'Yes, but--'
'The cops will tell you what to do, and your boss won't be mad at you, either - he'll probably give you a medal for handling everything just right.'
'If he does, I'll split it with you,' she said, then glanced at Helen again. A little color had come back into Sue's cheeks, but not much. 'Jeepers, Ralph, look at her! Did he really beat her up because she signed some stupid paper in the S and S?'
'I guess so,' Ralph said. The conversation made perfect sense to him, but it was coming in long distance. His rage was closer; it had its hot arms locked around his neck, it seemed. He wished he were forty again, even fifty, so he could give Ed a taste of his own medicine. And he had an idea he might try doing that anyway.
He was turning the thumb-bolt of the door when McGovern grabbed his shoulder. 'What do you think you're doing?'
'Going to see Ed.'
'Are you kidding? He'll take you apart if you get in his face. Didn't you see what he did to her?'
'You bet I did,' Ralph replied. The words weren't quite a snarl, but close enough to make McGovern drop his hand.
'You're seventy fucking years old, Ralph, in case you forgot. And Helen needs a friend right now, not some busted-up antique she can visit because his hospital room is three doors down from hers.'
Bill was right, of course, but that only made Ralph angrier. He supposed the insomnia was at work in this, too, stoking his anger and blurring his judgement, but that made no difference. In a way, the anger was a relief. It was better, certainly, than drifting through a world where everything had turned shades of dark gray.
'If he beats me up bad enough, they'll give me some Demerol and I can get a decent night's sleep,' he said. 'Now leave me alone, Bill.'
He crossed the Red Apple parking lot at a brisk walk. A police car was approaching with its blue grille flashers pulsing. Questions - What happened? She okay? - were thrown at him, but Ralph ignored them. He paused on the sidewalk, waited for the police car to swing into the parking lot, then crossed Harris Avenue at that same brisk walk with McGovern trailing anxiously after him at a prudent distance.
CHAPTER THREE
* * *
1
Ed and Helen Deepneau lived in a small Cape Cod - chocolate brown, whipped-cream trim, the kind of house which older women often call 'darling' - four houses up from the one Ralph and Bill McGovern shared. Carolyn had liked to say the Deepneaus belonged to 'the Church of the Latter-Day Yuppies', although her genuine liking for them had robbed the phrase of any real bite. They were laissez-faire vegetarians who considered both fish and dairy products okay, they had worked for Clinton in the last election, and the car in the driveway - not a Datsun now but one of the new mini-vans - was wearing bumper stickers which said SPLIT WOOD, NOT ATOMS and FUR ON ANIMALS, NOT PEOPLE.
The Deepneaus had also apparently kept every album they had ever purchased during the sixties - Carolyn had found this one of their most endearing characteristics - and now, as Ralph approached the Cape Cod with his hands curled into fists at his sides, he heard Grace Slick wailing one of those old San Francisco anthems: One pill makes you bigger, One pill makes you small, And the ones that Mother gives you Don't do anything at all, Go ask Alice, when she's ten feet tall.
The music was coming from a boombox on the Cape Cod's postage stamp-sized porch. A sprinkler twirled on the lawn, making a hisha-hisha-hisha sound as it cast rainbows in the air and deposited a shiny wet patch on the sidewalk. Ed Deepneau, shirtless, was sitting in a lawn-chair to the left of the concrete walk with his legs crossed, looking up at the sky with the bemused expression of a man trying to decide if the cloud passing overhead looks more like a horse or a unicorn. One bare foot bopped up and down in time to the music. The book lying open and face-down in his lap went perfectly with the music pouring from the boombox: Even Cowgirls Get the Blues, by Tom Robbins.
An all but perfect summer vignette; a scene of small-town serenity Norman Rockwell might have painted and then titled Afternoon Off. All you had to overlook was the blood on Ed's knuckles and the drop on the left lens of his round John Lennon specs.
'Ralph, for God's sake don't get into a fight with him!' McGovern hissed as Ralph left the sidewalk and cut across the lawn. He walked through the lawn sprinkler's fine cold spray almost without feeling it.
Ed turned, saw him, and broke into a sunny grin. 'Hey, Ralph!' he said. 'Good to see you, man!'
