"Collections\Different Seasons\Apt Pupil.txt" 101 50:"No. They give you lung cancer. My dad used to SMOKE, but he gave it up. He went to Smokenders."

"Collections\Different Seasons\Apt Pupil.txt" 1027 52:"I tried the oven," Dussander said, lighting a CIGARETTE. "I'm afraid I burned my supper. I had to throw it out."

"Collections\Different Seasons\Apt Pupil.txt" 111 1655:Dussander turned. In measured tones that were spoiled only slightly by the fact that his false teeth were not in, he said: "I tell you this once, boy, and once only. My name is Arthur Denker. It has never been anything else; it has not even been Americanized. I was in fact named Arthur by my father, who greatly admired the stories of Arthur Conan Doyle. It has never been Doo-Zander, or Himmler, or Father Christmas. I was a reserve lieutenant in the war. I never joined the Nazi party. In the battle of Berlin I fought for three weeks. I will admit that in the late thirties, when I was first married, I supported Hitler. He ended the depression and returned some of the pride we had lost in the aftermath of the sickening and unfair Treaty of Versailles. I suppose I supported him mostly because I got a job and there was tobacco again, and I didn't need to hunt through the gutters when I needed to SMOKE. I thought, in the late thirties, that he was a great man. In his own way, perhaps he was. But at the end he was mad, directing phantom armies at the whim of an astrologer. He even gave Blondi, his dog, a death-capsule. The act of a madman; by the end they were all madmen, singing the 'Horst Wessel Song' as they fed poison to their children. On May 2nd, 1945, my regiment gave up to the Americans. I remember that a private soldier named Hackermeyer gave me a chocolate bar. I wept. There was no reason to fight on; the war was over, and really had been since February. I was interned at Essen and was treated very well. We listened to the Nuremberg trials on the radio, and when Goering committed suicide, I traded fourteen American CIGARETTES for half a bottle of Schnaps and got drunk. When I was released, I put wheels on cars at the Essen Motor Works until 1963, when I retired. Later I emigrated to the United States. To come here was a lifelong ambition. In 1967 I became a citizen. I am an American. I vote. No Buenos Aires. No drug dealing. No Berlin. No Cuba." He pronounced it Koo-ba. "And now, unless you leave, I make my telephone call."

"Collections\Different Seasons\Apt Pupil.txt" 111 909:Dussander turned. In measured tones that were spoiled only slightly by the fact that his false teeth were not in, he said: "I tell you this once, boy, and once only. My name is Arthur Denker. It has never been anything else; it has not even been Americanized. I was in fact named Arthur by my father, who greatly admired the stories of Arthur Conan Doyle. It has never been Doo-Zander, or Himmler, or Father Christmas. I was a reserve lieutenant in the war. I never joined the Nazi party. In the battle of Berlin I fought for three weeks. I will admit that in the late thirties, when I was first married, I supported Hitler. He ended the depression and returned some of the pride we had lost in the aftermath of the sickening and unfair Treaty of Versailles. I suppose I supported him mostly because I got a job and there was tobacco again, and I didn't need to hunt through the gutters when I needed to SMOKE. I thought, in the late thirties, that he was a great man. In his own way, perhaps he was. But at the end he was mad, directing phantom armies at the whim of an astrologer. He even gave Blondi, his dog, a death-capsule. The act of a madman; by the end they were all madmen, singing the 'Horst Wessel Song' as they fed poison to their children. On May 2nd, 1945, my regiment gave up to the Americans. I remember that a private soldier named Hackermeyer gave me a chocolate bar. I wept. There was no reason to fight on; the war was over, and really had been since February. I was interned at Essen and was treated very well. We listened to the Nuremberg trials on the radio, and when Goering committed suicide, I traded fourteen American CIGARETTES for half a bottle of Schnaps and got drunk. When I was released, I put wheels on cars at the Essen Motor Works until 1963, when I retired. Later I emigrated to the United States. To come here was a lifelong ambition. In 1967 I became a citizen. I am an American. I vote. No Buenos Aires. No drug dealing. No Berlin. No Cuba." He pronounced it Koo-ba. "And now, unless you leave, I make my telephone call."

"Collections\Different Seasons\Apt Pupil.txt" 1133 266:"No," Dussander said. "I won't shut up about it." He lit a CIGARETTE, scratching the wooden match alight on the gas oven door. "Not until I make you see the simple truth. We are in this together, sink or swim." He looked at Todd through the raftering SMOKE, not smiling, his old, lined face reptilian. "I will drag you down, boy. I promise you that. If anything comes out, everything will come out. That is my promise to you."

"Collections\Different Seasons\Apt Pupil.txt" 1133 70:"No," Dussander said. "I won't shut up about it." He lit a CIGARETTE, scratching the wooden match alight on the gas oven door. "Not until I make you see the simple truth. We are in this together, sink or swim." He looked at Todd through the raftering SMOKE, not smiling, his old, lined face reptilian. "I will drag you down, boy. I promise you that. If anything comes out, everything will come out. That is my promise to you."

"Collections\Different Seasons\Apt Pupil.txt" 1219 50:"Well, we all hope so, don't we, Mr. Bowden? SMOKE if you like. It's supposed to be off-limits on school property, but I'll never tell."

"Collections\Different Seasons\Apt Pupil.txt" 1223 49:Mr. Bowden took a half-crushed package of Camel CIGARETTES from his inner pocket, put one of the last two zigzagging smokes in his mouth, found a Diamond Blue-Tip match, scratched it on the heel of one black shoe, and lit up. He coughed an old man's dank cough over the first drag, shook the match out, and put the blackened stump into the ashtray Rubber Ed had produced. Rubber Ed watched this ritual, which seemed almost as formal as the old man's shoes, with frank fascination.

"Collections\Different Seasons\Apt Pupil.txt" 1225 104:"Where to begin," Bowden said, his distressed face looking at Rubber Ed through a swirling raft of CIGARETTE SMOKE.

"Collections\Different Seasons\Apt Pupil.txt" 1225 114:"Where to begin," Bowden said, his distressed face looking at Rubber Ed through a swirling raft of CIGARETTE SMOKE.

"Collections\Different Seasons\Apt Pupil.txt" 1245 166:"The boy has tried to persuade her that would be the best course. She is much ashamed, I think. If she was given a little time . . ." He made a gesture with his CIGARETTE that left a dissolving SMOKE-ring in the air. "You understand?"

"Collections\Different Seasons\Apt Pupil.txt" 1245 199:"The boy has tried to persuade her that would be the best course. She is much ashamed, I think. If she was given a little time . . ." He made a gesture with his CIGARETTE that left a dissolving SMOKE-ring in the air. "You understand?"

"Collections\Different Seasons\Apt Pupil.txt" 1247 94:"Yes, of course." Rubber Ed nodded, privately admiring the gesture that had produced the SMOKE-ring. "Your son . . . Todd's father . . ."

"Collections\Different Seasons\Apt Pupil.txt" 1265 36:"Of course." Bowden mashed his CIGARETTE brutally into the ashtray and folded his hands once more.

"Collections\Different Seasons\Apt Pupil.txt" 1883 158:"I can't believe you drink this shit all day," he said, putting the glass back on the table and shuddering. "You ought to quit it. Quit drinking and SMOKING."

"Collections\Different Seasons\Apt Pupil.txt" 1885 94:"Your concern for my health is touching," Dussander said. He produced a crumpled pack of CIGARETTES from the same bathrobe pocket into which the jackknife had disappeared. "And I am equally solicitous of your own welfare, boy. Almost every day I read in the paper where a cyclist has been killed at a busy intersection. You should give it up. You should walk. Or ride the bus, like me."

"Collections\Different Seasons\Apt Pupil.txt" 1901 39:Maybe it'll be later, Todd thought. CIGARETTES or not, booze or not, he's a tough old bastard. He s lasted this long, so . . . so maybe it'll be later.

"Collections\Different Seasons\Apt Pupil.txt" 1946 192:He had his usual instant of cold terror as he entered the kitchen and saw Dussander slumped slightly sideways in his rocker, the cup on the table, a half-empty bottle of bourbon beside it. A CIGARETTE had burned its entire length down to lacy gray ash in a mayonnaise cover where several other butts had been mashed out. Dussander's mouth hung open. His face was yellow. His big hands dangled limply over the rocker's arms. He didn't seem to be breathing.

"Collections\Different Seasons\Apt Pupil.txt" 1954 100:"They let us out early on the last day of school," Todd said. He pointed to the remains of the CIGARETTE in the mayonnaise cover. "Someday you'll burn down the house doing that."

"Collections\Different Seasons\Apt Pupil.txt" 1956 63:"Maybe," Dussander said indifferently. He fumbled out his CIGARETTES, shot one from the pack (it almost rolled off the edge of the table before Dussander was able to catch it), and at last got it going. A protracted fit of coughing followed, and Todd winced in disgust. When the old man really got going, Todd half-expected him to start spitting out grayish-black chunks of lung-tissue onto the table . . . and he'd probably grin as he did it.

"Collections\Different Seasons\Apt Pupil.txt" 201 48:"Do you?" Dussander asked. He took another CIGARETTE with a hand that trembled.

"Collections\Different Seasons\Apt Pupil.txt" 205 94:Dussander dragged heavily on his unfiltered Kool. The tip trembled slightly. As he feathered SMOKE out of his nostrils, he coughed an old man's dank, hollow cough. "I can hardly believe this conversation is taking place," he said. He leaned forward and peered closely at Todd. "Boy, do you know the word 'existentialism'?"

"Collections\Different Seasons\Apt Pupil.txt" 2068 183:Dussander watched all of this with no expression at all, and when the door had slammed shut and the boy's running footsteps stopped, meaning that he had mounted his bike, he lit a CIGARETTE. There was, of course, no safe deposit box, no document. But the boy believed those things existed; he had believed utterly. He was safe. It was ended.

"Collections\Different Seasons\Apt Pupil.txt" 2180 87:The boy had grown quite a bit, had he not? (Well, two inches.) Had Dussander given up SMOKING? (No, but he had been forced to cut down; they made him cough too much now.) How had his schoolwork been? (Challenging but exciting; he had made all A's and B's, had gone to the state finals with his Science Fair project on solar power, and was now thinking of majoring in anthropology instead of history when he got to college.) Who was mowing Dussander's lawn this year? (Randy Chambers from just down the street-a good boy, but rather fat and slow.)

"Collections\Different Seasons\Apt Pupil.txt" 221 109:"She was fat and dumpy and she had bad skin," Dussander said shortly. He crushed his CIGARETTE out half-SMOKED in a Table Talk pie-dish filled with dead butts.

"Collections\Different Seasons\Apt Pupil.txt" 221 90:"She was fat and dumpy and she had bad skin," Dussander said shortly. He crushed his CIGARETTE out half-SMOKED in a Table Talk pie-dish filled with dead butts.

"Collections\Different Seasons\Apt Pupil.txt" 2213 32:During the same year Dussander SMOKED sparingly, drank Ancient Age bourbon, and watched TV. Todd came by once in awhile, but their conversations became increasingly arid. They were growing apart. Dussander celebrated his seventy-ninth birthday that year, which was also the year Todd turned sixteen. Dussander remarked that sixteen was the best year of a young man's life, forty-one the best year of a middle-aged man's, and seventy-nine the best of an old man's. Todd nodded politely. Dussander had been quite drunk, and cackled in a way that made Todd distinctly uneasy.

"Collections\Different Seasons\Apt Pupil.txt" 2289 245:He crossed to the table again and paused there, resting one hand on the dead stewbum's shoulder while a spasm of coughing rattled through him. He took his handkerchief from his back pocket and spat yellowish-brown phlegm into it. He had been SMOKING too much lately. He always did when he was making up his mind to do another one. But this one had gone smoothly; really very smoothly. He had been afraid after the mess he had made with the last one that he might be tempting fate sorely to try it again.

"Collections\Different Seasons\Apt Pupil.txt" 2805 106:"Next time you come, smuggle me in something to drink," Dussander said. "I find I don't miss the CIGARETTES, but-"

"Collections\Different Seasons\Apt Pupil.txt" 3074 77:Morris was down on his hands and knees in a darkness that suddenly stank of SMOKE and gas and death. He was searching for the paw. One wish left. If he could find the paw he could wish this dreadful dream away. He would spare himself the sight of his daughters, thin as scarecrows, their eyes deep wounded holes, their numbers burning on the scant flesh of their arms.

"Collections\Different Seasons\Apt Pupil.txt" 31 80:An old man, hunched inside a bathrobe, stood looking out through the screen. A CIGARETTE smouldered between his fingers. Todd thought the man looked like a cross between Albert Einstein and Boris Karloff. His hair was long and white but beginning to yellow in an unpleasant way that was more nicotine than ivory. His face was wrinkled and pouched and puffy with sleep, and Todd saw with some distaste that he hadn't bothered shaving for the last couple of days. Todd's father was fond of saying, "A shave puts a shine on the morning." Todd's father shaved every day, whether he had to work or not.

"Collections\Different Seasons\Apt Pupil.txt" 3173 617:Betty Trask had been all over him the very first time they went out. He had taken her to the local lovers' lane after the movie because he knew it would be expected of them; they could swap spits for half an hour or so and have all the right things to tell their respective friends the next day. She could roll her eyes and tell how she had fought off his advances-boys were so tiresome, really, and she never fucked on the first date, she wasn't that kind of girl. Her friends would agree and then all of them would troop into the girls' room and do whatever it was they did in there-put on fresh makeup, SMOKE Tampax, whatever.

"Collections\Different Seasons\Apt Pupil.txt" 3397 219:Dussander wanted to lick his lips but didn't. Just possibly this was still all part of the dream-a new phase, no more. Bring me a wino and a steak-knife, Mr. Jewish Star in the Lapel, and I'll blow you away like SMOKE.

"Collections\Different Seasons\Apt Pupil.txt" 37 334:"A boy," he said now. His voice was thick and sleepy. Todd saw with new disappointment that his robe was faded and tacky. One rounded collar point stood up at a drunken angle to poke at his wattled neck. There was a splotch of something that might have been chili or possibly A-l Steak Sauce on the left lapel, and he smelled of CIGARETTES and stale booze.

"Collections\Different Seasons\Apt Pupil.txt" 3750 650:"Oh, I think the kid was in on it somehow," Richler said. "Somehow, some way, to some degree. But is he cool? If you poured hot water into his mouth I think he'd spit out icecubes. I tripped him up a couple of times, but I've got nothing I could use in court. And if I'd gone much further, some smart lawyer might be able to get him off on entrapment a year or two down the road even if something does pull together. I mean, the courts are still going to look at him as a juvenile-the kid's only seventeen. In some ways, I'd guess he hasn't really been a juvenile since he was maybe eight. He's creepy, man." Richler stuck a CIGARETTE in his mouth and laughed-the laugh had a shaky sound. "I mean, really fuckin creepy."

"Collections\Different Seasons\Apt Pupil.txt" 3762 20:Richler jammed his CIGARETTE out in the ashtray.

