Duma Key - Stephen King

Noveen sings Fr re Jacques, fr re Jacques, are you sleepun? Are you sleepun? Dormay-voo, dormay-voo?

Sometimes Noveen told her stories - mixed-up but wonderful - where Cinderella wore the red slippers from Oz and the Bobbsey Twins got lost in the Magic Forest and found a sweetie house with a roof made of peppermint candy.

But then Noveen's voice changed. It stopped being Adie's voice. It stopped being the voice of anyone Elizabeth knew, and it went right on talking even when Elizabeth told Noveen to ferramay her bush. At first, maybe that voice was pleasant. Maybe it was fun. Strange, but fun.

Then things changed, didn't they? Because art is magic, and not all magic is white.

Not even for little girls.

7 - Art for Art's Sake

i

There was a bottle of single-malt in the living room liquor cabinet. I wanted a shot and didn't take it. I wanted to wait, maybe eat one of my egg salad sandwiches and plan out what I was going to say to her, and I didn't do that, either. Sometimes the only way to do it is to do it. I took the cordless phone out into the Florida room. It was chilly even with the glass sliders shut, but in a way that was good. I thought the cool air might sharpen me up a little. And maybe the sight of the sun dropping toward the horizon and painting its golden track across the water would calm me down. Because I wasn't calm. My heart was pounding too hard, my cheeks felt hot, my hip hurt like a bastard, and I suddenly realized, with real horror, that my wife's name had slipped my mind. Every time I dipped for it, all I came up with was peligro, the Spanish word for danger.

I decided there was one thing I did need before calling Minnesota.

I left the phone on the overstuffed couch, limped to the bedroom (using my crutch now; I and my crutch were going to be inseparable until bedtime), and got Reba. One look into her blue eyes was enough to bring Pam's name back, and my heartbeat slowed. With my best girl clamped between my side and my stump, her boneless pink legs wagging, I made my way back to the Florida room and sat down again. Reba flopped onto my lap and I set her aside with a thump so she faced the westering sun.

"Stare at it too long, you'll go blind," I said. "Of course, that's where the fun is. Bruce Springsteen, 1973 or so, muchacha."

Reba did not reply.

"I should be upstairs, painting that," I told her, "Doing fucking art for fucking art's sake."

No reply. Reba's wide eyes suggested to the world in general that she was stuck with America's nastiest man.

I picked up the cordless and shook it in her face. "I can do this," I said.

Nothing from Reba, but I thought she looked doubtful. Beneath us, the shells continued their wind-driven argument: You did, I didn't, oh yes you did.

I wanted to go on discussing the matter with my Anger-Management Doll. Instead I punched in the number of what used to be my house. No problem at all remembering that. I was hoping to get Pam's answering machine. Instead I got the lady herself, sounding breathless. "Hey, Joanie, thank God you called back. I'm running late and was hoping our three-fifteen could be-"

"It's not Joanie," I said. I reached for Reba and drew her back onto my lap without even thinking about it. "It's Edgar. And you might have to cancel your three-fifteen. We've got something to talk about, and it's important."

"What's wrong?"

"With me? Nothing. I'm fine."

"Edgar, can we talk later? I need to get my hair done and I'm running late. I'll be back at six."

"It's about Tom Riley."

Silence from Pam's part of the world. It went on for maybe ten seconds. During those ten seconds, the golden track on the water darkened just a little. Elizabeth Eastlake knew her Emily Dickinson; I wondered if she also knew her Vachel Lindsay.

"What about Tom?" Pam asked at last. There was caution in her voice, deep caution. I was pretty sure that her hair appointment had left her mind.

"I have reason to believe he may be contemplating suicide." I crooked the phone against my shoulder and began stroking Reba's hair. "Know anything about that?"

"What do... What do I..." She sounded punched, breathless. "Why in God's name would I..." She began to gain a little strength, grasping for indignation. It's handy in such situations, I suppose. "You call out of a clear blue sky and expect me to tell you about Tom Riley's state of mind? I thought you were getting better, but I guess that was wishful th-"

"Fucking him should give you some insight." My hand wound into Reba's fake orange hair and clutched, as if to tear it out by the roots. "Or am I wrong?"

"That is insane!" she nearly screamed. "You need help, Edgar! Either call Dr. Kamen or get help down there, and soon!"

The anger - and the accompanying certainty that I would begin to lose my words - suddenly disappeared. I relaxed my hold on Reba's hair.

"Calm down, Pam. This isn't about you. Or me. It's about Tom. Have you seen signs of depression? You must have."

No answer. But no hang-up click, either. And I could hear her breathing.

