Youve been telling tales out of school, old boy. Ralph was silent. Calling the police after I gave that bitch the lesson she so richly deserved didnt bother me, Ed told him. I put it down to . . . well, grandfatherly concern. Or maybe you thought that if she was grateful enough, she might actually spare you a mercyfuck. After all, youre old but not exactly ready for Jurassic Park yet. You might have thought shed let you get a finger into her at the very least. Ralph said nothing. Right, old boy? Ralph said nothing. You think youre going to rattle me with the silent treatment? Forget it. But Ed did sound rattled, thrown off his stride. It was as if he had made the call with a certain script in his head and Ralph was refusing to read his lines. You cant . . . you better not . . . My calling the police after you beat Helen didnt upset you, but your conversation with Leydecker today obviously did. Whys that, Ed? Are you finally starting to have some questions about your behavior? And your thinking, maybe? It was Eds turn to be silent. At last he whispered harshly, If you dont take this seriously, Ralph, it would be the worst mistake Oh, I take it seriously, Ralph said. I saw what you did today, I saw what you did to your wife last month . . . and I saw what you did out by the airport a year ago. Now the police know. I listened to you, Ed, now you listen to me. Youre ill. Youve had some sort of mental breakdown, youre having delusions I dont have to listen to your crap! Ed nearly screamed. No, you dont. You can hang up. Its your dime, after all. But until you do, Im going to keep hammering away. Because I liked you, Ed, and I want to like you again. Youre a bright guy, delusions or no delusions, and I think you can understand me Leydecker knows, and Leydecker is going to be watching y Are you seeing the colors yet? Ed asked. His voice had become calm again. At the same instant, the red glow around the telephone wire popped out of existence. What colors? Ralph asked at last. Ed ignored the question. You said you liked me. Well, I like you, too. Ive always liked you. So Im going to give you some very valuable advice. Youre drifting into deep water, and there are things swimming around in the undertow you cant even conceive of. You think Im crazy, but I want to tell you that you dont know what madness is. You dont have the slightest idea. You will, though, if you keep on meddling in things that dont concern you. Take my word for it. What things? Ralph asked. He tried to keep his voice light, but he was still squeezing the telephone receiver tight enough to make his fingers throb. Forces, Ed replied. There are forces at work in Derry that you dont want to know about. There are . . . well, lets just say there are entities. They havent really noticed you yet, but if you keep fooling with me, they will. And you dont want that. Believe me, you dont. Forces. Entities. You asked me how I found out about all this stuff. Who brought me into the picture. Do you remember that, Ralph? Yes. He did, too. Now. That had been the last thing Ed had said to him before turning on the big gameshow grin and going over to greet the cops. Ive seen the colors since he came and told me . . . well talk about it later. The doctor told me. The little bald doctor. I think its him youll have to answer to if you try to mind my business again. And then God help you. The little bald doctor, uhhuh, Ralph said. Yes, I see. First the Crimson King and the Centurions, now the little bald doctor. I suppose next itll be Spare me your sarcasm, Ralph. Just stay away from me and my interests, do you hear? Stay away. There was a click and Ed was gone. Ralph looked at the telephone in his hand for a long time, then slowly hung it up. Just stay away from me and my interests. Yes, and why not? He had plenty of his own fish to fry. Ralph walked slowly into the kitchen, stuck a TV dinner (filet of haddock, as a matter of fact) into the oven, and tried to put abortion protests, auras, Ed Deepneau, and the Crimson King out of his mind. It was easier than he would have expected. CHAPTER SIX 1 Summer slipped away as it does in Maine, almost unnoticed. Ralphs premature waking continued, and by the time the fall colors had begun to burn in the trees along Harris Avenue, he was opening his eyes around twofifteen each morning. That was lousy, but he had his appointment with James Roy Hong to look forward to and there had been no repeat of the weird fireworks show he had been treated to after his first meeting with Joe Wyzer. There were occasional flickers around the edges of things, but Ralph found that if he squeezed his eyes shut and counted to five, the flickers were gone when he opened them again. Well . . . usually gone. Susan Days speech was scheduled for Friday, the eighth of October, and as September drew toward its conclusion, the protests and the public abortionondemand debate sharpened and began to focus more and more on her appearance. Ralph saw Ed on the TV news many times, sometimes in the company of Dan Dalton but more and more frequently on his own, speaking swiftly, cogently, and often with that little gleam of humor not only in his eyes but in his voice. People liked him, and The Friends of Life was apparently attracting the large membership to which Daily Bread, its political progenitor, had only been able to aspire. There were no more dollthrowing parties or other violent demonstrations, but there were plenty of marches and countermarches, plenty of namecalling and fistshaking and angry letters to the editor. Preachers promised damnation; teachers urged moderation and education; half a dozen young women calling themselves The Gay Lesbo Babes for Jesus were arrested for parading in front of The First Baptist Church of Derry with signs which read GET THE FUCK OUT OF MY BODY. A nameless policeman was quoted in the Derry News as saying that he hoped Susan Day would come down with the flu or something and have to cancel her appearance. Ralph received no further communications from Ed, but on September twentyfirst he received a postcard from Helen with fourteen jubilant words scrawled across the back Hooray, a job! Derry Public Library! I start next month! See you soon  Helen. Feeling more cheered than he had since the night Helen had called him from the hospital, Ralph went downstairs to show the card to McGovern, but the door of the downstairs apartment was shut and locked. Lois, then . . . except that Lois was also gone, probably off to one of her cardparties or maybe downtown shopping for yarn and plotting another afghan. Mildly chagrined and musing on how the people you most wanted to share good news with were hardly ever around when you were all but bursting with it, Ralph wandered down to Strawford Park. And it was there that he found Bill McGovern, sitting on a bench near the softball field and crying. 2 Crying was perhaps too strong a word; leaking might have been better. McGovern sat with a handkerchief sticking out of one gnarled fist, watching a mother and her young son play rolltoss along the firstbase line of the diamond where the last big softball event of the season  the Intramural City Tournament  had concluded just two days before. Every now and then he would raise the fist with the handkerchief in it to his face and swipe at his eyes. Ralph, who had never seen McGovern weep  not even at Carolyns funeral  loitered near the playground for a few moments, wondering if he should approach McGovern or just go back the way he had come. At last he gathered up his courage and walked over to the park bench. Lo, Bill, he said. McGovern looked up with eyes that were red, watery, and a trifle embarrassed. He wiped them again and tried a smile. Hi, Ralph. You caught me snivelling. Sorry. Its okay, Ralph said, sitting down. Ive done my share of it. Whats wrong? McGovern shrugged, then dabbed at his eyes again. Nothing much. Im suffering the effects of a paradox, thats all. What paradox is that? Something good is happening to one of my oldest friends  the man who hired me for my first teaching position, in fact. Hes dying. Ralph raised his eyebrows but said nothing. Hes got pneumonia. His niece will probably haul him off to the hospital today or tomorrow, and theyll put him on a ventilator, at least for awhile, but hes almost certainly dying. Ill celebrate his death when it comes, and I suppose its that more than anything else thats depressing the shit out of me. McGovern paused. You dont understand a thing Im saying, do you? Nope, Ralph said. But thats all right. McGovern looked into his face, did a doubletake, then snorted. The sound was harsh and thick with his tears, but Ralph thought it was a real laugh just the same, and risked a small return smile. Did I say something funny? No, McGovern said, and clapped him lightly on the shoulder. I was just looking at your face, so earnest and sincere  youre really an open book, Ralph  and thinking how much I like you. Sometimes I wish I could be you. Not at three in the morning, you wouldnt, Ralph said quietly. McGovern sighed and nodded. The insomnia. Thats right. The insomnia. Im sorry I laughed, but No apology necessary, Bill.  but please believe me when I say it was an admiring laugh. Whos your friend, and whys it a good thing that hes dying? Ralph asked. He already had a guess as to what lay at the root of McGoverns paradox; he was not quite as goodheartedly dense as Bill sometimes seemed to think. His names Bob Polhurst, and his pneumonia is good news because hes suffered from Alzheimers since the summer of 88. It was what Ralph had thought . . . although AIDS had crossed his mind, as well. He wondered if that would shock McGovern, and felt a small ripple of amusement at the idea. Then he looked at the man and felt ashamed of his amusement. He knew that when it came to gloom McGovern was at least a semipro, but he didnt believe that made his obvious grief over his old friend any less genuine. Bob was head of the History Department at Derry High from 1948, when he couldnt have been more than twentyfive, until 1981 or 82. He was a great teacher, one of those fiercely bright people you sometimes find out in the sticks, hiding their lights under bushels. They usually end up heading their departments and running half a dozen extracurricular activities on the side because they simply dont know how to say no. Bob sure didnt. The mother was now leading her little boy past them and toward the little snackbar that would be closing up for the season very soon now. The kids face had an extraordinary translucence, a beauty that was enhanced by the rosecolored aura Ralph saw revolving about his head and moving across his small, lively face in calm waves. Can we go home, Mommy? he asked. I want to use my PlayDoh now. I want to make the Clay Family. Lets get something to eat first, big boy  kay? Mommys hungry. Okay. There was a hookshaped scar across the bridge of the boys nose, and here the rosy glow of his aura deepened to scarlet. Fell out of his crib when he was eight months old, Ralph thought. Reaching for the butterflies on the mobile his mom hung from the ceiling. It scared her to death when she ran in and saw all the blood; she thought the poor kid was dying. Patrick, thats his name. She calls him Pat. Hes named after his grandfather, and He closed his eyes tightly for a moment. His stomach was fluttering lightly just below his Adams apple and he was suddenly sure he was going to vomit. Ralph? McGovern asked. Are you all right? He opened his eyes. No aura, rosecolored or otherwise; just a mother and son heading over to the snackbar for a cold drink, and there was no way, absolutely no way that he could tell she didnt want to take Pat home because Pats father was drinking again after almost six months on the wagon, and when he drank he got mean Stop it, for Gods sake stop it. Im okay, he told McGovern. Got a speck in my eye is all. Go on. Finish telling me