Four Past Midnight - 5 - The Library Policeman Read online

  'I got married in '68, and I wanted to ask him to be my best man, but I didn't dare. As it happened, he turned up sober - that time - but you couldn't trust him to turn up sober.'

  'I know what you mean,' Naomi said quietly.

  Stan Soames laughed. 'Well, I sort of doubt that - a little sweetie like you wouldn't know what miseries a dedicated boozehound can get himself into - but take it from me. If I'd asked Dave to stand up for me at the wedding, Laura - that's my ex - would have shit bricks. But Dave did come, and I saw him a little more frequently after our boy Joe was born in 1970. Dave seemed to have a special feeling for all kids during those years when he was trying to pull himself out of the bottle.

  'The thing Joey loved most was baseball. He was nuts for it - he collected sticker books, chewing-gum cards ... he even pestered me to get a satellite dish so we could watch all the Royals games - the Royals were his favorites - and the Cubs, too, on WGN from Chicago. By the time he was eight, he knew the averages of all the Royals starting players, and the won-lost records of damn near every pitcher in the American League. Dave and I took him to games three or four times. It was a lot like taking a kid on a guided tour of heaven. Dave took him alone twice, when I had to work. Laura had a cow about that - said he'd show up drunk as a skunk, with the boy left behind, wandering the streets of KC or sitting in a police station somewhere, waiting for someone to come and get him. But nothing like that ever happened. So far as I know, Dave never took a drink when he was around the boy.

  'When Joe got the leukemia, the worst part for him was the doctors telling him he wouldn't be able to go to any games that year at least until June and maybe not at all. He was more depressed about that than he was about having cancer. When Dave came to see him, Joe cried about it. Dave hugged him and said, "If you can't go to the games, Joey, that's okay; I'll bring the Royals to you."

  'Joe stared up at him and says, "You mean in person, Uncle Dave?" That's what he called him - Uncle Dave.

  "'I can't do that," Dave said, "but I can do somethin almost as good."'

  Soames drove up to the Civil Air Terminal gate and blew the horn. The gate rumbled back on its track and he drove out to where the Navajo was parked. He turned off the engine and just sat behind the wheel for a moment, looking down at his hands.

  'I always knew Dave was a talented bastard,' he said finally. 'What I don't know is how he did what he did so damned fast. All I can figure is that he must have worked days and nights both, because he was done in ten days ... and those suckers were good.

  'He knew he had to go fast, though. The doctors had told me and Laura the truth, you see, and I'd told Dave. Joe didn't have much chance of pulling through. They'd caught onto what was wrong with him too late. It was roaring in his blood like a grassfire.

  'About ten days after Dave made that promise, he comes into my son's hospital room with a paper shopping-bag in each arm. "What you got there, Uncle Dave?" Joe asks, sitting up in bed. He had been pretty low all that day - mostly because he was losing his hair, I think; in those days if a kid didn't have hair most of the way down his back, he was considered to be pretty low-class - but when Dave came in, he brightened right up.

  'The Royals, a course," Dave says back. "Didn't I tell you?"

  'Then he put those two shopping-bags down on the bed and spilled em out. And you never, ever, in your whole life, saw such an expression on a little boy's face. It lit up like a Christmas tree ... and ... and shit, I dunno . . .'

  Stan Soames's voice had been growing steadily thicker. Now he leaned forward against the steering wheel of Dawson's Buick so hard that the horn honked. He pulled a large bandanna from his back pocket, wiped his eyes with it. then blew his nose.

  Naomi had also leaned forward. She pressed one of her hands against Soames's cheek. 'If this is too hard for you, Mr Soames -'

  'No,' he said, and smiled a little. Sam watched as a tear Stan Soames had missed ran its sparkling, unnoticed course down his cheek in the late-afternoon sun. 'It's just that it brings him back so. How he was. That hurts, miss, but it feels good, too. Those two feelings are all wrapped up together.'

  'I understand,' she said.

