Chapter 67 Chapter 66

Lloyd Henrider was sitting alone in the Young Lions bar playing cards while Nadina Cross was beginning to realize certain truths that were perhaps self-evident.He is angry.On that day, a fire broke out suddenly in Indian Springs. One person died and three were injured, one of whom was dying from severe burns.Nobody in Vegas knew how to treat a burn like that. It was a letter from Karl Hoff.He was very irritated, and the man was a man to be reckoned with.Before the plague, he was an Air Ozark pilot and ex-Marine who could make a daiquiri with one hand and tear Lloyd apart with the other if he wanted to. into two halves.Carl said he'd killed a few people in his long, troubled career, and Lloyd preferred to believe him.Lloyd was not physically afraid of Karl Hoff. Although the pilot was tall and strong, he was hesitant to do things like everyone in the West, not to mention that Lloyd still carried Flagg's magic power.But he was one of their pilots, and that was why he had to be smart about it.As it happens, Lloyd is a man who is good at coping.He can prove it with simple and convincing facts: He spent weeks with a crazy man named Pok Freeman, survived to tell the story, and he and Randall Flagg stayed together for weeks and was able to breathe sanely.

Karl arrived at about 2 o'clock on September 12th, helmet tucked under one arm.He had an ugly burn on the left side of his face and blisters on his hands.It's on fire and it's bad.A petrol truck exploded, sending burning gasoline all over the tarmac. "Okay," said Lloyd, "I'll take care of letting Boss know. Are those burnt people in the hospital?" "Yes, in the hospital. I don't think Freddie Campanari will survive the dark. So there are only two pilots left, me and Andy. You tell him about it first, wait When he comes back tell him one more thing: I want that bloody scumbag gone. That's the condition of my stay."

Lloyd stared at Karl Hough. "yes?" "You know that very well." "Well, I tell you, Carl," said Lloyd, "I can't bring you this letter. If you want to give him orders, you've got to say it yourself." Karl suddenly became bewildered and frightened, and there was a strange expression of fear on his rough face. "Yeah, I see what you mean. I just got so badly baked that my face hurts like this. I don't want to get mad at you." "It's good, man. That's what I'm here for." Sometimes he wishes it wasn't.His head was starting to hurt.

Carl said, "But he's got to go. If I had to tell him that, I would. I know he's got a black stone. I think he's a tall man's favorite. But hey, listen. Carl sat down and put his helmet on a card table. "The fire was made by the trash bugs. My god, how is our plan going to work if the bosses set the pilot on fire?" Several people passing Grand Hall glanced uneasily at the table where Lloyd and Carl sat. "Speak softly, Karl." "Okay. But you know the problem, don't you?" "How can you be sure it was the trash bugs?" "Listen," Carl said, leaning over, "he's in the garage, right? He's been there for a long time. Not just me, a lot of people have seen him."

"I think he's going to drive somewhere. To the desert. You know, to find weapons." "Yeah, he's back, isn't he? He's driving out with a firecrawler full of weapons. God knows where he got it, I don't anyway. He had everyone laughing over coffee. You know what he looks like. He likes weapons like a kid likes candy." "yes." "The last thing he showed us was a kind of incendiary igniter. You pull the tab and it emits phosphorescence and nothing happens for 30 to 40 minutes after that, depending on how long it takes. Depends on the model of igniter. Do you get it? And then there will be a fire. Not a big fire, but a big fire."

"yes." "Here's the thing. Garbage Bugs got all excited when he showed us, and Freddie Campanari said, 'Hey, people who play with fire love the bed, Garbage Bugs.' Seve Tobin— You know him, he's a very funny guy--he said, 'You better hide the matches, the Trash Bug is back.' The Trash Bug got a little pissed off. He looked at us and muttered something under his breath. I Sitting right next to him, I thought I heard him say, 'Stop asking me old woman Semple's check.' Do you know what that means?" Lloyd shook his head.He didn't understand anything about the trash bugs.

"Then he turned around and walked away. He took everything he showed us. We all thought it wasn't a good idea. None of us meant to hurt his feelings. Most people like trash bugs, or Said they used to like him. He was like a little kid, you know?" Lloyd nodded. "An hour later, that damn truck was blown up like a rocket. I happened to look up as we were picking up the truck's debris, and I saw Garbage Bug's Flamecat parked next to the barracks, and he was sitting Watching us in the car." "Is that all you want to say?" Lloyd asked with a sigh of relief.

