by Stephen King
'You're probably right,' Leydecker replied, 'but don't kid yourself - the chances of nailing him as an accomplice are shitty. They wouldn't be very good even if the County Prosecutor wasn't as conservative as Dale Cox.'
'Why not?'
'First of all, I doubt if we'll be able to show any deep connection between the two men. Second, guys like Pickering tend to be fiercely loyal to the people they identify as "friends", because they have so few of them - their worlds are mostly made up of enemies. Under interrogation I don't think Pickering will repeat much or any of what he told you while he was tickling your ribs with his hunting knife. Third, Ed Deepneau is no fool. Crazy, yes - maybe crazier than Pickering, when you get right down to it - but not a fool. He won't admit anything.'
Ralph nodded. It was exactly his opinion of Ed.
'If Pickering did say that Deepneau ordered him to find you and waste you - on the grounds that you were one of these baby-killing, fetus-snatching Centurions - Ed would just smile at us and nod and say he was sure that poor Charlie had told us that, that poor Charlie might even believe that, but that didn't make it true.'
The light turned green. Leydecker drove through the intersection, then bent left onto Harris Avenue. The windshield wipers thumped and flapped. Strawford Park, on Ralph's right, looked like a wavery mirage through the rain streaming down the passenger window.
'And what could we say to that?' Leydecker asked. 'The fact is, Charlie Pickering has got a long history of mental instability - when it comes to nuthatches, he's made the grand tour: Juniper Hill, Acadia Hospital, Bangor Mental Health Institute . . . if it's a place where they have free electrical treatments and jackets that button up the back, Charlie's most likely been there. These days his hobbyhorse is abortion. Back in the late sixties he had a bug up his ass about Margaret Chase Smith. He wrote letters to everyone - Derry PD, the State Police, the FBI - claiming she was a Russian spy. He had the evidence, he said.'
'Good God, that's incredible.'
'Nope; that's Charlie Pickering, and I bet there's a dozen like him in every city this size in the United States. Hell, all over the world.'
Ralph's hand crept to his left side and touched the square of bandage there. His fingers traced the butterfly shape beneath the gauze. What he kept remembering was Pickering's magnified brown eyes - how they had looked terrified and ecstatic at the same time. He was already having trouble believing the man to whom those eyes belonged had almost killed him, and he was afraid that by tomorrow the whole thing would seem like one of the so-called 'breakthrough dreams' James A. Hall's book talked about.
'The bitch of it is, Ralph, a nut like Charlie Pickering makes the perfect tool for a guy like Deepneau. Right now our little wife-beating buddy has got about a ton of deniability.'
Leydecker turned into the driveway next to Ralph's building and parked behind a large Oldsmobile with blotches of rust on the trunk lid and a very old sticker - DUKAKIS '88 - on the bumper.
'Who's that brontosaurus belong to? The Prof?'
'No,' Ralph said. 'That's my brontosaurus.'
Leydecker gave him an unbelieving look as he shoved the gearshift lever of his stripped-to-the-bone Police Department Chevy into Park. 'If you own a car, how come you're out standing around the bus stop in the pouring rain? Doesn't it run?'
'It runs,' Ralph said a little stiffly, not wanting to add that he could be wrong about that; he hadn't had the Olds on the road in over two months. 'And I wasn't standing around in the pouring rain; it's a bus shelter, not a bus stop. It has a roof. Even a bench inside. No cable TV, true, but wait till next year.'
'Still . . .' Leydecker said, gazing doubtfully at the Olds.
'I spent the last fifteen years of my working life driving a desk, but before that I was a salesman. For twenty-five years or so I averaged eight hundred miles a week. By the time I settled in at the printshop, I didn't care if I ever sat behind the wheel of a car again. And since my wife died, there hardly ever seems to be any reason to drive. The bus does me just fine for most things.'
All true enough; Ralph saw no need to add that he had increasingly come to mistrust both his reflexes and his short vision. A year ago, a kid of about seven had chased his football out into Harris Avenue as Ralph was coming back from the movies, and although he had been going only twenty miles an hour, Ralph had thought for two endless, horrifying seconds that he was going to run the little boy down. He hadn't, of course - it hadn't even been close, not really - but since then he thought he could count the number of times he'd driven the Olds on both hands.
