Dreamcatcher(154)

And may you choke on it, Jonesy thought, but now without much hope.

'Gotta stoke the stove,' Darlene said, a comment Mr Gray didn't understand and didn't bother hunting down in Jonesy's files. He put two sugars in his coffee, looked around to make sure he wasn't observed, then poured the contents of a third packet down his throat. Jonesy's eyes half-closed for a few seconds as Mr Gray drowned happily in the bliss of sweet.

You can have that any time you want it, Jonesy said through the door. Now he supposed he knew how Satan felt when he took Jesus up on the mountaintop and tempted him with all the cities of the earth. Not good; not really bad; just doing the job, selling the product.

Except . . . check that. It did feel good, because he knew he was getting through. He wasn't opening stab-wounds exactly, but he was at least pricking Mr Gray. Making him sweat little blood-beads of desire.

Give it up, Jonesy coaxed. Go native. You can spend years exploring my senses. They're pretty sharp; I'm still under forty.

No reply from Mr Gray. He looked around, saw no one looking his way, poured fake maple syrup into his coffee, slurped it, and looked around again for his supplemental bacon. Jonesy sighed. This was like being with a strict Muslim who has somehow wound up on a Las Vegas holiday.

On the far side of the restaurant was an arch with a sign reading TRUCKERS' LOUNGE & SHOWERS above it. In the short hallway beyond, there was a bank of pay telephones. Several drivers stood there, no doubt explaining to spouses and bosses that they wouldn't be back on time, they'd been shut down by a surprise storm in Maine, they were at Dysart's Truck Stop (known to the cognoscenti as Dry Farts, Jonesy thought) south of Derry and here they would likely remain until at least noon tomorrow.

Jonesy turned from the office window with its view of the truck stop and looked at his desk, now covered with all his old and comforting clutter. There was his phone, the blue Trimline. Would it be possible to call Henry on it? Was Henry even still alive? Jonesy thought he was. He thought that if Henry were dead, he would have felt the moment of his passing  -  more shadows in the room, perhaps. Elvis has left the building, Beaver had often said when he spotted a name he knew in the obits. What a f**kitt pisser. Jonesy didn't think Henry had left the building just yet. It was even possible that Henry had an encore in mind.

8

Mr Gray didn't choke on his second order of bacon, but when his lower belly suddenly cramped up, he let out a dismayed roar. You poisoned me!

Relax, Jonesy said. You just need to make a little room, my friend.

Room? What do you -

He broke off as another cramp gripped his gut.

I mean that we had better hurry along to the little boys' room, Jonesy said. Good God, didn't all those abductions you guys did in the sixties teach you anything about the human anatomy?

Darlene had left the check, and Mr Gray picked it up.

Leave her fifteen per cent on the table, Jonesy said. It's a tip.

How much is fifteen per cent?

Jonesy sighed. These were the masters of the universe that the movies had taught us to fear? Merciless, star-faring conquerors who didn't know how to take a shit or figure a tip?

Another cramp, plus a fairly silent fart. It smelled, but not of ether. Thank God for small favors, Jonesy thought. Then, to Mr Gray: Show me the check.

Jonesy looked at the green slip of paper through his office window.

Leave her a buck and a half And when Mr Gray seemed dubious: This is good advice I'm giving you, my friend. More and she remembers you as the night's big tipper. Less, and she remembers you as a chintz.

He sensed Mr Gray checking for the meaning of chintz in Jonesy's files. Then, without further argument, he left a dollar and two quarters on the table. With that taken care of, he headed for the cash register, which was on the way to the men's room.

The cop was working his pie  -  with slightly suspicious slowness, Jonesy thought  -  and as they passed him, Jonesy felt Mr Gray as an entity (an ever more human entity) dissolve, going out to peek inside the cop's head. Nothing out there now but the redblack cloud, running Jonesy's various maintenance systems.

Quick as a flash, Jonesy grabbed the phone on his desk. For a moment he hesitated, unsure.

just dial 1-800-HENRY, Jonesy thought.

For a moment there was nothing . . . and then, in some other somewhere, a phone began to ring.

9

'Pete's idea,' Henry muttered.

Owen, at the wheel of the Humvee (it was huge and it was loud, but it was equipped with oversized snow tires and rode the storm like the QE2), looked over. Henry was asleep. His glasses had slid down to the end of his nose. His eyelids, now delicately fuzzed with byrus, rippled as the eyeballs beneath them moved. Henry was dreaming. About what? Owen wondered. He supposed he could dip into his new partner's head and have a look, but that seemed perverse.

'Pete's idea,' Henry repeated. 'Pete saw her first.' And he sighed, a sound so tired that Owen felt bad for him. No, he decided, he didn't want any part of what was going on in Henry's head. Another hour to Derry, more if the wind stayed high. Better to just let him sleep.

10

Behind Derry High School is the football field where Richie Grenadeau once strutted his stuff, but Richie is five years in his teenage hero's grave, just another small-town car-crash James Dean. Other heroes have risen, thrown their passes, and moved on. It's not football season now, anyway. It's spring, and on the field there is a gathering of what look like birds  -  huge red ones with black heads. These mutant crows are laughing and talking as they sit in their folding chairs, but Mr Trask, the principal, has no problem being heard; he's at the podium on the makeshift stage, and he's got the mike.