Everything'S Eventual: 14 Dark Tales / Stephen King. - Hardcover

Stephen King

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0743235150 ISBN 13: 9780743235150

Publisher: Simon & Schuster, 2002

Synopsis

Includes the story “The Man in the Black Suit”—set in the fictional town of Castle Rock, Maine

A collection of 14 dark tales, Everything’s Eventual includes one O. Henry Prize winner, two other award winners, four stories published by The New Yorker, and “Riding the Bullet,” King’s original ebook, which attracted over half a million online readers and became the most famous short story of the decade.

Two of the stories, “The Little Sisters of Eluria” and “Everything’s Eventual” are closely related to the Dark Tower series. "Riding the Bullet," published here on paper for the first time, is the story of Alan Parker, who's hitchhiking to see his dying mother but takes the wrong ride, farther than he ever intended. In "Lunch at the Gotham Café," a sparring couple's contentious lunch turns very, very bloody when the maître d' gets out of sorts. "1408," the audio story in print for the first time, is about a successful writer whose specialty is "Ten Nights in Ten Haunted Graveyards" or "Ten Nights in Ten Haunted Houses," and though Room 1408 at the Dolphin Hotel doesn't kill him, he won't be writing about ghosts anymore.

Stories include:
-Autopsy Room Four
-The Man in the Black Suit
-All That You Love Will Be Carried Away
-The Death of Jack Hamilton
-In the Deathroom
-The Little Sisters of Eluria
-Everything's Eventual
-L. T.'s Theory of Pets
-The Road Virus Heads North
-Lunch at the Gotham Café
-That Feeling, You Can Only Say What It Is in French
-1408
-Riding the Bullet
-Luckey Quarter

Whether writing about encounters with the dead, the near dead, or about the mundane dreads of life, from quitting smoking to yard sales, Stephen King is at the top of his form in the fourteen dark tales assembled in Everything's Eventual. Intense, eerie, and instantly com-pelling, they announce the stunningly fertile imagination of perhaps the greatest storyteller of our time.

About this title

About the Author

Stephen King is the author of more than sixty books, all of them worldwide bestsellers. His recent work includes Never Flinch, the short story collection You Like It Darker (a New York Times Book Review top ten horror book of 2024), Holly (a New York Times Notable Book of 2023), Fairy Tale, Billy Summers, If It Bleeds, The Institute, Elevation, The Outsider, Sleeping Beauties (cowritten with his son Owen King), and the Bill Hodges trilogy: End of Watch, Finders Keepers, and Mr. Mercedes (an Edgar Award winner for Best Novel and a television series streaming on Peacock). His novel 11/22/63 was named a top ten book of 2011 by The New York Times Book Review and won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Mystery/Thriller. His epic works The Dark Tower, It, Pet Sematary, Doctor Sleep, and Firestarter are the basis for major motion pictures, with It now the highest-grossing horror film of all time. He is the recipient of the 2020 Audio Publishers Association Lifetime Achievement Award, the 2018 PEN America Literary Service Award, the 2014 National Medal of Arts, and the 2003 National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. He lives in Bangor, Maine, with his wife, novelist Tabitha King. 

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Excerpt

Lunch at the Gotham Café

One day when I was in New York, I walked past a very nice-looking restaurant. Inside, the maître d' was showing a couple to their table. The couple was arguing. The maître d' caught my eye and tipped me what may have been the most cynical wink in the universe. I went back to my hotel and wrote this story. For the three days it was in work, I was totally possessed by it. For me what makes it go isn't the crazy maître d' but the spooky relationship between the divorcing couple. In their own way, they're crazier than he is. By far.

One day I came home from the brokerage house where I worked and found a letter? more of a note, actually ? from my wife on the dining room table. It saidshe was leaving me, that she was pursuing a divorce, that I would hear from herlawyer. I sat on the chair at the kitchen end of the table, reading thiscommunication over and over again, not able to believe it. After awhile I gotup, went into the bedroom, and looked in the closet. All her clothes were goneexcept for one pair of sweatpants and a joke sweatshirt someone had given her,with the words rich blonde printed on the front in spangly stuff.

I went back to the dining room table (which was actually at one end of theliving room; it was only a four-room apartment) and read the six sentences overagain. It was the same, but looking into the half-empty bedroom closet hadstarted me on the way to believing what it said. It was a chilly piece of work,that note. There was no "Love" or "Good luck" or even "Best" at the bottom ofit. "Take care of yourself" was as warm as it got. Just below that she hadscratched her name, Diane.

I walked into the kitchen, poured myself a glass of orange juice, then knockedit onto the floor when I tried to pick it up. The juice sprayed onto the lowercabinets and the glass broke. I knew I would cut myself if I tried to pick upthe glass ? my hands were shaking ? but I picked it up anyway, and I cutmyself. Two places, neither deep. I kept thinking that it was a joke, thenrealizing it wasn't. Diane wasn't much of a joker. But the thing was, I didn'tsee it coming. I didn't have a clue. I didn't know if that made me stupid orinsensitive. As the days passed and I thought about the last six or eight monthsof our two-year marriage, I realized I had been both.

That night I called her folks in Pound Ridge and asked if Diane was there. "Sheis, and she doesn't want to talk to you," her mother said. "Don't call back."The phone went dead in my ear.

Two days later I got a call at work from Diane's lawyer, who introduced himselfas William Humboldt, and, after ascertaining that he was indeed speaking toSteven Davis, began calling me Steve. I suppose that's a little hard to believe,but it's what happened. Lawyers are so bizarre.

Humboldt told me I would be receiving "preliminary paperwork" early thefollowing week, and suggested I prepare "an account overview prefatory todissolving your domestic corporation." He also advised me not to make any"sudden fiduciary movements" and suggested that I keep all receipts for itemspurchased, even the smallest, during this "financially difficult passage." Lastof all, he suggested that I find myself a lawyer.

"Listen a minute, would you?" I asked. I was sitting at my desk with my headdown and my left hand curled around my forehead. My eyes were shut so I wouldn'thave to look into the bright gray socket of my computer screen. I'd been cryinga lot, and my eyes felt like they were full of sand.

"Of course," he said. "Happy to listen, Steve."

"I've got two things for you. First, you mean 'preparatory to ending yourmarriage,' not 'prefatory to dissolving your domestic corporation'...and ifDiane thinks I'm going to try and cheat her out of what's hers, she's wrong."

"Yes," Humboldt said, not indicating agreement but that he understood my point.

"Second, you're her lawyer, not mine. I find you calling me by my firstname patronizing and insensitive. Do it again on the phone and I'll hang up onyou. Do it to my face and I'll probably try to punch your lights out."

"Steve...Mr. Davis...I hardly think ? "

I hung up on him. It was the first thing I'd done that gave me any pleasuresince finding that note on the dining room table, with her three apartment keyson top of it to hold it down.

That afternoon I talked to a friend in the legal department, and he recommendeda friend of his who did divorce work. The divorce lawyer was John Ring, and Imade an appointment with him for the following day. I went home from the officeas late as I could, walked back and forth through the apartment for awhile,decided to go out to a movie, couldn't find anything I wanted to see, tried thetelevision, couldn't find anything there to look at, either, and did some morewalking. And at some point I found myself in the bedroom, standing in front ofan open window fourteen floors above the street, and chucking out all mycigarettes, even the stale old pack of Viceroys from the very back of my topdesk drawer, a pack that had probably been there for ten years or more ? sincebefore I had any idea there was such a creature as Diane Coslaw in the world, inother words.

Although I'd been smoking between twenty and forty cigarettes a day for twentyyears, I don't remember any sudden decision to quit, nor any dissenting interioropinions ? not even a mental suggestion that maybe two days after your wifewalks out is not the optimum time to quit smoking. I just stuffed the fullcarton, the half carton, and the two or three half-used packs I found lyingaround out the window and into the dark. Then I shut the window (it never onceoccurred to me that it might have been more efficient to throw the user outinstead of the product; it was never that kind of situation), lay downon my bed, and closed my eyes. As I drifted off, it occurred to me that tomorrowwas probably going to be one of the worst days of my life. It further occurredto me that I would probably be smoking again by noon. I was right about thefirst thing, wrong about the second.