"No, that's not all. If it's just for saying that, I won't need you, Lloyd. It made me wonder how that truck exploded. It's the kind of thing that needs a Molotov cocktail to do it." In Naim, the Viet Cong used our own incendiary igniter to blow up many of our ammunition depots in this way. Just attach it under the truck and put it on the exhaust pipe. If there is no Someone starts the truck and it explodes as soon as the timer runs out. If someone starts it, it explodes as soon as the exhaust pipe heats up. Either way, bang, the truck is gone. We always have 6 oil trucks, and we never used them in some sort of order. So when we got poor Freddie in the hospital, John Waite and I went to the garage. John was in charge In the garage. He saw the trash bugs there just now."

"Can he be sure it's a trash bug?" "He's got a big burn on his arm, he can't get it wrong in this situation, you say? Right? No one suspected anything at the time. He was just walking around, it was his job, Isn't it?" "Yes, I think you have to say that." “So John and I started checking out the rest of the gas trucks, and the bad thing was, every one of them had a Molotov cocktail igniter on the exhaust pipe just under the gas tank. The one we were using exploded first , it's because its exhaust is getting hot, like I told you, right? But a couple of others are about to explode too. Two or three are starting to smoke. A couple of cars are empty, But there are at least five vehicles full of jet fuel. Another 10 minutes late and half of our base would be gone."

Oh, my God, Lloyd thought dejectedly, things were really bad, they couldn't be worse. Carl held up his blistered hand. "I burned my hand trying to remove a hot Molotov cocktail. Now you see why he had to go?" Lloyd said hesitantly, "Maybe those incendiary igniters were stolen from the back of his crawler when he got out to pee or something." Carl said patiently, "That's not the way it is. When someone hurt his feelings while he was showing off his toys, he wanted to burn us all. He almost got it. You gotta do something, Lloyd .” "Okay, Carl." He spent the rest of the afternoon asking around for news about Litterbug—did anyone see him or know where he went?What he got was a defensive look and a negative answer.Word has spread.This may be a good thing.As long as anyone saw him, he would report it soon, so that he could say something nice about him in front of the boss.But Lloyd had a hunch—no one would see the litter bug.He gave them a little panic before heading back into the desert in his flamecat.

