn't needed him to tell her it wasn't acid. She knew, had known almost at once in spite of the stinging. An instant later - barely in time - he knew she was going to go for his balls.

  As she sprang at him, smooth as a cat, he sidestepped and kicked her in the side. The back of her head struck the chrome edging of the open driver's-side door with a loud crunch and she fell in a heap, blood flowing down one flawless cheek.

  Ginelli bent toward her, sure she was unconscious, and she was at him, hissing. One hand tore across his forehead, opening a long cut there. The other ripped through the arm of his turtleneck and drew more blood.

  Ginelli snarled and pushed her back down. He jammed the pistol against her nose. 'Come on, you want to go for it? You want to? Go for it, whore! Go on! You spoiled my face! I'd love for you to go for it!'

  She lay still, staring at him with eyes now as dark as death.

  'You'd do it,' he said. 'If it was just you, you'd come at me again. But it would just about kill him, wouldn't it? The old man?'

  She said nothing, but a dim light seemed to flicker momentarily across the darkness of those eyes.

  'Well, you think what it would do to him if that really had been acid I threw in your face. Think what it would do to him if instead of you I decided to throw it in the faces of those two kids in the GI Joe pajamas. I could do it, whore. I could do it and then go back home and eat a good dinner. You look into my face and you are gonna know I could.'

  Now at last he saw confusion and a dawning of something that could have been fear - but not for herself.

  'He cursed you,' he said. 'I was the curse.'

  'Fuck his curse, that pig,' she whispered, and wiped blood from her face with a contemptuous flick of her fingers.

  'He tells me not to hurt anyone,' Ginelli went on, as if she had not spoken. 'I haven't. But that ends tonight. I don't know how many times your old gramps has gotten away with this before, but he ain't going to get away with it this time. You tell him to take it off. You tell him it's the last time I ask. Here. Take this.'

  He pressed a scrap of paper into her hand. On it he had Written the telephone number of the 'safe kiosk' in New York.

  'You gonna call this number by midnight tonight and tell me what that old man says. If you need to hear back from me, you call that number again two hours later. You can pick up your message ... if there is one. And that's it. One way or another, the door is gonna be closed. No one at that number is gonna know what the fuck you are talking about after two o'clock tomorrow morning.-'

  'He'll never take it off.'

  'Well, maybe he won't,' he said, 'because that is the same thing your brother said last night. But that's not your business. You just play square with him and let him make up his own mind what he's gonna do - make sure you explain to him that if he says no, that's when the boogiewoogie really starts. You go first, then the two kids, then anybody else I can get my hands on. Tell him that. Now, get in the car.'

  'No. I’

  Ginelli rolled his eyes. 'Will you wise up? I just want to make sure I have time to get out of here without twelve cops on my tail. If I had wanted to kill you, I wouldn't have given you a message to deliver.'

  The girl got up. She was a little wobbly, but she made it. She got in behind the wheel and then slid across the seat.

  'Not far enough.' Ginelli wiped blood off his forehead and showed it to her on his fingers. 'After this, I want to see you crouched up against that door over there like a wallflower on her first date.'

  She slid against the door. 'Good,' Ginelli said, getting in. 'Now, stay there.'

  He backed out to Finson Road without turning on his lights - the Buick's wheels spun a little on the dry timothy grass. He shifted to drive with his gun hand, saw her twitch, and pointed the gun at her again.

  'Wrong,' he said. 'Don't move. Don't move at all. You understand?'

  'I understand.'

  'Good.'

  He drove back the way he had come, holding the gun on her.

  'Always it's this way,' she said bitterly. 'For even a little justice we are asked to pay so much. He is your friend, this pig Halleck?'

  'I told you, don't call him that. He's no pig.'

  'He cursed us,' she said, and there was a kind of wondering contempt in her voice. 'Tell him for me, mister, that God cursed us long before him or any of his tribe ever were,'

  'Save it for the social worker, babe.'

  She fell silent.

  A quarter of a mile before the gravel pit where Frank Spurton rested, Ginelli stopped the car.

  'Okay, this is far enough. Get out.'

  'Sure.' She looked at him steadily with those
unfathomable eyes. 'But there is one thing you should know, mister - our paths will cross again. And when they do, I will kill you.'