"Collections\Different Seasons\Apt Pupil.txt" 3766 225:"You've got confirmation on that?" Weiskopf asked, lighting a CIGARETTE of his own. It was an unfiltered Player, and to Richler it smelled like horseshit. No wonder the British Empire fell, he thought, if they started SMOKING CIGARETTES like that.

"Collections\Different Seasons\Apt Pupil.txt" 3766 233:"You've got confirmation on that?" Weiskopf asked, lighting a CIGARETTE of his own. It was an unfiltered Player, and to Richler it smelled like horseshit. No wonder the British Empire fell, he thought, if they started SMOKING CIGARETTES like that.

"Collections\Different Seasons\Apt Pupil.txt" 3766 69:"You've got confirmation on that?" Weiskopf asked, lighting a CIGARETTE of his own. It was an unfiltered Player, and to Richler it smelled like horseshit. No wonder the British Empire fell, he thought, if they started SMOKING CIGARETTES like that.

"Collections\Different Seasons\Apt Pupil.txt" 3776 89:"He'd say he used it to plant a rose-bush in the back yard." Richler took out his CIGARETTES but the pack was empty. Weiskopf offered him a Player. Richler took one puff and began coughing. "They taste as bad as they smell," he choked.

"Collections\Different Seasons\Apt Pupil.txt" 3792 59:"I'd settle for how," Richler said, and flicked the CIGARETTE out the window. It was giving him a headache.

"Collections\Different Seasons\Apt Pupil.txt" 381 187:". . . but I don't wish to speak of it, or even think of it. What we did was motivated only by survival, and nothing about survival is pretty. I had dreams . . ." He slowly took a CIGARETTE from the box on the TV. "Yes. For years I had them. Blackness, and sounds in the blackness. Tractor engines. Bulldozer engines. Gunbutts thudding against what might have been frozen earth, or human skulls. Whistles, sirens, pistol-shots, screams. The doors of cattle-cars rumbling open on cold winter afternoons.

"Collections\Different Seasons\Apt Pupil.txt" 3842 220:"Maybe," Weiskopf muttered. It was almost lost in the roar of another ten-wheeler passing them, BUDWEISER was printed on the side in letters six feet tall. What an amazing country, Weiskopf thought, and lit a fresh CIGARETTE. They don't understand how we can live surrounded by half-mad Arabs, but if I lived here for two years I would have a nervous breakdown. "Maybe. And maybe it isn't possible to stand close to murder piled on murder and not be touched by it."

"Collections\Different Seasons\Apt Pupil.txt" 387 33:Dussander dragged deeply on his CIGARETTE. "Later, after the dreams went away, there were days when I would think I had seen someone from Patin. Never guards or fellow officers, always inmates. I remember one afternoon in West Germany, ten years ago. There was an accident on the Autobahn. Traffic was frozen in every lane. I sat in my Morris, listening to the radio, waiting for the traffic to move. I looked to my right. There was a very old Simca in the next lane, and the man behind the wheel was looking at me. He was perhaps fifty, and he looked ill. There was a scar on his cheek. His hair was white, short, cut badly. I looked away. The minutes passed and still the traffic didn't move. I began snatching glances at the man in the Simca. Every time I did, he was looking at me, his face as still as death, his eyes sunken in their sockets. I became convinced he had been at Patin. He had been there and he had recognized me."

"Collections\Different Seasons\Apt Pupil.txt" 3877 80:"Is that so, Hap?" Bozeman asked. He was busy lighting his pipe. He rarely SMOKED the pipe, but neither the fan nor the open window was quite enough to overwhelm Hap's smell. Soon, Bozeman thought, the paint would begin to blister and peel. He sighed.

"Collections\Different Seasons\Apt Pupil.txt" 448 20:"You shouldn't SMOKE so much, then," Todd said, continuing to smile. "Tell me some more about the uniforms."

"Collections\Different Seasons\Apt Pupil.txt" 51 391:He pulled the door open again. One hand, bunched with arthritis, unlatched the screen door. The hand pushed the screen door open just enough to wriggle through like a spider and close over the edge of the paper Todd was holding out. The boy saw with distaste that the old man's fingernails were long and yellow and horny. It was a hand that had spent most of its waking hours holding one CIGARETTE after another. Todd thought SMOKING was a filthy dangerous habit, one he himself would never take up. It really was a wonder that Dussander had lived as long as he had.

"Collections\Different Seasons\Apt Pupil.txt" 51 429:He pulled the door open again. One hand, bunched with arthritis, unlatched the screen door. The hand pushed the screen door open just enough to wriggle through like a spider and close over the edge of the paper Todd was holding out. The boy saw with distaste that the old man's fingernails were long and yellow and horny. It was a hand that had spent most of its waking hours holding one CIGARETTE after another. Todd thought SMOKING was a filthy dangerous habit, one he himself would never take up. It really was a wonder that Dussander had lived as long as he had.

"Collections\Different Seasons\Apt Pupil.txt" 783 201:He took the packet of CIGARETTES from the table and lit one, scratching the wooden match on the bedpost. The clock's hands stood at 2:41. There would be no more sleep for him this night. He inhaled SMOKE and then coughed it out in a series of racking spasms. No more sleep unless he wanted to go downstairs and have a drink or two. Or three. And there had been altogether too much drinking over the last six weeks or so. He was no longer a young man who could toss them off one after the other, the way he had when he had been an officer on leave in Berlin in '39, when the scent of victory had been in the air and everywhere you heard the Fuehrer's voice, saw his blazing, commanding eyes-

"Collections\Different Seasons\Apt Pupil.txt" 783 23:He took the packet of CIGARETTES from the table and lit one, scratching the wooden match on the bedpost. The clock's hands stood at 2:41. There would be no more sleep for him this night. He inhaled SMOKE and then coughed it out in a series of racking spasms. No more sleep unless he wanted to go downstairs and have a drink or two. Or three. And there had been altogether too much drinking over the last six weeks or so. He was no longer a young man who could toss them off one after the other, the way he had when he had been an officer on leave in Berlin in '39, when the scent of victory had been in the air and everywhere you heard the Fuehrer's voice, saw his blazing, commanding eyes-

"Collections\Different Seasons\Apt Pupil.txt" 803 20:He crushed out his CIGARETTE, lay looking at the ceiling for a moment, and then swung his feet out onto the floor. He and the boy were loathsome, he supposed, feeding off each other . . . eating each other. If his own belly was sometimes sour with the dark but rich food they partook of in his afternoon kitchen, what was the boy's like? Did he sleep well? Perhaps not. Lately Dussander thought the boy looked rather pale, and thinner than when he had first come into Dussander's life.

"Collections\Different Seasons\Apt Pupil.txt" 811 36:He went back to bed, lay down, and SMOKED another CIGARETTE. When it was finished, he felt sleepy again. He turned off the bedlamp, not believing it, that it could be this easy. But he was asleep, five minutes later, and this time his sleep was dreamless.

"Collections\Different Seasons\Apt Pupil.txt" 811 51:He went back to bed, lay down, and SMOKED another CIGARETTE. When it was finished, he felt sleepy again. He turned off the bedlamp, not believing it, that it could be this easy. But he was asleep, five minutes later, and this time his sleep was dreamless.

"Collections\Different Seasons\Apt Pupil.txt" 834 35:Dussander smiled and felt for his CIGARETTES. He could see them perfectly well, but it was important to make not the tiniest slip. Monica put them in his hand.

"Collections\Different Seasons\Apt Pupil.txt" 840 57:"Not personal at all," Dussander said, lighting his CIGARETTE and turning to Bowden. "I was in the reserves from 1943 on, as were all able-bodied men too old to be in the active services. By then the handwriting was on the wall for the Third Reich, and for the madmen who created it. One madman in particular, of course."

"Collections\Different Seasons\Apt Pupil.txt" 973 1024:Dussander had certainly been afflicted with problems of his own. For three weeks or so he had worn the SS uniform to bed like grotesque pajamas, and the uniform had warded off the insomnia and the bad dreams. His sleep had been-at first-as sound as a lumberjack's. Then the dreams had returned, not little by little, but all at once, and worse than ever before. Dreams of running as well as the dreams of the eyes. Running through a wet, unseen jungle where heavy leaves and damp fronds struck his face, leaving trickles that felt like sap . . . or blood. Running and running, the luminous eyes always around him, peering soullessly at him, until he broke into a clearing. In the darkness he sensed rather than saw the steep rise that began on the clearing's far side. At the top of that rise was Patin, its low cement buildings and yards surrounded by barbed wire and electrified wire, its sentry towers standing like Martian dreadnoughts straight out of War of the Worlds. And in the middle, huge stacks billowed SMOKE against the sky, and below these brick columns were the furnaces, stoked and ready to go, glowing in the night like the eyes of fierce demons. They had told the inhabitants of the area that the Patin inmates made clothes and candles, and of course the locals had believed that no more than the locals around Auschwitz had believed that the camp was a sausage factory. It didn't matter.

"Collections\Different Seasons\Apt Pupil.txt" 99 168:"I don't know what you're talking about," Dussander said. There was a package of Kools, the kind with no filter, on top of the TV. He offered them to Todd. "CIGARETTE?" he asked, and grinned. His grin was hideous.

"Collections\Different Seasons\Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption.txt" 1166 307:The story broke big in the papers, as you might guess, but no one within a fifteen-mile radius of the prison stepped forward to report a stolen car, stolen clothes, or a naked man in the moonlight. There was not so much as a barking dog in a farmyard. He came out of the sewer-pipe and he disappeared like SMOKE.

"Collections\Different Seasons\Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption.txt" 1232 343:Or maybe he had something more than dumb luck going for him even back then. He had money, and he might have been slipping someone a little squeeze every week to take it easy on him. Most guards will go along with that if the price is right; it's money in their pockets and the prisoner gets to keep his whack-off pictures or his tailormade CIGARETTES. Also, Andy was a model prisoner-quiet, well-spoken, respectful, non-violent. It's the crazies and the stampeders that get their cells turned upside-down at least once every six months, their mattresses unzipped, their pillows taken away and cut open, the outflow pipe from their toilets carefully probed.

"Collections\Different Seasons\Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption.txt" 1268 364:I've told you as well as I can how it is to be an institutional man. At first you can't stand those four walls, then you get so you can abide them, then you get so you accept them . . . and then, as your body and your mind and your spirit adjust to live on an HO scale, you get to love them. You are told when to eat, when you can write letters, when you can SMOKE. If you're at work in the laundry or the plate-shop, you're assigned five minutes of each hour when you can go to the bathroom. For thirty-five years, my time was twenty-five minutes after the hour, and after thirty-five years, that's the only time I ever felt the need to take a piss or have a crap; twenty-five minutes past the hour. And if for some reason I couldn't go, the need would pass at thirty after, and come back at twenty-five past the next hour.

"Collections\Different Seasons\Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption.txt" 14 157:As I said, I've been the guy who can get it for you here at Shawshank for damn near forty years. And that doesn't just mean contraband items like extra CIGARETTES or booze, although those items always top the list. But I've gotten thousands of other items for men doing time here, some of them perfectly legal yet hard to come by in a place where you've supposedly been brought to be punished. There was one fellow who was in for raping a little girl and exposing himself to dozens of others; I got him three pieces of pink Vermont marble and he did three lovely sculptures out of them-a baby, a boy of about twelve, and a bearded young man. He called them The Three Ages of Jesus, and those pieces of sculpture are now in the parlor of a man who used to be governor of this state.

"Collections\Different Seasons\Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption.txt" 362 66:Posters are a big part of my business, just behind the booze and CIGARETTES, usually half a step ahead of the reefer. In the sixties the business exploded in every direction, with a lot of people wanting funky hang-ups like Jimi Hendrix, Bob Dylan, that Easy Rider poster. But mostly it's girls; one pin-up queen after another.

"Collections\Different Seasons\Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption.txt" 4 131:There's a guy like me in every state and federal prison in America, I guess-I'm the guy who can get it for you. Tailor-made CIGARETTES, a bag of reefer if you're partial to that, a bottle of brandy to celebrate your son or daughter's high school graduation, or almost anything else . . . within reason, that is. It wasn't always that way.

"Collections\Different Seasons\Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption.txt" 40 1328:A clerk from the Wise Pawnshop in Lewiston testified that he had sold a six-shot .38 Police Special to Andrew Dufresne just two days before the double murder. A bartender from the country club bar testified that Andy had come in around seven o'clock on the evening of September 10th, had tossed off three straight whiskeys in a twenty-minute period-when he got up from the bar-stool he told the bartender that he was going up to Glenn Quentin's house and he, the bartender, could "read about the rest of it in the papers." Another clerk, this one from the Handy-Pik store a mile or so from Quentin's house, told the court that Dufresne had come in around quarter to nine on that same night. He purchased CIGARETTES, three quarts of beer, and some dishtowels. The county medical examiner testified that Quentin and the Dufresne woman had been killed between 11:00 p.m. and 2:00 a.m. on the night of September 10th–11th. The detective from the Attorney General's office who had been in charge of the case testified that there was a turnout less than seventy yards from the bungalow, and that on the afternoon of September 11th, three pieces of evidence had been removed from that turnout: first item, two empty quart bottles of Narragansett Beer (with the defendant's fingerprints on them); second item, twelve CIGARETTE ends (all Kools, the defendant's brand); third item, a plaster moulage of a set of tire tracks (exactly matching the tread-and-wear pattern of the tires on the defendant's 1947 Plymouth).

"Collections\Different Seasons\Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption.txt" 40 717:A clerk from the Wise Pawnshop in Lewiston testified that he had sold a six-shot .38 Police Special to Andrew Dufresne just two days before the double murder. A bartender from the country club bar testified that Andy had come in around seven o'clock on the evening of September 10th, had tossed off three straight whiskeys in a twenty-minute period-when he got up from the bar-stool he told the bartender that he was going up to Glenn Quentin's house and he, the bartender, could "read about the rest of it in the papers." Another clerk, this one from the Handy-Pik store a mile or so from Quentin's house, told the court that Dufresne had come in around quarter to nine on that same night. He purchased CIGARETTES, three quarts of beer, and some dishtowels. The county medical examiner testified that Quentin and the Dufresne woman had been killed between 11:00 p.m. and 2:00 a.m. on the night of September 10th–11th. The detective from the Attorney General's office who had been in charge of the case testified that there was a turnout less than seventy yards from the bungalow, and that on the afternoon of September 11th, three pieces of evidence had been removed from that turnout: first item, two empty quart bottles of Narragansett Beer (with the defendant's fingerprints on them); second item, twelve CIGARETTE ends (all Kools, the defendant's brand); third item, a plaster moulage of a set of tire tracks (exactly matching the tread-and-wear pattern of the tires on the defendant's 1947 Plymouth).

"Collections\Different Seasons\Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption.txt" 438 1247:Andy just looked at him, very calm and still. His eyes were like ice. It was as if he hadn't heard. And I found myself wanting to tell him how it was, to give him the crash course. The crash course is you never let on that you hear the guards talking, you never try to horn in on their conversation unless you're asked (and then you always tell them just what they want to hear and shut up again). Black man, white man, red man, yellow man, in prison it doesn't matter because we've got our own brand of equality. In prison every con's a nigger and you have to get used to the idea if you intend to survive men like Hadley and Greg Stammas, who really would kill you just as soon as look at you. When you're in stir you belong to the State and if you forget it, woe is you. I've known men who've lost eyes, men who've lost toes and fingers; I knew one man who lost the tip of his penis and counted himself lucky that was all he lost. I wanted to tell Andy that it was already too late. He could go back and pick up his brush and there would still be some big lug waiting for him in the showers that night, ready to charley-horse both of his legs and leave him writhing on the cement. You could buy a lug like that for a pack of CIGARETTES or three Baby Ruths. Most of all, I wanted to tell him not to make it any worse than it already was.