At last she said, "Okay. Okay, right. I know where you got this idea. Little Miss Drama Queen, correct? I suppose Ilse also told you about Max Stanton, out in Palm Desert. Oh, Edgar, you know how she is!"

At that the rage threatened to return. My hand reached out and grasped Reba by her soft middle. I can do this, I thought. It's not about Ilse, either. And Pam? Pam's only scared, because this came at her out of left field. She's scared and angry, but I can do this. I have to do this.

Never mind that for a few moments I wanted to kill her. Or that, if she'd been there in the Florida room with me, I might have tried.

"Ilse didn't tell me."

"Enough lunacy, I'm hanging up now-"

"The only thing I don't know is which one of them talked you into getting the tattoo on your breast. The little rose."

She cried out. Just one soft cry, but that was enough. There was another moment of silence. It pulsed like black felt. Then she burst out: "That bitch! She saw it and told you! It's the only way you could know! Well it means nothing! It proves nothing!"

"This isn't court, Pam," I said.

She made no reply, but I could hear her breathing.

"Ilse did have her suspicions about this guy Max, but she doesn't have a clue about Tom. If you tell her, you'll break her heart." I paused. "And that'll break mine."

She was crying. "Fuck your heart. And fuck you. I wish you were dead, you know it? You lying, prying bastard, I wish you were dead."

At least I no longer felt that way about her. Thank God.

The track on the water had darkened to burnished copper. Now the orange would begin to creep in.

"What do you know about Tom's state of mind?"

"Nothing. And for your information I'm not having an affair with him. If I did have one, it lasted for all of three weeks. It's over. I made that clear to him when I came back from Palm Desert. There are all sorts of reasons, but basically he's too..." Abruptly she jumped back. "She must have told you. Melinda wouldn't've, even if she'd known." And, absurdly spiteful: " She knows what I've been through with you!"

It was surprising, really, how little interest I had in going down that road with her. I was interested in something else. "He's too what?"

" Who's too what?" she cried. "Jesus, I hate this! This interrogation!"

Like I was loving it. "Tom. You said 'Basically he's too,' then stopped."

"Too moody. He's an emotional grab-bag. One day up, one day down, one day both, especially if he doesn't take-"

She ceased abruptly.

"If he doesn't take his pills," I finished for her.

"Yeah, well, I'm not his psychiatrist," she said, and that wasn't tinny petulance in her voice; I was pretty sure it was blue steel. Jesus. The woman I'd been married to could be tough when the situation called for it, but I thought that unforgiving blue steel was a new thing: her part of my accident. I thought it was Pam's limp.

"I got enough of that shrinky-dink shit with you, Edgar. Just once I'd like to meet a man who was a man and not a pill-popping Magic 8-Ball. 'Cannot say now, ask later when I'm not feeling so upset.'"

She sniffed in my ear, and I waited for the follow-up honk. It came. She cried the same way as always; some things apparently didn't change.

"Fuck you, Edgar, for fucking up what was actually a pretty good day."

"I don't care who you sleep with," I said. "We're divorced. All I want is to save Tom Riley's life."

This time she screamed so loud I had to hold the phone away from my ear. "I'm not RESPONSIBLE for his life! WE'RE QUITS! Did you miss that?" Then, a little lower (but not much): "He's not even in St. Paul. He's on a cruise with his mother and that gayboy brother of his."

Suddenly I understood, or thought I did. It was as if I were flying over it, getting an aerial view. Maybe because I had contemplated suicide, cautioning myself all the while that it must absolutely look like an accident. Not so the insurance money would get paid, but so that my daughters wouldn't have to go through life with the stigma of everyone knowing -

And that was the answer, wasn't it?

"Tell him you know. When he gets back, tell him you know he's planning to kill himself."

"Why would he believe me?"

"Because he is planning to. Because you know him. Because he's mentally ill, and probably thinks he's going around with a sign that says PLANNING SUICIDE taped to his back. Tell him you know he's been ditching his antidepressants. You do know that, right? For a fact."

"Yes. But telling him to take them never helped before."

"Did you ever tell him you'd tattle on him if he didn't start taking his medicine? Tattle to everyone?"

"No, and I'm not going to now!" She sounded appalled. "Do you think I want everyone in St. Paul to know I slept with Tom Riley? That I had a thing with him?"

"How about all of St. Paul knowing you care what happens to him? Would that be so goddam awful?"

She was silent.

"All I want is for you to confront him when he comes back-"

"All you want! Right! Your whole life has been about all you want! I tell you what, Eddie, if this is such a BFD to you, then you confront him!" It was that shrill hardness again, but this time with fear behind it.