about your friend. Not much to tell. He was a genius, but over the years Ive become convinced that genius is a vastly overrated commodity. I think this country is full of geniuses, guys and gals so bright they make your average cardcarrying MENSA member look like Fucko the Clown. And I think that most of them are teachers, living and working in smalltown obscurity because thats the way they like it. It was certainly the way Bob Polhurst liked it. He saw into people in a way that seemed scary to me . . . at first, anyway. After awhile you found out you didnt have to be scared, because Bob was kind, but at first he inspired a sense of dread. You sometimes wondered if it was an ordinary pair of eyes he was using to look at you, or some kind of Xray machine. At the snackbar, the woman was bending down with a small paper cup of soda. The kid reached up for it with both hands, grinning, and took it. He drank thirstily. The rosy glow pulsed briefly into existence around him again as he did, and Ralph knew he had been right the kids name was Patrick, and his mother didnt want to take him home. There was no way he could know such things, but he did just the same. In those days, McGovern said, if you were from central Maine and not one hundred per cent heterosexual, you tried like hell to pass for it. That was the only choice there was, outside of moving to Greenwich Village and wearing a beret and spending Saturday nights in the kind of jazz clubs where they used to applaud by snapping their fingers. Back then, the idea of coming out of the closet was ridiculous. For most of us the closet was all there was. Unless you wanted a pack of liquoredup fraternity boys sitting on you in an alley and trying to pull your face off, the world was your closet. Pat finished his drink and tossed his paper cup on the ground. His mother told him to pick it up and put it in the litter basket, a task he performed with immense good cheer. Then she took his hand and they began to walk slowly out of the park. Ralph watched them go with a feeling of trepidation, hoping the womans fears and worries would turn out to be unjustified, fearing that they wouldnt be. When I applied for a job in the Derry High history department  this was in 1951  I was fresh from two years teaching in the sticks, way to hell and gone in Lubec, and I figured if I could get along up there with no questions being asked, I could get along anywhere. But Bob took one look at me  hell, inside me  with those Xray eyes of his and just knew. And he wasnt shy, either. If I decide to offer you this job and you decide to take it, Mr McGovern, may I be assured that there will never be so much as an iota of trouble over the matter of your sexual preference? Sexual preference, Ralph! Man, oh man! Id never even dreamed of such a phrase before that day, but it came sliding out of his mouth slicker than a ballbearing coated with Crisco. I started to get up on my high horse, tell him I didnt have the slightest idea what he was talking about but I resented the hell out of it just the same  on general principles, you might say  and then I took another look at him and decided to save my energy. I might have fooled some people up in Lubec, but I wasnt fooling Bob Polhurst. He wasnt thirty himself yet, probably hadnt been south of Kittery more than a dozen times in his whole life, but he knew everything that mattered about me, and all it had taken him to find it out was one twentyminute interview. No, sir, not an iota, I said, just as meek as Marys little lamb. McGovern dabbed at his eyes with the handkerchief again, but Ralph had an idea that this time the gesture was mostly theatrical. In the twentythree years before I went off to teach at Derry Community College, Bob taught me everything I know about teaching history and playing chess. He was a brilliant player . . . he certainly would have given that windbag Faye Chapin some hard bark to chew on, I can tell you that. I only beat him once, and that was after the Alzheimers started to take hold. I never played him again after that. And there were other things. He never forgot a joke. He never forgot the birthdays or anniversaries of the people who were close to him  he didnt send cards or give gifts, but he always offered congratulations and good wishes, and no one ever doubted his sincerity. He published over sixty articles on teaching history and on the Civil War, which was his specialty. In 1967 and 1968 he wrote a book called Later That Summer, about what happened in the months following Gettysburg. He let me read the manuscript ten years ago, and I think its the best book on the Civil War Ive ever read  the only one that even comes close is a novel called The Killer Angels, by Michael Shaara. Bob wouldnt hear of publishing it, though. When I asked him why, he said that I of all people should understand his reasons. McGovern paused briefly, looking out across the park, which was filled with greengold light and black interlacings of shadow which moved and shifted with each breath of wind. He said he had a fear of exposure. Okay, Ralph said. I get it. Maybe this sums him up best of all he used to do the big Sunday New York Times crossword puzzle in ink. I poked him about that once  accused him of hubris. He gave me a grin and said, Theres a big difference between pride and optimism, Bill  Im an optimist, thats all. Anyway, you get the picture. A kind man, a good teacher, a brilliant mind. His specialty was the Civil War, and now he doesnt even know what a civil war is, let alone who won ours. Hell, he doesnt even know his own name, and at some point soon  the sooner the better, actually  hes going to die without any idea that he ever lived. A middleaged man in a University of Maine teeshirt and a pair of ragged blue jeans came shuffling through the playground, carrying a crumpled paper shopping bag under one arm. He stopped beside the snackbar to examine the contents of the wastebarrel, hoping for a returnable or two. As he bent over, Ralph saw the dark green envelope which surrounded him and the lighter green balloonstring which rose, wavering, from the crown of his head. And suddenly he was too tired to close his eyes, too tired to wish it away. He turned to McGovern and said, Ever since last month Ive been seeing stuff that I guess Im in mourning, McGovern said, giving his eyes another theatrical wipe, although I dont know if its for Bob or for me. Isnt that a hoot? But if you could have seen how bright he was in those days . . . how goddam scarybright . . . Bill? You see that guy over there by the snackbar? The one rooting through the trash barrel? I see Yeah, those guys are all over the place now, McGovern said, giving the wino (who had found two empty Budweiser cans and tucked them into his bag) a cursory glance before turning to Ralph again. I hate being old  I guess maybe thats all it really comes down to. I mean bigtime. The wino approached their bench in a bentkneed shuffle, the breeze heralding his arrival with a smell which was not English Leather. His aura  a sprightly and energetic green that made Ralph think of Saint Patricks Day decorations  went oddly with his subservient posture and sickly grin. Say, you guys! How you doon? Weve been better, McGovern said, hoisting the satiric eyebrow, and I expect well be better again once you shove off. The wino looked at McGovern uncertainly, seemed to decide he was a lost cause, and shifted his gaze to Ralph. You got a bitta spare change, mister? I gotta get to Dexter. My uncle call me out dere at the Shelter on Neibolt Street, say I can have my old job back at the mill, but only if I Get lost, chum, McGovern said. The wino gave him a brief, anxious glance, and then his bloodshot brown eyes rolled back to Ralph again. Dass a good job, you know? I could have it back, but ony if I get dere today. Deres a bus Ralph reached into his pocket, found a quarter and a dime, and dropped them into the outstretched hand. The wino grinned. The aura surrounding him brightened, then suddenly disappeared. Ralph found that a great relief. Hey, great! Thank you, mister! Dont mention it, Ralph said. The wino lurched off in the direction of the Shop n Save, where such brands as Night Train, Old Duke, and Silver Satin were always on sale. Oh shit, Ralph, would it hurt you to be a little charitable in your head, as well? he asked himself. Go another half a mile in that direction, you come to the bus station. True, but Ralph had lived long enough to know there was a world of difference between charitable thinking and illusions. If the wino with the dark green aura was going to the bus station, then Ralph was going to Washington to be Secretary of State. You shouldnt do that, Ralph, McGovern said reprovingly. It just encourages them. I suppose, Ralph said wearily. What were you saying when we were so rudely interrupted? The idea of telling McGovern about the auras now seemed an incredibly bad one, and he could not for the life of him imagine how he had gotten so close to doing it. The insomnia, of course  that was the only answer. It had done a number on his judgement as well as his shortterm memory and sense of perception. That I got something in the mail this morning, Ralph said. I thought it might cheer you up. He passed Helens postcard over to McGovern, who read it and then reread it. The second time through, his long, horsey face broke into a broad grin. The combination of relief and honest pleasure in that expression made Ralph forgive McGovern his selfindulgent bathos at once. It was easy to forget that Bill could be generous as well as pompous. Say, this is great, isnt it? A job! It sure is. Want to celebrate with some lunch? Theres a nice little diner two doors down from the Rite Aid  Day Break, Sun Down, its called. Maybe a little ferny, but Thanks, but I promised Bobs niece Id go over and sit with him awhile. Of course hes doesnt have the slightest idea of who I am, but that doesnt matter, because I know who he is. You capisce? Yep, Ralph said. A raincheck, then? You got it. McGovern scanned the message on the postcard again, still grinning. This is the berries  the absolute berries! Ralph laughed at this winsome old expression. I thought so, too. I would have bet you five bucks she was going to walk right back into her marriage to that weirdo, and pushing the baby in front of her in its damn stroller . . . but I would have been glad to lose the money. I suppose that sounds crazy. A little, Ralph said, but only because he knew it was what McGovern expected to hear. What he really thought was that Bill McGovern had just summed up his own character and worldview more succinctly than Ralph ever could have done himself. Nice to know someones getting better instead of worse, huh? You bet. Has Lois seen that yet? Ralph shook his head. Shes not home. Ill show it to her when I see her, though. You do that. Are you sleeping any better, Ralph? Im doing okay, I guess. Good. You look a little better. A little stronger. We cant give in, Ralph, thats the important thing. Am I right? I guess you are, Ralph said, and sighed. I guess you are, at that. 3 Two days later Ralph sat at his kitchen table, slowly eating a bowl of bran flakes he didnt really want (but supposed in some vague way to be good for him) and looking at the front page of the Derry News. He had skimmed the lead story quickly, but it was the photo that kept drawing his eye back; it seemed to express all the bad feelings he had been living with over the last month without really explaining any of them. Ralph thought the headline over the photograph  WOMANCARE DEMONSTRATION SPARKS VIOLENCE  didnt reflect the story which followed, but that didnt surprise him; he had been reading the News for years and had gotten used to its biases, which included a firm antiabortion stance. Still, the paper had been careful to distance itself from The Friends of Life in that days tuttut, nowyouboysjuststopit