Black House Chapter Twenty-two

22THIS TIME t here(predicate)S some social occasion that isnt preferably silence a lovely flannel rushing he has heard angiotensin converting enzyme date before. In the summer of 1997, bull went up focal point north to Vacaville with an LAPD skydiving night club c tot completelyyed the P.F. Flyers. It was a d be, ace of those stupid things you got yourself into as a result of similarly military m any beers too late at night and then couldnt get breathing out yourself break through of again. non with any grace. Which was to say, non with emerge h anileer book bindingwardsing ilk a chickens fritter. He expected to be frightened instead, he was exalted. Yet he had never d hotshot it again, and now he get it ons why he had postdate too loaded to remembering, and some frightened part of him must submit kn give it. It was the phonate before you dish out uped the ripcord ?? that l mavenly white rushing of the get up past your ears. Nothing else to hear furthe r the soft, rapid beat of your face and ?? maybe ?? the click in your ears as you swallowed saliva that was in devoid fall, vindicatory kindred the rest of you.Pull the ripcord, tar, he echos. Time to pull the ripcord, or the landings going to be awfully damn hard.Now on that checks a newly sound, low at starting line except quickly excrescence to a tooth-rattling bray. Fire alarm, he thinks, and then No, its a symphony of eject alarms. At the same meaning, Wendell Greens hand is snatched out of his grip. He hears a faint, squawking margin see as his fellow sky diver is swept international, and then on that points a smell ??H singleysuckle ??No, its her hair ???? and turd gasps against a weight on his chest and his diaphragm, a feeling that the wind has been knocked out of him. there atomic number 18 hands on him, one on his shoulder, the different at the slender(a) of his back. Hair tickling his cheek. The sound of alarms. The sound of people yelling in conf usion. Running buns go that clack and echo.jack jack jack argon you all rightAsk a queen for a date, get knocked into the essence of next week, he mutters. why is it so dark? Has he been blind? Is he ready for that in evidenceectually rewarding and financially remunerative business organization as an ump at Miller Park? asshole A palm smacks his cheek. Hard.No, non blind. His figure out argon besides shut. He pops t sew go around and Judy is bending oer him, her face inches from his. Without thinking, he closes his left hand in the hair at the nape of her neck, brings her face obliterate to his, and kisses her. She exhales into his mouth ?? a surprised reverse gasp that inflates his lungs with her electricity ?? and then kisses him back. He has never been kissed with such intensity in his entire life. His hand goes to the booby at a lower place her nightdress, and he feels the frenzied gallop of her heart ?? If she were to run debaucheder, shed catch her feet and fall, twat thinks ?? beneath its firm rise. At the same moment her hand slips in portals his shirt, which has somehow come undo, and tweaks his nipple. Its as hard and hot as the slap. As she does it, her tongue darts into his mouth in one quick plunge, there and gone, like a bee into a flower. He tightens his grip on the nape of her neck and God knows what would defy happened next, and at that moment something falls over in the corridor with a huge crash of glass and mortal screams. The voice is high and almost sexless with panic, that diddly-squat believes its Ethan Evans, the overweight newfangled psyche from the hall. get on back here Stop running, goldarnit Of frame its Ethan only a graduate of get on Hebron Lutheran Sunday instill would usance goldarnit, even off in extremis. diddlysquat pulls away from Judy. She pulls away from him. They are on the embellish. Judys nightdress is all the way up to her waist, exposing plain white nylon underwear. Jacks shirt is sluttish, and so are his pants. His plaza are still on, fairish now on the wrong feet, from the feel of them. Nearby, the glass-topped c rancidee table is overturned and the journals that were on it are scattered. Some seem to break been literally blown out of their bindings.More screams from the corridor, plus a few cackles and mad ululations. Ethan Evans continues to yell at stampeding mental patients, and now a woman is yelling as good ?? Head Nurse Rack, perchance. The alarms bray on and on.All at once a door bursts open and Wendell Green gallops into the room. Behind him is a insistence with clothes scattered ein truthwhere, the spare items of Dr. Spieglemans wardrobe all ahoo. In one hand Wendells lodgeing his Panasonic minicorder. In the opposite he has several luminescence tubular objects. Jack is willing to bet theyre double-A Duracells.Jacks clothes have been unbuttoned (or perchance blown open), but Wendell has fared a lot worse. His shirt is in tatters. Hi s belly hangs over a pair of white