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  He didn't know. But he knew he needed time to think, and he also knew that constructive thinking would be hard to do until he was fairly sure that Lois was safe, at least for awhile.

  'Ralph? You're getting that moogy look again.'

  'That what look?'

  'Moogy.' She tossed her hair pertly. 'That's a word I made up to describe how Mr Chasse looked when he was pretending to listen to me but was actually thinking about his coin collection. I know a moogy look when I see one, Ralph. What are you thinking about?'

  'I was wondering what time you think you'll get back from your card-game.'

  'That depends.'

  'On what?'

  'On whether or not we stop at Tubby's for chocolate frappes.' She spoke with the air of a woman revealing a secret vice.

  'Suppose you come straight back.'

  'Seven o'clock. Maybe seven-thirty.'

  'Call me as soon as you get home. Would you do that?'

  'Yes. You want me out of town, don't you? That's what that moogy look really means.'

  'Well . . .'

  'You think that nasty bald thing means to hurt me, don't you?'

  'I think it's a possibility.'

  'Well, he might hurt you, too!'

  'Yes, but . . .'

  But so far as I can tell, Lois, he's not wearing any of my fashion accessories.

  'But what?'

  'I'm going to be okay until you get back, that's all.' He remembered her deprecating remark about modern men hugging each other and bawling and tried for a masterful frown. 'Go play cards and leave this business to me, at least for the time being. That's an order.'

  Carolyn would have either laughed or gotten angry at such comic-opera macho posturing. Lois, who belonged to an entirely different school of feminine thought, only nodded and looked grateful to have the decision taken out of her hands. 'All right.' She tilted his chin down so she could look directly into his eyes. 'Do you know what you're doing, Ralph?'

  'Nope. Not yet, anyway.'

  'All right. Just as long as you admit it.' She placed a hand on his forearm and a soft, open-mouthed kiss on the corner of his mouth. Ralph felt an entirely welcome prickle of heat in his groin. 'I'll go to Ludlow and win five dollars playing poker with those silly women who are always trying to fill their inside straights. Tonight we'll talk about what to do next. Okay?'

  'Yes.'

  Her small smile - a thing more in the eyes than of the mouth - suggested that they might do a little more than just talk, if Ralph was bold . . . and at that moment he felt quite bold, indeed. Not even Mr Chasse's stern gaze from his place atop the TV affected that feeling very much.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  * * *

  1

  It was quarter to four by the time Ralph crossed the street and walked the short distance back up the hill to his own building. Weariness was stealing over him again; he felt as if he had been up for roughly three centuries. Yet at the same time he felt better than he had since Carolyn had died. More together. More himself.

  Or is that maybe just what you want to believe? That a person can't feel this miserable without some sort of positive payback? It's a lovely idea, Ralph, but not very realistic.

  All right, he thought, so maybe I'm a little confused right now.

  Indeed he was. Also frightened, exhilarated, disoriented, and a touch horny. Yet one clear idea came through this mix of emotions, one thing he needed to do before he did anything else: he had to make up with Bill. If that meant apologizing, he could do that. Maybe an apology was even in order. Bill, after all, hadn't come to him, saying, 'Gee, old buddy, you look terrible, tell me all about it.' No, he had gone to Bill. He had done so with misgivings, true, but that didn't change the fact, and--

  Ah, Ralph, jeez, what am I going to do with you? It was Carolyn's amused voice, speaking to him as clearly as it had during the weeks following her death, when he'd handled the worst of his grief by discussing everything with her inside his head . . . and sometimes aloud, if he happened to be alone in the apartment. Bill was the one who blew his top, sweetie, not you. I see you're just as determined to be hard on yourself now as you were when I was alive. I guess some things never change.

  Ralph smiled a little. Yeah, okay, maybe some things never did change, and maybe the argument had been more Bill's fault than his. The question was whether or not he wanted to cut himself off from Bill's companionship over a stupid quarrel and a lot of stiff-necked horseshit about who had been right and who had been wrong. Ralph didn't think he did, and if that meant making an apology Bill didn't really deserve, what was so awful about that? So far as he knew, there were no bones in the three little syllables that made up I'm sorry.

  The Carolyn inside his head responded to this idea with wordless incredulity.

