“Yes, boss.”

“But first, watch this-a little trick I learned back in Kansas.” Kurtz sprayed the cards. In the crazy blizzard-wind coming through the door, they flew every whichway. Only one landed faceup in the hat, but it was the ace of spades.

Mr Gray held the menu, looking at the lists of stuff-meatloaf, sliced beets, roast chicken, chocolate silk pie-with interest and an almost total lack of understanding. Jonesy realized it wasn’t just not knowing how food tasted; Mr Gray didn’t know what taste was. How could he? When you cut to the chase, he was nothing but a mushroom with a high IQ.

Here came a waitress, moving under a vast tableland of frozen ash-blonde hair. The badge on her not inconsiderable bosom read WELCOME TO DYSART’s, I AM YOUR WAITRESS DARLENE.

“Hi, hon, what can I get you?”

“I’d like scrambled eggs and bacon. Crisp, not limp.”

“Toast?”

“How about canpakes?”

She raised her eyebrows and looked at him over her pad. Beyond her, at the counter, the State Trooper was eating some kind of drippy sandwich and talking with the short-order cook.

“Sorry-cakepans, I meant to say.”

The eyebrows went higher. Her question was plain, blinking at the front of her mind like a neon sign in a saloon window: was this guy a mushmouth, or was he making fun of her?

Standing at his office window, smiling, Jonesy relented.

“Pancakes,” Mr Gray said.

“Uh-huh, I sort of figured. Coffee with that?”

“Please.”

She snapped her pad closed and started away. Mr Gray was back at the locked door of Jonesy’s office at once, and furious all over again.

How could you do that? he asked. How could you do that from in there? An ill-natured thump as Mr Gray hit the door. And he was more than angry, Jonesy realized. He was frightened, as well. Because if Jonesy could interfere, everything was in jeopardy.

I don’t know, Jonesy said, and truthfully enough. But don’t take it so hard. Enjoy your breakfast. I was just fucking with you a little.

Why? Still furious. Still drinking from the well of Jonesy’s emotions, and liking it in spite of himself. Why would you do that?

Call it payback for trying to roast me in my office while I was sleeping, Jonesy said.

With the restaurant section of the truck stop almost deserted, Darlene was back with the food in no time. Jonesy considered seeing if he could gain control of his mouth long enough to say something outrageous (Darlene, can I bite your hair? was what came to mind), and thought better of it.

She set his plate down, gave him a dubious look, then started away. Mr Gray, looking at the bright yellow lump of eggs and the dark twigs of bacon (not just crispy but almost incinerated, in the great Dysart’s tradition) through Jonesy’s eyes, was feeling the same dubiety.

Go on, Jonesy said. He was standing at his office window, watching and waiting with amusement and curiosity. Was it possible that the bacon and eggs would kill Mr Gray? Probably not, but it might at least make the hijacking motherfucker good and sick. Go on, Mr Gray, eat up. Bon-fuckin-appetit.

Mr Gray consulted Jonesy’s files on the proper use of the silverware, then picked up a tiny clot of scrambled eggs on the tines of his fork, and put them in Jonesy’s mouth.

What followed was both amazing and hilarious. Mr Gray gobbled everything in huge bites, pausing only to drown the pancakes in fake maple syrup. He loved it all, but most particularly the bacon.

Flesh! Jonesy heard him exulting-it was almost the voice of the creature in one of those corny old monster movies from the thirties. Flesh! Flesh! This is the taste of flesh!

Funny… but maybe not all that funny, either. Maybe sort of horrible. The cry of a new-made vampire.

Mr Gray looked around, ascertained that he wasn’t being watched (the State Bear was now addressing a large piece of cherry pie), then picked up the plate and licked the grease from it with big swipes of Jonesy’s tongue. He finished by licking the sticky syrup from the ends of his fingers.

Darlene returned, poured more coffee, looked at the empty dishes. “Why, you get a gold star,” she said. “Anything else?” “More bacon,” Mr Gray said. He consulted Jonesy’s files for the correct terminology, and added: “A double order.” And may you choke on it, Jonesy thought, but now without much hope.

“Gotta stoke the stove,” Darlene said, a comment Mr Gray didn’t understand and didn’t bother hunting down in Jonesy’s files. He put two sugars in his coffee, looked around to make sure he wasn’t observed, then poured the contents of a third packet down his throat. Jonesy’s eyes half-closed for a few seconds as Mr Gray drowned happily in the bliss of sweet.

You can have that any time you want it, Jonesy said through the door. Now he supposed he knew how Satan felt when he took Jesus up on the mountaintop and tempted him with all the cities of the earth. Not good; not really bad; just doing the job, selling the product.

Except… check that. It did feel good, because he knew he was getting through. He wasn’t opening stab-wounds exactly, but he was at least pricking Mr Gray. Making him sweat little blood-beads of desire.

Give it up, Jonesy coaxed. Go native. You can spend years exploring my senses. They’re pretty sharp; I’m still under forty.

No reply from Mr Gray. He looked around, saw no one looking his way, poured fake maple syrup into his coffee, slurped it, and looked around again for his supplemental bacon. Jonesy sighed. This was like being with a strict Muslim who has somehow wound up on a Las Vegas holiday.

On the far side of the restaurant was an arch with a sign reading TRUCKERS” LOUNGE amp; SHOWERS above it. In the short hallway beyond, there was a bank of pay telephones. Several drivers stood there, no doubt explaining to spouses and bosses that they wouldn’t be back on time, they’d been shut down by a surprise storm in Maine, they were at Dysart’s Truck Stop (known to the cognoscenti as Dry Farts, Jonesy thought) south of Derry and here they would likely remain until at least noon tomorrow.

Jonesy turned from the office window with its view of the truck stop and looked at his desk, now covered with all his old and comforting clutter. There was his phone, the blue Trimline. Would it be possible to call Henry on it? Was Henry even still alive? Jonesy thought he was. He thought that if Henry were dead, he would have felt the moment of his passing-more shadows in the room, perhaps. Elvis has left the building, Beaver had often said when he spotted a name he knew in the obits. What a fuckitt pisser. Jonesy didn’t think Henry had left the building just yet. It was even possible that Henry had an encore in mind.

Mr Gray didn’t choke on his second order of bacon, but when his lower belly suddenly cramped up, he let out a dismayed roar. You poisoned me!

Relax, Jonesy said. You just need to make a little room, my friend.

Room? What do you-

He broke off as another cramp gripped his gut.

I mean that we had better hurry along to the little boys” room, Jonesy said. Good God, didn’t all those abductions you guys did in the sixties teach you anything about the human anatomy?

Darlene had left the check, and Mr Gray picked it up.

Leave her fifteen per cent on the table, Jonesy said. It’s a tip.

How much is fifteen per cent?

Jonesy sighed. These were the masters of the universe that the movies had taught us to fear? Merciless, star-faring conquerors who didn’t know how to take a shit or figure a tip?Another cramp, plus a fairly silent fart. It smelled, but not of ether. Thank God for small