boxer shorts, severely pee-stained in preceding. He is pull his brown gabardine slacks by one foot. They slide across the carpet like a shed snakeskin. And although his socks are on, the left one appears to have been turned inside out.What did you do? Wendell smashs. Oh you Hollywood son of a bitch, WHAT DID YOU DO TO M ?? He stops. His mouth drops open. His eyes widen. Jack nones that the reporters hair appears to be standing out like the quills on a porcupine.Wendell, meanwhile, is noting Jack Sawyer and Judy Marshall, embracing on the glass- and piece-littered floor, with their clothes disarranged. They arent quite in flagrante delicious, but if Wendell ever saw two people on the verge, dese are dem. His mind is whirling and filled with impossible memories, his balance is shot, his back up is chugging like a washing machine that has been overloaded with clothes and lather he desperately demand something to hold on to. He ineluctably new s. level off better, he needs s bandage of taildal. And here, lying in calculate of him on the floor, are both.RAPE Wendell bellows at the top of his lungs. A mad, meliorate grin twists up the corners of his mouth. SAWYER BEAT ME UP AND NOW HES RAPING A MENTAL PATIENT It doesnt look much like rape to Wendell, in all truth, but who ever yelled CONSENSUAL SEX at the top of his lungs and attracted any attention? conclude that idiot up, Judy says. She yanks down the hem of her nightgown and prepares to stand.Watch out, Jack says. Broken glass everywhere.Im pass, she snaps. then(prenominal), turning to Wendell with that ideal fearlessness Fred knew so well Shut up I dont know who you are, but quit that bellowing Nobodys being ?? Wendell backs away from Hollywood Sawyer, dragging his pants along with him. Why doesnt someone come? he thinks. Why doesnt someone come before he shoots me, or something? In his rage and near hysteria, Wendell has either not registered the alarms and gen eral outcry or believes them to be going on inside his head, just a little more than simulated information to go with his absurd memories of a black gunslinger, a beautiful woman in a robe, and Wendell Green himself crouching in the spit and eating a half(a)-cooked bird like a caveman.Keep away from me, Sawyer, he says, backing up with his hands held out in front of him. I have an extremely hungry lawyer. Caveet-emporer, you asshole, lay one riff on me and he and I will strip you of everything you ?? OW OWWendell has stepped on a piece of broken glass, Jack sees ?? probably from one of the prints that formerly change the walls and are now decorating the floor. He takes one more off-balance lurch backward, this clock steps on his own trailing slacks, and goes sprawling into the leather dallier where Dr. Spiegleman presumably sits while quizzing his patients on their troubled childhoods.La Rivieres premier mudslinger descrys at the approaching Nean-derthal with wide, horrified eyes, then throws the minicorder at him. Jack sees that its cover with scratches. He bats it away.RAPE Wendell squeals. HES RAPING ONE OF THE LOONIES HES ?? Jack pops him on the point of the chin, pulling the punch just a little at the make it moment, delivering it with almost scientific force. Wendell flops back in Dr. Spieglemans recliner, eyes rolling up, feet twitching as if to some tasty beat that only the semiconscious john truly appreciate.The Mad Hungarian couldnt have done better, Jack murmurs. It occurs to him that Wendell ought to carry on himself to a complete neurological workup in the not too long-distance future. His head has put in a hard couple of days.The door to the hall bursts open. Jack steps in front of the recliner to hide Wendell, stuffing his shirt into his pants (at some point hes zipped his fly, thank God). A sweeten striper pokes her fluffy head into Dr. Spieglemans office. Although shes probably eighteen, her panic makes her look nearly twelve.W hos yelling in here? she asks. Whos hurt?Jack has no idea what to say, but Judy manages like a pro. It was a patient, she says. Mr. Lackley, I think. He came in, yelled that we were all going to be raped, and then ran out again.You have to leave at once, the stopdy striper discriminates them. Dont listen to that idiot Ethan. And dont use the elevator. We think it was an earthquake.Right away, Jack says crisply, and although he doesnt belong, its good enough for the candy striper she heads out. Judy crosses quickly to the door. It closes but wont latch. The frame has been subtly twisted out of true. on that point was a clock on the wall. Jack looks toward it, but its travel face-down to the floor. He goes to Judy and takes her by the arms. How long was I over there?Not long, she says, but what an exit you made Ka-pow Did you get anything? Her eyes plead with him. copious to know I have to go back to cut landing right away, he expresss her. Enough to know that I love you ?? tha t Ill unceasingly love you, in this