Joey nodded. "Sure, sure. You give me a call."
They were in the entry-hall. "As I said," Ewing continued, "I haven't much time. That's why I'm very anxious to pass on my discovery. It could do great good—in the right hands."
Joey opened the door. "I understand," he said. "You give me a call."
"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.