The next ten days ? the time during which I was going through the worst of thephysical withdrawal from nicotine ? were difficult and often unpleasant, butperhaps not as bad as I had thought they would be. And although I was on theverge of smoking dozens ? no, hundreds ? of times, I never did. There weremoments when I thought I would go insane if I didn't have a cigarette, and whenI passed people on the street who were smoking I felt like screaming Givethat to me, motherfucker, that's mine! at them, but I didn't.

For me, the worst times were late at night. I think (but I'm not sure; all mythought processes from around the time Diane left are very blurry in my mind) Ihad an idea that I would sleep better if I quit, but I didn't. I lay awake somemornings until three, hands laced together under my pillow, looking up at theceiling, listening to sirens and to the rumble of trucks headed downtown. Atthose times I would think about the twenty-four-hour Korean market almostdirectly across the street from my building. I would think about the whitefluorescent light inside, so bright it was almost like a Kübler-Rossnear-death experience, and how it spilled out onto the sidewalk between thedisplays which, in another hour, two young Korean men in white paper hats wouldbegin to fill with fruit. I would think about the older man behind the counter,also Korean, also in a paper hat, and the formidable racks of cigarettes behindhim, as big as the stone tablets Charlton Heston brought down from Mount Sinaiin The Ten Commandments. I would think about getting up, dressing, goingover there, getting a pack of cigarettes (or maybe nine or ten of them), andsitting by the window, smoking one Marlboro after another as the sky lightenedto the east and the sun came up. I never did, but on many early mornings I wentto sleep counting cigarette brands instead of sheep: Winston...Winston100s...Virginia Slims...Doral...Merit...Merit 100s...Camels...CamelFilters...Camel Lights.

Later ? around the time I was starting to see the last three or four months ofour marriage in a clearer light, as a matter of fact ? I began to understandthat my decision to quit smoking when I did was perhaps not so unconsidered asit at first seemed, and a very long way from ill-considered. I'm not a brilliantman, not a brave one, either, but that decision might have been both. It'scertainly possible; sometimes we rise above ourselves. In any case, it gave mymind something concrete to pitch upon in the days after Diane left; it gave mymisery a vocabulary it would not otherwise have had.

Of course I have speculated that quitting when I did may have played a part inwhat happened at the Gotham Café that day, and I'm sure there's some truthto that. But who can foresee such things? None of us can predict the finaloutcomes of our actions, and few of us even try; most of us just do what we doto prolong a moment's pleasure or to stop the pain. And even when we act for thenoblest reasons, the last link of the chain all too often drips with someone'sblood.

Humboldt called me again two weeks after the evening when I'd bombed WestEighty-third Street with my cigarettes, and this time he stuck with Mr. Davis asa form of address. He thanked me for the copies of various documents forwardedhim through Mr. Ring and said that the time had come for "all four of us" to sitdown to lunch. All four of us meant Diane. I hadn't seen her since themorning of the day she'd left, and even then I hadn't really seen her; she'dbeen sleeping with her face buried in her pillow. I hadn't even talked to her.My heart speeded up in my chest, and I could feel a pulse tapping away in thewrist of the hand holding the telephone.

"There are a number of details to be worked out, and a number of pertinentarrangements to be discussed, and this seems to be the time to put that processin work," Humboldt said. He chuckled fatly in my ear, like a repulsive adultgiving a child some minor treat. "It's always best to let some time pass beforebringing the principals together, a little cooling-off period, but in myjudgement a face-to-face meeting at this time would facilitate ? "

"Let me get this straight," I said. "You're talking about ? "

"Lunch," he said. "The day after tomorrow? Can you clear that on your schedule?"Of course you can, his voice said. Just to see her again...toexperience the slightest touch of her hand. Eh, Steve?

"I don't have anything on for lunch Thursday anyhow, so that's not a problem.And I should bring my lawyer?"

The fat chuckle came again, shivering in my ear like something just turned outof a Jell-O mold. "I imagine Mr. Ring would like to be included, yes."

"Did you have a place in mind?" I wondered for a moment who would be paying forthis lunch, and then had to smile at my own naiveté. I reached into mypocket for a cigarette and poked the tip of a toothpick under my thumbnailinstead. I winced, brought the pick out, checked the tip for blood, saw none,and stuck it in my mouth.

Humboldt had said something, but I had missed it. The sight of the toothpick hadreminded me all over again that I was floating smokeless on the waves of theworld.

"Pardon me?"

"I asked if you know the Gotham Café on Fifty-third Street," he said,sounding a touch impatient now. "Between Madison and Park."

"No, but I'm sure I can find it."

"Noon?"

"Noon's fine," I said, and thought of telling him to tell Diane to wear thegreen dress with the little black speckles and the slit up the side. "I'll justcheck with my lawyer." It occurred to me that that was a pompous, hateful littlephrase, one I couldn't wait to stop using.

"Do that, and call me back if there's a problem."

I called John Ring, who hemmed and hawed enough to justify his retainer (notoutrageous, but considerable) and then said he supposed a meeting was in order"at this time."

I hung up, settled back in front of my computer terminal, and wondered how I waspossibly going to be able to meet Diane again without at least one cigarettebeforehand.

On the morning of our scheduled lunch, John Ring called and told me he couldn'tmake it, and that I would have to cancel. "It's my mother," he said, soundingharried. "She fell down the damned stairs and broke her hip. Out in Babylon. I'mleaving now for Penn Station. I'll have to take the train." He spoke in the toneof a man saying he'll have to go by camel across the Gobi.

I thought for a second, jiggling a fresh toothpick between my fingers. Two usedones lay beside my computer terminal, the ends frayed. I was going to have towatch that; it was all too easy to imagine my stomach filling up with sharplittle splinterettes. The replacement of one bad habit with another seems almostinevitable, I've noticed.

"Steven? Are you there?"

"Yes," I said. "I'm sorry about your mother, but I'm going to keep thelunch-date."

He sighed, and when he spoke he sounded sympathetic as well as harried. "Iunderstand that you want to see her, and that's the reason why you have to bevery careful, and make no mistakes. You're not Donald Trump and she's not Ivana,but this isn't a no-faulter we got here, either, where you get your decree byregistered mail. You've done very well for yourself, Steven, especially in thelast five years."

"I know, but ? "

"And for thuh-ree of those years," Ring overrode me, now putting on hiscourtroom voice like an overcoat, "Diane Davis was not your wife, not yourlive-in companion, and not by any stretch of the imagination your helpmate. Shewas just Diane Coslaw from Pound Ridge, and she did not go before you tossingflower-petals or blowing a cornet."

"No, but I want to see her." And what I was thinking would have driven him mad:I wanted to see if she was wearing the green dress with the black speckles,because she knew damned well it was my favorite.

He sighed again. "I can't have this discussion, or I'm going to miss my train.There isn't another one until one-oh-one."

"Go and catch your train."

"I will, but first I'm going to make one more effort to get through to you. Ameeting like this is like a joust. The lawyers are the knights; the clients arereduced, for the time being, to no more than squires with Sir Barrister's lancein one hand and the reins of his horse in the other." His tone suggested thatthis was an old image, and well-loved. "What you're telling me is that, since Ican't be there, you're going to hop on my nag and go galloping at the other guywith no lance, no armor, no faceplate, probably not even a jockstrap."

"I want to see her," I said. "I want to see how she is. How she looks. Hey,without you there, maybe Humboldt won't even want to talk."

"Oh, wouldn't that be nice," he said, and came out with a small, cynical laugh."I'm not going to talk you out of it, am I?"

"No."

"All right, then I want you to follow certain instructions. If I find out youhaven't, and that you've gummed up the works, I may decide it would be simplerto just resign the case. Are you hearing me?"

"I'm hearing you."

"Good. Don't yell at her, Steven. That's big number one. Are you hearingthat?"

"Yes." I wasn't going to yell at her. If I could quit smoking two days after shehad walked out ? and stick to it ? I thought I could get through a hundredminutes and three courses without calling her a bitch.