"Collections\Different Seasons\Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption.txt" 560 103:"No," Andy said. "I don't like the pills, either. Never have. But I'm not much of a one for CIGARETTES or booze, either. But I don't push the pills. I don't bring them in, and I don't sell them once they are in. Mostly it's the screws who do that."

"Collections\Different Seasons\Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption.txt" 78 63:He went up to the turnout and parked there. He drank beer and SMOKED CIGARETTES. He watched the lights downstairs in Quentin's place go out. He watched a single light go on upstairs . . . and fifteen minutes later he watched that one go out. He said he could guess the rest.

"Collections\Different Seasons\Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption.txt" 78 70:He went up to the turnout and parked there. He drank beer and SMOKED CIGARETTES. He watched the lights downstairs in Quentin's place go out. He watched a single light go on upstairs . . . and fifteen minutes later he watched that one go out. He said he could guess the rest.

"Collections\Different Seasons\Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption.txt" 850 426:I remember one bright-gold fall day in very late October, a couple of weeks after the World Series had ended. It must have been a Sunday, because the exercise yard was full of men "walking off the week"-tossing a Frisbee or two, passing around a football, bartering what they had to barter. Others would be at the long table in the Visitors' Hall, under the watchful eyes of the screws, talking with their relatives, SMOKING CIGARETTES, telling sincere lies, receiving their picked-over care-packages.

"Collections\Different Seasons\Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption.txt" 850 434:I remember one bright-gold fall day in very late October, a couple of weeks after the World Series had ended. It must have been a Sunday, because the exercise yard was full of men "walking off the week"-tossing a Frisbee or two, passing around a football, bartering what they had to barter. Others would be at the long table in the Visitors' Hall, under the watchful eyes of the screws, talking with their relatives, SMOKING CIGARETTES, telling sincere lies, receiving their picked-over care-packages.

"Collections\Different Seasons\Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption.txt" 896 149:'There are really only two types of men in the world when it comes to bad trouble," Andy said, cupping a match between his hands and lighting a CIGARETTE. "Suppose there was a house full of rare paintings and sculptures and fine old antiques, Red? And suppose the guy who owned the house heard that there was a monster of a hurricane headed right at it? One of those two kinds of men just hopes for the best. The hurricane will change course, he says to himself. No right-thinking hurricane would ever dare wipe out all these Rembrandts, my two Degas horses, my Grant Woods, and my Bentons. Furthermore, God wouldn't allow it. And if worse comes to worst, they're insured. That's one sort of man. The other sort just assumes that hurricane is going to tear right through the middle of his house. If the weather bureau says the hurricane just changed course, this guy assumes it'll change back in order to put his house on ground-zero again. This second type of guy knows there's no harm in hoping for the best as long as you're prepared for the worst."

"Collections\Different Seasons\Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption.txt" 898 9:I lit a CIGARETTE of my own. "Are you saying you prepared for the eventuality?"

"Collections\Different Seasons\Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption.txt" 98 79:"I mean I didn't shoot either one of them. I drank two quarts of beer and SMOKED however many CIGARETTES the police found at the turnout. Then I drove home and went to bed."

"Collections\Different Seasons\Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption.txt" 98 99:"I mean I didn't shoot either one of them. I drank two quarts of beer and SMOKED however many CIGARETTES the police found at the turnout. Then I drove home and went to bed."

"Collections\Different Seasons\The Body.txt" 1517 494:Still, I made him promise not to tell anybody about my stories and of course he did and it turned out most of them liked to read the stuff I wrote, which was mostly about getting burned alive or some crook coming back from the dead and slaughtering the jury that had condemned him in Twelve Interesting Ways or a maniac that went crazy and chopped a lot of people into veal cutlets before the hero, Curt Cannon, "cut the subhuman, screeching madman to pieces with round after round from his SMOKING .45 automatic."

"Collections\Different Seasons\The Body.txt" 1676 539:Calvin Spier's belly rumbled noisily-goinnngg! There was laughter and even some applause. Sylvia Dodge, who knew perfectly well that Calvin was both a Democrat and a Catholic (either would have been forgivable alone, but the two combined, never), managed to blush, smile, and look furious all at the same time. She cleared her throat and wound up with a ringing exhortation to every boy and girl in the audience, telling them to always hold the red, white, and blue high, both in their hands and in their hearts, and to remember that SMOKING was a dirty, evil habit which made you cough. The boys and girls in the audience, most of whom would be wearing peace medallions and SMOKING not Camels but marijuana in another eight years, shuffled their feet and waited for the action to begin.

"Collections\Different Seasons\The Body.txt" 1676 680:Calvin Spier's belly rumbled noisily-goinnngg! There was laughter and even some applause. Sylvia Dodge, who knew perfectly well that Calvin was both a Democrat and a Catholic (either would have been forgivable alone, but the two combined, never), managed to blush, smile, and look furious all at the same time. She cleared her throat and wound up with a ringing exhortation to every boy and girl in the audience, telling them to always hold the red, white, and blue high, both in their hands and in their hearts, and to remember that SMOKING was a dirty, evil habit which made you cough. The boys and girls in the audience, most of whom would be wearing peace medallions and SMOKING not Camels but marijuana in another eight years, shuffled their feet and waited for the action to begin.

"Collections\Different Seasons\The Body.txt" 168 115:"Yeah," Billy said. Sound of a scratched match. Vern saw it flicked into the gravel driveway and then smelled CIGARETTE SMOKE. "It sure did. And you puked."

"Collections\Different Seasons\The Body.txt" 168 125:"Yeah," Billy said. Sound of a scratched match. Vern saw it flicked into the gravel driveway and then smelled CIGARETTE SMOKE. "It sure did. And you puked."

"Collections\Different Seasons\The Body.txt" 1809 20:"That's when a CIGARETTE tastes best," Chris said. "After supper."

"Collections\Different Seasons\The Body.txt" 188 70:"Yeah," Charlie said. He sighed. "I guess you're right." A CIGARETTE butt flicked into the driveway. "We hadda walk up and take a piss by the tracks, didn't we? Couldn't walk the other way, could we? And I got puke on my new P. F. Fliers." His voice sank a little. "Fuckin kid was laid right out, you know it? Didja see that sonofawhore, Billy?"

"Collections\Different Seasons\The Body.txt" 190 44:"I seen him," Billy said, and a second CIGARETTE butt joined the first in the driveway. "Let's go see if Ace is up. I want some juice."

"Collections\Different Seasons\The Body.txt" 1952 1010:Unable to wait until they were really cooked, we each took one of them, stuck it in a roll, and yanked the hot stick out of the center. They were charred outside, raw inside, and totally delicious. We wolfed them down and wiped the grease from our mouths with our bare arms. Chris opened his pack and took out a tin Band-Aids box (the pistol was way at the bottom of his pack, and because he hadn't told Vern and Teddy, I guessed it was to be our secret). He opened it and gave each of us a battered Winston. We lit them with flaming twigs from the fire and then leaned back, men of the world, watching the CIGARETTE SMOKE drift away into the soft twilight. None of us inhaled because we might cough and that would mean a day or two of ragging from the others. And it was pleasant enough just to drag and blow, hawking into the fire to hear the sizzle (that was the summer I learned how you can pick out someone who is just learning to SMOKE: if you're new at it you spit a lot). We were feeling good. We SMOKED the Winstons down to the filters, then tossed them into the fire.

"Collections\Different Seasons\The Body.txt" 1952 610:Unable to wait until they were really cooked, we each took one of them, stuck it in a roll, and yanked the hot stick out of the center. They were charred outside, raw inside, and totally delicious. We wolfed them down and wiped the grease from our mouths with our bare arms. Chris opened his pack and took out a tin Band-Aids box (the pistol was way at the bottom of his pack, and because he hadn't told Vern and Teddy, I guessed it was to be our secret). He opened it and gave each of us a battered Winston. We lit them with flaming twigs from the fire and then leaned back, men of the world, watching the CIGARETTE SMOKE drift away into the soft twilight. None of us inhaled because we might cough and that would mean a day or two of ragging from the others. And it was pleasant enough just to drag and blow, hawking into the fire to hear the sizzle (that was the summer I learned how you can pick out someone who is just learning to SMOKE: if you're new at it you spit a lot). We were feeling good. We SMOKED the Winstons down to the filters, then tossed them into the fire.

"Collections\Different Seasons\The Body.txt" 1952 620:Unable to wait until they were really cooked, we each took one of them, stuck it in a roll, and yanked the hot stick out of the center. They were charred outside, raw inside, and totally delicious. We wolfed them down and wiped the grease from our mouths with our bare arms. Chris opened his pack and took out a tin Band-Aids box (the pistol was way at the bottom of his pack, and because he hadn't told Vern and Teddy, I guessed it was to be our secret). He opened it and gave each of us a battered Winston. We lit them with flaming twigs from the fire and then leaned back, men of the world, watching the CIGARETTE SMOKE drift away into the soft twilight. None of us inhaled because we might cough and that would mean a day or two of ragging from the others. And it was pleasant enough just to drag and blow, hawking into the fire to hear the sizzle (that was the summer I learned how you can pick out someone who is just learning to SMOKE: if you're new at it you spit a lot). We were feeling good. We SMOKED the Winstons down to the filters, then tossed them into the fire.

"Collections\Different Seasons\The Body.txt" 1952 939:Unable to wait until they were really cooked, we each took one of them, stuck it in a roll, and yanked the hot stick out of the center. They were charred outside, raw inside, and totally delicious. We wolfed them down and wiped the grease from our mouths with our bare arms. Chris opened his pack and took out a tin Band-Aids box (the pistol was way at the bottom of his pack, and because he hadn't told Vern and Teddy, I guessed it was to be our secret). He opened it and gave each of us a battered Winston. We lit them with flaming twigs from the fire and then leaned back, men of the world, watching the CIGARETTE SMOKE drift away into the soft twilight. None of us inhaled because we might cough and that would mean a day or two of ragging from the others. And it was pleasant enough just to drag and blow, hawking into the fire to hear the sizzle (that was the summer I learned how you can pick out someone who is just learning to SMOKE: if you're new at it you spit a lot). We were feeling good. We SMOKED the Winstons down to the filters, then tossed them into the fire.

"Collections\Different Seasons\The Body.txt" 1954 18:"Nothin like a SMOKE after a meal," Teddy said.

"Collections\Different Seasons\The Body.txt" 2001 377:"Oh God!" Vern screamed, apparently not crazy about that idea at all. "I promise I won't hawk no more dirty books out of Dahlie's Market! I promise I won't give my carrots to the dog no more! I . . . I . . . I . . ." He floundered there, wanting to bribe God with everything but unable to think of anything really good in the extremity of his fear. "I won't SMOKE no more unfiltered CIGARETTES! I won't say no bad swears! I won't put my Bazooka in the offerin plate! I won't-"

"Collections\Different Seasons\The Body.txt" 2001 402:"Oh God!" Vern screamed, apparently not crazy about that idea at all. "I promise I won't hawk no more dirty books out of Dahlie's Market! I promise I won't give my carrots to the dog no more! I . . . I . . . I . . ." He floundered there, wanting to bribe God with everything but unable to think of anything really good in the extremity of his fear. "I won't SMOKE no more unfiltered CIGARETTES! I won't say no bad swears! I won't put my Bazooka in the offerin plate! I won't-"

"Collections\Different Seasons\The Body.txt" 22 60:Besides playing cards, the club was a good place to go and SMOKE CIGARETTES and look at girly books. There were half a dozen battered tin ashtrays that said camels on the bottom, a lot of centerfolds tacked to the splintery walls, twenty or thirty dog-eared packs of Bike cards (Teddy got them from his uncle, who ran the Castle Rock Stationery Shoppe-when Teddy's unc asked him one day what kind of cards we played, Teddy said we had cribbage tournaments and Teddy's unc thought that was just fine), a set of plastic poker chips, and a pile of ancient Master Detective murder magazines to leaf through if there was nothing else shaking. We also built a 12" x 10" secret compartment under the floor to hide most of this stuff in on the rare occasions when some kid's father decided it was time to do the we're-really-good-pals routine. When it rained, being in the club was like being inside a Jamaican steel drum . . . but that summer there had been no rain.

"Collections\Different Seasons\The Body.txt" 22 66:Besides playing cards, the club was a good place to go and SMOKE CIGARETTES and look at girly books. There were half a dozen battered tin ashtrays that said camels on the bottom, a lot of centerfolds tacked to the splintery walls, twenty or thirty dog-eared packs of Bike cards (Teddy got them from his uncle, who ran the Castle Rock Stationery Shoppe-when Teddy's unc asked him one day what kind of cards we played, Teddy said we had cribbage tournaments and Teddy's unc thought that was just fine), a set of plastic poker chips, and a pile of ancient Master Detective murder magazines to leaf through if there was nothing else shaking. We also built a 12" x 10" secret compartment under the floor to hide most of this stuff in on the rare occasions when some kid's father decided it was time to do the we're-really-good-pals routine. When it rained, being in the club was like being inside a Jamaican steel drum . . . but that summer there had been no rain.

"Collections\Different Seasons\The Body.txt" 2264 237:We could have hooked a ride all the way up Route 7 to the Shiloh Church, which stood at the intersection of the highway and the Back Harlow Road (at least until 1967, when it was levelled by a fire attributed to a tramp's smouldering CIGARETTE butt). With reasonable luck we could have gotten to where the body was by sundown of the previous day.

"Collections\Different Seasons\The Body.txt" 2752 308:I got out a dozen eggs and scrambled six of them together. When they were semi-solid in the pan, I added a side dish of crushed pineapple and half a quart of milk. I was just sitting down to eat when my mother came in, her gray hair tied in a knot behind her head. She was wearing a faded pink bathrobe and SMOKING a Camel.

"Collections\Different Seasons\The Body.txt" 2781 291:Teddy's mom got worried the second night and called Vern's mom. Vern's mom, who was also never going to do the game-show circuit, said we were still out in Vern's tent. She knew because she had seen a light on in there the night before. Teddy's mom said she sure hoped no one was SMOKING CIGARETTES in there and Vern's mom said it looked like a flashlight to her, and besides, she was sure that none of Vern's or Billy's friends SMOKED.

"Collections\Different Seasons\The Body.txt" 2781 299:Teddy's mom got worried the second night and called Vern's mom. Vern's mom, who was also never going to do the game-show circuit, said we were still out in Vern's tent. She knew because she had seen a light on in there the night before. Teddy's mom said she sure hoped no one was SMOKING CIGARETTES in there and Vern's mom said it looked like a flashlight to her, and besides, she was sure that none of Vern's or Billy's friends SMOKED.