In his mind's eye, Ralph saw himself reaching out and shoving Ed's chair, pushing him over and spilling him onto his lawn. He saw Ed's eyes widen with shock and surprise behind the lenses of his glasses. This vision was so real he even saw the way the sun reflected on the face of Ed's watch as he tried to sit up.
'Grab yourself a beer and drag up a rock,' Ed was saying. 'If you feel like a game of chess--'
'Beer? A game of chess? Christ Jesus, Ed, what's wrong with you?'
Ed didn't answer immediately, only looked at Ralph with an expression that was both frightening and infuriating. It was a mixture of amusement and shame, the look of a man who's getting ready to say, Aw, shit, honey - did I forget to put out the trash again?
Ralph pointed down the hill, past McGovern, who was standing - he would have been lurking, if there had been something to lurk behind - near the wet patch the sprinkler had put on the sidewalk, watching them nervously. The first police car had been joined by a second, and Ralph could faintly hear the crackle of radio calls through the open windows. The crowd had gotten quite a bit bigger.
'The police are there because of Helen!' he said, telling himself not to shout, it would do no good to shout, and shouting anyway. 'They're there because you beat up your wife, is that getting through to you?'
'Oh,' Ed said, and rubbed his cheek ruefully. 'That.'
'Yes, that,' Ralph said. He now felt almost stupefied with rage.
Ed peered past him at the police cars, at the crowd standing around the Red Apple . . . and then he saw McGovern.
'Bill!' he cried. McGovern recoiled. Ed either didn't notice or pretended not to. 'Hey, man! Drag up a rock! Want a beer?'
That was when Ralph knew he was going to hit Ed, break his stupid little round-lensed spectacles, drive a splinter of glass into his eye, maybe. He was going to do it, nothing on earth could stop him from doing it, except at the last moment something did. It was Carolyn's voice he heard inside his head most frequently these days - when he wasn't just muttering along to himself, that was - but this wasn't Carolyn's voice; this one, as unlikely as it seemed, belonged to Trigger Vachon, whom he'd seen only once or twice since the day Trig had saved him from the thunderstorm, the day Carolyn had had her first seizure.
Ayy, Ralph! Be damn careful, you! Dis one crazy like a fox! Maybe he want you to hit im!
Yes, he decided. Maybe that was just what Ed wanted. Why? Who knew? Maybe to muddy the waters up a little bit, maybe just because he was crazy.
'Cut the shit,' he said, dropping his voice almost to a whisper. He was gratified to see Ed's attention snap back to him in a hurry, and even more pleased to see Ed's pleasantly vague expression of rueful amusement disappear. It was replaced by a narrow, watchful expression. It was, Ralph thought, the look of a dangerous animal with its wind up.
Ralph hunkered down so he could look directly at Ed. 'Was it Susan Day?' he asked in the same soft voice. 'Susan Day and the abortion business? Something about dead babies? Is that why you unloaded on Helen?'
There was another question on his mind - Who are you really, Ed? - but before he could ask it, Ed reached out, placed a hand in the center of Ralph's chest, and pushed. Ralph fell backward onto the damp grass, catching himself on his elbows and shoulders. He lay there with his feet flat on the ground and his knees up, watching as Ed suddenly sprang out of his lawn-chair.
'Ralph, don't mess with him!' McGovern called from his place of relative safety on the sidewalk.
Ralph paid no attention. He simply remained where he was, propped on his elbows and looking attentively up at Ed. He was sti
ll angry and afraid, but these emotions had begun to be overshadowed by a strange, chilly fascination. This was madness he was looking at - the genuine article. No comicbook super-villain here, no Norman Bates, no Captain Ahab. It was just Ed Deepneau who worked down the coast at Hawking Labs - one of those eggheads, the old guys who played chess at the picnic area out on the Extension would have said, but still a nice enough fella for a Democrat. Now the nice enough fella had gone totally bonkers, and it hadn't just happened this afternoon, when Ed had seen his wife's name on a petition hanging from the Community Bulletin Board in the Shop 'n Save. Ralph now understood that Ed's madness was at least a year old, and that made him wonder what secrets Helen had been keeping behind her normal cheery demeanor and sunny smile, and what small, desperate signals - besides the bruises, that was - he might have missed.
And then there's Natalie, he thought. What's she seen? What's she experienced? Besides, of course, being carried across Harris Avenue and the Red Apple parking lot on her staggering, bleeding mother's hip?
Ralph's arms broke out in goosebumps.