  'When Dave tipped over those bags, what spilled out was baseballs - over two dozen of them. But they weren't just baseballs, because there was a face painted on every one, and each one was the face of a player on the 1980 Kansas City Royals baseball team. They weren't those whatdoyoucallums, caricatures, either. They were as good as the faces Norman Rockwell used to paint for the covers of the Saturday Evening Post. I've seen Dave's work - the work he did before he got drinking real heavy - and it was good, but none of it was as good as this. There was Willie Aikens and Frank White and U. L. Washington and George Brett ... Willie Wilson and Amos Otis . . . Dan Quisenberry, lookin as fierce as a gunslinger in an old Western movie ... Paul Splittorff and Ken Brett ... I can't remember all the names, but it was the whole damned roster, including Jim Frey, the field manager.

  'And sometime between when he finished em and when he gave em to my son, he took em to KC and got all the players but one to sign em. The one who didn't was Darrell Porter, the catcher. He was out with the flu, and he promised to sign the ball with his face on it as soon as he could. He did, too.'

  'Wow,' Sam said softly.

  'And it was all Dave's doing - the man I hear people in town laugh about and call Dirty Dave. I tell you, sometimes when I hear people say that and I remember what he did for Joe when Joey was dying of the leukemia, I could -'

  Soames didn't finish, but his hands curled themselves into fists on his broad thighs. And Sam - who had used the name himself until today, and laughed with Craig Jones and Frank Stephens over the old drunk with his shoppingcart full of newspapers - felt a dull and shameful heat mount into his cheeks.

  'That was a wonderful thing to do, wasn't it?' Naomi asked, and touched Stan Soames's cheek again. She was crying.

  'You shoulda seen his face,' Soames said dreamily. 'You wouldn't have believed how he looked, sitting up in his bed and looking down at all those faces with their KC baseball caps on their round heads. I can't describe it, but I'll never forget it.

  'You shoulda seen his face.

  'Joe got pretty sick before the end, but he didn't ever get too sick to watch the Royals on TV - or listen to em on the radio - and he kept those balls all over his room. The windowsill by his bed was the special place of honor, though. That's where he'd line up the nine men who were playing in the game he was watching or listening to on the radio. If Frey took out the pitcher, Joe would take that one down from the windowsill and put up the relief pitcher in his place. And when each man batted, Joe would hold that ball in his hands. So -'

  Stan Soames broke off abruptly and hid his face in his bandanna. His chest hitched twice, and Sam could see his throat locked against a sob. Then he wiped his eyes again and stuffed the bandanna briskly into his back pocket.

  'So now you know why I took you two to Des Moines today, and why I would have taken you to New York to pick up those two books if that's where you'd needed to go. It wasn't my treat; it was Dave's. He's a special sort of man.'

  'I think maybe you are, too,' Sam said.

  Soames gave him a smile - a strange, crooked smile - and opened the door of Dawson's Buick. 'Well, thank you,' he said. 'Thank you kindly. And now I think we ought to be rolling along if we want to beat the rain. Don't forget the books, Miss Higgins.'

  'I won't,' Naomi said as she got out with the top of the bag wrapped tightly in her hand. 'Believe me, I won't.'

  CHAPTER 13

  The Library Policeman (II)

  1

  Twenty minutes after they took off from Des Moines, Naomi tore herself away from the view - she had been tracing Route 79 and marvelling at the toy cars bustling back and forth along it - and turned to Sam. What she saw frightened her. He had fallen asleep with his head resting against one of the windows, but there was no peace on his face; he looked like a man suffering from deep and private pain.
/>   Tears trickled slowly from beneath his closed lids and ran down his face.

  She leaned forward to shake him awake and heard him say in a trembling little-boy's voice: 'Am I in trouble, sir?'

  The Navajo arrowed its way into the clouds now massing over western Iowa and began to buck, but Naomi barely noticed. Her hand paused just above Sam's shoulder for a moment, then withdrew.

  Who was YOUR Library Policeman, Sam?

  Whoever it was, Naomi thought, he's found him again, I think. I think he's with him now. I'm sorry, Sam ... but I can't wake you. Not now. Right now I think you're where you're supposed to be ... where you have to be. I'm sorry, but dream on. And remember what you dreamed when you wake up. Remember.

  Remember.