He saw no need to tell John that, either.
'Well, whatever does it for you,' Leydecker said, giving the Olds a vague wave. 'How does one o'clock tomorrow afternoon sound for that statement, Ralph? I come on at noon, so I could kind of look over your shoulder. Buy you a coffee, if you wanted one.'
'That sounds fine. And thanks for the ride home.'
'No problem. One other thing . . .'
Ralph had started to open the car door. Now he closed it again and turned back to Leydecker, eyebrows raised.
Leydecker looked down at his hands, shifted uncomfortably behind the wheel, cleared his throat, then looked up again. 'I just wanted to say that I think you're a class act,' Leydecker said. 'Lots of guys forty years younger than you would have finished today's little adventure in the hospital. Or the morgue.'
'My guardian angel was looking out for me, I guess,' Ralph said, thinking of how surprised he had been when he realized what the round shape in his jacket pocket was.
'Well, maybe that was it, but you still want to be sure to lock your door tonight. You hear what I'm saying?'
Ralph smiled and nodded. Warranted or not, Leydecker's praise had made a warm spot in his chest. 'I will, and if I can just get McGovern to cooperate, everything will be hunky-dory.'
Also, he thought, I can always go down and double-check the lock myself when I wake up. That should be just about two and a half hours after I fall asleep, the way things are going.
'Everything is going to be hunky-dory,' Leydecker said. 'No one down where I work was very pleased when Deepneau more or less co-opted The Friends of Life, but I can't say we were surprised - he's an attractive, charismatic guy. If, that is, you happen to catch him on a day when he hasn't been using his wife for a punching-bag.'
Ralph nodded.
'On the other hand, we've seen guys like him before, and they have a way of self-destructing. That process has already started with Deepneau. He's lost his wife, he's lost his job . . . did you know that?'
'Uh-huh. Helen told me.'
'Now he's losing his more moderate followers. They're peeling off like jet fighters heading back to base because they're running out of fuel. Not Ed, though - he's going on come hell or high water. I imagine he'll keep at least some of them with him until the Susan Day speech, but after that I think it's gonna be a case of the cheese stands alone.'
'Has it occurred to you that he might try something Friday? That he might try to hurt Susan Day?'
'Oh yes,' Leydecker said. 'It's occurred to us, all right. It certainly has.'
8
Ralph was extremely happy to find the porch door locked this time. He unlocked it just long enough to let himself in, then trudged up the front stairs, which seemed longer and gloomier than ever this afternoon.
The apartment seemed too silent in spite of the steady beat of the rain on the roof, and the air seemed to smell of too many sleepless nights. Ralph took one of the chairs from the kitchen table over to the counter, stood on it, and looked at the top of the cabinet closest to the sink. It was as if he expected to find another can of Bodyguard - the original can, the one he'd put up here after seeing Helen and her friend Gretchen off - on top of that cabinet, and part of him actually did expect that. There was nothing up there, however, but a toothpick, an old Buss fuse, and a lot of dust.
He got carefully down off the chair, saw he had left muddy footprints on the seat, and used a swatch of paper towels t
o wipe them away. Then he replaced the chair at the table and went into the living room. He stood there, letting his eyes run from the couch with its dingy floral coverlet to the wing-chair to the old television sitting on its oak table between the two windows looking out on Harris Avenue. From the TV his gaze moved into the far corner. When he had come into the apartment yesterday, still a little on edge from finding the porch door unlatched, Ralph had briefly mistaken his jacket hanging on the coat-tree in that corner for an intruder. Well, no need to be coy; he had thought for a moment that Ed had decided to pay him a visit.
I never hang my coat up, though. It was one of the things about me - one of the few, I think - that used to genuinely irritate Carolyn. And if I never managed to get in the habit of hanging it up when she was alive, I sure as shit haven't since she died. No, I'm not the one who hung this jacket up.