Ed had begun to pace, meanwhile, crossing and recrossing the cement path, trampling the zinnias Helen had planted along it as a border. He had returned to the Ed Ralph had encountered out by the airport the year before, right down to the fierce little pokes of the head and the sharp, jabbing glances at nothing.
This is what the gee-whiz act was supposed to hide, Ralph thought. He looks the same now as he did when he took after the guy driving that pickup truck. Like a rooster protecting his little piece of the barnyard.
'None of this is strictly her fault, I admit that.' Ed spoke rapidly, pounding his right fist into his open left palm as he walked through the cloud of spray thrown by the sprinkler. Ralph realized he could see every rib in Ed's chest; the man looked as if he hadn't had a decent meal in months.
'Still, once stupidity reaches a certain level, it becomes hard to live with,' Ed went on. 'She's like the Magi, actually coming to King Herod for information. I mean, how dumb can you get? "Where is he that is born King of the Jews?" To Herod they say this. I mean, wise men my ass! Right, Ralph?'
Ralph nodded. Sure, Ed. Whatever you say, Ed.
Ed returned the nod and went on tramping back and forth through the spray and the ghostly interlocking rainbows, smacking his fist into his palm. 'It's like that Rolling Stones song - "Look at that, look at that, look at that stupid girl". You probably don't remember that one, do you?' Ed laughed, a jagged little sound that made Ralph think of rats dancing on broken glass.
McGovern knelt beside him. 'Let's get out of here,' he muttered. Ralph shook his head, and when Ed swung back in their direction, McGovern quickly got up and retreated to the sidewalk again.
'She thought she could fool you, is that it?' Ralph asked. He was still lying on the lawn, propped up on his elbows. 'She thought you wouldn't find out she signed the petition.'
Ed leaped over the walk, bent over Ralph, and shook his clenched fists over his head like the bad guy in a silent movie. 'No-no-no-no!' he cried.
The Jefferson Airplane had been replaced by the Animals, Eric Burdon growling out the gospel according to John Lee Hooker: Boom-boom-boom-boom, gonna shoot ya right down. McGovern uttered a thin cry, apparently thinking Ed meant to attack Ralph, but instead Ed sank down with the knuckles of his left hand pressed into the grass, assuming the position of a sprinter who waits for the starter's gun to explode him out of the blocks. His face was covered with beads of what Ralph at first took for sweat before remembering the way Ed had paced back and forth through the spray from the sprinkler. Ralph kept looking at the spot of blood on the left lens of Ed's glasses. It had smeared a little, and now the pupil of his left eye looked as if it had filled up with blood.
'Finding out that she signed the petition was fate! Simple fate! Do you mean to tell me you don't see that? Don't insult my intelligence, Ralph! You may be getting on in years, but you're far from stupid. The thing is, I go down to the supermarket to buy baby-food, how's that for irony - and find out she's signed on with the baby-killers! The Centurions! With the Crimson King himself! And do you know what? I . . . just . . . saw . . . red!'
'The Crimson King, Ed? Who's he?'
'Oh, please.' Ed gave Ralph a cunning look. '"Then Herod, when he saw that he was mocked, was exceeding wroth, and sent forth, and slew all the children that were in Bethlehem, and in all the coasts thereof, from two years old and under, according to the time which he had diligently enquired of the wise men." It's in the Bible, Ralph. Matthew, chapter 2, verse 16. Do you doubt it? Do you have any fucking question that it says that?'
'No. If you say so, I believe it.'
Ed nodded. His eyes, a deep and startling shade of green, darted here and there. Then he slowly leaned forward over Ralph, planting one hand on either side of Ralph's arms. It was as if he meant to kiss him. Ralph could smell sweat, and some sort of aftershave that had almost completely faded away now, and something else - something that smelled like old curdled milk. He wondered if it might be the smell of Ed's madness.
An ambulance was coming up Harris Avenue, running its flashers but not its siren. It turned into the Red Apple's parking lot.
'You better,' Ed breathed into his face. 'You just better believe it.'
His eyes stopped wandering and centered on Ralph's.
'They are killing the babies wholesale,' he said in a low voice which was not quite steady. 'Ripping them from the wombs of their mothers and carrying them out of town in covered trucks. Flatbeds for the most part. Ask yourself this, Ralph: how many times a week do you see one of those big flatbeds tooling down the road? A flatbed with a tarp stretched across the back? Ever ask yourself what those trucks were carrying? Ever wonder what was under most of those tarps?'
