Song of Susannah dt-6 Read online

  And yet…

  Dad-a-chum, dad-a-chee, not to worry, you’ve got the key.

  Keys, my specialty,Eddie thought. And then:King’s a key, isn’t he? Calla, Callahan. Crimson King, Stephen King. Is Stephen King the Crimson King of this world?

  Roland had settled. Eddie was sure it hadn’t been easy for him, but the difficult had ever been Roland’s specialty. “If you have questions to ask, have at it.” And made the twirling gesture with his right hand.

  “Roland, I hardly know where to start. The ideas I’ve got are so big…so…I don’t know, so fundamentally fuckingscary… ”

  “Best to keep it simple, then.” Roland took the ball when Eddie tossed it to him but now looked more than a little impatient with the game of toss. “We reallydo have to move on.”

  How Eddie knew it. He would have asked his questions while they were rolling, if they all could have ridden in the same vehicle. But they couldn’t, and Roland had never driven a motor vehicle, which made it impossible for Eddie and Cullum to ride in the same one.

  “All right,” he said. “Who is he? Let’s start with that. Who is Stephen King?”

  “A writer,” Cullum said, and gave Eddie a look that said,Are you a fool, son? “He lives over in Bridgton with his family. Nice enough fella, from what I’ve heard.”

  “How far away is Bridgton?”

  “Oh…twenty, twenty-five miles.”

  “How old is he?” Eddie was groping, maddeningly aware that the right questions might be out there, but he had no clear idea of what they were.

  John Cullum squinted an eye and seemed to calculate. “Not that old, I sh’d think. If he’s thirty, he just got there.”

  “This book…’Salem’s Lot…was it a bestseller?”

  “Dunno,” Cullum said. “Lots of people around here read it, tell you that much. Because it’s set in Maine. And because of the ads they had on TV, you know. Also there was a movie made out of his first book, but I never went to see it. Looked too bloody.”

  “What was it called?”

  Cullum thought, then shook his head. “Can’t quite remember. ’Twas just one word, and I’m pretty sure it was a girl’s name, but that’s the best I can do. Maybe it’ll come to me.”

  “He’s not a walk-in, you don’t think?”

  Cullum laughed. “Born and raised right here in the State of Maine. Guess that makes him alive -in.”

  Roland was looking at Eddie with increasing impatience, and Eddie decided to give up. This was worse than playing Twenty Questions. But goddammit, Pere Callahan wasreal and he was also in a book of fiction written by this man King, and King lived in an area that was a magnet for what Cullum called walk-ins. One of those walk-ins had sounded very much to Eddie like a servant of the Crimson King. A woman with a bald head who seemed to have a bleeding eye in the center of her forehead, John had said.

  Time to drop this for now and get to Tower. Irritating he might be, but Calvin Tower owned a certain vacant lot where the most precious rose in the universe was growing wild. Also, he knew all sorts of stuff about rare books and the folks who had written them. Very likely he knew more about the author of’Salem’s Lot than sai Cullum. Time to let it go. But—

  “Okay,” he said, tossing the ball back to the caretaker. “Lock that thing up and we’ll head off to the Dimity Road, if it does ya. Just a couple more questions.”

  Cullum shrugged and put the Yaz ball back into the case. “It’s your nickel.”

  “I know,” Eddie said…and suddenly, for the second time since he’d come through the door, Susannah seemed weirdly close. He saw her sitting in a room filled with antiquey-looking science and surveillance equipment. Jake’s Dogan, for sure…only as Susannah must have imagined it. He saw her speaking into a mike, and although he couldn’t hear her, he could see her swollen belly and her frightened face. Nowvery pregnant, wherever she was. Pregnant and ready to pop. He knew well enough what she was saying:Come, Eddie, save me, Eddie, save both of us, do it before it’s too late.

  “Eddie?” Roland said. “You’ve come over all gray. Is it your leg?”

  “Yeah,” Eddie said, although right now his leg didn’t hurt at all. He thought again of whittling the key. The dreadful responsibility of knowing it had to be just right. And here he was again, in much the same situation. He had hold of something, he knew he did…but what? “Yeah, my leg.”

  He armed sweat from his forehead.

