“The father of this boy, Dorsey… he didn’t kill any of the others?”
“Naw, he was alibi’d up. I guess he was the kid’s stepfather, now that I think about it. Dicky Macklin. Johnny Keeson at the desk — he probably checked you in — told me he used to come in here and drink sometimes, until he got banned for trying to pick up a stewardess and getting nasty when she told him to go peddle his papers. After that I guess he did his drinking at the Spoke or the Bucket. They’ll have anybody in those places.”
He leaned over close enough for me to smell the Aqua Velva on his cheeks.
“You want to know the worst?”
I didn’t, but thought I ought to. So I nodded.
“There was also an
“That’s not up to me,” I said. I was flying on autopilot by then. Hadn’t I heard or read about a series of child-murders in this part of Maine? Or maybe watched it on TV, with only a quarter of my brain turned on while the rest of it was waiting for the sound of my problematic wife walking — or staggering — up to the house after another “girls’ night out”? I thought so, but the only thing I remembered for sure about Derry was that there was going to be a flood in the mid-eighties that would destroy half the town.
“It’s not?”
“No, I’m just the middleman.”
“Well, good luck to you. This town isn’t as bad as it was — last July, folks were strung as tight as Doris Day’s chastity belt — but it’s still a long way from right. I’m a friendly guy, and I like friendly people. I’m splitting.”
“Good luck to you, too,” I said, and dropped two dollars on the bar.
“Gee, sir, that’s way too much!”
“I always pay a surcharge for good conversation.” Actually, the surcharge was for a friendly face. The conversation had been disquieting.
“Well, thanks!” He beamed, then stuck out his hand. “I never introduced myself. Fred Toomey.”
“Nice to meet you, Fred. I’m George Amberson.” He had a good grip. No talcum powder.
“Want a piece of advice?”
“Sure.”
“While you’re in town, be careful about talking to kids. After last summer, a strange man talking to kids is apt to get a visit from the police if people see him doing it. Or he could take a beating. That sure wouldn’t be out of the question.”
“Even without the clown suit, huh?”
“Well, that’s the thing about dressing up in an outfit, isn’t it?” His smile was gone. Now he looked pale and grim. Like everyone else in Derry, in other words. “When you put on a clown suit and a rubber nose, nobody has any idea what you look like inside.”
I thought about that while the old-fashioned elevator creaked its way up to the third floor. It was true. And if the rest of what Fred Toomey had said was also true, would anybody be surprised if another father went to work on his family with a hammer? I thought not. I thought people would say it was just another case of Derry being Derry. And they might be right.
As I let myself into my room, I had an authentically horrible idea: suppose I changed things just enough in the next seven weeks so that Harry’s father killed Harry, too, instead of just leaving him with a limp and a partially fogged-over brain?
Except, of course, she had lost.
I ate breakfast the following morning in the hotel’s Riverview Restaurant, which was deserted except for me and the hardware salesman from last night. He was buried in the local newspaper. When he left it on the table, I snagged it. I wasn’t interested in the front page, which was devoted to more saber-rattling in the Philippines (although I did wonder briefly if Lee Oswald was in the vicinity). What I wanted was the local section. In 2011, I’d been a reader of the Lewiston
The last page of the
