by Stephen King
"Not at all, Mrs. Babineau," he says. "Sometimes I'm Al. Sometimes I'm Z-Boy. Tonight I'm Brady, and boy oh boy, it's nice to be out, even on such a cold night."
She looks down at his hand. "What's in that jar?"
"The end of all your troubles," says the man in the mended parka, and there's a muffled bang. The bottom of the soda bottle blows out in shards, along with scorched threads from the steel wool. They float in the air like milkweed fluff.
Cora feels something hit her just below her shrunken left breast and thinks, This weirdo son of a bitch just punched me. She tries to take a breath and at first can't. Her chest feels strangely dead; warmth is pooling above the elastic top of her tracksuit pants. She looks down, still trying to take that all-important breath, and sees a stain spreading on the blue nylon.
She raises her eyes to stare at the geezer in the doorway. He's holding out the remains of the bottle as if it's a present, a little gift to make up for showing up unannounced at eight in the evening. What's left of the steel wool pokes out of the bottom like a charred boutonniere. She finally manages a breath, but it's mostly liquid. She coughs, and sprays blood.
The man in the parka steps into her house and sweeps the door shut behind him. He drops the bottle. Then he pushes her. She staggers back, knocking a decorative vase from the end table by the coathooks, and goes down. The vase shatters on the hardwood floor like a bomb. She drags in another of those liquid breaths--I'm drowning, she thinks, drowning right here in my front hall--and coughs out another spray of red.
"Cora?" Babineau calls from somewhere deep in the house. He sounds as if he's just woken up. "Cora, are you okay?"
Brady raises Library Al's foot and carefully brings Library Al's heavy black workshoe down on the straining tendons of Cora Babineau's scrawny throat. More blood bursts from her mouth; her sun-cured cheeks are now stippled with it. He steps down hard. There's a crackling sound as stuff breaks inside her. Her eyes bulge . . . bulge . . . and then they glaze over.
"You were a tough one," Brady remarks, almost affectionately.
A door opens. Slippered feet come running, and then Babineau is there. He's wearing a dressing gown over ridiculous Hugh Hefner-style silk pajamas. His silver hair, usually his pride, is in wild disarray. The stubble on his cheeks has become an incipient beard. In his hand is a green Zappit console from which the little Fishin' Hole tune tinkles: By the sea, by the sea, by the beautiful sea. He stares at his wife lying on the hall floor.
"No more workouts for her," Brady says in that same affectionate tone.
"What did you DO?" Babineau screams, as if it isn't obvious. He runs to Cora and tries to fall to his knees beside her, but Brady hooks him under the armpit and hauls him back up. Library Al is by no means Charles Atlas, but he is ever so much stronger than the wasted body in Room 217.
"No time for that," Brady says. "The Robinson girl is alive, which necessitates a change of plan."
Babineau stares at him, trying to gather his thoughts, but they elude him. His mind, once so sharp, has been blunted. And it's this man's fault.
"Look at the fish," Brady says. "You look at yours and I'll look at mine. We'll both feel better."
"No," Babineau says. He wants to look at the fish, he always wants to look at them now, but he's afraid to. Brady wants to pour his mind into Babineau's head like some strange water, and each time that happens, less of his essential self remains afterward.
"Yes," Brady says. "Tonight you need to be Dr. Z."
"I refuse!"
"You're in no position to refuse. This is coming unraveled. Soon the police will be at your door. Or Hodges, and that would be even worse. He won't read you your rights, he'll just hit you with that homemade sap of his. Because he's a mean motherfucker. And because you were right. He knows."
"I won't . . . I can't . . ." Babineau looks down at his wife. Ah God, her eyes. Her bulging eyes. "The police would never believe . . . I'm a respected doctor! We've been married for thirty-five years!"
"Hodges will. And when Hodges gets the bit in his teeth, he turns into Wyatt fucking Earp. He'll show the Robinson girl your picture. She'll look at it and say oh wow, yes, that's the man who gave me the Zappit at the mall. And if you gave her a Zappit, you probably gave one to Janice Ellerton. Oops! And there's Scapelli."
Babineau stares, trying to comprehend this disaster.