"Collections\Different Seasons\The Body.txt" 2781 446:Teddy's mom got worried the second night and called Vern's mom. Vern's mom, who was also never going to do the game-show circuit, said we were still out in Vern's tent. She knew because she had seen a light on in there the night before. Teddy's mom said she sure hoped no one was SMOKING CIGARETTES in there and Vern's mom said it looked like a flashlight to her, and besides, she was sure that none of Vern's or Billy's friends SMOKED.

"Collections\Different Seasons\The Body.txt" 2875 434:Vern Tessio was killed in a housefire that swept a Lewiston apartment building in 1966-in Brooklyn and the Bronx, they call that sort of apartment building a slum tenement, I believe. The Fire Department said it started around two in the morning, and the entire building was nothing but cinders in the cellarhole by dawn. There had been a large drunken party; Vern was there. Someone fell asleep in one of the bedrooms with a live CIGARETTE going. Vern himself, maybe, drifting off, dreaming of his pennies. They identified him and the four others who died by their teeth.

"Collections\Different Seasons\The Body.txt" 2885 452:He almost quit a dozen times that year. His father in particular hounded him, accusing Chris of thinking he was better than his old man, accusing Chris of wanting "to go up there to the college so you can turn me into a bankrupt." He once broke a Rhinegold bottle over the back of Chris's head and Chris wound up in the CMG Emergency Room again, where it took four stitches to close his scalp. His old friends, most of whom were now majoring in SMOKING Area, catcalled him on the streets. The guidance counsellor huckstered him to take at least some shop courses so he wouldn't flunk the whole slate. Worst of all, of course, was just this: he'd been fucking off for the entire first seven years of his public education, and now the bill had come due with a vengeance.

"Collections\Different Seasons\The Body.txt" 383 57:"Stud City," Chico says to the glass. He smokes his CIGARETTE.

"Collections\Different Seasons\The Body.txt" 477 356:She looks at her wristwatch and sits up. This time she makes no attempt to shield herself. Her whole tone-her body English-has changed. She has not matured (although she probably believes she has) or learned anything more complex than tying a shoe, but her tone has changed just the same. He nods and she smiles tentatively at him. He reaches for the CIGARETTES on the bedtable. As she draws on her panties, he thinks of a line from an old novelty song: Keep playin till I shoot through, Blue . . . play your digeree, do. "Tie Me Kangaroo Down," by Rolf Harris. He grins. That was a song Johnny used to sing. It ended: So we tanned his hide when he died, Clyde, and that's it hanging on the shed.

"Collections\Different Seasons\The Body.txt" 487 57:She goes up the hall gracefully, and Chico watches her, SMOKING. She is a tall girl-taller than he-and she has to duck her head a little going through the bathroom door. Chico finds his underpants under the bed. He puts them in the dirty clothes bag hanging just inside the closet door, and gets another pair from the bureau. He puts them on, and then, while walking back to the bed, he slips and almost falls in a patch of wetness the square of cardboard has let in.

"Collections\Different Seasons\The Body.txt" 533 18:He feels for his CIGARETTES. "She's been married twice and divorced twice. Now she's the town pump, if you believe half the talk that goes on in this shitass little town."

"Collections\Different Seasons\The Body.txt" 567 192:He lets her go, only a little of the smile left. She gets out of the car quickly and runs through the rain to the back door. A second later she's gone. Chico pauses for a moment to light a CIGARETTE and then he backs out of the driveway. The Buick stalls and the starter seems to grind forever before the engine manages to catch. It is a long ride home.

"Collections\Different Seasons\The Body.txt" 665 149:He leaves. The Buick doesn't want to start and he has almost resigned himself to walking in the rain when the engine finally catches. He lights a CIGARETTE and backs out onto 14, slamming the clutch back in and racing the mill when it starts to jerk and splutter. The generator light blinks balefully at him twice, and then the car settles into a ragged idle. At last he is on his way, creeping up the road toward Gates Falls.

"Collections\Different Seasons\The Body.txt" 677 91:He tastes puke on his lips and in his throat and coating his sinuses. He doesn't want a CIGARETTE. Danny Carter will let him sleep over. Tomorrow will be time enough for further decisions. He pulls back onto Route 14 and gets rolling.

"Collections\Different Seasons\The Body.txt" 690 619:But even its pretensions can't hide the fact that it's an extremely sexual story written by an extremely inexperienced young man (at the time I wrote "Stud City," I had been to bed with two girls and had ejaculated prematurely all over one of them-not much like Chico in the foregoing tale, I guess). Its attitude toward women goes beyond hostility and to a point which verges on actual ugliness-two of the women in "Stud City" are sluts, and the third is a simple receptacle who says things like "I love you, Chico" and "Come in, I'll give you cookies." Chico, on the other hand, is a macho CIGARETTE-SMOKING working-class hero who could have stepped whole and breathing from the grooves of a Bruce Springsteen record-although Springsteen was yet to be heard from when I published the story in the college literary magazine (where it ran between a poem called "Images of Me" and an essay on student parietals written entirely in lower case). It is the work of a young man every bit as insecure as he was inexperienced.

"Collections\Different Seasons\The Body.txt" 690 629:But even its pretensions can't hide the fact that it's an extremely sexual story written by an extremely inexperienced young man (at the time I wrote "Stud City," I had been to bed with two girls and had ejaculated prematurely all over one of them-not much like Chico in the foregoing tale, I guess). Its attitude toward women goes beyond hostility and to a point which verges on actual ugliness-two of the women in "Stud City" are sluts, and the third is a simple receptacle who says things like "I love you, Chico" and "Come in, I'll give you cookies." Chico, on the other hand, is a macho CIGARETTE-SMOKING working-class hero who could have stepped whole and breathing from the grooves of a Bruce Springsteen record-although Springsteen was yet to be heard from when I published the story in the college literary magazine (where it ran between a poem called "Images of Me" and an essay on student parietals written entirely in lower case). It is the work of a young man every bit as insecure as he was inexperienced.

"Collections\Different Seasons\The Body.txt" 832 206:Behind us was Castle Rock, spread out on the long hill that was known as Castle View, surrounding its green and shady common. Further down Castle River you could see the stacks of the woollen mill spewing SMOKE into a sky the color of gunmetal and spewing waste into the water. The Jolly Furniture Barn was on our left. And straight ahead of us the railroad tracks, bright and heliographing in the sun. They paralleled the Castle River, which was on our left. To our right was a lot of overgrown scrubland (there's motorcycle track there today-they have scrambles every Sunday afternoon at 2:00 p.m.). An old abandoned water tower stood on the horizon, rusty and somehow scary.

"Collections\Different Seasons\The Breathing Method.txt" 128 119:I saw that most of the others had drawn chairs up around the hearth in a semi-circle. Stevens had produced a heaping, SMOKING platter of marvellous hot sausages. Harry Stein returned through the down-the-rabbit-hole door, introducing himself hurriedly but pleasantly to me. Gregson remained in the billiard room-practicing shots, by the sound.

"Collections\Different Seasons\The Breathing Method.txt" 484 135:"Yes. Of course it is. And I have a folder which I give to all my pregnant patients. It deals with diet and weight and drinking and SMOKING and lots of other things. Please don't laugh when you look at it. You'll hurt my feelings if you do, because I wrote it myself."

"Collections\Different Seasons\The Breathing Method.txt" 490 505:Expectant mothers were urged to stay off their feet as much as possible, and on no account were they to walk any sustained distance lest a miscarriage or "birth damage" result. Now giving birth is an extremely strenuous piece of work, and such advice is like telling a football player to prepare for the big game by sitting around as much as possible so he won't tire himself out! Another sterling piece of advice, given by a good many doctors, was that moderately overweight mothers-to-be take up SMOKING . . . SMOKING! The rationale was perfectly expressed by an advertising slogan of the day. "Have a Lucky instead of a sweet." People who have the idea that when we entered the twentieth century we also entered an age of medical light and reason have no idea of how utterly crazy medicine could sometimes be. Perhaps it's just as well; their hair would turn white.

"Collections\Different Seasons\The Breathing Method.txt" 490 519:Expectant mothers were urged to stay off their feet as much as possible, and on no account were they to walk any sustained distance lest a miscarriage or "birth damage" result. Now giving birth is an extremely strenuous piece of work, and such advice is like telling a football player to prepare for the big game by sitting around as much as possible so he won't tire himself out! Another sterling piece of advice, given by a good many doctors, was that moderately overweight mothers-to-be take up SMOKING . . . SMOKING! The rationale was perfectly expressed by an advertising slogan of the day. "Have a Lucky instead of a sweet." People who have the idea that when we entered the twentieth century we also entered an age of medical light and reason have no idea of how utterly crazy medicine could sometimes be. Perhaps it's just as well; their hair would turn white.

"Collections\Different Seasons\The Breathing Method.txt" 492 136:I gave Miss Stansfield my folder and she looked through it with complete attention for perhaps five minutes. I asked her permission to SMOKE my pipe and she gave it absently, without looking up. When she did look up at last, there was a small smile on her lips. "Are you a radical, Dr. McCarron?" she asked.

"Collections\Different Seasons\The Breathing Method.txt" 652 388:"No. I didn't love her. The things I've said about her sound like the things a man who is falling in love would notice-her eyes, her dresses, her laugh." He lit his pipe with a special boltlike pipe-lighter that he carried, drawing the flame until there was a bed of coals there. Then he snapped the bolt shut, dropped it into the pocket of his jacket, and blew out a plume of SMOKE that shifted slowly around his head in an aromatic membrane.

"Collections\Different Seasons\The Breathing Method.txt" 940 422:"Nurse!" I bawled, "move your ass, you bitch!" It was perhaps inexcusable language, but for a moment I felt I was back in France, that in a few moments the shells would begin to whistle overhead with a sound like that remorselessly ticking sleet; the machine-guns would begin their hellish stutter; the Germans would begin to materialize out of the murk, running and slipping and cursing and dying in the mud and SMOKE. Cheap magic, I thought, seeing the bodies twist and turn and fall. But you're right, Sandra, it's all we have. It was the closest I have ever come to losing my mind, gentlemen.

"Collections\Everything's Eventual\1408.txt" 327 67:Instead of pushing the call-button, he reached up and touched the CIGARETTE behind his ear-that old, distracted gesture he no longer knew he was making-and flicked the collar of his lucky shirt. Then he started down the hallway toward 1408, swinging his overnight case by his side.

"Collections\Everything's Eventual\1408.txt" 388 770:When the pictures were set to rights, he stepped back and surveyed them in turn: the evening-dressed lady by the door leading into the bedroom, the ship plying one of the seven seas to the left of the writing desk, and finally the nasty (and quite badly painted) fruit by the TV cabinet. Part of him expected that they would be crooked again, or fall crooked as he looked at them-that was the way things happened in movies like House on Haunted Hill and in old episodes of The Twilight Zone-but the pictures remained perfectly straight, as he had fixed them. Not, he told himself, that he would have found anything supernatural or paranormal in a return to their former crooked state; in his experience, reversion was the nature of things-people who had given up SMOKING (he touched the CIGARETTE cocked behind his ear without being aware of it) wanted to go on SMOKING, and pictures that had been hanging crooked since Nixon was President wanted to go on hanging crooked. And they've been here a long time, no doubt about that, Mike thought. If I lifted them away from the walls, I'd see lighter patches on the wallpaper. Or bugs squirming out, the way they do when you turn over a rock.

"Collections\Everything's Eventual\1408.txt" 388 794:When the pictures were set to rights, he stepped back and surveyed them in turn: the evening-dressed lady by the door leading into the bedroom, the ship plying one of the seven seas to the left of the writing desk, and finally the nasty (and quite badly painted) fruit by the TV cabinet. Part of him expected that they would be crooked again, or fall crooked as he looked at them-that was the way things happened in movies like House on Haunted Hill and in old episodes of The Twilight Zone-but the pictures remained perfectly straight, as he had fixed them. Not, he told himself, that he would have found anything supernatural or paranormal in a return to their former crooked state; in his experience, reversion was the nature of things-people who had given up SMOKING (he touched the CIGARETTE cocked behind his ear without being aware of it) wanted to go on SMOKING, and pictures that had been hanging crooked since Nixon was President wanted to go on hanging crooked. And they've been here a long time, no doubt about that, Mike thought. If I lifted them away from the walls, I'd see lighter patches on the wallpaper. Or bugs squirming out, the way they do when you turn over a rock.

"Collections\Everything's Eventual\1408.txt" 388 869:When the pictures were set to rights, he stepped back and surveyed them in turn: the evening-dressed lady by the door leading into the bedroom, the ship plying one of the seven seas to the left of the writing desk, and finally the nasty (and quite badly painted) fruit by the TV cabinet. Part of him expected that they would be crooked again, or fall crooked as he looked at them-that was the way things happened in movies like House on Haunted Hill and in old episodes of The Twilight Zone-but the pictures remained perfectly straight, as he had fixed them. Not, he told himself, that he would have found anything supernatural or paranormal in a return to their former crooked state; in his experience, reversion was the nature of things-people who had given up SMOKING (he touched the CIGARETTE cocked behind his ear without being aware of it) wanted to go on SMOKING, and pictures that had been hanging crooked since Nixon was President wanted to go on hanging crooked. And they've been here a long time, no doubt about that, Mike thought. If I lifted them away from the walls, I'd see lighter patches on the wallpaper. Or bugs squirming out, the way they do when you turn over a rock.

"Collections\Everything's Eventual\1408.txt" 4 911:As well as the ever-popular premature burial, every writer of shock/suspense tales should write at least one story about the Ghostly Room At The Inn. This is my version of that story. The only unusual thing about it is that I never intended to finish it. I wrote the first three or four pages as part of an appendix for my On Writing book, wanting to show readers how a story evolves from first draft to second. Most of all, I wanted to provide concrete examples of the principles I'd been blathering about in the text. But something nice happened: the story seduced me, and I ended up writing all of it. I think that what scares us varies widely from one individual to the next (I've never been able to understand why Peruvian boomslangs give some people the creeps, for example), but this story scared me while I was working on it. It originally appeared as part of an audio compilation called Blood and SMOKE, and the audio scared me even more. Scared the hell out of me. But hotel rooms are just naturally creepy places, don't you think? I mean, how many people have slept in that bed before you? How many of them were sick? How many were losing their minds? How many were perhaps thinking about reading a few final verses from the Bible in the drawer of the nightstand beside them and then hanging themselves in the closet beside the TV? Brrrr. In any case, let's check in, shall we? Here's your key . . . and you might take time to notice what those four innocent numbers add up to.

"Collections\Everything's Eventual\1408.txt" 444 454:He turned around and very slowly edged himself out of the little space between the wall and the bed, a space that now felt as narrow as a grave. His heart was beating so hard that he could feel it in his neck and wrists as well as in his chest. His eyes were throbbing in their sockets. 1408 was wrong, yes indeed, 1408 was very wrong. Olin had said something about poison gas, and that was what Mike felt like: someone who has been gassed or forced to SMOKE strong hashish laced with insect poison. Olin had done this, of course, probably with the active laughing connivance of the security people. Pumped his special poison gas up through the vents. Just because he could see no vents didn't mean the vents weren't there.

