Four Past Midnight - Stephen King [259]
His voice rose to a trembling but powerful old man's shout. 'This shit has gone on long enough!'
Naomi laid a hand on Dave's arm. Her face was frightened and full of trouble. 'What, Dave? What is it?'
'I want to be sure,' Dave said. 'You tell me first, Mr Peebles. Tell me everything that's been happening to you, and don't leave out nothing.'
'I will,' Sam said, 'on one condition.'
Dave smiled faintly. 'What condition is that?'
'You have to promise to call me Sam ... and in return, I'll never call you Dirty Dave again.'
His smile broadened. 'You got you a deal there, Sam.'
'Good.' He took a deep breath. 'Everything was the fault of that goddam acrobat,' he began.
7
It took longer than he had thought it would, but there was an inexpressible relief -a joy, almost - in telling it all, holding nothing back. He told Dave about The Amazing Joe, Craig's call for help, and Naomi's suggestion about livening up his material. He told them about how the Library had looked, and about his meeting with Ardelia Lortz. Naomi's eyes grew wider and wider as he spoke. When he got to the part about the Red Riding Hood poster on the door to the Children's Library, Dave nodded.
'That's the only one I didn't draw,' he said. 'She had that one with her. I bet they never found it, either. I bet she still has that one with her. She liked mine, but that one was her favorite.'
'What do you mean?' Sam asked.
Dave only shook his head and told Sam to go on.
He told them about the library card, the books he had borrowed, and the strange little argument they had had on Sam's way out.
'That's it,' Dave said flatly. 'That's all it took. You might not believe it, but I know her. You made her mad. Goddam if you didn't. You made her mad ... and now she's set her cap for you.'
Sam finished his story as quickly as he could, but his voice slowed and nearly halted when he came to the visit from the Library Policeman in his fog-gray trenchcoat. When Sam finished, he was nearly weeping and his hands had begun to shake again.
'Could I have a glass of water?' he asked Naomi thickly.
'Of course,' she said, and got up to get it. She took two steps, then returned and kissed Sam on the cheek. Her lips were cool and soft. And before she left to get his water, she spoke three blessed words into his ear: 'I believe you.'
8
Sam raised the glass to his lips, using both hands to be sure he wouldn't spill it, and drank half of it at a draught. When he put it down he said, 'What about you, Dave? Do you believe me?'
'Yeah,' Dave said. He spoke almost absently, as if this were a foregone conclusion. Sam supposed that, to Dave, it was. After all, he had known the mysterious Ardelia Lortz firsthand, and his ravaged, too-old face suggested that theirs had not been a loving relationship.
Dave said nothing else for several moments, but a little of his color had come back. He looked out across the railroad tracks toward the fallow fields. They would be green with sprouting corn in another six or seven weeks, but now they looked barren. His eyes watched a cloud shadow flow across that Midwestern emptiness in the shape of a giant hawk.
At last he seemed to rouse himself and turned to Sam.
'My Library Policeman - the one I drew for her - didn't have no scar,' he said at last.
Sam thought of the stranger's long, white face. The scar had been there, all right - across the cheek, under the eye, over the bridge of the nose in a thin flowing line.
'So?' he asked. 'What does that mean?'
'It don't mean nothing to me, but I think it must mean somethin to you, Mr - Sam. I know about the badge ... what you called the star of many points. I found that in a book of heraldry right there in the Junction City Library. It's called a Maltese Cross. Christian knights wore them in the middle of their chests when they went into battle durin the Crusades. They were supposed to be magical. I was so taken with the shape that I put it into the picture. But ... a scar? No. Not on my Library Policeman. Who was your Library Policeman, Sam?'