The Shining (The Shining #1)(62)

(Where? When? How? Are you? Will you?)

endless flow of questions. It could give you a real

(headache? hangover?)

headache. The reader. The damned reader with its distorted print. That was why he had such a cunt of a headache.

"Jack, are you all right? You look pale-"

He snapped his head away from her fingers. "I am fine!"

She recoiled from his hot eyes and tried on a smile that was a size too small. "Well... if you are... I'll just go and wait in the park with Danny..." She was starting away now, her smile dissolving into a bewildered expression of hurt.

He called to her: "Wendy?"

She looked back from the foot of the stairs. "What, Jack?"

He got up and went over to her. "I'm sorry, babe. I guess I'm really not all right. That machine... the lens is distorted. I've got a really bad headache. Got any aspirin?"

"Sure." She pawed in her purse and came up with a tin of Anacin. "You keep them."

He took the tin. "No Excedrin?" He saw the small recoil on her face and understood. It had been a bitter sort of joke between them at first, before the drinking had gotten too bad for jokes. He had claimed that Excedrin was the only nonprescription drug ever invented that could stop a hangover dead in its tracks. Absolutely the only one. He had begun to think of his morning-after thumpers as Excedrin Headache Number Vat 69.

"No Excedrin," she said. "Sorry."

"That's okay," he said, "these'll do just fine." But of course they wouldn't, and she should have known it, too. At times she could be the stupidest bitch...

"Want some water?" she asked brightly.

(No I just want you to GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE!).

"I'll get some at the drinking fountain when I go up. Thanks."

"Okay." She started up the stairs, good legs moving gracefully under a short tan wool skirt. "We'll be in the park."

"Right." He slipped the tin of Anacin absently into his pocket, went back to the reader, and turned it off. When he was sure she was gone, he went upstairs himself. God, but it was a lousy headache. If you were going to have a visegripper like this one, you ought to at least be allowed the pleasure of a few drinks to balance it off.

He tried to put the thought from his mind, more ill tempered than ever. He went to the main desk, fingering a matchbook cover with a telephone number on it.

"Ma'am, do you have a pay telephone?"

"No, sir, but you can use mine if it's local."

"It's long-distance, sorry."

"Well then, I guess the drugstore would be your best bet. They have a booth."

"Thanks."

He went out and down the walk, past the anonymous Civil War general. He began to walk toward the business block, hands stuffed in his pockets, head thudding like a leaden bell. The sky was also leaden; it was November 7, and with the new month the weather had become threatening. There had been a number of snow flurries. There had been snow in October too, but that had melted. The new flurries had stayed, a light frosting over everything-it sparkled in the sunlight like fine crystal. But there had been no sunlight today, and even as he reached the drugstore it began to spit snow again.

The phone booth was at the back of the building, and he was halfway down an aisle of patent medicines, jingling his change in his pocket, when his eyes fell on the white boxes with their green print. He took one of them to the cashier, paid, and went back to the telephone booth. He pulled the door closed, put his change and matchbook cover on the counter, and dialed O.

"Your call, please?"

"Fort Lauderdale, Florida, operator." He gave her the number there and the number in the booth. When she told him it would be a dollar ninety for the first three minutes, he dropped eight quarters into the slot, wincing each time the bell bonged in his ear.

Then, left in limbo with only the faraway clickings and gabblings of connection-making, he took the green-bottle of Excedrin out of its box, pried up the white cap, and dropped the wad of cotton batting to the floor of the booth. Cradling, the phone receiver between his ear and shoulder, he shook out three of the white tablets and lined them up on the counter beside his remaining change. He recapped the bottle and put it in his pocket.

At the other end, the phone was picked up on the first ring.

"Surf-Sand Resort, how may we help you?" the perky female voice asked.

"I'd like to speak with the manager, please."

"Do you mean Mr. Trent or-"

"I mean Mr. Ullman."

"I believe Mr. Ullman is busy, but if you would like me to check-"

"I would. Tell him it's Jack Torrance calling from Colorado."

"One moment, please." She put him on hold.

Jack's dislike for that cheap, self-important little prick Ullman came flooding back. He took one of the Excedrins from the counter, regarded it for a moment, then put it into his mouth and began to chew it, slowly and with relish. The taste flooded back like memory, making his saliva squirt in mingled pleasure and unhappiness. A dry, bitter taste, but a compelling one. He swallowed with a grimace. Chewing aspirin had been a habit with him in his drinking days; he hadn't done it at all since then. But when your headache was bad enough, a hangover headache or one like this one, chewing them seemed to make them get to work quicker. He had read somewhere that chewing aspirin could become addictive. Where had he read that, anyway? Frowning, he tried to think. And then Ullman came on the line.