editorial, and Ralph wasnt surprised. The Friends had gathered in the parking lot adjacent to both WomanCare and Derry Home Hospital, waiting for a group of about two hundred prochoice marchers who were walking across town from the Civic Center. Most of the marchers were carrying signs with pictures of Susan Day and the slogan CHOICE, NOT FEAR on them. The marchers idea was to gather supporters as they went, like a snowball rolling downhill. At WomanCare there would be a short rally  intended to pump people up for the coming Susan Day speech  followed by refreshments. The rally never happened. As the prochoice marchers approached the parking lot, the Friends of Life people rushed out and blocked the road, holding their own signs (MURDER IS MURDER, SUSAN DAY STAY AWAY, STOP THE SLAUGHTER OF THE INNOCENTS) in front of them like shields. The marchers had been escorted by police, but no one had been prepared for the speed with which the heckling and angry words escalated into kicks and punches. It had begun with one of The Friends of Life recognizing her own daughter among the prochoice people. The older woman had dropped her sign and charged the younger. The daughters boyfriend had caught the older woman and tried to restrain her. When Mom opened his face with her fingernails, the young man had thrown her to the ground. That had ignited a tenminute mle and provoked more than thirty arrests, split roughly half and half between the two groups. The picture on the front page of this mornings News featured Hamilton Davenport and Dan Dalton. The photographer had caught Davenport in a snarl which was entirely unlike his usual look of calm selfsatisfaction. One fist was raised over his head in a primitive gesture of triumph. Facing him  and wearing Hams CHOICE, NOT FEAR sign around the top of his head like a surreal cardboard halo  was The Friends of Lifes grand fromage. Daltons eyes were dazed, his mouth slack. The highcontrast black and white photo made the blood flowing from his nostrils look like chocolate sauce. Ralph would look away from this for awhile, try to concentrate on finishing his cereal, and then he would remember the day last summer when he had first seen one of the pseudo wanted posters that were now pasted up all over Derry  the day he had nearly fainted outside Strawford Park. Mostly it was their faces his mind fixed on Davenports full of angry intensity as he peered into the dusty show window of Secondhand Rose, Secondhand Clothes, Daltons wearing a small, disdainful smile that seemed to suggest that an ape like Hamilton Davenport could not be expected to understand the higher morality of the abortion issue, and they both knew it. Ralph would think of those two expressions and the distance between the men who wore them, and after awhile his dismayed eyes would wander back to the news photo. Two men stood close behind Dalton, both carrying prolife signs and watching the confrontation intently. Ralph didnt recognize the skinny man with the hornrimmed glasses and the cloud of receding gray hair, but he knew the man beside him. It was Ed Deepneau. Yet in this context, Ed seemed almost not to matter. What drew Ralph  and frightened him  were the faces of the two men who had done business next door to each other on Lower Witcham Street for years  Davenport with his cavemans snarl and clenched fist, Dalton with his dazed eyes and bloody nose. He thought, If youre not careful with your passions, this is where they get you. But this is where things had better stop, because Because if those two had had guns, theydve shot each other, he muttered, and at that moment the doorbell rang  the one down on the front porch. Ralph got up, looked at the picture again, and felt a kind of vertigo sweep through him. With it came an odd, dismal surety it was Ed down there, and God knew what he might want. Dont answer it then, Ralph! He stood by the kitchen table for a long undecided moment, wishing bitterly that he could cut through the fog that seemed to have taken up permanent residence in his head this year. Then the doorbell chimed again and he found he had decided. It didnt matter if that was Saddam Hussein down there; this was his place, and he wasnt going to cower in it like a whipped cur. Ralph crossed the living room, opened the door to the hall, and went down the shadowy front stairs. 4 Halfway down he relaxed a little. The top half of the door which gave on the front porch was composed of heavy glass panes. They distorted the view, but not so much that Ralph could not see that his two visitors were both women. He guessed at once who one of them must be and hurried the rest of the way down, running one hand lightly over the banister. He threw the door open and there was Helen Deepneau with a totebag (BABY FIRSTAID STATION was printed on the side) slung over one shoulder and Natalie peering over the other, her eyes as bright as the eyes of a cartoon mouse. Helen was smiling hopefully and a little nervously. Natalies face suddenly lit up and she began to bounce up and down in the Papoose carrier Helen was wearing, waving her arms excitedly in Ralphs direction. She remembers me, Ralph thought. How about that. And as he reached out and let one of the waving hands grasp his right index finger, his eyes flooded with tears. Ralph? Helen asked. Are you okay? He smiled, nodded, stepped forward, and hugged her. He felt Helen lock her own arms around his neck. For a moment he was dizzy with the smell of her perfume, mingled with the milky smell of healthy baby, and then she gave his ear a dazzling smack and let him go. You are okay, arent you? she asked. There were tears in her eyes, too, but Ralph barely noticed them; he was too busy taking inventory, wanting to make sure that no signs of the beating remained. So far as he could see, none did. She looked flawless. Better right now than in weeks, he said. You are such a sight for sore eyes. You too, Nat. He kissed the small, chubby hand that was still wrapped around his finger, and was not entirely surprised to see the ghostly grayblue lipprint his mouth left behind. It faded almost as soon as he had noted it and he hugged Helen again, mostly to make sure that she was really there. Dear Ralph, she murmured in his ear. Dear, sweet Ralph. He felt a stirring in his groin, apparently brought on by the combination of her light perfume and the gentle puffs her words made against the cup of his ear . . . and then he remembered another voice in his ear. Eds voice. I called about your mouth, Ralph. Its trying to get you in trouble. Ralph let her go and held her at arms length, still smiling. Youre a sight for sore eyes, Helen. Ill be damned if youre not. You are, too. Id like you to meet a friend of mine. Ralph Roberts, Gretchen Tillbury. Gretchen, Ralph. Ralph turned toward the other woman and took his first good look at her as he carefully folded his large, gnarled hand over her slim white one. She was the kind of woman that made a man (even one who had left his sixties behind) want to stand up straight and suck in his gut. She was very tall, perhaps six feet, and she was blonde, but that wasnt it. There was something else  something that was like a smell, or a vibration, or (an aura) yes, all right, like an aura. She was, quite simply, a woman you couldnt not look at, couldnt not think about, couldnt not speculate about. Ralph remembered Helens telling him that Gretchens husband had cut her leg open with a kitchen knife and left her to bleed to death. He wondered how any man could do such a thing; how any man could touch a creature such as this with anything but awe. Also a little lust, maybe, once he got beyond the She walks in beauty like the night stage. And just by the way, Ralph, this might be a really good time to reel your eyes back into their sockets. Very pleased to meet you, he said, letting go of her hand. Helen told me about how you came to see her in the hospital. Thank you for helping her.


Helen was a pleasure to help, Gretchen said, and gave him a dazzling smile. Shes the kind of woman that makes it all worthwhile, actually . . . but I have an idea you already know that. I guess I might at that, Ralph said. Have you got time for a cup of coffee? Please say yes. Gretchen glanced at Helen, who nodded. That would be fine, Helen said. Because . . . well . . . This isnt entirely a social call, is it? Ralph asked, looking from Helen to Gretchen Tillbury and then back to Helen again. No, Helen said. Theres something we need to talk to you about, Ralph. 5 As soon as they had reached the top of the gloomy front stairs, Natalie began to wriggle impatiently around in the Papoose carrier and to talk in that imperious baby pig Latin that would all too soon be replaced by actual words. Can I hold her? Ralph asked. All right, Helen said. If she cries, Ill take her right back. Promise. Deal. But the Exalted  Revered Baby didnt cry. As soon as Ralph had hoisted her out of the Papoose, she slung an arm companionably around his neck and cozied her bottom into the crook of his right arm as if it were her own private easychair. Wow, Gretchen said. Im impressed. Blig! Natalie said, seizing Ralphs lower lip and pulling it out like a windowshade. Gannawig! Andoosis! I think she just said something about the Andrews Sisters, Ralph said. Helen threw her head back and laughed her hearty laugh, the one that seemed to come all the way up from her heels. Ralph didnt realize how much he had missed it until he heard it. Natalie let Ralphs lower lip snap back as he led them into the kitchen, the sunniest room of the house at this time of day. He saw Helen looking around curiously as he turned on the Bunn, and realized she hadnt been here for a long time. Too long. She picked up the picture of Carolyn that stood on the kitchen table and looked at it closely, a little smile playing about the corners of her lips. The sun lit the tips of her hair, which had been cropped short, making a kind of corona around her head, and Ralph had a sudden revelation he loved Helen in large part because Carolyn had loved her  they had both been allowed into the deeper ranges of Carolyns heart and mind. She was so pretty, Helen murmured. Wasnt she, Ralph? Yes, he said, putting out cups (and being careful to set them beyond the reach of Natalies restless, interested hands). That was taken just a month or two before the headaches started. I suppose its eccentric to keep a framed studio portrait on the kitchen table in front of the sugarbowl, but this is the room where I seem to spend most of my time lately, so . . . I think its a lovely place for it, Gretchen said. Her voice was low, sweetly husky. Ralph thought, If shed been the one to whisper in my ear, I bet the old trousermouse would have done a little more than just turn over in its sleep. I do, too, Helen said. She gave him a fragile, notquiteeyecontact smile, then slipped the pink totebag off her shoulder and set it on the counter. Natalie began to gabble impatiently and hold her hands out again as soon as she saw the plastic shell of the Playtex Nurser. Ralph had a vivid but mercifully brief flash of memory Helen staggering toward the Red Apple, one eye puffed shut, her cheek lashed with beads of blood, carrying Nat on one hip, the way a teenager might carry a textbook. Want to give it a try, old fella? Helen asked. Her smile had strengthened a little and she was meeting his eye again. Sure, why not? But the coffee Ill take care of the coffee, DaddyO, Gretchen said. Made a million cups in my time. Is there halfandhalf? In the fridge. Ralph sat down at the table, letting Natalie rest the back of her head in the hollow of his shoulder and grasp the bottle with her tiny, fascinating hands. This she did with complete assurance, guiding the nipple into her mouth and beginning to suck at once. Ralph grinned up at Helen and pretended not to see that she had begun to cry a little again. They learn fast, dont