"Collections\Everything's Eventual\1408.txt" 454 176:In the picture where the fruit had been, there was now a severed human head. Yellow-orange light swam off the sunken cheeks, the sagging lips, the upturned, glazing eyes, the CIGARETTE parked behind the right ear.

"Collections\Everything's Eventual\1408.txt" 478 292:He was not aware of taking the CIGARETTE from behind his ear and putting it in his mouth, or of fumbling the book of matches with the old-fashioned gold-frogged doorman on it out of his bright shirt's right breast pocket, not aware that, after nine years, he had finally decided to have a SMOKE.

"Collections\Everything's Eventual\1408.txt" 478 32:He was not aware of taking the CIGARETTE from behind his ear and putting it in his mouth, or of fumbling the book of matches with the old-fashioned gold-frogged doorman on it out of his bright shirt's right breast pocket, not aware that, after nine years, he had finally decided to have a SMOKE.

"Collections\Everything's Eventual\1408.txt" 490 106:Without thinking about it-he no longer could think-Mike Enslin tore out a single match, allowing the CIGARETTE to drop out of his mouth at the same time. He struck the match and immediately touched it to the others in the book. There was a ffffhut! sound, a strong whiff of burning sulfur that went into his head like a whiff of smelling salts, and a bright flare of matchheads. And again, without so much as a single thought, Mike held the flaring bouquet of fire against the front of his shirt. It was a cheap thing made in Korea or Cambodia or Borneo, old now; it caught fire at once. Before the flames could blaze up in front of his eyes, rendering the room once more unstable, Mike saw it clearly, like a man who has awakened from a nightmare only to find the nightmare all around him.

"Collections\Everything's Eventual\1408.txt" 51 29:"No, thank you. I don't SMOKE."

"Collections\Everything's Eventual\1408.txt" 53 160:Olin's eyes shifted to the CIGARETTE behind Mike's right ear-parked on a jaunty jut the way an old-time wisecracking reporter might have parked his next SMOKE just below the PRESS tag stuck in the band of his fedora. The CIGARETTE had become so much a part of him that for a moment Mike honestly didn't know what Olin was looking at. Then he laughed, took it down, looked at it himself, and looked back at Olin.

"Collections\Everything's Eventual\1408.txt" 53 228:Olin's eyes shifted to the CIGARETTE behind Mike's right ear-parked on a jaunty jut the way an old-time wisecracking reporter might have parked his next SMOKE just below the PRESS tag stuck in the band of his fedora. The CIGARETTE had become so much a part of him that for a moment Mike honestly didn't know what Olin was looking at. Then he laughed, took it down, looked at it himself, and looked back at Olin.

"Collections\Everything's Eventual\1408.txt" 53 30:Olin's eyes shifted to the CIGARETTE behind Mike's right ear-parked on a jaunty jut the way an old-time wisecracking reporter might have parked his next SMOKE just below the PRESS tag stuck in the band of his fedora. The CIGARETTE had become so much a part of him that for a moment Mike honestly didn't know what Olin was looking at. Then he laughed, took it down, looked at it himself, and looked back at Olin.

"Collections\Everything's Eventual\1408.txt" 55 126:"Haven't had a one in nine years," he said. "Had an older brother who died of lung cancer. I quit after he died. The CIGARETTE behind the ear . . ." He shrugged. "Part affectation, part superstition, I guess. Like the Hawaiian shirt. Or the CIGARETTES you sometimes see on people's desks or walls, mounted in a little box with a sign saying BREAK GLASS IN CASE OF EMERGENCY. Is 1408 a SMOKING room, Mr. Olin? Just in case nuclear war breaks out?"

"Collections\Everything's Eventual\1408.txt" 55 254:"Haven't had a one in nine years," he said. "Had an older brother who died of lung cancer. I quit after he died. The CIGARETTE behind the ear . . ." He shrugged. "Part affectation, part superstition, I guess. Like the Hawaiian shirt. Or the CIGARETTES you sometimes see on people's desks or walls, mounted in a little box with a sign saying BREAK GLASS IN CASE OF EMERGENCY. Is 1408 a SMOKING room, Mr. Olin? Just in case nuclear war breaks out?"

"Collections\Everything's Eventual\1408.txt" 55 400:"Haven't had a one in nine years," he said. "Had an older brother who died of lung cancer. I quit after he died. The CIGARETTE behind the ear . . ." He shrugged. "Part affectation, part superstition, I guess. Like the Hawaiian shirt. Or the CIGARETTES you sometimes see on people's desks or walls, mounted in a little box with a sign saying BREAK GLASS IN CASE OF EMERGENCY. Is 1408 a SMOKING room, Mr. Olin? Just in case nuclear war breaks out?"

"Collections\Everything's Eventual\1408.txt" 65 228:"I know you can't," Mike said, replacing the CIGARETTE behind his ear. He didn't slick his hair back with Vitalis or Wildroot Cream Oil, as those colorful fedora-wearing scribblers of yore had, but he still changed the CIGARETTE every day, just as he changed his underwear. You sweat back there behind your ears; if he examined the CIGARETTE at the end of the day before throwing its unsmoked deadly length into the toilet, Mike could see the faint yellow-orange residue of that sweat on the thin white paper. It did not increase the temptation to light up. How he had SMOKED for almost twenty years-thirty butts a day, sometimes forty-was now beyond him. Why he had done it was an even better question.

"Collections\Everything's Eventual\1408.txt" 65 341:"I know you can't," Mike said, replacing the CIGARETTE behind his ear. He didn't slick his hair back with Vitalis or Wildroot Cream Oil, as those colorful fedora-wearing scribblers of yore had, but he still changed the CIGARETTE every day, just as he changed his underwear. You sweat back there behind your ears; if he examined the CIGARETTE at the end of the day before throwing its unsmoked deadly length into the toilet, Mike could see the faint yellow-orange residue of that sweat on the thin white paper. It did not increase the temptation to light up. How he had SMOKED for almost twenty years-thirty butts a day, sometimes forty-was now beyond him. Why he had done it was an even better question.

"Collections\Everything's Eventual\1408.txt" 65 52:"I know you can't," Mike said, replacing the CIGARETTE behind his ear. He didn't slick his hair back with Vitalis or Wildroot Cream Oil, as those colorful fedora-wearing scribblers of yore had, but he still changed the CIGARETTE every day, just as he changed his underwear. You sweat back there behind your ears; if he examined the CIGARETTE at the end of the day before throwing its unsmoked deadly length into the toilet, Mike could see the faint yellow-orange residue of that sweat on the thin white paper. It did not increase the temptation to light up. How he had SMOKED for almost twenty years-thirty butts a day, sometimes forty-was now beyond him. Why he had done it was an even better question.

"Collections\Everything's Eventual\1408.txt" 65 578:"I know you can't," Mike said, replacing the CIGARETTE behind his ear. He didn't slick his hair back with Vitalis or Wildroot Cream Oil, as those colorful fedora-wearing scribblers of yore had, but he still changed the CIGARETTE every day, just as he changed his underwear. You sweat back there behind your ears; if he examined the CIGARETTE at the end of the day before throwing its unsmoked deadly length into the toilet, Mike could see the faint yellow-orange residue of that sweat on the thin white paper. It did not increase the temptation to light up. How he had SMOKED for almost twenty years-thirty butts a day, sometimes forty-was now beyond him. Why he had done it was an even better question.

"Collections\Everything's Eventual\1408.txt" 75 509:Still, he had gone to Iowa. He had studied with Jane Smiley. He had once been on a panel with Stanley Elkin. He had once aspired (absolutely no one in his current circle of friends and acquaintances had any least inkling of this) to be published as a Yale Younger Poet. And, when the hotel manager began speaking the titles aloud, Mike found himself wishing he hadn't challenged Olin with the recorder. Later he would listen to Olin's measured tones and imagine he heard contempt in them. He touched the CIGARETTE behind his ear without being aware of it.

"Collections\Everything's Eventual\All That You Love Will Be Carried Away.txt" 36 10:He lit a CIGARETTE, reached for the telephone, then remembered his notebook. He reached into his right coat pocket and pulled it out. It was an old Spiral, bought for a buck forty-nine in the stationery department of some forgotten five-and-dime in Omaha or Sioux City or maybe Jubilee, Kansas. The cover was creased and almost completely innocent of any printing it might once have borne. Some of the pages had pulled partially free of the metal coil that served as the notebook's binding, but all of them were still there. Alfie had been carrying this notebook for almost seven years, ever since his days selling Universal Product Code readers for Simonex.

"Collections\Everything's Eventual\All That You Love Will Be Carried Away.txt" 38 166:There was an ashtray on the shelf under the phone. Out here, some of the motel rooms still came with ashtrays, even on the first floor. Alfie fished for it, put his CIGARETTE on the groove, and opened his notebook. He flipped through pages written with a hundred different pens (and a few pencils), pausing to read a couple of entries. One read: "I suckt Jim Morrison's cock w/my poutie boy mouth (LAWRENCE KS)." Restrooms were filled with homosexual graffiti, most of it tiresome and repetitive, but "poutie boy mouth" was pretty good. Another was "Albert Gore is my favorite whore (MURDO S DAK)."

"Collections\Everything's Eventual\All That You Love Will Be Carried Away.txt" 44 116:His pen had COTTAGER FOODS THE GOOD STUFF! written in gold along the barrel, next to the logo, a thatched hut with SMOKE coming out of the quaintly crooked chimney.

"Collections\Everything's Eventual\All That You Love Will Be Carried Away.txt" 54 53:"Breathing," he said, and smiled. He picked his CIGARETTE out of the ashtray, SMOKED, returned it to the groove, and thumbed back through the book again. The entries recalled thousands of truck stops and roadside chicken shacks and highway rest areas the way certain songs on the radio can bring back specific memories of a place, a time, the person you were with, what you were drinking, what you were thinking.

"Collections\Everything's Eventual\All That You Love Will Be Carried Away.txt" 54 83:"Breathing," he said, and smiled. He picked his CIGARETTE out of the ashtray, SMOKED, returned it to the groove, and thumbed back through the book again. The entries recalled thousands of truck stops and roadside chicken shacks and highway rest areas the way certain songs on the radio can bring back specific memories of a place, a time, the person you were with, what you were drinking, what you were thinking.

"Collections\Everything's Eventual\All That You Love Will Be Carried Away.txt" 6 752:He got his key from a man in a red vest and drove down to the end of the long cinder-block building. He had been selling in the Midwest for twenty years, and had formulated four basic rules about securing his night's rest. First, always reserve ahead. Second, reserve at a franchise motel if possible-your Holiday Inn, your Ramada Inn, your Comfort Inn, your Motel 6. Third, always ask for a room on the end. That way, the worst you could have was one set of noisy neighbors. Last, ask for a room that begins with a one. Alfie was forty-four, too old to be fucking truck-stop whores, eating chicken-fried steak, or hauling his luggage upstairs. These days, the rooms on the first floor were usually reserved for non-smokers. Alfie rented them and SMOKED anyway.

"Collections\Everything's Eventual\All That You Love Will Be Carried Away.txt" 70 37:Alfie took another deep drag on his CIGARETTE, mashed it out, and called home. He didn't expect to get Maura and didn't. It was his own recorded voice that answered him, ending with the number of his cellphone. A lot of good that would do; the cell-phone was in the trunk of the Chevrolet, broken. He had never had good luck with gadgets.

"Collections\Everything's Eventual\All That You Love Will Be Carried Away.txt" 74 35:He hung up, thought about another CIGARETTE-no worries about lung cancer, not now-and decided against it. He put the notebook, open to the last page, beside the telephone. He picked up the gun and rolled out the cylinder. Fully loaded. He snapped the cylinder back in with a flick of his wrist, then slipped the short barrel into his mouth. It tasted of oil and metal. He thought, Here I SIT, about to COOL it, my plan to EAT a fuckin' BOOL-it. He grinned around the barrel. That was terrible. He never would have written that down in his book.

"Collections\Everything's Eventual\All That You Love Will Be Carried Away.txt" 96 49:Burn it, then? No, he'd set off the goddamned SMOKE detector.

"Collections\Everything's Eventual\Autopsy Room Four.txt" 208 140:Concentrating, summoning every bit of effort, I do it again, and this time the sound is a little stronger, leaking out of my nostrils like CIGARETTE SMOKE: Nnnnnnn-It makes me think of an old Alfred Hitchcock TV program I saw a long, long time ago, where Joseph Cotten was paralyzed in a car crash and was finally able to let them know he was still alive by crying a single tear.

"Collections\Everything's Eventual\Autopsy Room Four.txt" 208 150:Concentrating, summoning every bit of effort, I do it again, and this time the sound is a little stronger, leaking out of my nostrils like CIGARETTE SMOKE: Nnnnnnn-It makes me think of an old Alfred Hitchcock TV program I saw a long, long time ago, where Joseph Cotten was paralyzed in a car crash and was finally able to let them know he was still alive by crying a single tear.

"Collections\Everything's Eventual\Everything's Eventual.txt" 137 316:I got the call that changed my life just when I thought the combination of Ma and delivering for Pizza Roma was going to drive me crazy. I know how melodramatic that sounds, but in this case, it's true. The call came on my night off. Ma was out with her girlfriends, playing Bingo at the Reservation, all of them SMOKING up a storm and no doubt laughing every time the caller pulled B-12 out of the hopper and said, "All right, ladies, it's time to take your vitamins." Me, I was watching a Clint Eastwood movie on TNT and wishing I was anywhere else on Planet Earth. Saskatchewan, even.

"Collections\Everything's Eventual\Everything's Eventual.txt" 280 163:"It doesn't matter, Dink. Really. The answer to your question is I'm two parts headhunter, two parts talent scout, and four parts walking, talking destiny. CIGARETTE?"

"Collections\Everything's Eventual\Everything's Eventual.txt" 282 14:"I don't SMOKE."

"Collections\Everything's Eventual\Everything's Eventual.txt" 284 41:"That's good, you'll live longer. CIGARETTES are killers. Why else would people call them coffin-nails?"

"Collections\Everything's Eventual\Everything's Eventual.txt" 429 239:Ma was the least of what I missed. You'd think we would have been close, as it was "us against the world," in a manner of speaking, but my mother was never much for loving and comforting. She didn't whip on my head or put out her CIGARETTES in my armpits or anything like that, but so what? I mean, big whoop. I've never had any kids, so I guess I can't say for sure, but I somehow don't think being a great parent is about the stuff you didn't do to your rug monkeys. Ma was always more into her friends than me, and her weekly trip to the beauty shop, and Friday nights out at the Reservation. Her big ambition in life was to win a twenty-number Bingo and drive home in a brand-new Monte Carlo. I'm not sitting on the pity-pot, either. I'm just telling you how it was.

