Sleeping Beauties: A Novel

by Stephen King

  “Your conditions?” Michaela asked.

  “It has to be quick,” Clint said. “And if you hear what I think you’re going to hear, and see what I think you’re going to see, you have to help me.”

  “Help with what?” asked Tig, rejoining them.

  “Reinforcements,” Clint said. “Weapons.” He paused. “And my son. I want my son.”

  4

  There was no pie at the Olympia. The woman who made the pies was sleeping in a cocoon in the break room. Gus Vereen, taking the deputies’ orders, said he was shorthanded all around. “Found some ice cream cake down at the bottom of the freezer, but I can’t vouch for it. Been there since Hector was a pup.”

  “I’ll try it,” said Don, although it was a piss-poor substitute—a diner without pie was a disgrace—but with Frank Geary on the other side of the table, he was on his best behavior.

  Also present at the rear table of the diner were deputies Barrows, Rangle, Eric Blass, plus an old legal beagle named Silver. They’d just finished eating a lousy lunch. Don had the Haluski Special and it had arrived swimming in a pool of yellow grease. He’d eaten it anyway, partly out of spite, and Magic 8 Ball said that a case of the dribbling shits was in his future. The others had eaten sandwiches and burgers; none of them had finished more than half. They had also passed on dessert, which was probably smart of them. Frank had spent half an hour giving them all the rundown on what he knew about the situation at the prison.

  “You think Norcross is boning her?” Don blurted at this point.

  Frank turned a low-lidded gaze on him. “That’s unlikely and irrelevant.”

  Don received the message and hadn’t said another word until Gus Vereen came around to see if they needed anything else.

  Once Gus left, Judge Silver spoke up. “What do you see as our options, Frank? What’s Terry’s take on this?” His Honor’s skin tone was worryingly gray. His speech was wet, as if he were talking around a knot of chewing tobacco.

  “Our options are limited. We could wait Norcross out, but who knows how long that could mean. Prison’s probably got quite a stock of food.”

  “He’s right,” Don said. “There’s no prime rib or nothing, but they got enough dry goods to last to the end of days.”

  “The longer we wait,” Frank went on, “the more talk gets around. Lot of guys around here might start thinking about taking things into their own hands.” He waited for someone to say, Isn’t that what you’re doing? But no one did.

  “If we don’t wait?” the judge asked.

  “Norcross has got a son, and of course you know his wife.”

  “Good cop,” the judge said. “Careful, thorough. The lady goes by the book.”

  Eric, busted twice by Sheriff Norcross for speeding, made a sour face.

  “And we wish we had her,” Geary said. Don didn’t believe that for a second. From the first, when Geary had jammed his hand under Don’s armpit, treated him like a puppet, he’d seen that he wasn’t the kind of fellow who accepted second position. “But she’s in the wind, and so is the son. If they were around, I’d say we should try and get them to see if they couldn’t convince Norcross to break loose from whatever thing he has going with the Black woman.”

  Judge Silver clucked his tongue and stared into his coffee cup. He hadn’t touched it. His tie had bright yellow lemons on it and the contrast with his skin underlined the sickly look of the man. A moth fluttered around his head. The judge waved it away and it flew off to alight on one of the light-globes that hung from the diner’s ceiling.

  “So . . .” Judge Silver said.

  “Yeah,” Don said. “So what do we do?”

  Frank Geary shook his head and swept a few crumbs from the table, catching them in his palm. “We put together a responsible group. Fifteen, twenty reliable men. We tool up. There should be enough body armor to go around at the station. God knows what else. We haven’t exactly had time to take inventory.”

  “Do you really think—” Reed Barrows began doubtfully, but Frank overrode him.

  “There’s half a dozen assault rifles, anyway. They should go to the guys who can handle them. Everyone else carries either Winchesters or their sidearms or both. Don here gives us the layout of the prison, any particulars that might help. Then, we make a show of force, and give Norcross one more chance to send her out. I think he will.”

  The judge asked the obvious. “If he doesn’t?”

  “I don’t think he could stop us.”

