Stephen King - It

Freddie turned off the studio intercom, got up, poured his own cup of coffee. He sat down again and offered her his pack of Silk Cut cigarettes.

Audra shook her head.

Freddie took one, lit it, and squinted at her through the smoke. “This is serious, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” Audra said, keeping her composure as best she could.

“What’s happened?”

And because she genuinely liked Freddie and genuinely trusted him, Audra told him everything she knew. Freddie listened intently, gravely. It didn’t take long to tell; doors were still slamming and engines starting in the parking lot outside when she finished.

Freddie was silent for some time, looking out his window. Then he swung back to her. “He’s had a nervous breakdown of some sort.”

Audra shook her head. “No. It wasn’t like that. He wasn’t like that.” She swallowed and added, “Maybe you had to be there.”

Freddie smiled crookedly. “You must realize that grown men rarely feel compelled to honor promises they made as little boys. And you’ve read Bill’s work; you know how much of it is about childhood, and it’s very good stuff indeed. Very much on the nail. The idea that he’s forgotten everything that ever happened to him back then is absurd.”

“The scars on his hands,” Audra said. “They were never there. Not until this morning.”

“Bollocks! You just didn’t notice them until this morning.”

She shrugged helplessly. “I’d’ve noticed.”

She could see he didn’t believe that, either.

“What’s to do, then?” Freddie asked her, and she could only shake her head. Freddie lit another cigarette from the smoldering end of the first. “I can square it with the union boss,” he said. “Not myself, maybe; right now he’d see me in hell before giving me another stunt. I’ll send Teddy Rowland round to his office. Teddy’s a pouf, but he could talk the birds down from the trees But what happens after? We’ve got four weeks of shooting left, and here’s your

husband somewhere in Massachusetts-”

“Maine-”

He waved a hand. “Wherever. And how much good are you going to be without him?”

“I-”

He leaned forward. “I like you, Audra. I genuinely do. And I like Bill-even in spite of this mess. We can make do, I guess. If the script needs cobbling up, I can cobble it. I’ve done my share of that sort of shoemaking in my time, Christ knows… If he doesn’t like the way it turns out, he’ll have no one but himself to blame. I can do without Bill, but I can’t do without you. I can’t have you running off to the States after your man, and I’ve got to have you putting out at full power. Can you do that?”

“I don’t know.”

“Nor do I. But I want you to think about something. We can keep things quiet for awhile, maybe for the rest of the shoot, if you’ll stand up like a trouper and do your job. But if you take off, it can’t be kept quiet. I can be pissy, but I’m not vindictive by nature and I’m not going to tell you that if you take off I’ll see that you never work in the business again. But you should know that if you get a reputation for temperament, you might end up stuck with just that. I’m talking to you like a Dutch uncle, I know. Do you resent it?”

“No,” she said listlessly. In truth, she didn’t care much one way or the other. Bill was all she could think of. Freddie was a nice enough man, but Freddie didn’t understand; in the last analysis, nice man or not, all he could think of was what this was going to do to his picture. He had not seen the look in Bill’s eyes… or heard him stutter.

“Good.” He stood up. “Come on over to the Hare and Hounds with me. We can both use a drink.”

She shook her head. “A drink’s the last thing I need. I’m going home and think this out.”

“I’ll call for the car,” he said.

“No. I’ll take the train.”

He looked at her fixedly, one hand on the telephone. “I believe you mean to go after him,” Freddie said, “and I’m telling you that it’s a serious mistake, dear girl. He’s got a bee in his bonnet, but at bottom he’s steady enough. He’ll shake it, and when he does he’ll come back. If he’d wanted you along, he would have said so.”

“I haven’t decided anything,” she said, knowing that she had in fact decided everything; had decided even before the car picked her up that morning. “Have a care, love,” Freddie said. “don’t do something you’ll regret later.” She felt the force of his personality beating on her, demanding that she give in, make the promise, do her job, wait passively for Bill to come back… or to disappear again into that hole of the past from which he had come.

She went to him and kissed him lightly on the cheek. “I’ll see you, Freddie.” She went home and called British Airways. She told the clerk she might be interested in reaching a small Maine city called Derry if it was at all possible. There had been silence while the woman consulted her computer terminal… and then the news, like a sign from heaven, that BA #23 made a stop in Bangor, which was less than fifty miles away.

“Shall I book the flight for you, ma’am?”

Audra closed her eyes and saw Freddie’s craggy, mostly kind, very earnest face, heard him saying: Have a care, love. Don’t do something you’ll regret later.

Freddie didn’t want her to go; Bill didn’t want her to go; so why was her heart screaming at her that she had to go? She closed her eyes Jesus, I feel so fucked up -

’Ma’am? Are you still holding the wire?”

“Book it,” Audra said, then hesitated. Have a care love… Maybe she should sleep on it; get some distance between herself and the craziness. She began to rummage in her purse for her American Express card. “For tomorrow First class if you have it, but I’ll take anything.” And if I change my mind I can cancel. Probably will. I’ll wake up sane and everything will be clear.

But nothing had been clear this morning, and her heart clamored just as loudly for her to go. Her sleep had been a crazy tapestry of nightmares. So she had called Freddie, not because she wanted to but because she felt she owed him that. She had not gotten far-she was trying, in some stumbling way, to tell him how much she felt Bill might need her-when there was a soft click at Freddie’s end. He had hung up without saying a word after his initial hello.

But in a way, Audra thought, that soft click said everything that needed to be said.

The plane landed at Bangor at 7:09, EDT. Audra was the only passenger to deplane, and the others looked at her with a kind of thoughtful curiosity, probably wondering why anyone would choose to get off here, in this godforsaken little place. Audra thought of telling them I’m looking for my husband, that’s why. He came back to a little town near here because one of his boyhood chums called him and reminded him of a promise he couldn’t quite remember. The call also reminded him that he hadn’t thought of his dead brother in over twenty years. Oh yes: it also brought back his stutter… and some funny white scars on the palms of his hands.

And then, she thought, the customs agent standing by in the jetway would whistle up the men in the white coats.

She collected her single piece of luggage-it looked very lonely riding the carousel all by itself-and approached the rental-car booths as Tom Rogan Would about an hour later. Her luck was better than his would be; National Car Rental had a Datsun.

The girl filled out the form and Audra signed it.

“I thought it was you,” the girl said, and then, timidly: “Might I please have your autograph?”

Audra gave it, writing her name on the back of a rental form, and thought: Enjoy it while you can, girl. If Freddie Firestone is right, it won’t be worth doodley-squat five years from now.