بخش 03 - فصل 21

21

The result with the girl named Ellen is infuriating—like the Robinson bitch all over again—but at last Brady calms down. It worked, that’s what he needs to focus on. The shortness of the drop combined with the snowbank was just bad luck. There will be plenty of others. He has a lot of work ahead of him, a lot of matches to light, but once the fire is burning, he can sit back and watch.

It will burn until it burns itself out.

He starts Z-Boy’s car and pulls out of the rest area. As he merges with the scant traffic headed north on I-47, the first flakes spin out of the white sky and hit the Malibu’s windshield. Brady drives faster. Z-Boy’s piece of crap isn’t equipped for a snowstorm, and once he leaves the turnpike, the roads will grow progressively worse. He needs to beat the weather.

Oh, I’ll beat it, all right, Brady thinks, and grins as a wonderful idea hits him. Maybe Ellen is paralyzed from the neck down, a head on a stick, like the Stover bitch. It’s not likely, but it’s possible, a pleasant daydream with which to while away the miles.

He turns on the radio, finds some Judas Priest, and lets it blast. Like Hodges, he enjoys the hard stuff.