Dean Koontz - Tick Tock

Tommy couldn’t take his eyes off it. ‘What’s in the damn thing?’

‘Now?’ Mrs. Dai said. ‘Mostly just sand. Some river mud. Snake blood. Some other things better you not know.’

‘I want to destroy it.’

‘Can’t hurt you now. Anyway, taking apart is my job,’ said Mrs. Dai. ‘Have to do according to rules or magic won’t be undone.’

‘Then take it apart right now.’

‘Have to wait till noon, sun high, night on other side of world, and then magic be undone.’

‘That’s only logical,’ Del said.

Getting up from the table, Mrs. Dai said, ‘Ready for tea now?’

‘I want to see it dismembered, everything inside cast to the wind,’ Tommy said.

‘Can’t watch,’ said Mrs. Dai as she took a tea kettle from one of the cabinets. ‘Magic must be done by sorceress alone, no other eyes to see.’

‘Who says?’

‘Dead ancestors of River Xan set rules, not me.’

‘Sit down, Tuong, stop worry, have tea,’ said Mother Phan. ‘You make Mrs. Dai think you not trust her.’

Taking Tommy by the arm, Del said, ‘Could I see you a minute?’

She led him out of the kitchen into the dining room, and Scootie followed them.

Speaking in a whisper, she said, ‘Don’t drink the tea.’

‘What?’

‘Maybe there’s more than one way to make a stray son return to the fold.’

‘What way?’

‘A potion, a combination of exotic herbs, a pinch of river mud - who knows?’ Del whispered.

Tommy looked back through the open door. In the kitchen, his mother was putting out cookies and slices of cake while Mrs. Dai brewed the tea.

‘Maybe,’ whispered Del, ‘Mrs. Dai was too enthusiastic about bringing you to your senses and back into the family. Maybe she started out with the drastic approach, the doll, when a nice cup of the right tea would have made more sense.’

In the kitchen, Mrs. Dai was putting cups and saucers on the table. The devil doll still lay there, watching the preparations with its cross-stitched eyes.

Tommy stepped into the kitchen and said, ‘Mom, I think we’d better go now.’

Looking up from the cake that she was slicing, Mother Phan said, ‘Have tea and nibble first, then go.’

‘No, I want to go now.’

‘Don’t be rude, Tuong. While we have tea and nibble, I call your father. By time we done, he stop by, take us home before he go work at bakery.’

‘Del and I are leaving now,’ he insisted.

‘No car,’ she reminded him. ‘This crazy woman’s car just trash in garage.’

‘The Peterbilt’s parked out there at the curb. The engine’s still idling.’

Mother Phan frowned. ‘Truck stolen.’

‘We’ll return it,’ Tommy said.

‘What about trash car in garage?’ Mrs. Dai asked.

‘Mummingford will send someone for it,’ said Del.

‘Who?’

‘Tomorrow.’

Tommy and Del and Scootie went into the living room, where the glass from the broken window crunched and clinked under their shoes.

Mrs. Dai and Mother Phan followed them.

As Tommy unlocked and opened the front door, his mother said, ‘When I see you again?’

‘Soon,’ he promised, following Del and Scootie onto the porch.

‘Come to dinner tonight. We have com tay cam, your favourite.’

‘That sounds good. Mmmmm, I can’t wait.’

Mrs. Dai and Mother Phan stepped onto the porch as well, and the hairdresser said, ‘Miss Payne, what day your birthday?’

‘Christmas Eve.’

‘Is true?’

Descending the porch steps, Del said, ‘October thirty-first.’

‘Which true?’ Mrs. Dai asked a little too eagerly. ‘July fourth,’ said Del. And to Tommy, sotto voce, she said, ‘They always need a birthday to cast the spell.’

Moving onto the front steps as Del reached the walk-way, Mrs. Dai said, ‘You have beautiful hair, Miss Payne. I enjoy doing such beautiful hair.’

