by Stephen King
“Amigos! Cómo están?”
“Fine,” Ralph said, standing. “Let’s get this show on the road.”
“That was Claude Bolton I was talking to. He’s going to meet us at the Plainville airport. It’s about sixty miles from Marysville, where he lives.”
Alec raised his eyebrows. “Why would he do that?”
“He’s worried. Says he didn’t sleep much last night, was up and down half a dozen times, felt like someone was watching the house. He said it reminded him of days in prison when everyone knew something was going to go down, but no one knew exactly what, only that it was going to be bad. Said his mother started to get the willies, too. He asked me exactly what was going on, and I told him we’d fill him in when we got there.”
Ralph turned to Holly. “If this outsider exists, and if he was close to Bolton, could Bolton feel his presence?”
Instead of protesting again about being asked to guess, she answered in a voice that was soft but very firm. “I’m sure of it.”
BIENVENIDOS A TEJAS
July 26th
1
Jack Hoskins crossed into Texas around 2 AM on July 26th, and checked into a fleapit called the Indian Motel just as the day’s first light was showing in the east. He paid the sleepy-eyed clerk for a week, using his MasterCard—the only one that wasn’t maxed out—and asked for a room at the far end of the ramshackle building.
The room smelled of used booze and old cigarette smoke. The coverlet was threadbare, and the case of the pillow on the swaybacked bed was yellow with age, sweat, or both. He sat down in the room’s only chair and ran quickly and without much interest through the text messages and voicemails on his phone (these latter had ceased around 4 AM, when the mailbox reached its capacity). All from the station, many from Chief Geller himself. There had been a double murder on the West Side. With both Ralph Anderson and Betsy Riggins out of service, he was the only detective on duty, where was he, he was needed on the scene immediately, blah-blah-blah.
He lay down on the bed, first on his back, but that hurt the sunburn too much. He turned onto his side, the springs squalling a protest under his considerable weight. I’ll weigh less if the cancer takes hold, he thought. Ma was nothing but a skeleton wrapped in skin by the end. A skeleton that screamed.
“Not going to happen,” he told the empty room. “I just need some goddam sleep. This is going to work out.”
Four hours would be enough. Five, if he was lucky. But his brain wouldn’t turn off; it was like an engine racing in neutral. Cody, the little dope-pushing rat at the Hi station, had had the little white pills, all right, and he’d also had a good supply of coke, which he claimed was almost pure. From the way Jack felt now, lying on this crappy excuse for a bed (he didn’t even consider getting into it, God knew what might be crawling around on the sheets), the claim had been true. A few short snorts were all he’d had, in the hours after midnight when it seemed like the drive would never end, and now he felt like he might never sleep again—felt, in fact, as if he could shingle a roof and then run five miles. Yet eventually sleep did come, although it was thin and haunted by dreams of his mother.
When he woke up it was after noon, and the room was stinking hot in spite of the poor excuse for an air conditioner. He went into the bathroom, peed, and tried to look at the nape of his throbbing neck. He couldn’t, and maybe that was for the best. He went back into the room and sat on the bed to put on his shoes, but he could only find one of them. He groped for the other, and it was pushed into his hand.
“Jack.”
He froze, his arms pebbling with gooseflesh and the short hairs on the back of his neck lifting. The man who had been in his shower back in Flint City was now under his bed, just like the monsters he had feared as a little boy.
“Listen to me, Jack. I’m going to tell you exactly what you need to do.”
When the voice finally ceased giving him instructions, Jack realized the pain in his neck (sort of funny, that’s what he’d always called the old ball and chain) was gone. Well . . . almost. And what he was supposed to do seemed straightforward, if kind of drastic. Which was all right, because he was pretty sure he could get away with it, and stopping Anderson’s clock would be an absolute pleasure. Anderson was the chief meddler, after all; old Mr. No Opinion had brought this on himself. It was too bad about the others, but they weren’t on Jack. It was Anderson who had dragged them along.
“Tough titty said the kitty,” he murmured.
