Stephen King - Song of Susannah

Jake stepped back, breaking free of the tall taxi driver’s grip. Then, in a liquid motion too quick for Callahan to follow, the kid yanked the Ruger from the docker’s clutch under his arm and pointed it at the driver’s nose.

“Tell me what? ” Jake raged at him. “Tell me what? That you were driving too fast and almost ran down my friend? That you don’t want to die here in the street with a hole in your head? Tell me WHAT? ”

A woman on the far side of Second Avenue either saw the gun or caught a whiff of Jake’s homicidal fury. She screamed and started hurrying away. Several more followed her example. Others gathered at the curb, smelling blood. Incredibly, one of them-a young man wearing his hat turned around backward-shouted: “Go on, kid! Ventilate that camel-jockey!”

The driver backed up two steps, his eyes widening. He held up his hands to his shoulders. “Do not shoot me, boy! Please!”

“Then say you’re sorry!” Jake raved. “If you want to live, you cry my pardon! And his! And his! ” Jake’s skin was dead pale except for tiny red spots of color high up on his cheekbones. His eyes were huge and wet. What Don Calla-han saw most clearly and liked least was the way the barrel of the Ruger was trembling. “Say you’re sorry for the way you were driving, you careless motherfucker! Do it now! Do it now! ”

Oy whined uneasily and said, “Ake!”

Jake looked down at him. When he did, the taxi driver lunged for the gun. Callahan hit him with a fairly respectable right cross and the driver sprawled against the front of his car, his fez tumbling from his head. The driver behind him had clear lanes on either side and could have swung around but continued to lay on his horn instead, yelling “ Move it buddy, move it! ” Some of the spectators on the far side of Second were actually applauding like spectators at a Madison Square Garden fight, and Callahan thought: Why, this place is a madhouse. Did I know that before and forget, or is it something I just learned?

The street preacher, a man with a beard and long white hair that descended to his shoulders, was now standing beside Jake, and when Jake started to raise the Ruger again, the preacher laid a gentle, unhurried hand on the boy’s wrist.

“Holster it, boy,” he said. “Stick it away, praise Jesus.”

Jake looked at him and saw what Susannah had seen not long before: a man who looked eerily like Henchick of the Manni. Jake put the gun back into the docker’s clutch, then bent and picked up Oy. The bumbler whined, stretched his face toward Jake’s on his long neck, and began to lick the boy’s cheek.

Callahan, meanwhile, had taken the driver’s arm and was leading him back toward his hack. He fished in his pocket and palmed a ten-dollar bill which was about half the money they’d managed to put together for this little safari.

“All over,” he said to the driver, speaking in what he hoped was a soothing voice. “No harm, no foul, you go your way, he goes his-” And then, past the hackie, yelling at the relentless horn-honker: “Horn works, you nimrod, so why not give it a rest and try your lights?”

“That little bastard was pointing the gun at me,” said the taxi driver. He felt on his head for his fez and didn’t find it.

“It’s only a model,” Callahan said soothingly. “The kind of thing you build from a kit, doesn’t even fire pellets. I assure y-”

“Hey, pal!” cried the street preacher, and when the taxi driver looked, the preacher underhanded him the faded red fez. With this back on his head, the driver seemed more willing to be reasonable. More willing yet when Callahan pressed the ten into his hand.

The guy behind the cab was driving an elderly whale of a Lincoln. Now he laid on his horn again.

“You may be biting my crank, Mr. Monkeymeat!” the taxi driver yelled at him, and Callahan almost burst out laughing. He started toward the guy in the Lincoln. When the taxi driver tried to join him, Callahan put his hands on the man’s shoulders and stopped him.

“Let me handle this. I’m a religious. Making the lion lie down with the lamb is my job.”

The street preacher joined them in time to hear this. Jake had retired to the background. He was standing beside the street preacher’s van and checking Oy’s legs to make sure he was uninjured.

“Brother!” the street preacher addressed Callahan. “May I ask your denomination? Your, I say hallelujah, your view of the Almighty? ”

“I’m a Catholic,” Callahan said. “Therefore, I view the Almighty’s a guy.”

The street preacher held out a large, gnarled hand. It produced exactly the sort of fervent, just-short-of-crushing grip Callahan had expected. The man’s cadences, combined with his faint Southern accent, made Callahan think of Foghorn Leghorn in the Warner Brothers cartoons.

“I’m Earl Harrigan,” the preacher said, continuing to wring Callahan’s fingers. “Church of the Holy God-Bomb, Brooklyn and America. A pleasure to meet you, Father.”

“I’m sort of semi-retired,” Callahan said. “If you have to call me something, make it Pere. Or just Don. Don Callahan.”

“Praise Jesus, Father Don!”

Callahan sighed and supposed Father Don would have to do. He went to the Lincoln. The cab driver, meanwhile, scooted away with his off duty light on.

Before Callahan could speak to the Lincoln’s driver, that worthy got out on his own. It was Callahan’s night for tall men. This one went about six-three and was carrying a large belly.

“It’s all over,” Callahan told him. “I suggest you get back in your car and drive out of here.”

“It ain’t over until I say it’s over,” Mr. Lincoln demurred. “I got Abdul’s medallion number; what I want from you, Sparky, is the name and address of that kid with the dog. I also want a closer look at the pistol he just- ow, ow! OWW! OWWWWW! Quit it! ”

Reverend Earl Harrigan had seized one of Mr. Lincoln’s hands and twisted it behind his back. Now he seemed to be doing something creative to the man’s thumb. Callahan couldn’t see exactly what it was. The angle was wrong.

“God loves you so much,” Harrigan said, speaking quietly into Mr. Lincoln’s ear. “And what He wants in return, you loudmouth shithead, is for you to give me hallelujah and then go on your way. Can you give me hallelujah?”

“ OWW, OWWW, let go! Police! POLEECE! “

“Only policeman apt to be on this block around now would be Officer Benzyck, and he’s already given me my nightly ticket and moved on. By now he’ll be in Dennis’s, having a pecan waffle and double bacon, praise God, so I want you to think about this.” There came a cracking sound from behind Mr. Lincoln’s back that set Callahan’ts teeth on edge. He didn’t like to think Mr. Lincoln’s thumb had made that sound, but didn’t know what else it could have been. Mr. Lincoln cocked his head skyward on his thick neck and let out a long exhalation of pure pain- Yaaaahhhhhhh!

“You want to give me hallelujah, brother,” advised Rev. Harrigan, “or you’ll be, praise God, carrying your thumb home in your breast pocket.”

“Hallelujah,” whispered Mr. Lincoln. His complexion had gone an ocher shade. Callahan thought some of that might be attributable to the orangey streetlamps which at some point had replaced the fluorescents of his own time. Probably not all of it, though.

“Good! Now say amen. You’ll feel better when you do.”

“A-Amen.”

“Praise God! Praise Jee-eee-eee- esus !”

“Let me go… let go of my thumb -!”

“Are you going to get out of here and stop blocking this intersection if I do?”