they? Yes, she said, and pulled a paper towel off the roll mounted on the wall by the sink. She wiped her eyes with it. I cant get over how easy she is with you, Ralph  she wasnt that way before, was she? I dont really remember, he lied. She hadnt been. Not standoffish, no, but a long way from this comfortable. Keep pushing up on the plastic liner inside the bottle, okay? Otherwise shell swallow a lot of air and get all gassy. Roger. He glanced over at Gretchen. Doing okay? Fine. How do you take it, Ralph? Just in a cups fine. She laughed and put the cup on the table out of Natalies reach. When she sat down and crossed her legs, Ralph checked  he was helpless not to. When he looked up again, Gretchen was wearing a small, ironic smile. What the hell, Ralph thought. No goat like an old goat, I guess. Even an old goat that cant manage much more than two or two and a half hours worth of sleep a night. Tell me about your job, he said as Helen sat down and sipped her coffee. Well, I think they ought to make Mike Hanlons birthday a national holiday  does that tell you anything? A little, yes, Ralph said, smiling. I was all but positive Id have to leave Derry. I sent away for applications to libraries as far south as Portsmouth, but I felt sick doing it. Im going on thirtyone and Ive only lived here for six of those years, but Derry feels like home  I cant explain it, but its the truth. You dont have to explain it, Helen. I think homes just one of those things that happens to a person, like their complexion or the color of their eyes. Gretchen was nodding. Yes, she said. Just like that. Mike called Monday and told me the assistants position in the Childrens Library had opened up. I could hardly believe it. I mean, Ive been walking around all week just pinching myself. Havent I, Gretchen? Well, youve been very happy, Gretchen said, and thats been very good to see. She smiled at Helen, and for Ralph that smile was a revelation. He suddenly understood that he could look at Gretchen Tillbury all he wanted, and it wouldnt make any difference. If the only man in this room had been Tom Cruise, it still would have made no difference. He wondered if Helen knew, and then scolded himself for his foolishness. Helen was many things, but stupid wasnt one of them. When do you start? he asked her. Columbus Day week, she said. The twelfth. Afternoons and evenings. The salarys not exactly a kings ransom, but itll be enough to keep us through the winter no matter how the . . . the rest of my situation works out. Isnt it great, Ralph? Yes, he said. Very great. The baby had drunk half the bottle and now showed signs of losing interest. The nipple popped halfway out of her mouth, and a little rill of milk ran down from the corner of her lips toward her chin. Ralph reached to wipe it away, and his fingers left a series of delicate grayblue lines in the air. Baby Natalie snatched at them, then laughed as they dissolved in her fist. Ralphs breath caught in his throat. She sees. The baby sees what I see. Thats nuts, Ralph. Thats nuts and you know it. Except he knew no such thing. He had just seen it  had seen Nat try to grab the aural contrails his fingers left behind. Ralph? Helen asked. Are you all right? Sure. He looked up and saw that Helen was now surrounded by a luxurious ivorycolored aura. It had the satiny look of an expensive slip. The balloonstring floating up from it was an identical shade of ivory, and as broad and flat as the ribbon on a wedding present. The aura surrounding Gretchen Tillbury was a dark orange shading to yellow at the edges. Will you be moving back into the house? Helen and Gretchen exchanged another of those glances, but Ralph barely noticed. He didnt need to observe their faces or gestures or body language to read their feelings, he discovered; he only had to look at their auras. The lemony tints at the edges of Gretchens now darkened, so that the whole was a uniform orange. Helens, meanwhile, simultaneously pulled in and brightened until it was hard to look at. Helen was afraid to go back. Gretchen knew it, and was infuriated by it. And her own helplessness, Ralph thought. That infuriates her even more. Im going to stay at High Ridge awhile longer, Helen was saying. Maybe until winter. Nat and I will move back into town eventually, I imagine, but the house is going up for sale. If someone actually buys it  and with the real estate market the way it is that looks like a pretty big question mark  the money goes into an escrow account. That account will be divided according to the decree. You know  the divorce decree. Her lower lip was trembling. Her aura had grown still tighter; it now fit her body almost like a second skin, and Ralph could see minute red flashes skimming through it. They looked like sparks dancing over an incinerator. He reached out across the table, took her hand, squeezed it. She smiled at him gratefully. Youre telling me two things, he said. That youre going ahead with the divorce and that youre still scared of him. Shes been regularly battered and abused for the last two years of her marriage, Gretchen said. Of course shes still scared of him. She spoke quietly, calmly, reasonably, but looking at her aura now was like looking through the small isinglass window you used to find in the doors of coalfurnaces. He looked down at the baby and saw her now surrounded in her own gauzy, brilliant cloud of weddingsatin. It was smaller than her mothers, but otherwise identical . . . like her blue eyes and auburn hair. Natalies balloonstring rose from the top of her head in a pure white ribbon that floated all the way to the ceiling and then actually coiled there in an ethereal heap beside the lightfixture. When a breath of breeze puffed in through the open window by the stove, he saw the wide white band bell and ripple. He glanced up and saw Helens and Gretchens balloonstrings were also rippling. And if I could see my own, it would be doing the same thing, he thought. Its real  whatever that twoandtwomakefour part of my mind may think, the auras are real. Theyre real and Im seeing them. He waited for the inevitable demurral, but this time none came. I feel like Im spending most of my time in an emotional washingmachine these days, Helen said. My moms mad at me . . . shes done everything but call me a quitter outright . . . and sometimes I feel like a quitter . . . ashamed . . . You have nothing to be ashamed of, Ralph said. He glanced up at Natalies balloonstring again, wavering in the breeze. It was beautiful, but he felt no urge to touch it; some deep instinct told him that might be dangerous for both of them. I guess I know that, Helen said,but girls go through a lot of indoctrination. Its like,Heres your Barbie, heres your Ken, heres your Hostess Play Kitchen. Learn well, because when the real stuff comes along itll be your job to take care of it, and if any of it gets broken, youll get the blame. And I think I could have gone down the line with that  I really do. Except no one told me that in some marriages Ken goes nuts. Does that sound selfindulgent? No. Thats pretty much what happened, so far as I can see. Helen laughed  a jagged, bitter, guilty sound. Dont try to tell my mother that. She refuses to believe Ed ever did anything more than give me a husbandly swat on the fanny once in awhile . . . just to get me moving in the right direction again if I happened to slip offcourse. She thinks I imagined the rest. She doesnt come right out and say it, but I hear it in her voice every time we talk on the phone. I dont think you imagined it, Ralph said. I saw you, remember? And I was there when you begged me not to call the police. He felt his thigh squeezed beneath the table and looked up, startled. Gretchen Tillbury gave him a very slight nod and another squeeze  this one more emphatic. Yes, Helen said. You were there, werent you? She smiled a little, which was good, but what was happening to her aura was better  those tiny red flickers were fading, and the aura itself was spreading out again. No, he thought. Not spreading out. Loosening. Relaxing. Helen got up and came around the table. Nats bailing out on you  better let me take her. Ralph looked down and saw Nat looking across the room with heavy, fascinated eyes. He followed her gaze and saw the little vase standing on the windowsill beside the sink. He had filled it with fall flowers less than two hours ago and now a low green mist was sizzling off the stems and surrounding the blooms with a faint, misty glow. Im watching them breathe their last, Ralph thought. Oh my God, Im never going to pick another flower in my life. I promise. Helen took the baby gently from his arms. Nat went tractably enough, although her eyes never left the sizzling flowers as her mother went back around the table, sat down, and nestled her in the crook of her arm. Gretchen tapped the face of her watch lightly. If were going to make that meeting at noon Yes, of course, Helen said, a little apologetically. Were on the official Susan Day Welcoming Committee, she told Ralph, and in this case thats not quite as Junior League as it sounds. Our main job really isnt to welcome her but to help protect her. Is that going to be a problem, do you think? Itll be tense, lets put it that way, Gretchen said. Shes got half a dozen of her own security people, and theyve been sending us turnaround faxes of all the Derryrelated threats shes received. Its standard operating procedure with them  shes been in a lot of peoples faces for a lot of years. Theyre keeping us in the picture, but theyre also making sure we understand that, because were the inviting group, her safety is WomanCares responsibility as well as theirs. Ralph opened his mouth to ask if there had been many threats, but he supposed he already knew the answer to that question. Hed lived in Derry for seventy years, off and on, and he knew it was a dangerous machine  there were a lot of sharp points and cutting edges just below the surface. That was true of a lot of cities, of course, but in Derry there had always seemed to be an extra dimension to the ugliness. Helen had called it home, and it was his home, too, but He found himself remembering something which had happened almost ten years ago, shortly after the annual Canal Days Festival had ended. Three boys had thrown an unassuming and inoffensive young gay man named Adrian Mellon into the Kenduskeag after repeatedly biting and stabbing him; it was rumored they had stood there on the bridge behind the Falcon Tavern and watched him die. Theyd told the police they hadnt liked the hat he was wearing. That was also Derry, and only a fool would ignore the fact. As if this memory had led him to it (perhaps it had), Ralph looked at the photo on the front page of todays paper again  Ham Davenport with his upraised fist, Dan Dalton with his bloody nose and dazed eyes, wearing Hams sign on his head. How many threats? he asked. Over a dozen? About thirty, Gretchen said. Of those, her security people take half a dozen seriously. Two are threats to blow up the Civic Center if she doesnt cancel. One  this is a real honey  is from someone who says hes got a Big Squirt watergun filled with battery acid. If I make a direct hit, not even your dyke friends will be able to look at you without throwing up, that one says. Nice, Ralph said. It brings us to the point, anyway, Gretchen said. She rummaged in her bag, brought out a small can with a red top, and put it on the table. A little present from all your grateful friends at WomanCare. Ralph picked the can up. On one side was a picture of a woman spraying a cloud of gas at a man wearing a slouch hat and a Beagle Boystype eyemask. On the other was a single word in bright red capital letters BODYGUARD What is this? he asked, shocked in spite of himself. Mace? No, Gretchen said. Mace is a risky proposition in Maine, legally speaking. This stuff is much milder . . . but if you give