“King Herod got a little advance word this time around,” Ralph said. “That’s what you’re telling me, isn’t it? It’s the old Messiah thing, right?”

He sat up, half-expecting Ed to shove him down again, almost hoping he would. His anger was coming back. It was surely wrong to critique a madman’s delusional fantasies the way you might a play or a movie-maybe even blasphemous-but Ralph found the idea that Helen had been beaten because of such hackneyed old shit as this infuriating.

Ed didn’t touch him, merely got to his feet and dusted his hands,all in businesslike fashion. He seemed to be cooling down again.

Radio calls crackled louder as the Police cruiser which had backed out of the Red Apple’s lot now glided up to the curb. Ed looked at the cruiser, then back at Ralph, why was getting up himself.

“You can mock, but it’s true,” he said quietly. “It’s not King Herod, though-it’s the Crimson King. Herod was merely one of his incarnations. The Crimson King jumps from body to body and generation to generation like a kid using stepping-stones to cross a brook, Ralph, always looking for the Messiah. He’s always missed him, but this time it could be different. Because Derry’s different.

All lines of force have begun to converge here. I know how difficult that is to believe, but it’s true.”

The Crimson King, Ralph thought. Oh Helen, I’m so sorry. What a sad thing this is.

Two men-one in uniform, one in streetclothes, both presumably cops-got out of the Police car and approached McGovern. Behind them, down at the store, Ralph spotted two more men, these dressed in white pants and white short-sleeved shirts, coming out of the Red Apple. One had his arm around Helen, who was walking with the fragile care of a post-op patient. The other was holding Natalie.

The paramedics helped Helen into the back of the ambulance.

The one with the baby cot in after her while the other moved toward the driver’s seat. What Ralph sensed in their movements was competency rather than urgency, and he thought that was good news for Helen. Maybe Ed hadn’t hurt her too badly… this time, at least.

The plain-clothes cop-burly, broad-shouldered, and wearing his blond mustache and sideburns in a style Ralph thought of as Early American Singles Bar-had approached McGovern, whom he seemed to recognize. There was a big grin on the plain-clothes cop’s face.

Ed put an arm over Ralph’s shoulders and pulled him a few steps away from the men on the sidewalk. He also dropped his voice to a bare murmur. “Don’t want them to hear us,” he said.

“I’m sure you don’t.”

“These creatures… Centurions… servants of the Crimson King… will stop at nothing. They are relentless.”

“I’ll bet.” Ralph glanced over his shoulder in time to see McGovern point at Ed. The burly man nodded calmly. His hands were stuffed in the pockets of his chinos. He was still wearing a small, benign smile.

I don’t get that idea! Not anymore.

“This isn’t just about abortion, They’re taking the unborn from all kinds of mothers, not just the junkies and the whores-eight days, eight weeks, eight months, it’s all the same to the Centurions. The harvest goes on day and night.

The slaughter. I’ve seen the corpses of infants on roofs, Ralph.

“… under hedges… they’re in the sewers… floating in the sewers and in the Kenduskeag down in the Barrens…”

His eyes, huge and green, as bright as trumpery emeralds, stared off into the distance.

“Ralph,” he whispered, “sometimes the world is full of colors. I’ve seen them since he came and told me. But now all the colors are turning black.”

“Since who came and told you, Ed?”

“We’ll talk about it later,” Ed. replied, speaking out of the corner of his mouth like a con in a prison movie. Under other circumstances it would have been funny.

A big game-show host grin dawned on his face, banishing the madness as convincingly as sunrise banishes night. The change was almost tropical in its suddenness, and creepy as hell, but Ralph found something comforting about it, just the same. Perhaps they-he, McGovern, Lois, all the others on this little stretch of Harris Avenue who knew Ed-would not have to blame themselves too much for not seeing his madness sooner, after all. Because Ed was good; Ed really had his act down. That grin was an Academy Award winner, Even in a bizarre situation like this, it practically demanded that you respond to it.

“Hey, hi,” he told the two cops. The burly one had finished his conversation with McGovern, and both of them were advancing across the lawn, “Drag up a rock, you guys!” Ed stepped around Ralph with his hand held out.

The burly plain-clothes cop shook it, still smiling his small, benign smile. “Edward Deepneau?” he asked.

“Right.” Ed shook hands with the uniformed cop, who looked a trifle bemused, and then returned his attention to the burly man.

“I’m Detective Sergeant John Leydecker,” the burly man said.

“This is Officer Chris Nell. Understand you had a little trouble here, sir.”

“Well, yes. I guess that’s right. A little trouble. Or, if you want to call a spade a spade, I behaved like a horse’s ass.” Ed’s embarrassed little chuckle was alarmingly normal. Ralph thought of all the charming psychopaths he’d seen in the movies-George Sanders had always been particularly good at that sort of role-and wondered if it was possible for a smart research chemist to snow a small-city detective who looked as if he had never completely outgrown saturday Night Fever phase. Ralph was terribly afraid. n his Saut might be.

“Helen and I got into an argument about a petition she’d signed,” Ed was saying, “and one thing just led to another. Man, I Just can’t believe I hit her.”

He flapped his arms, as if to convey how flustered he was-not to mention confused and ashamed. Leydecker smiled in return.

Ralph’s mind returned to the confrontation last summer between Ed and the man in the blue pickup. Ed had called the heavyset man a murderer, had even stroked him one across the face, and still the guy had ended up looking at Ed almost with respect. It had been like a kind of hypnosis, and Ralph thought he was seeing the same force at work here.

“Things just kinda got out of hand a little, is that what you’re telling me?” Leydecker asked sympathetically.

“That’s about the size of it, yeah.” Ed had to be at least thirty-two but his wide eyes and innocent expression made him look barely old enough to buy beer.

“Wait a minute,” Ralph blurted. “You can’t believe him, he’s nuts. And dangerous. He just told me-”

“This is Mr. Roberts, right?” Leydecker asked McGovern, ignoring Ralph completely.

“Yes,” McGovern said, and to Ralph he sounded insufferably pompous. “That is Ralph Roberts.”

“Uh-huh.” Leydecker at last looked at Ralph. “I’ll want to speak to you in a couple of minutes, Mr. Roberts, but for the time being I’d like you to stand over there beside your friend and keep quiet.

Okay?”

“But"Okay?”

Angrier than ever, Ralph stalked over to where McGovern was ecker in the least. HC standing-This did not seem to upset Leyd turned to Officer Ne. “You want to turn off the music, Chris, so we can hear ourselves think?”

“Yo.” The uniformed cop went to the boombox, inspected the various then killed The Who halfway through the song about the blind pinball wizard.

Ed looked sheepish. “I guess I did have it cranked a little. Wonder the neighbors didn’t complain.”

“Oh, well, life goes on,” Leydecker said. He tilted his small, serene smile up toward the clouds drifting across the blue summer sky.

Wonderful, Ralph thought. This guy is a regular Will Rogers.

Ed, however, was nodding as if the detective had produced not just a single pearl of wisdom but a whole string of them, Leydecker rummaged in his pocket and came out with a little tube of toothpicks. He offered them to Ed, who declined, then shook one out and stuck it in the corner of his mouth. “So,” he said. “Little family argument. Is that what I’m hearing?”