  “John, about the name of the book.’Salem’s Lot. That’s actually Jerusalem’s Lot, right?”

  “Ayuh.”

  “It’s the name of the town in the book.”

  “Ayuh.”

  “Stephen King’s second book.”

  “Ayuh.”

  “His secondnovel. ”

  “Eddie,” Roland said, “surely that’s enough.”

  Eddie waved him aside, then winced at the pain in his arm. His attention was fixed on John Cullum. “Thereis no Jerusalem’s Lot, right?”

  Cullum looked at Eddie as if he were crazy. “Course not,” he said. “It’s a made-up story about made-up folks in a made-up town. It’s aboutvampires. ”

  Yes,Eddie thought,and if I told you I have reason to believe that vampires are real…not to mention invisible demons, magic balls, and witches…you’d be absolutely positive I was nuts, wouldn’t you?

  “Do you happen to know if Stephen King has been living in this Bridgton town his whole life?”

  “No, he hasn’t. He ’n his family moved down here two, maybe three years ago. I b’lieve they lived in Windham first when they got down from the northern part of the state. Or maybe ’twas Raymond. One of the towns on Big Sebago, anyway.”

  “Would it be fair to say that these walk-ins you mentioned have been turning up since the guy moved into the area?”

  Cullum’s bushy eyebrows went up, then knitted together. A loud and rhythmic hooting began to come to them from over the water, a sound like a foghorn.

  “You know,” Cullum said, “you might have somethin there, son. It might only be coincidence, but maybe not.”

  Eddie nodded. He felt emotionally wrung out, like a lawyer at the end of a long and difficult cross-examination. “Let’s blow this pop-shop,” he said to Roland.

  “Might be a good idea,” Cullum said, and tipped his head in the direction of the rhythmic foghorn blasts. “That’s Teddy Wilson’s boat. He’s the county constable. Also a game warden.” This time he tossed Eddie a set of car-keys instead of a baseball. “I’m givin you the automatic transmission,” he said. “Just in case you’re a little rusty. The truck’s a stick shift. You follow me, and if you get in trouble, honk the horn.”

  “I will, believe me,” Eddie said.

  As they followed Cullum out, Roland said: “Was it Susannah again? Is that why you lost all the color out of your face?”

  Eddie nodded.

  “We’ll help her if we can,” Roland said, “but this may be our only way back to her.”

  Eddie knew that. He also knew that by the time they got to her, it might be too late.

  STAVE: Commala-ka-kate

  You’re in the hands of fate.

  No matter if you’re real or not,

  The hour groweth late.

  RESPONSE: Commala-come-eight!

  The hour groweth late!

  No matter what the shade ya cast

  You’re in the hands of fate.

  9th Stanza: Eddie Bites His Tongue

  One

  Pere Callahan had made a brief visit to the East Stoneham Post Office almost two weeks before the shootout at Chip McAvoy’s store, and there the former Jerusalem’s Lot parish priest had written a hurried note. Although addressed to both Aaron Deepneau and Calvin Tower, the note inside the envelope had been aimed at the latter, and its tone had not been particularly friendly:

  6/27/77

  Tower—

  I’m a friend of the guy who helped you with Andolini. Wherever you are, you need to move right away. Find a barn, unused camp,
even an abandoned shed if it comes down to that. You probably won’t be comfortable but remember that the alternative is being dead. I mean every word I say! Leave some lights on where you are staying now and leave your car in the garage or driveway. Hide a note with directions to your new location under the driver’s-side floormat, or under the back-porch step. We’ll be in touch. Remember that we are the only ones who can relieve you of the burden you carry. But if we are to help you, you must help us.

  Callahan, of the Eld

  And make this trip to the post office your LAST! How stupid can you be???

  Callahan had risked his life to leave that note, and Eddie, under the spell of Black Thirteen, had nearly lost his. And the net result of those risks and close calls? Why, Calvin Tower had gone jaunting merrily around the western Maine countryside, looking for buys on rare and out-of-print books.

  Following John Cullum up Route 5 with Roland sitting silently beside him, then turning to follow Cullum onto the Dimity Road, Eddie felt his temper edging up into the red zone.

