Backtracker (103 page)

"
And God...wasn
'
t
done
yet. He wouldn
'
t stop...until we were
even
.

"
An eye for an eye,
"
whimpered Larry.
"
Three lives...for three lives.
"

Enough.

Dave was going to shoot. He would listen to no more of Larry
'
s nonsense; the prattle had lost even its humorous appeal, and Dave was thoroughly sick of it.

He was going to shoot. He would fire the .38, and then he would get in his car and drive home. Larry was a pain in the ass and that
wasn
'
t
Billy Bristol and Dave was freezing and drenched and enough was enough.

Why
did he keep listening?

"
Ten years...after I went to prison...God took the rest,
"
sobbed Larry.
"
He took...the other two lives...I owed him.

"
He took...my parents.
"

Why?

If that
wasn
'
t
Billy and Dave had seen nothing and all that Larry said was blatantly false, then
why
was Dave still
listening
?

He
wanted
to shoot.

"
They were both
killed
,
"
wailed Larry.
"
They were killed...while
I
was in prison.

"
A guy...broke into their house...
and shot and killed them
both
.

"
He didn
'
t...have to
do
it,
"
cried Larry.
"
He was just there...to
rob
them...but he shot them for the
hell
of it. They were asleep...they didn
'
t even know he was ther
e...and he killed them
anyway
!

"
It was all my
fault
,
"
gurgled Larry, whipping his head from side to side.
"
God was...paying me back...for killing those three in the car!
"

Dave wanted to shoot.

He was going to shoot.

"
It was my
fault
!
"
wailed Larry.
"
Because of...what I
'
d done...I lost my
family
.
It was all...because of
me
.
"

Dave
'
s finger quivered against the trigger of the .38. His arms were beginning to ache;
he'd
been holding the gun rigidly before him for too long.

There was no reason to hesitate for another second.

"
Because of
me
,
"
whimpered Larry.
"
I
'
d...
killed
them.

"
They
'
d died...to punish me. Hell...wouldn
'
t be enough...for
me
.
God had to make sure...I suffered...for the rest of my
life
.
"

Dave was going to shoot.

Enough was enough.

That
wasn
'
t
that
wasn
'
t
that
wasn
'
t
Billy Bristol in the sand and enough was enough and Dave
'
s patience was gone.

"
God
,
"
whimpered Larry.
"
God...I
suffered
.
"

With that, Larry dumped his face in his hands and lapsed into a wild burst of sobbing.

Enough.

Thunder rumbled overhead and Dave blinked, double
-
checked his bead on Larry. The jig was up; the killer had made his pitch and Dave had listened
-
for whatever odd reason
-
but it was time to call it a night.

Larry had told his last lie.
He'd
tried to talk himself out of a bullet, and
he'd
failed. His attempt
hadn
'
t
even been respectable; his melodramatic gibberish had been pitifully unconvincing,
hadn
'
t
affected Dave in the least.

'
I
'
m...
you
,
'
Larry had said.

Ridiculous.

He deserved to be shot. That
wasn
'
t
and
couldn
'
t
could never be Billy Bristol
'
s body, Billy
'
s dead body...

(Dave glanced at the corpse.)

...
couldn
'
t
could never be of course, but Larry still deserved to be shot, if for no other reason than because
he'd
been so ridiculous.

Dave was going to shoot. Whatever had been restraining him, he felt it flicker away; he knew that he was finally ready, truly ready to close the book on Larry Smith.

Dave adjusted his grip on the gun.

'
I
'
m...
you
,
'
Larry had said.

Dave sighted the killer
'
s bobbing skull.

'
I
'
m...
you
.
'

Dave stretched his cramping finger, then curled it back around the trigger.

That
wasn
'
t
Billy Bristol in the sand.

Nothing had happened.

Enough was enough.

Dave took a deep breath, and his trigger
-
finger twitched.

Suddenly, Larry
'
s head swung up.

"
I really suffered,
"
said Larry, and his voice was surprisingly steady.
"
I tried to kill myself...and I almost finished the job twice.