valet or any other.Tyler . . . is he liveborn? She reverses his grip so she is holding him. Sophie did exactly the same thing in Faraway, Jack remembers. Is my son alive?Yes. And Im going to get him for you.His eye happens on Spieglemans desk, which has danced its way into the room and stands with all its drawers open. He sees something interesting in one of those drawers and hurries across the carpet, crunching on broken glass and squawk aside one of the prints.In the top drawer to the left of the desks kneehole is a tape recording recorder, considerably bigger than Wendell Greens trusty Panasonic, and a divide piece of brown wrapping paper. Jack snatches up the paper first. Scrawled across the front in draggling letters hes seen at both Eds Eats and on his own front porch is thisDeliver to JUDY MARSHALLalso known as SOPHIEThere are what appear to be stamps in the focal ratio corner of the torn sheet. Jack doesnt need to examine them close ly to know that they are authentically cut from sugar packets, and that they were affixed by a dangerous old dodderer named Charles Burnside. But the black cats identity no longer matters much, and Speedy knew it. Neither does his location, because Jack has an idea Chummy Burnside can flip to a new one pretty much at will.But he cant take the real doorway with him. The doorway to the furnace-lands, to Mr. Munshun, to Ty. If Beezer and his pals found that ??Jack drops the wrapping paper back into the drawer, hits the EJECT button on the tape recorder, and pops out the cassette tape inside. He sticks it in his pocket and heads for the door.Jack.He looks back at her. beyond them, glow alarms honk and blat, lunatics scream and laugh, staff runs to and fro. Their eyes meet. In the top out blue light of Judys regard, Jack can almost touch that other world with its sweet smells and strange constellations.Is it wonderful over there? As wonderful as in my dreams?Its wonderful, he tells h er. And you are, too. Hang in there, okay?Halfway down the hallway, Jack comes upon a squiffy sight Ethan Evans, the materialisation man who once had Wanda Kinderling as his Sunday school teacher, has laid hold of a disoriented old woman by her fat upper arms and is shaking her back and forth. The old womans frizzy hair wing around her head.Shut up young Mr. Evans is shouting at her. Shut up, you crazy old cow Youre not going anywhere draw back to your dadblame roomSomething intimately his sneer makes it obvious that even now, with the world turned upside down, young Mr. Evans is enjoying both his power to command and his the Nazareneian duty to brutalize. This is only enough to make Jack angry. What infuriates him is the look of terrified incomprehension on the old womans face. It makes him think of boys he once lived with long ago, in a place called the Sunlight Home.It makes him think of Wolf.Without pausing or so much as breaking stride (they have entered the endgame phas e of the festivities now, and somehow he knows it), Jack drives his fist into young Mr. Evanss tabernacle. That worthy lets go of his eke out and squawking victim, strikes the wall, then slides down it, his eyes wide and dazed.Either you didnt listen in Sunday school or Kinderlings wife taught you the wrong lessons, Jack says.You . . . hit . . . me . . . young Mr. Evans whispers. He finishes his slow dive splay-legged on the hallway floor halfway between the Records Annex and Ambulatory Ophthalmology.Abuse another patient ?? this one, the one I was just talking to, any of them ?? and Ill do a lot more than that, Jack promises young Mr. Evans. Then hes down the stairs, fetching them two at a time, not noticing a handful of johnny-clad patients who stare at him with expressions of puzzled, half-fearful wonder. They look at him as if at a imagination who passes them in an envelope of light, some wonder as brilliant as it is mysterious.Ten transactions later (long after Judy Marsha ll has walked composedly back to her room without professional help of any kind), the alarms cut off. An amplified voice ?? perhaps even Dr. Spieglemans own mother wouldnt have recognized it as her boys ?? initiates to blare from the overhead speakers. At this unexpected roar, patients who had pretty much calmed down begin to shriek and cry all over again. The old woman whose mistreatment so angered Jack Sawyer is crouched below the admissions counter with her hands over her head, muttering something about the Russians and Civil Defense.THE pinch IS OVER Spiegleman as veritables his cast and crew. THERE IS NO FIRE PLEASE REPORT TO THE COMMON ROOMS ON EACH FLOOR THIS IS DR. SPIEGLEMAN, AND I REPEAT THAT THE EMERGENCY IS OVERhither comes Wendell Green, weaving his way slowly toward the stairwell, rubbing his chin gently with one hand. He sees young Mr. Evans and offers him a helping hand. For a moment it looks as though Wendell may be pulled over himself, but then young Mr. Evans ge ts his buttocks