  Gonna have to put my hands in my pockets and bite my tongue,he thought, but in this case he wasn’t sure even those old reliables would work.

  Two

  About two miles from Route 5, Cullum’s Ford F-150 made a right off Dimity Road. The turn was marked by two signs on a rusty pole. The top one said ROCKET RD. Below it was another (rustier still) which promised LAKESIDE CABINS BY THE WK MO OR SEAS. Rocket Road was little more than a trail winding through the trees, and Eddie hung well behind Cullum to avoid the rooster-tail of dust their new friend’s old truck was kicking up. The “cartomobile” was another Ford, some anonymous two-door model Eddie couldn’t have named without looking at the chrome on the back or in the owner’s manual. But it felt most religiously fine to be driving again, with not a single horse between his legs but several hundred of them ready to run at the slightest motion of his right foot. It was also good to hear the sound of the sirens fading farther and farther behind.

  The shadows of overhanging trees swallowed them. The smell of fir and pinesap was simultaneously sweet and sharp. “Pretty country,” the gunslinger said. “A man could take his long ease here.” It was his only comment.

  Cullum’s truck began to pass numbered driveways. Below each number was a small legend reading JAFFORDS RENTALS. Eddie thought of pointing out to Roland that they’d known a Jaffords in the Calla, known him very well, and then didn’t. It would have been belaboring the obvious.

  They passed 15, 16, and 17. Cullum paused briefly to consider at 18, then stuck his arm out the cab’s window and motioned them on again. Eddie had been ready to move on even before the gesture, knowing perfectly well that Cabin 18 wasn’t the one they wanted.

  Cullum turned in at the next drive. Eddie followed, the tires of the sedan now whispering on a thick bed of fallen pine needles. Winks of blue once more began to appear between the trees, but when they finally reached Cabin 19 and a view of the water, Eddie saw that this, unlike Keywadin, was a true pond. Probably not much wider than a football field. The cabin itself looked like a two-room job. There was a screened-in porch facing the water with a couple of tatty but comfortable-looking rockers on it. A tin stovestack poked up from the roof. There was no garage and no car parked in front of the cabin, although Eddie thought he could see where one had been. With the cover of duff, it was hard to tell for sure.

  Cullum killed the truck’s engine. Eddie did likewise. Now there was only the lap of water against the rocks, the sigh of a breeze through the pines, and the mild sound of birdsong. When Eddie looked to the right, he saw that the gunslinger was sitting with his talented, long-fingered hands folded peaceably in his lap.

  “How does it feel to you?” Eddie asked.

  “Quiet.” The word was spoken Calla-fashion:Cahh-it.

  “Anyone here?”

  “I think so, yes.”

  “Danger?”

  “Yar. Beside me.”

  Eddie looked at him, frowning.

  “You, Eddie. You want to kill him, don’t you?”

  After a moment, Eddie admitted it was so. This uncovered part of his nature, as simple as it was savage, sometimes made him uneasy, but he could not deny it was there. And who, after all, had brought it out and honed it to a keen edge?

  Roland nodded. “There came into my life, after years during which I wandered in the desert as solitary as any anchorite, a whining and self-involved young man whose only ambition was to continue taking a drug which did little but make him sniffle and feel sleepy. This was a posturing, selfish, loudmouthed loutkin with little to recommend him—”

  “But good-looking,” Eddie said. “Don’t forget that. The cat was a true sex mo-chine.”

  Roland looked at him, unsmiling. “If I could manage not to kill you then, Eddie of New York, you can manage not to kill Calvin Tower now.” And with that, Roland opened the door on his side and got out.

  “Well, saysyou, ” Eddie told the interior of Cullum’s car, and then got out himself.

  Three

  Cullum was still behind the wheel of his truck when first Roland and then Eddie joined him.

  “Place feels empty to me,” he said, “but I see a light on in the kitchen.”

  “Uh-huh,” Eddie said. “John, I’ve got—”

  “Don’t tell me, you got another question. Only person I know who’s got more of em is my grand-nephew Aidan. He just went three. Go on, ask.”

  “Could you pinpoint the center of the walk-in activity in this area over the last few years?” Eddie had no idea why he was asking this question, but it suddenly seemed vitally important to him.