"Don't yell at him, that's number two."

"Okay."

"Don't just say okay. I know you don't like him, and he doesn't like you much,either."

"He's never even met me. How can he have an opinion about me one way oranother?"

"Don't be dense," he said. "He's being paid to have an opinion, that's how. Sosay okay like you mean it."

"Okay like I mean it."

"Better." But he didn't say it like he really meant it; he said it likea man who is checking his watch.

"Don't get into substantive matters," he said. "Don't discussfinancial-settlement issues, not even on a 'What would you think if I suggestedthis' basis. If he gets pissed off and asks why you kept the lunch-date if youweren't going to discuss nuts and bolts, tell him just what you told me, thatyou wanted to see your wife again."

"Okay."

"And if they leave at that point, can you live with it?"

"Yes." I didn't know if I could or not, but I thought I could, and I knew thatRing wanted to catch his train.

"As a lawyer ? your lawyer ? I'm telling you that this is a bullshitmove, and that if it backfires in court, I'll call a recess just so I can pullyou out into the hall and say I told you so. Now have you got that?"

"Yes. Say hello to your mother."

"Maybe tonight," Ring said, and now he sounded as if he were rolling his eyes."I won't get a word in until then. I have to run, Steven."

"Okay."

"I hope she stands you up."

"I know you do."

He hung up and went to see his mother, out in Babylon. When I saw him next, afew days later, there was something between us that didn't quite beardiscussion, although I think we would have talked about it if we had known eachother even a little bit better. I saw it in his eyes and I suppose he saw it inmine, as well ? the knowledge that if his mother hadn't fallen down the stairsand broken her hip, he might have wound up as dead as William Humboldt.

I walked from my office to the Gotham Café, leaving at eleven-fifteen andarriving across from the restaurant at eleven-forty-five. I got there early formy own peace of mind ? to make sure the place was where Humboldt had said itwas, in other words. That's the way I am, and pretty much the way I've alwaysbeen. Diane used to call it my "obsessive streak" when we were first married,but I think that by the end she knew better. I don't trust the competence ofothers very easily, that's all. I realize it's a pain-in-the-ass characteristic,and I know it drove her crazy, but what she never seemed to realize was that Ididn't exactly love it in myself, either. Some things take longer to change thanothers, though. And some things you can never change, no matter how hard youtry.

The restaurant was right where Humboldt had said it would be, the locationmarked by a green awning with the words Gotham Café on it. A white cityskyline was traced across the plate-glass windows. It looked New York-trendy. Italso looked pretty unamazing, just one of the eight hundred or so priceyrestaurants crammed together in midtown.

With the meeting-place located and my mind temporarily set at rest (about that,anyway; I was tense as hell about seeing Diane again and craving a cigarettelike mad), I walked up to Madison and browsed in a luggage store for fifteenminutes. Mere window-shopping was no good; if Diane and Humboldt came fromuptown, they might see me. Diane was liable to recognize me by the set of myshoulders and the hang of my topcoat even from behind, and I didn't want that. Ididn't want them to know I'd arrived early. I thought it might look needy. So Iwent inside.

I bought an umbrella I didn't need and left the shop at straight up noon by mywatch, knowing I could step through the door of the Gotham Café attwelve-oh-five. My father's dictum: If you need to be there, show up fiveminutes early. If they need you to be there, show up five minutes late. I hadreached a point where I didn't know who needed what or why or for how long, butmy father's dictum seemed like the safest course. If it had been just Dianealone, I think I would have arrived dead on time.

No, that's probably a lie. I suppose if it had just been Diane, I would havegone in at eleven-forty-five, when I first arrived, and waited for her.

I stood under the awning for a moment, looking in. The place was bright, and Imarked that down in its favor. I have an intense dislike for dark restaurantswhere you can't see what you're eating or drinking. The walls were white andhung with vibrant Impressionist drawings. You couldn't tell what they were, butthat didn't matter; with their primary colors and broad, exuberant strokes, theyhit your eyes like visual caffeine. I looked for Diane and saw a woman thatmight be her, seated about halfway down the long room and by the wall. It washard to say, because her back was turned and I don't have her knack ofrecognition under difficult circumstances. But the heavyset, balding man she wassitting with certainly looked like a Humboldt. I took a deep breath, opened therestaurant door, and went in.

There are two phases of withdrawal from tobacco, and I'm convinced that it's thesecond that causes most cases of recidivism. The physical withdrawal lasts tendays to two weeks, and then most of the symptoms ? sweats, headaches, muscletwitches, pounding eyes, insomnia, irritability ? disappear. What follows is amuch longer period of mental withdrawal. These symptoms may include mild tomoderate depression, mourning, some degree of anhedonia (emotional flat-line, inother words), forgetfulness, even a species of transient dyslexia. I know allthis stuff because I read up on it. Following what happened at the GothamCafé, it seemed very important that I do that. I suppose you'd have to saythat my interest in the subject fell somewhere between the Land of Hobbies andthe Kingdom of Obsession.

The most common symptom of phase-two withdrawal is a feeling of mild unreality.Nicotine improves synaptic transferral and improves concentration ? widens thebrain's information highway, in other words. It's not a big boost, and notreally necessary to successful thinking (although most confirmed cigarettejunkies believe differently), but when you take it away, you're left with afeeling ? a pervasive feeling, in my case ? that the world has takenon a decidedly dreamy cast. There were many times when it seemed to me thatpeople and cars and the little sidewalk vignettes I observed were actuallypassing by me on a moving screen, a thing controlled by hidden stagehandsturning enormous cranks and revolving enormous drums. It was also a little likebeing mildly stoned all the time, because the feeling was accompanied by a senseof helplessness and moral exhaustion, a feeling that things had to simply go onthe way they were going, for good or for ill, because you (except of course it'sme I'm talking about) were just too damned busy not-smoking to do muchof anything else.

I'm not sure how much all this bears on what happened, but I know it hassome bearing, because I was pretty sure something was wrong with themaître d' almost as soon as I saw him, and as soon as he spoke to me, Iknew.

He was tall, maybe forty-five, slim (in his tux, at least; in ordinary clotheshe probably would have looked skinny), mustached. He had a leather-bound menu inone hand. He looked like battalions of maître d's in battalions of fancyNew York restaurants, in other words. Except for his bow-tie, which was askew,and something on his shirt that was a splotch just above the place where hisjacket buttoned. It looked like either gravy or a glob of some dark jelly. Also,several strands of his hair stuck up defiantly in back, making me think ofAlfalfa in the old Little Rascals one-reelers. That almost made me burstout laughing ? I was very nervous, remember ? and I had to bite my lips tokeep it in.

"Yes, sir?" he asked as I approached the desk. It came out sounding likeYais sair? All maître d's in New York City have accents, but it isnever one you can positively identify. A girl I dated in the mid-eighties, onewho did have a sense of humor (along with a fairly large drug habit,unfortunately), told me once that they all grew up on the same little island andhence all spoke the same language.

"What language is it?" I asked her.

"Snooti," she said, and I cracked up.

This thought came back to me as I looked past the desk to the woman I'd seenwhile outside ? I was now almost positive it was Diane ? and I had to bite theinsides of my lips again. As a result, Humboldt's name came out of me soundinglike a half-smothered sneeze.

The maître d's high, pale brow contracted in a frown. His eyes bored intomine. I had taken them for brown as I approached the desk, but now they lookedblack.

"Pardon, sir?" he asked. It came out sounding like Pahdun, sair andlooking like Fuck you, Jack. His long fingers, as pale as his brow ?concert pianist's fingers, they looked like ? tapped nervously on the cover ofthe menu. The tassel sticking out of it like some sort of half-assed bookmarkswung back and forth.

"Humboldt," I said. "Party of three." I found I couldn't take my eyes off hisbow-tie, so crooked that the left side of it was almost brushing the shelf underhis chin, and that blob on his snowy-white dress shirt. Now that I was closer,it didn't look like either gravy or jelly; it looked like partially dried blood.

