Duma Key: A Novel by Stephen King

Author:Stephen King
Format: mobi, epub, azw3
Tags: Occult, Mystery, Stephen - Prose & Criticism, King, Fiction - Horror, Programming, General, Suspense, Fiction, Occult & Supernatural, Computers - Languages
ISBN: 9781416552963
Publisher: Pocket
Published: 2010-08-20T07:00:00+00:00

v

“Scoto Gallery, this is Alice.”

A cheery voice I’d come to know well over the last ten days.

“Hi, Alice, it’s Edgar Freemantle.”

“Yes, Edgar?” Cheery became cautious. Had that cautious note been there before? Had I just ignored it?

I said, “If you have a couple of minutes, I wonder if we could talk about ordering the slides at the lecture.”

“Yes, Edgar, we certainly could.” The relief was palpable. It made me feel like a hero. Of course it also made me feel like a rat.

“Have you got a pad handy?”

“You bet your tailfeathers!”

“Okay. Basically, we’re going to want them in chronological order-”

“But I don’t know the chronology, I’ve been trying to tell you th-”

“I know, and I’m going to give it to you now, but listen, Alice: the first slide won’t be chronological. The first should be of Roses Grow from Shells. Have you got that?”

“Roses Grow from Shells. I’ve got it.” For only the second time since meeting me, Alice sounded genuinely happy that we were talking.

“Now, the pencil sketches,” I said.

We talked for the next half an hour.

vi

“Oui, allô?”

For a moment I said nothing. The French threw me a little. The fact that it was a young man’s voice threw me more.

“Allô, allô?” Impatient now. “Qui est à l’appareil?”

“Mmm, maybe I have the wrong number,” I said, feeling not just like an asshole but a monolingual American asshole. “I was trying to reach Melinda Freemantle.”

“D’accord, you have the right number.” Then, off a little: “Melinda! C’est ton papa, je crois, chérie.”

The phone went down with a clunk. I had a momentary image – very clear, very politically incorrect, and very likely brought on by Pam’s mention of the cartoon books I’d once drawn for a little sick girl – of a large talking skunk in a beret, Monsieur Pepé Le Pew, strutting around my daughter’s pension (if that was the word for a bedsitter-type apartment in Paris) with wavy aroma lines rising from his white-striped back.

Then Melinda was there, sounding uncharacteristically flustered. “Dad? Daddy? Is everything all right?”

“Everything’s fine,” I said. “Is that your roommate?” It was a joke, but I realized from her uncharacteristic silence that I had unwittingly hit the nail on the head. “It’s not a big deal, Linnie. I was just-”

“ – goofin wit me, right.” It was impossible to tell if she was amused or exasperated. The connection was good but not that good. “He is, actually.” The subtext of that one to come through loud and clear: Want to make something of it?

I most assuredly did not want to make something of it. “Well, I’m glad you made a friend. Does he wear a beret?”

To my immense relief, she laughed. With Lin, it was impossible to tell which way a joke was going to go, because her sense of humor was as unreliable as an April afternoon. She called: “Ric! Mon papa… ” Something I didn’t catch, then: “… si tu portes un béret!”

There was faint male laughter. Ah, Edgar, I thought. Even overseas you lay them in the aisles, you père fou.

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