parkin ticket.”
King might or might not have known this for the lie it was, but chose not to comment on it;
there was something else on his mind. “Mr. Smith—Bryan—was anyone else here?”
In the trees, Roland stiffened.
Smith actually appeared to consider this. He reached into his pocket, pulled out a Mars bar
and began to unwrap it. Then he shook his head. “Just you n me. But I called 911 and
Rescue, up to the store. They said someone was real close. Said they’d be here in no time.
Don’t you worry.”
“You know who I am.”
“Godyeah! ” Bryan Smith said, and chuckled. He took a bite of the candy bar and talked
through it. “Reckonized you right away. I seen all your movies. My favorite was the one
about the Saint Bernard. What was that dog’s name?”
“Cujo,” King said. This was a word Roland knew, one Susan Delgado had sometimes used
when they were alone together. In Mejis,cujo meant “sweet one.”
“Yeah! That was great! Scary as hell! I’m glad that little boy lived!”
“In the book he died.” Then King closed his eyes and lay back, waiting.
Smith took another bite, a humongous one this time. “I liked the show they made about the
clown, too!Very cool!”
King made no reply. His eyes stayed closed, but Roland thought the rise and fall of the
writer’s chest looked deep and steady. That was good.
Then a truck roared toward them and swerved to a stop in front of Smith’s van. The new motor-carriage was about the size of a funeral bucka, but orange instead of black and
equipped with flashing lights. Roland was not displeased to see it roll over the tracks of the storekeeper’s truck before coming to a stop.
Roland half-expected a robot to get out of the coach, but it was a man. He reached back
inside for a black sawbones’ bag. Satisfied that everything here would be as well as it could be, Roland returned to where he had laid Jake, moving with all his old unconscious grace:
he cracked not a single twig, surprised not a single bird into flight.
Eight
Would it surprise you, after all we’ve seen together and all the secrets we’ve learned, to
know that at quarter past five that afternoon, Mrs. Tassenbaum pulled Chip McAvoy’s old
truck into the driveway of a house we’ve already visited? Probably not, because ka is a
wheel, and all it knows how to do is roll. When last we visited here, in 1977, both it and the boathouse on the shore of Keywadin Pond were white with green trim. The Tassenbaums,
who bought the place in ’94, had painted it an entirely pleasing shade of cream (no trim; to
Irene Tassenbaum’s way of thinking, trim is for folks who can’t make up their minds).
They have also put a sign readingSUNSET COTTAGE on a post at the head of the
driveway, and as far as Uncle Sam’s concerned it’s part of their mailing address, but to the
local folk, this house at the south end of Keywadin Pond will always be the old John
Cullum place.
She parked the truck beside her dark red Benz and went inside, mentally rehearsing what
she’d tell David about why she had the local shopkeeper’s pickup, but Sunset Cottage
hummed with the peculiar silence only empty places have; she picked up on it immediately.
She had come back to a lot of empty places—apartments at the beginning, bigger and
bigger houses as time went by—over the years. Not because David was out drinking or
womanizing, good Lord forbid. No, he and his friends had usually been out in one garage
or another, one basement workshop or another, drinking cheap wine and discount beer
from the Beverage Barn, creating the Internet plus all the software necessary to support it
and make it user-friendly. The profits, although most would not believe it, had only been a
side-effect. The silence to which their wives so often came home was another. After awhile
all that humming silence kind of got to you, made youmad, even, but not today. Today she
was delighted the house was just hers.
Are you going to sleep with Marshal Dillon, if he wants you?
It wasn’t a question she even had to think about. The answer was yes, she would sleep with
him if he wanted her: sideways, backward, doggy-style, or straight-up fuck, if that was his
pleasure. He wouldn’t—even if he hadn’t been grieving for his young
(sai? son?)
friend, he wouldn’t have wanted to sleep with her, she with her wrinkles, she with her hair
going gray at the roots, she with the spare tire which her designer clothes could not quite
conceal. The very idea was ludicrous.
But yes. If he wanted her, she would.
She looked on the fridge and there, under one of the magnets that dotted it (WE
AREPOSITRONICS,BUILDING THE FUTURE ONE CIRCUIT AT A TIME, this one
said) was a brief note.
Ree—
You wanted me to relax, so I’m relaxing (dammit!). I.e. gone fishin’ with Sonny Emerson,
t’other end of the lake, ayuh, ayuh. Will be back by 7 unless the bugs are too bad. If I bring you a bass, will you cook & clean?
D.
PS: Something going on at the store big enuf to rate 3 police cars. WALK-INS,
maybe????
If you hear, fill me in.
She’d told himshe was going to the store this afternoon—eggs and milk that she’d of
course never gotten—and he had nodded.Yes dear, yes dear. But his note held no hint of
worry, no sense that he even remembered what she’d said. Well, what else did she expect?
When it came to David, info entered ear A, info exited ear B. Welcome to GeniusWorld.
She turned the note over, plucked a pen from a teacup filled with them, hesitated, then
wrote:
David,
Something has happened, and I have to be gone for awhile. 2 days at least, I think maybe 3
or 4. Please don’t worry about meand don’t call anyone.ESPECIALLY NOT POLICE . It’s
a stray cat thing.
Would he understand that? She thought he would if he remembered how they’d met. At
the Santa Monica ASPCA, that had been, among the stacked rows of kennels in back: love
blooms as the mongrels yap. It sounded like James Joyce to her, by God. He had brought in
a stray dog he’d found on a suburban street near the apartment where he was staying with
half a dozen egghead friends. She’d been looking for a kitten to liven up what was an
essentially friendless life. He’d had all his hair then. As for her, she’d thought women who
dyed theirs mildly amusing. Time was a thief, and one of the first things it took was your
sense of humor.
She hesitated, then added
Love you,
Ree
Was that true any longer? Well, let it stand, either way. Crossing out what you’d written in
ink always looked ugly. She put the note back on the fridge with the same magnet to hold it
in place.
She got the keys to the Mercedes out of the basket by the door, then remembered the
rowboat, still tied up at the little stub of dock behind the store. It would be all right there.
But then she thought of something else, something the boy had told her.He doesn’t know
about money .
She went into the pantry, where they always kept a slim roll of fifties (there were places
out here in the boondocks where she would be willing to swear they’d never evenheard of
MasterCard) and took three. She started away, shrugged, went back, and took the other
three, as well. Why not? She was living dangerously today.
On her way out, she paused again to look at the note. And then, for absolutely no reason
she could understand, she took the Positronics magnet away and replaced it with an orange
slice. Then she left.
Never mind the future. For the time being, she had enough to keep her occupied in the
present.
Nine
The emergency bucka was gone, bearing the writer to the nearest hospital or infirmary,
Roland assumed. Peace officers had come just as it left, and they spent perhaps half an hour
talking with Bryan Smith. The gunslinger could hear the palaver from where he was, just
over the first rise. The bluebacks’ questions were clear and calm, Smith’s answers little
more than mumbles. Roland saw no reason to stop working. If the blues came back here
and found him, he would deal with them. Just incapacitate them, unless they made that
impossible; gods knew there had been enough killing. But he would bury his dead, one way
or another.
He would bury his dead.
The lovely green-gold light of the clearing deepened. Mosquitoes found him but he did not
stop what he was doing in order to slap them, merely let them drink their fill and then