Ralph crossed the room, rummaging in the pockets of the gray leather jacket and putting the stuff he found on top of the television. Nothing in the left but an old roll of Life Savers with lint clinging to the top one, but the righthand pocket was a treasure-trove even with the aerosol can gone. There was a lemon Tootsie Pop, still in its wrapper; a crumpled advertising circular from the Derry House of Pizza; a double-A battery; a small empty carton that had once contained an apple pie from McDonald's; his discount card from Dave's Video Stop, just four punches away from a free rental (the card had been MIA for over two weeks and Ralph had been sure it was lost); a book of matches; various scraps of tinfoil . . . and a folded piece of lined blue paper.
Ralph unfolded it and read a single sentence, written in a scrawling, slightly unsteady old man's script: Each thing I do I rush through so I can do something else.
That was all there was, but it was enough to confirm for his brain what his heart already knew: Dorrance Marstellar had been on the porch steps when Ralph had returned from Back Pages with his paperbacks, but he'd had other stuff to do before sitting down to wait. He had gone up to Ralph's apartment, taken the aerosol can from the top of the kitchen shelf, and put it in the righthand pocket of Ralph's old gray jacket. He had even left his calling-card: a bit of poetry scrawled on a piece of paper probably torn from the battered notebook in which he sometimes recorded arrivals and departures along Runway 3. Then, instead of returning the jacket to wherever Ralph had left it, Old Dor had hung it neatly on the coat-tree. With that accomplished (done-bun-can't-be-undone) he had returned to the porch to wait.
Last night Ralph had given McGovern a scolding for leaving the front door unlocked again, and McGovern had borne it as patiently as Ralph himself had borne Carolyn's scoldings about tossing his jacket onto the nearest chair when he came in instead of hanging it up, but now Ralph found himself wondering if he hadn't accused Bill unjustly. Perhaps Old Dor had picked the lock . . . or witched it. Under the circumstances, witchery seemed the more likely choice. Because . . .
'Because look,' Ralph said in a low voice, mechanically scooping his pocket litter up from the top of the TV and dumping it back into his pockets. 'It isn't just like he knew I'd need the stuff; he knew where to find it, and he knew where to put it.'
A chill zig-zagged up his back at that, and his mind tried to gavel the whole idea down - to label it mad, illogical, just the sort of thing a man with a grade-A case of insomnia would think up. Maybe so. But that didn't explain the scrap of paper, did it?
He looked at the scrawled words on the blue-lined sheet again - Each thing I do I rush through so I can do something else. That wasn't his handwriting any more than Cemetery Nights was his book.
'Except it is now; Dor gave it to me,' Ralph said, and the chill raced up his back again, jagged as a crack in a windshield.
And what other explanation comes to mind? That can didn't just fly into your pocket. The sheet of notepaper, either.
That sense of being pushed by invisible hands toward the maw of some dark tunnel had returned. Feeling like a man in a dream, Ralph walked back toward the kitchen. On the way he slipped out of the gray jacket and tossed it over the arm of the couch without even thinking about it. He stood in the doorway for some time, looking fixedly at the calendar with its picture of two laughing boys carving a jack-o-lantern. Looking at tomorrow's date, which was circled.
Cancel the appointment with the pin-sticker man, Dorrance had said; that was the message, and today the knife-sticker man had more or less underlined it. Hell, lit it in neon.
Ralph hunted out a number in the Yellow Pages and dialed it.
'You have reached the office of Dr James Roy Hong,' a pleasant female voice informed him. 'There is no one available to take your call right now, so please leave a message at the sound of the tone. We will get back to you just as soon as possible.'
The answering machine beeped. In a voice which surprised him with its steadiness, Ralph said:'This is Ralph Roberts. I'm scheduled to come in tomorrow at ten o'clock. I'm sorry, but I won't be able to make it. Something has come up. Thank you.' He paused, then added: 'I'll pay for the appointment, of course.'
He shut his eyes and groped the phone back into the cradle. Then he leaned his forehead against the wall.
What are you doing, Ralph? What in God's name do you think you're doing?
'It's a long walk back to Eden, sweetheart.'
You can't seriously think whatever you're thinking . . . can you?
' . . . a long walk, so don't sweat the small stuff.'
What exactly are you thinking, Ralph?