"Collections\Everything's Eventual\Everything's Eventual.txt" 699 63:In the lower right corner was a picture of a white-haired guy SMOKING a pipe and smiling. He looked like a good-humored fuck, probably Irish, eyes all crinkled up and these white bushy eyebrows. And the headline over the photo-not a big one, but you could read it-said NEFF SUICIDE STILL PUZZLES, GRIEVES COLLEAGUES

"Collections\Everything's Eventual\Everything's Eventual.txt" 829 324:But I can't stop. Sometimes I tell myself that I've gone on because if I do stop-maybe even for a day-they'll know I've caught on, and the cleaners will make an unscheduled stop. Except what they'll clean up this time will be me. But that's not why. I do it because I'm just another addict, same as a guy SMOKING crack in an alley or some chick taking a spike in her arm. I do it because of the hateful fucking rush, I do it because when I'm working in DINKY'S NOTEBOOK, everything's eventual. It's like being caught in a candy trap. And it's all the fault of that dork who came out of News Plus with his fucking Dispatch open. If not for him, I'd still see nothing but cloud-hazy buildings in the crosshairs. No people, just targets.

"Collections\Everything's Eventual\In the Deathroom.txt" 110 21:Escobar removed his CIGARETTE from the center of his mouth, looked at it, dropped it to the gray tile floor, stepped on it. Then he looked at Fletcher and smiled. "Very sad, of course. Now I ask you some questions, Mr. Fletcher. Many of them-I tell you this frankly-are the questions Tomás Herrera refused to answer. I hope you will not refuse, Mr. Fletcher. I like you. You sit there in dignity, do not cry or beg or urinate the pants. I like you. I know you only do what you believe. It is patriotism. So I tell you, my friend, it's good if you answer my questions quickly and truthfully. You don't want Heinz to use his machine."

"Collections\Everything's Eventual\In the Deathroom.txt" 118 179:"You want that CIGARETTE now, I think," said Escobar, and when Fletcher shook his head, Escobar took one himself, lit it, then seemed to meditate. At last he looked up. This CIGARETTE was planted in the middle of his face like the last one. "Núñez comes soon?" he asked. "Like Zorro in that movie?"

"Collections\Everything's Eventual\In the Deathroom.txt" 118 18:"You want that CIGARETTE now, I think," said Escobar, and when Fletcher shook his head, Escobar took one himself, lit it, then seemed to meditate. At last he looked up. This CIGARETTE was planted in the middle of his face like the last one. "Núñez comes soon?" he asked. "Like Zorro in that movie?"

"Collections\Everything's Eventual\In the Deathroom.txt" 166 67:Escobar and the Bride of Frankenstein drew apart. Escobar put his CIGARETTE back in his mouth and smiled sadly at Fletcher. "Amigo, you are lying."

"Collections\Everything's Eventual\In the Deathroom.txt" 182 85:"Hold out your hand, Mr. Fletcher," Escobar said, and he was smiling around his CIGARETTE again.

"Collections\Everything's Eventual\In the Deathroom.txt" 206 87:"Mr. Fletcher, you been bad," Escobar said reproachfully. He took the stub of his CIGARETTE from his mouth, examined it, threw it on the floor.

"Collections\Everything's Eventual\In the Deathroom.txt" 208 38:The CIGARETTE, Fletcher thought. The CIGARETTE, yes. The shock had seriously insulted his arm-the muscles were still twitching and he could see blood in his cupped palm-but it seemed to have revitalized his brain, refreshed it. Of course that was what shock treatments were supposed to do.

"Collections\Everything's Eventual\In the Deathroom.txt" 208 5:The CIGARETTE, Fletcher thought. The CIGARETTE, yes. The shock had seriously insulted his arm-the muscles were still twitching and he could see blood in his cupped palm-but it seemed to have revitalized his brain, refreshed it. Of course that was what shock treatments were supposed to do.

"Collections\Everything's Eventual\In the Deathroom.txt" 24 166:Escobar returned his attention to Fletcher. From one pocket of his parrot-and-foliage-studded guayabera he removed a red-and-white package: Marlboros, the preferred CIGARETTE of third-world peoples everywhere. "SMOKE, Mr. Fletcher?"

"Collections\Everything's Eventual\In the Deathroom.txt" 24 214:Escobar returned his attention to Fletcher. From one pocket of his parrot-and-foliage-studded guayabera he removed a red-and-white package: Marlboros, the preferred CIGARETTE of third-world peoples everywhere. "SMOKE, Mr. Fletcher?"

"Collections\Everything's Eventual\In the Deathroom.txt" 26 122:Fletcher reached toward the pack, which Escobar had placed on the edge of the table, then withdrew his hand. He had quit SMOKING three years ago, and supposed he might take the habit up again if he actually did get out of this-drinking high-tension liquor as well, quite likely-but at this moment he had no craving or need for a CIGARETTE. He had wanted them to see his fingers shaking, that was all.

"Collections\Everything's Eventual\In the Deathroom.txt" 26 334:Fletcher reached toward the pack, which Escobar had placed on the edge of the table, then withdrew his hand. He had quit SMOKING three years ago, and supposed he might take the habit up again if he actually did get out of this-drinking high-tension liquor as well, quite likely-but at this moment he had no craving or need for a CIGARETTE. He had wanted them to see his fingers shaking, that was all.

"Collections\Everything's Eventual\In the Deathroom.txt" 260 75:"There's a man . . ." he started, then paused. "Could I have that CIGARETTE now?"

"Collections\Everything's Eventual\In the Deathroom.txt" 262 320:"Mr. Fletcher! But of course!" Escobar was for a moment the concerned dinner-party host. Fletcher did not think this was playacting. Escobar picked up the red-and-white pack-the kind of pack any free man or woman could buy at any newsstand like the one Fletcher remembered on Forty-third Street-and shook out a CIGARETTE. Fletcher took it, knowing he might be dead before it burned all the way down to the filter, no longer a part of this earth. He felt nothing, only the fading twitch of the muscles in his left arm and a funny baked taste in his fillings on that side of his mouth.

"Collections\Everything's Eventual\In the Deathroom.txt" 264 12:He put the CIGARETTE between his lips. Escobar leaned further forward and snapped back the cover of his gold-plated lighter. He flicked the wheel. The lighter produced a flame. Fletcher was aware of Heinz's infernal machine humming like an old radio, the kind with tubes in the back. He was aware of the woman he had come to think of, without a trace of humor, as the Bride of Frankenstein, looking at him the way the Coyote in the cartoons looked at the Road Runner. He was aware of his heart beating, of the remembered circular feel of the CIGARETTE in his mouth-"a tube of singular delight," some playwright or other had called it-and of the beat of his heart, incredibly slow. Last month he'd been called upon to make an after-luncheon speech at the Club Internacional, where all the foreign press geeks hung out, and his heart had beat faster then.

"Collections\Everything's Eventual\In the Deathroom.txt" 264 545:He put the CIGARETTE between his lips. Escobar leaned further forward and snapped back the cover of his gold-plated lighter. He flicked the wheel. The lighter produced a flame. Fletcher was aware of Heinz's infernal machine humming like an old radio, the kind with tubes in the back. He was aware of the woman he had come to think of, without a trace of humor, as the Bride of Frankenstein, looking at him the way the Coyote in the cartoons looked at the Road Runner. He was aware of his heart beating, of the remembered circular feel of the CIGARETTE in his mouth-"a tube of singular delight," some playwright or other had called it-and of the beat of his heart, incredibly slow. Last month he'd been called upon to make an after-luncheon speech at the Club Internacional, where all the foreign press geeks hung out, and his heart had beat faster then.

"Collections\Everything's Eventual\In the Deathroom.txt" 268 164:Fletcher bent to the flame. The end of the Marlboro caught fire and glowed red. Fletcher drew deep, and it was easy to start coughing; after three years without a CIGARETTE, it would have been harder not to cough. He sat back in the chair and added a harsh, gagging growl to the cough. He began to shake all over, throwing his elbows out, jerking his head to the left, drumming his feet. Best of all, he recalled an old childhood talent and rolled his eyes up to the whites. During none of this did he let go of the CIGARETTE.

"Collections\Everything's Eventual\In the Deathroom.txt" 268 517:Fletcher bent to the flame. The end of the Marlboro caught fire and glowed red. Fletcher drew deep, and it was easy to start coughing; after three years without a CIGARETTE, it would have been harder not to cough. He sat back in the chair and added a harsh, gagging growl to the cough. He began to shake all over, throwing his elbows out, jerking his head to the left, drumming his feet. Best of all, he recalled an old childhood talent and rolled his eyes up to the whites. During none of this did he let go of the CIGARETTE.

"Collections\Everything's Eventual\In the Deathroom.txt" 28 31:"Perhaps later. Right now a CIGARETTE might-"

"Collections\Everything's Eventual\In the Deathroom.txt" 282 99:Ramón shrieked and jerked backward. His right hand rose toward his face, where the still-burning CIGARETTE hung askew in the socket of his eye, but his left hand remained on Fletcher's shoulder. It was now tightened down to a clamp, and when he stepped back, Ramón pulled Fletcher's chair over. Fletcher spilled out of it, rolled over, and got to his feet.

"Collections\Everything's Eventual\In the Deathroom.txt" 286 346:Fletcher didn't look back at the table. He didn't have to look to know that Escobar was coming for him. Instead he shot both hands forward, grabbed the butt of Ramón's revolver, and pulled it from its holster. Fletcher didn't think Ramón ever knew it was gone. He was screaming a flood of Spanish and pawing at his face. He struck the CIGARETTE but instead of coming free it broke off, the burning end still stuck in his eye.

"Collections\Everything's Eventual\In the Deathroom.txt" 296 203:Fletcher shot him twice, once in the chest and once in the face. The face-shot tore off most of Ramón's nose and right cheek, but the big man in the brown uniform came on just the same, roaring, the CIGARETTE still dangling from his eye, his big sausage fingers, a silver ring on one of them, opening and closing.

"Collections\Everything's Eventual\In the Deathroom.txt" 350 508:Heinz might have had time to spit the stylus out, but shock caused him to clamp his lips down on the stainless steel barrel instead. The snapping sound was louder this time, like a small branch instead of a twig. Heinz's lips pressed down even tighter. The green mucus bubble in his nostril popped. So did one of his eyes. Heinz's entire body seemed to vibrate inside his clothes. His hands were bent at the wrists, the long fingers splayed. His cheeks went from white to pale gray to a darkish purple. SMOKE began to pour out of his nose. His other eye popped out on his cheek. Above the dislocated eyes there were now two raw sockets that stared at Fletcher with surprise. One of Heinz's cheeks either tore open or melted. A quantity of SMOKE and a strong odor of burned meat came out through the hole, and Fletcher observed small flames, orange and blue. Heinz's mouth was on fire. His tongue was burning like a rug.

"Collections\Everything's Eventual\In the Deathroom.txt" 350 746:Heinz might have had time to spit the stylus out, but shock caused him to clamp his lips down on the stainless steel barrel instead. The snapping sound was louder this time, like a small branch instead of a twig. Heinz's lips pressed down even tighter. The green mucus bubble in his nostril popped. So did one of his eyes. Heinz's entire body seemed to vibrate inside his clothes. His hands were bent at the wrists, the long fingers splayed. His cheeks went from white to pale gray to a darkish purple. SMOKE began to pour out of his nose. His other eye popped out on his cheek. Above the dislocated eyes there were now two raw sockets that stared at Fletcher with surprise. One of Heinz's cheeks either tore open or melted. A quantity of SMOKE and a strong odor of burned meat came out through the hole, and Fletcher observed small flames, orange and blue. Heinz's mouth was on fire. His tongue was burning like a rug.

"Collections\Everything's Eventual\In the Deathroom.txt" 352 319:Fletcher's fingers were still on the rheostat. He turned it all the way back to the left, then flicked the switch to OFF. The needles, which had swung all the way to the +50 marks on their little dials, immediately fell dead again. The moment the electricity left him, Heinz crashed to the gray tile floor, trailing SMOKE from his mouth as he went. The stylus fell free, and Fletcher saw there were little pieces of Heinz's lips on it. Fletcher's gorge gave a salty, burping lurch, and he closed his throat against it. He didn't have time to vomit over what he had done to Heinz; he might consider vomiting at a later time. Still, he lingered a moment longer, leaning over to look at Heinz's SMOKING mouth and dislocated eyes. "How do you describe it?" he asked the corpse. "Now, while the experience is still fresh? What, nothing to say?"

"Collections\Everything's Eventual\In the Deathroom.txt" 352 703:Fletcher's fingers were still on the rheostat. He turned it all the way back to the left, then flicked the switch to OFF. The needles, which had swung all the way to the +50 marks on their little dials, immediately fell dead again. The moment the electricity left him, Heinz crashed to the gray tile floor, trailing SMOKE from his mouth as he went. The stylus fell free, and Fletcher saw there were little pieces of Heinz's lips on it. Fletcher's gorge gave a salty, burping lurch, and he closed his throat against it. He didn't have time to vomit over what he had done to Heinz; he might consider vomiting at a later time. Still, he lingered a moment longer, leaning over to look at Heinz's SMOKING mouth and dislocated eyes. "How do you describe it?" he asked the corpse. "Now, while the experience is still fresh? What, nothing to say?"

"Collections\Everything's Eventual\In the Deathroom.txt" 382 70:"No," the man said when he saw the change. He had put one of the CIGARETTES in his mouth.

"Collections\Everything's Eventual\In the Deathroom.txt" 386 85:"I mean keep the change," the man said. He offered the pack to Carlo. "Do you SMOKE? Have one of these, if you like."

"Collections\Everything's Eventual\In the Deathroom.txt" 388 87:Carlo looked mistrustfully at the man in the white shirt and gray pants. "I don't SMOKE. It's a bad habit."

"Collections\Everything's Eventual\In the Deathroom.txt" 390 101:"Very bad," the man agreed, then lit his CIGARETTE and inhaled with apparent pleasure. He stood SMOKING and watching the people on the other side of the street. There were girls on the other side of the street. Men would look at girls in their summer clothes, that was human nature. Carlo didn't think this customer was crazy anymore, although he had left the change of a ten-dollar bill sitting on the narrow counter of the kiosk.

"Collections\Everything's Eventual\In the Deathroom.txt" 390 46:"Very bad," the man agreed, then lit his CIGARETTE and inhaled with apparent pleasure. He stood SMOKING and watching the people on the other side of the street. There were girls on the other side of the street. Men would look at girls in their summer clothes, that was human nature. Carlo didn't think this customer was crazy anymore, although he had left the change of a ten-dollar bill sitting on the narrow counter of the kiosk.

"Collections\Everything's Eventual\In the Deathroom.txt" 392 137:The thin man SMOKED the CIGARETTE all the way down to the filter. He turned toward Carlo, staggering a little, as if he was not used to SMOKING and the CIGARETTE had made him dizzy.

"Collections\Everything's Eventual\In the Deathroom.txt" 392 14:The thin man SMOKED the CIGARETTE all the way down to the filter. He turned toward Carlo, staggering a little, as if he was not used to SMOKING and the CIGARETTE had made him dizzy.

"Collections\Everything's Eventual\In the Deathroom.txt" 392 153:The thin man SMOKED the CIGARETTE all the way down to the filter. He turned toward Carlo, staggering a little, as if he was not used to SMOKING and the CIGARETTE had made him dizzy.

"Collections\Everything's Eventual\In the Deathroom.txt" 392 25:The thin man SMOKED the CIGARETTE all the way down to the filter. He turned toward Carlo, staggering a little, as if he was not used to SMOKING and the CIGARETTE had made him dizzy.