somebody a faceful, they wont even think of hassling you for at least a couple of minutes. It numbs the skin, irritates the eyes, and causes nausea. Ralph took the cap off the can, looked at the red aerosol nozzle beneath, then replaced the cap. Good Christ, woman, why would I want to lug around a can of this stuff? Because youve been officially designated a Centurion, Gretchen said. A what? Ralph asked. A Centurion, Helen repeated. Nat was fast asleep in her arms, and Ralph realized the auras were gone again. Its what The Friends of Life call their major enemies  the ringleaders of the opposition. Okay, Ralph said, Ive got it now. Ed talked about people he called Centurions on the day he . . . assaulted you. He talked about a lot of things that day, though, and all of them were crazy. Yes, Eds at the bottom of it, and he is crazy, Helen said. We dont think hes mentioned this Centurion business except to a small inner circle  people who are almost as gonzo as he is. The rest of The Friends of Life . . . I dont think they have any idea. I mean, did you? Until last month, did you have any idea that he was crazy? Ralph shook his head. Hawking Labs finally fired him, Helen said. Yesterday. They held onto him as long as they could  hes great at what he does, and they had a lot invested in him  but in the end they had to let him go. Three months severance pay in lieu of notice . . . not bad for a guy who beats up his wife and throws dolls loaded with fake blood at the windows of the local womens clinic. She tapped the newspaper. This last demonstration was the final straw. Its the third or fourth time hes been arrested since he got involved with The Friends of Life. You have someone inside, dont you? Ralph said. Thats how you know all this. Gretchen smiled. Were not the only ones whove got someone at least partway inside; we have a running joke that there really are no Friends of Life, just a bunch of double agents. Derry PDs got someone; the State Police do, too. And those are just the ones our . . . our person . . . knows about. Hell, the FBI could be monitoring them, as well. The Friends of Life are eminently infiltratable, Ralph, because theyre convinced that, deep down, everyone is on their side. But we believe that our person is the only one whos gotten in toward the middle, and this person says that Dan Dalton is just the tail Ed Deepneau wags. I guessed that the first time I saw them together on the TV news, Ralph said. Gretchen got up, gathered the coffee cups, took them over to the sink, and began to rinse them. Ive been active in the womens movement for thirteen years now, and Ive seen a lot of crazy shit, but Ive never seen anything like this. Hes got these dopes believing that women in Derry are undergoing involuntary abortions, that half of them havent even realized theyre pregnant before the Centurions come in the night and take their babies. Has he told them about the incinerator over in Newport? Ralph asked. The one thats really a baby crematorium? Gretchen turned from the sink, her eyes wide. How did you know about that? Oh, I got the lowdown from Ed himself, up close and in person. Starting in July of 92. He hesitated for just a moment, then gave them an account of the day he had met Ed out by the airport, and how Ed had accused the man in the pickup of hauling dead babies in the barrels marked WEEDGO. Helen listened silently, her eyes growing steadily wider and rounder. He was going on about the same stuff on the day he beat you up, Ralph finished, but hed embellished it considerably by then. That probably explains why hes fixated on you, Gretchen said, but in a very real sense, the why doesnt matter. The fact is, hes given his nuttier friends a list of these socalled Centurions. We dont know everyone whos on it, but I am, and Helen is, and Susan Day, of course . . . and you. Why me? Ralph almost asked, then recognized it as another pointless question. Maybe Ed had targeted him because he had called the cops after Ed had beaten Helen; more likely it had happened for no understandable reason at all. Ralph remembered reading somewhere that David Berkowitz  also known as the Son of Sam  claimed to have killed on some occasions under instructions from his dog. What do you expect them to try? Ralph asked. Armed assault, like in a Chuck Norris movie? He smiled, but Gretchen did not answer it. The thing is, we dont know what they might try, she said. The most likely answer is nothing at all. Then again, Ed or one of the others might take it into his head to try and push you out your own kitchen window. The spray is basically nothing but watereddown teargas. A little insurance policy, thats all. Insurance, he said thoughtfully. Youre in very select company, Helen said with a wan smile. The only other male Centurion on their list  that we know about, anyway  is Mayor Cohen. Did you give him one of these? Ralph asked, picking up the aerosol can. It looked no more dangerous than the free samples of shaving cream he got in the mail from time to time. We didnt need to, Gretchen said. She looked at her watch again. Helen saw the gesture and stood up with the sleeping baby in her arms. Hes got a license to carry a concealed weapon. How would you know a thing like that? Ralph asked. We checked the files at City Hall, she said, and grinned. Gun permits are a matter of public record. Oh. A thought occurred to him. What about Ed? Did you check on him? Does he have one? Nope, she said. But guys like Ed dont necessarily apply for weapons permits once they get past a certain point . . . you know that, dont you? Yes, Ralph replied, also getting up. I suppose I do. What about you guys? Are you watching out? You bet, DaddyO. You bet we are. He nodded, but wasnt entirely satisfied. There was a faintly patronizing tone in her voice that he didnt like, as if the very question were a silly one. But it wasnt silly, and if she didnt know that, she and her friends could be in trouble down the line. Bad trouble. I hope so, he said. I really do. Can I carry Nat downstairs for you, Helen? Better not  youd wake her. She looked at him gravely. Would you carry that spray for me, Ralph? I cant stand the thought of you being hurt just because you tried to help me and hes got some crazy bee in his bonnet. Ill think about it very seriously. Will that do? I guess it will have to. She looked at him closely, her eyes searching his face. You look much better than the last time I saw you  youre sleeping again, arent you? He grinned. Well, to tell you the truth, Im still having my problems, but I must be getting better, because people keep telling me that. She stood on tiptoe and kissed the corner of his mouth. Well be in touch, wont we? I mean, well stay in touch. Ill do my part if youll do yours, sweetie. She smiled. You can count on that, Ralph  youre the nicest male Centurion I know. They all laughed at that, so hard that Natalie woke up and looked around at them in sleepy surprise. 6 After he had seen the women off (IM PROCHOICE, AND I VOTE! read the sticker on the rear bumper of Gretchen Tillburys Accord fastback), Ralph climbed slowly up to the second floor again. Weariness dragged at his heels like invisible weights. Once in the kitchen he looked first at the vase of flowers, trying to see that strange and gorgeous green mist rising from the stems. Nothing. Then he picked up the aerosol and reexamined the cartoon on the side of the can. One Menaced Woman, heroically warding off her attacker; one Bad Man, complete with eyemask and slouch hat. No shades of gray here; just a case of go ahead, punk, make my day. It occurred to Ralph that Eds madness was catching. There were women all over Derry  Gretchen Tillbury and his own sweet Helen among them  walking around with these little spraycans in their purses, and all the cans really said the same thing Im afraid. The bad men in the masks and the slouch hats have arrived in Derry and Im afraid. Ralph wanted no part of it. Standing on tiptoe, he put the can of Bodyguard on top of the kitchen cabinet beside the sink, then shrugged into his old gray leather jacket. He would go up to the picnic area near the airport and see if he could find a game of chess. Lacking that, maybe a few rounds of cribbage. He paused in the kitchen doorway, looking fixedly at the flowers, trying to make that sizzling green mist come. Nothing happened. But it was there. You saw it; Natalie did, too. But had she? Had she really? Babies were always goggling at stuff, everything amazed them, so how could he know for sure? I just do, he said to the empty apartment. Correct. The green mist rising from the stems of the flowers had been there, all the auras had been there, and . . . And theyre still there, he said, and did not know if he should be relieved or appalled by the firmness he heard in his own voice. For right now, why dont you try being neither, sweetheart? His thought, Carolyns voice, good advice. Ralph locked up his apartment and went out into the Derry of the Old Crocks, looking for a game of chess. CHAPTER SEVEN 1 When Ralph came walking up Harris Avenue to his apartment on October 2nd, with a couple of recycled Elmer Kelton Westerns from Back Pages in one hand, he saw that someone was sitting on the porch steps with his own book. The visitor wasnt reading, however; he was watching with dreamy intensity as the warm wind which had been blowing all day harvested the yellow and gold leaves from the oaks and the three surviving elms across the street. Ralph came closer, observing the thin white hair flying around the skull of the man on the porch, and the way all his bulk seemed to have run into his belly, hips, and bottom. That wide center section, coupled with the scrawny neck, narrow chest, and spindly legs clad in old green flannel pants, gave him the look of a man wearing an inner tube beneath his clothes. Even from a hundred and fifty yards away, there was really no question about who the visitor was Dorrance Marstellar. Sighing, Ralph walked the rest of the way up to his building. Dorrance, seemingly hypnotized by the bright falling leaves, did not look around until Ralphs shadow dropped across him. Then he turned, craned his neck, and smiled his sweet, strangely vulnerable smile. Faye Chapin, Don Veazie, and some of the other oldtimers who hung out at the picnic area up by Runway 3 (they would retire to the Jackson Street Billiard Emporium once Indian summer broke and the weather turned cold) saw that smile as just another indicator that Old Dor, poetry books or no poetry books, was essentially brainless. Don Veazie, nobodys idea of Mr Sensitivity, had fallen into the habit of calling Dorrance Old Chief Dumbhead, and Faye had once told Ralph that he, Faye, wasnt in the least surprised that Old Dor had lived to the age of halfpast ninety. People who dont have any furniture on their upper storey always live the longest, he had explained to Ralph earlier that year. They dont have anything to worry about. That keeps their bloodpressure down and they aint so likely to blow a valve or throw a rod. Ralph, however, was not so sure. The sweetness in Dorrances smile did not make the old man look emptyheaded to him; it made him look somehow ethereal and knowing at the same time . . . sort of like a smalltown Merlin. None the less, he could have done without a visit from Dor today; this morning he had set a new record, waking at 158 a.m., and he was exhausted. He only wanted to sit in his own living room, drink coffee, and try to read one of the Westerns he had picked up downtown. Maybe later on he would take another stab at napping. Hello, Dorrance said. The book he was holding was a paperback  Cemetery Nights, by a man named Stephen Dobyns. Hello, Dor, he said. Good book? Dorrance looked down at the book as if hed forgotten he had one, then smiled and nodded. Yes, very good. He writes poems that are like stories. I dont always like that, but sometimes I