11/22/63 Кинг Стивен

“I don’t know. All I remember is crossing the state line on Highway 20 and seeing a sign for barbecue. And that was miles from Dallas.”

“I know, but we don’t have to go that far, because if you were on 20, you stayed on 20.” She glanced at her watch. “It’s too late today, but tomorrow we’re going for a Sunday drive.”

“It probably won’t work.” But I felt a flicker of hope, just the same.

She stayed the night, and the next morning we left Dallas on what residents called the Honeybee Highway, headed east toward Louisiana. Sadie was at the wheel of my Chevy, which was fine once the jimmied ignition switch had been replaced. Deke had taken care of that. She drove as far as Terrell, then pulled off 20 and turned around in the potholed dirt parking lot of a side-o’-the-road church. Blood of the Redeemer, according to the message board on the fading lawn. Below the name, there was message in white stick-on letters. It was supposed to say HAVE YOU READ THE WORD OF ALMIGHTY GOD TODAY, but some of the letters had fallen off, leaving AVE YOU REA THE WORD OF AL IGHTY GOD TOD Y.

She looked at me with some trepidation. “Can you drive back, honey?”

I was pretty sure I could. It was a straight shot, and the Chevy was an automatic. I wouldn’t need to use my stiff left leg at all. The only thing was…

“Sadie?” I asked her as I settled behind the wheel for the first time since August and ran the seat as far back as it would go.

“Yes?”

“If I fall asleep, grab the wheel and turn off the key.”

She smiled nervously. “Oh, believe me.”

I checked for traffic and pulled out. At first I didn’t dare go much above forty-five, but it was a Sunday noon, and we had the road pretty much to ourselves. I began to relax.

“Clear your mind, Jake. Don’t try to remember anything, just let it happen.”

“I wish I had my Sunliner,” I said.

“Make believe it is your Sunliner, then, and just let it go where it wants to go.”

“Okay, but…”

“No buts. It’s a beautiful day. You’re coming into a new place, and you don’t have to worry about Kennedy being assassinated, because that’s a long time from now. Years.”

Yes, it was a nice day. And no, I didn’t fall asleep, although I was plenty tired—I hadn’t been out for this long since the beating. My mind kept returning to the little side-o’-the-road church. Very likely a black church. They probably swung the hymns in a way the white folks never would, and read THE WORD OF AL IGHTY GOD with lots of hallelujah and praise Jesus.

We were coming into Dallas now. I made lefts and rights—probably more rights, because my left arm was still weak and turning that way hurt, even with the power steering. Soon I was lost in the side streets.

I’m lost, all right, I thought. I need someone to give me directions the way that kid did in New Orleans. To the Hotel Moonstone.

Only it hadn’t been the Moonstone; it had been the Monteleone. And the hotel where I’d stayed when I came to Dallas was… it was…

For a moment I thought it was going to waft away, as even Sadie’s name sometimes still did. But then I saw the doorman, and all those glittering windows looking down on Commerce Street, and it clicked home.

I had stayed at the Adolphus Hotel. Yes. Because it was close to…

It wouldn’t come. That part was still blocked off.

“Honey? All right?”

“Yes,” I said. “Why?”

“You kind of jumped.”

“It’s my leg. Cramping up a little.”

“None of this looks familiar?”

“No,” I said. “None of it.”

She sighed. “Another idea bites the dust. I guess we better go back. Want me to drive?”

“Maybe you better.” I limped around to the passenger seat, thinking Adolphus Hotel. Write that down when you get back to Eden Fallows. So you won’t forget.

When we were back in the little three-room efficiency with the ramps, the hospital bed, and the grab-handles on either side of the toilet, Sadie told me I ought to lie down for a little while. “And take one of your pills.”

I went into the bedroom, took off my shoes—a slow process—and lay down. I didn’t take a pill, though. I wanted to keep my mind clear. I had to keep it clear from now on. Kennedy and Dallas were just five days apart.

You stayed in the Adolphus Hotel because it was close to something. What?

Well, it was close to the motorcade route that had been published in the paper, which narrowed things down to… gee, no more than two thousand buildings. Not to mention all the statues, monuments, and walls a putative sniper could hide behind. How many alleys along the route? Dozens. How many overpasses with clear fire lines down to passby-points on West Mockingbird Lane, Lemmon Avenue, Turtle Creek Boulevard? The motorcade was going to travel all of those. How many more on Main Street and Houston Street?

You need to remember either who he is or where he’s going to shoot from.