"Collections\Everything's Eventual\In the Deathroom.txt" 400 80:He walked to the curb, where there was a litter basket. He dropped the pack of CIGARETTES, full save one, into the litter basket. "All of us," he said. "All of the time." He walked away. Carlo watched him go and thought that maybe he was pazzo after all. Or maybe not. Crazy was a hard state to define.

"Collections\Everything's Eventual\In the Deathroom.txt" 52 21:Escobar had taken a CIGARETTE. He lighted it with a gold-plated Zippo. There was a fake ruby in the side of the Zippo. He said, "Are you prepared to help us in our inquiries, Mr. Fletcher?"

"Collections\Everything's Eventual\In the Deathroom.txt" 66 11:"Have a CIGARETTE, Mr. Fletcher." Escobar opened a drawer and took out a thin folder.

"Collections\Everything's Eventual\In the Deathroom.txt" 72 103:Escobar opened the folder with his own CIGARETTE planted squarely in the middle of his mouth with the SMOKE running up into his eyes. It was the way you saw the old men SMOKING on the street corners down here, the ones who still wore straw hats, sandals, and baggy white pants. Now Escobar was smiling, keeping his lips shut so his Marlboro wouldn't fall out of his mouth and onto the table but smiling just the same. He took a glossy black-and-white photograph out of the thin folder and slid it across to Fletcher. "Here is your friend Tomás. Not too pretty, is he?"

"Collections\Everything's Eventual\In the Deathroom.txt" 72 170:Escobar opened the folder with his own CIGARETTE planted squarely in the middle of his mouth with the SMOKE running up into his eyes. It was the way you saw the old men SMOKING on the street corners down here, the ones who still wore straw hats, sandals, and baggy white pants. Now Escobar was smiling, keeping his lips shut so his Marlboro wouldn't fall out of his mouth and onto the table but smiling just the same. He took a glossy black-and-white photograph out of the thin folder and slid it across to Fletcher. "Here is your friend Tomás. Not too pretty, is he?"

"Collections\Everything's Eventual\In the Deathroom.txt" 72 40:Escobar opened the folder with his own CIGARETTE planted squarely in the middle of his mouth with the SMOKE running up into his eyes. It was the way you saw the old men SMOKING on the street corners down here, the ones who still wore straw hats, sandals, and baggy white pants. Now Escobar was smiling, keeping his lips shut so his Marlboro wouldn't fall out of his mouth and onto the table but smiling just the same. He took a glossy black-and-white photograph out of the thin folder and slid it across to Fletcher. "Here is your friend Tomás. Not too pretty, is he?"

"Collections\Everything's Eventual\In the Deathroom.txt" 78 169:Escobar took the picture back, put it in the folder, closed the folder, and shrugged as if to say You see? You see what happens? When he shrugged, the ash fell off his CIGARETTE onto the table. He brushed it off onto the gray lino floor with the side of one fat hand.

"Collections\Everything's Eventual\In the Deathroom.txt" 84 64:"We don't want to bother you," Escobar was saying as the CIGARETTE SMOKE rose and broke apart on his face and curled around his ears, "but for a long time we was watching. You dint see us-maybe because you are so big and we are just little-but we was watching. We know that you know what Tomás knows, and so we go to him. We try to get him to tell what he knows so we don't have to bother you, but he won't. Finally we ask Heinz here to try and make him tell. Heinz, show Mr. Fletcher how you try to make Tomás tell, when Tomás was sitting right where Mr. Fletcher was sitting now."

"Collections\Everything's Eventual\In the Deathroom.txt" 84 74:"We don't want to bother you," Escobar was saying as the CIGARETTE SMOKE rose and broke apart on his face and curled around his ears, "but for a long time we was watching. You dint see us-maybe because you are so big and we are just little-but we was watching. We know that you know what Tomás knows, and so we go to him. We try to get him to tell what he knows so we don't have to bother you, but he won't. Finally we ask Heinz here to try and make him tell. Heinz, show Mr. Fletcher how you try to make Tomás tell, when Tomás was sitting right where Mr. Fletcher was sitting now."

"Collections\Everything's Eventual\L. T.'s Theory of Pets.txt" 34 530:"'Please do not try to follow me, L.T., and although I'll be at my mother's and I know you have that number, I would appreciate you not calling but waiting for me to call you. In time I will, but in the meanwhile I have a lot of thinking to do, and although I have gotten on a fair way with it, I'm not "out of the fog" yet. I suppose I will be asking you for a divorce eventually, and think it is only fair to tell you so. I have never been one to hold out false hope, believing it better to "tell the truth and SMOKE out the Devil." Please remember that what I do I do in love, not in hatred and resentment. And please remember what was told to me and what I now tell to you: a broken spoon may be a fork in disguise. All my love, Lulubelle Simms.'"

"Collections\Everything's Eventual\Lunch at the Gotham Caf'.txt" 122 61:"Yes." I wasn't going to yell at her. If I could quit SMOKING two days after she had walked out-and stick to it-I thought I could get through a hundred minutes and three courses without calling her a bitch.

"Collections\Everything's Eventual\Lunch at the Gotham Caf'.txt" 166 148: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 CIGARETTE like mad), I walked up to Madison and browsed in a luggage store for fifteen minutes. Mere window-shopping was no good; if Diane and Humboldt came from uptown, they might see me. Diane was liable to recognize me by the set of my shoulders and the hang of my topcoat even from behind, and I didn't want that. I didn't want them to know I'd arrived early. I thought it might look needy. So I went inside.

"Collections\Everything's Eventual\Lunch at the Gotham Caf'.txt" 178 1064:The most common symptom of phase-two withdrawal is a feeling of mild unreality. Nicotine improves synaptic transferral and improves concentration-widens the brain's information highway, in other words. It's not a big boost, and not really necessary to successful thinking (although most confirmed CIGARETTE junkies believe differently), but when you take it away, you're left with a feeling-a pervasive feeling, in my case-that the world has taken on a decidedly dreamy cast. There were many times when it seemed to me that people and cars and the little sidewalk vignettes I observed were actually passing by me on a moving screen, a thing controlled by hidden stagehands turning enormous cranks and revolving enormous drums. It was also a little like being mildly stoned all the time, because the feeling was accompanied by a sense of helplessness and moral exhaustion, a feeling that things had to simply go on the way they were going, for good or for ill, because you (except of course it's me I'm talking about) were just too damned busy not-SMOKING to do much of anything else.

"Collections\Everything's Eventual\Lunch at the Gotham Caf'.txt" 178 304:The most common symptom of phase-two withdrawal is a feeling of mild unreality. Nicotine improves synaptic transferral and improves concentration-widens the brain's information highway, in other words. It's not a big boost, and not really necessary to successful thinking (although most confirmed CIGARETTE junkies believe differently), but when you take it away, you're left with a feeling-a pervasive feeling, in my case-that the world has taken on a decidedly dreamy cast. There were many times when it seemed to me that people and cars and the little sidewalk vignettes I observed were actually passing by me on a moving screen, a thing controlled by hidden stagehands turning enormous cranks and revolving enormous drums. It was also a little like being mildly stoned all the time, because the feeling was accompanied by a sense of helplessness and moral exhaustion, a feeling that things had to simply go on the way they were going, for good or for ill, because you (except of course it's me I'm talking about) were just too damned busy not-SMOKING to do much of anything else.

"Collections\Everything's Eventual\Lunch at the Gotham Caf'.txt" 206 630:I looked back at the maître d' and saw that he had already started away from his desk, holding my menu in his hands. He must have sensed that I wasn't following, 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. I could not take the time or effort to try to decide what might be wrong with the maître d' of a restaurant where I had never been before today and where I would probably never be again; I had Humboldt and Diane to deal with, I had to do it without SMOKING, and the maître d' of the Gotham Café would have to take care of his own problems, dog included.

"Collections\Everything's Eventual\Lunch at the Gotham Caf'.txt" 212 296:"Monsieur," the maître d' said, pulling out the chair to Diane's left. I barely heard him, and certainly any thought of his eccentric behavior and crooked bow-tie had left my head. I think that even the subject of tobacco had briefly vacated my head for the first time since I'd quit SMOKING. I could only consider the careful composure of her face and marvel at how I could be angry with her and still want her so much it made me ache to look at her. Absence may or may not make the heart grow fonder, but it certainly freshens the eye.

"Collections\Everything's Eventual\Lunch at the Gotham Caf'.txt" 236 15:"And I quit SMOKING. That's also played hell with my peace of mind."

"Collections\Everything's Eventual\Lunch at the Gotham Caf'.txt" 240 205:I felt another flash of anger, this time a really ugly one, at her politely dismissive tone. As if I might not be telling the truth, but it didn't really matter if I was. She'd carped at me about the CIGARETTES every day for two years, it seemed-how they were going to give me cancer, how they were going to give her cancer, how she wouldn't even consider getting pregnant until I stopped, so I could just save any breath I might have been planning to waste on that subject-and now all at once it didn't matter anymore, because I didn't matter anymore.

"Collections\Everything's Eventual\Lunch at the Gotham Caf'.txt" 276 183:"Stop it," Humboldt told her. He looked from his client to his client's soon-to-be ex-husband (it was going to happen, all right; even the slight unreality that comes with not-SMOKING couldn't conceal that self-evident truth from me by that point). "One more word from either of you and I'm going to declare this luncheon at an end." He gave us a small smile, one so obviously manufactured that I found it perversely endearing. "And we haven't even heard the specials yet."

"Collections\Everything's Eventual\Lunch at the Gotham Caf'.txt" 278 206:That-the first mention of food since I'd joined them-was just before the bad things started to happen, and I remember smelling salmon from one of the nearby tables. In the two weeks since I'd quit SMOKING, my sense of smell had become 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 the smell of it, let alone the taste. To me it smells of pain and fear and blood and death.

"Collections\Everything's Eventual\Lunch at the Gotham Caf'.txt" 298 70:The room smelled wonderful, as most restaurants do since they banned SMOKING in them-of flowers and wine and fresh coffee and chocolate and pastry-but what I smelled most clearly was salmon. I remember thinking that it smelled very good, and that I would probably order some. I also remember thinking that if I could eat at a meeting like this, I could probably eat anywhere.

"Collections\Everything's Eventual\Lunch at the Gotham Caf'.txt" 38 630:That afternoon I talked to a friend in the legal department, and he recommended a friend of his who did divorce work. The divorce lawyer was John Ring, and I made an appointment with him for the following day. I went home from the office as 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 the television, couldn't find anything there to look at, either, and did some more walking. And at some point I found myself in the bedroom, standing in front of an open window fourteen floors above the street, and chucking out all my CIGARETTES, even the stale old pack of Viceroys from the very back of my top desk drawer, a pack that had probably been there for ten years or more-since before I had any idea there was such a creature as Diane Coslaw in the world, in other words.

"Collections\Everything's Eventual\Lunch at the Gotham Caf'.txt" 40 21:Although I'd been SMOKING between twenty and forty CIGARETTES a day for twenty years, I don't remember any sudden decision to quit, nor any dissenting interior opinions-not even a mental suggestion that maybe two days after your wife walks out is not the optimum time to quit SMOKING. I just stuffed the full carton, the half carton, and the two or three half-used packs I found lying around out the window and into the dark. Then I shut the window (it never once occurred to me that it might have been more efficient to throw the user out instead of the product; it was never that kind of situation), lay down on my bed, and closed my eyes. As I drifted off, it occurred to me that tomorrow was probably going to be one of the worst days of my life. It further occurred to me that I would probably be SMOKING again by noon. I was right about the first thing, wrong about the second.

"Collections\Everything's Eventual\Lunch at the Gotham Caf'.txt" 40 283:Although I'd been SMOKING between twenty and forty CIGARETTES a day for twenty years, I don't remember any sudden decision to quit, nor any dissenting interior opinions-not even a mental suggestion that maybe two days after your wife walks out is not the optimum time to quit SMOKING. I just stuffed the full carton, the half carton, and the two or three half-used packs I found lying around out the window and into the dark. Then I shut the window (it never once occurred to me that it might have been more efficient to throw the user out instead of the product; it was never that kind of situation), lay down on my bed, and closed my eyes. As I drifted off, it occurred to me that tomorrow was probably going to be one of the worst days of my life. It further occurred to me that I would probably be SMOKING again by noon. I was right about the first thing, wrong about the second.

"Collections\Everything's Eventual\Lunch at the Gotham Caf'.txt" 40 54:Although I'd been SMOKING between twenty and forty CIGARETTES a day for twenty years, I don't remember any sudden decision to quit, nor any dissenting interior opinions-not even a mental suggestion that maybe two days after your wife walks out is not the optimum time to quit SMOKING. I just stuffed the full carton, the half carton, and the two or three half-used packs I found lying around out the window and into the dark. Then I shut the window (it never once occurred to me that it might have been more efficient to throw the user out instead of the product; it was never that kind of situation), lay down on my bed, and closed my eyes. As I drifted off, it occurred to me that tomorrow was probably going to be one of the worst days of my life. It further occurred to me that I would probably be SMOKING again by noon. I was right about the first thing, wrong about the second.

"Collections\Everything's Eventual\Lunch at the Gotham Caf'.txt" 40 809:Although I'd been SMOKING between twenty and forty CIGARETTES a day for twenty years, I don't remember any sudden decision to quit, nor any dissenting interior opinions-not even a mental suggestion that maybe two days after your wife walks out is not the optimum time to quit SMOKING. I just stuffed the full carton, the half carton, and the two or three half-used packs I found lying around out the window and into the dark. Then I shut the window (it never once occurred to me that it might have been more efficient to throw the user out instead of the product; it was never that kind of situation), lay down on my bed, and closed my eyes. As I drifted off, it occurred to me that tomorrow was probably going to be one of the worst days of my life. It further occurred to me that I would probably be SMOKING again by noon. I was right about the first thing, wrong about the second.

"Collections\Everything's Eventual\Lunch at the Gotham Caf'.txt" 44 243:The next ten days-the time during which I was going through the worst of the physical withdrawal from nicotine-were difficult and often unpleasant, but perhaps not as bad as I had thought they would be. And although I was on the verge of SMOKING dozens-no, hundreds-of times, I never did. There were moments when I thought I would go insane if I didn't have a CIGARETTE, and when I passed people on the street who were SMOKING I felt like screaming Give that to me, motherfucker, that's mine! at them, but I didn't.

"Collections\Everything's Eventual\Lunch at the Gotham Caf'.txt" 44 371:The next ten days-the time during which I was going through the worst of the physical withdrawal from nicotine-were difficult and often unpleasant, but perhaps not as bad as I had thought they would be. And although I was on the verge of SMOKING dozens-no, hundreds-of times, I never did. There were moments when I thought I would go insane if I didn't have a CIGARETTE, and when I passed people on the street who were SMOKING I felt like screaming Give that to me, motherfucker, that's mine! at them, but I didn't.