  Never mind, he told her as he started up the walk. I'm doing this for me, not for him. Or for you, as far as that goes.

  He was amazed and amused to discover how guilty that last thought made him feel - almost as if he had committed an act of sacrilege. But that didn't make the thought any less true.

  He was feeling around in his pocket for his latchkey when he saw a note thumbtacked to the door. Ralph felt for his glasses, but he had left them upstairs on the kitchen table. He leaned back, squinting to read Bill's scrawling hand: Dear Ralph/Lois/Faye/Whoever, I expect to be spending most of the day at Derry Home. Bob Polhurst's niece called and told me that this time it's almost certainly the real thing; the poor man has almost finished his struggle. Room 313 in Derry Home ICU is about the last place on earth I want to be on a beautiful day in October, but I guess I'd better see this through to the end.

  Ralph, I'm sorry I gave you such a hard time this morning. You came to me for help and I damned near clawed your face off instead. All I can say by way of apology is that this thing with Bob has completely wrecked my nerves. Okay? I think I owe you a dinner . . . if you still want to eat with the likes of me, that is.

  Faye, please please PLEASE quit bugging me about your damned chess tournament. I promised I'd play, and I keep my promises.

  Goodbye, cruel world, Bill

  Ralph straightened up with a feeling of relief and gratitude. If only everything else that had been happening to him lately could straighten itself out as easily as this part had done!

  He went upstairs, shook the teakettle, and was filling it at the sink when the telephone rang. It was John Leydecker. 'Boy, I'm glad I finally got hold of you,' he said. 'I was getting a little worried, old buddy.'

  'Why?' Ralph asked. 'What's wrong?'

  'Maybe nothing, maybe something. Charlie Pickering made bail after all.'

  'You told me that wouldn't happen.'

  'I was wrong, okay?' Leydecker said, clearly irritated. 'It wasn't the only thing I was wrong about, either. I told you the judge'd probably set bail in the forty-thousand-dollar range, but I didn't know Pickering was going to draw Judge Steadman, who has been known to say that he doesn't even believe in insanity. Steadman set bail at eighty grand. Pickering's court-appointed bellowed like a calf in the moonlight, but it didn't make any difference.'

  Ralph looked down and saw he was still holding the teakettle in one hand. He put it on the table. 'And he still made bail?'

  'Yep. Remember me telling you that Ed would throw him away like a paring knife with a broken blade?'

  'Yes.'

  'Well, score it as another strikeout for John Leydecker. Ed marched into the bailiff's office at eleven o'clock this morning with a briefcase full of money.'

  'Eight thousand dollars?' Ralph asked.

  'I said briefcase, not envelope,' Leydecker replied. 'Not eight but eighty. They're still buzzing down at the courthouse. Hell, they'll be buzzing about it even after the Christmas tinsel comes down.'

  Ralph tried to imagine Ed Deepneau in one of his baggy old sweaters and a pair of worn corduroys - Ed's mad-scientist outfits, Carolyn had called them - pulling banded stacks of twenties and fifties out of his briefcase and couldn't do it. 'I thoug
ht you said ten per cent was enough to get out.'

  'It is, if you can also escrow something - a house or a piece of property, for instance - that stacks up somewhere near the total bail amount. Apparently Ed couldn't do that, but he did have a little rainy-day cash under the mattress. Either that or he gave the tooth-fairy one hell of a blowjob.'

  Ralph found himself remembering the letter he had gotten from Helen about a week after she had left the hospital and moved out to High Ridge. She had mentioned a check she'd gotten from Ed - seven hundred and fifty dollars. It seems to indicate he understands his responsibilities, she had written. Ralph wondered if Helen would still feel that way if she knew that Ed had walked into the Derry County Courthouse with enough money to send his daughter sailing through the first fifteen years of her life . . . and pledged it to free a crazy guy who liked to play with knives and Molotov cocktails.

  'Where in God's name did he get it?' he asked Leydecker.

  'Don't know.'

  'And he isn't required to say?'

  'Nope. It's a free country. I understand he said something about cashing in some stocks.'