  2

  In his dream, Sam Peebles watched as Little Red Riding Hood set off from a gingerbread house with a covered basket over one arm; she was bound for Gramma's house, where the wolf was waiting to eat her from the feet up. It would finish by scalping her and then eating her brains out of her skull with a long wooden spoon.

  Except none of that was right, because Little Red Riding Hood was a boy in this dream and the gingerbread house was the two-story duplex in St Louis where he had lived with his mother after Dad died and there was no food in the covered basket. There was a book in the basket, The Black Arrow by Robert Louis Stevenson, and he had read it, every word, and he was not bound for Gramma's house but for the Briggs Avenue Branch of the St Louis Public Library, and he had to hurry because his book was already four days overdue.

  This was a watching dream.

  He watched as Little White Walking Sam waited at the comer of Dunbar Street and Johnstown Avenue for the light to change. He watched as he scampered across the street with the book in his hand ... the basket was gone now. He watched as Little White Walking Sam went into the Dunbar Street News and then he was inside, too, smelling the old mingled smells of camphor, candy, and pipe tobacco, watching as Little White Walking Sam approached the counter with a nickle package of Bull's Eye red licorice - his favorite. He watched as the little boy carefully removed the dollar bill his mother had tucked into the card-pocket in the back of The Black Arrow. He watched as the clerk took the dollar and returned ninety-five cents ... more than enough to pay the fine. He watched as Little White Walking Sam left the store and paused on the street outside long enough to put the change in his pocket and tear open the package of licorice with his teeth. He watched as Little White Walking Sam went on his way - only three blocks to the Library now - munching the long red whips of candy as he went.

  He tried to scream at the boy.

  Beware! Beware! The wolf is waiting, little boy! Beware the wolf! Beware the wolf!

  But the boy walked on, eating his red licorice; now he was on Briggs Avenue and the Library, a great pile of red brick, loomed ahead.

  At this point Sam - Big White Plane-Riding Sam - tried to pull himself out of the dream. He sensed that Naomi and Stan Soames and the world of real things were just outside this hellish egg of nightmare in which he found himself. He could hear the drone of the Navajo's engine behind the sounds of the dream: the traffic on Briggs Avenue, the brisk brrrinnng!-brrrinnng! of some kid's bike-bell, the birds squabbling in the rich leaves of the midsummer elms. He closed his dreaming eyes and yearned toward that world outside the shell, the world of real things. And more: he sensed he could reach it, that he could hammer through the shell

  No, Dave said. No, Sam, don't do that. You mustn't do that. If you want to save Sarah from Ardelia, forget about breaking out of this dream. There's only one coincidence in this business, but it's a killer: once You had a Library Policeman, too. And you have to get that memory back.

  I don't want to see. I don't want to know. Once was bad enough.

  Nothing is as bad as what's watting for you, Sam. Nothing.

  He opened his eyes - not his outer eyes but the inside ones; the dreaming eyes.

  Now Little White. Walking Sam is on the concrete path which approaches the east side of the Public Library, the concrete path which leads to the Children's Wing. He moves in a kind of portentous slow motion, each step the soft swish of a pendulum in the glass throat of a grandfather clock, and everything is clear: the tiny sparks of mica and quartz gleaming in the concrete walk; the cheerful roses which border the concrete walk; the thick drift of green bushes along the side of the building; the climbing ivy on the red brick wall; the strange and somehow frightening Latin motto, Fuimus, non sumus, carved in a brief semicircle over the green doors with their thick panes of wire-reinforced glass.

  And the Library Policeman standing by the steps is clear, too.

  He is not pale. He is flushed. There are pimples on his forehead, red and flaring. He is not tall but of medium height with extremely broad shoulders. He is wearing not a trenchcoat but an overcoat, and that's very odd because this is a summer day, a hot St Louis summer day. His eyes might be silver; Little White Walking Sam cannot see what color they are, because the Library Policeman is wearing little round black glasses - blind man's glasses.

  He's not a Library Policeman! He's the wolf! Beware! He's the wolf! The Library WOLF!

  But Little White Walking Sam doesn't hear. Little White Walking Sam isn't afraid. It is, after all, bright daylight, and the city is full of strange - and sometimes amusing - people. He has lived all his life in St Louis, and he's not afraid of it. That is about to change.