He looked down at the cards in front of him, trying to control his emotions, not letting himself knock everything on the table to the ground.Instead, he pulled out another ace and continued playing.It doesn't matter.If Flagg wanted him, he'd go out and get him back.Old Trash Bugs will end up nailed to the bar as well as Heck Drogan.Bad luck, man. But deep down in his heart, there was doubt. He is very dissatisfied with these recent events.For example, the Dana thing.Flagg knew her, all right, but she said nothing.It was as if she had fled into death, leaving them wondering how to go on searching for the third spy. There is another thing.How could Flagg not know about the third spy?He knew the old guy, he knew Dana when he came back from the desert, and told him exactly what he was going to do with her.But it didn't work. Now, it's the trash bug again. Litterbug is no small person.Maybe he came back once, but not again.He carried the Man in Black's stone, as he carried himself.When Flagg smashed the garrulous lawyer's head in Los Angeles, he put his hand on Trash Bug's shoulder and said gently: All dreams come true.Garbage Worm whispered, "Willing to serve you." Lloyd didn't know what else was going on between them, but it seemed clear that he was wandering the desert under Flagg's protection.But now the litter bugs have gone crazy. This raises some very serious problems. It was these problems that led Lloyd to sit here at nine o'clock at night playing cards by himself, and he'd rather be drunk. "Mr. Henry?" What happened again?He raised his head and saw a girl with a sullen look on her pretty face.Tight white shorts and a triangle top that barely covered the areola.Definitely one of those party girls, but she looked very tense and pale and seemed about to faint.She subconsciously bit her thumbnail, and he saw that her nails were all bitten and uneven. "What's up?" "I... I must see Mr. Flagg," she said.Her voice quickly faded to a low whisper. "You want to see him, don't you? Who do you think I am, his social secretary?" "But... they said... came to you." "Who said this?" "Well, Angie Hirschfeld said it, she said it." "What's your name?" "Well, Julie." She giggled, but this smile was just a conditioned reflex, and the frightened expression on her face never disappeared.Lloyd thought wearily, wondering what would happen now.A girl like her wouldn't come to Flagg unless there was something very serious about it. "Julie Lowry." "Oh, Julie Lowry, Flagg isn't in Vegas right now." "When does he come back?" "I don't know. He comes and goes all the time, and he doesn't bring a pager. He doesn't explain to me what he's going to do. If you have anything, you can tell me, and I'll tell him." She said suspiciously Looking at him, Lloyd repeated what he had said to Karl Hough that afternoon: "That's what I'm here for, Julie." "Well," she said eagerly, "if it matters, you tell him I told you. Julie Laurie." "OK." "You won't forget, will you?" "Oh God! I won't forget! What the hell is it?" She scowled. "You don't have to lose your temper like that." He sighed and put the cards in his hand on the table. "No," he said, "I don't think it's worth it. Come on, what's the matter?" "That idiot. If he comes, I think he must be a spy. I just thought I should let you know." Her eyes flashed fiercely. "The goddam thing also shot me." "What idiot?" "Oh, I saw the retarded man, so I figured the idiot must be with him, you know? They're not like us. I figured they must be from the other side." "That's all you want to say, huh?" "yes." "Oh, I don't know what the hell you're talking about. There's been a lot going on today, and I'm tired. If you can't figure it out, Julie, I'm going to bed." Jolie sat down, crossed her legs, and told Lloyd about her meeting with Nick Andros and Tom Curran in her hometown of Pratt, Kansas. (I was having fun with that stupid guy and that deaf guy shot me!) She even told him she shot them when they left town. "What does all this mean?" Lloyd asked after she had finished.The word "spy" had aroused a little curiosity in him just now, but then he was very bored and fell into a kind of lethargy. Julie scowled again and lit a cigarette. "I told you. That idiot, he's here now. I'm sure he's a spy." "Tom Curran, what do you say his name is?" "yes." He seemed vaguely impressed.Coren was a tall white guy, and he did mess up a bit, but it wasn't as bad as the bitch said.He wanted to recall something more, but couldn't remember anything.The number of people who come to Vegas every day remains at 60 to 100.It is impossible to guarantee that each of them has clean hands and feet, and Flagg said that more people will come before they stop.He figured he'd go to Paul Burleson, who kept the Vegas resident file, and find out about this guy named Colum. "Are you going to arrest him?" Julie asked. Lloyd looked at him. "I'll arrest you if you don't leave," he said. "Well done!" exclaimed Julie Laurie shrewdly.She stood up abruptly and stared at him.Her legs in the cotton tights looked extraordinarily long. "You can figure it out yourself!" "I'll look into it." "Yes, well, I know this one." She stomped angrily and walked away with a twist of her butt. Lloyd watched her with weary interest, and he thought there were many women like her in the world—even now, after the flu, he was sure there were many.They slept with ease, but guarded their fingernails carefully.They are closely related to spiders that gobble up their mates after mating.It's been two months now, and she's still full of hatred for the mute.What did she say his name was?Andros? Lloyd pulled a battered black notebook from the back pocket of his trousers, wet his fingers, and turned to a blank page.It was his notebook, filled with notes—from tips for shaving before meeting Flagg, to taking stock of Las Vegas pharmacies before they ran out of morphine and cocaine. A memo with a bullet point, everything.It's time for a different notepad. He wrote in that shallow schoolchildren's scrawling: Nick Androst, maybe Androst--deaf.Are you in town?The line below this reads: Tom Curran, check with Paul.He put the notebook back in his pocket. Forty kilometers to the north, under twinkling stars, the Man in Black began his long marriage to Nadina Cross.He would have been very interested in the news that a friend of Nick Andros's was in Las Vegas. But he fell asleep. Lloyd looked down sullenly at his card game, forgetting about Julie Laurie, her hatred, her strong little hip.He