Bars are wicked good!
"You boys ne'mine that cooler, "Bryan Smith says, speaking to the dogs he can see in the rear-view mirror. This time the minivan pitches instead ofyaioing, crossing the white line as it climbs a blind grade at fifty miles an hour. Luckily-or unluckily, depending on your point of view-nothing is coming the other way; nothing puts a stop to Bryan Smith's northward progress.
"You ne'mine that hamburg, that's my supper. "He says suppah, as John Cullum would, but the face looking back at the bright-eyed dogs from the rearview mirror is the face ofSheemie Ruiz. Almost exactly.
Sheemie could be Bryan Smith's litter-twin.
SIX
Irene Tassenbaum was driving the truck with more assurance now, standard shift or not. She almost wished she didn't have to turn right a quarter of a mile from here, because that would necessitate using the clutch again, this time to downshift. But that was Turtleback Lane right up ahead, and Turtleback was where these boys wanted to go.
Walk-ins! They said so, and she believed it, but who else would? Chip McAvoy, maybe, and surely the Reverend Peterson from that crazy Church of the Walk-Ins down in Stoneham Corners, but anyone else? Her husband, for instance? Nope. Never.
If you couldn't engrave a thing on a microchip, David Tassenbaum didn't believe it was real. She wondered-not for the first time lately-if forty-seven was too old to think about a divorce.
She shifted back to Second without grinding the gears too much, but then, as she turned off the highway, had to shift all the way down to First when the silly old pickup began to grunt and chug. She thought that one of her passengers would make some sort of smart comment (perhaps the boy's mutant dog would even say f**k again), but all the man in the passenger seat said was, "This doesn't look the same."
"When were you here last?" Irene Tassenbaum asked him.
She considered shifting up to second gear again, then decided to leave things just as they were. "If it ain't broke, don't fix it,"
David liked to say.
"It's been awhile," the man admitted. She had to keep sneaking glances at him. There was something strange and exotic about him-especially his eyes. It was as if they'd seen things she'd never even dreamed of.
Stop it, she told herself. He's probably a drugstore cowboy all the way from Portsmouth, New Hampshire.
But she kind of doubted that. The boy was odd, as well-him and his exotic crossbreed dog-but they were nothing compared to the man with the haggard face and the strange blue eyes.
"Eddie said it was a loop," the boy said. "Maybe last time you guys came in from the other end."
The man considered this and nodded. "Would the other end be the Bridgton end?" he asked the woman.
"Yes indeed."
The man with the odd blue eyes nodded. "We're going to the writer's house."
"Cara Laughs," she said at once. "It's a beautiful house.
I've seen it from the lake, but I don't know which driveway-"
"It's nineteen," the man said. They were currently passing the one marked 27. From this end of Turdeback Lane, the numbers would go down rather than up.
"What do you want with him, if I may I be so bold?"
It was the boy who answered. "We want to save his life."
SEVEN
Roland recognized the steeply descending driveway at once, even though he'd last seen it under black, thundery skies, and much of his attention had been taken by the brilliant flying taheen. There was no sign of taheen or other exotic wildlife today. The roof of the house below had been dressed with copper instead of shingles at some point during the intervening years, and the wooded area beyond it had become a lawn, but the driveway was the same, with a sign reading CARA LAUGHS on the lefthand side and one bearing the number 19 in large numerals on the right. Beyond was the lake, sparkling blue in the strong afternoon light.
From the lawn came the blat of a hard-working small engine. Roland looked at Jake and was dismayed by the boy's pale cheeks and wide, frightened eyes.
"What? What's wrong?"
"He's not here, Roland. Not him, not any of his family. Just the man cutting the grass."
"Nonsense, you can't-" Mrs. Tassenbaum began.
"I know!" Jake shouted at her. "I know, lady!"
Roland was looking at Jake with a frank and horrified sort of fascination... but in his current state, the boy either did not understand the look or missed it entirely.
Why are you lying, Jake? the gunslinger thought. And then, on the heels of that: He's not.
"What if it's already happened?" Jake demanded, and yes, he was worried about King, but Roland didn't think that was all he was worried about. "What if he's dead and his family's not here because the police called them, and-"
"It hasn't happened," Roland said, but that was all of which he was sure. What do you know, Jake, and why luon'tyou tell me?
There was no time to wonder about it now.