If I got one of those things, I’d get the other. I knew this. But what my mind kept returning to was that church on Route 20 where we’d turned around. Blood of the Redeemer on the Honeybee Highway. Many people saw Kennedy as a redeemer. Certainly Al Templeton had. He—

My eyes widened and I stopped breathing.

In the other room the telephone rang and I heard Sadie answer, keeping her voice pitched low because she thought I was asleep.

THE WORD OF AL IGHTY GOD.

I remembered the day I had seen Sadie’s full name with part of it blocked out, so all I could read was “Doris Dun.” This was a harmonic of that magnitude. I closed my eyes and visualized the church signboard. Then I visualized putting my hand over IGHTY GOD.

What I was left with was THE WORD OF AL.

Al’s notes. I had his notebook!

But where? Where was it?

The bedroom door opened. Sadie looked in. “Jake? Are you asleep?”

“No,” I said. “Just lying quiet.”

“Did you remember anything?”

“No,” I said. “Sorry.”

“There’s still time.”

“Yes. New things are coming back to me every day.”

“Honey, that was Deke. There’s a bug going around school and he’s caught a good case of it. He asked if I could come in tomorrow and Tuesday. Maybe Wednesday, too.”

“Go in,” I said. “If you don’t, he’ll try to do it himself. And he’s not a young guy anymore.” In my mind, four words flashed on and off like bar neon: THE WORD OF AL, THE WORD OF AL, THE WORD OF AL.

She sat down next to me on the bed. “Are you sure?”

“I’ll be fine. Plenty of company, too. DAVIN comes in tomorrow, remember.” DAVIN was Dallas Area Visiting Nurses. Their main job in my case was to make sure I wasn’t raving, which might indicate that my brain was bleeding after all.

“Right. Nine o’clock. It’s on the calendar, in case you forget. And Dr. Ellerton—”

“Coming for lunch. I remember.”

“Good, Jake. That’s good.”

“He said he’d bring sandwiches. And milkshakes. Wants to fatten me up.”

“You need fattening up.”

“Plus therapy on Wednesday. Leg-torture in the morning, arm-torture in the afternoon.”

“I don’t like leaving you so close to… you know.”

“If something occurs to me, I’ll call you, Sadie.”

She took my hand and bent close enough so I could smell her perfume and the faint aroma of tobacco on her breath. “Do you promise?”

“Yes. Of course.”

“I’ll be back on Wednesday night at the latest. If Deke can’t come in on Thursday, the library will just have to stay closed.”

“I’ll be fine.”

She kissed me lightly, started out of the room, then turned back. “I almost hope Deke’s right and this whole thing is a delusion. I can’t bear the idea that we know and still might not be able to stop it. That we might just be sitting in the living room and watching on television when somebody—”

“I’ll remember,” I said.

“Will you, Jake?”

“I have to.”

She nodded, but even with the shades drawn, I could read the doubt on her face. “We can still have supper before I go. You close your eyes and let that pill do its work. Get some sleep.”

I closed my eyes, sure I wouldn’t sleep. And that was okay, because I needed to think about the Word of Al. After a little while I could smell something cooking. It smelled good. When I’d first come out of the hospital, still puking or shitting every ten minutes, all smells had revolted me. Now things were better.

I began to drift. I could see Al sitting across from me in one of the diner booths, his paper cap tilted over his left eyebrow. Photos of smalltown bigwigs looked down at us, but Harry Dunning was no longer on the wall. I had saved him. Perhaps the second time I’d saved him from Vietnam, as well. There was no way to be sure.

Still holding you back, isn’t he, buddy? Al asked.

Yes. He still is.

But you’re close now.

Not close enough. I have no idea where I put that goddam notebook of yours.

You put it someplace safe. Does that narrow it down any?

I started to say no, then thought: The Word of Al is safe. Safe. Because—

I opened my eyes, and for the first time in what felt like weeks, a big smile creased my face.

It was in a safe deposit box.

The door opened. “Are you hungry? I kept it warm.”

“Huh?”

“Jake, you’ve been asleep for over two hours.”

I sat up and swung my legs onto the floor. “Then let’s eat.”

CHAPTER 27

1

11/17/63 (Sunday)

Sadie wanted to do the dishes after the meal she called supper and I called dinner, but I told her to go on and pack her overnight case instead. It was small and blue, with rounded corners.

“Your knee—”

“My knee can stand up to a few dishes. You need to hit the road now if you want a full night’s sleep.”

