>"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.
Lloyd turned around. A lot of sweat now, standing out on his forehead in large drops and running down his thin cheeks like tears. "You heard him. Go on."
She folded her arms below her breasts, keeping the knife turned inward. "Suppose I decline."
"I'll drag you in."
"Look at you, Lloyd. You're so scared you couldn't drag a mongrel puppy in there." She looked at the others. "You're all scared. Jenny, you're practically making in your pants. Not good for your complexion, dear. Or your pants."
"Stop it, you filthy sneak," Jenny whispered.
"I was never scared like that in the Free Zone," Dayna said. "I felt good over there. I came over here because I wanted that good feeling to stay on. It was nothing more political than that. You ought to think it over. Maybe he sells fear because he's got nothing else to sell."
"Ma'am," Whitney said apologetically, "I'd sure like to listen to the rest of your sermon, but the man is waiting. I'm sorry, but you either got to say amen and go through that door on your own or I'll drag you. You can tell your tale to him once you get in there ... if you can find enough spit to talk with, that is. But until then, you're our responsibility. " And the odd thing is, she thought, he sounds genuinely sorry. Too bad he's also so genuinely scared.
"You won't have to do that."
She forced her feet to get started, and then it was a little easier. She was going to her death; she was quite sure of that. If so, let it be so. She had the knife. For him first, if she could, and then for herself, if necessary.
She thought: My name is Dayna Roberta Jurgens, and I am afraid, but I have been afraid before. All he can take from me is what I would have to give up someday anyhow--my life. I will not let him break me down. I will not let him make me less than I am, if I can possibly help it. I want to die well ... and I am going to have what I want.
She turned the knob and stepped through into the inner office ... and into the presence of Randall Flagg.
The room was large and mostly bare. The desk had been shoved up against the far wall, the executive swivel chair pinned behind it. The pictures were covered with dropcloths. The lights were off.
Across the room, a drape had been pulled back to uncover a window-wall of glass that looked out on the desert. Dayna thought she had never seen such a sterile and uninviting vista in her life. Overhead was a moon like a small, highly polished silver coin. It was nearly full.
Standing there, looking out, was the shape of a man.
He continued to look out long after she had entered, indifferently presenting her his back, before he turned. How long does it take a man to turn around? Two, maybe three seconds at the most. But to Dayna it seemed that the dark man went on turning forever, showing more and more of himself, like the very moon he had been watching. She became a child again, struck dumb by the dreadful curiosity of great fear. For a moment she was caught entirely in the web of his attraction, his glamour, and she was sure that when the turn was completed, unknown eons from now, she would be staring into the face of her dreams: a Gothic cowled monk, his hood shaped around total darkness. A negative man with no face. She would see and then go mad.
Then he was looking at her, walking forward, smiling warmly, and her first shocked thought was: Why, he's my age!
Randy Flagg's hair was dark, tousled. His face was handsome and ruddy, as if he spent much time out in the desert wind. His features were mobile and sensitive, and his eyes danced with high glee, the eyes of a small child with a momentous and wonderful secret surprise.
"Dayna!" he said. "Hi!"
"H-H-Hello." She could say no more. She had thought she was prepared for anything, but she hadn't been prepared for this. Her mind had been knocked, reeling, to the mat. He was smiling at her confusion. Then he spread his hands, as if in apology. He was wearing a faded paisley shirt with a frayed collar, pegged jeans, and a very old pair of cowboy boots with rundown heels.
"What did you expect? A vampire?" His smile broadened, almost demanding that she smile back. "A skin-turner? What have they been telling you about me?"
"They're afraid," she said. "Lloyd was ... sweating like a pig." His smile was still demanding an answering smile, and it took all her effort of will to deny him that. She had been kicked out of bed on his orders. Brought here to ... what? Confess? Tell everything she knew about the Free Zone? She couldn't believe there was that much he didn't already know.