  “This seems rather extreme, even under the extraordinary circumstances,” the judge said. “What about Terry?”

  “Terry is . . .” Frank brushed his crumbs onto the diner floor.

  “He’s drunk, Judge,” Reed Barrows said.

  Which kept Frank from having to say it. What he said (pulling a glum face) was, “He’s doing the best he can.”

  “Drunk is drunk,” Reed said. Vern Rangle opined that this was a true statement.

  “Then . . .” The judge touched Frank’s big shoulder, gave it a squeeze. “Guess it’s you, Frank.”

  Gus Vereen came over with Don’s slice of ice cream cake. The diner owner’s expression was dubious. The slice was bearded in frost. “You sure, Don?”

  “What the fuck,” Don said. If the pie ladies of the world were gone, and he still wanted sweet stuff, he was going to have to eat more adventurously.

  “Uh, Frank?” Vern Rangle said.

  “What?” It sounded more like What now?

  “I was just thinking maybe we ought to have a cruiser watching the prison. In case, you know, the doc decides to take her out and hide her somewhere.”

  Frank stared at him, then slapped the side of his own head—a good hard whack that made them all jump. “Jesus. You’re right. I should have done that right away.”

  “I’ll go,” Don said, forgetting the ice cream cake. He got up fast, his thighs striking the underside of the table and making the cups and plates rattle. His eyes were bright. “Me and Eric. Anyone tries to get in or out, we’ll stop them.”

  Frank didn’t much care for Don, and Blass was just a kid, but maybe it would be okay. Hell, it was just a precaution. He didn’t really think Norcross would try to take the woman out. To him, she probably seemed safer where she was, behind the prison walls.

  “Okay,” he said. “But if anyone does come out, just stop them. No drawn guns, you hear? No OK Corral stuff. If they refuse to stop, just follow them. And radio me ASAP.”

  “Not Terry?” the judge asked.

  “No. Me. Park at the foot of the prison access road, where it meets West Lavin. Got it?”

  “Got it!” Don snapped. He was on the case. “Come on, partner. Let’s go.”

  As they left, the judge mumbled, “The unspeakable in pursuit of the uneatable.”

  “What, Judge?” Vern Rangle asked.

  Silver shook his head. He looked weary. “Never mind. Gentlemen, I must say that on the whole, I don’t care much for the way this is going. I wonder . . .”

  “What, Oscar?” Frank asked. “What do you wonder?”

  But the judge didn’t reply.

  5

  “How’d you know?” It was Angel. “About the baby?”

  The question drew Evie away from the Olympia Diner where, from the eyes of the moth perched on the light-globe, she’d been observing the men making their plans. And just to add to the fun, something else was going on, much closer. Clint had visitors. Soon she would have visitors, as well.

  Evie sat up and inhaled Dooling Correctional. The stench of industrial cleaning products went horribly deep; she expected to die soon, and felt sad about that, but she had died before. It was never nice, but it had never been the end . . . although this time might be different.

  On the bright side, she told herself, I won’t have to smell this place anymore, this mixture of Lysol and despair.

  She’d thought Troy stank: the corpse piles, the fires, the fish guts thoughtfully left out for the gods—gee fucking thanks, guys, jus
t what we want—and the stupid Achaeans stomping around on the beach, refusing to wash, letting the blood cook to black in the sun and rust the joints of their armor. That was nothing compared to the inescapable reek of the modern world. She had been young and too easily impressed then, in the days before Lysol and bleach.

  Meanwhile, Angel had asked a perfectly fair question, and she sounded almost sane. For the time being, at least.

  “I know about your baby because I read minds. Not always. Most of the time. I’m better at reading men’s minds—they are simpler—but I’m pretty good with women, too.”

  “Then you know . . . I dint want to.”

  “Yes, I know that. And I was too hard on you. Before. I’m sorry. There was a lot going on.”

  Angel ignored the apology. She was focused on reciting something she’d clearly memorized, a little comfort she’d created to provide light when the dark was at its deepest and there was no one awake with whom to speak and take her mind off herself and the things she had done. “I had to. Every man I killed did hurt me, or woulda hurt me if I give him a chance. I dint want to put that baby girl down, but I couldn’t let that be her life.”