do. Thats good. Listen, Dor, its great to see you, but the walk up the hill kind of tired me out, so maybe we could visit another t Oh, thats all right, Dorrance said, standing up. There was a faint cinnamony smell about him that always made Ralph think of Egyptian mummies kept behind red velvet ropes in shadowy museums. His face was almost without lines except for the tiny sprays of crows feet around his eyes, but his age was unmistakable (and a little scary) his blue eyes were faded to the watery gray of an April sky and his skin had a translucent clarity that reminded Ralph of Nats skin. His lips were loose and almost lavender in color. They made little smacking sounds when he spoke. Thats all right, I didnt come to visit; I came to give you a message. What message? From who? I dont know who its from, Dorrance said, giving Ralph a look that suggested he thought Ralph was either being foolish or playing dumb. I dont mess in with longtime business. I told you not to, either, dont you remember? Ralph did remember something, but he was damned if he knew exactly what. Nor did he care. He was tired, and he had already had to listen to a fair amount of tiresome proselytizing on the subject of Susan Day from Ham Davenport. He had no urge to go round and round with Dorrance Marstellar on top of that, no matter how beautiful this Saturday morning was. Well then, just give me the message, he said, and Ill toddle along upstairs  how would that be? Oh, sure, good, fine. But then Dorrance stopped, looking across the street as a fresh gust of wind sent a funnel of leaves storming into the bright October sky. His faded eyes were wide, and something in them made Ralph think of the Exalted  Revered Baby again  of the way she had snatched at the grayblue marks left by his fingers, and the way she had looked at the flowers sizzling in the vase by the sink. Ralph had seen Dor stand watching airplanes take off and land on Runway 3 with that same slackjawed expression, sometimes for an hour or more. Dor? he prompted. Dorrances sparse eyelashes fluttered. Oh! Right! The message! The message is . . . He frowned slightly and looked down at the book which he was now bending back and forth in his hands. Then his face cleared and he looked up at Ralph again. The message is,Cancel the appointment. It was Ralphs turn to frown. What appointment? You shouldnt have messed in, Dorrance repeated, then heaved a big sigh. But its too late now. Donebuncantbeundone. Just cancel the appointment. Dont let that fellow stick any pins in you. Ralph had been turning to the porch steps; now he turned back to Dorrance. Hong? Are you talking about Hong? How would I know? Dorrance asked in an irritated tone of voice. I dont mess in, I told you that. Every now and then I carry a message, is all, like now. I was supposed to tell you to cancel the appointment with the pinsticker man, and I done it. The rest is up to you. Dorrance was looking up at the trees across the street again, his odd, lineless face wearing an expression of mild exaltation. The strong fall wind rippled his hair like seaweed. When Ralph touched his shoulder the old man turned to him willingly enough, and Ralph suddenly realized that what Faye Chapin and the others saw as foolishness might actually be joy. If so, the mistake probably said more about them than it did about Old Dor. Dorrance? What, Ralph? This message  who gave it to you? Dorrance thought it over  or perhaps only appeared to think it over  and then held out his copy of Cemetery Nights. Take it. No, Ill pass, Ralph said. Im not much on poetry, Dor. Youll like these. Theyre like stories Ralph restrained a strong urge to reach out and shake the old man until his bones rattled like castanets. I just picked up a couple oat operas downtown, at Back Pages. What I want to know is who gave you the message about Dorrance thrust the book of poems into Ralphs right hand  the one not holding the Westerns  with surprising force. One of them starts, Each thing I do I rush through so I can do something else.


And before Ralph could say another word, Old Dor cut across the lawn to the sidewalk. He turned left and started toward the Extension with his face turned dreamily up to the blue sky where the leaves flew wildly, as if to some rendezvous over the horizon. Dorrance! Ralph shouted, suddenly infuriated. Across the street at the Red Apple, Sue was sweeping fallen leaves off the hottop in front of the door. At the sound of Ralphs voice she stopped and looked curiously over at him. Feeling stupid  feeling old  Ralph manufactured what he hoped looked like a big, cheerful grin and waved to her. Sue waved back and resumed her sweeping. Dorrance, meanwhile, had continued serenely on his way. He was now almost half a block up the street. Ralph decided to let him go. 2 He climbed the steps to the porch, switching the book Dorrance had given him to his left hand so he could grope for his keyring, and then saw he didnt have to bother  the door was not only unlocked but standing ajar. Ralph had scolded McGovern repeatedly for his carelessness about locking the front door, and had thought he was finally having some success in getting the message through his downstairs tenants thick skull. Now, however, it seemed that McGovern had backslid. Dammit, Bill, he said under his breath, pushing his way into the shadowy lower hall and looking nervously up the stairs. It was all too easy to imagine Ed Deepneau lurking up there, broad daylight or not. Still, he could not stay here in the foyer all day. He turned the thumbbolt on the front door and started up the stairs. There was nothing to worry about, of course. He had one bad moment when he thought he saw someone standing in the far corner of the living room, but it was only his own old gray jacket. He had actually hung it on the coattree for a change instead of just slinging it onto a chair or draping it over the arm of the sofa; no wonder it had given him a turn. He went into the kitchen and, with his hands poked into his back pockets, stood looking at the calendar. Monday was circled, and within the circle he had scrawled HONG  1000. I was supposed to tell you to cancel the appointment with the pinsticker man, and I done it. The rest is up to you. For a moment Ralph felt himself step back from his life so he was able to look at the latest section of the mural it made instead of just the detail which was this day. What he saw frightened him an unknown road heading into a lightless tunnel where anything might be waiting. Anything at all. Then turn back, Ralph! But he had an idea he couldnt do that. He had an idea he was for the tunnel, whether he wanted to go in there or not. The feeling was not one of being led so much as it was one of being shoved forward by powerful, invisible hands. Never mind, he muttered, rubbing his temples nervously with the tips of his fingers and still looking at the circled date  two days from now  on the calendar. Its the insomnia. Thats when things really started to . . . Really started to what? To get weird, he told the empty apartment. Thats when things started to get really weird. Yes, weird. Lots of weird things, but the auras he was seeing were clearly the weirdest of them all. Cold gray light  it had looked like living frost  creeping over the man reading the paper in Day Break, Sun Down. The mother and son walking toward the supermarket, their entwined auras rising from their clasped hands like a pigtail. Helen and Nat buried in gorgeous clouds of ivory light; Natalie snatching at the marks left by his moving fingers, ghostly contrails which only she and Ralph had been able to see. And now Old Dor, turning up on his doorstep like some peculiar Old Testament prophet . . . only instead of telling him to repent, Dor had told him to cancel his appointment with the acupuncturist Joe Wyzer had recommended. It should have been funny, but it wasnt. The mouth of that tunnel. Looming closer every day. Was there really a tunnel? And if so, where did it lead? Im more interested in what might be waiting for me in there, Ralph thought. Waiting in the dark. You shouldnt have messed in, Dorrance had said. Anyway, its too late now. Donebuncantbeundone, Ralph murmured, and suddenly decided he didnt want to take the wide view anymore; it was unsettling. Better to move in close again and consider things a detail at a time, beginning with his appointment for acupuncture treatment. Was he going to keep it, or follow the advice of Old Dor, alias the Ghost of Hamlets Father? It really wasnt a question that needed much thought, Ralph decided. Joe Wyzer had sweettalked Hongs secretary into finding him an appointment in early October, and Ralph intended to keep it. If there was a path out of this thicket, starting to sleep through the night was probably it. And that made Hong the next logical step. Donebuncantbeundone, he repeated, and went into the living room to read one of his Westerns. Instead he found himself paging through the book of poetry Dorrance had given him  Cemetery Nights, by Stephen Dobyns. Dorrance had been right on both counts the majority of the poems were like stories, and Ralph discovered that he liked them just fine. The poem from which Old Dor had quoted was called Pursuit, and it began Each thing I do I rush through so I can do something else. In such a way do the days pass  a blend of stock car racing and the never ending building of a gothic cathedral. Through the windows of my speeding car, I see all that I love falling away books unread, jokes untold, landscapes unvisited . . . Ralph read the poem twice, completely absorbed, thinking he would have to read it to Carolyn. Carolyn would like it, which was good, and she would like him (who usually stuck to Westerns and historical novels) even more for finding it and bringing it to her like a bouquet of flowers. He was actually getting up to find a scrap of paper he could mark the page with when he remembered that Carolyn had been dead for half a year now and burst into tears. He sat in the wingchair for almost fifteen minutes, holding Cemetery Nights in his lap and wiping at his eyes with the heel of his left hand. At last he went into the bedroom, lay down, and tried to sleep. After an hour of staring at the ceiling, he got up, made himself a cup of coffee, and found a college football game on TV. 3 The Public Library was open on Sunday afternoons from one until six, and on the day after Dorrances visit, Ralph went down there, mostly because he had nothing better to do. The highceilinged reading room would ordinarily have contained a scattering of other old men like himself, most of them leafing through the various Sunday papers they now had time to read, but when Ralph emerged from the stacks where he had spent forty minutes browsing, he discovered he had the whole room to himself. Yesterdays gorgeous blue skies had been replaced by driving rain that pasted the newfallen leaves to the sidewalks or sent them flooding down the gutters and into Derrys peculiar and unpleasantly tangled system of stormdrains. The wind was still blowing, but it had shifted into the north and now had a nasty cutting edge. Old folks with any sense (or any luck) were at home where it was warm, possibly watching the last game of another dismal Red Sox season, possibly playing Old Maid or Candyland with the grandkids, possibly napping off a big chicken dinner. Ralph, on the other hand, did not care for the Red Sox, had no children or grandchildren, and seemed to have completely lost any capacity for napping he might once have had. So he had taken the one oclock Green Route bus down to the library, and here he was, wishing he had worn something heavier than his old scuffed gray jacket  the reading room was chilly. Gloomy, as well. The fireplace was empty, and the clankless radiators strongly suggested that the furnace had yet to be fired up. The Sunday librarian hadnt bothered flipping the