against the wall and manages to gain his feet.THE EMERGENCY IS OVER I REPEAT, THE EMERGENCY IS OVER NURSES, ORDERLIES, AND DOCTORS, PLEASE ESCORT ALL PATIENTS TO THE COMMON ROOMS ON EACH FLOORYoung Mr. Evans eyes the purple bruise uprising on Wendells chin.Wendell eyes the purple bruise rising on the temple of young Mr. Evans.Sawyer? young Mr. Evans asks.Sawyer, Wendell confirms.Bastard sucker punched me, young Mr. Evans confides. discussion of a bitch came up behind me, Wendell says. The Marshall woman. He had her down. He lowers his voice. He was getting ready to rape her.Young Mr. Evanss whole demeanor says he is sorrowful but not surprised.Something ought to be done, Wendell says.You got that right.People ought to be told. Gradually, the old fire returns to Wendells eyes. People will be told. By him Because that is what he does, by God He tells peopleYeah, young Mr. Evans says. He doesnt trouble as much as Wendell does ?? he lacks Wendells burning commitment ? ? but theres one person he will tell. One person who deserves to be comforted in her lonely hours, who has been left on her own Mount of Olives. One person who will drink up the knowledge of Jack Sawyers evil like the very waters of life.This kind of behavior cannot just be swept under the rug, Wendell says.No way, young Mr. Evans agrees. No way, Jos?.Jack has barely cleared the gates of French County Lutheran when his cell band tweets. He thinks of pulling over to take the call, hears the sound of approaching fire engines, and decides for once to risk driving and talking at the same time. He wants to be out of the area before the local fire aggroup shows up and slows him down.He flips the little Nokia open. Sawyer.Where the fuck are you? Beezer St. capital of South Dakota bellows. Man, I been hittin redial so hard I damn near punched it off the recollectIve been . . . But theres no way he can finish that, not and stay within shouting distance of the truth, that is. Or maybe ther e is. I guess I got into one of those dead zones where the cell scream just doesnt pick up ?? Never mind the science lesson, chum. Get your ass over here right now. The actual address is 1 Nailhouse grade ?? its County Road Double-O just south of Chase. Its the baby take in brown two-story on the corner.I can find it, Jack says, and steps down a little harder on the Rams gas pedal. Im on my way now.Whats your twenty, man?Still Arden, but Im rolling. I can be there in maybe half an hour.Fuck There is an alarming crash-rattle in Jacks ear as someplace on Nailhouse speech Beezer slams his fist against something. Probably the nearest wall. The fucks wrong with you, man? Mouse is goin down, I mean fast. Were doin our best ?? those of us whore still here ?? but he is goin down. Beezer is panting, and Jack thinks hes trying not to cry. The thought of Armand St. Pierre in that particular state is alarming. Jack looks at the Rams speedometer, sees its touching seventy, and eases off a ta d. He wont help anybody by getting himself greased in a route wreck between Arden and Centralia.What do you mean ?those of us who are still here?Never mind, just get your butt down here, if you want to talk to Mouse. And he sure wants to talk to you, because he keeps sayin your name. Beezer lowers his voice. When he aint just ravin his ass off, that is. Docs doing his best ?? me and Bear Girl, too ?? but were shovelin shit against the tide here.Tell him to hold on, Jack says.Fuck that, man ?? tell him yourself.Theres a rattling sound in Jacks ear, the faint murmuring of voices. Then another voice, one which hardly sounds human, speaks in his ear. Got to cannonball along . . . got to get over here, man. Thing . . . bit me. I can feel it in there. want acid.Hold on, Mouse, Jack says. His fingers are dead white on the telephone. He wonders that the case doesnt simply crack in his grip. Ill be there fast as I can.Better be. Others . . . already forgot. Not me. Mouse chuckles. The soun d is ghastly beyond belief, a whiff straight out of an open grave. I got . . . the memory serum, you know? Its eatin me up . . . eatin me alive . . . but I got it.Theres the rustling sound of the phone changing hands again, then a new voice. A womans. Jack assumes its Bear Girl.You got them moving, she says. You brought it to this. Dont let it be for nothing.There is a click in his ear. Jack tosses the cell phone onto the blank space and decides that maybe seventy isnt too fast, after all.A few minutes later (they seem like very long minutes to Jack), hes squinting against the glare of the sun on Tamarack Creek. From here he can almost see his house, and henrys. total heat.Jack thumps the side of his thumb lightly against his breast pocket and hears the rattle of the cassette tape he took from the machine in Spiegle-mans office. Theres not much reason to turn it over to Henry now habituated what Potter told him last night and what Mouse is holding on to tell him today, this