Once his shoes were on, Jack got down on his knees and looked beneath the bed. There was plenty of dust under there, and some of it looked disturbed, but there was nothing else. Which was good. Which was a relief. That his visitor had been there, Jack had no doubt, and he had no doubt about what had been tattooed on the fingers that had pushed the shoe into his hand: CANT.
With the sunburn pain down to a low mutter and his head relatively clear, he thought he could eat something. Steak and eggs, maybe. He had a piece of work ahead of him, and he had to keep his energy up. Man did not live by blow and pep-pills alone. Without food, he might faint in the hot sun, and then he would burn.
Speaking of sun, it hit him like a punch in the face when he went out, and his neck gave a warning throb. He realized with dismay that he was out of sunblock and had forgotten his aloe cream. It was possible they sold something like that in the café attached to the motel, along with the rest of the rickrack they always kept by the cash register in places like this: tee-shirts and ball caps and country CDs and Navajo souvenirs made in Cambodia. They had to sell a few of the necessities along with that crap, because the nearest town was—
He came to a dead halt, one hand reaching for the café’s door, peering through the dusty glass. They were in there. Anderson and his merry band of assholes, including the skinny woman with the gray bangs. There was also an old bag in a wheelchair and a muscular man with short black hair and a goatee. The old bag started laughing about something, then she started coughing. Jack could hear it even outside, like a damn backhoe in low gear. The man with the goatee whacked her on the back a few times, and then they were all laughing.
You’ll be laughing on the other side of your damn faces when I get done with you, Jack thought, but actually it was good that they were laughing. Otherwise they might have spotted him.
He turned away, trying to understand what he had seen. Not the bunch of them hee-hawing, he didn’t care about that, but when Goatee Man reached to thump Wheelchair Woman on the back, Jack had seen tats on his fingers. The glass was dusty and the blue ink was faded, but he knew what they said: CANT. How the man had gotten from under his bed and into the diner so fast was a mystery that Jack Hoskins didn’t care to contemplate. He had a job to do, that was enough, and getting rid of the cancer that was growing in his skin was only half of it. Getting rid of Ralph Anderson was the other half, and it would be a pleasure.
Old Mr. No Opinion.
2
Plainville Airfield sat in scrubland on the outskirts of the tired little city it served. There was a single runway, which Ralph thought horribly short. The pilot applied full braking as soon as the wheels touched down, and unsecured objects went flying. They came to a stop on a yellow line at the end of the narrow strip of tar, no more than thirty feet from a gully filled with weeds, stagnant water, and Shiner cans.
“Welcome to nowhere in particular,” Alec remarked as the King Air lumbered toward a prefab terminal building that looked as if it might blow away in the next high wind. There was a road-dusty Dodge van waiting for them. Ralph recognized it as the wheelchair-accessible Companion model even before he saw the handicap plate. Claude Bolton, tall and muscular in faded jeans, blue work shirt, battered cowboy boots, and a Texas Rangers gimme cap, stood beside it.
Ralph was first off the plane, and he extended a hand. After a second of hesitation, Claude shook it. Ralph found it impossible not to look at the faded letters on the man’s fingers: CANT.
“Thank you for making this easy,” Ralph sa
id. “You didn’t have to, and I appreciate it.” He introduced the others.
Holly shook his hand last, and said, “Those tattoos on your fingers . . . are they about drinking?”
Right, Ralph thought. That’s one piece of the puzzle I forgot to take out of the box.
“Yes’m, that’s right.” Bolton spoke like someone teaching a well-learned and well-loved lesson. “The big paradox is what they call it in AA meetings down here. I first heard about it in prison. You must drink, but you can’t drink.”
“I feel that way about cigarettes,” Holly said.
Bolton grinned, and Ralph thought how odd it was that the least socially adept person in their little party was the one who had put Bolton at ease. Not that Bolton had seemed really worried; more on watch. “Yes ma’am, cigarettes is a hard one. How you doing with it?”
“Haven’t had one in almost a year,” Holly said, “but I take it a day at a time. Can’t and must. I like that.”
