Stephen King - Duma Key

“I can’t do that! I can’t !” She sounded hopeless.

I considered this, and decided I’d put Tom Riley’s life entirely in her hands — simply pass it down the telephone wire to her. That sort of letting-go hadn’t been in the old Edgar Freemantle’s repertoire, but of course that Edgar Freemantle would never have considered spending his time painting sunsets. Or playing with dolls.

“You decide, Panda. It might be useless anyway if he no longer cares for you, but—”

“Oh, he does.” She sounded more hopeless than ever.

“Then tell him he has to start living life again, like it or not.”

“Good old Edgar, still managing things,” she said wanly. “Even from his island kingdom. Good old Edgar. Edgar the monster.”

“That hurts,” I said.

“Lovely,” she said, and hung up. I sat on the couch awhile longer, watching as the sunset grew brighter and the air in the Florida room grew colder. People who think there is no winter in Florida are very mistaken. An inch of snow fell in Sarasota in 1977. I guess it gets cold everywhere. I bet it even snows in hell, although I doubt if it sticks.

Wireman called the next day shortly after noon and asked if he was still invited to look at my pictures. I felt some misgivings, remembering his promise (or threat) to give me his unvarnished opinion, but told him to come ahead.

I set out what I thought were my sixteen best… although in the clear, cold daylight of that January afternoon they all looked pretty crappy to me. The sketch I’d made of Carson Jones was still on the shelf in my bedroom closet. I took it down, clipped it to a piece of fiberboard, and propped it at the end of the line. The penciled colors looked dowdy and plain compared to the oils, and of course it was smaller than the rest, but I still thought it had something the others lacked.

I considered putting out the picture of the red-robe, then didn’t. I don’t know why. Maybe just because it gave me the creeps. I put out Hello — the pencil sketch of the tanker — instead.

Wireman came buzzing up in a bright blue golf cart with sporty yellow pinstriping. He didn’t have to ring the bell. I was at the door to meet him.

“You’ve got a certain drawn look about you, muchacho, ” he said, coming in. “Relax. I ain’t the doctor and this ain’t the doctor’s office.”

“I can’t help it. If this was a building and you were a building inspector, I wouldn’t feel this way, but—”

“But that was your other life,” Wireman said. “This be your new one, where you haven’t got your walking shoes broke in yet.”

“That’s about the size of it.”

“You’re damn right. Speaking of your prior existence, did you call your wife about that little matter you discussed with me?”

“I did. Do you want the blow-by-blow?”

“Nope. All I want to know is if you’re comfortable with the way the conversation turned out.”

“I haven’t had a comfortable conversation with Pam since I woke up in the hospital. But I’m pretty sure she’ll talk to Tom.”

“Then I guess that’ll do, pig. Babe, 1995.” He was all the way in now, and looking around curiously. “I like what you’ve done to the place.”

I burst out laughing. I hadn’t even removed the no-smoking sign on top of the TV. “I had Jack put in a treadmill upstairs, that’s new. You’ve been here before, I take it?”

He gave me an enigmatic little smile. “We’ve all been here before, amigo — this is bigger than pro football. Peter Straub, circa 1985.”

“I’m not following you.”

“I’ve been working for Miss Eastlake about sixteen months now, with one brief and uncomfortable diversion to St. Pete when the Keys were evacuated for Hurricane Frank. Anyway, the last people to rent Salmon Point — pardon me, Big Pink — stayed just two weeks of their eight-week lease and then went boogie-bye-bye. Either they didn’t like the house or the house didn’t like them.” Wireman raised ghost-hands over his head and took big wavery ghost-steps across the light blue living room carpet. The effect was to a large degree spoiled by his shirt, which was covered with tropical birds and flowers. “After that, whatever walked in Big Pink… walked alone !”

“Shirley Jackson,” I said. “Circa whenever.”

“Yep. Anyway, Wireman was making a point, or trying to. Big Pink THEN !” He swept his arms out in an all-encompassing gesture. “Furnished in that popular Florida style known as Twenty-First Century Rent-A-House! Big Pink NOW ! Furnished in Twenty-First Century Rent-A-House, plus Cybex treadmill upstairs, and…” He squinted. “Is that a Lucille Ball dolly I spy sitting on the couch in the Florida room?”

“That’s Reba, the Anger-Management Queen. She was given to me by my psychologist friend, Kramer.” But that wasn’t right. My missing arm began to itch madly. For the ten thousandth time I tried to scratch it and got my still-mending ribs instead. “Wait,” I said, and looked at Reba, who was staring out at the Gulf. I can do this, I thought. It’s like where you put money when you want to hide it from the government.

Wireman was waiting patiently.

My arm itched. The one not there. The one that sometimes wanted to draw. It wanted to draw then. I thought it wanted to draw Wireman. Wireman and the bowl of fruit. Wireman and the gun.

Stop the weird shit, I thought.

I can do this, I thought.

You hide money from the government in offshore banks, I thought. Nassau. The Bahamas. The Grand Caymans. And Bingo, there it was.

“Kamen,” I said. “That’s his name. Kamen gave me Reba. Xander Kamen.”

“Well now that we’ve got that solved,” Wireman said, “let’s look at the art.”

“If that’s what it is,” I said, and led the way upstairs, limping on my crutch. Halfway up, something struck me and I stopped. “Wireman,” I said, without looking back, “how did you know my treadmill was a Cybex?”

For a moment he said nothing. Then: “It’s the only brand I know. Now can you resume the upward ascent on your own, or do you need a kick in the ass to get going?”

Sounds good, rings false, I thought as I started up the stairs again. I think you’re lying, and you know what? I think you know I know.

My work was leaning against the north wall of Little Pink, with the afternoon sun giving the paintings plenty of natural light. Looking at them from behind Wireman as he walked slowly down the line, sometimes pausing and once even backtracking to study a couple of canvases a second time, I thought it was far more light than they deserved. Ilse and Jack had praised them, but one was my daughter and the other my hired man.

When he reached the colored pencil drawing of the tanker at the very end of the line, Wireman squatted and stared at it for maybe thirty seconds with his forearms resting on his thighs and his hands hanging limply between his legs.

“What—” I began.

“Shhh,” he said, and I endured another thirty seconds of silence. At last he stood up. His knees popped. When he turned to face me, his eyes looked very large, and the left one was inflamed. Water — not a tear — was running from the inner corner. He pulled a handkerchief from the back pocket of his jeans and wiped it away, the automatic gesture of a man who does the same thing a dozen or more times a day.

“Holy God,” he said, and walked toward the window, stuffing the handkerchief back into his pocket.

“Holy God what?” I asked. “Holy God what ?”

He stood looking out. “You don’t know how good these are, do you? I mean you really don’t.”