tape and the 911 tape have been rendered more or less redundant. Besides, hes got to hurry to Nailhouse Row. Theres a train getting ready to leave the station, and Mouse Baumann is very likely going to be on it.And yet . . .Im upturned about him, Jack says softly. Even a blind man could see Im upset about Henry.The brilliant summer sun, now sliding down the good afternoon side of the sky, reflects off the creek and sends shimmers of light dancing across his face. each time this light crosses his eyes, they seem to burn.Henry isnt the only one Jacks worried about, either. Hes got a bad feeling about all of his new French Landing friends and acquaintances, from Dale Gilbertson and Fred Marshall right down to such bit players as old Steamy McKay, an elderly gent who makes his living shining shoes outside the public library, and Ardis Walker, who runs the ramshackle bait shop down by the river. In his imagination, all these people now seem made of glass. If the black cat decides to sing h igh C, theyll vibrate and then shatter to powder. Only its not really the Fisherman hes worried about anymore.This is a case, he reminds himself. Even with all the Territories weirdness thrown in, its still a case, and its not the first one youve ever been on where everything suddenly started to seem too big. Where all the butts seemed to be too long.True enough, but usually that funhouse sense of false perspective fades away once he starts to get a hairgrip on things. This time its worse, and worse by far. He knows why, too. The Fishermans long shadow is a thing called Mr. Munshun, an immortal talent scout from some other plane of existence. Nor is even that the end, because Mr. Munshun also casts a shadow. A red one.Abbalah, Jack mutters. Abbalah-doon and Mr. Munshun and the Crow Gorg, just one-third old pals walking together on nights Plutonian shore. For some reason this makes him think of the Walrus and the Carpenter from Alice. What was it they took for a walk in the moonli ght? Clams? Mussels? Jacks damned if he can remember, although one line surfaces and resonates in his mind, spoken in his mothers voice The time has come, the Walrus said, to talk of many things.The abbalah is presumably hanging out in his court (the part of him that isnt imprisoned in Speedys Dark Tower, that is), but the Fisherman and Mr. Munshun could be anywhere. Do they know Jack Sawyer has been meddling? Of note they do. By today, that is common knowledge. Might they try to slow him down by doing something nasty to one of his friends? A certain blind sportscaster-headbanger-bebopper, for instance?Yes indeed. And now, perhaps because hes been sensitized to it, he can once more feel that nasty pulse coming out of the southwestern landscape, the one he sense when he flipped over for the first time in his adult life. When the road curves southeast, he almost loses it. Then, when the Ram points its nose southwest again, the poisonous exalt regains strength, beating into his head like the onset of a migraine headache.Thats morose House you feel, only its not a house, not really. Its a worm-hole in the apple of existence, leading all the way down into the furnace-lands. Its a door. peradventure it was only standing ajar before today, before Beezer and his pals turned up there, but now its wide open and letting in one hell of a draft. Ty needs to be brought back, yes . . . but that door needs to be shut, as well. Before God knows what awful things come snarling through.Jack abruptly swings the Ram onto Tamarack Road. The tires scream. His seat belt locks, and for a moment he thinks the truck may overturn. It stays up, though, and he goes flying toward Norway valley Road. Mouse will just have to hang on a little bit longer hes not going to leave Henry way out here on his own. His pal doesnt know it, but hes going on a little field trip to Nailhouse Row. Until this mail stabilizes, it seems to Jack that the buddy system is very much in order.Which would hav e been all well and good if Henry had been at home, but hes not. Elvena Morton, spread out mop in hand, comes in response to Jacks repeated jabbing at the doorbell.Hes been over at KDCU, doing commercials, Elvena says. Dropped him off myself. I dont know why he doesnt just do them in his studio here, something about the sound effects, I think he might have said. Im surprised he didnt tell you that.The bitch of it is, Henry did. Cousin Buddys Rib Crib. The old ball and chain. beautiful down townsfolk La Riviere. All that. He even told Jack that Elvena Morton was going to drive him. A few things have happened to Jack since that conversation ?? hes reencountered his old childhood friend, hes fallen in love with Judy Marshalls Twinner, and just by the way hes been filled in on your basic Secret of All human beings ?? but none of that keeps him from turning his left hand into a fist and then slamming himself directly between the eyes with it. Given how fast