He was looking down at his reservations book, the rogue tuft at the back of hishead waving back and forth over the rest of his slicked-down hair. I could seehis scalp through the grooves his comb had laid down, and a speckle of dandruffon the shoulders of his tux. It occurred to me that a good headwaiter might havefired an underling put together in such sloppy fashion.

"Ah, yes, monsieur." (Ah yais, messoo.) He had found the name."Your party is ? " He was starting to look up. He stopped abruptly, and hiseyes sharpened even more, if that was possible, as he looked past me and down."You cannot bring that dog in here," he said sharply. "How many times have Itold you you can't bring that dog in here!"

He didn't quite shout, but spoke so loudly that several of the diners closest tohis pulpit-like desk stopped eating and looked around curiously.

I looked around myself. He had been so emphatic I expected to seesomebody's dog, but there was no one behind me and most certainly nodog. It occurred to me then, I don't know why, that he was talking about myumbrella, that perhaps on the Island of the Maître D's, dog was aslang term for umbrella, especially when carried by a patron on a day when raindid not seem likely.

I looked back at the maître d' and saw that he had already started awayfrom his desk, holding my menu in his hands. He must have sensed that I wasn'tfollowing, because he looked back over his shoulder, eyebrows slightly raised.There was nothing on his face now but polite enquiry ? Are you coming,messoo? ? and I came. I knew something was wrong with him, but I came. Icould not take the time or effort to try to decide what might be wrong with themaître d' of a restaurant where I had never been before today and where Iwould probably never be again; I had Humboldt and Diane to deal with, I had todo it without smoking, and the maître d' of the Gotham Café would haveto take care of his own problems, dog included.

Diane turned around and at first I saw nothing in her face and in her eyes but akind of frozen politeness. Then, just below it, I saw anger, or thought I did.We'd done a lot of arguing during our last three or four months together, but Icouldn't recall ever seeing the sort of concealed anger I sensed in her now,anger that was meant to be hidden by the makeup and the new dress (blue, nospeckles, no slit up the side) and the new hairdo. The heavyset man she was withwas saying something, and she reached out and touched his arm. As he turnedtoward me, beginning to get to his feet, I saw something else in her face. Shewas afraid of me as well as angry with me. And although she hadn't said a singleword, I was already furious at her. Everything on her face and in her eyes wasnegative; she might as well have been wearing a closed until further notice signon her forehead. I thought I deserved better.

"Monsieur," the maître d' said, pulling out the chair to Diane's left. Ibarely heard him, and certainly any thought of his eccentric behavior andcrooked bow-tie had left my head. I think that even the subject of tobacco hadbriefly vacated my head for the first time since I'd quit smoking. I could onlyconsider the careful composure of her face and marvel at how I could be angrywith her and still want her so much it made me ache to look at her. Absence mayor may not make the heart grow fonder, but it certainly freshens the eye.

I also found time to wonder if I had really seen all I'd surmised. Anger? Yes,that was possible, even likely. If she hadn't been angry with me to at leastsome degree, she never would have left in the first place, I supposed. Butafraid? Why in God's name would Diane be afraid of me? I'd never laid a singlefinger on her. Yes, I suppose I had raised my voice during some of ourarguments, but so had she.

"Enjoy your lunch, monsieur," the maître d' said from some other universe? the one where service people usually stay, only poking their heads into ourswhen we call them, either because we need something or to complain.

"Mr. Davis, I'm Bill Humboldt," Diane's companion said. He held out a large handthat looked reddish and chapped. I shook it briefly. The rest of him was as bigas his hand, and his broad face wore the sort of flush habitual drinkers oftenget after the first one of the day. I put him in his mid-forties, about tenyears away from the time when his sagging cheeks would turn into jowls.

"Pleasure," I said, not thinking about what I was saying any more than I wasthinking about the maître d' with the blob on his shirt, only wanting toget the hand-shaking part over so I could turn back to the pretty blonde withthe rose-and-cream complexion, the pale pink lips, and the trim, slim figure.The woman who had, not so long ago, liked to whisper "Do me do me do me" in myear while she held onto my ass like a saddle with two pommels.

"Where is Mr. Ring?" Humboldt asked, looking around (a bit theatrically, Ithought).

"Mr. Ring is on his way to Long Island. His mother fell downstairs and broke herhip."

"Oh, wonderful," Humboldt said. He picked up the half-finished martini in frontof him on the table and drained it until the olive with the toothpick in itrested against his lips. He spat it back, then set the glass down and looked atme. "And I bet I can guess what he told you."

I heard this but paid no attention. For the time being, Humboldt was no moreimportant than minor static on a radio program you really want to hear. I lookedat Diane instead. It was marvellous, really, how she looked smarter and prettierthan previous. As if she had learned things ? yes, even after only two weeks ofseparation, and while living with Ernie and Dee Dee Coslaw in Pound Ridge ?that I could never know.

"How are you, Steve?" she asked.

"Fine," I said. Then, "Not so fine, actually. I've missed you."

Only watchful silence from the lady greeted this. Those big blue-green eyeslooking at me, no more. Certainly no return serve, no I've missed you,too.

"And I quit smoking. That's also played hell with my peace of mind."

"Did you, finally? Good for you."

I felt another flash of anger, this time a really ugly one, at her politelydismissive tone. As if I might not be telling the truth, but it didn't reallymatter if I was. She'd carped at me about the cigarettes every day for twoyears, it seemed ? how they were going to give me cancer, how they were goingto give her cancer, how she wouldn't even consider getting pregnantuntil I stopped, so I could just save any breath I might have been planning towaste on that subject ? and now all at once it didn't matter anymore,because I didn't matter anymore.

"We have a little business to transact," Humboldt said. "If you don't mind, thatis."

There was one of those big, boxy lawyer suitcases on the floor beside him. Hepicked it up with a grunt and set it on the chair where my lawyer would havebeen if his mother hadn't broken her hip. Humboldt began unsnapping the clasps,but I quit paying attention at that point. The fact was, I did mind. Itwasn't a matter of caution, either; it was a matter of priorities. I felt aninstant's gratitude that Ring had been called away. It had certainly clarifiedthe issues.

I looked at Diane and said, "I want to try again. Can we reconcile? Is there anychance of that?"

The look of absolute horror on her face crashed hopes I hadn't even known I'dbeen holding onto. Instead of answering, she looked past me at Humboldt.

"You said we didn't have to talk about this!" Her voice was trembling,accusatory. "You said you wouldn't even let it come up!"

Humboldt looked a little flustered. He shrugged and glanced briefly down at hisempty martini glass before looking back up at Diane. I think he was wishing he'dordered a double. "I didn't know Mr. Davis would be attending this meetingwithout his lawyer. You should have called me, Mr. Davis. Since you did not, Ifeel it necessary to inform you that Diane did not greenlight this meeting withany thoughts of reconciliation in mind. Her decision to seek a divorce isfinal."

He glanced at her briefly, seeking confirmation, and got it. She was noddingemphatically. Her cheeks were considerably brighter than they had been when Isat down, and it was not the sort of flush I associate with embarrassment. "Youbet it is," she said, and I saw that furious look on her face again.

"Diane, why?" I hated the plaintive note I heard in my voice, a sound almostlike a sheep's bleat, but there wasn't a goddamned thing I could do about it."Why?"

"Oh Jesus," she said. "Are you telling me you really don't know?"

"Yes ? "

Her cheeks were brighter than ever, the flush now rising almost to her temples."No, probably you don't. Isn't that typical." She picked up her waterand spilled the top two inches on the tablecloth because her hand was trembling.I flashed back at once ? I mean kapow ? to the day she'd left,remembering how I'd knocked the glass of orange juice onto the floor and how I'dcautioned myself not to try picking up the broken pieces of glass until my handshad settled down, and how I'd gone ahead anyway and cut myself for my pains.

"Stop it, this is counterproductive," Humboldt said. He sounded like aplayground monitor trying to prevent a scuffle before it gets started, but hiseyes were sweeping the rear part of the room, looking for our waiter, or anywaiter whose eye he could catch. He was a lot less interested in us, at thatparticular moment, than he was in obtaining what the British like to call "theother half."

