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"Sawyer," Wendell confir Mr Evans confides
"Son of a bitch came up behind me," Wendell says "The Marshall wo ready to rape her"
Young Mr Evans’s wholeought to be done," Wendell says
"You got that right"
"People ought to be told" Gradually, the old fire returns to Wendell’s eyes People will be told By him! Because that is what he does, by God! He tells people!
"Yeah," young Mr Evans says He doesn’t care as much as Wendell does ¡ª he lacks Wendell’s burning commitment ¡ª but there’s one person he will tell One person who deserves to be comforted in her lonely hours, who has been left on her own Mount of Olives One person ill drink up the knowledge of Jack Sawyer’s evil like the very waters of life
"This kind of behavior cannot just be swept under the rug," Wendell says
"No way," young Mr Evans agrees "No way, Jos&uates of French County Lutheran when his cell phone tweets He thinks of pulling over to take the call, hears the sound of approaching fire engines, and decides for once to risk driving and talking at the same tiade shows up and slows him down
He flips the little Nokia open "Sawyer"
"Where the fuck are you?" Beezer St Pierre bellows "Man, I been hittin’ redial so hard I damn near punched it off the phone!"
"I’ve been" But there’s no way he can finish that, not and stay within shouting distance of the truth, that is Or ot into one of those dead zones where the cell phone just doesn’t pick up ¡ª "
"Never ht now The actual address is 1 Nailhouse Row ¡ª it’s County Road Double-O just south of Chase It’s the babyshit broo-story on the corner"
"I can find it," Jack says, and steps down a little harder on the Raas pedal "I’m on my way now"
"What’s your twenty,I can be there incrash-rattle in Jack’s ear as soainst so with you, oin’ down, I mean fast We’re doin’ our best ¡ª those of us who’re still here ¡ª but he is goin’ down" Beezer is panting, and Jack thinks he’s trying not to cry The thought of Ar Jack looks at the Ra seventy, and eases off a tad He won’t help anybody by getting hireased in a road wreck between Arden and Centralia
"What do you ;those of us who are still here’?"
"Never et your butt down here, if you want to talk to Mouse And he sure wants to talk to you, because he keeps sayin’ your name" Beezer lowers his voice "When he ain’t just ravin’ his ass off, that is Doc’s doing his best ¡ª me and Bear Girl, too ¡ª but we’re shovelin’ shit against the tide here"
"Tell him to hold on," Jack says
"Fuck that,sound in Jack’s ear, the faintof voices Then another voice, one which hardly sounds huet over here,bit me I can feel it in there Like acid"
"Hold on, Mouse," Jack says His fingers are dead white on the telephone He wonders that the case doesn’t sirip "I’ll be there fast as I can"
"Better be Othersalready forgot Not hastly beyond belief, a whiff straight out of an open grave "I gotthe memory serum, you know? It’s eatin’ ot it"
There’s the rustling sound of the phone changing hands again, then a new voice A woot theht it to this Don’t let it be for nothing"
There is a click in his ear Jack tosses the cell phone onto the seat and decides that maybe seventy isn’t too fast, after all
A fewlare of the sun on Tamarack Creek From here he can almost see his house, and Henry’s
Henry
Jack thuainst his breast pocket and hears the rattle of the cassette tape he took frole-man’s office There’s not iven what Potter told hi on to tell him today, this tape and the 911 tape have been rendered ot to hurry to Nailhouse Row There’s a train getting ready to leave the station, and Mouse Bau to be on it
And yet
"I’m worried about him," Jack says softly "Even a blind man could see I’m worried about Henry"
The brilliant su down the afternoon side of the sky, reflects off the creek and sends shiht crosses his eyes, they seem to burn
Henry isn’t the only one Jack’s worried about, either He’s got a bad feeling about all of his new French Landing friends and acquaintances, froht down to such bit players as old Stea shoes outside the public library, and Ardis Walker, who runs the raination, all these people now seeh C, they’ll vibrate and then shatter to powder Only it’s not really the Fisherman he’s worried about anymore
This is a case, he reminds himself Even with all the Territories weirdness thrown in, it’s still a case, and it’s not the first one you’ve ever been on where everything suddenly started to see
True enough, but usually that funhouse sense of false perspective fades away once he starts to get a handle on things This time it’s worse, and worse by far He knohy, too The Fisher called Mr Munshun, an immortal talent scout from some other plane of existence Nor is even that the end, because Mr Munshun also casts a shadow A red one
"Abbalah," Jack , just three old pals walking together on night’s Plutonian shore" For some reason this makes him think of the Walrus and the Carpenter froht? Clah one line surfaces and resonates in his mind, spoken in his mother’s voice: "The tis"
The abbalah is presu out in his court (the part of him that isn’t imprisoned in Speedy’s Dark Tower, that is), but the Fisherman and Mr Munshun could be anywhere Do they know Jack Sawyer has been e Might they try to slow hi nasty to one of his friends? A certain blind sportscaster-headbanger-bebopper, for instance?