  The sigh that Evie produced in response was thick with real tears. Angel was telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth of an existence in a time and a place where things had just not worked out. Of course, chances were slim that they would have worked out for Angel, anyway; the woman was bad and mad. Even so, she was right: they had hurt her, and they probably would’ve hurt that baby girl, given time. Those men and all the men like them. The earth hated them, but it loved the fertilizer of their murderous bodies.

  “Why you cryin, Evie?”

  “Because I feel it all, and it’s painful. Now hush. If I may once more quote Henry IV, the game is afoot. I have things to do.”

  “What things?”

  As if in answer, the door at the far end of A Wing clashed open and footfalls approached. It was Dr. Norcross, Officers Murphy and Quigley, and two strangers.

  “Where’s they passes?” Angel shouted. “Those two don’t have no passes to be back here!”

  “Hush, I said,” Evie told her. “Or I’ll make you hush. We were having a moment, Angel, don’t spoil it.”

  Clint stopped in front of Evie’s cell. The woman pushed up beside him. There were purple pouches beneath her eyes, but the eyes themselves were bright and aware.

  Evie said, “Hello, Michaela Coates, also known as Michaela Morgan. I’m Eve Black.” She put her hand through the bars. Tig and Rand moved forward instinctively, but Clint extended his arms to hold them in place.

  Michaela clasped the offered hand with no hesitation. “You’ve seen me on the news, I take it.”

  Evie smiled warmly. “I’m afraid I’m not big on the news. Too depressing.”

  “Then how do you know—”

  “Shall I call you Mickey, as your friend Dr. Flickinger does?”

  Garth jumped.

  “I’m sorry you didn’t get to see your mother,” Evie went on. “She was a good warden.”

  “Like fuck,” Angel muttered, and when Evie cleared her throat forbiddingly: “Okay, I’m hushin, I’m hushin.”

  “How do you know—” Michaela began.

  “That your mother was Warden Coates? That you took the name Morgan because some silly cockhound of a journalism professor told you that television audiences tend to remember alliterative names? Oh, Mickey, you never should have slept with him, but I think you know that now. At least the miscarriage saved you having to make a difficult choice.” Evie clucked and shook her head, making her dark hair fly.

  Except for her red-rimmed eyes, Michaela was dead pale. When Garth put an arm around her shoulders, she clutched at his hand like a drowning woman clutching at a life preserver.

  “How do you know that?” Michaela whispered. “Who are you?”

  “I am woman, hear me roar,” Evie said, and once more laughed: a merry sound, like shaken bells. She turned her attention to Garth. “As for you, Dr. Flickinger, a word of friendly advice. You need to get off the dope, and very soon. You’ve had one warning from your cardiologist already. There won’t be another. Keep on smoking those crystals, and your cataclysmic heart attack will come in . . .” She closed her eyes like a carnival psychic, then popped them open. “In about eight months. Nine, maybe. Most likely while watching porn with your pants around your ankles and a squeeze-bottle of Lubriderm near at hand. Still shy of your fifty-third birthday.”

  “Worse ways,” Garth said, but his voice was faint.

  “Of course, that’s if you’re lucky. If you hang around Michaela and Clint here, and try to defend poor defenseless me and the rest of the women here, you’re likely to die a lot sooner.”

  “You have the most symmetrical face I have ever seen.” Garth paused and cleared his throat. “Can you stop saying scary things now?”

  Apparently Evie couldn’t. “It’s a shame that your daughter is hydrocephalic and must live her life in an institution, but that is no excuse for the damage you are inflicting on a formerly fine body and mind.”

  The officers were goggling at her. Clint had hoped for something that would prove Evie’s otherworldliness, but this was beyond his wildest expectations. As if he had spoken this aloud, Evie looked at him . . . and winked.

  “How do you know about Cathy?” Garth asked. “How can you?”

  Looking at Michaela, Evie said, “I have agents among the creatures of the world. They tell me everything. They help me. It’s like in Cinderella, but different. For one thing, I like them better as rats than as coachmen.”