  'No,' he said. 'You won't. Because you owe me your life tonight. And if that ain't enough for you, you ungrateful bitch, you can add in your brother's life last night. You talk, but you still don't understand the way things are, or why you ain't home-free on this, or why you ain't never gonna be home-free on this until you quit. I got a friend you could fly like a kite if you hooked up some twine to his belt. What have you got? I'll tell you what you got. You got an old man with no nose who put a curse on my friend and then ran away in the night like a hyena.'

  Now she was crying, and crying hard. The tears ran down her face in streams.

  'Are you saying God is on your side?' she asked him, her voice so thick the words were almost unintelligible. 'Is that what I hear you saying? You should burn in hell for such! blasphemy. Are we hyenas? If we are, it was people like your friend who made us so, My great-grandfather says there are no curses, only mirrors you hold up to the souls of men and women.'

  'Get out,' he said. 'We can't talk. We can't even hear each other.'

  'That's right.'

  She opened the door and got out. As he pulled away she screamed: 'Your friend is a pig and he'll die thin!'

  'But I don't think you will,' Ginelli said.

  'What do you mean?'

  Ginelli looked at his watch. It was after three o'clock. 'Tell you in the car,' he said. 'You've got an appointment at seven o'clock.'

  Billy felt that sharp, hollow needle of fear in his belly again. 'With him?'

  'That's right. Let's go.'

  As Billy got to his feet there was another arrhythmic episode this the longest one yet. He closed his eyes and grasped at his chest, What remained of his chest. Ginelli grabbed him. 'William, are you okay?'

  He looked in the mirror and saw Ginelli holding a grotesque sideshow freak in flapping clothes. The arrhythmia passed and was replaced by an even more familiar sensation - that milky, curdled rage that was directed at the old man ... and at Heidi.

  'I'm okay,' he said. 'Where are we going,?

  'Bangor,' Ginelli said.

  Chapter Twenty-three

  The Transcript

  They took the Nova. Both things Ginelli had told him about it were true - it smelled quite strongly of cow manure, and it ate the road between Northeast Harbor and Bangor in great swallows. Genelli stopped around four to pick up a huge basket of steamer clams. They parked at a roadside rest area and divided them, along with a six-pack of beer. The two or three family groups at the picnic tables got a look at Billy Halleck and moved as far away as possible.

  While they ate, Ginelli finished his story. It didn't take long.

  'I was back in the John Tree room by eleven o'clock last night,' he said. 'I could have gotten there quicker, maybe, but I did a few loops and figure-eights and turn-backs just to make sure no one was behind me.

  'Once I was in the room, I called New York and sent a fellow out to the telephone I gave the girl the number for. I told him to take a tape deck and a steno plug with him - the kind of gadget reporters use to do phone interviews. I didn't want to have to rely on hearsay, William, if you can dig that. I told him to call me back with the tape as soon as she hung up.

  'I disinfected the cuts she put in me while I waited for the call-back. I'm not gonna say she had hydrophobia or anything like that, William, but there was so much hate in her, you know.'

  'I know,' Billy said, and thought grimly: I really do know. Because I'm gaining. In that one way, I'm gaining.

  The call had come at a quarter past twelve. Closing his eyes and pressing the fingers of his left hand against his forehead, Ginelli was able to give Billy an almost exact recitation of how the playback had gone.

  Ginelli's Man: Hello.

  Gina Lemke: Do you work for the man I saw tonight?

  Ginelli's Man: Yes, you could say that.

  Gina: Tell him my great-grandfather says

  Ginelli's Man: I got a steno plug on this. I mean, you are being taped. I will play it back for the man you mentioned. So

  Gina: You can do that?

  Ginelli's Man: Yes. So you are talking to him now, in a way of speaking.

  Gina: All right. My great-grandfather says he will take it off. I tell him he is crazy, worse, that he is wrong, but he is firm. He says there can be no more hurting and no more fear for his people - he will take it off. But he needs to meet with Halleck. He can't take it off unless he does. At seven o'clock tomorrow evening my great-grandfather will be in Bangor. There is a park between two streets Union and Hammond. He will be there sitting on a bench. He will be alone. So you win, big man - you win, mi hela po klockan. Have your pig friend in Fairmont Park, Bangor, tonight at seven.

  Ginelli's Man: That's all?

  Gina: Yes, except tell him I hope his cock turns black and falls off.

  Ginelli's Man: You're telling him yourself, sister. But you wouldn't be if you knew who you was telling.

  Gina: And fuck you, too.

  Ginelli's Man: You should call back here at two, to see if there's an answer.

