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“Yeager here, he’s had some nasty stuff happen to him that nobody ever got a handle on-nobody this side of the FBI, anyhow,” Clyde said slowly. “You ask me, this looks like more of the same.” He bent down and put handcuffs on Gordon. “You’re under arrest. Suspicion of kidnapping.” Then he pointed at Sam. “But you’re coming down to the station, too, till we find out whose story checks out better.”
“What about me?” cried the man who’d been driving the station wagon.
Nobody paid any attention to him. “Sure, I’ll come,” Sam said. “But please do call my wife, will you, and let her know I’m okay.”
“We’ll take care of it,” the second cop said. He went back to the police car and spoke into the radio. Then he walked back toward the accident. “Tow truck’s on the way. Another car, too, so we can get both these guys to the station.”
“Okay, good,” Clyde answered. “Like I said, we’ll sort it out there.” He hauled Gordon to his feet.
“I want my lawyer,” Gordon said sullenly.
Whoever his lawyer was, he’d be good. Sam was sure of that. But, as he walked toward the squad car, he didn’t worry about it. He didn’t worry about anything. By the odds, he should have been dead, and he was still breathing. Measured against that, nothing else mattered.
Jonathan Yeager fiddled with his tie in front of the mirror in the church’s waiting room. He’d practiced tying a bow tie under a wing collar ever since he’d got the tux, but he still wasn’t real good at it. One side of the bow definitely looked bigger than the other. “I don’t think I’ll ever get it right, Dad,” he said in something close to despair.
His father clapped him on the shoulder and advised, “Don’t worry about it. Nobody’s going to care much, as long as you’re there and Karen’s there and the minister’s there. And you probably won’t have to worry about it again till you’re marrying off your own kid-and nobody’ll pay much attention to you then, believe me.”
“Okay.” Jonathan was willing-more than willing, eager-to let himself be convinced. He glanced at his father. Sam Yeager’s tie was straight. The bulge under the left shoulder of his tuxedo jacket hardly showed at all. Jonathan shook his head. “I wonder when the last wedding was where the father of the groom carried a pistol.”
“Don’t know,” his father said. “Usually it’s the father of the bride, and he’s carrying a shotgun.”
“Dad!” Jonathan said reproachfully. His father grinned, altogether unrepentant. Jonathan shook his head. He and Karen had been careful every single time-no need for Mr. Culpepper to go out and buy shotgun shells. Even so, he changed the subject: “Will you and Mom be okay watching Mickey and Donald while Karen and I are off on our honeymoon?”
“We’ll manage,” his dad replied. “If we really start going crazy, we can call one of the Army’s other Lizard-psych boys, like the fellow who’s babysitting them today. But I don’t expect we’ll need to. They’re getting big enough to be easier than they were even a few months ago.”
Somebody knocked on the door. “You fellows decent in there?” Jonathan’s mother asked.
“No,” his father answered. “Come on in anyway.”
The door opened. Jonathan’s mother came in. “Karen looks lovely,” she said. “She’s wearing the dress her mother got married in, you know. I think that’s so romantic.”
Jonathan hadn’t seen Karen yet. He wouldn’t, not till she came down the aisle. Not everybody followed that old custom these days, but her folks approved of it. Since they were footing the bill, he could hardly argue with them. His father asked, “Everything okay out front, hon?”
“Everything looks fine,” his mother said. “And nobody’s come in who hasn’t been vouched for by somebody. No strangers at the feast.”
“There’d better not be.” Just for a moment, his father’s right hand started to slide toward the shoulder holster. Then he checked the motion. He went on, “The judge refused to let Gordon out on bail yesterday. He was the biggest worry.”
“I hope he stays there till he rots,” Jonathan’s mother said.
“Yeah.” That was Jonathan. He added an emphatic cough. His father had told him some of what went on the night the Buick met its end. He had the feeling his dad hadn’t told him everything, not by a long shot.
“Well, now that you mention it, so do I,” Sam Yeager said.
Another knock on the door. The minister said, “About time to get ready, there.”
“We are, Reverend Fleischer,” Jonathan said. His heart thumped. He was ready for the ceremony, sure enough. Was he ready to be married? He wasn’t so sure about that. He wondered if anybody was ready to be married before the fact. His mother and father had made it work, and so had Karen’s parents. If they could manage it, he supposed Karen and he could, too. He turned to his mother and father. “Shall we do it?”
His father started to say something. His mother gave his dad a look, and his dad very visibly swallowed whatever it had been. Instead, he said, “We’d better round up your best man, too. He ducked out for a cigarette, didn’t he?”
“Yeah.” Jonathan nodded. “Greg goes through a pack a day, easy.”
“With everything they’re finding out these days about what cigarettes do to you, I think young people are foolish to start.” His mother’s grin was wry. “That doesn’t mean I don’t use them myself, of course.”
“I was going to point that out,” Jonathan’s father said. “I’ve got a pack with me, too.”
The minister opened the door. Jonathan’s best man stood behind him. Greg Ruzicka and he had known each other since the fourth grade. Greg’s head was also shaved; like so many of his generation, he found the Race at least as interesting as humanity. He gave Jonatha
n a thumbs-up. Jonathan grinned.
“If you’ll just come along with me now, and take your places,” Reverend Fleischer said. “Then I’ll give the organist a nod, and we shall commence.”
When Jonathan got to the door that led to the aisle down which he’d walk, he looked at the backs of the guests’ heads. His friends, his parents’ friends-Ullhass and Ristin were there; Shiplord Straha, for obvious reasons, wasn’t-and a few relatives, and those of Karen and her folks. He gulped. It was real. It was about to happen.
Karen and her mother came out of the other waiting room. She waved to him and smiled through her veil. He took a deep breath and smiled back. Reverend Fleischer bustled up to the altar and gave the organist the signal. The first couple of notes of the Wedding March rang out before Jonathan realized they had something to do with him. His best man hissed. He jumped, then started walking.
Afterwards, he remembered only bits and pieces of the ceremony. He remembered his own parents coming up the aisle after him, and Karen on her father’s arm, and her maid of honor-she’d known Vicki Yamagata even longer than he’d known Greg. After that, it was all a blur till he heard Reverend Fleischer saying, “Do you, Jonathan, take this woman to have and to hold, to love and to cherish, till death do you part?”
“I do,” he said, loud enough for the minister and Karen to hear him, but probably not for anybody else.
It seemed to satisfy Reverend Fleischer. He turned to the bride. “Do you, Karen, take this man to have and to hold, to love and to cherish, till death do you part?”
“I do,” she answered, a little louder than Jonathan had.
Beaming, the minister said, “Then by the authority vested in me by the church and by the state of California, I now pronounce you man and wife.” He nodded to Jonathan. “You may kiss the bride.”
That, Jonathan knew how to do. He swept the veil aside, took Karen in his arms, and delivered a kiss about a quarter as enthusiastic as he really wanted to give her. That still made it pretty lively for a kiss in church. When he let her go, he saw almost all the men and what was to him a surprising number of women looking as if they knew exactly what he had in mind.