Had she actually known all along what the finger tattoos meant? Ralph couldn’t tell.
“Only way to break the can’t-must paradox is with the help of a higher power, so I got me one. And I keep my sobriety medallion handy. What I was taught is that if you get wantin a drink, stick that medallion in your mouth. If it melts, you can take one.”
Holly smiled—the radiant one Ralph was coming to like so well.
The side door of the van opened, and a rusty ramp squalled out. A large lady with an extravagant corona of white hair rolled down it in a wheelchair. She had a short green oxygen bottle in her lap with a plastic tube leading from it to the cannula in her nose. “Claude! Why are you standin around with these people in the heat? If we’re gonna roll, we should roll. It’s getting on for noon.”
“This is my mother,” Claude said. “Ma, this is Detective Anderson, who questioned me on the thing I told you about. These other ones are new to me.”
Howie, Alec, and Yune introduced themselves to the old lady. Holly came last. “It’s very nice to meet you, Mrs. Bolton.”
Lovie laughed. “Well, we’ll see how you feel about that when you get to know me.”
“I’d better go see about our rental,” Howie said. “I think it’s that one parked by the door.” He pointed at a mid-size dark blue SUV.
“I’ll lead the way in the van,” Claude said. “You won’t have any problem followin along; not much in the way of traffic on the Marysville road.”
“Why don’t you ride with us, honey?” Lovie Bolton asked Holly. “Keep a old lady company.”
Ralph expected Holly to refuse, but she agreed at once. “Just give me a minute.”
She beckoned Ralph with her eyes, and he followed her toward the King Air as Claude watched his mother turn her chair and roll back up the ramp. A small plane was taking off, and at first Ralph couldn’t hear what Holly was asking him. He bent closer.
“What do I tell them, Ralph? They’re sure to ask what we’re doing here.”
He considered, then said: “Why don’t you just hit the high spots?”
“They won’t believe me!”
That made him grin. “Holly, I think you handle disbelief pretty well.”
3
Like many ex-cons (at least those that didn’t want to risk going back inside), Claude Bolton drove the Dodge Companion van at exactly five miles an hour under the speed limit. Half an hour into the trip, he turned in at the Indian Motel & Café. He got out and spoke almost apologetically to Howie, who was behind the wheel of the rental. “Hope you don’t mind if we have a bite,” he said. “My ma sometimes has problems if she don’t eat regular, and she didn’t have any time to make sammitches. I was afraid we might miss you.” He lowered his voice, as if confiding a shameful secret. “It’s her blood sugar. When it goes low, she gets fainty.”
“I’m sure we could all use a bite,” Howie said.
“This story the lady told—”
“Why don’t we talk about it when we get to your house, Claude,” Ralph said.
Claude nodded. “Yeah, that might be better.”
The café smelled—not unpleasantly—of grease and beans and frying meat. Neil Diamond was on the jukebox, singing “I Am, I Said” in Spanish. The specials (which weren’t very) were posted behind the counter. Above the kitchen pass-through was a defaced photograph of Donald Trump. His blond hair had been colored black; he had been given a forelock and a mustache. Below it someone had printed Yanqui vete a casa: Yankee go home. At first Ralph was surprised—Texas was a red state, after all, as red as they came—but then he remembered that if whites weren’t the actual minority this near to the border, it was a close-run thing.
They sat at the far end of the room, Alec and Howie at a two-top, the others at a bigger table nearby. Ralph ordered a burger; Holly ordered a salad, which turned out to be mostly wilted iceberg lettuce; Yune and the Boltons went for the full Mexican, which consisted of a taco, a burrito, and an empanada. The waitress banged a pitcher of sweet tea down on the table without being asked.
Lovie Bolton was studying Yune, her eyes bright as a bird’s. “Sablo, you said your name was? That’s a funny one.”
“Yes, not many of us around,” Yune said.
“You come from the other side, or are you natural-born?”
“Natural-born, ma’am,” Yune said. Half of his well-stuffed taco disappeared at a single bite. “Second generation.”