switches that turned on the hanging overhead globes, either. The light which did manage to find its way in here seemed to fall dead on the floor, and the corners were full of shadows. The loggers and soldiers and drummers and Indians in the old paintings on the walls looked like malevolent ghosts. Cold rain sighed and gusted against the windows. I should have stayed home, Ralph thought, but didnt really believe it; these days the apartment was even worse. Besides, he had found an interesting new book in what he had come to think of as the Mr Sandman Section of the stacks Patterns of Dreaming, by James A. Hall, MD. He turned on the overheads, rendering the room marginally less gruesome, sat down at one of the four long, empty tables, and was soon absorbed in his reading. Prior to the realization that REM sleep and NREM sleep were distinct states [Hall wrote], studies concerned with total deprivation of a particular stage of sleep led to Dements suggestion (1960) that deprivation . . . causes disorganization of the waking personality . . . Boy, you got that right, my friend, Ralph thought. Cant even find a fucking CupASoup packet when you want one. . . . early dreamdeprivation studies also raised the exciting speculation that schizophrenia might be a disorder in which deprivation of dreaming at night led to a breakthrough of the dream process into everyday waking life. Ralph hunched over the book, elbows on the table, fisted hands pressed against his temples, forehead lined and eyebrows drawn together in a clench of concentration. He wondered if Hall could be talking about the auras, maybe without even knowing it. Except he was still having dreams, dammit  very vivid ones, for the most part. Just last night hed had one in which he was dancing at the old Derry Pavilion (gone now; destroyed in the big storm which had wiped out most of the downtown area eight years before) with Lois Chasse. He seemed to have taken her out with the intention of proposing to her, but Trigger Vachon, of all people, had kept trying to cut in. He rubbed his eyes with his knuckles, tried to focus his attention, and began to read again. He did not see the man in the baggy gray sweatshirt materialize in the doorway of the reading room and stand there, silently watching him. After about three minutes of this, the man reached beneath the sweatshirt (Charlie Browns dog Snoopy was on the front, wearing his Joe Cool glasses) and produced a hunting knife from the scabbard on his belt. The hanging overhead globes threw a thread of light along the knifes serrated blade as the man turned it this way and that, admiring the edge. Then he moved forward toward the table where Ralph was sitting with his head propped on his hands. He sat down beside Ralph, who noticed that someone was there only in the faintest, most distant way. Tolerance to sleep loss varies somewhat with the age of the subject. Younger subjects show an earlier onset of disturbance and more physical reactions, while older subjects A hand closed lightly on Ralphs shoulder, startling him out of the book. I wonder what theyll look like? an ecstatic voice whispered in his ear, the words flowing on a tide of what smelled like spoiled bacon cooking slowly in a bath of garlic and rancid butter. Your guts, I mean. I wonder what theyll look like when I let them out all over the floor. What do you think, you Godless babykilling Centurion? Do you think theyll be yellow or black or red or what? Something hard and sharp pressed into Ralphs left side and then slowly traced its way down along his ribs. I cant wait to find out, the ecstatic voice whispered. I cant wait. 4 Ralph turned his head very slowly, hearing the tendons in his neck creak. He didnt know the name of the man with the bad breath  the man who was sticking something that felt too much like a knife not to be one into his side  but he recognized him at once. The hornrimmed glasses helped, but the zany gray hair, standing up in clumps that reminded Ralph simultaneously of Don King and Albert Einstein, was the clincher. It was the man who had been standing with Ed Deepneau in the background of the newspaper photo that had showed Ham Davenport with his fist raised and Dan Dalton wearing Davenports CHOICE, NOT FEAR sign for a hat. Ralph thought he had seen this same guy in some of the TV news stories about the continuing abortion demonstrations. Just another signwaving, chanting face in the crowd; just another spearcarrier. Except it now seemed that this particular spearcarrier intended to kill him. What do you think? the man in the Snoopy sweatshirt asked, still in that ecstatic whisper. The sound of his voice frightened Ralph more than the blade as it slid slowly up and then back down his leather jacket, seeming to map the vulnerable organs on the left side of his body lung, heart, kidney, intestines. What color? His breath was nauseating, but Ralph was afraid to pull back or turn his head, afraid that any gesture might cause the knife to stop tracking and plunge. Now it was moving back up his side again. Behind the thick lenses of his hornrims, the mans brown eyes floated like strange fish. The expression in them was disconnected and oddly frightened, Ralph thought. The eyes of a man who would see signs in the sky and perhaps hear voices whispering from deep in the closet late at night. I dont know, Ralph said. I dont know why youd want to hurt me in the first place. He shot his eyes quickly around, still not moving his head, hoping to see someone, anyone, but the reading room remained empty. Outside, the wind gusted and rain racketed against the windows. Because youre a fucking Centurion! the grayhaired man spat. A fucking babykiller! Stealing the fetal unborn! Selling them to the highest bidder! I know all about you! Ralph dropped his right hand slowly from the side of his head. He was righthanded, and all the stuff he happened to pick up in the course of the day generally went into the handiest righthand pocket of whatever he was wearing. The old gray jacket had big flap pockets, but he was afraid that even if he could sneak his hand in there unnoticed, the most lethal thing he would find was apt to be a crumpledup Dentyne wrapper. He doubted that he even had a nailclipper. Ed Deepneau told you that, didnt he? Ralph asked, then grunted as the knife poked painfully into his side just below the place where his ribs stopped. Dont speak his name, the man in the Snoopy sweatshirt whispered. Dont you even speak his name! Stealer of infants! Cowardly murderer! Centurion! He thrust forward with the blade again, and this time there was real pain as the tip punched through the leather jacket. Ralph didnt think he was cut  yet, anyway  but he was quite sure the nut had already applied enough pressure to leave a nasty bruise. That was okay, though; if he got out of this with no more than a bruise, he would count himself lucky. All right, he said. I wont mention his name. Say youre sorry! the man in the Snoopy sweatshirt hissed, prodding with the knife again. This time it went through Ralphs shirt, and he felt the first warm trickle of blood down his side. Whats under the point of the blade right now? he wondered. Liver? Gall bladder? Whats under there on the lefthand side? He either couldnt remember or didnt want to. A picture had come into his mind, and it was trying to get in the way of any organized thought  a deer hung headdown from a set of scales outside some country store during hunting season. Glazed eyes, lolling tongue, and a dark slit up the belly where a man with a knife  a knife just like this one  had opened it up and yanked its works out, leaving just head, meat, and hide. Im sorry, Ralph said in a voice which was no longer steady. I am, really. Yeah, right! You ought to be, but you arent! You arent! Another prod. A bright lance of pain. More wet heat trickling down his side. And suddenly the room was brighter, as if two or three of the camera crews which had been wandering around Derry since the abortion protests began had crowded in here and turned on the floods they mounted over their videocams. There were no cameras, of course; the lights had gone on inside of him. He turned toward the man with the knife  the man who was actually pressing the blade into him now  and saw he was surrounded by a shifting green and black aura that made Ralph think of (swampfire) the dim phosphorescence he had sometimes seen in marshy woods after dark. Twisting through it were spiky brambles of purest black. He looked at his assailants aura with mounting dismay, hardly feeling the tip of the knife sink a sixteenth of an inch deeper into him. He was distantly aware that blood was puddling at the bottom of his shirt, along the line of his belt, but that was all. Hes crazy, and he really does mean to kill me  it isnt just talk. Hes not quite ready to do it yet, he hasnt quite worked himself up to it, but hes almost there. And if I try to run  if I try to move even an inch away from the knife hes got in me  hell do it right away. I think hes hoping I will decide to move . . . then he can tell himself I brought it on myself, that it was my own fault. You and your kind, oh boy, the man with the zany shock of gray hair was saying. We know all about you. Ralphs hand had reached the right pocket . . . and felt a largish something inside he didnt recognize or remember putting there. Not that that meant much; when you could no longer remember if the last four digits of the cinema center phone number were 1317 or 1713, anything was possible. You guys, oh boy! the man with the zany hair said. Ohboy ohboy ohBOY! This time Ralph had no trouble feeling the pain when the man pushed with the knife; the tip spread a thin red net all the way across the curve of his chest wall and up the nape of his neck. He uttered a low moan, and his right hand clamped tight on the gray jackets righthand pocket, moulding the leather to the curved side of the object inside. Dont scream, the man with the zany hair said in that low, ecstatic whisper. Oh jeepers jeezly crow, you dont want to do that! His brown eyes peered at Ralphs face, and the lenses of his glasses so magnified them that the tiny flakes of dandruff caught in his lashes looked almost as big as pebbles. Ralph could see the mans aura even in his eyes  it went sliding across his pupils like green smoke across black water. The snakelike twists running through the green light were thicker now, twining together, and Ralph understood that when the knife sank all the way in, the part of this mans personality which was generating those black swirls would be what pushed it. The green was confusion and paranoia; the black was something else. Something (from outside) much worse. No, he gasped. I wont. I wont scream. Good. I can feel your heart, you know. Its coming right up the blade of the knife and into the palm of my hand. It must be beating really hard. The mans mouth pulled up in a jerky, humorless smile. Flecks of spittle clung to the corners of his lips. Maybe youll just keel over and die of a heart attack, save me the trouble of killing you. Another gust of that sickening breath washed over Ralphs face. Youre awful old. Blood was now running down his side in what felt like two streams, maybe even three. The pain of the knifepoint gouging into him was maddening  like the stinger of a gigantic bee. Or a pin, Ralph thought, and discovered that this idea was funny in spite of the fix he was in . . . or perhaps because of it. This was the real pinsticker man; James Roy Hong could be only a pale imitation. And I never had a chance to cancel this appointment, Ralph thought. But then again, he had an idea that nuts like the guy in the Snoopy sweatshirt didnt take cancellations. Nuts like this had their own agenda and they stuck to it, come hell or high water. Whatever else might happen, Ralph knew he couldnt stand that knifetip boring into him much longer. He used his thumb