pulled out another ace, thinking again of Trash Bugs wretchedly, thinking of what Flagg would say—how he would do it—when he told him. Just when Julie Laurie left the Young Lions, feeling that she had done her duty as a citizen, on the other side of the city, Tom Curran was standing in front of the French window of his apartment, looking at Yuanyuan in bewilderment. the moon. It's time to go. It's time to go back. This apartment is not like his house in Boulder.There is furniture, but no decorations.He didn't hang a single picture, nor did he hang a stuffed bird on wire.This place was no more than a way station, and it was time to move on.He is very happy.He hates it here.There's a smell here, a dry, rotten smell that overwhelms you.Most of the people here were nice, some like the ones in Boulder that he liked, like Angie and that little boy, Deeney.No one made fun of him for being slow.They offered him a job, and they joked with him that during their lunch break they traded something from their own lunch box for something delicious from someone else's lunch box.They were good people, as far as he could tell they were like the people in Boulder, but . . . But they have that smell on them. They seemed to be looking at something, waiting for something.Sometimes they fell strangely silent, their eyes glazed over, as if they were all dreaming the same disturbing dream.They never ask why they do it, or what their purpose is.These people seem to be wearing the mask of the Laughing Man, but their real faces, the faces under their masks, are the faces of monsters.He once saw a horror movie like this.That monster is called a werewolf. The moon hangs above the desert, ghostly, high and free. He had seen Dana in the Free State.He met her once, and never saw her again.What's up with her?Is she a spy too?Did she go back? he does not know.But he was afraid. Opposite the useless color TV in the apartment was a chair with a backpack on it.Backpacks full of vacuum-packed sausages and crackers.He picked up the bag and put it on his back. Nocturnal, daytime. He walked out into the courtyard of the apartment complex without looking back.The moonlight was bright, and his shadow was cast on the crumbling concrete where would-be gamblers had parked their out-of-state cars. He raised his head and looked at the ghostly moon hanging in the sky. "Moon... bright. That's how the word is written," he whispered. "Law, yes. Tom Curran knows what it means." His bicycle leans against the pink gray wall of the apartment building.He stopped to adjust his pack, then got on his bike and headed for the interstate.By 11 p.m., he had left Las Vegas and was riding east along the Interstate 15 maintenance lane.No one saw him, nor did he raise any alarm. His mind was in a peaceful middle state, as it always was when he had dealt with the most pressing matters.He rode forward at a constant speed, only feeling the gentle night wind blowing on his sweaty face, which was very comfortable.Every now and then, he needed to skirt a dune that had crawled out of the desert, blocking the way like a white, bony arm.Some cars and trucks got stuck in the sand farther from the city.Glenn Bateman would say in his sarcastic tone: Look at my accomplishments, your abilities, your despair. At two o'clock in the morning, he stopped the car for a biscuit and a drink from a thermos strapped to the back of the car.After eating, we continued on our way.The moon went down.As his wheels turned round and round, Las Vegas was far behind him, which made him feel good. But at 4:15 a.m. on September 13, a feeling of cold and fear swept over him.It came so unexpectedly and seemed so irrational that it was all the more frightening.Tom almost yelped, but suddenly his vocal cords froze and locked.The muscles in his pedaling legs were weak, and the car slid in the starlight.The black-and-white images in the desert receded more and more slowly. He is nearby. The man in black, the devil walking on the ground. Flagg. Tall, they called him.Tom called him the Laughing Man in his mind, and if he smiled at you, the blood in your body would stagnate like death, and your muscles would be cold and pale.If he stares at the cat, the cat will even throw up the hairball in its stomach.If he walked by a construction site, people would hammer their thumbs, put shingles on their backs, sleepwalk down girders, and...   ...oh my god, he's awake! A whimper escaped Tom's throat.He could feel the jerk waking up.He seemed to see or feel an eye wide open in the darkness of dawn, a hideous red eye still bleary from sleep.It turned in the dark, looking around, looking for him.It knew Tom Curran was here, but not his exact location. His numb feet found the pedals, and he continued to ride, faster and faster, leaning over the handlebars to reduce wind resistance, and he kept accelerating until he was almost flying.If he came across the wreckage of a car on his way, he might ram it at full speed and kill himself. But gradually, he could feel the dark, glowing object being left behind him.Strangest of all, the horrible red eyes sweeping the road he was on didn't see him (maybe it's because I've been slumped over the handlebars, Tom Curran wondered)... Then, that eye closed again. The man in black fell asleep again. How does the rabbit feel when the shadow of the hawk presses down on it like a cross... How does the rabbit feel when the hawk keeps flying away without stopping or even losing speed?How would a mouse feel when the cat that had waited patiently at the mouth of a mouse hole all day was picked up by its owner and rudely thrown out the door?How does a deer feel when it quietly slips away from a hardy hunter who has dozed off from three mid-day beers?Maybe they felt nothing, maybe they felt the same way Tom Curran rode out of that dark and dangerous envelope: a long breath of relief; a sense of new life, a fluke Happiness.Good luck like this must be a miracle from heaven. He rode until 5 o'clock in the morning.Ahead of him, the sky turned a dark blue rimmed with gold.The stars gradually faded away. Tom was almost exhausted.He rode further forward, and found a steep 70-yard downhill on the right side of the highway.He pushed his bicycle over and slid into the dry creek bed, and covered it with hay and mesquite.About 10 yards from the bike, there are two large rocks leaning against each other.He slipped into the shadows under the rock, put his jacket on the back of his head, and fell asleep almost immediately.