"I will."
Joey was outside--the door between him and Ewing's pathetic eagerness.
As he bounded down the steps, he was devising a revenge extreme enough
for Nugent.
He slipped in behind the wheel. It was surprising that anyone as near
psycho as Ewing should be loose. The old boy had lived too long alone in
the empty house.
Just as he drew away from the curb, Joey heard the crash. Squealing
rubber, splintering glass, rending metal, perhaps a human scream ...
compounded into an awful discord that ricocheted against the quiet
brownstone fronts, building to a crescendo of metallic anguish.
After the first moment of surprise, Joey experienced the curious
exaltation he always felt at a scene of violence. The trip wasn't a
waste after all. He'd get a picture, and from the sound of the crash, it
would be a good one.
As he clambered out of his car, camera ready, people were running down
steps, cars were swinging off the boulevard--the first cluster of the
curious was collecting.
With professional assurance, Joey brushed people aside and moved in. One
car had been stopped at the intersection and the other had careened off
the boulevard and smashed head-on into it.
Joey stopped on the crowd's inner edge and stared.
It was impossible. One car was an old sedan. The other, a sleek
convertible. An old man with blood-spattered white beard half-spilled
from the sedan and on the glistening pavement lay a woman in evening
dress, surrounded by dozens of pearls.
* * * * *
From habit, Joey took the picture of the accident and delivered it to
Nugent. By the time he had developed his picture, he was beginning to
enjoy the knowledge that it was an exact duplicate of the photograph in
Ewing's album.
Only he and Ewing realized the power of Formula #53. It couldn't be
coincidence. The details were too exact. Ewing's explanation was the
only one possible. And that meant the old boy wasn't crazy. The formula
was all he insisted.
Such a formula could be a great force for good, the old man had said. In
the right hands. In the hands of Joey Barrett.
Joey decided to keep his secret. This was not a power to be shared with
Leslie Nugent or anyone else. So, when he faced his editor again, he was
careful to dismiss the Ewing interview with just the proper degree of
casualness.
"There's no doubt about it," he said. "Ewing's a crackpot."