to lift the flap of his coat pocket and slipped his hand inside. He knew what the object was the minute his fingertips touched it the aerosol can Gretchen had taken out of her purse and put on his kitchen table. A little present from all your grateful friends at WomanCare, she had said. Ralph had no idea how it had gotten from the top of the kitchen cabinet where he had put it into the pocket of his battered old fall jacket, and he didnt care. His hand closed around it, and he used his thumb again, this time to pop off the cans plastic top. He never took his eyes away from the twitching, frightened, exhilarated face of the man with the zany hair as he did this. I know something, Ralph said. If you promise not to kill me, Ill tell you. What? the man with the zany hair asked. Jeepers, what could a scum like you know? What could a scum like me know? Ralph asked himself, and the answer came at once, popping into his mind like jackpot bars in the windows of a slot machine. He forced himself to lean into the green aura swirling around the man, into the terrible cloud of stink coming from his disturbed guts. At the same time he eased the small can from his pocket, held it against his thigh, and settled his index finger on the button which triggered the spray. I know who the Crimson King is, he murmured. The eyes widened behind the dirty hornrims  not just in surprise but in shock  and the man with the zany hair recoiled a little. For a moment the terrible pressure high on Ralphs left side eased. It was his chance, the only one he was apt to have, and he took it, throwing himself to the right, falling off his chair and tumbling to the floor. The back of his head smacked the tiles, but the pain seemed distant and unimportant compared to the relief at the removal of the knifepoint. The man with the zany hair squawked  a sound of mingled rage and resignation, as if he had become used to such setbacks over his long and difficult life. He leaned over Ralphs nowempty chair, his twitching face thrust forward, his eyes looking like the sort of fantastic, glowing creatures which live in the oceans deepest trenches. Ralph raised the spraycan and had just a moment to realize he hadnt had time to check which direction the pinhole in the nozzle was pointing  he might very well succeed only in giving himself a faceful of Bodyguard. No time to worry about that now. He pressed the nozzle as the man with the zany hair thrust his knife forward. The mans face was enveloped in a thin haze of droplets that looked like the stuff that came out of the pinescented airfreshener Ralph kept on the bathroom toilet tank. The lenses of his glasses fogged over. The result was immediate and all Ralph could have wished for. The man with the zany hair screamed in pain, dropped his knife (it landed on Ralphs left knee and came to rest between his legs), and clutched at his face, pulling his glasses off. They landed on the table. At the same time the thin, somehow greasy aura around him flashed a brilliant red and then winked out  out of Ralphs view, at least. Im blind! the man with the zany hair cried in a high, shrieky voice. Im blind, Im blind! No, youre not, Ralph said, getting shakily to his feet. Youre just The man with the zany hair screamed again and fell to the floor. He rolled back and forth on the black and white tiles with his hands over his face, howling like a child who has gotten his hand caught in a door. Ralph could see little piewedges of cheeks between his splayed fingers. The skin there was turning an alarming shade of red. Ralph told himself to leave the guy alone, that he was crazy as a loon and dangerous as a rattlesnake, but he found himself too horrified and ashamed of what he had done to take this no doubt excellent advice. The idea that it had been a matter of survival, of disabling his assailant or dying, had already begun to seem unreal. He bent down and put a tentative hand on the mans arm. The nut rolled away from him and began to drum his dirty lowtop sneakers on the floor like a child having a tantrum. Oh you son of a bitch! he was screaming. You shot me with something! And then, incredibly Ill sue the pants off you! Youll have to explain about the knife before youre able to progress much with your lawsuit, I think, Ralph said. He saw the knife lying on the floor, reached for it, then thought again. It would be better if his fingerprints werent on it. As he straightened, a wave of dizziness rushed through his head and for a moment the rain beating against the window sounded hollow and distant. He kicked the knife away, then tottered on his feet and had to grab the back of the chair hed been sitting in to keep from falling over. Things steadied again. He heard approaching footsteps from the main lobby and murmuring, questioning voices. Now you come, Ralph thought wearily. Where were you three minutes ago, when this guy was on the verge of popping my left lung like a balloon? Mike Hanlon, looking slim and no more than thirty despite his tight cap of gray hair, appeared in the doorway. Behind him was the teenage boy Ralph recognized as the weekend desk assistant, and behind the teenager were four or five gawkers, probably from the periodicals room. Mr Roberts! Mike exclaimed. Christ, how bad are you hurt? Im fine, its him thats hurt, Ralph said. But he happened to look down at himself as he pointed at the man on the floor and saw he wasnt fine. His coat had pulled up when he pointed, and the left side of the plaid shirt beneath had gone a deep, sodden red in a teardrop shape that started just below the armpit and spread out from there. Shit, he said faintly, and sat down in his chair again. He bumped the hornrimmed glasses with his elbow and they skittered almost all the way across the table. The mist of droplets on their lenses made them look like eyes which had been blinded by cataracts. He shot me with acid! the man on the floor screamed. I cant see and my skin is melting! I can feel it melting! To Ralph, he sounded like an almost conscious parody of the Wicked Witch of the West. Mike tossed a quick glance at the man on the floor, then sat down in the chair next to Ralph. What happened? Well, it sure wasnt acid, Ralph said, and held up the can of Bodyguard. He set it on the table beside Patterns of Dreaming. The lady who gave it to me said its not as strong as Mace, it just irritates your eyes and makes you sick to your Its not whats wrong with him that Im worried about, Mike said impatiently. Anyone who can yell that loud probably isnt going to die in the next three minutes. Its you Im worried about, Mr Roberts  any idea how bad he stabbed you? He didnt actually stab me at all, Ralph said. He . . . sort of poked me. With that. He pointed at the knife lying on the tile floor. At the sight of the red tip, he felt another wave of faintness track through his head. It felt like an express train made of feather pillows. That was stupid, of course, made no sense at all, but he wasnt in a very sensible frame of mind. The assistant was looking cautiously down at the man on the floor. Uhoh, he said. We know this guy, Mike  its Charlie Pickering. Goodnessgracious, great balls of fire, Mike said. Now why arent I surprised? He looked at the teenage assistant and sighed. Better call the cops, Justin. It looks like weve got us a situation here. 5 Am I in trouble for using that? Ralph asked an hour later, and pointed to one of the two sealed plastic bags sitting on the cluttered surface of the desk in Mike Hanlons office. A strip of yellow tape, marked EVIDENCE Aerosol can DATE 3 October 93 and SITE Derry Public Library ran across the front. Not as much as our old pal Charlies going to be in for using this, John Leydecker said, and pointed to the other sealed bag. The hunting knife was inside, the blood on the tip now dried to a tacky maroon. Leydecker was wearing a University of Maine football sweater today. It made him look approximately the size of a dairy barn. We still pretty much believe in the concept of selfdefense out here in the sticks. We dont talk it up much, though  its sort of like admitting you believe the world is flat. Mike Hanlon, who was leaning in the doorway, laughed. Ralph hoped his face didnt show how deeply relieved he felt. As a paramedic (one of the guys who had run Helen Deepneau to the hospital back in August, for all he knew) worked on him  first photographing, then disinfecting, finally butterflyclamping and bandaging  he had sat with his teeth gritted, imagining a judge sentencing him to six months in the county clink for assault with a semideadly weapon. Hopefully, Mr Roberts, this will serve as an example and a warning to any other old farts in this vicinity who may feel justified in carrying around spraycans of disabling nerve gas . . . Leydecker looked once more at the six Polaroid photographs lined up along the side of Hanlons computer terminal. The freshfaced emergency medical technician had taken the first three before patching Ralph up. These showed a small dark circle  it looked like the sort of oversized period made by children just learning to print  low down on Ralphs side. The EMT had taken the second set of three after applying the butterfly clamp and getting Ralphs signature on a form attesting to the fact that he had been offered hospital service and had refused it. In this latter group of photographs, the beginnings of what was going to be an absolutely spectacular bruise could be seen. God bless Edwin Land and Richard Polaroid, Leydecker said, putting the photographs into another EVIDENCE Baggie. I dont think there ever was a Richard Polaroid, Mike Hanlon said from his spot in the doorway. Probably not, but God bless him just the same. No jury who got a look at these photos would do anything but give you a medal, Ralph, and not even Clarence Darrow could keep em out of evidence. He looked back at Mike. Charlie Pickering. Mike nodded. Charlie Pickering. Fuckhead. Mike nodded again. Fuckhead deluxe. The two of them looked at each other solemnly, then burst into gales of laughter at the same moment. Ralph understood exactly how they felt  it was funny because it was awful and awful because it was funny  and he had to bite his lips savagely to keep from joining them. The last thing in the world he wanted to do right now was get laughing; it would hurt like a bastard. Leydecker took a handkerchief out of his back pocket, mopped his streaming eyes with it, and began to get himself under control. Pickerings one of the righttolifers, isnt he? Ralph asked. He was remembering how Pickering had looked when Hanlons teenage assistant had helped him sit up. Without his glasses, the man had looked about as dangerous as a bunny in a petshop window. You could say that, Mike agreed dryly. Hes the one they caught last year in the parking garage that services the hospital and WomanCare. He had a can of gasoline in his hand and a knapsack filled with empty bottles on his back. Also strips of sheeting, dont forget those, Leydecker said. Those were going to be his fuses. That was back when Charlie was a member in good standing of Daily Bread. How close did he come to lighting the place up? Ralph asked curiously. Leydecker shrugged. Not very. Someone in the group apparently decided firebombing the local womens clinic might be a little closer to terrorism than politics and made an anonymous phone call to your local police authority. Good deal, Mike said. He snorted another little chuckle, then crossed his arms as if to hold any further outburst inside. Yeah, Leydecker said. He laced his fingers together, stretched out his arms, and popped his knuckles. Instead of prison, a thoughtful, caring judge sent Charlie to Juniper Hill for six months worth of treatment and therapy, and they must have decided he was okay, because hes been back in town since July or so. Yep, Mike agreed. Hes down here just about every day. Kind of improving the tone of the place.