Ten minutes later the dishes were done, my fingertips were pruney, and Sadie stood at the door. With her little bag in her hands and her hair curling around her face, she had never looked prettier to me.

“Jake? Tell me one good thing about the future.”

Surprisingly few things came. Cell phones? No. Suicide bombers? Probably not. Melting ice caps? Perhaps another time.

Then I grinned. “I’ll give you two for the price of one. The cold war is over and the president is a black man.”

She started to smile, then saw I wasn’t joking. Her mouth dropped open. “Are you telling me there’s a Negro in the White House?”

“Yes indeed. Although in my day, such folks prefer to be called African-Americans.”

“You’re serious?”

“Yes. I am.”

“Oh my God!”

“A great many people said that exact thing the day after the election.”

“Is he… doing a good job?”

“Opinions vary. If you want mine, he’s doing as well as anyone could expect, given the complexities.”

“On that note, I think I’ll drive back to Jodie.” She laughed distractedly. “In a daze.”

She walked down the ramp, put her case in the cubby that served as her Beetle’s trunk, then blew me a kiss. She started to get in, but I couldn’t let her go like that. I couldn’t run—Dr. Perry said that was still eight months away, maybe even a year—but I limped down the ramp as fast as I could.

“Wait, Sadie, wait a minute!”

Mr. Kenopensky was sitting next door in his wheelchair, bundled up in a jacket and holding his battery-powered Motorola in his lap. On the sidewalk, Norma Whitten was making her slow way down toward the mailbox on the corner, using a pair of wooden sticks more like ski poles than crutches. She turned and waved to us, trying to lift the frozen side of her face into a smile.

Sadie looked at me questioningly in the twilight.

“I just wanted to tell you something,” I said. “I wanted to tell you you’re the best damned thing that ever happened to me.”

She laughed and hugged me. “Ditto, kind sir.”

We kissed a long time, and might have kissed longer but for the dry clapping sound on our right. Mr. Kenopensky was applauding.

Sadie pulled away, but took me by the wrists. “You’ll call me, won’t you? Keep me… what’s that thing you say? In the loop?”

“That’s it, and I will.” I had no intention of keeping her in the loop. Deke or the police, either.

“Because you can’t do this on your own, Jake. You’re too weak.”

“I know that,” I said. Thinking: I better not be. “Call me so I know you got back safe.”

When her Bug turned the corner and disappeared, Mr. Kenopensky said, “Better mind your p’s and q’s, Amberson. That one’s a keeper.”

“I know.” I stayed at the foot of the driveway long enough to make sure Miz Whitten got back from the mailbox without falling down.

She made it.

I went back inside.

2

The first thing I did was to get my key ring off the top of the dresser and pick through the keys, surprised that Sadie had never shown them to me to see if they’d jog my memory… but of course she couldn’t think of everything. There were an even dozen. I had no idea what most of them went to, although I was pretty sure the Schlage opened the front door of my house in… was it Sabattus? I thought that was right, but I wasn’t sure.

There was one small key on the ring. Stamped on it was FC and 775. It was a safe deposit box key, all right, but what was the bank? First Commercial? That sounded bankish, but it wasn’t right.

I closed my eyes and looked into darkness. I waited, almost sure what I wanted would come… and it did. I saw a checkbook in a faux alligator cover. I saw myself flipping it open. This was surprisingly easy. Printed on the top check was not only my Land of Ago name but my last official Land of Ago address.

214 W. Neely St. Apartment 1

Dallas, TX

I thought: That’s where my car got stolen from.

And I thought: Oswald. The assassin’s name is Oswald Rabbit.

No, of course not. He was a man, not a cartoon character. But it was close.

“I’m coming for you, Mr. Rabbit,” I said. “Still coming.”

3

The phone rang shortly before nine-thirty. Sadie was home safe. “Don’t suppose anything came to you, did it? I’m a pest, I know.”

“Nothing. And you’re the farthest thing in the world from a pest.” She was also going to be the farthest thing in the world from Oswald Rabbit, if I had anything to do about it. Not to mention his wife, whose name might or might not be Mary, and his little girl, who I felt sure was named April.

“You were pulling my leg about a Negro being in the White House, weren’t you?”

I smiled. “Wait awhile. You can see for yourself.”

4

11/18/63 (Monday)

The DAVIN nurses, one old and formidable, the other young and pretty, arrived at 9:00 A.M. sharp. They did their thing. When the older one felt that I had grimaced, twitched, and moaned enough, she handed me a paper envelope with two pills in it. “Pain.”