  Gina: I'll call.

  'She hung up,' Ginelli said. He dumped the empty clam shells in a litter basket, came back, and added with no pity at all: 'My guy said it sounded like she was crying all through it.'

  'Christ Jesus,' Billy muttered.

  'Anyway, I had my guy put the steno plug back on the phone and I recorded a message for him to play back to her when she called at two. It went like this. "Hello, Gina.

  This is Special Agent Stoner. I have your message. It sounds like a go. My friend William will come to the park at seven o'clock this evening. He will be alone, but I will be watching. Your people will be watching too, I imagine. That's fine. Let us both watch and let neither of us get in the way of what goes on between the two of them. If anything happens to my friend, you will pay a high price.'

  'And that was it?'

  'Yes. That was it.'

  'The old man caved in.'

  'I think he caved in. It could still be a trap, you know.' Ginelli looked at him soberly. 'They know I'll be watching. They may have decided to kill you where I can see it, as revenge on me, and then take their chances with what happens next.'

  'They're killing me anyway,' Billy said.

  Or the girl could take it into her he had to do it on her own. She's mad, William. People don't always do what they're told when they're mad.'

  Billy looked at him reflectively. 'No, they don't. But either way, I don't have much choice, do I?'

  'No ... I don't think you do. You ready?'

  Billy glanced toward the people staring at him and nodded. He'd been ready for a long time.

  Halfway back to the car he said: 'Did you really do any of it for me, Richard?'

  Ginelli stopped, looked at him, and smiled a little. The smile was almost vague ... but that whirling, twirling light in his eyes was sharply focused - too sharply focused for Billy to look at. He had to shift his gaze.

  'Does it matter, William?'

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Purpurfargade Ansiktet

  They were in Bangor by late afternoon. Ginelli swung the Nova into a gas station, had it filled up, and got direction from the attendant. Billy sat exhaustedly in the passenger seat. Ginelli looked at him with sharp concern when h came back.

  'William, are you all right?'

  'I don't know,' he said, and then reconsidered. 'No.'

  'Is it your ticker again?'

  'Yeah.' He thought about what Ginelli's midnight doctor had said - potassium, electrolytes ... something about how Karen Carpenter might have died. 'I ought to have something with potassium in it. Pineapple juice. Bananas. Or oranges.' His heart broke into a sudden disorganized gallop. Billy leaned back and shut his eyes and waited to see if he was going to die. At last the uproar quieted. 'A whole bag of oranges.'

  There was a Shop and Save up ahead. Ginelli pulled in. 'I'll be right b
ack, William. Hang in.'

  'Sure,' Billy said vaguely, and fell into a light doze as soon as Ginelli left the car. He dreamed. In his dream he saw his house in Fairview. A vulture with a rotting beak flew down to the windowsill and peered in. From inside the house someone began to shriek.

  Then someone else was shaking him roughly. Billy started awake. 'Huh!'

  Ginelli leaned back and blew out breath. 'Jesus, William, don't scare me like that!'

  'What are you talking about?'

  'I thought you were dead, man. Here.' He put a net bag filled with navel oranges in Billy's lap. Billy plucked at the fastener with his thin fingers - fingers which now looked like white spider legs - and couldn't get it to give. Ginelli slit the bag open with his pocket knife, then cut an orange in quarters with it. Billy ate slowly at first, as one does a duty, then ravenously, seeming to rediscover his appetite for the first time in a week or more. And his disturbed heart seemed to calm down and rediscover something like its old steady beat ... although that might have only been his mind playing games with itself.

  He finished the first orange and borrowed Ginelli's knife to cut a second one into pieces.

  'Better?' Ginelli asked.

  'Yes. A lot. When do we get to the park?'

  Ginelli pulled over to the curb, and Billy saw by the sign that they were on the corner of Union Street and West Broadway -summer trees, full of foliage, murmured in a mild breeze. Dapples and shadow moved lazily on the street.

  'We're here,' Ginelli said simply, and Billy felt a finger touch his backbone and then slide coldly down it. 'As close as I want to get, anyway. I would have dropped you off downtown, only you would have attracted one hell of a lot of attention walking up here.'

  'Yes,' Billy said. 'Like children fainting and pregnant women having miscarriages.'

  'You couldn't have made it anyway,' Ginelli said kindly. 'Anyway, it don't matter. Park's right down at the foot of this hill. Quarter of a mile. Pick a bench in the shade and wait.'