"Then there's the drugs you fed me. Hodges may know about them already, because he's a fast man with a bribe and most of the nurses in the Bucket know. It's an open secret, because you never tried to hide it." Brady gives Library Al's head a sad shake. "Your arrogance."
"Vitamins!" It's all Babineau can manage.
"Even the cops won't believe that if they subpoena your files and search your computers." Brady glances down at Cora Babineau's sprawled body. "And there's your wife, of course. How are you going to explain her?"
"I wish you'd died before they brought you in," Babineau says. His voice is rising, becoming a whine. "Or on the operating table. You're a Frankenstein!"
"Don't confuse the monster with the creator," Brady says, although he doesn't actually give Babineau much credit in the creation department. Dr. B.'s experimental drug may have something to do with his new abilities, but it had little or nothing to do with his recovery. He's positive that was his own doing. An act of sheer willpower. "Meanwhile, we have a visit to make, and we don't want to be late."
"To the man-woman." There's a word for that, Babineau used to know it, but now it's gone. Like the name that goes with it. Or what he ate for dinner. Each time Brady comes into his head, he takes a little more when he leaves. Babineau's memory. His knowledge. His self.
"That's right, the man-woman. Or, to give her sexual preference its scientific name, Ruggus munchus."
"No." The whine has become a whisper. "I'm going to stay right here."
Brady raises the gun, the barrel now visible within the blown-out remains of the makeshift silencer. "If you think I really need you, you're making the worst mistake of your life. And the last one."
Babineau says nothing. This is a nightmare, and soon he will wake up.
"Do it, or tomorrow the housekeeper will find you lying dead next to your wife, unfortunate victims of a home invasion. I would rather finish my business as Dr. Z--your body is ten years younger than Brooks's, and not in bad shape--but I'll do what I have to. Besides, leaving you to face Kermit Hodges would be mean of me. He's a nasty man, Felix. You have no idea."
Babineau looks at the elderly fellow in the mended parka and sees Hartsfield looking out of Library Al's watery blue eyes. Babineau's lips are trembling and wet with spittle. His eyes are rimmed with tears. Brady thinks that with his white hair standing up around his head as it is now, the Babster looks like Albert Einstein in that photo where the famous physicist is sticking his tongue out.
"How did I get into this?" he moans.
"The way everybody gets into everything," Brady says gently. "One step at a time."
"Why did you have to go after the girl?" Babineau bursts out.
"It was a mistake," Brady says. Easier to admit that than the whole truth: he couldn't wait. He wanted the nigger lawnboy's sister to go before anyone else blotted out her importance. "Now stop fucking around and look at the fishies. You know you want to."
And he does. That's the worst part. In spite of everything Babineau now knows, he does.
He looks at the fish.
He listens to the tune.
After awhile he goes into the bedroom to dress and get money out of the safe. He makes one more stop before leaving. The bathroom medicine cabinet is well stocked, on both her side and his.
He takes Babineau's BMW, leaving the old Malibu where it is for the time being. He also leaves Library Al, who has gone to sleep on the sofa.
2
Around the time Cora Babineau is opening her front door for the last time, Hodges is sitting down in the living room of the Scott family's home on Allgood Place, just one block over from Teab
erry Lane, where the Robinsons live. He swallowed a couple of painkillers before getting out of the car, and isn't feeling bad, all things considered.
Dinah Scott is on the sofa, flanked by her parents. She looks quite a bit older than fifteen tonight, because she's recently back from a rehearsal at North Side High School, where the Drama Club will soon be putting on The Fantasticks. She has the role of Luisa, Angie Scott has told Hodges, a real plum. (This causes Dinah to roll her eyes.) Hodges is across from them in a La-Z-Boy very much like the one in his own living room. From the deep divot in the seat, he deduces it is Carl Scott's normal evening roost.
On the coffee table in front of the sofa is a bright green Zappit. Dinah brought it down from her room right away, which allows Hodges to further deduce that it wasn't buried under sports gear in her closet, or left under the bed with the dust bunnies. It wasn't sitting forgotten in her locker at school. No, it was where she could lay her hands on it at once. Which means she's been using it, old-school or not.
"I'm here at the request of Barbara Robinson," he tells them. "She was struck by a truck today--"
"Omigod," Dinah says, a hand going to her mouth.