Yes indeed And now, perhaps because he’s been sensitized to it, he can onceout of the southwestern landscape, the one he sensed when he flipped over for the first time in his adult life When the road curves southeast, he alain, the poisonous throb regains strength, beating into his head like the onset of a raine headache
That’s Black House you feel, only it’s not a house, not really It’s a wor all the way down into the furnace-lands It’s a door Maybe it was only standing ajar before today, before Beezer and his pals turned up there, but now it’s wide open and letting in one hell of a draft Ty needs to be brought back, yesbut that door needs to be shut, as well Before God knohat awful things cos the Ram onto Tamarack Road The tires scream His seat belt locks, and for a h, and he goes flying toward Norway Valley Road Mouse will just have to hang on a little bit longer; he’s not going to leave Henry way out here on his own His pal doesn’t know it, but he’s going on a little field trip to Nailhouse Row Until this situation stabilizes, it seems to Jack that the buddy system is very ood if Henry had been at home, but he’s not Elvena Morton, dustat the doorbell
"He’s been over at KDCU, doing commercials," Elvena says "Dropped him off myself I don’t knohy he doesn’t just do the about the sound effects, I think he ht have said I’m surprised he didn’t tell you that"
The bitch of it is, Henry did Cousin Buddy’s Rib Crib The old ball and chain Beautiful don La Riviere All that He even told Jack that Elvena Morton was going to drive his have happened to Jack since that conversation ¡ª he’s reencountered his old childhood friend, he’s fallen in love with Judy Marshall’s Twinner, and just by the way he’s been filled in on your basic Secret of All Existence ¡ª but none of that keeps hi his are nowthis needless detour strikes hi hi hi for a drink with so him back afterward" She lowers her voice to the timbre of confidentiality at which secrets are soht out and say so, but I think there s"
Badger Barrage going national? Jack wouldn’t be entirely surprised, but he has no tihted for Henry now He hands Mrs Morton the cassette tape, mostly so he won’t feel this was an entirely wasted trip "Leave this for hi at hi amusement Where he’ll be sure to see it is what Jack al-city detective, indeed
"I’ll leave it by the soundboard in his studio," she says "He’ll find it there Jack, maybe it’s none of ht You’re very pale, and I’d swear you’ve lost ten pounds since last week Also" She looks a bit e feet"
So they are Hefirst on one foot and then the other "It’s been a tough forty-eight hours, but I’ in there, Mrs M"
"It’s the Fishero The fat, as they say, is in the fire" He turns, reconsiders, turns back "Leave hie on the kitchen tape recorder, would you? Tell hiets in" Then, one thought leading to another, he points to the unmarked cassette tape in her hand "Don’t play that, all right?"
Mrs Morton looks shocked "I’d never do such a thing! It would be like opening soives her a scrap of a smile "Good"
"Is ithim on the tape? Is it the Fisherman?"
"Yes," Jack says "It’s hi, he thinks but doesn’t say Worse things by far
He hurries back to his truck, not quite running
Twenty minutes later Jack parks in front of the babyshit broo-story at 1 Nailhouse Row Nailhouse Row and the dirty snarl of streets around it strike him as unnaturally silent under the sun of this hot su (it is, in fact, the old fello in the doorway of the Nelson Hotel just last night) goes li across the intersection of Ames and County Road Oo, but that’s about the extent of the traffic Jack has an unpleasant vision of the Walrus and the Carpenter toddling along the east bank of the Mississippi with the hypnotized residents of Nailhouse Row following along behind the pot
He takes two or three deep breaths, trying to steady himself Not far out of town ¡ª close to the road leading to Ed’s Eats, in fact ¡ª that nasty buzzing in his head peaked, turning into so like a dark screa Jack wondered if he was perhaps going to drive right off the road, and he slowed the Raan to move around toward the back of his head and fade He didn’t see the NO TRESPASSING sign thatto Black House, didn’t even look for it, but he kneas there The question is whether or not he’ll be able to approach it when the ti
"Coets out of the truck and starts up the cracked cera, knowing it’s one of the few re artifacts which testify that a little person named Amy St Pierre once briefly trod the boards of existence The porch steps are dry and splintery He’s vilely thirsty and thinks, Man, I’d kill for a glass of water, or a nice cold ¡ª
The door flies open, cracking against the side of the house like a pistol shot in the sunny silence, and Beezer cohty, I didn’t think you were ever gonna get here!"
Looking into Beezer’s alaronized eyes, Jack realizes that he will never tell this guy that he ht be able to find Black House without Mouse’s help, that thanks to his tie finder in his head No, not even if they live the rest of their lives as close friends, the kind who usually tell each other everything The Beez has suffered like Job, and he doesn’t need to find out that his friend’s agony may have been in vain
"Is he still alive, Beezer?"
"By an inch Maybe an inch and a quarter It’s just ot scared, ran off like a couple of whipped dogs March your boots in here, sunshine" Not that Beezer gives Jack any choice; he grabs him by the shoulder and hauls hie