"
I really suffered,
"
nodded Larry,
"
but then, something wonderful happened.

"
I got another chance. I got a chance to make everything right.

"
I got to come back. I got to come back.

"
I got to come back here...now...twenty
-
one years ago...to make my life the way it
should
have been. I got to come back and
undo
all my
mistakes
.
"

Larry smiled weakly.
"
All it cost me was my soul,
"
he said.
"
I
'
d say I got the better end of the deal.
"

Dave
didn
'
t
shoot.

*****

Chapter
73

"
One morning,
"
said Larry, his voice trembling only faintly,
"
a few days after I
'
d tried to kill myself again, I was sent to the prison psychiatrist.

"
The shrink was a new guy,
"
said Larry, folding his hands neatly in his lap.
"
He didn
'
t seem like much of anything at first. He was chubby and bald, somewhere in his forties I thought. He was kind of strange...
quiet
strange. Didn
'
t talk much. He hardly ever looked at me. Mostly, he just stared at his desk.

"
Anyway, I sat down in the office and he asked me a couple questions...and then, he clammed up all of a sudden. He just sat there and didn
'
t say a word, didn
'
t even look at me.

"
I kept waiting for the guy to say something, but he just
sat
there. He must
'
ve stayed like that for fifteen or twenty minutes.

"
Finally, I started to say something. I couldn
'
t sit there anymore like that. I figured either this was some kind of weird psychiatrist
'
s trick, or the guy was asleep with his eyes open.

"
Before I could get a word out, the guy started talking. He still wouldn
'
t look at me, but he talked.

"
He said
'
You
'
ve had a pretty bad life, haven
'
t you?
'

"'
Yeah,
'
I told him.
'
Big deal.
'

"'
If you could, would you go back and change it
?
'
he asked me.

"
I told him sure, I would. I just wanted to get out of there and go back to my cell and try to kill myself again.

"
He said
'
You can, you know. You can go back and change everything. I can set it up if you want.
'

"
I laughed at him. I really got wise with the guy.
"
Larry smirked and nodded; his face was darker than ever, black as a coal seam, wrinkled like jerky.
"
I thought
he had
a few screws loose, or he was playing some shrink game with me, so I figured I
'
d have some fun with him.

"
Nothing I said fazed him, though. He just sat there and stared at his desk. He was the
weirdest
little bastard.

"
He told me again that he could
'
set it up
'
for me, and I just laughed. I asked him who the hell he thought he was, that he could pull off something like that.

"
He told me he was a travel age
nt.
A travel agent!
"

Larry snickered and shook his head.
"
Anyway, next, the guy asked me if I knew what I
'
d do if I went back, if I had any ideas about how I
'
d change things.
'
It
'
s best to have an itinerary on a trip of this nature,
'
he said.

"
Did I have any
'
ideas
,
'"
snorted Larry.
"
Of
course
I did! It was all I
'
d
thought
about for
years
--
if only I hadn
'
t done
this
, if only I hadn
'
t done
that
.
I
'
d spent day after day, night after
night
just
wishing
I could go back and change it all around!

"
I didn
'
t tell
him
all this, of course. I still figured he was trying to bait me, get me into some goofy shrink game. I just laughed and said
'
Yeah, I got a couple ideas.
'

"
He said
'
Well, if you went back, you could only stay for a limited time...and you couldn
'
t relive your own life.
'

"
I asked him what the hell he was talking about.

"'
You
couldn
'
t go back to being
you
at that age,
'
the guy said.
'
I can
'
t make you younger, and you can
'
t replace the younger you.
'

"
I still didn
'
t understand what he was getting at. He didn
'
t seem to be
making
a whole lot of sense.

"'
You could meet yourself,
'
he told me.
'
You could go back to a certain time, and you could meet your younger self. You could change things for
him
, change what had been
your
life...but you wouldn
'
t
live
that life yourself.

"'
Do you know what you would do if those were the conditions of the trip
?
'
the guy asked me.