"I just want to know ? " I began.

"What you want to know doesn't have anything to do with why we'rehere," Humboldt said, and for a moment he sounded as sharp and alert ashe probably had been when he first strode out of law school with his diploma inhis hand.

"Yes, right, finally," Diane said. She spoke in a brittle, urgent voice."Finally it's not about what you want, what you need."

"I don't know what that means, but I'm willing to listen," I said. "We could trycounselling, I'm not against it if maybe ? "

She raised her hands to shoulder-level, palms out. "Oh God, Mr. Macho's gone NewAge," she said, then dropped her hands back into her lap. "After all the daysyou rode off into the sunset, tall in the saddle. Say it ain't so, Joe."

"Stop it," Humboldt told her. He looked from his client to his client'ssoon-to-be ex-husband (it was going to happen, all right; even the slightunreality that comes with not-smoking couldn't conceal that self-evidenttruth from me by that point). "One more word from either of you and I'm going todeclare this luncheon at an end." He gave us a small smile, one so obviouslymanufactured that I found it perversely endearing. "And we haven't even heardthe specials yet."

That ? the first mention of food since I'd joined them ? was just before thebad things started to happen, and I remember smelling salmon from one of thenearby tables. In the two weeks since I'd quit smoking, my sense of smell hadbecome incredibly sharp, but I do not count that as much of a blessing,especially when it comes to salmon. I used to like it, but now I can't abide thesmell of it, let alone the taste. To me it smells of pain and fear and blood anddeath.

"He started it," Diane said sulkily.

You started it, you were the one who walked out, I thought, butI kept it to myself. Humboldt clearly meant what he said; he would take Diane bythe hand and walk her out of the restaurant if we started that schoolyardno-I-didn't, yes-you-did shit. Not even the prospect of another drinkwould hold him here.

"Okay," I said mildly...and I had to work hard to achieve that mild tone,believe me. "I started it. What's next?" I knew, of course; papers, papers,papers. And probably the only satisfaction I was going to get out of this sorrysituation was telling them that I wasn't going to sign any, or even look at any,on the advice of my lawyer. I glanced at Diane again, but she was looking downat her empty plate and her hair hid her face. I felt a strong urge to grab herby the shoulders and shake her inside her new blue dress like a pebble inside ofa gourd. Do you think you're in this alone? I would shout at her. Doyou think you're in this alone? Well, the Marlboro Man has got news for you,sweetheart ? you're a stubborn, self-indulgent little bi ?

"Mr. Davis?" Humboldt asked politely.

I looked around at him.

"There you are," he said. "I thought we'd lost you again."

"Not at all," I said.

"Good. Lovely."

He had several sheafs of paper in his hands. They were held together by thosepaperclips that come in different colors ? red, blue, yellow, purple. They wentwell with the Impressionist drawings on the walls of the Gotham Café. Itoccurred to me that I had come abysmally unprepared for this meeting, and notjust because my lawyer was on the twelve-thirty-three to Babylon, either. Dianehad her new dress; Humboldt had his Brinks truck of a briefcase, plus documentsheld together by color-coded paperclips; all I had was a new umbrella on a sunnyday. I looked down at where it lay beside my chair (it had never crossed my mindto check it) and saw there was still a price-tag dangling from the handle. Allat once I felt like Minnie Pearl.

The room smelled wonderful, as most restaurants do since they banned smoking inthem ? of flowers and wine and fresh coffee and chocolate and pastry ? butwhat I smelled most clearly was salmon. I remember thinking that it smelled verygood, and that I would probably order some. I also remember thinking that if Icould eat at a meeting like this, I could probably eat anywhere.

"I have here a number of forms which will allow both you and Ms. Davis to remainfinancially mobile while assuring that neither of you will have unfair access tothe funds you've both worked so hard to accumulate," Humboldt said. "I also havepreliminary court notifications which need to be signed by you, and forms thatwill allow us to put your bonds and T-bills in an escrow account until yourcurrent situation is settled by the court."

I opened my mouth to tell him I wasn't going to sign anything, and if that meantthe meeting was over so be it, but I didn't get out so much as a single word.Before I could, I was interrupted by the maître d'. He was screaming aswell as talking, and I've tried to indicate that, but a bunch of e's strungtogether can't really convey the quality of that sound. It was as if he had abellyful of steam and a teakettle whistle caught in his throat.

"That dog...Eeeeeee!...I told you time and again about thatdog...Eeeeeee!...All that time I can't sleep...Eeeeee!...She says cut your face,that cunt...Eeeeeee!...How you tease me!...Eeeeeee!...And now you bring that dogin here...Eeeeeee!"

The room fell silent at once, of course, diners looking up in astonishment fromtheir meals or their conversations as the thin, pale, black-clad figure camestalking across the room with its face outthrust and its long, storklike legsscissoring. The maître d's bow-tie had turned a full ninety degrees fromits normal position, so it now looked like the hands of a clock indicating thehour of six. His hands were clasped behind his back as he walked, and bentforward slightly from the waist as he was, he made me think of a drawing in mysixth-grade literature book, an illustration of Washington Irving's unfortunateschoolteacher, Ichabod Crane.

It was me he was looking at, me he was approaching. I stared at him, feelingalmost hypnotized ? it was like one of those dreams where you discover that youhaven't studied for the exam you're supposed to take or that you're attending aWhite House dinner in your honor with no clothes on ? and I might have stayedthat way if Humboldt hadn't moved.

I heard his chair scrape back and glanced at him. He was standing up, his napkinheld loosely in one hand. He looked surprised, but he also looked furious. Isuddenly realized two things: that he was drunk, quite drunk, in fact, and thathe saw this as a smirch on both his hospitality and his competence. He hadchosen the restaurant, after all, and now look ? the master of ceremonies hadgone bonkers.

"Eeeeee!...I teach you! For the last time I teach you..."

"Oh my God, he's wet his pants," a woman at a nearby table murmured. Her voicewas low but perfectly audible in the silence as the maître d' drew in afresh breath with which to scream, and I saw she was right. The crotch of theskinny man's dress pants was soaked.

"See here, you idiot," Humboldt said, turning to face him, and the maîtred' brought his left hand out from behind his back. In it was the largestbutcher-knife I have ever seen. It had to have been two feet long, with the toppart of its cutting edge slightly belled, like a cutlass in an old pirate movie.

"Look out!" I yelled at Humboldt, and at one of the tables against thewall a skinny man in rimless spectacles screamed, ejecting a mouthful of chewedbrown fragments of food onto the tablecloth in front of him.

Humboldt seemed to hear neither my yell nor the other man's scream. He wasfrowning thunderously at the maître d'. "You don't need to expect to see mein here again if this is the way ? " Humboldt began.

"Eeeeeee! EEEEEEEEE!" the maître d' screamed, and swung thebutcher-knife flat through the air. It made a kind of whickering sound, like awhispered sentence. The period was the sound of the blade burying itself inWilliam Humboldt's right cheek. Blood exploded out of the wound in a furiousspray of tiny droplets. They decorated the tablecloth in a fan-shapedstipplework, and I clearly saw (I will never forget it) one bright red drop fallinto my waterglass and then dive for the bottom with a pinkish filament like atail stretching out behind it. It looked like a bloody tadpole.

Humboldt's cheek snapped open, revealing his teeth, and as he clapped his handto the gouting wound, I saw something pinkish-white lying on the shoulder of hischarcoal-gray suitcoat. It wasn't until the whole thing was over that I realizedit must have been his earlobe.

"Tell this in your ears!" the maître d' screamed furiously atDiane's bleeding lawyer, who stood there with one hand clapped to his cheek.Except for the blood pouring over and between his fingers, Humboldt lookedweirdly like Jack Benny doing one of his famous double-takes. "Call this toyour hateful tattle-tale friends of the street...youmisery...Eeeeeee!...DOG-LOVER!"