“Well, good for you! Made in the USA! I used to know an Augustin Sablo when I lived way down south, before I was married. He drove a bread truck in Laredo and Nuevo Laredo. When he came by t’house, my sisters and I used to clamor for churro éclairs. No relation to him, I suppose?”
Yune’s olive complexion darkened a bit—not quite a blush—but the look he shot Ralph was amused. “Yes, ma’am, that would have been my papi.”
“Well, ain’t it a small world?” Lovie said, and began to laugh. Her laughter turned to coughing, and her coughing turned to choking. Claude thumped her on the back so hard the cannula flew from her nose and fell into her plate. “Oh, son, lookit that,” she said when she had her breath back. “Now I got snot on my burrito.” She resettled the cannula. “Well, what the hey. It came from inside me, it can go right back. No harm done.” She chomped.
Ralph began to laugh, and the others joined him. Even Howie and Alec joined in, although they had missed most of the interplay. Ralph had a moment to think how laughter drew people together, and was glad Claude had brought his mother along. She was a hot ticket.
“Small world,” she repeated. “Yes it is.” She leaned forward so that her considerable bosom pushed her plate forward. She was still looking at Yune with those bright bird eyes. “You know the story she told us?” She cut her eyes to Holly, who was picking at her salad with a small frown.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“You believe it?”
“I don’t know. I . . .” Yune lowered his voice. “I tend to.”
Lovie nodded and lowered her own voice. “Did you ever see the parade in Nuevo? Processo dos Passos? Maybe when you were a boy?”
“Sí, señora.”
She lowered her voice further. “What about him? The farnicoco? You see him?”
“Sí,” Yune said, and although Lovie Bolton was as white as she could be, Ralph thought Yune had fallen into Spanish without even thinking of it.
She lowered her voice further still. “Give you nightmares?”
Yune hesitated, then said, “Sí. Muchas pesadillas.”
She leaned back, satisfied but grave. She looked at Claude. “You listen to these folks, sonny. You’ve got a big problem, I think.” She winked at Yune, but not as a joke; her face was grave. “Muchos.”
4
As the little caravan pulled back out onto the highway, Ralph asked Yune about the processo dos Passos.
“A parade during Holy Week,” Yune said. “Not exactly approved by the church, but winked at.”
“Farnicoco? That’s the same as Holly’s El Cuco?”
“Worse,” Yune said. He looked grim. “Worse even than the Man with the Sack. Farnicoco is the Hooded Man. He’s Mr. Death.”
5
By the time they got to the Bolton home in Marysville, it was almost three o’clock and the heat was like a hammer. They crowded into the small living room, where the air conditioner—a noisy window-shaker that looked to Ralph old enough for Social Security—did its best to keep up with so many warm bodies. Claude went out to the kitchen and brought back cans of Coke in a Styrofoam cooler. “If you were hoping for beer, you’re out of luck,” he said. “I don’t keep it.”
“This is fine,” Howie said. “I don’t think any of us will be drinking alcohol until we settle this matter to the best of our ability. Tell us about last night.”
Bolton glanced at his mother. She folded her arms and nodded.
“Well,” he said, “the way it turned out, there really wasn’t nothing to it. I went to bed after the late news, like always, and I felt all right then—”
“Bullpucky,” Lovie broke in. “You ain’t been yourself since you got here. Restless . . .” She looked around at the others. “. . . off his feed . . . talking in his sleep—”
“Do you want me to tell it, Ma, or do you?”
She flapped a hand for him to go on and sipped from her can of Coke.
“Well, she’s not wrong,” Bolton admitted, “although I wouldn’t want the guys back at work to know it. Security staff in a place like Gentlemen, Please ain’t supposed to get all spooked, you know. But I have been, kind of. Only nothing like last night. Last night was different. I woke up around two, out of a nasty dream, and got up to lock the doors. I never lock em when I’m here, although I make Ma do it when she’s here alone, after her Home Helpers from Plainville leave at six.”