Ed grinned. His eyes rolled.
'They burn most of the fetuses over in Newport. The sign says landfill, but it's really a crematorium. They send some of them out of state, though. In trucks, in light planes. Because fetal tissue is extremely valuable. I tell you that not just as a concerned citizen, Ralph, but as an employee of Hawking Laboratories. Fetal tissue is . . . more . . . valuable . . . than gold.'
He turned his head suddenly and stared at Bill McGovern, who had crept a little closer again in order to hear what Ed was saying.
'YEA, MORE VALUABLE THAN GOLD AND MORE PRECIOUS THAN RUBIES!' he screamed, and McGovern leaped back, eyes widening in fear and dismay. 'DO YOU KNOW THAT, YOU OLD FAGGOT?'
'Yes,' McGovern said. 'I . . . I guess I did.' He shot a quick glance down the street, where one of the police cars was now backing out of the Red Apple lot and turning in their direction. 'I might have read it somewhere. In Scientific American, perhaps.'
'Scientific American!' Ed laughed with gentle contempt and rolled his eyes at Ralph again, as if to say You see what I have to deal with. Then his face grew sober again. 'Wholesale murder,' he said, 'just as in the time of Christ. Only now it's the murder of the unborn. Not just here, but all over the world. They've been slaughtering them by their thousands, Ralph, by their millions, and do you know why? Do you know why we've re-entered the Court of the Crimson King in this new age of darkness?'
Ralph knew. It wasn't that hard to put together, if you had enough pieces to work with. If you had seen Ed with his arm buried in a barrel of chemical fertilizer, fishing around for the dead babies he had been sure he would find.
'King Herod got a little advance word this time around,' Ralph said. 'That's what you're telling me, isn't it? It's the old Messiah thing, right?'
He sat up, half expecting Ed to shove him down again, almost hoping he would. His anger was coming back. It was surely wrong to critique a madman's delusional fantasies the way you might a play or a movie - maybe even blasphemous - but Ralph found the idea that Helen had been beaten because of such hackneyed old shit as this infuriating.
Ed didn't touch him, merely got to his feet and dusted his hands off in businesslike fashion. He seemed to be cooling down again. Radi
o calls crackled louder as the police cruiser which had backed out of the Red Apple's lot now glided up to the curb. Ed looked at the cruiser, then back at Ralph, who was getting up himself.
'You can mock, but it's true,' he said quietly. 'It's not King Herod, though - it's the Crimson King. Herod was merely one of his incarnations. The Crimson King jumps from body to body and generation to generation like a kid using stepping-stones to cross a brook, Ralph, always looking for the Messiah. He's always missed him, but this time it could be different. Because Derry's different. All lines of force have begun to converge here. I know how difficult that is to believe, but it's true.'
The Crimson King, Ralph thought. Oh Helen, I'm so sorry. What a sad thing this is.
Two men - one in uniform, one in streetclothes, both presumably cops - got out of the police car and approached McGovern. Behind them, down at the store, Ralph spotted two more men, these dressed in white pants and white short-sleeved shirts, coming out of the Red Apple. One had his arm around Helen, who was walking with the fragile care of a post-op patient. The other was holding Natalie.
The paramedics helped Helen into the back of the ambulance. The one with the baby got in after her while the other moved toward the driver's seat. What Ralph sensed in their movements was competency rather than urgency, and he thought that was good news for Helen. Maybe Ed hadn't hurt her too badly . . . this time, at least.
The plainclothes cop - burly, broad-shouldered, and wearing his blond mustache and sideburns in a style Ralph thought of as Early American Singles Bar - had approached McGovern, whom he seemed to recognize. There was a big grin on the plainclothes cop's face.
Ed put an arm over Ralph's shoulders and pulled him a few steps away from the men on the sidewalk. He also dropped his voice to a bare murmur. 'Don't want them to hear us,' he said.
'I'm sure you don't.'
'These creatures . . . Centurions . . . servants of the Crimson King . . . will stop at nothing. They are relentless.'
'I'll bet.' Ralph glanced over his shoulder in time to see McGovern point at Ed. The burly man nodded calmly. His hands were stuffed in the pockets of his chinos. He was still wearing a small, benign smile.