The Dead Zone(67)

Greg made a mental bet with himself that he would never see or hear from this particular kid again, and it was a bet he won. Later that week, George Harvey stopped by the barbershop where Greg was getting a shave and thanked him for 'talking some sense' into his nephew. 'You're good with these kids, Greg,' he said. 'I dunno... they seem to respect you.'

Greg told him not to mention it.

2.

While Greg Stillson was burning a shirt with an obscene saying on it in New Hampshire, Walt and Sarah Hazlett were having a late breakfast in Bangor, Maine. Walt had the paper.

He put his coffee cup down with a clink and said, 'Your old boyfriend made the paper, Sarah.'

Sarah was feeding Denny. She was in her bathrobe, her hair something of a mess, her eyes still only about a quarter open. Eighty percent of her mind was still asleep. There had been a party last night. The guest of honor had been Harrison Fisher, who had been New Hampshire's third district congressman since dinosaurs walked the earth, and a sure candidate for reelection next year.

It had been politic for her and Walt to go. Politic. That was a word that Walt used a lot lately. He had had lots more to drink than she had, and this morning he was dressed and apparently chipper while she felt buried in a pile of sludge. It wasn't fair.

'Blue!' Denny remarked, and spat back a mouthful of mixed fruit.

'That's not nice,' Sarah said to Denny. To Walt: 'Are you talking about Johnny Smith?'

'The one and only.'

She got up and came around to Walt's side of the table. 'He's all right, isn't he?'

'Feeling good and kicking up dickens by the sound of this,' Walt said dryly.

She had a hazy idea that it might be related to what had happened to her when she went to see Johnny, but the size of the headline shocked her: REAWAKENED COMA PATIENT DEMONSTRATES PSYCHIC ABILITY AT DRAMATIC NEWS CONFERENCE.

The story was under David Bright's by-line. The accompanying photo showed Johnny, still looking thin and, in the unsparing glare of the flash, pitifully confused, standing over the sprawled body of a man the caption identified as Roger Dussault, a reporter for the Lewiston paper. Reporter Faints after Revelation, the caption read.

Sarah sank down into the chair next to Walt and began to read the article. This did not please Denny, who began to pound on the tray of his highchair for his morning egg.

'I believe you're being summoned,' Walt said.

'Would you feed him, honey? He eats better for you anyway.' Story Continued Page 9, Col. 3. She folded the paper open to page nine.

'Flattery will get you everywhere,' Walt said agreeably. He slipped off his sports coat and put on her apron. 'Here it comes, guy,' he said, and began feeding Denny his egg.

When she had finished the story, Sarah went back and read it again. Her eyes were drawn again and again to the picture, to Johnny's confused, horror-struck face. The people loosely grouped around the prone Dussault were looking at Johnny with an expression close to fear. She could understand that. She remembered kissing him, and the strange, preoccupied look that had slipped over his face. And when he told her where to find the lost wedding ring, she had been afraid.

But Sarah, what you were afraid of wasn't quite the same thing, was it?

'Just a little more, big boy,' Walt was saying, as if from a thousand miles away. Sarah looked up at them, sitting together in a bar of mote-dusted sunlight, her apron flapping between Walt's knees, and she was suddenly afraid again. She saw the ring sinking to the bottom of the toilet bowl, turning over and over. She heard the small clink as it struck the porcelain. She thought of Halloween masks, of the kid saying, l love to see this guy take a beatin. She thought of promises made and never kept, and her eyes went to his thin newsprint face, looking out at her with such haggard, wretched surprise.

'.... gimmick, anyway,' Walt said, hanging up her apron. He had gotten Denny to eat the egg, every bit of it, and now their son and heir was sucking contentedly away at a juice-bottle.

'Huh?' Sarah looked up as he came over to her.

'I said that for a man who must have almost half a million dollars' worth of hospital bills outstanding, it's a helluva good gimmick.'

'What are you talking about? What do you mean, gimmick?'

'Sure,' he said, apparently missing her anger. 'He could make seven, maybe ten thousand dollars doing a book about the accident and the coma. But if he came out of the coma psychic - the sky's the limit.'

'That's one hell of an allegation!' Sarah said, and her voice was thin with fury.

He turned to her, his expression first one of surprise and then of understanding. The understanding look made her angrier than ever. If she had a nickel for every time Walt Hazlett had thought he understood her, they could fly first-class to Jamaica.

'Look, I'm sorry I brought it up,' he said.

'Johnny would no more lie than the Pope would ... would... you know.'

He bellowed laughter, and in that moment she nearly picked up his own coffee cup and threw it at him. Instead, she locked her hands together tightly under the table and squeezed them. Denny goggled at his father and then burst into his own peal of laughter.

'Honey,' Walt said. 'I have nothing against him, I have nothing against what he's doing. In fact, I respect him for it. If that fat old mossback Fisher can go from a broke lawyer to a millionaire during fifteen years in the House of Representatives, then this guy should have a perfect right to pick up as much as he can playing psychic...'