  He approaches the man, and as he draws closer he notices the scar: a tiny white thread which starts high on the left cheek, dips beneath the left eye, and peters out on the bridge of the nose.

  Hello there, son, the man in the round black glasses says.

  Hello, says Little White Walking Sam.

  Do you mind telling me thomething about the book you have before you go inthide? the man asks. His voice is soft and polite, not a bit threatening. A faint lisp clips lightly along the top of his speech, turning some of his s-sounds into diphthongs. I work for the Library, you thee.

  It's called The Black Arrow, Little White Walking Sam says politely, and it's by Mr Robert Louis Stevenson. He's dead. He died of toober-clue-rosis. It was very good. There were some great battles.

  The boy waits for the man in the little round black glasses to step aside and let him go in, but the man in the little round black glasses does not stand aside. The man only bends down to look at him more closely. Grandpa, what little round black eyes you have.

  One other question, the man says. Is your book overdue?

  Now Little White Walking Sam is more afraid.

  Yes ... but only a little. Only four days. It was very long, you see, and I have Little League, and day camp, and

  Come with me' son ... I'm a poleethman.

  The man in the black glasses and the overcoat extends a hand. For a moment Sam almost runs. But he is a kid; this man is an adult. This man works for the Library. This man is a policeman. Suddenly this man - this scary man with his scar and his round black glasses - is all Authority. One cannot run from Authority; it is everywhere.

  Sam timidly approaches the man. He begins to lift his hand - the one holding the package of red licorice, which is now almost empty - and then tries to pull it back at the last second. He is too late. The man seizes it. The package of Bull's Eye licorice falls to the walk. Little White Walking Sam will never eat red licorice again.

  The man pulls Sam toward him, reels him in the way a fisherman would reel in a trout. The hand clamped over Sam's is very strong. It hurts. Sam begins to cry. The sun is still out, the grass is still green, but suddenly the whole world seems distant, no more than a cruel mirage in which he was for a little while allowed to believe.

  He can smell Sen-Sen on the man's breath. Am I in trouble, sir? he asks, hoping with every fiber of his being that the man will say no.

  Yes, the man says. Yes, you are. In a LOT of trouble. And if you want to get out of trouble, son, you have to do eahactly as I thay. Do you underthand?

  Sam cannot reply. He ha
s never been so afraid. He can only look up at the man with wide, streaming eyes.

  The man shakes him. Do you underthand or not?

  Ye -yes! Sam gasps. He feels an almost irresistible heaviness in his bladder.

  Let me tell you ectliactly who I am, the man says, breathing little puffs of Sen-Sen in Sam's face. I am the Briggth Avenue Library Cop, and I am in charge of punishing boyth and girlth who bring their books back late.

  Little White Walking Sam begins to cry harder. I've got the money! he manages through his sobs. I've got ninety-five cents! You can have it! You can have it all!

  He tries to pull the change out of his pocket. At the same moment the Library Cop looks around and his broad face suddenly seems sharp, suddenly the face of a fox or wolf who has successfully broken into the chicken house but now smells danger.

  Come on, he says, and jerks Little White Walking Sam off the path and into the thick bushes which grow along the side of the Library. When the poleethman tellth you to come, you COME! It is dark in here; dark and mysterious. The air smells of pungent juniper berries. The ground is dark with mulch. Sam is crying very loudly now.

  Thut up! the Library Policeman grunts, and gives Sam a hard shake. The bones in Sam's hand grind together painfully. His head wobbles on his neck. They have reached a little clearing in the jungle of bushes now, a cove where the junipers have been smashed flat and the ferns broken off, and Sam understands that this is more than a place the Library Cop knows; it is a place he has made.

  Thut up, or the fine will only be the beginning! I'll have to call your mother and tell her what a bad bay you've been! Do you want that?

  No! Sam weeps. I'll pay the fine! I'll pay it, mister, but please don't hurt me!

  The Library Policeman spins Little White Walking Sam around.

  Put your hands up on the wall! Thpread your feet! Now! Quick!