He didn't know; he didn't have the slightest idea. Something about fate, he supposed, and appointments in Samarra. He only knew for sure that rings of pain were spreading out from the little hole in his left side, the hole the knife-sticker man had made. The EMT had given him half a dozen pain-pills and he supposed he should take one, but just now he felt too tired to go to the sink and draw a glass of water . . . and if he was too tired to cross one shitty little room, how the hell would he ever make the long walk back to Eden?
Ralph didn't know, and for the time being he didn't care. He only wanted to stand where he was, with his forehead against the wall and his eyes shut so he wouldn't have to look at anything.
CHAPTER EIGHT
* * *
1
The beach was a long white edging, like a flirt of silk slip at the hem of the bright blue sea, and it was totally empty except for a round object about seventy yards away. This round object was about the size of a basketball, and it filled Ralph with a fear that was both deep and - for the moment, at least - groundless.
Don't go near it, he told himself. There's something bad about it. Something really bad. It's a black dog barking at a blue moon, blood in the sink, a raven perched on a bust of Pallas just inside my chamber door. You don't want to go near it, Ralph, and you don't need to go near it, because this is one of Joe Wyzer's lucid dreams. You can just turn and cruise away, if you want.
Except his feet began to carry him forward anyway, so maybe this wasn't a lucid dream. Not pleasant, either, not at all. Because the closer he got to that object on the beach, the less it looked like a basketball.
It was by far the most realistic dream Ralph had ever experienced, and the fact that he knew he was dreaming actually seemed to heighten that sense of realism. Of lucidity. He could feel the fine, loose sand under his bare feet, warm but not hot; he could hear the grinding, rock-throated roar of the incoming waves as they lost their balance and sprawled their way up the lower beach, where the sand glistened like wet tanned skin; could smell salt and drying seaweed, a strong and tearful smell that reminded him of summer vacations spent at Old Orchard Beach when he was a child.
Hey, old buddy, if you can't change this dream, I think maybe you ought to hit the ejection switch and bail out of it - wake yourself up, in other words, and right away.
He had closed half the distance to the object on the beach and there was no longer any question about what it was - not a basketball but a head. Someone had buried a human being up to the chin in the sand . . . and, Ralph suddenly
realized, the tide was coming in.
He didn't bail out; he began to run. As he did, the frothy edge of a wave touched the head. It opened its mouth and began to scream. Even raised in a shriek, Ralph knew that voice at once. It was Carolyn's voice.
The froth of another wave ran up the beach and back-washed the hair which had been clinging to the head's wet cheeks. Ralph began to run faster, knowing he was almost certainly going to be too late. The tide was coming in fast. It would drown her long before he could free her buried body from the sand.
You don't have to save her, Ralph. Carolyn's already dead, and it didn't happen on some deserted beach. It happened in Room 317 of Derry Home Hospital. You were with her at the end, and the sound you heard wasn't surf but sleet hitting the window. Remember?
He remembered, but he ran faster nevertheless, sending puffs of sugary sand out behind him.
You won't ever get to her, though; you know how it is in dreams, don't you? Each thing you rush toward turns into something else.
No, that wasn't how the poem went . . . or was it? Ralph couldn't be sure. All he clearly remembered now was that it had ended with the narrator running blindly from something deadly (Glancing over my shoulder I see its shape) which was hunting him through the woods . . . hunting him and closing in.
Yet he was getting closer to the dark shape on the sand. It wasn't changing into anything else, either, and when he fell on his knees before Carolyn, he understood at once why he had not been able to recognize his wife of forty-five years, even from a distance: something was terribly wrong with her aura. It clung to her skin like a filthy dry-cleaning bag. When Ralph's shadow fell on her, Carolyn's eyes rolled up like the eyes of a horse that has shattered its leg going over a high fence. She was breathing in rapid, frightened gasps, and each expulsion of air sent jets of gray-black aura from her nostrils.
The tattered balloon-string straggling up from the crown of her head was the purple-black of a festering wound. When she opened her mouth to scream again, an unpleasant glowing substance flew from her lips in gummy strings which disappeared almost as soon as his eyes had registered their existence.