  Ralph thought back to the old days - the good old days before Carolyn had gotten sick and died and Ed had just gotten sick. Thought back to meals the four of them had had together once every two weeks or so, take-out pizza at the Deepneaus' or maybe Carol's chicken pot-pie in the Robertses' kitchen, and remembered Ed saying on one occasion that he was going to treat them all to prime rib at the Red Lion in Bangor when his stock accounts matured. That's right, Helen had replied, smiling at Ed fondly. She had been pregnant then, just beginning to show, and looking all of fourteen with her hair pulled back in a ponytail and wearing a checkered smock that was still yards too big for her. Which do you think will mature first, Edward? The two thousand shares of United Toejam or the six thousand of Amalgamated Sourballs? And he had growled at her, a growl that had made them all laugh because Ed Deepneau didn't have a mean bone in his body, anyone who had known him more than two weeks knew that Ed wouldn't hurt a fly. Except Helen might have known a little different - even back then Helen had almost surely known a little different, fond look or no fond look.

  'Ralph?' Leydecker asked. 'Are you still there?'

  'Ed didn't have any stocks,' Ralph said. 'He was a research chemist, for Christ's sake, and his father was foreman in a bottling plant in some crazy place like Plaster Rock, Pennsylvania. No dough there.'

  'Well, he got it somewhere, and I'd be lying if I said I liked it.'

  'From the other Friends of Life, do you think?'

  'No, I don't. First, we're not talking rich folks here - most of the people who belong to The Friends are blue-collar types, working-class heroes. They give what they can, but this much? No. They could have gotten together enough property deeds among them to spring Pickering, I suppose, but they didn't. Most of them wouldn't, even if Ed had asked. Ed's all but persona non grata with them now, and I imagine they wish they'd never heard of Charlie Pickering. Dan Dalton's taken back the leadership of The Friends of Life, and to most of them, that's a big relief. Ed and Charlie and two other people - a man named Frank Felton and a woman named Sandra McKay - seem to be operating very much on their own hook now. Felton I don't know anything about and there's no jacket on him, but the McKay woman has toured some of the same fine institutions as Charlie. She's unmissable, too - pasty complexion, lots of acne, glasses so thick they make her eyes look like poached eggs, goes about three hundred pounds.'

  'You joking?'

  'No. She favors stretch pants from Kmart and can usually be observed travelling in the company of assorted Ding-Dongs, Funny Bones, and Hostess Twinkies. She often wears a big sweatshirt with the words BABY FACTORY on the front. Claims to have given birth to fifteen children. She's never actually had any, and probably can't.'

  'Why are you telling me all this?'

  'Because I want you to watch out for these people,' Leydecker said. He spoke patiently, as if to a child. 'They may be dangerous. Charlie is for sure, that you know without me telling you, and Charlie is out. Where Ed got the money to spring him is secondary - he got it, that's what matters. I wouldn't be a bit surprised if he came after you again. Him, or Ed, or the others.'

  'What about Helen and Natalie?'

  'They're with their friends - friends who are very hip to the dangers posed by screwloose hubbies. I filled Mike Hanlon in, and he'll also keep an eye on her. The library is being watched very closely by our men. We don't think Helen's in any real danger at the present time - she's still staying at High Ridge - but we're doing what we can.'

  'Thank you, John. I appreciate that, and I appreciate the call.'

  'I appreciate that you appreciate it, but I'm not quite done yet. You need to remember who Ed called and threatened, my friend - not Helen but you. She doesn't seem to be much of a concern to him anymore, but you linger on his mind, Ralph. I asked Chief Johnson if I could assign a man - Chris Nell would be my pick - to keep an eye on you, at least until after WomanCare's Rent-A-Bitch has come and gone. I was turned down. Too much going on this week, he said . . . but the way I was turned down suggests to me that if you asked, you'd get someone to watch your back. So what do you say?'

  Police protection, Ralph thought. That's what they call it on the TV cop shows and that's what he's talking about - police protection.

  He tried to consider the idea, but too many other things got in the way; they danced in his head like weird sugarplums. Hats, docs, smocks, spray-cans. Not to mention knives, scalpels, and a pair of scissors glimpsed in the dusty lenses of his old binoculars. Each thing I do I rush through so I can do something else, Ralph thought, and on the heels of that: It's a long walk back to Eden, sweetheart, so don't sweat the small stuff.