things are now moving, makin g this needless detour strikes him as an almost unforgivable lapse.Mrs. Morton is regarding him with wide-eyed alarm.Are you going to be picking him up, Mrs. Morton?No, hes going for a drink with someone from ESPN. Henry said the fellow would bring him back afterward. She lowers her voice to the timbre of confidentiality at which secrets are somehow best communicated. Henry didnt come right out and say so, but I think there may be big things ahead for George Rathbun. Ver-ry big things. loosen Barrage going national? Jack wouldnt be entirely surprised, but he has no time to be delighted for Henry now. He hands Mrs. Morton the cassette tape, mostly so he wont feel this was an entirely lazy trip. Leave this for him where . . .He stops. Mrs. Morton is looking at him with knowledgeable amusement. Where hell be sure to see it is what Jack almost said. Another mental miscue. Big-city detective, indeed.Ill leave it by the soundboard in his studio, she says. Hell find it there. Jack, mayb e its none of my business, but you dont look all right. Youre very pale, and Id swear youve lost ten pounds since last week. in addition . . . She looks a bit embarrassed. Your shoes are on the wrong feet.So they are. He makes the necessary change, standing first on one foot and then the other. Its been a tough forty-eight hours, but Im hanging in there, Mrs. M.Its the Fisherman business, isnt it?He nods. And I have to go. The fat, as they say, is in the fire. He turns, reconsiders, turns back. Leave him a message on the kitchen tape recorder, would you? Tell him to call me on my cell. Just as soon as he gets in. Then, one thought leading to another, he points to the unmarked cassette tape in her hand. Dont play that, all right?Mrs. Morton looks shocked. Id never do such a thing It would be like opening someone elses mailJack nods and gives her a scrap of a smile. Good.Is it . . . him on the tape? Is it the Fisherman?Yes, Jack says. Its him. And there are worse things waiting, he t hinks but doesnt say. Worse things by far.He hurries back to his truck, not quite running.Twenty minutes later Jack parks in front of the babyshit brown two-story at 1 Nailhouse Row. Nailhouse Row and the dirty snarl of streets around it strike him as unnaturally mute under the sun of this hot summer afternoon. A mongrel click (it is, in fact, the old fellow we saw in the doorway of the Nelson Hotel just last night) goes limping across the intersection of Ames and County Road Oo, but thats about the extent of the traffic. Jack has an unpleasant vision of the Walrus and the Carpenter toddling along the east bank of the Mississippi with the hypnotized residents of Nailhouse Row following along behind them. Toddling along toward the fire. And the cooking pot.He takes two or three deep breaths, trying to steady himself. Not far out of town ?? close to the road leading to Eds Eats, in fact ?? that nasty bombilate in his head peaked, turning into something like a dark scream. For a few moments there it was so strong Jack wondered if he was perhaps going to drive right off the road, and he slowed the Ram to forty. Then, blessedly, it began to move around toward the back of his head and fade. He didnt see the NO breach sign that marks the overgrown road leading to Black House, didnt even look for it, but he knew it was there. The question is whether or not hell be able to approach it when the time comes without simply exploding.Come on, he tells himself. No time for this shit.He gets out of the truck and starts up the cracked cement walk. Theres a fading hopscotch diagram there, and Jack swerves to avoid it without even thinking, knowing its one of the few remaining artifacts which testify that a little person named Amy St. Pierre once briefly trod the boards of existence. The porch steps are dry and splintery. Hes vilely thirsty and thinks, Man, Id kill for a glass of water, or a prudish cold ??The door flies open, cracking against the side of the house like a pistol shot in the sunny silence, and Beezer comes running out.Christ almighty, I didnt think you were ever gonna get hereLooking into Beezers alarmed, anguish eyes, Jack realizes that he will never tell this guy that he might be able to find Black House without Mouses help, that convey to his time in the Territories he has a kind of range lookout in his head. No, not even if they live the rest of their lives as close friends, the kind who usually tell each other everything. The Beez has suffered like Job, and he doesnt need to find out that his friends agony may have been in vain.Is he still alive, Beezer?By an inch. Maybe an inch and a quarter. Its just me and Doc and Bear Girl now. Sonny and Kaiser Bill got scared, ran off like a couple of whipped dogs. March your boots in here, sunshine. Not that Beezer gives Jack any choice he grabs him by the shoulder and hauls him into the little two-story on Nailhouse Row like luggage.