"Lloyd," Flagg said, and laughed ruefully. "Lloyd went through a rather bitter experience in Phoenix when the flu was raging. He doesn't like to talk about it. I rescued him from death and"--his smile grew even more disarming, if that was possible--"and from a fate worse than death is the popular idiom, I believe. He's associated me with that experience to a great degree, although his situation was not of my doing. Do you believe me?"
She nodded slowly. She did believe him, and found herself wondering if Lloyd's constant showering had something to do with his "rather bitter experience in Phoenix." She also found herself feeling an emotion she never would have expected in connection with Lloyd Henreid: pity.
"Good. Sit down, dear."
She looked around doubtfully.
"On the floor. The floor will be fine. We have to talk, and talk truth. Liars sit in chairs, so we'll eschew them. We'll sit as though we were friends on opposite sides of a campfire. Sit, girl." His eyes positively sparkled with suppressed mirth, and his sides seemed to bellow with laughter barely held in. He sat down and crossed his legs and then looked up at her appealingly, his expression seeming to say: You're not going to let me sit all alone on the floor of this ridiculous office, are you?
After a moment's debate she did sit down. She crossed her legs and put her hands lightly on her knees. She could feel the comforting weight of the knife in its spring clip.
"You were sent over here to spy out the land, dear," he said. "Is that an accurate description of the situation?"
"Yes." There was no use denying it.
"And you know what usually befalls spies in time of war?"
"Yes."
His smile broadened like sunshine. "Then isn't it lucky we're not at war, your people and mine?"
She looked at him, totally surprised.
"But we're not, you know," he said with quiet sincerity.
"But ... you ..." A thousand confused thoughts spun in her head. Indian Springs. The Shrikes. Trashcan Man with his defoliant and his Zippos. The way the conversation always veered when this man's name--or presence--came into the conversation. And that lawyer, Eric Strellerton. Wandering in the Mojave with his brains burned out.
All he did was look at him.
"Have we attacked your Free Zone, so-called? Made any warlike move at all against you over there?"
"No ... but "
"And have you attacked us?"
"Of course not!"
"No. And we have no plans in that direction. Look!" He suddenly held up his right hand and curled it into a tube. Looking through it, she could see the desert beyond the window-wall.
"The Great Western Desert!" he cried. "The Big Piss-All! Nevada! Arizona! New Mexico! California! A smattering of my people are in Washington, around the Seattle area, and in Portland, Oregon. A fistful each in Idaho and New Mexico. We're too scattered to even think about taking a census for a year or more. We're much more vulnerable than your Zone. The Free Zone is like a highly organized hive or commune. We are nothing but a confederacy, with me as the titular head. There's room for both of us. There will still be room for both of us in 2190. That's if the babies live, something we won't know about here for at least another five months. If they do, and humanity continues, let our grandfathers fight it out, if they have a bone to pick. Or their grandfathers. But what in God's name do we have to fight about?"
"Nothing," she muttered. Her throat was dry. She felt dazed. And something else ... was it hope? She was looking into his eyes. She could not seem to tear her gaze away, and she didn't want to. She wasn't going mad. He wasn't driving her mad at all. He was ... a very reasonable man.
"There are no economic reasons for us to fight, no technological ones either. Our politics are a bit different, but that is a very minor thing, with the Rockies between us ..."
He's hypnotizing me.
With a huge effort she dragged her eyes away from his and looked out over his shoulder at the moon. Flagg's smile faded a bit, and a shadow of irritation seemed to cross his features. Or had she imagined it? When she looked back (more warily this time), he was smiling gently at her again.
"You had the Judge killed," she said harshly. "You want something from me, and when you get it, you'll have me killed, too."