  Cullum considered, then said: “Turtleback Lane, over in Lovell.”

  “You sound pretty sure of that.”

  “Ayuh. Do you remember me mentionin my friend Donnie Russert, the history prof from Vandy?”

  Eddie nodded.

  “Well, after he met one of these fellas in person, he got interested in the phenomenon. Wrote several articles about it, although he said no reputable magazine’d publish em no matter how well documented his facts were. He said that writin about the walk-ins in western Maine taught him something he’d never expected to learn in his old age: that some things people just won’t believe, not even when you can prove em. He used to quote a line from some Greek poet. ‘The column of truth has a hole in it.’

  “Anyway, he had a map of the seven-town area mounted on one wall of his study: Stoneham, East Stoneham, Waterford, Lovell, Sweden, Fryeburg, and East Fryeburg. With pins stuck in it for each walk-in reported, do ya see?”

  “See very well, say thank ya,” Eddie said.

  “And I’d have to say…yeah, Turtleback Lane’s the heart of it. Why, there were six or eight pins right there, and the whole damn rud can’t be more’n two miles long; it’s just a loop that runs off Route 7, along the shore of Kezar Lake, and then back to 7 again.”

  Roland was looking at the house. Now he turned to the left, stopped, and laid his left hand on the sandalwood butt of his gun. “John,” he said, “we’re well-met, but it’s time for you to roll out of here.”

  “Ayuh? You sure?”

  Roland nodded. “The men who came here are fools. It still has the smell of fools, which is partly how I know that they haven’t moved on. You’re not one of that kind.”

  John Cullum smiled faintly. “Sh’d hope not,” he said, “but I gut t’thankya for the compliment.” Then he paused and scratched his gray head. “If ’tis a compliment.”

  “Don’t get back to the main road and start thinking I didn’t mean what I said. Or worse, that we weren’t here at all, that you dreamed the whole thing. Don’t go back to your house, not even to pack an extra shirt. It’s no longer safe. Go somewhere else. At least three looks to the horizon.”

  Cullum closed one eye and appeared to calculate. “In the fifties, I spent ten miserable years as a guard at the Maine State Prison,” he said, “but I met a hell of a nice man there named—”

  Roland shook hi
s head and then put the two remaining fingers of his right hand to his lips. Cullum nodded.

  “Well, I f’git what his name is, but he lives over in Vermont, and I’m sure I’ll remember it—maybe where he lives, too—by the time I get acrost the New Hampshire state line.”

  Something about this speech struck Eddie as a little false, but he couldn’t put his finger on just why, and he decided in the end that he was just being paranoid. John Cullum was a straight arrow…wasn’t he? “May you do well,” he said, and gripped the old man’s hand. “Long days and pleasant nights.”

  “Same to you boys,” Cullum said, and then shook with Roland. He held the gunslinger’s three-fingered right hand a moment longer. “Was it God saved my life back there, do ya think? When the bullets first started flyin?”

  “Yar,” the gunslinger said. “If you like. And may he go with you now.”

  “As for that old Ford of mine—”

  “Either right here or somewhere nearby,” Eddie said. “You’ll find it, or someone else will. Don’t worry.”

  Cullum grinned. “That’s pretty much what I was gonna tell you.”

  “Vaya con Dios,” Eddie said.

  Cullum grinned. “Goes back double, son. You want to watch out for those walk-ins.” He paused. “Some of em aren’t very nice. From all reports.”

  Cullum put his truck in gear and drove away. Roland watched him go and said, “Dan-tete.”

  Eddie nodded. Dan-tete. Little savior. It was as good a way to describe John Cullum—now as gone from their lives as the old people of River Crossing—as any other. And hewas gone, wasn’t he? Although there’d been something about the way he’d talked of his friend in Vermont…

  Paranoia.

  Simple paranoia.

  Eddie put it out of his mind.

  Four

  Since there was no car present and hence no driver’s-side floormat beneath which to look, Eddie intended to explore under the porch step. But before he could take more than a single stride in that direction, Roland gripped his shoulder in one hand and pointed with the other. What Eddie saw was a brushy slope going down to the water and the roof of what was probably another boathouse, its green shingles covered with a layer of dry needles.