  “Evie . . . Ms. Black . . . are you responsible for the sleeping women? And if so, is it possible you can wake them up again?”

  “Clint, are you sure this is smart?” Rand asked. “Letting this lady have a jailhouse interview? I don’t think Warden Coates would—”

  Jeanette Sorley chose this moment to stumble down the hall, holding up her brown top so it made a makeshift pouch. “Who wants peas?” she cried. “Who wants fresh peas?”

  Evie, meanwhile, seemed to have lost the thread. Her hands were gripping the prison bars hard enough to turn her knuckles white.

  “Evie?” asked Clint. “Are you okay?”

  “Yes. And while I appreciate your need for haste, Clint, I’m multi-tasking this afternoon. You need to wait while I take care of something.” Then, to herself rather than the half a dozen people outside her cell: “I’m sorry to do this, but he wouldn’t have had long, anyway.” A pause. “And he misses his cat.”

  6

  Judge Silver had shuffled most of the way to the Olympia’s parking lot before Frank caught up with him. Gems of drizzle shone on the slumped shoulders of the old fellow’s topcoat.

  Silver turned at his approach—nothing wrong with his ears, it seemed—and gave him a sweet smile. “I want to thank you again for Cocoa,” he said.

  “That’s all right,” he said. “Just doing my job.”

  “Yes, but you did it with real compassion. That made it easier for me.”

  “I’m glad. Judge, it seemed to me that you had an idea in there. Would you like to share it with me?”

  Judge Silver considered. “May I speak frankly?”

  The other man smiled. “Since my name is Frank, I’d expect nothing less.”

  Silver did not smile back. “All right. You’re a fine man, and I’m glad you’ve stepped up to the plate since Deputy Coombs is . . . shall we say hors de combat . . . and it’s clear none of the other officers want the responsibility, but you have no background in law enforcement, and this is a delicate situation. Extremely delicate. Do you agree?”

  “Yes,” Frank said. “On all points.”

  “I’m worried about a blow-up. A posse that gets out of control and turns into a mob. I’ve seen that happen, back during one of the uglier coal strikes in the seventies, and it was not a pretty thing. Buildings were burned, there was a dynamite explosion, men were killed.”
/>   “You have an alternative?”

  “I might. I—get away, dammit!” The judge waved one arthritic hand at the moth fluttering around his head. It flew away and landed on a car aerial, slowly flexing its wings in the fine drizzle. “Those things are everywhere lately.”

  “Uh-huh. Now what were you saying?”

  “There’s a man named Harry Rhinegold in Coughlin. Ex-FBI, retired there two years ago. Fine man, fine record, several Bureau commendations—I’ve seen them on the wall in his study. I’m thinking I might talk to him, and see if he’ll sign on.”

  “As what? A deputy?”

  “As an advisor,” the judge said, and took a breath that rattled in his throat. “And, possibly, as a negotiator.”

  “A hostage negotiator, you mean.”

  “Yes.”

  Frank’s first impulse, childish but strong, was to tell the judge no way, he was in charge. Except, technically speaking, he wasn’t. Terry Coombs was, and it was always possible Terry would show up, hungover but sober, and want to take the reins. Also, could he, Frank, stop the judge, short of physical restraint? He could not. Although Silver was too much of a gentleman to say it (unless he absolutely had to, of course), he was an officer of the court, and as such far outranked a self-appointed lawman whose specialties were catching stray dogs and doing ads for Adopt-A-Pet on the Public Access channel. There was one more consideration, and it was the most important of all: hostage negotiation was actually not a bad idea. Dooling Correctional was like a fortified castle. Did it matter who pried the woman out, as long as the job got done? As long as she could be questioned? Coerced, if necessary, should they conclude that she actually might be able to stop the Aurora?

  Meanwhile, the judge was looking at him, shaggy eyebrows raised.

  “Do it,” Frank said. “I’ll tell Terry. If this Rhinegold agrees, we can have a skull session either here or at the station tonight.”

  “So you won’t . . .” The judge cleared his throat. “You won’t take any immediate steps?”