"She's okay," Hodges says. "Broken leg is all. They're keeping her overnight for observation, but she'll be home tomorrow and probably back in school next week. You can sign her cast, if kids still do that."
Angie puts an arm around her daughter's shoulders. "What does that have to do with Dinah's game?"
"Well, Barbara had one, and it gave her a shock." Based on what Holly told Hodges while he was driving over here, that's no lie. "She was crossing a street at the time, lost her bearings for a minute, and bammo. A boy pushed her clear, or it would have been much worse."
"Jesus," Carl says.
Hodges leans forward, looking at Dinah. "I don't know how many of these gadgets are defective, but it's clear from what happened to Barb, and a couple of other incidents we know of, that at least some of them are."
"Let this be a lesson to you," Carl says to his daughter. "The next time someone tells you a thing's free, be on your guard."
This prompts another eye-roll of the perfect teenage variety.
"The thing I'm curious about," Hodges says, "is how you came by yours in the first place. It's kind of a mystery, because the Zappit company didn't sell many. They were bought out by another company when it flopped, and that company went bankrupt in April two years ago. You'd think the Zappit consoles would have been held for resale, to help pay the bills--"
"Or destroyed," Carl says. "That's what they do with unsold paperbacks, you know."
"I'm actually aware of that," Hodges says. "So tell me, Dinah, how did you get it?"
"I went on the website," she says. "I'm not in trouble, am I? I mean, I didn't know, but Daddy always says ignorance of the law is no excuse."
"You're in zero trouble," Hodges assures her. "What website was this?"
"It was called badconcert.com. I looked for it on my phone when Mom called me at rehearsal and said you were coming over, but it's gone. I guess they gave away all the ones they had."
"Or found out the things were dangerous, and folded their tents without warning anyone," Angie Scott says, looking grim.
"How bad could the shock be, though?" Carl asks. "I opened up the back when Dee brought it down from her room. There's nothing in there but four rechargeable double As."
"I don't know about that stuff," Hodges says. His stomach is starting to hurt again in spite of the dope. Not that his stomach is actually the problem; it's an adjacent organ only six inches long. He took a moment after his meeting with Norma Wilmer to check the survival rate of patients with pancreatic cancer. Only six percent of them manage to live five years. Not what you'd call cheery news. "So far I haven't even managed to re-program my iPhone's text message alert so it doesn't scare innocent bystanders."
"I can do that for you," Dinah says. "Easy-peasy. I have Crazy Frog on mine."
"Tell me about the website first."
"There was a tweet, okay? Someone at school told me about it. It got picked up on lots of social media sites. Facebook . . . Pinterest . . . Google Plus . . . you know the ones I'm talking about."
Hodges doesn't, but nods.
"I can't remember the tweet exactly, but pretty close. Because they can only be a hundred and forty characters long. You know that, right?"
"Sure," Hodges says, although he barely grasps what a tweet is. His left hand is trying to sneak its way to the pain in his side. He makes it stay put.
"This one said something like . . ." Dinah closes her eyes. It's rather theatrical, but of course she just did come from a Drama Club rehearsal. "'Bad news, some nut got the 'Round Here concert canceled. Want some good news? Maybe even a free gift? Go to badconcert.com.'" She opens her eyes. "That's probably not exact, but you get the idea."
"I do, yeah." He jots the website name in his notebook. "So you went there . . ."
"Sure. Lots of kids went there. It was kind of funny, too. There was a Vine of 'Round Here singing their big song from a few years ago, 'Kisses on the Midway,' it was called, and after about twenty seconds there's an explosion sound and this quacky voice saying, 'Oh damn, show canceled.'"
"I don't think that's so funny," Angie says. "You all could have been killed."
"There must have been more to it than that," Hodges says.
"Sure. It said that there were like two thousand kids there, a lot of them at their first concert, and they got screwed out of the experience of a lifetime. Although, um, screwed wasn't the word they used."
"I think we can fill in that blank, dear one," Carl says.
"And then it said that 'Round Here's corporate sponsor had received a whole bunch of Zappit game consoles, and they wanted to give them away. To, you know, kind of make up for the concert."
"Even though that was almost six years ago?" Angie looks incredulous.
