He put the bottle back in the glove compartment. Its neck chattered briefly like teeth. And he saw a paper where the bottle had been. He took it out and unfolded it, leaving bloody fingerprints on the corners. Embossed across the top was this logo, in bright scarlet:

Below this, carefully printed in capital letters:

BILL DENBROUGH 311

BEN HANSCOM 404

EDDIE KASPBRAK 609

BEVERLY MARSH 518

RICHIE TOZIER 217

Their room numbers. That was good. That saved time. 'Thanks, Be — '

But Belch was gone. The driver's seat was empty. There was only the New York Yankees baseball cap lying there, mold crusted on its bill. And some slimy stuff on the knob of the gearshift.

Henr y stared, his heart beating painfully in his throat . . . and then he seemed to hear something move and shift in the back seat. He got out quickly, opening the door and almost falling to the pavement in his haste. He gave the Fury, which still burbled softly through its dual cherry-bomb mufflers (cherry-bombs had been outlawed in the State of Maine in 1962), a wide berth.

It was hard to walk; each step pulled and tore at his belly. But he gained the sidewalk and stood there, looking at the eight-floor brick building which, along with the library and the Aladdin Theater and the seminary, was one of the few he remembered clearly from the old days. Most of the lights on the upper floors were out now, but the frosted-glass globes which flanked the main doorway blazed softly in the darkness, haloed with moisture from the lingering groundfog.

Henry made his laborious way toward and between them, shouldering open one of the doors.

The lobby was wee-hours silent. There was a faded Turkish rug on the floor. The ceiling was a huge mural, executed in rectangular panels, which showed scenes from Derry's logging days. There were overstuffed sofas and wing chairs and a great fireplace which was now dead and silent, a birch log thrown across the andirons — a real log, no gas; the fireplace in the Town House was not just a piece of lobby stage dressing. Plants spilled out of low pots. The glass double doors leading to the bar and the restaurant were closed. From some inner office, Henry could hear the gabble of a TV, turned low.

He lurched across the lobby, his pants and shirt streaked with blood. Blood was grimed into the folds of his hands; it ran down his cheeks and slashed his forehead like warpaint. His eyes bulged from their sockets. Anyone in the lobby w ho had seen him would have run, screaming, in terror. But there was no one.

The elevator doors opened as soon as he pushed the UP button. He looked at the paper in his hand, then at the floor buttons. After a moment of deliberation, he pushed 6 and the doors closed. There was a faint hum of machinery as the elevator began to rise.

Might as well start at the top and work my way down.

He slumped against the rear wall of the car, eyes half-closed. The hum of the elevator was soothing. Like the hum of the machinery in the pumping-stations of the drainage system. That day: it kept coming back to him. How everything seemed almost prearranged, as if all of them were just playing parts. How Vie and the ole Belcher had seemed . . . well, almost drugged. He remembered —

The car came to a stop, jolting him and sending another wave of griping pain into his stomach. The doors slid open. Henry stepped out into the silent hallway (more plants here, hanging ones, spiderplants, he didn't want to touch any of them, not those oozy green runners, they reminded him too much of the things that had been hanging down there in the dark). He rechecked the paper. Kaspbrak was in 609. Henry started down that way, running one hand along the wall for support, leaving a faint bloody track on the wallpaper as he went (ah, but he stepped away whenever he came close to one of the hanging spiderplants; he wanted no truck with those). His breathing was harsh and dry.

Here it was. Henry pulled the switchblade from his pocket, swashed his dry lips with his tongue, and knocked on the door. Nothing. He knocked again, louder this time.

'Whozit?' Sleepy. Good. He'd be in his 'jammies, only half-awake. And when he opened the door, Henry would drive the switchblade directly into the hollow at the base of his neck, the vulnerable hollow just below the adam's apple.

'Bellboy, sir,' Henry said. 'Message from your wife.' Did Kaspbrak have a wife? Maybe that had been a stupid thing to say. He waited, coldly alert. He heard footsteps — the shuffle of slippers.

'From Myra?' He sounded alarmed. Good. He would be more alarmed in a few seconds. A pulse beat steadily in Henry's right temple.

'I guess so, sir. There's no name. It just says your wife.'

There was a pause, then a metallic rattle as Kaspbrak fumbled with the chain. Grinning, Henry pushed the button on the switchblade's handle. Click. He held the blade up by his cheek, ready. He heard the thumb-bolt turn. In just a moment he would plunge the blade into the skinny little creep's throat. He waited. The door opened and Eddie

10

The Losers All Together / 1:20 P.M.

saw Stan and Richie just coming out of the Costello Avenue Market, each of them eating a Rocket on a push-up stick. 'Hey!' he shouted. 'Hey, wait up!'

They turned around and Stan waved. Eddie ran to join them as quickly as he could, which was not, in truth, very quickly. One arm was immured in a plaster-of-Paris cast and he had his Parcheesi board under the other.

'Whatchoo say, Eddie? Whatchoo say, boy?' Richie asked in his grandly rolling Southern Gentleman Voice (the one that sounded more like Foghorn Leghorn in the Warner Brothers cartoons than anything else). 'Ah say . . . Ah say . . . the boy's got a broken ahm! Lookit that, Stan, the boy's got a broken ahm! Ah say . . . be a good spote and carreh the boy's Pawcheeseh bo-wud for him!'

'I can carry it,' Eddie said, a little out of breath. 'How about a lick on your Rocket?'

'Your mom wouldn't approve, Eddie,' Richie said sadly. He began to eat faster. He had just gotten to the chocolate stuff in the middle, his favorite part. 'Germs, boy! Ah say . . . Ah say you kin get germs eatin after someone else!'

'I'll chance it,' Eddie said.

Reluctantly, Richie held his Rocket up to Eddie's mouth . . . and snatched it away quickly as soon as Eddie had gotten in a couple of moderately serious licks.

'You can have the rest of mine, if you want,' Stan said. 'I'm still full from lunch.'

'Jews don't eat much,' Richie instructed. 'It's part of their religion.' The three of them were walking along companionably enough now, headed up toward Kansas Street and the Barrens. Derry seemed lost in a deep hazy afternoon doze. The blinds of most of the houses they passed were pulled down. Toys stood abandoned on lawns, as if their owners had been hastily called in from play or put down for naps. Thunder rumbled thickly in the west.

'Is it?' Eddie asked Stan.

'No, Richie's just pulling your leg,' Stan said. 'Jews eat as much as normal people.' He pointed at Richie. 'Like him.'

'You know, you're pretty fucking mean to Stan,' Eddie told Richie. 'How would you like somebody to say all that made-up shit about you, just because you're a Catholic?'

'Oh, Catholics do plenty,' Richie said. 'My dad told me once that Hitler was a Catholic, and Hitler killed billions of Jews. Right, Stan?'

'Yeah, I guess so,' Stan said. He looked embarrassed.

'My mom was furious when my dad told me that,' Richie went on. A little reminiscent grin had surfaced on his face.' Absolutely fyoo-rious. Us Catholics also had the Inquisition, that was the little dealie with the rack and the thumbscrews and all that stuff. I figure all religions are pretty weird.'