Now other people were screaming, mostly at the sight of the blood. Humboldt wasa big man, and he was bleeding like a stuck pig. I could hear it pattering onthe floor like water from a broken pipe, and the front of his white shirt wasnow red. His tie, which had been red to start with, was now black.

"Steve?" Diane said. "Steven?"

A man and a woman had been having lunch at the table behind her and slightly toher left. Now the man ? about thirty and handsome in the way George Hamiltonused to be ? bolted to his feet and ran toward the front of the restaurant."Troy, don't go without me!" his date screamed, but Troy never lookedback. He'd forgotten all about a library book he was supposed to return, itseemed, or maybe about how he'd promised to wax the car.

If there had been a paralysis in the room ? I can't actually say if there wasor not, although I seem to have seen a great deal, and to remember it all ?that broke it. There were more screams and other people got up. Several tableswere overturned. Glasses and china shattered on the floor. I saw a man with hisarm around the waist of his female companion hurry past behind the maîtred'; her hand was clamped into his shoulder like a claw. For a moment her eyesmet mine, and they were as empty as the eyes of a Greek bust. Her face was deadpale, haglike with horror.

All of this might have happened in ten seconds, or maybe twenty. I remember itlike a series of photographs or filmstrips, but it has no timeline. Time ceasedto exist for me at the moment Alfalfa the maître d' brought his left handout from behind his back and I saw the butcher-knife. During that time, the manin the tuxedo continued to spew out a confusion of words in his specialmaître d's language, the one that old girlfriend of mine had called Snooti.Some of it really was in a foreign language, some of it was English butcompletely without sense, and some of it was striking...almost haunting. Haveyou ever read any of Dutch Schultz's long, confused deathbed statement? It waslike that. Much of it I can't remember. What I can remember I suppose I'll neverforget.

Humboldt staggered backward, still holding his lacerated cheek. The backs of hisknees struck the seat of his chair and he sat down heavily on it. He lookslike someone who's just been told he's disinherited, I thought. He startedto turn toward Diane and me, his eyes wide and shocked. I had time to see therewere tears spilling out of them, and then the maître d' wrapped both handsaround the handle of the butcher-knife and buried it in the center of Humboldt'shead. It made a sound like someone whacking a pile of towels with a cane.

"Boot!" Humboldt cried. I'm quite sure that's what his last word onplanet Earth was ? "boot." Then his weeping eyes rolled up to whites and heslumped forward onto his plate, sweeping his own glassware off the table andonto the floor with one outflung hand. As this happened, the maître d' ?all his hair was sticking up in back, now, not just some of it ? pried the longknife out of his head. Blood sprayed out of the headwound in a kind of verticalcurtain, and splashed the front of Diane's dress. She raised her hands to hershoulders with the palms turned out once again, but this time it was in horrorrather than exasperation. She shrieked, and then clapped her bloodspatteredhands to her face, over her eyes. The maître d' paid no attention to her.Instead, he turned to me.

"That dog of yours," he said, speaking in an almost conversational tone. Heregistered absolutely no interest in or even knowledge of the screaming,terrified people stampeding behind him toward the doors. His eyes were verylarge, very dark. They looked brown to me again, but there seemed to be blackcircles around the irises. "That dog of yours is so much rage. All the radios ofConey Island don't make up to dat dog, you motherfucker."

I had the umbrella in my hand, and the one thing I can't remember, no matter howhard I try, is when I grabbed it. I think it must have been while Humboldt wasstanding transfixed by the realization that his mouth had been expanded by eightinches or so, but I simply can't remember. I remember the man who looked likeGeorge Hamilton bolting for the door, and I know his name was Troy becausethat's what his companion called after him, but I can't remember picking up theumbrella I'd bought in the luggage store. It was in my hand, though, theprice-tag sticking out of the bottom of my fist, and when the maître d'bent forward as if bowing and ran the knife through the air at me ? meaning, Ithink, to bury it in my throat ? I raised it and brought it down on his wrist,like an old-time teacher whacking an unruly pupil with his hickory stick.

"Ud!" the maître d' grunted as his hand was driven sharply down and theblade meant for my throat ploughed through the soggy pinkish tablecloth instead.He held on, though, and pulled it back. If I'd tried to hit his knife-hand againI'm sure I would have missed, but I didn't. I swung at his face, and fetched himan excellent lick ? as excellent a lick as one can administer with an umbrella,anyway ? up the side of his head. And as I did, the umbrella popped open likethe visual punchline of a slapstick act.

I didn't think it was funny, though. The bloom of the umbrella hid him from mecompletely as he staggered backward with his free hand flying up to the placewhere I'd hit him, and I didn't like not being able to see him. In fact, itterrified me. Not that I wasn't terrified already.

I grabbed Diane's wrist and yanked her to her feet. She came without a word,took a step toward me, then stumbled on her high heels and fell clumsily into myarms. I was aware of her breasts pushing against me, and the wet, warmclamminess over them.

"Eeeee! You boinker!" the maître d' screamed, or perhaps it was a"boinger" he called me. It probably doesn't matter, I know that, and yet itquite often seems to me that it does. Late at night, the little questions hauntme as much as the big ones. "You boinking bastard! All these radios!Hush-do-baba! Fuck Cousin Brucie! Fuck YOU!"

He started around the table toward us (the area behind him was completely emptynow, and looked like the aftermath of a brawl in a western movie saloon). Myumbrella was still lying on the table with the opened top jutting off the farside, and the maître d' bumped it with his hip. It fell off in front ofhim, and while he kicked it aside, I set Diane back on her feet and pulled hertoward the far side of the room. The front door was no good; it was probably toofar away in any case, but even if we could get there, it was still jammed tightwith frightened, screaming people. If he wanted me ? or both of us ? he wouldhave no trouble catching us and carving us like a couple of turkeys.

"Bugs! You bugs!...Eeeeee!...So much for your dog, eh? So much for yourbarking dog!"

"Make him stop!" Diane screamed. "Oh Jesus, he's going to kill us both, make himstop!"

"I rot you, you abominations!" Closer, now. The umbrella hadn't held himup for long, that was for sure. "I rot you and all your trulls!"

I saw three doors, two of them facing each other in a small alcove where therewas also a pay telephone. Men's and women's rooms. No good. Even if they weresingle toilets with locks on the doors, they were no good. A nut like this onebehind us would have no trouble bashing a bathroom lock off its screws, and wewould have nowhere to run.

I dragged her toward the third door and shoved through it into a world of cleangreen tiles, strong fluorescent light, gleaming chrome, and steamy odors offood. The smell of salmon dominated. Humboldt had never gotten a chance to askabout the specials, but I thought I knew what at least one of them had been.

A waiter was standing there with a loaded tray balanced on the flat of one hand,his mouth agape and his eyes wide. He looked like Gimpel the Fool in that IsaacSinger story. "What ? " he said, and then I shoved him aside. The tray wentflying, with plates and glassware shattering against the wall.

"Ay!" a man yelled. He was huge, wearing a white smock and a white chef's hatlike a cloud. There was a red bandanna around his neck, and in one hand he helda ladle that was dripping some sort of brown sauce. "Ay, you can't come in herelike-a dat!"

"We have to get out," I said. "He's crazy. He's ? "

An idea struck me then, a way of explaining without explaining, and I put myhand over Diane's left breast for a moment, on the soaked cloth of her dress. Itwas the last time I ever touched her intimately, and I don't know if it feltgood or not. I held my hand out to the chef, showing him a palm streaked withHumboldt's blood.

"Good Christ," he said. "Here. Inna da back."

At that instant, the door we'd come through burst open again and the maîtred' rolled in, eyes wild, hair sticking out everywhere like fur on a hedgehogthat's tucked itself into a ball. He looked around, saw the waiter, dismissedhim, saw me, and rushed at me.

I bolted again, dragging Diane with me, shoving blindly at the softbellied bulkof the chef. We went past him, the front of Diane's dress leaving a smear ofblood on the front of his tunic. I saw he wasn't coming with us, that he wasturning toward the maître d' instead, and wanted to warn him, wanted totell him that wouldn't work, that it was the worst idea in the world and likelyto be the last idea he ever had, but there was no time.