He looked at her patiently. "There were pickets all along the Idaho-Oregon border, and they were looking for Judge Farris, that is true. But not to kill him! Their orders were to bring him to me. I was in Portland until yesterday. I wanted to talk to him as I'm now talking to you, dear: calmly, reasonably, and sanely. Two of my pickets spotted him in Copperfield, Oregon. He came out shooting, mortally wounding one of my men and killing the other outright. The wounded man killed the Judge before he himself died. I'm sorry about the way it came out. More sorry than you can know or understand." His eyes darkened, and about that she believed him ... but probably not in the way he wanted her to believe him. And she felt that coldness again.
"That's not the way they tell it here."
"Believe them or believe me, dear. But remember I give them their orders."
He was persuasive ... goddamned persuasive. He seemed nearly harmless--but that wasn't exactly true, was it? That feeling only came from seeing that he was a man ... or something that looked like a man. There was enough relief in just that to turn her into something like Silly Putty. He had a presence, and a politician's knack of knocking all your best arguments into a cocked hat ... but he did it in a way she found very disturbing.
"If you don't mean war, why the jets and all the other stuff you've got out at Indian Springs?"
"Defensive measures," he said promptly. "We're doing similar things at Searles Lake in California, and at Edwards Air Force Base. There's another group at the atomic reactor on Yakima Ridge in Washington. Your folks will be doing the same thing ... if they're not already."
Dayna shook her head, very slowly. "When I left the Zone, they were still trying to get the electric lights working again."
"And I'd be happy to send them two or three technicians, except I happen to know that your Brad Kitchner already has things going nicely. They had a brief outage yesterday, but he solved the problem very quickly. It was a power overload out on Arapahoe."
"How do you know all that?"
"Oh, I have my ways," Flagg said genially. "The old woman came back, by the way. Sweet old woman."
"Mother Abagail?"
"Yes." His eyes were distant and murky; sad, perhaps. "She's dead. A pity. I really had hoped to meet her in person."
"Dead? Mother Abagail is dead?"
The murky look cleared, and he smiled at her. "Does that really surprise you so much?"
"No. But it surprises me that she came back. And it surprises me even more that you know."
"She came back to die."
"Did she say anything?"
For just a moment Flagg's mask of genial composure slipped, showing black and angry bafflement.
"No," he said. "I thought she might ... might speak. But she died in a coma."
"Are you sure?"
His smile reappeared, as radiant as the summer sun burning off ground-fog.
"Never mind her, Dayna. Let's talk of more pleasant things, such as your return to the Zone. I'm sure you'd rather be there than here. I have something for you to take back." He reached into his shirt, removed a chamois bag, and took three service station maps from it. He handed them to Dayna, who looked at them with growing bewilderment. They showed the seven Western states. Certain areas were shaded in red. The hand-lettered key at the bottom of each map identified them as the areas where population had again begun to spring up.
"You want me to take these?"
"Yes. I know where your people are; I want you to know where mine are. As a gesture of good faith and friendship. And when you get back, I want you to tell them this: that Flagg means them no harm, and Flagg's people mean them no harm. Tell them not to send any more spies. If they want to send people over here, have them call it a diplomatic mission ... or exchange students ... or any damn thing. But have them come openly. Will you tell them that?"
She felt dazed, punchy. "Sure. I'll tell them. But--"
"That's all." He lifted his open, empty palms again. She saw something and leaned forward, unsettled.
"What are you looking at?" There was an edge in his voice.
"Nothing."
But she had seen, and she knew from the narrow expression on his face that he knew she had. There were no lines on Flagg's palms. They were as smooth and as blank as the skin on an infant's stomach. No lifeline, no loveline, no rings or bracelets or loops. Just ... blank.
They looked at each other for what seemed a very long time.
Then Flagg bounced to his feet and went toward the desk. Dayna also rose. She had actually begun to believe that he might let her go. He sat on the edge of the desk and drew the intercom toward him.
"I'll tell Lloyd to have the oil and the plugs and points changed on your cycle," he said. "I'll also tell him to have it gassed up. No more worries about gas or oil shortages now, hey? Plenty for all. Although there was a day--I remember it, and probably you do too, Dayna, when it seemed as if the whole world might go up in a series of nuclear fireballs over a lack of premium unleaded gasoline." He shook his head. "People were very, very stupid." He thumbed the button on the intercom. "Lloyd?"
