Maybe. But the old man didn't think so; the old man thought there was still a little boy left to save.

One kid doesn't matter-not in the face of all this. You know it, too-Haven is like a great big nuclear reactor that's ready to go red-line. The containment is melting. To coin a phrase.

It was logical, but it was a croupier's logic. Ultimately, killer logic. Ted the Power Man Logic. If he wanted to play the game that way, why even bother?

The kid matters or nothing matters.

And maybe this way he could even save Bobbi. He didn't think so; he thought Bobbi had gone too far for salvation. But he could try.

Long odds, Gard ole Gard.

Sure. The clock's at a minute to midnight… we're down to counting seconds.

Thinking that, he slipped into the blankness of sleep. This was followed by nightmares where he floated in a clear green bath, tethered by thick coaxial cables. He was trying to scream but he couldn't, because the cables were coming out of his mouth.

Chapter 5

The Scoop

Entombed in the overdecorated confines of the Bounty Tavern, drinking buck-a-bottle Heinekens and laughed at by David Bright, who had sunk to vulgar depths of humor-who had even ended up comparing John Leandro to Superman's pal Jimmy Olson, Leandro had wavered. No use telling himself otherwise. He had, indeed, wavered. But men of vision have always had to endure barbs of ridicule, and not a few have been burned or crucified or had their height artificially extended by five or six inches on the Inquisitorial rack of pain for their visions. Having David Bright ask him over beers in the Bounty if his Secret Wristwatch was in good working order was hardly the worst thing that could have befallen him.

But oh shit it hurt.

John Leandro determined that David Bright, and anyone else to whom Bright had related Crazy Johnny's ideas that Something Big Was Going on in Haven, would end up laughing on the other side of his or her face. Because something big was going on there. He felt it in every bone in his body. There were days, when the wind was blowing from the southeast, that he almost imagined he could smell it.

His vacation had begun the previous Friday. He had hoped to go down to Haven that very day. But he lived with his widowed mother, and she had been counting so on him running her up to Nova Scotia to see her sister, she said, but if John had commitments, why, she understood; after all, she was old and probably not much fun anymore; just someone to cook his meals and wash his underwear, and that was fine, you go on, Johnny, go on and hunt up your scoop, I'll just call Megan on the telephone, maybe in a week or two your cousin Alfie will bring her down here to see me, Alfie's so good to his mother, et cetera, et cetera, ibid., ibid., ad infinitum, ad infinitum.

On Friday, Leandro took his mother to Nova Scotia. Of course they stayed over, and by the time they got back to Bangor, Saturday was shot. Sunday was a bad day to begin anything, what with his Sunday-school class of first-and-second graders at nine, full worship services at ten, and Young Men for Christ in the Methodist rectory at five P. m. At the YMC meeting, a special speaker gave them a slide-show on Armageddon. As he explained to them how unrepenting sinners would be inflicted with boils and running sores and ailments of the bowels and the intestines, Georgina Leandro and the other members of the Ladies” Aid passed out paper cups of Za-Rex and oatmeal cookies. And during the evening there was always a songfest for Christ in the church basement.

Sundays always left him feeling exalted. And exhausted.

So it was Monday, the 15th of August before Leandro finally tossed his yellow legal pads, his Sony tape recorder, his Nikon and a gadget-bag filled with film and various lenses, into the front seat of his used Dodge and prepared to set out for Haven… and what he hoped would be journalistic glory. He would not have been appalled if he had known he was approaching ground-zero of what was shortly to become the biggest story since the crucifixion of Jesus Christ.

The day was calm and blue and mellow-very warm but not so savagely hot and humid as the last few days had been. It was a day everyone on earth would mark forever in his memory. Johnny Leandro had wanted a story, but he had never heard the old proverb that goes, “God says take what you want… and pay for it.”

He only knew that he had stumbled onto the edge of something, and when he tried to wiggle it, it remained firm… which meant it was maybe bigger than one might at first think. There was no way he was going to walk away from this; he intended to excavate. All the David Brights in the world with their smart cracks about Jimmy Olson wristwatches and Fu Manchu could not stop him.

He put the Dodge in drive and began to roll away from the curb.

“Don't forget your lunch, Johnny!” his mother called. She came puffing down the walk with a brown-paper sack in one hand. Large grease spots were already forming on the brown paper; since grade school, Leandro's favorite sandwich had been bologna, slices of Bermuda onion, and Wesson Oil.

“Thanks, Mom,” he said, leaning over to take the bag and put it down on the floor. “You didn't have to do that, though. I could have picked up a hamburger-”

“If I've told you once I've told you a thousand times,” she said, “you have no business going into those roadside luncheonettes, Johnny. You never know if the kitchen's dirty or clean.

“Microbes,” she said ominously, leaning forward.

“Ma, I got to g-”

“You can't see microbes at all,” Mrs Leandro went on. She was not to be turned from her subject until she had had her say on it.

“Yes, Mom,” Leandro said, resigned.

“Some of those places are just havens for microbes,” she said. “The cooks may not be clean, you know. They may not wash their hands after leaving the lavatory. They may have dirt or even excrement under their nails. This isn't anything I want to discuss, you understand, but sometimes a mother has to instruct her son. Food in places like that can make a person very, very sick.”

“Mom-”

She uttered a long-suffering laugh and dabbed momentarily at the corner of one eye with her apron. “Oh, I know, your mother is silly, just a silly old woman with a lot of funny old ideas, and she probably ought to just learn to shut up.”

Leandro recognized this for the manipulative trick it was, but it still always made him feel squirmy, guilty, about eight years old.

“No, Mom,” he said. “I don't think that at all.”

“I mean, you are the big newsman, I just sit home and make your bed and wash your clothes and air out your bedroom if you get the farts from drinking too much beer.”

Leandro bent his head, said nothing, and waited to be released.

“But do this for me. Stay out of roadside luncheonettes, Johnny, because you can get sick. From microbes.”

“I promise, Mom.”

Satisfied that she had extracted a promise from him, she was now willing to let him go.

“You'll be home for supper?”

“Yes,” Leandro said, not knowing any better.

“At six?” she persisted.

“Yes! Yes!”

“I know, I know, I'm just a silly old… ”

“Bye, Mom!” he said hastily, and pulled away from the curb.

He looked in the rearview mirror and saw her standing at the end of the walk, waving. He waved back, then dropped his hand, hoping she would go back into the house… and knowing better. When he made a right turn two blocks down and his mother was finally gone, Leandro felt a faint but unmistakable lightening of his heart. Rightly or wrongly, he always felt this way when his mom finally dropped out of sight.