"Ay!" the chef cried. "Ay, Guy, what's dis?" He said the maître d's name asthe French do, so it rhymes with free, and then he didn't say anythingat all. There was a heavy thud that made me think of the sound of the knifeburying itself in Humboldt's skull, and then the cook screamed. It had a waterysound. It was followed by a thick wet splat that haunts my dreams. I don't knowwhat it was, and I don't want to know.

I yanked Diane down a narrow aisle between two stoves that baked a furious dullheat out at us. There was a door at the end, locked shut by two heavy steelbolts. I reached for the top one and then heard Guy, The Maître d' fromHell, coming after us, babbling.

I wanted to keep at the bolt, wanted to believe I could open the door and get usoutside before he could get within sticking distance, but part of me ? the partthat was determined to live ? knew better. I pushed Diane against the door,stepped in front of her in a protective maneuver that must go all the way backto the Ice Age, and faced him.

He came running up the narrow aisle between the stoves with the knife gripped inhis left hand and raised above his head. His mouth was open and pulled back froma set of dingy, eroded teeth. Any hope of help I might have had from Gimpel theFool disappeared. He was cowering against the wall beside the door to therestaurant. His fingers were buried deep inside his mouth, making him look morelike the village idiot than ever.

"Forgetful of me you shouldn't have been!" Guy screamed, sounding likeYoda in the Star Wars movies. "Your hateful dog!...Your loud music, sodisharmonious!...Eeeee!...How you ever ? "

There was a large pot on one of the front burners of the lefthand stove. Ireached out for it and slapped it at him. It was over an hour before I realizedhow badly I'd burned my hand doing that; I had a palmful of blisters like littlebuns, and more blisters on my three middle fingers. The pot skidded off itsburner and tipped over in midair, dousing Guy from the waist down with whatlooked like corn, rice, and maybe two gallons of boiling water.

He screamed, staggered backward, and put the hand that wasn't holding the knifedown on the other stove, almost directly into the blue-yellow gasflameunderneath a skillet where mushrooms which had been sautéing were nowturning to charcoal. He screamed again, this time in a register so high it hurtmy ears, and held his hand up before his eyes, as if not able to believe it wasconnected to him.

I looked to my right and saw a little nestle of cleaning equipment beside thedoor ? Glass-X and Clorox and Janitor In A Drum on a shelf, a broom with adustpan stuck on top of the handle like a hat, and a mop in a steel bucket witha squeegee on the side.

As Guy came toward me again, holding the knife in the hand that wasn't red andswelling up like an innertube, I grabbed the handle of the mop, used it to rollthe bucket in front of me on its little casters, and then jabbed it out at him.Guy pulled back with his upper body but stood his ground. There was a peculiar,twitching little smile on his lips. He looked like a dog who has forgotten,temporarily, at least, how to snarl. He held the knife up in front of his faceand made several mystic passes with it. The overhead fluorescents glimmeredliquidly on the blade...where it wasn't caked with blood, that was. He didn'tseem to feel any pain in his burned hand, or in his legs, although they had beendoused with boiling water and his tuxedo pants were spackled with rice.

"Rotten bugger," Guy said, making his mystic passes. He was like a Crusaderpreparing to go into battle. If, that was, you could imagine a Crusader in arice-caked tux. "Kill you like I did your nasty barking dog."

"I don't have a dog," I said. "I can't have a dog. It's in the lease."

I think it was the only thing I said to him during the whole nightmare, and I'mnot entirely sure I did say it out loud. It might only have been athought. Behind him, I could see the chef struggling to his feet. He had onehand wrapped around the handle of the kitchen's big refrigerator and the otherclapped to his bloodstained tunic, which was torn open across the swelling ofhis stomach in a big purple grin. He was doing his best to hold his plumbing in,but it was a battle he was losing. One loop of intestines, shiny andbruise-colored, already hung out, resting against his left side like some awfulwatch-chain.

Guy feinted at me with his knife. I countered by shoving the mop-bucket at him,and he drew back. I pulled it to me again and stood there with my hands wrappedaround the wooden mop-handle, ready to shove the bucket at him if he moved. Myown hand was throbbing and I could feel sweat trickling down my cheeks like hotoil. Behind Guy, the cook had managed to get all the way up. Slowly, like aninvalid in early recovery from a serious operation, he started working his waydown the aisle toward Gimpel the Fool. I wished him well.

"Undo those bolts," I said to Diane.

"What?"

"The bolts on the door. Undo them."

"I can't move," she said. She was crying so hard I could barely understand her."You're crushing me."

I moved forward a little to give her room. Guy bared his teeth at me.Mock-jabbed with the knife, then pulled it back, grinning his nervous, snarlylittle grin as I rolled the bucket at him again on its squeaky casters.

"Bug-infested stinkpot," he said. He sounded like a man discussing the Mets'chances in the forthcoming campaign. "Let's see you play your radio this loudnow, stinkpot. It gives you a change in your thinking, doesn't it?Boink!"

He jabbed. I rolled. But this time he didn't pull back as far, and I realized hewas nerving himself up. He meant to go for it, and soon. I could feel Diane'sbreasts brush against my back as she gasped for breath. I'd given her room, butshe hadn't turned around to work the bolts. She was just standing there.

"Open the door," I told her, speaking out of the side of my mouth like a prisoncon. "Pull the goddam bolts, Diane."

"I can't," she sobbed. "I can't, I don't have any strength in my hands. Make himstop, Steven, don't stand there talking with him, make himstop."

She was driving me insane. I really thought she was. "You turn around and pullthose bolts, Diane, or I'll just stand aside and let ? "

"EEEEEEEEE!" he screamed, and charged, waving and stabbing with the knife.

I slammed the mop-bucket forward with all the force I could muster, and swepthis legs out from under him. He howled and brought the knife down in a long,desperate stroke. Any closer and it would have torn off the tip of my nose. Thenhe landed spraddled awkwardly on wide-spread knees, with his face just above themop-squeezing gadget hung on the side of the bucket. Perfect! I drove themophead into the nape of his neck. The strings draggled down over the shouldersof his black jacket like a witch-wig. His face slammed into the squeegee. Ibent, grabbed the handle with my free hand, and clamped it shut. Guy shriekedwith pain, the sound muffled by the mop.

"PULL THOSE BOLTS!" I screamed at Diane. "PULL THOSE BOLTS, YOUUSELESS BITCH! PULL ? "

Thud! Something hard and pointed slammed into my left buttock. Istaggered forward with a yell ? more surprise than pain, I think, although itdid hurt. I went to one knee and lost my hold on the squeegee handle. Guy pulledback, slipping out from under the stringy head of the mop at the same time,breathing so loudly he sounded almost as if he were barking. It hadn't slowedhim down much, though; he lashed out at me with the knife as soon as he wasclear of the bucket. I pulled back, feeling the breeze as the blade cut the airbeside my cheek.

It was only as I scrambled up that I realized what had happened, what she haddone. I snatched a quick glance over my shoulder at her. She stared backdefiantly, her back pressed against the door. A crazy thought came to me: shewanted me to get killed. Had perhaps even planned it, the whole thing.Found herself a crazy maître d' and ?

Her eyes widened. "Look out!"

I turned back just in time to see him lunging at me. The sides of his face werebright red, except for the big white spots made by the drain-holes in thesqueegee. I rammed the mophead at him, aiming for the throat and getting hischest instead. I stopped his charge and actually knocked him backward a step.What happened then was only luck. He slipped in water from the overturned bucketand went down hard, slamming his head on the tiles. Not thinking and justvaguely aware that I was screaming, I snatched up the skillet of mushrooms fromthe stove and brought it down on his upturned face as hard as I could. There wasa muffled thump, followed by a horrible (but mercifully brief) hissing sound asthe skin of his cheeks and forehead boiled.

I turned, shoved Diane aside, and drew the bolts holding the door shut. I openedthe door and sunlight hit me like a hammer. And the smell of the air. I can'tremember air ever smelling better, not even when I was a kid, and it was thefirst day of summer vacation.