“I don’t really think—”

“Take em,” she said—a woman of few words. “Freebies.”

I popped them in my mouth, cheeked them, swallowed water, then excused myself to use the bathroom. There I spat them out.

When I returned to the kitchen, the older nurse said: “Good progress. Don’t overdo.”

“Absolutely not.”

“Catch them?”

“Beg pardon?”

“The assholes who beat you up.”

“Uh… not yet.”

“Doing something you shouldn’t have been doing?”

I gave her my widest smile, the one Christy used to say made me look like a game-show host on crack. “I don’t remember.”

5

Dr. Ellerton came for lunch, bringing huge roast beef sandwiches, crispy french fries dripping in grease, and the promised milkshakes. I ate as much as I could manage, which was really quite a lot. My appetite was returning.

“Mike talked up the idea of doing yet another variety show,” he said. “This time to benefit you. In the end, wiser heads prevailed. A small town can only give so much.” He lit a cigarette, dropped the match into the ashtray on the table, and inhaled with gusto. “Any chance the police will catch the mugs who tuned up on you? What do you hear?”

“Nothing, but I doubt it. They cleaned out my wallet, stole my car, and split.”

“What were you doing on that side of Dallas, anyway? It’s not exactly the high-society part of town.”

Well, apparently I lived there.

“I don’t remember. Visiting someone, maybe.”

“Are you getting plenty of rest? Not straining the knee too much?”

“No.” Although I suspected I’d be straining it plenty before much longer.

“Still falling asleep suddenly?”

“That’s quite a bit better.”

“Terrific. I guess—”

The phone rang. “That’ll be Sadie,” I said. “She calls on her lunch break.”

“I have to be shoving off, anyway. It’s great to see you putting on weight, George. Say hello to the pretty lady for me.”

I did so. She asked me if any pertinent memories were coming back. I knew by her delicate phrasing that she was calling from the school’s main office—and would have to pay Mrs. Coleridge for the long-distance when she was done. Besides keeping the DCHS exchequer, Mrs. Coleridge had long ears.

I told her no, no new memories, but I was going to take a nap and hope something would be there when I woke up. I added that I loved her (it was nice to say something that was the God’s honest), asked after Deke, wished her a good afternoon, and hung up. But I didn’t take a nap. I took my car keys and my briefcase and drove downtown. I hoped to God I’d have something in that briefcase when I came back.

6

I motored slowly and carefully, but my knee was still aching badly when I entered the First Corn Bank and presented my safe deposit box key.

My banker came out of his office to meet me, and his name clicked home immediately: Richard Link. His eyes widened with concern when I limped to meet him. “What happened to you, Mr. Amberson?”

“Car accident.” Hoping he’d missed or forgotten the squib in the Morning News’s Police Beat page. I hadn’t seen it myself, but there had been one: Mr. George Amberson of Jodie, beaten and mugged, found unconscious, taken to Parkland Hospital. “I’m mending nicely.”

“That’s good to hear.”

The safe deposit boxes were in the basement. I negotiated the stairs in a series of hops. We used our keys, and Link carried the box into one of the cubicles for me. He set it on a tiny wedge of desk just big enough to hold it, then pointed to the button on the wall.

“Just ring for Melvin when you’ve finished. He’ll assist you.”

I thanked him, and when he was gone, I pulled the curtain across the cubicle’s doorway. We had unlocked the box, but it was still closed. I stared at it, my heart beating hard. John Kennedy’s future was inside.

I opened it. On top was a bundle of cash and a litter of stuff from the Neely Street apartment, including my First Corn checkbook. Beneath this was a sheaf of manuscript bound by two rubber bands. THE MURDER PLACE was typed on the top sheet. No author’s name, but it was my work. Below it was a blue notebook: the Word of Al. I held it in my hands, filled with a terrible certainty that when I opened it, all the pages would be blank. The Yellow Card Man would have erased them.

Please, no.

I flipped it open. On the first page, a photograph looked back at me. Narrow, not-quite-handsome face. Lips curved in a smile I knew well—hadn’t I seen it with my own eyes? It was the kind of smile that says I know what’s going on and you don’t, you poor boob.

Lee Harvey Oswald. The wretched waif who was going to change the world.

7

Memories came rushing in as I sat there in the cubicle, gasping for breath.

Ivy and Rosette on Mercedes Street. Last name Templeton, like Al’s.