‘So you can get a lock of it?’ Del wondered as she continued to walk toward the Peterbilt.

‘Mrs. Dai is wonderful genius hairdresser,’ said Mother Phan. ‘She give you best look ever have.’

‘I’ll call for an appointment,’ Del promised as she went around the truck to the driver’s door.

Tommy opened the passenger door to the truck cab so the dog could spring inside.

His mother and Mrs. Dai stood side by side on the steps of the front porch, his mother in black slacks and a white blouse, Mrs. Dai in her pink jogging suit. They waved.

Tommy waved back at them, climbed into the truck cab beside the dog, and pulled the door shut.

Del was already behind the wheel. She put the truck in gear.

When Tommy glanced at the house again, Mrs. Dai and his mother waved at him.

Again he returned the wave.

As Del drove away from the house, Tommy said miserably, ‘What am I going to do now? I love my mother, I really do, but I’m never going to be a baker or a doctor or any of the things she wants me to be, and I can’t spend the rest of my life afraid to drink tea or answer a doorbell.’

‘It’ll be all right, tofu boy.’

‘It’ll never be all right,’ he disagreed.

‘Don’t be negative. Negative thinking disturbs the fab-ric of the cosmos. A little bit of self-indulgent negativity might seem like an innocent pleasure, but it can cause a tornado in Kansas or a blizzard in Pennsylvania.’

Scootie licked Tommy’s face, and he didn’t resist. He knew he was genuinely desperate when he found himself taking comfort from the dog’s attentions.

‘I know exactly what we need to do,’ she said.

‘Oh, yeah? What?’

‘You’ve known since we kissed on the carousel.’

‘What a kiss.’

‘So for starters, we need to fly to Vegas and get married - if you care to propose to me.’

Scootie looked at him expectantly.

Tommy was surprised to hear her offer, but he was not surprised to hear himself say, ‘Deliverance Payne, daughter of Ned and Julia Rosalyn Winona Lilith, will you marry me?’

‘It’s going to take a lot more than a doll snake rat-quick little monster thing to stop me.’

‘You have a beautiful smile,’ he said.

‘You too.’

Actually, he wasn’t smiling. He was grinning like a fool.

Tommy had expected to catch a commercial flight from John Wayne Airport to Las Vegas, but Del’s mother owned a Learjet, which was ready for use with a fifteen-minute notice. Del was a qualified pilot.

‘Besides,’ she said, as they walked the last block to the airport from the abandoned Peterbilt, ‘I think the sooner we tie the knot, the better - in regards to whatever Mrs. Dai may have in mind. Married, we geometrically increase our psychic resources. We have more power to resist.’

A few minutes later, as they boarded the private jet, Del said, ‘Anyway, I want to see if we can beat my mom’s record. She married Daddy nineteen hours after she met him.’

Studying his watch, calculating, Tommy said, ‘You served me dinner about... twelve hours ago.’

‘We’ll make it. Are you tired, darling?’

‘Damn if I don’t feel totally rested. And I didn’t have a wink of sleep all night.’

‘You may never need it again,’ she said. ‘It’s such a waste of time, sleeping.’

Tommy sat in the co-pilot’s seat, while Scootie lounged in the passenger compartment.

They flew east into the morning sun, where the sky was no longer pink but as blue as Deliverance Payne’s eyes.

Their suite at the Mirage Hotel was one of several spacious and lavishly appointed accommodations. that were not rented to ordinary customers but were reserved to be provided free to high rollers who regularly gambled fortunes in the casino downstairs. Though neither Del nor Tommy intended to wager one dollar on the tables, the Payne name elicited a response no less generous and effusive than would have been accorded to an Arab prince bearing suitcases full of cash. Eighteen years after his death, Ned Payne remained a legendary poker player, and the hotel management’s affection for Del’s mother was evident in their numerous enquiries into the state of her health, her current activities, and the likelihood of her coming to visit sometime soon.