"He came in one snowy night in late March. The place was full, and the natives were restless. There had already been one fistfight, and we were still picking up from that. There was a guy with a full-blown fit of the dt's, and Rowan Magruder had him in back, in his office, feeding him coffee laced with whiskey. As I think I told you, we had no lockup room at Home. It was dinnertime, half an hour past, actually, and three of the volunteers hadn't come in because of the weather. The radio was on and a couple of women were dancing. 'Feeding time in the zoo,' Lupe used to say.
"I was taking off my coat, heading for the kitchen... this fellow named Frank Spinelli collared me... wanted to know about a letter of recommendation I'd promised to write him... there was a woman, Lisa somebody, who wanted help with one of the AA steps, 'Made a list of those we had harmed'... there was a young guy who wanted help with a job application, he could read a little but not write... something starting to burn on the stove... complete confusion. And I liked it. It had a way of sweeping you up and carrying you along. But in the middle of it all, I stopped. There were no bells and the only aromas were drunk's b.o. and burning food... but that light was around Lupe's neck like a collar. And I could see marks there. Just little ones. No more than nips, really.
"I stopped, and I must have reeled, because Lupe came hurrying over. And then I could smell it, just faintly: strong onions and hot metal. I must have lost a few seconds, too, because all at once the two of us were in the corner by the filing cabinet where we keep the AA stuff and he was asking me when I last ate. He knew I sometimes forgot to do that.
"The smell was gone. The blue glow around his neck was gone. And those little nips, where something had bitten him, they were gone, too. Unless the vampire's a real guzzler, the marks go in a hurry. But I knew. It was no good asking him who he'd been with, or when, or where. Vampires, even Type Threes - especially Type Threes, maybe - have their protective devices. Pond-leeches secrete an enzyme in their saliva that keeps the blood flowing while they're feeding. It also numbs the skin, so unless you actually see the thing on you, you don't know what's happening. With these Type Three vampires, it's as if they carry a kind of selective, short-term amnesia in their saliva.
"I passed it off somehow. Told him I'd just felt light-headed for a second or two, blamed it on coming out of the cold and into all the noise and light and heat. He accepted it but told me I had to take it easy. "You're too valuable to lose, Don,' he said, and then he kissed me. Here." Callahan touched his right cheek with his scarred right hand. "So I guess I lied when I said there was nothing physical between us, didn't I? There was that one kiss. I can still remember exactly how it felt. Even the little prickle of fine stubble on his upper lip... here."
"I'm so very sorry for you," Susannah said.
"Thank you, my dear," he said. "I wonder if you know how much that means? How wonderful it is to have condolence from one's own world? It's like being a castaway and getting news from home. Or fresh water from a spring after years of stale bottled stuff." He reached out, took her hand in both of his, and smiled. To Eddie, something in that smile looked forced, or even false, and he had a sudden ghastly idea. What if Pere Callahan was smelling a mixture of bitter onions and hot metal right now? What if he was seeing a blue glow, not around Susannah's neck like a collar, but around her stomach like a belt?
Eddie looked at Roland, but there was no help there. The gunslinger's face was expressionless.
"He had AIDS, didn't he?" Eddie asked. "Some g*y Type Three vampire bit your friend and passed it on to him."
"Gay," Callahan said. "Do you mean to tell me that stupid word actually..." He trailed off, shaking his head.
"Yep," Eddie said. "The Red Sox still haven't won the Series and homos are g*ys."
"Eddie!" Susannah said.
"Hey," Eddie said, "do you think it's easy being the one who left New York last and forgot to turn off the lights? Cause it's not. And let me tell you, I'm feeling increasingly out of date myself." He turned back to Callahan. "Anyway, that is what happened, isn't it?"
"I think so. You have to remember that I didn't know a great deal myself at that time, and was denying and repressing what I did know. With great vigor, as President Kennedy used to say. I saw the first one - the first 'little one' - in that movie theater in the week between Christmas and New Year's of 1975." He gave a brief, barking laugh. "And now that I think back, that theater was called the Gaiety. Isn't that surprising?" He paused, looking into their faces with some puzzlement. "It's not. You're not surprised at all."
"Coincidence has been cancelled, honey," Susannah said. "What we're living in these days is more like the Charles Dickens version of reality."
"I don't understand you."
"You don't need to, sug. Go on. Tell your tale."