Of all the places in all the world, he had to find the guy at Beth\'s place. What were the odds on that? Pretty damn small, that\'s for sure. He hated that guy. No, scratch that. He wanted to destroy the guy. Not only because of the whole stealing-the-camera-and-flattening-his-tires thing, though that was definitely worthy of a little time locked in the jail alongside a couple of violent meth-amphetamine addicts. And it wasn\'t because Thigh-bolt had him over a barrel with the camera disk. It was because the guy, the same guy who\'d played him once, had made him look like a quivering jellyfish in front of Beth. If I were you, I\'d let go of her arm had been bad enough. But after that? Oh, that\'s where the guy went seriously wrong. Right now. … I think you\'d better go… All spoken in that serious, steady, don\'t-piss-me-off tone of voice that Clayton himself used °n criminals. And he\'d actually done it, slinking away like some stray dog with his tail between his legs, which made the whole thing worse. Normally, he wouldn\'t have put up with that for a second, even with Beth and Ben around. No one gave him orders and got away with it, and he would have made it perfectly clear that the guy had  just made the biggest mistake of his life. But he couldn\'t! That was the thing. He couldn\'t. Not with Cujo around, eyeballing his crotch like it was an appetizer at the Sunday buffet. In the dark, the thing actually looked like a rabid wolf, and all he could do was remember the stories Kenny Moore told him about Panther. What the hell was he doing with Beth, anyway? How did that come about? It was like some sort of evil cosmic plan to ruin what had been for the most part a pretty crappy day—starting with mopey, moody Ben showing up at noon and complaining straight off about having to take out the garbage. He was a patient guy, but he was tired of the kid\'s attitude. Real tired of it, which was why he hadn\'t let Ben stop at just the garbage. He\'d had the kid clean the kitchen and the bathrooms, too, thinking it would show him how the real world worked, where having a halfway decent attitude actually mattered. Power of positive thinking and all that. And besides, everyone knew that while mamas did the spoiling, dads were supposed to teach kids that nothing in life was free, right? And the kid did real well with the cleaning, like he always did, so for Clayton the whole thing was over and done with. It was time for a break, so he took Ben outside to play catch. What kid wouldn\'t want to play catch with his dad on a beautiful Saturday afternoon? Ben. That\'s who. I\'m tired. It\'s realty hot, Dad. Do we have to? One stupid complaint after the other until they finally get outside, and then the kid shuts up tighter than a clam and won\'t say a thing. Worse, no matter how many times Clayton told him to watch the damn ball, the kid kept missing it because he wasn\'t even trying. Doing it on purpose, no doubt. But would he run to the ball after he missed it? Of course not. Not his kid. His kid is too busy sulking about the unfairnes............