Stephen King - Joyland

“H-H-Hel—” It was all I could manage. My heart was pounding too hard for more.

“It’s you,” the voice on the other end said. He sounded both amused and pleasantly surprised. “I was expecting your landlady. I had a story about a family emergency all ready.”

I tried to speak. Couldn’t.

“Devin?” Teasing. Cheerful. “Are you there?”

“I… just a second.”

I held the phone to my chest, wondering (it’s crazy how your mind can work when it’s put under sudden stress) if he could hear my heart at his end of the line. On mine, I listened for Mrs. Shoplaw. I heard her, too: the muted sound of her continuing snores. It was a good thing I’d closed the parlor doors, and a better thing that there was no extension in her bedroom. I put the phone back to my ear and said, “What do you want? Why are you calling?”

“I think you know, Devin… and even if you didn’t, it’s too late now, isn’t it?”

“Are you psychic, too?” It was stupid, but right then my brain and my mouth seemed to be running on separate tracks.

“That’s Rozzie,” he said. “Our Madame Fortuna.” He actually laughed. He sounded relaxed, but I doubt if he was. Killers don’t make telephone calls in the middle of the night if they’re relaxed. Especially if they can’t be sure of who’s going to answer the phone.

But he had a story, I thought. This guy’s a Boy Scout, he’s crazy but always prepared. The tattoo, for instance. That’s what takes your eye when you look at those photos. Not the face. Not the baseball cap.

“I knew what you were up to,” he said. “I knew even before the girl brought you that folder. The one with the pictures in it. Then today… with the pretty mommy and the crippled kid… have you told them, Devin? Did they help you work it out?”

“They don’t know anything.”

The wind gusted. I could hear it at his end, too… as if he were outside. “I wonder if I can believe you.”

“You can. You absolutely can.” Looking down at the pictures. Tattoo Man with his hand on Linda Gray’s ass. Tattoo Man helping her aim her rifle at the Shootin’ Gallery.

Lane: Let’s see your best Annie Oakley, Annie.

Fred: A crack shot!

Tattoo Man in his fishtop cap and dark glasses and sandy blond goatee. You could see the bird tattoo on his hand because the rawhide gloves had stayed in his back pocket until he and Linda Gray were in Horror House. Until he had her in the dark.

“I wonder,” he said again. “You were in that big old house for a long time this afternoon, Devin. Were you talking about the pictures the Cook girl brought, or were you just fucking her? Maybe it was both. Mommy’s a tasty piece, all right.”

“They don’t know anything,” I repeated. I was speaking low and fixing my gaze on the closed parlor doors. I kept expecting them to open and to see Mrs. S. standing there in her nightgown, her face ghostly with cream. “Neither do I. Not that I could prove.”

“Probably not, but it would only be a matter of time. You can’t unring the bell. Do you know that old saying?”

“Sure, sure.” I didn’t, but at that moment I would have agreed with him if he’d declared that Bobby Rydell (a yearly performer at Joyland) was president.

“Here’s what you’re going to do. You’re going to come to Joyland, and we’ll talk this out, face to face. Man to man.”

“Why would I do that? That would be pretty crazy, if you’re who I—”

“Oh, you know I am.” He sounded impatient. “And I know that if you went to the police, they’d find out I came onboard at Joyland only a month or so after Linda Gray was killed. Then they’d put me with the Wellman show and Southern Star Amusements, and there goes the ballgame.”

“So why don’t I call them right now?”

“Do you know where I am?” Anger was creeping into his voice. No—venom. “Do you know where I am right now, you nosy little sonofabitch?”

“Joyland, probably. In admin.”

“Not at all. I’m at the shopping center on Beach Row. The one where the rich bitches go to buy their macrobiotics. Rich bitches like your girlfriend.”

A cold finger began to trace its course—its very slow course—down the length of my spine from the nape of my neck to the crack of my ass. I said nothing.

“There’s a pay phone outside the drugstore. Not a booth, but that’s okay because it isn’t raining yet. Just windy. That’s where I am. I can see your girlfriend’s house from where I’m standing. There’s a light on in the kitchen—probably the one she leaves on all night—but the rest of the house is dark. I could hang up this phone and be there in sixty seconds.”

“There’s a burglar alarm!” I didn’t know if there was or not.

He laughed. “At this point, do you think I give a shit? It won’t stop me from cutting her throat. But first I’ll make her watch me do it to the little cripple.”

You won’t rape her, though , I thought. You wouldn’t even if there was time. I don’t think you can.

I came close to saying it, but didn’t. As scared as I was, I knew that goading him right now would be a very bad idea.

“You were so nice to them today,” I said stupidly. “Flowers… prizes… the rides…”

“Yeah, all the rube shit. Tell me about the car that came popping out of the funhouse shy. What was that about?”

“I don’t know.”

“I think you do. Maybe we’ll discuss it. At Joyland. I know your Ford, Jonesy. It’s got the flickery left headlight and the cute little pinwheel on the antenna. If you don’t want me in that house cutting throats, you’re going to get in it right now, and you’re going to drive down Beach Row to Joyland.”

“I—”

“Shut up when I’m talking to you. When you pass the shopping center, you’ll see me standing by one of the park trucks. I’ll give you four minutes to get here from the time I hang up the phone. If I don’t see you, I’ll kill the woman and the kid. Understand?”

“I…”

“Do you understand?”

“Yes!”

“I’ll follow you to the park. Don’t worry about the gate; it’s already open.”

“So you’ll either kill me or them. I get to choose. Is that it?”

“Kill you?” He sounded honestly surprised. “I’m not going to kill you, Devin. That would only make my position worse. No, I’m going to do a fade. It won’t be the first time, and it probably won’t be the last. What I want is to talk. I want to know how you got onto me.”

“I could tell you that over the phone.”

He laughed. “And spoil your chance to overpower me and be Howie the Hero again? First the little girl, then Eddie Parks, and the pretty mommy and her crippled-up brat for the exciting climax. How could you pass that up?” He stopped laughing. “Four minutes.”

“I—”

He hung up. I stared down at the glossy photos. I opened the drawer in the Scrabble table, took out one of the pads, and fumbled for the mechanical pencil Tina Ackerley always insisted on using to keep score. I wrote: Mrs. S. If you’re reading this, something has happened to me. I know who killed Linda Gray. Others, too.

I wrote his name in capital letters.

Then I ran for the door.

My Ford’s starter spun and sputtered and did not catch. Then it began to slow. All summer I’d been telling myself I had to get a new battery, and all summer I’d found other things to spend my money on.

My father’s voice: You’re flooding it, Devin.

I took my foot off the gas and sat there in the dark. Time seemed to be racing, racing. Part of me wanted to run back inside and call the police. I couldn’t call Annie because I didn’t have her fucking phone number, and given her famous father, it would be unlisted. Did he know that? Probably not, but he had the luck of the devil. As brazen as he was, the murdering son of a bitch should have been caught three or four times already, but hadn’t been. Because he had the luck of the devil.