The jump-rope girls: My old man drives a sub-ma-rine.

Silent Mike (Holy Mike) at Satellite Electronics.

George de Mohrenschildt ripping open his shirt like Superman.

Billy James Hargis and General Edwin A. Walker.

Marina Oswald, the assassin’s beautiful hostage, standing on my doorstep at 214 West Neely: Please excuse, have you seen my hubka?

The Texas School Book Depository.

Sixth floor, southeast window. The one with the best view of Dealey Plaza and Elm Street, where it curved toward the Triple Underpass.

I began shivering. I clutched my upper arms in my fists with my arms tightly locked over my chest. It made the left one—broken by the felt-wrapped pipe—ache, but I didn’t mind. I was glad. It tied me to the world.

When the shakes finally passed, I loaded the unfinished book manuscript, the precious blue notebook, and everything else into my briefcase. I reached for the button that would summon Melvin, then dummy-checked the very back of the box. There I found two more items. One was the cheap pawnshop wedding ring I’d purchased to support my cover story at Satellite Electronics. The other was the red baby rattle that had belonged to the Oswalds’ little girl (June, not April). The rattle went into the briefcase, the ring into the watch pocket of my slacks. I would throw it away on my drive home. If and when the time came, Sadie would have a much nicer one.

8

Knocking on glass. Then a voice: “—all right? Mister, are you all right?”

I opened my eyes, at first with no idea where I was. I looked to my left and saw a uniformed beat-cop knocking on the driver’s side window of my Chevy. Then it came. Halfway back to Eden Fallows, tired and exalted and terrified all at the same time, that I’m going to sleep feeling had drifted into my head. I’d pulled into a handy parking space immediately. That had been around two o’clock. Now, from the look of the lowering light, it had to be around four.

I cranked my window down and said, “Sorry, Officer. All at once I started to feel very sleepy, and it seemed safer to pull over.”

He nodded. “Yup, yup, booze’ll do that. How many did you have before you jumped into your car?”

“None. I suffered a head injury a few months ago.” I swiveled my neck so he could see the place where the hair hadn’t grown back.

He was halfway convinced, but still asked me to exhale in his face. That got him the rest of the way.

“Lemme see your ticket,” he said.

I showed him my Texas driver’s license.

“Not thinking of motoring all the way back to Jodie, are you?”

“No, Officer, just to North Dallas. I’m staying at a rehabilitation center called Eden Fallows.”

I was sweating. I hoped that if he saw it, he’d just put it down to a man who’d been snoozing in a closed car on a warmish November day. I also hoped—fervently—that he wouldn’t ask to see what was in the briefcase on the bench seat beside me. In 2011, I could refuse such a request, saying that sleeping in my car wasn’t probable cause. Hell, the parking space wasn’t even metered. In 1963, however, a cop might just start rummaging. He wouldn’t find drugs, but he would find loose cash, a manuscript with the word murder in its title, and a notebook full of delusional weirdness about Dallas and JFK. Would I be taken either to the nearest police station for questioning, or back to Parkland for psychiatric evaluation? Did the Waltons take way too long to say goodnight?

He stood there a moment, big and red-faced, a Norman Rockwell cop who belonged on a Saturday Evening Post cover. Then he handed back my license. “Okay, Mr. Amberson. Go on back to this Fallows place, and I suggest you park your car for the night when you get there. You’re looking peaky, nap or no nap.”

“That’s exactly what I plan to do.”

I could see him in my rearview as I drove away, watching. I felt certain I was going to fall asleep again before I got out of his sight. There’d be no warning this time; I’d just veer off the street and onto the sidewalk, maybe mowing down a pedestrian or three before winding up in the show window of a furniture store.

When I finally parked in front of my little cottage with the ramp leading up to the front door, my head was aching, my eyes were watering, my knee was throbbing… but my memories of Oswald remained firm and clear. I slung my briefcase on the kitchen table and called Sadie.

“I tried you when I got home from school, but you weren’t there,” she said. “I was worried.”

“I was next door, playing cribbage with Mr. Kenopensky.” These lies were necessary. I had to remember that. And I had to tell them smoothly, because she knew me.

“Well, that’s good.” Then, without a pause or a change of inflection: “What’s his name? What’s the man’s name?”

Lee Oswald. She almost surprised it out of me, after all.

“I… I still don’t know.”

“You hesitated. I heard you.”

I waited for the accusation, gripping the phone hard enough to hurt.