I grabbed Diane's arm and pulled her out into a narrow alley lined withpadlocked trash-bins. At the far end of this narrow stone slit, like a vision ofheaven, was Fifty-third Street with traffic going heedlessly back and forth. Ilooked over my shoulder and through the open kitchen door. Guy lay on his backwith carbonized mushrooms circling his head like an existential diadem. Theskillet had slid off to one side, revealing a face that was red and swellingwith blisters. One of his eyes was open, but it looked unseeingly up at thefluorescent lights. Behind him, the kitchen was empty. There was a pool of bloodon the floor and bloody handprints on the white enamel front of the walk-infridge, but both the chef and Gimpel the Fool were gone.

I slammed the door shut and pointed down the alley. "Go on."

She didn't move, only looked at me.

I shoved her lightly on her left shoulder. "Go!"

She raised a hand like a traffic-cop, shook her head, then pointed a finger atme. "Don't you touch me."

"What'll you do? Sic your lawyer on me? I think he's dead, sweetheart."

"Don't you patronize me like that. Don't you dare. And don't touch me,Steven, I'm warning you."

The kitchen door burst open. Moving, not thinking but just moving, I slammed itshut again. I heard a muffled cry ? whether anger or pain I didn't know anddidn't care ? just before it clicked shut. I leaned my back against it andbraced my feet. "Do you want to stand here and discuss it?" I asked her. "He'sstill pretty lively, by the sound." He hit the door again. I rocked with it,then slammed it shut. I waited for him to try again, but he didn't.

Diane gave me a long look, glarey and uncertain, and then started walking up thealleyway with her head down and her hair hanging at the sides of her neck. Istood with my back against the door until she got about three quarters of theway to the street, then stood away from it, watching it warily. No one came out,but I decided that wasn't going to guarantee any peace of mind. I dragged one ofthe trash-bins in front of the door, then set off after Diane, jogging.

When I got to the mouth of the alley, she wasn't there anymore. I looked right,toward Madison, and didn't see her. I looked left and there she was, wanderingslowly across Fifty-third on a diagonal, her head still down and her hair stillhanging like curtains at the sides of her face. No one paid any attention toher; the people in front of the Gotham Café were gawking through theplate-glass windows like people in front of the New England Aquarium shark-tankat feeding time. Sirens were approaching, a lot of them.

I went across the street, reached for her shoulder, thought better of it. Isettled for calling her name, instead.

She turned around, her eyes dulled with horror and shock. The front of her dresshad turned into a grisly purple bib. She stank of blood and spent adrenaline.

"Leave me alone," she said. "I never want to see you again, Steven."

"You kicked my ass in there," I said. "You kicked my ass and almost got mekilled. Both of us. I can't believe you, Diane."

"I've wanted to kick your ass for the last fourteen months," she said. "When itcomes to fulfilling our dreams, we can't always pick our times, can w ? "

I slapped her across the face. I didn't think about it, I just did it, and fewthings in my adult life have given me so much pleasure. I'm ashamed of that, butI've come too far in this story to tell a lie, even one of omission.

Her head rocked back. Her eyes widened in shock and pain, losing that dull,traumatized look.

"You bastard!" she cried, her hand going to her cheek. Now tears were brimmingin her eyes. "Oh, you bastard!"

"I saved your life," I said. "Don't you realize that? Doesn't that get through?I saved your fucking life."

"You son of a bitch," she whispered. "You controlling, judgemental,small-minded, conceited, complacent son of a bitch. I hate you."

"Did you even hear me? If it wasn't for the conceited, small-minded son of abitch, you'd be dead now."

"If it wasn't for you, I wouldn't have been there in the first place," she saidas the first three police cars came screaming down Fifty-third Street and pulledup in front of the Gotham Café. Cops poured out of them like clowns in acircus act. "If you ever touch me again, I'll scratch your eyes out, Steve," shesaid. "Stay away from me."

I had to put my hands in my armpits. They wanted to kill her, to reach out andwrap themselves around her neck and just kill her.

She walked seven or eight steps, then turned back to me. She was smiling. It wasa terrible smile, more awful than any expression I had seen on the face of Guythe Demon Waiter. "I had lovers," she said, smiling her terrible smile. She waslying. The lie was all over her face, but that didn't make it hurt any less. Shewished it was true; that was all over her face, too. "Three of them overthe last year or so. You weren't any good at it, so I found men who were."

She turned and walked down the street, like a woman who was sixty-five insteadof twenty-seven. I stood and watched her. Just before she reached the corner Ishouted it again. It was the one thing I couldn't get past; it was stuck in mythroat like a chicken bone. "I saved your life! Your goddamlife!"

She paused at the corner and turned back to me. The terrible smile was still onher face. "No," she said. "You didn't."

Then she went on around the corner. I haven't seen her since, although I supposeI will. I'll see her in court, as the saying goes.

I found a market on the next block and bought a package of Marlboros. When I gotback to the corner of Madison and Fifty-third, Fifty-third had been blocked offwith those blue sawhorses the cops use to protect crime-scenes and paraderoutes. I could see the restaurant, though. I could see it just fine. I sat downon the curb, lit a cigarette, and observed developments. Half a dozen rescuevehicles arrived ? a scream of ambulances, I guess you could say. The chef wentinto the first one, unconscious but apparently still alive. His brief appearancebefore his fans on Fifty-third Street was followed by a body-bag on a stretcher? Humboldt. Next came Guy, strapped tightly to a stretcher and staring wildlyaround as he was loaded into the back of an ambulance. I thought that for just amoment his eyes met mine, but that was probably my imagination.

As Guy's ambulance pulled away, rolling through a hole in the sawhorse barricadeprovided by two uniformed cops, I tossed the cigarette I'd been smoking in thegutter. I hadn't gone through this day just to start killing myself with tobaccoagain, I decided.

I looked after the departing ambulance and tried to imagine the man inside itliving wherever maître d's live ? Queens or Brooklyn or maybe even Rye orMamaroneck. I tried to imagine what his own dining room might look like, whatpictures might be on the walls. I couldn't do that, but I found I could imaginehis bedroom with relative ease, although not whether he shared it with a woman.I could see him lying awake but perfectly still, looking up at the ceiling inthe small hours while the moon hung in the black firmament like the half-liddedeye of a corpse; I could imagine him lying there and listening to the neighbor'sdog bark steadily and monotonously, going on and on until the sound was like asilver nail driving into his brain. I imagined him lying not far from a closetfilled with tuxedos in plastic dry-cleaning bags. I could see them hanging therelike executed felons. I wondered if he did have a wife. If so, had he killed herbefore coming to work? I thought of the blob on his shirt and decided it was apossibility. I also wondered about the neighbor's dog, the one that wouldn'tshut up. And the neighbor's family.

But mostly it was Guy I thought about, lying sleepless through all the samenights I had lain sleepless, listening to the dog next door or down the streetas I had listened to sirens and the rumble of trucks heading downtown. I thoughtof him lying there and looking up at the shadows the moon had tacked to theceiling. Thought of that cry ? Eeeeeee! ? building up in his head likegas in a closed room.

"Eeeee," I said...just to see how it sounded. I dropped the package of Marlborosinto the gutter and began stamping it methodically as I sat there on the curb."Eeeee. Eeeee. Eeeeee."

One of the cops standing by the sawhorses looked over at me. "Hey, buddy, wantto stop being a pain in the butt?" he called over. "We got us a situation here."

Of course you do, I thought. Don't we all.

I didn't say anything, though. I stopped stamping ? the cigarette pack waspretty well dead by then, anyway ? and stopped making the noise. I could stillhear it in my head, though, and why not? It makes as much sense as anythingelse.

Eeeeeee.

Eeeeeee.

Eeeeeee.

Excerpted from Everything's Eventual by Stephen King. Copyright © 2001 by Stephen King. Excerpted by permission. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

Copyright © 2001 Stephen King.
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 0-7432-3515-0

Edition details

• Publisher: Simon & Schuster
• Publication date: 2002
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0743235150
• ISBN 13: 9780743235150
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 459