"Yeah, right here."
"Will you have Dayna's bike gassed and tuned up and left in front of the hotel? She's going to be leaving us."
"Yes."
Flagg clicked off. "Well, that's it, dear."
"I can ... just go?"
"Yes, ma'am. It's been my pleasure." He lifted his hand to the door ... palm side down.
She went to the door. Her hand had barely brushed the knob when he said: "There is one more thing. One ... very minor thing."
Dayna turned to look at him. He was grinning at her, and it was a friendly grin, but for a flashing second she was reminded of a huge black mastiff, its tongue lolling over white spiked teeth that could rip off an arm as if it was a dishrag.
"What's that?"
"There's one more of your people over here," Flagg said. His smile widened. "Who might that be?"
"How in the world would I know?" Dayna asked, and her mind flashed: Tom Cullen! ... Could it really have been him?
"Oh, come now, dear. I thought we had it all straightened out."
"Really," she said. "Look at it straight ahead and you'll see I'm being dead honest. The committee sent me ... and the Judge ... and who knows how many others ... and they were very careful. Just so we couldn't tattle on each other if something ... you know, happened."
"If we decided to pull some fingernails?"
"Okay, yes. I was approached by Sue Stern. I'd guess Larry Underwood ... he's on the committee, too--"
"I know who Mr. Underwood is."
"Yes, well, I'd guess he asked the Judge. But as for anyone else ..." She shook her head. "It could be anyone. Or anyones. For all I know each of the seven committee members was responsible for recruiting one spy."
"Yes, that could be, but it isn't. There's only one, and you know who it is." His grin widened yet more, and now it began to frighten her. It was not a natural thing. It began to remind her of dead fish, polluted water, the surface of the moon seen through a telescope. It made her bladder feel loose and full of hot liquid.
"You know," Flagg repeated.
"No, I--"
Flagg bent over the intercom again. "Has Lloyd left yet?"
"No, I'm right here." Expensive intercom, good reproduction.
"Hold off a bit on Dayna's cycle," he said. "We still have a matter to"--he looked at her, and his eyes glimmered speculatively--"to thrash out in here," he finished.
"Okay."
The intercom clicked off. Flagg looked at her, smiling, hands folded. He looked for a very long time. Dayna began to sweat. His eyes seemed to grow larger and darker. Looking into them was like looking into wells which were very old and very deep. This time when she tried to drag her gaze away, she couldn't.
"Tell me," he said, very softly. "Let's not have any unpleasantness, dear."
From far off, she heard her voice say, "This whole thing was a script, wasn't it? A little one-act play."
"Dear, I don't understand what you mean."
"Yes, you do. The mistake was having Lloyd answer so fast. When you say frog around here, they jump. He should have been halfway down the Strip with my cycle. Except you told him to stay put because you never intended to let me go."
"Dear, you've got a terrible case of unfounded paranoia. It was your experience with those men, I suspect. The ones with the traveling zoo. It must have been a terrible thing. This could be a terrible thing, too, and we don't want that, do we?"
Her strength was draining away; it seemed to be flowing down her legs in perfect lines of force. With the last of her will, she turned her numb right hand into a fist and struck herself above the right eye. There was an airburst of pain inside her skull and her vision went wavery. Her head rocked back and struck the door with a hollow whack. Her gaze snapped away from his, and she felt her will returning. And her strength to resist.
"Oh, you're good," she said raggedly.
"You know who it is," he said. He got off the desk and began to walk toward her. "You know and you're going to tell me. Punching yourself in the head won't help, dear."
"How come you don't know?" she cried at him. "You knew about the Judge and you knew about me! How come you don't know about--"
His hands descended on her shoulders with terrible power, and they were cold, as cold as marble. "Who?"
"I don't know."
He shook