Stephen King - Duma Key

“Not a problem.”

“You’re a prince. I’d kiss you, but for those sore-raddled lips of yours.”

“Fuck you very much, Wireman.”

“Yeah, everyone loves me, it’s my curse.”

“Pam called me. She talked to my friend Tom Riley.” Considering what the two of them had been up to it felt strange to be calling Tom a friend, but what the hell. “I think she took the air out of his suicide plan.”

“That’s good. So why do I hear lead in your voice?”

“She wanted to know how I knew.”

“Not how you knew she was bumping uglies with this guy, but—”

“How I diagnosed his suicidal depression from fifteen hundred miles away.”

“Ah! And what did you say?”

“Not having a good lawyer present, I was reduced to the truth.”

“And she thought you were un poco loco .”

“No, Wireman, she thought I was muy loco .”

“Does it matter?”

“No. But she’s going to brood about this — believe me when I say Pam’s U.S. Olympic Brooding Team material — and I’m afraid my good deed could explode in my younger daughter’s face.”

“Assuming your wife’s looking for someone to blame.”

“It’s a safe assumption. I know her.”

“That would be bad.”

“It’d rock Ilse’s world more than it deserves to be rocked. Tom’s been like an uncle to her and Melinda their whole lives.”

“Then you’ll have to convince your wife that you really saw what you saw, and your daughter had nothing to do with it.”

“How do I do that ?”

“How about you tell her something about herself you have no way of knowing?”

“Wireman, you’re crazy! I can’t just make something like that happen!”

“How do you know? I have to get off the phone, amigo — by the sound, Miss Eastlake’s lunch just went on the floor. I’ll see you later?”

“Yeah,” I said. I was about to add goodbye, but he was already gone. I hung up, wondering where I had put Pam’s gardening gloves, the ones that said HANDS OFF. Maybe if I had those, Wireman’s idea might not turn out to be so crazy after all.

I looked for them all over the house and came up empty. Maybe I threw them away after making the Friends with Benefits drawing, but I couldn’t remember doing it. I can’t remember now. All I know is that I never saw them again.

The room which Wireman and Elizabeth called the China Parlor was filled with a sad, subtropical winterlight that afternoon. The rain was heavier now, drumming against the walls and windows in waves, and a wind had gotten up, clattering through the palms surrounding El Palacio and sending shadows flying across the walls. For the first time since I’d been coming there, I could see no sense to the china figures on the long table; there were no tableaux, only a clutter of people, animals, and buildings. A unicorn and one of the blackface guys lay side by side next to the overturned schoolhouse. If there was a story on the table today, it was a disaster movie. Near the Tara-style mansion stood a Sweet Owen cookie-tin. Wireman had explained the routine I should follow if Elizabeth called for it.

The lady herself was in her wheelchair, slumped a bit sideways, vacantly overseeing the disheveltry on her play-table, which was usually so neatly kept. She was wearing a blue dress that almost matched the enormous blue Chuck Taylors on her feet. Her slump had stretched the boat neck of the dress into a lopsided gawp that revealed an ivory-colored slip-strap. I found myself wondering who had dressed her that morning, she or Wireman.

She spoke rationally at first, calling me by my correct name and enquiring after my health. She said goodbye to Wireman when he left for the Baumgartens’ and asked him to please wear a hat and take an umbrella. All that was good. But when I brought her her snack from the kitchen fifteen minutes later, there had been a change. She was looking into the corner and I heard her murmur, “Go back, go back, Tessie, you don’t belong here. And make the big boy go away.”

Tessie. I knew that name. I used my thinking-sideways technique, looking for associations, and found one: a newspaper headline reading THEY ARE GONE. Tessie had been one of Elizabeth’s twin sisters. Wireman had told me that. I heard him saying The presumption is they drowned, and a chill like a knife slipped into my side.

“Bring me that,” she said, pointing to the cookie-tin, and I did. From her pocket she drew a figurine wrapped in a hankie. She took the lid off the tin, gave me a look that combined slyness and confusion in a way that was hard to look at, then popped the figure inside. It made a soft hollow bonk . She fumbled the lid back on, pushing my hand away when I tried to help. Then she handed it to me.

“Do you know what to do with this?” she asked. “Did… did…” I could see her struggling. The word was there, but dancing just out of reach. Mocking her. I could give it to her, but I remembered how furious it made me when people did that, and waited. “Did him tell you what to do with it?”

“Yes.”

“Then what are you waiting for? Take the bitch.”

I carried the tin up one side of the tennis court to the little pond. The fish were jumping at the surface, a lot more excited by the rain than I was. There was a little pile of stones beside the bench, just as Wireman had said there would be. I tossed one in (“You might not think she could hear that, but her ears are very sharp,” Wireman had told me), being careful to avoid beaning one of the carp. Then I took the tin, with the figurine still inside, back into the house. But not into the China Parlor. I went into the kitchen, removed the lid, and pulled out the wrapped figure. This hadn’t been in Wireman’s set of contingency instructions, but I was curious.

It was a china woman, but the face had been chipped away. There was only a ragged blank where it had been.

“ Who’s there? ” Elizabeth shrieked, making me jump. I almost dropped the creepy little thing on the floor, where it surely would have shattered on the tiles.

“Just me, Elizabeth,” I called back, laying the figure on the counter.

“Edmund? Or Edgar, or whatever your name is?”

“Right.” I went back into the parlor.

“Did you take care of that business of mine?”

“Yes, ma’am, I sure did.”

“Have I had my snack yet?”

“Yes.”

“All right.” She sighed.

“Do you want something else? I’m sure I could—”

“No thanks, hon. I’m sure the train will be here soon, and you know I don’t like to travel on a full stomach. I always end up in one of the backwards seats and with food in my stomach I should certainly be train-sick. Have you seen my tin, my Sweet Owen tin?”

“I think it was in the kitchen. Should I bring it?”

“Not on such a wet day,” she said. “I thought I’d have you throw her in the pond, the pond would do, but I’ve changed my mind. It seems unnecessary on such a wet day. The quality of mercy is not strained, you know. It droppeth like the gentle rain.”

“From heaven,” I said.

“Yeah, yeah.” She flapped her hand as if that part were of no matter.

“Why don’t you arrange your chinas, Elizabeth? They’re all mixed up today.”

She cast a glance at the table, then looked at the window when an especially strong gust of wind slapped it with rain. “Fuck,” she said. “I’m so fucking confused.” And then, with a spite I would not have guessed she had in her: “They all died and left me to this .”

I was the last one to be repulsed by her lapse into vulgarity; I understood it too well. Maybe the quality of mercy isn’t strained, there are millions of us who live and die by the idea, but… we have things like this waiting. Yes.