"Yeah. Kind of weird, when you think of it."
"But you didn't," Carl said. "Think of it."
Dinah shrugs, looking petulant. "I did, but it seemed okay."
"Famous last words," her father says.
"So you just . . . what?" Hodges asks. "Emailed in your name and address and got that"--he points to the Zappit--"in the mail?"
"There was a little more to it than that," Dinah says. "You had to, like, be able to prove you were actually there. So I went to see Barb's mom. You know, Tanya."
"Why?"
"For the pictures. I think I have mine somewhere, but I couldn't find them."
"Her room," Angie says, and this time she's the one with the eye-roll.
Hodges's side has picked up a slow, steady throb. "What pictures, Dinah?"
"Okay, it was Tanya--she doesn't mind if we call her that--who took us to the concert, see? There was Barb, me, Hilda Carver, and Betsy."
"Betsy would be . . . ?"
"Betsy DeWitt," Angie says. "The deal was, the moms drew straws to see who would take the girls. Tanya lost. She took Ginny Carver's van, because it was the biggest."
Hodges nods his understanding.
"So anyway, when we got there," Dinah says, "Tanya took pictures of us. We had to have pictures. Sounds stupid, I guess, but we were just little kids. I'm into Mendoza Line and Raveonettes now, but back then 'Round Here was a really big deal to us. Especially Cam, the lead singer. Tanya used our phones. Or maybe she used her own, I can't exactly remember. But she made sure we all had copies, only I couldn't find mine."
"You had to send a picture to the website as proof of attendance."
"Right, by email. I was afraid the pics would only show us standing in front of Mrs. Carver's van and that wouldn't be enough, but there were two that showed the Mingo Auditorium in the background, with all the people lined up. I thought even that might not be good enough, because it didn't show the sign with the band's name on it, but it was, and I got the Zappit in the mail just a week later. It came in a big padded envelope."
"Was there a return address?"
>
"Uh-huh. I can't remember the box number, but the name was Sunrise Solutions. I guess they were the tour sponsors."
It's possible that they were, Hodges thinks, the company wouldn't have been bankrupt back then, but he doubts it. "Was it mailed from here in the city?"
"I don't remember."
"I'm pretty sure it was," Angie says. "I picked the envelope up off the floor and tossed it in the trash. I'm the French maid around here, you know." She shoots her daughter a look.
"Soh-ree," Dinah says.
In his notebook, Hodges writes Sunrise Solutions based NYC, but pkg mailed from here.
"When did all this go down, Dinah?"
"I heard about the tweet and went to the website last year. I can't remember exactly, but I know it was before the Thanksgiving break. And like I said, it came lickety-split. I was really surprised."
"So you've had it for two months, give or take."
"Yes."
"And no shocks?"
"No, nothing like that."
"Have you ever had any experiences where you were playing with it--let's say with the Fishin' Hole game--and you kind of lost track of your surroundings?"
Mr. and Mrs. Scott look alarmed at this, but Dinah gives him an indulgent smile. "You mean like being hypnotized? Eenie-meenie, chili-beanie?"
"I don't know what I mean, exactly, but okay, say that."
"Nope," Dinah says cheerily. "Besides, Fishin' Hole is really dumb. It's for little kids. You use the joystick thingie beside the keypad to operate Fisherman Joe's net, see? And you get points for the fish you catch. But it's too easy. Only reason I check back on that one is to see if the pink fish are showing numbers yet."
"Numbers?"
"Yes. The letter that came with the game explained about them. I tacked it on my bulletin board, because I'd really like to win that moped. Want to see it?"
"I sure would."
When she bounces upstairs to get it, Hodges asks if he can use the bathroom. Once in there, he unbuttons his shirt and looks at his throbbing left side. It seems a little swollen and feels a little hot to the touch, but he supposes both of those things could be his imagination. He flushes the toilet and takes two more of the white pills. Okay? he asks his throbbing side. Can you just shut up awhile and let me finish here?
Dinah has scrubbed off most of her stage makeup, and now it's easy for Hodges to imagine her and the other three girls at nine or ten, going to their first concert and as excited as Mexican jumping beans in a microwave. She hands him the letter that came with the game.