Стивен Кинг: Cell

He opened his mouth to say something like this to Tom—in his mind it sounded quite witty—and what came out was a watery croak. His vision had come over shimmery, too. Apparently Tom McCourt, the little man in the tweed suit, wasn't the only one having trouble with his waterworks. Clay swiped an arm across his eyes, tried again to talk, and managed no more than another of those watery croaks.

"That's okay," Tom said. "Better let it come."

And so, standing there in front of a shop window filled with old books surrounding a Royal typewriter hailing from long before the era of cellular communications, Clay did. He cried for Power Suit Woman, for Pixie Light and Pixie Dark, and he cried for himself, because Boston was not his home, and home had never seemed so far.

Above the common boylston street narrowed and became so choked with cars—both those wrecked and those plain abandoned—that they no longer had to worry about kamikaze limos or rogue Duck Boats. Which was a relief. From all around them the city banged and crashed like New Year's Eve in hell. There was plenty of noise close by, as well—car alarms and burglar alarms, mostly—but the street itself was for the moment eerily deserted. Get under cover, Officer Ulrich Ashland had said. You've beenlucky once. You may not be lucky again.

But, two blocks east of Colonial Books and still a block from Clay's not-quite-fleabag hotel, they were lucky again. Another lunatic, this one a young man of perhaps twenty-five with muscles that looked tuned by Nautilus and Cybex, bolted from an alley just in front of them and went dashing across the street, hurdling the locked bumpers of two cars, foaming out an unceasing lava-flow of that nonsense-talk as he went. He held a car aerial in each hand and stabbed them rapidly back and forth in the air like daggers as he cruised his lethal course. He was naked except for a pair of what looked like brand-new Nikes with bright red swooshes. His cock swung from side to side like the pendulum of a grandfather clock on speed. He hit the far sidewalk and sidewheeled west, back toward the Common, his butt clenching and unclenching in fantastic rhythm.

Tom McCourt clutched Clay's arm, and hard, until this latest lunatic was gone, then slowly relaxed his grip. "If he'd seen us—" he began.

"Yeah, but he didn't," Clay said. He felt suddenly, absurdly happy. He knew that the feeling would pass, but for the moment he was delighted to ride it. He felt like a man who has successfully drawn to an inside straight with the biggest pot of the night lying on the table in front of him.

"I pity who he does see," Tom said.

"I pity who sees him," Clay said. "Come on."

The doors of the atlantic avenue inn were locked.

Clay was so surprised that for a moment he could only stand there, trying to turn the knob and feeling it slip through his fingers, trying to get the idea through his head: locked. The doors of his hotel, locked against him.

Tom stepped up beside him, leaned his forehead against the glass to cut the glare, and peered in. From the north—from Logan, surely—came another of those monster explosions, and this time Clay only twitched. He didn't think Tom McCourt reacted at all. Tom was too absorbed in what he was seeing.

"Dead guy on the floor," he announced at last. "Wearing a uniform, but he really looks too old to be a bellhop."

"I don't want anyone to carry my fucking luggage," Clay said. "I just want to go up to my room."

Tom made an odd little snorting sound. Clay thought maybe the little guy was starting to cry again, then realized that sound was smothered laughter.

The double doors had ATLANTIC AVENUE INNprinted on one glass panel and a blatant lie— BOSTON'S FINEST ADDRESS– printed on the other. tom slapped the flat of his hand on the glass of the lefthand panel, between BOSTON'S FINEST ADDRESSand a row of credit card decals.

Now Clay was peering in, too. The lobby wasn't very big. On the left was the reception desk. On the right was a pair of elevators. On the floor was a turkey-red rug. The old guy in the uniform lay on this, facedown, with one foot up on a couch and a framed Currier & Ives sailing-ship print on his ass.

Clay's good feelings left in a rush, and when Tom began to hammer on the glass instead of just slap, he put his hand over Tom's fist. "Don't bother," he said. "They're not going to let us in, even if they're alive and sane." He thought about that and nodded. "Especially if they're sane."

Tom looked at him wonderingly. "You don't get it, do you?"

"Huh? Get what?"

"Things have changed. They can't keep us out." He pushed Clay's hand off his own, but instead of hammering, he put his forehead against the glass again and shouted. Clay thought he had a pretty good shouting voice on him for a little guy. "Hey!Hey, in there!"

A pause. In the lobby nothing changed. The old bellman went on being dead with a picture on his ass.

"Hey, if you're in there, you better open the door! The man I'm with is a paying guest of the hotel and I'm his guest! Open up or I'm going to grab a curbstone and break the glass! You hear me?"

"A curbstone?." Clay said. He started to laugh. "Did you say curbstone? Jolly good." He laughed harder. He couldn't help it. Then movement to his left caught his eye. He looked around and saw a teenage girl standing a little way farther up the street. She was looking at them out of haggard blue disaster-victim eyes. She was wearing a white dress, and there was a vast bib of blood on the front of it. More blood was crusted beneath her nose, on her lips and chin. Other than the bloody nose she didn't look hurt, and she didn't look crazy at all, just shocked. Shocked almost to death.

"Are you all right?" Clay asked. He took a step toward her and she took a corresponding step back. Under the circumstances, he couldn't blame her. He stopped but held a hand up to her like a traffic cop: Stay put.

Tom glanced around briefly, then began to hammer on the door again, this time hard enough to rattle the glass in its old wooden frame and make his reflection shiver. "Last chance, then we're coming in!"

Clay turned and opened his mouth to tell him that masterful shit wasn't going to cut it, not today, and then a bald head rose slowly from behind the reception desk. It was like watching a periscope surface. Clay recognized that head even before it got to the face; it belonged to the clerk who'd checked him in yesterday and stamped a validation on his parking-lot ticket for the lot a block over, the same clerk who'd given him directions to the Copley Square Hotel this morning.

For a moment he still lingered behind the desk, and Clay held up his room key with the green plastic Atlantic Avenue Inn fob hanging down. Then he also held up his portfolio, thinking the desk clerk might recognize it.

Maybe he did. More likely he just decided he had no choice. In either case, he used the pass-through at the end of the desk and crossed quickly to the door, detouring around the body. Clay Riddell believed he might be witnessing the first reluctant scurry he had ever seen in his life. When the desk clerk reached the other side of the door, he looked from Clay to Tom and then back to Clay again. Although he did not appear particularly reassured by what he saw, he produced a ring of keys from one pocket, flicked rapidly through them, found one, and used it on his side of the door. When Tom reached for the handle, the bald clerk held his hand up much as Clay had held his up to the bloodstained girl behind them. The clerk found a second key, used this one in another lock, and opened the door.