  'No,' he said.

  'What?'

  Ralph closed his eyes and saw himself picking up this same phone and calling to cancel his appointment with the pin-sticker man. This was the same thing all over again, wasn't it? Yes. He could get police protection from the Pickerings and the McKays and the Feltons, but that wasn't the way this was supposed to go. He knew that, felt it in every beat of his heart and pulse of his blood.

  'You heard me,' he said. 'I don't want police protection.'

  'For God's sake, why?'

  'I can take care of myself,' Ralph said, and grimaced a little at the pompous absurdity of this sentiment, which he had heard expressed in John Wayne Westerns without number.

  'Ralph, I hate to be the one to break the news to you, but you're old. You got lucky on Sunday. You might not get lucky again.'

  I didn't just get lucky, Ralph thought. I've got friends in high places. Or maybe I should say entities in high places.

  'I'll be okay,' he said.

  Leydecker sighed. 'If you change your mind, will you call me?'

  'Yes.'

  'And if you see either Pickering or a large lady with thick glasses and stringy blonde hair hanging around--'

  'I'll call you.'

  'Ralph, please think this over. Just a guy parked down the street is all I'm talking about.'

  'Done-bun-can't-be-undone,' Ralph said.

  'Huh?'

  'I said I appreciate it, but no. I'll be talking to you.'

  Ralph gently replaced the telephone in its cradle. Probably John was right, he thought, probably he was crazy, yet he had never felt so completely sane in his life.

  'Tired,' he told his sunny, empty kitchen,'but sane.' He paused, then added: 'Also halfway to being in love, maybe.'

  That made him grin, and he was still grinning when he finally put the kettle on to heat.

  2

  He was on his second cup of tea when he remembered what Bill had said in his note about owing him a meal. He decided on the spur of the moment to ask Bill to meet him at Day Break, Sun Down for a little supper. They could start over.

  I think we have to start over, he thought, because that little psycho has got his hat, and I'm pretty sure that means he's in trouble.

  Wel
l, no time like the present. He picked up the phone and dialed a number he had no trouble remembering: 941-5000. The number of Derry Home Hospital.

  3

  The hospital receptionist connected him with Room 313. The clearly tired woman who answered the phone was Denise Polhurst, the dying man's niece. Bill wasn't there, she told him. Four other teachers from what she termed 'Unc's glory days' had shown up around one, and Bill had proposed lunch. Ralph even knew how his downstairs tenant would have put it: better belated than never. It was one of his favorites. When Ralph asked her if she expected him back soon, Denise Polhurst said she did.

  'He's been so faithful. I don't know what I would have done without him, Mr Robbins.'

  'Roberts,' he said. 'Bill made Mr Polhurst sound like a wonderful man.'

  'Yes, they all feel that way. But of course the bills won't be coming to his fan club, will they?'

  'No,' Ralph said uncomfortably. 'I suppose not. Bill's note said your uncle is very low.'

  'Yes. The doctor says he probably won't last the day, let alone the night, but I've heard that song before. God forgive me, but sometimes it's like Uncle Bob's one of those ads from Publishers Clearing House - always promising, never delivering. I suppose that sounds awful, but I'm too tired to care. They turned off the life-support stuff this morning - I couldn't have taken the responsibility all by myself, but I called Bill and he said it was what Unc would have wanted. "It's time for Bob to explore the next world," he said. "He's mapped this one to a nicety." Isn't that poetic, Mr Robbins?'

  'Yes. It's Roberts, Ms Polhurst. Will you tell Bill that Ralph Roberts called and would like him to call ba--'

  'So we turned it off and I was all prepared - nerved up, I guess you'd say - and then he didn't die. I can't understand it. He's ready, I'm ready, his life's work is done . . . so why won't he die?'

  'I don't know.'

  'Death is very stupid,' she said, speaking in the nagging and unlovely voice which only the very tired and the deeply heartsick seem to employ. 'An obstetrician this slow in cutting a baby's umbilical cord would be fired for malpractice.'

  Ralph's mind had a tendency to drift these days, but this time it snapped back in a hurry. 'What did you say?'