“Stop him, Ralph,” Lois moaned. “Oh please stop him.”

Slowly, like a man who has been drugged, Ralph raised his hand and then chopped it down. A blue wedge of light flew from his fingertips, but it diffused as it passed through the windowglass. A pastel fog spread out a little distance from Lois’s house and then disappeared.

The bald doctor shook his finger in an infuriating pantomime-Oh, you naughty boy, it said.

Doc #3 reached out again, and plucked something from Wyzer’s back pocket as he knelt in the street, mourning the dog. Ralph couldn’t tell for sure what it was until the creature in the dirty smock swept McGovern’s hat from his head and pretended to use it on his own nonexistent hair. He had taken a black pocket-comb, the kind you could buy in any convenience store for a buck twenty-nine. Then he leaped into the air, clicking his heels like a malignant elf.

Rosalie had raised her head at the bald doctor’s approach. Now she lowered it back to the pavement and died. The aura surrounding her disappeared at once, not fading but simply winking out of existence like a soapbubble. Wyzer got to his feet, turned to a man standing on the curb, and began to tell him what had happened, gesturing with his hands to indicate how the dog had run out ill front of his car. Ralph found he could actually read a string of six words as they came off Wyzer’s lips: seemed to come out of nowhere.

And when Ralph shifted his gaze back down to the side of Wyzer’s car, he saw that was the place to which the little bald doctor had returned.

CHAPTER 16

Ralph was able to get his rustbucket Oldsmobile started, but it still took him twenty minutes to get them across town to Derry Home on the east side. Carolyn had understood his increasing worries about his driving and had tried to be sympathetic, but she’d had an impatient, hurry-up streak in her nature, and the years had not mellowed it much.

On trips longer than half a mile or so, she was almost always unable to keep from lapsing into reproof. She would stew in silence for awhile, thinking, then begin her critique. If she was particularly exasperated with their progress-or lack of it-she might ask him if he thought an enema would help him get the lead out of his ass. She was a sweetheart, but there had always been an edge to her tongue.

Following such remarks, Ralph would always offer-and always without rancor-to pull over and let her drive. Such offers Carol had always declined. Her belief was that, on short hops, at least, it was the husband’s job to drive and the wife’s to offer constructive criticism.

He kept waiting for Lois to comment on either his speed or his sloppy driving habits (he didn’t think he would be able to remember his blinkers with any consistency these days even if someone put a gun to his head), but she said nothing-only sat where Carolyn had sat on five thousand rides or more, holding her purse on her lap exactly as Carolyn had always held hers. Wedges of light-store neon, traffic signals, streetlights-ran like rainbows across Lois’s cheeks and brows. Her dark eyes were distant and thoughtful. She had cried after Rosalie died, cried hard, and made Ralph pull down the shade again.

Ralph almost hadn’t done that. His first impulse had been to bolt out into the street before Joe Wyzer could get away. To tell Joe he had to be very careful. To tell him that when he emptied his pants pockets tonight, he was going to be missing a cheap comb, no big deal, people were always losing combs, except this time it was a big deal, and next time it might be Rite Aid pharmacist Joe Wyzer lying at the end of the skid. Listen to me, Joe, and listen closely. You have to be very careful, because there’s all sorts of news from the HyperReality Zone, and in your case all of it comes inside black borders.

There were problems with that, however. The biggest was that Joe Wyzer, sympathetic as he had been on the day he had gotten Ralph an appointment with the acupuncturist, would think Ralph was crazy.

Besides, how did one defend oneself against a creature one couldn’t even see?

So he had pulled the shade… but before he did, he took one last hard look at the man who had told him he used to be Joe Wyze but was now older and Wyzer. The auras were still there, and he could see Wyzer’s balloon-string, a bright orange-yellow, rising intact from the top of his head. So he was still all right.

For now, at least.

Ralph had led Lois into the kitchen and poured her another cup of coffee-black, with lots of sugar.

“He killed her, didn’t he?” she asked as she raised the cup to her lips with both hands. “The little beast killed her.”

“Yes, But I don’t think he did it tonight. I think he really did it this morning.”

“Why? Why.”

“Because he could,” Ralph said grimly. “I think that’s the only reason he needs. just because he could.”

Lois had given him a long, appraising look, and an expression of relief had slowly crept into her eyes. “You’ve figured it out, haven’t you? I should have known it the minute I saw you this evening. I would have known, if I hadn’t had so many other things rolling around in what passes for my mind.”

“Figured it out? I’m miles from that, but I have had some ideas.

Lois, do you feel up to a trip to Derry Home with me?”

“I suppose so. Do you want to see Bill?”

“I’m not sure exactly who I want to see. It might be Bill, but it might be Bill’s friend, Bob Polhurst. Maybe even jimmy Vandermeer-do you know him?”

“Jimmy V.? Of course I know him! I knew his wife even better.

In fact, she used to play poker with us until she died. It was a heart attack, and so sudden-” She broke off suddenly, looking at Ralph with her dark Spanish eyes. “Jimmy’s in the hospital? Oh God, it’s the cancer, isn’t it? The cancer came back.”

“Yes. He’s in the room right next to Bill’s friend.” Ralph told her about the conversation he’d had with Faye that morning and the note he’d found on the picnic table that afternoon. He pointed out the odd conjunction of rooms and residents-Polhurst, jimmy V Carolyn-and asked Lois if she thought it was just a coincidence.

“No. I’m sure it isn’t.” She had glanced at the clock. “Come on-regular visiting hours over there finish at nine-thirty, I think.

If we’re going to get there before then, we’d better turn it on Now, as he turned onto Hospital Drive (Forgot your damned blinker again, sweetheart, Carolyn commented), he glanced at LoisLois sitting there with her hands clasped on her purse and her aura invisible for the time being-and asked if she was all right.

She nodded. “Yes. Not great, but okay. Don’t worry about me.”

But I do worry, Lois, Ralph thought. A lot. And by the way, did you see Doc #3 take the comb out of Joe Wyzer’s pocket?

That was a stupid question. Of course she’d seen. The bald midaet had wanted her to see. Had wanted both of them to see. The real question was how much significance she had attached to it.

How much do you really know, Lois? How many connections have you made? I have to wonder, because they’re not really that hard to see.

I wonder… but I’m afraid to ask.

There was a low brick building about a quarter of a mile farther down the feeder road-WomanCare. A number of spotlights (new additions, he was quite sure) threw fans of illumination across its lawn, and Ralph could see two men walking back and forth at the end of grotesquely elongated shadows… rent-a-cops, he supposed.

Another new wrinkle; another straw flying in an evil wind.

He turned left (this time remembering the blinker, at least) and eased the Olds carefully up the chute which led into the multi-level hospital parking garage. At the top, an orange barrier-arm blocked the way. PLEASE STOP amp; TAKE TICKET, read the sign next to it. Ralph could recall a time when there used to be actual people in places like this, rendering them a little less eerie. Those were the dais, my friend, we thought they’d never end, he thought as he unrolled his window and took a ticket from the automated dispenser.