Stephen King - Joyland

She’ll hear him breaking in and she’ll shoot him.

Only the guns were in the safe, she’d said so. Even if she got one, she’d probably find the bastard holding his straight-razor to Mike’s throat when she confronted him.

I turned the key again, and with my foot off the accelerator and the carb full of gas, my Ford started up at once. I backed down the driveway and turned toward Joyland. The circular red neon of the Spin and the blue neon swoops of the Thunderball stood out against low, fast-running clouds. Those two rides were always lit on stormy nights, partly as a beacon for ships at sea, partly to warn away any low-flying small aircraft bound for the Parish County Airport.

Beach Row was deserted. Sheets of sand blew across it with every gust of wind, some of those gusts strong enough to shake my car. Dunelets were already starting to build up on the macadam. In my headlights, they looked like skeleton fingers.

When I passed the shopping center, I saw a single figure standing in the middle of the parking lot next to one of the Joyland maintenance trucks. He raised a hand to me as I went past and gave a single solemn wave.

The big Victorian on the beach side came next. There was a light on in the kitchen. I thought it was the fluorescent over the sink. I remembered Annie coming into the room with her sweater in her hand. Her tanned stomach. The bra almost the same color as her jeans. Would you like to go upstairs with me, Devin?

Lights bloomed in my rearview mirror and pulled up close. He was using his brights and I couldn’t see the vehicle behind them, but I didn’t have to. I knew it was the maintenance truck, just as I knew he had been lying when he said he wasn’t going to kill me. The note I’d left for Mrs. Shoplaw would still be there in the morning. She would read it, and the name I had written there. The question was how long it would take her to believe it. He was such a charmer, him with his rhyming patter, winning smile, and cocked derby lid. Why, all the women loved Lane Hardy.

The gates were open, as promised. I drove through them and tried to park in front of the now-shuttered Shootin’ Gallery. He gave his horn a brief blip and flashed his lights: Drive on. When I got to the Spin, he flashed his lights again. I turned off my Ford, very aware that I might never start it again. The hoister’s red neon cast a blood-colored light over the dashboard, the seats, my own skin.

The truck’s headlights went out. I heard the door open and shut. And I heard the wind blowing through the Spin’s struts—tonight that sound was a harpy’s screech. There was a steady, almost syncopated rattling sound, as well. The wheel was shaking on its tree-thick axle.

The Gray girl’s killer—and DeeDee Mowbray’s, and Claudine Sharp’s, and Darlene Stamnacher’s—walked to my car and tapped on the window with the barrel of a pistol. With his other hand he made a beckoning gesture. I opened the door and got out.

“You said you weren’t going to kill me.” It sounded as weak as my legs felt.

Lane smiled his charming smile. “Well… we’ll see which way the flow’s gonna go. Won’t we?”

Tonight his derby was cocked to the left and pulled down tight so it wouldn’t fly off. His hair, let loose from its workday ponytail, blew around his neck. The wind gusted and the Spin gave an unhappy screech. The red glow of the neon flickered across his face as it shook.

“Don’t worry about the hoister,” he said. “If it was solid it might blow over, but the wind shoots right through the struts. You’ve got other things to worry about. Tell me about the funhouse car. That’s what I really want to know. How’d you do that? Was it some kind of remote gadget? I’m very interested in those things. They’re the wave of the future, that’s what I think.”

“There was no gadget.”

He didn’t seem to hear me. “Also what was the point? Was it supposed to flush me out? If it was, you didn’t need to bother. I was already flushed.”

“She did it,” I said. I didn’t know if that was strictly true, but I had no intention of bringing Mike into this conversation. “Linda Gray. Didn’t you see her?”

The smile died. “Is that the best you can manage? The old ghost-in-the-funhouse story? You’ll have to do a little better than that.”

So he hadn’t seen her any more than I had. But I think he knew there was something. I’ll never know for sure, but I think that was why he offered to go after Milo. He hadn’t wanted us anywhere near Horror House.

“Oh, she was there. I saw her headband. Remember me looking in? It was under the seat.”

He lashed out so suddenly I didn’t even have a chance to get my hand up. The barrel of the gun slammed across my forehead, opening a gash. I saw stars. Then blood poured into my eyes and I saw only that. I staggered back against the rail beside the ramp leading to the Spin and gripped it to keep from falling down. I swiped at my face with the sleeve of my slicker.

“I don’t know why you’d bother trying to spook me with a campfire story at this late date,” he said, “and I don’t appreciate it. You know about the headband because there was a picture of it in the folder your nosy college-cunt girlfriend brought you.” He smiled. There was nothing charming about this one; it was all teeth. “Don’t kid a kidder, kiddo.”

“But… you didn’t see the folder.” The answer to that one was a simple deduction even with my head ringing. “Fred saw it. And told you. Didn’t he?”

“Yep. On Monday. We were having lunch together in his office. He said that you and the college cunt were playing Hardy Boys, although he didn’t put it quite that way. He thought it was sort of cute. I didn’t, because I’d seen you stripping off Eddie Parks’s gloves after he had his heart attack. That’s when I knew you were playing Hardy Boys. That folder… Fred said the cunt had pages of notes. I knew it was only a matter of time before she put me with Wellman’s and Southern Star.”

I had an alarming picture of Lane Hardy riding the train to Annandale with a straight razor in his pocket. “Erin doesn’t know anything.”

“Oh, relax. Do you think I’m going after her? Apply some strain and use your brain. And take a little stroll while you do it. Up the ramp, champ. You and I are going for a ride. Up there where the air is rare.”

I started to ask him if he was crazy, but that would have been sort of a stupid question at this late date, wouldn’t it?

“What have you got to grin about, Jonesy?”

“Nothing,” I said. “You don’t really want to go up with the wind blowing like this, do you?” But the Spin’s engine was running. I hadn’t been aware of it over the wind, the surf, and the eerie scream of the ride itself, but now that I was listening, I heard it: a steady rumble. Almost a purr. Something fairly obvious came to me: he was probably planning to turn the gun on himself after he finished with me. Maybe you think that should have occurred to me sooner, because crazy people have a way of doing that—you read about it in the paper all the time. Maybe you’d be right. But I was under a lot of stress.

“Old Carolina’s safe as houses,” he said. “I’d go up in her if the wind was blowing sixty instead of just thirty. It blew at least that hard when Carla skimmed past the coast two years ago, and she was just fine.”

“How are you going to put it in gear if we’re both in the car?”

“Get in and see. Or…” He lifted the gun. “Or I can shoot you right here. I’m good with it either way.”

I walked up the ramp, opened the door of the car currently sitting at the loading station, and started to climb in.