I said, "If you were the one who broke it off, you probably still have power over him. Including - maybe - the power to make him save his life. I know that's scary, but you're stuck with it."

"No I'm not. I'm hanging up."

"If he kills himself, I doubt if you'll spend the rest of your life with a bad conscience... but I think you will have one miserable year. Or two."

"I won't. I'll sleep like a baby."

"Sorry, Panda, I don't believe you."

It was an ancient pet name, one I hadn't used in years, and I don't know where it came from, but it broke her. She began to cry again. This time there was no anger in it. "Why do you have to be such a bastard? Why won't you leave me alone?"

I wanted no more of this. What I wanted was a couple of pain pills. And maybe to sprawl on my bed and have a good cry myself, I wasn't sure. "Tell him you know. Tell him to see his psychiatrist and start taking his antidepressants again. And here's the most important thing - tell him that if he kills himself, you'll tell everyone, starting with his mother and brother. That no matter how good he makes it look, everyone will know it was really suicide."

"I can't do that! I can't!" She sounded hopeless.

I considered this, and decided I'd put Tom Riley's life entirely in her hands - simply pass it down the telephone wire to her. That sort of letting-go hadn't been in the old Edgar Freemantle's repertoire, but of course that Edgar Freemantle would never have considered spending his time painting sunsets. Or playing with dolls.

"You decide, Panda. It might be useless anyway if he no longer cares for you, but-"

"Oh, he does." She sounded more hopeless than ever.

"Then tell him he has to start living life again, like it or not."

"Good old Edgar, still managing things," she said wanly. "Even from his island kingdom. Good old Edgar. Edgar the monster."

"That hurts," I said.

"Lovely," she said, and hung up. I sat on the couch awhile longer, watching as the sunset grew brighter and the air in the Florida room grew colder. People who think there is no winter in Florida are very mistaken. An inch of snow fell in Sarasota in 1977. I guess it gets cold everywhere. I bet it even snows in hell, although I doubt if it sticks.

ii

Wireman called the next day shortly after noon and asked if he was still invited to look at my pictures. I felt some misgivings, remembering his promise (or threat) to give me his unvarnished opinion, but told him to come ahead.

I set out what I thought were my sixteen best... although in the clear, cold daylight of that January afternoon they all looked pretty crappy to me. The sketch I'd made of Carson Jones was still on the shelf in my bedroom closet. I took it down, clipped it to a piece of fiberboard, and propped it at the end of the line. The penciled colors looked dowdy and plain compared to the oils, and of course it was smaller than the rest, but I still thought it had something the others lacked.

I considered putting out the picture of the red-robe, then didn't. I don't know why. Maybe just because it gave me the creeps. I put out Hello - the pencil sketch of the tanker - instead.

Wireman came buzzing up in a bright blue golf cart with sporty yellow pinstriping. He didn't have to ring the bell. I was at the door to meet him.

"You've got a certain drawn look about you, muchacho, " he said, coming in. "Relax. I ain't the doctor and this ain't the doctor's office."

"I can't help it. If this was a building and you were a building inspector, I wouldn't feel this way, but-"

"But that was your other life," Wireman said. "This be your new one, where you haven't got your walking shoes broke in yet."

"That's about the size of it."

"You're damn right. Speaking of your prior existence, did you call your wife about that little matter you discussed with me?"

"I did. Do you want the blow-by-blow?"

"Nope. All I want to know is if you're comfortable with the way the conversation turned out."

"I haven't had a comfortable conversation with Pam since I woke up in the hospital. But I'm pretty sure she'll talk to Tom."

"Then I guess that'll do, pig. Babe, 1995." He was all the way in now, and looking around curiously. "I like what you've done to the place."

I burst out laughing. I hadn't even removed the no-smoking sign on top of the TV. "I had Jack put in a treadmill upstairs, that's new. You've been here before, I take it?"

He gave me an enigmatic little smile. "We've all been here before, amigo - this is bigger than pro football. Peter Straub, circa 1985."

"I'm not following you."

"I've been working for Miss Eastlake about sixteen months now, with one brief and uncomfortable diversion to St. Pete when the Keys were evacuated for Hurricane Frank. Anyway, the last people to rent Salmon Point - pardon me, Big Pink - stayed just two weeks of their eight-week lease and then went boogie-bye-bye. Either they didn't like the house or the house didn't like them." Wireman raised ghost-hands over his head and took big wavery ghost-steps across the light blue living room carpet. The effect was to a large degree spoiled by his shirt, which was covered with tropical birds and flowers. "After that, whatever walked in Big Pink... walked alone!"