"
I told him I didn
'
t know.
I hadn
'
t thought about it that way before.

"'
Think about it, then,
'
he told me.
'
If you come up with any ideas, and you still want to go, we
'
ll set it up at your next appointment.
'

"
That was it,
"
shrugged Larry.
"
That was the end of the session. The guard took me back to my cell.

"
I
'
ll tell you, that was the most
bizarre
meeting I ever had with a shrink.
I thought the guy was a
whacko
, y
'
know?

"
Still, he
did
get me thinking. Matter of fact, I thought a
lot
about what he
'
d said. I didn
'
t have much else to
do
except think.

"
It took my mind off trying to
kill
myself, anyway,
"
said Larry, reaching up with one hand to stroke his creased, blackened chin. Most of his goatee was gone; the bristles which
hadn
'
t
fallen out had turned from sandy brown to silver, as had the hairs of his mustache and eyebrows and
crew
-
cut
.

"
I kept going over the set
-
up the guy had described. Even though it
had
to be some stupid hypothetical situation that was supposed to put me in touch with my
feelings
or some such crap, I couldn
'
t help wondering what I
would
do if it really happened.

"
Eventually, I figured out
exactly
what I
'
d do. I pla
nned it all out, every
detail
.

"
It got to be like a game with me. I went back over my life, pinpointed each thing that
'
d gone wrong, then figured all the angles on how I would change it.

"
The whole thing
fascinated
me. I fantasized about it, dreamed about it
at night...even drew
charts
.
I just couldn
'
t get it out of my
head
.

"
I didn
'
t do any of this because I wanted to tell that whacko
shrink
how I
felt
.
I didn
'
t really plan on telling him a single
thing
about my little fantasies.

"
Anyway, he was out of the picture for a long while. I didn
'
t see him for a
long
time.

"
I didn
'
t see him for another
year
,
"
snorted Larry, wagging his head.

"
It was a
year
till I had another appointment with the guy. Usually, I
'
d be sent to the shrink three or four times a month, but
this
guy didn
'
t brin
g me back in for a whole year.

"
I asked him why it had been so long, and he just told me I
'
d needed the time to think. He said special trips needed a lot of special planning.

"
He hadn't
changed a bit since the last time I
'
d seen him. Still didn
'
t talk much, still wouldn
'
t look at me. Seemed like he even had the same
clothes
on that he
'
d worn the year before.

"
He asked me if I
'
d come up with any ideas for the trip. I said I had, and then I ended up telling him my ideas...just for the hell of it, y
'
know, kind of kidding around. I still wasn
'
t taking him seriously, but I figured why not tell him? If he was pulling a shrink trick, then more power
to
him.
I
didn
'
t care.

"
So I told him the whole plan. I told him
exactly
what I
'
d do if I could go back in time and meet my younger self and change his life.

"
When I was done, he nodded his head.
'
Good, good,
'
he said.
'
You
'
re ready. Do you want to go through with it?
'

"
I told him yeah. I thought he was a kook, but I figured I
'
d play along. I laughed and told him it was an offer I couldn
'
t pass up.

"'
I
'
ll send you back,
'
he told me.
'
I
'
ll give you just enough time to finish your plan.
'

"
I said that sounded good to me.

"'
There are only two more conditions,
'
he said.
'
First, you have to carry out the last step of your plan at the place where I drop you off.
'

"
I told him I didn
'
t have any problem with that.

"'
Second, you have to give me your soul,
'
he said.

"
I still figured he was playing a game,
"
shrugged Larry.
"
I kidded him some, and then I told him that was okay with me. I said my soul was pretty worthless by then, anyway, so what the hell?

"
He made me shake on it. He still wouldn
'
t look me in the eye, and I was still laughing about the whole thing, but we shook hands on the deal.

"
After that, he asked me if I was ready, and I said
'
You better believe it! Let
'
er rip!
'

"
Then,
"
smiled Larry,
"
he snapped his fingers.