Howard Perkins even knew which car it was, and who was driving. Only Three and Four still had the old warblers, but Johnny Trent had taken Three over to Castle Rock with the FD, to that damned training exercise. A 'controlled burn,' they called it, although what it really amounted to was grown men having fun. So it was car Four, one of their two remaining Dodges, and Henry Morrison would be driving.

He stopped raking and stood, head cocked. The siren started to fade, and he started raking again. Brenda came out on the stoop. Almost everyone in The Mill called him Duke — the nickname a holdover from his high school days, when he had never missed a John Wayne picture down at the Star — but Brenda had quit that soon after they were married in favor of the other nickname. The one he disliked.

'Howie, the power's out. And there were bangs!'

Howie. Always Howie. As in Here's Howie and Howie's tricks and Howie's life treatin you. He tried to be a Christian about it — hell, he was a Christian about it — but sometimes he wondered if that nickname wasn't at least partially responsible for the little gadget he now carried around in his chest.

'What?'

She rolled her eyes, marched to the radio on the hood of her car, and pushed the power button, cutting off the Norman Luboff Choir in the middle of 'What a Friend We Have in Jesus.'

'How many times have I told you not to stick this thing on the hood of my car? You'll scratch it and the resale value will go down.'

'Sorry, Bren. What did you say?'

'The power's out! And something boomed. That's probably what Johnny Trent's rolling on.'

'It's Henry,' he said. 'Johnny's over in The Rock with the FD.'