"Collections\Everything's Eventual\Lunch at the Gotham Caf'.txt" 44 430:The next ten days-the time during which I was going through the worst of the physical withdrawal from nicotine-were difficult and often unpleasant, but perhaps not as bad as I had thought they would be. And although I was on the verge of SMOKING dozens-no, hundreds-of times, I never did. There were moments when I thought I would go insane if I didn't have a CIGARETTE, and when I passed people on the street who were SMOKING I felt like screaming Give that to me, motherfucker, that's mine! at them, but I didn't.

"Collections\Everything's Eventual\Lunch at the Gotham Caf'.txt" 46 1115:For me, the worst times were late at night. I think (but I'm not sure; all my thought processes from around the time Diane left are very blurry in my mind) I had an idea that I would sleep better if I quit, but I didn't. I lay awake some mornings until three, hands laced together under my pillow, looking up at the ceiling, listening to sirens and to the rumble of trucks headed downtown. At those times I would think about the twenty-four-hour Korean market almost directly across the street from my building. I would think about the white fluorescent light inside, so bright it was almost like a Kübler-Ross near-death experience, and how it spilled out onto the sidewalk between the displays which, in another hour, two young Korean men in white paper hats would begin 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 behind him, as big as the stone tablets Charlton Heston brought down from Mount Sinai in The Ten Commandments. I would think about getting up, dressing, going over there, getting a pack of CIGARETTES (or maybe nine or ten of them), and sitting by the window, SMOKING one Marlboro after another as the sky lightened to the east and the sun came up. I never did, but on many early mornings I went to sleep counting CIGARETTE brands instead of sheep: Winston . . . Winston 100s . . . Virginia Slims . . . Doral . . . Merit . . . Merit 100s . . . Camels . . . Camel Filters . . . Camel Lights.

"Collections\Everything's Eventual\Lunch at the Gotham Caf'.txt" 46 1185:For me, the worst times were late at night. I think (but I'm not sure; all my thought processes from around the time Diane left are very blurry in my mind) I had an idea that I would sleep better if I quit, but I didn't. I lay awake some mornings until three, hands laced together under my pillow, looking up at the ceiling, listening to sirens and to the rumble of trucks headed downtown. At those times I would think about the twenty-four-hour Korean market almost directly across the street from my building. I would think about the white fluorescent light inside, so bright it was almost like a Kübler-Ross near-death experience, and how it spilled out onto the sidewalk between the displays which, in another hour, two young Korean men in white paper hats would begin 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 behind him, as big as the stone tablets Charlton Heston brought down from Mount Sinai in The Ten Commandments. I would think about getting up, dressing, going over there, getting a pack of CIGARETTES (or maybe nine or ten of them), and sitting by the window, SMOKING one Marlboro after another as the sky lightened to the east and the sun came up. I never did, but on many early mornings I went to sleep counting CIGARETTE brands instead of sheep: Winston . . . Winston 100s . . . Virginia Slims . . . Doral . . . Merit . . . Merit 100s . . . Camels . . . Camel Filters . . . Camel Lights.

"Collections\Everything's Eventual\Lunch at the Gotham Caf'.txt" 46 1339:For me, the worst times were late at night. I think (but I'm not sure; all my thought processes from around the time Diane left are very blurry in my mind) I had an idea that I would sleep better if I quit, but I didn't. I lay awake some mornings until three, hands laced together under my pillow, looking up at the ceiling, listening to sirens and to the rumble of trucks headed downtown. At those times I would think about the twenty-four-hour Korean market almost directly across the street from my building. I would think about the white fluorescent light inside, so bright it was almost like a Kübler-Ross near-death experience, and how it spilled out onto the sidewalk between the displays which, in another hour, two young Korean men in white paper hats would begin 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 behind him, as big as the stone tablets Charlton Heston brought down from Mount Sinai in The Ten Commandments. I would think about getting up, dressing, going over there, getting a pack of CIGARETTES (or maybe nine or ten of them), and sitting by the window, SMOKING one Marlboro after another as the sky lightened to the east and the sun came up. I never did, but on many early mornings I went to sleep counting CIGARETTE brands instead of sheep: Winston . . . Winston 100s . . . Virginia Slims . . . Doral . . . Merit . . . Merit 100s . . . Camels . . . Camel Filters . . . Camel Lights.

"Collections\Everything's Eventual\Lunch at the Gotham Caf'.txt" 46 915:For me, the worst times were late at night. I think (but I'm not sure; all my thought processes from around the time Diane left are very blurry in my mind) I had an idea that I would sleep better if I quit, but I didn't. I lay awake some mornings until three, hands laced together under my pillow, looking up at the ceiling, listening to sirens and to the rumble of trucks headed downtown. At those times I would think about the twenty-four-hour Korean market almost directly across the street from my building. I would think about the white fluorescent light inside, so bright it was almost like a Kübler-Ross near-death experience, and how it spilled out onto the sidewalk between the displays which, in another hour, two young Korean men in white paper hats would begin 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 behind him, as big as the stone tablets Charlton Heston brought down from Mount Sinai in The Ten Commandments. I would think about getting up, dressing, going over there, getting a pack of CIGARETTES (or maybe nine or ten of them), and sitting by the window, SMOKING one Marlboro after another as the sky lightened to the east and the sun came up. I never did, but on many early mornings I went to sleep counting CIGARETTE brands instead of sheep: Winston . . . Winston 100s . . . Virginia Slims . . . Doral . . . Merit . . . Merit 100s . . . Camels . . . Camel Filters . . . Camel Lights.

"Collections\Everything's Eventual\Lunch at the Gotham Caf'.txt" 48 182:Later-around the time I was starting to see the last three or four months of our marriage in a clearer light, as a matter of fact-I began to understand that my decision to quit SMOKING when I did was perhaps not so unconsidered as it at first seemed, and a very long way from ill-considered. I'm not a brilliant man, not a brave one, either, but that decision might have been both. It's certainly possible; sometimes we rise above ourselves. In any case, it gave my mind something concrete to pitch upon in the days after Diane left; it gave my misery a vocabulary it would not otherwise have had.

"Collections\Everything's Eventual\Lunch at the Gotham Caf'.txt" 502 336:I found a market on the next block and bought a package of Marlboros. When I got back to the corner of Madison and Fifty-third, Fifty-third had been blocked off with those blue sawhorses the cops use to protect crime-scenes and parade routes. I could see the restaurant, though. I could see it just fine. I sat down on the curb, lit a CIGARETTE, and observed developments. Half a dozen rescue vehicles arrived-a scream of ambulances, I guess you could say. The chef went into the first one, unconscious but apparently still alive. His brief appearance before 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 wildly around as he was loaded into the back of an ambulance. I thought that for just a moment his eyes met mine, but that was probably my imagination.

"Collections\Everything's Eventual\Lunch at the Gotham Caf'.txt" 504 129:As Guy's ambulance pulled away, rolling through a hole in the sawhorse barricade provided by two uniformed cops, I tossed the CIGARETTE I'd been SMOKING in the gutter. I hadn't gone through this day just to start killing myself with tobacco again, I decided.

"Collections\Everything's Eventual\Lunch at the Gotham Caf'.txt" 504 150:As Guy's ambulance pulled away, rolling through a hole in the sawhorse barricade provided by two uniformed cops, I tossed the CIGARETTE I'd been SMOKING in the gutter. I hadn't gone through this day just to start killing myself with tobacco again, I decided.

"Collections\Everything's Eventual\Lunch at the Gotham Caf'.txt" 516 59:I didn't say anything, though. I stopped stamping-the CIGARETTE pack was pretty well dead by then, anyway-and stopped making the noise. I could still hear it in my head, though, and why not? It makes as much sense as anything else.

"Collections\Everything's Eventual\Lunch at the Gotham Caf'.txt" 54 105:Humboldt called me again two weeks after the evening when I'd bombed West Eighty-third Street with my CIGARETTES, and this time he stuck with Mr. Davis as a form of address. He thanked me for the copies of various documents forwarded him through Mr. Ring and said that the time had come for "all four of us" to sit down to lunch. All four of us meant Diane. I hadn't seen her since the morning of the day she'd left, and even then I hadn't really seen her; she'd been 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 the wrist of the hand holding the telephone.

"Collections\Everything's Eventual\Lunch at the Gotham Caf'.txt" 66 170:"Did you have a place in mind?" I wondered for a moment who would be paying for this lunch, and then had to smile at my own naiveté. I reached into my pocket for a CIGARETTE and poked the tip of a toothpick under my thumbnail instead. I winced, brought the pick out, checked the tip for blood, saw none, and stuck it in my mouth.

"Collections\Everything's Eventual\Lunch at the Gotham Caf'.txt" 84 149:I hung up, settled back in front of my computer terminal, and wondered how I was possibly going to be able to meet Diane again without at least one CIGARETTE beforehand.

"Collections\Everything's Eventual\Riding the Bullet.txt" 192 338:"What's going on for you in the city?" the driver asked. I put him at about my age, some townie who maybe went to vocational-technical school in Auburn or maybe worked in one of the few remaining textile mills in the area. He'd probably fixed up this Mustang in his spare time, because that was what townie kids did: drank beer, SMOKED a little rope, fixed up their cars. Or their motorcycles.

"Collections\Everything's Eventual\Riding the Bullet.txt" 264 13:There was a CIGARETTE parked behind his ear. He reached for it, and when he did his shirt pulled up in the front. I could see another puckered black line there, more stitches. Then he leaned forward to punch in the CIGARETTE lighter and his shirt dropped back into place.

"Collections\Everything's Eventual\Riding the Bullet.txt" 264 216:There was a CIGARETTE parked behind his ear. He reached for it, and when he did his shirt pulled up in the front. I could see another puckered black line there, more stitches. Then he leaned forward to punch in the CIGARETTE lighter and his shirt dropped back into place.

"Collections\Everything's Eventual\Riding the Bullet.txt" 268 117:The CIGARETTE lighter popped out. Staub pulled it free and pressed the coil to the end of his CIGARETTE. He drew in SMOKE and I saw little tendrils come seeping out between the stitches holding the incision on his neck closed.

"Collections\Everything's Eventual\Riding the Bullet.txt" 268 5:The CIGARETTE lighter popped out. Staub pulled it free and pressed the coil to the end of his CIGARETTE. He drew in SMOKE and I saw little tendrils come seeping out between the stitches holding the incision on his neck closed.

"Collections\Everything's Eventual\Riding the Bullet.txt" 268 95:The CIGARETTE lighter popped out. Staub pulled it free and pressed the coil to the end of his CIGARETTE. He drew in SMOKE and I saw little tendrils come seeping out between the stitches holding the incision on his neck closed.

"Collections\Everything's Eventual\Riding the Bullet.txt" 28 185:"She's still a young woman, your Ma," Mrs. McCurdy said. "It's just that she's let herself get awful heavy these last few years, and she's got the hypertension. Plus the CIGARETTES. She's going to have to give up the smokes."

"Collections\Everything's Eventual\Riding the Bullet.txt" 298 36:"Nah," he said. He drew on his CIGARETTE, and once again I watched the little trickles of SMOKE escape from the stitched incision on his neck. "You never. Especially not with your father. You got into the line, all right, but you were with your Ma. The line was long, the line for the Bullet always is, and she didn't want to stand out there in the hot sun. She was fat even then, and the heat bothered her. But you pestered her all day, pestered pestered pestered, and here's the joke of it, man-when you finally got to the head of the line, you chickened. Didn't you?"

"Collections\Everything's Eventual\Riding the Bullet.txt" 298 95:"Nah," he said. He drew on his CIGARETTE, and once again I watched the little trickles of SMOKE escape from the stitched incision on his neck. "You never. Especially not with your father. You got into the line, all right, but you were with your Ma. The line was long, the line for the Bullet always is, and she didn't want to stand out there in the hot sun. She was fat even then, and the heat bothered her. But you pestered her all day, pestered pestered pestered, and here's the joke of it, man-when you finally got to the head of the line, you chickened. Didn't you?"

"Collections\Everything's Eventual\Riding the Bullet.txt" 308 354:"You should have, man. That's the best one. That's the one to ride. Nothin else is as good, at least not there. I stopped on the way home and got some beers at that store by the state line. I was gonna stop over my girlfriend's house, give her the button as a joke." He tapped the button on his chest, then unrolled his window and flicked his CIGARETTE out into the windy night. "Only you probably know what happened."

"Collections\Everything's Eventual\Riding the Bullet.txt" 340 1342:I thought of all the years she and I had spent together, Alan and Jean Parker against the world. A lot of good times and more than a few really bad ones. Patches on my pants and casserole suppers. Most of the other kids took a quarter a week to buy the hot lunch; I always got a peanut-butter sandwich or a piece of bologna rolled up in day-old bread, like a kid in one of those dopey rags-to-riches stories. Her working in God knew how many different restaurants and cocktail lounges to support us. The time she took the day off work to talk to the ADC man, her dressed in her best pants suit, him sitting in our kitchen rocker in a suit of his own, one even a nine-year-old kid like me could tell was a lot better than hers, with a clipboard in his lap and a fat, shiny pen in his fingers. Her answering the insulting, embarrassing questions he asked with a fixed smile on her mouth, even offering him more coffee, because if he turned in the right report she'd get an extra fifty dollars a month, a lousy fifty bucks. Lying on her bed after he'd gone, crying, and when I came in to sit beside her she had tried to smile and said ADC didn't stand for Aid to Dependent Children but Awful Damn Crapheads. I had laughed and then she laughed, too, because you had to laugh, we'd found that out. When it was just you and your fat chain-SMOKING Ma against the world, laughing was quite often the only way you could get through without going insane and beating your fists on the walls. But there was more to it than that, you know. For people like us, little people who went scurrying through the world like mice in a cartoon, sometimes laughing at the assholes was the only revenge you could ever get. Her working all those jobs and taking the overtime and taping her ankles when they swelled and putting her tips away in a jar marked ALAN'S COLLEGE FUND-just like one of those dopey rags-to-riches stories, yeah, yeah-and telling me again and again that I had to work hard, other kids could maybe afford to play Freddy Fuckaround at school but I couldn't because she could put away her tips until doomsday cracked and there still wouldn't be enough; in the end it was going to come down to scholarships and loans if I was going to go to college and I had to go to college because it was the only way out for me . . . and for her. So I had worked hard, you want to believe I did, because I wasn't blind-I saw how heavy she was, I saw how much she SMOKED (it was her only private pleasure . . . her only vice, if you're one of those who must take that view), and I knew that someday our positions would reverse and I'd be the one taking care of her. With a college education and a good job, maybe I could do that. I wanted to do that. I loved her. She had a fierce temper and an ugly mouth on her-that day we waited for the Bullet and then I chickened out wasn't the only time she ever yelled at me and then swatted me-but I loved her in spite of it. Partly even because of it. I loved her when she hit me as much as when she kissed me. Do you understand that? Me either. And that's all right. I don't think you can sum up lives or explain families, and we were a family, she and I, the smallest family there is, a shared secret. If you had asked, I would have said I'd do anything for her. And now that was exactly what I was being asked to do. I was being asked to die for her, to die in her place, even though she had lived half her life, probably a lot more. I had hardly begun mine.

"Collections\Everything's Eventual\Riding the Bullet.txt" 340 2466:I thought of all the years she and I had spent together, Alan and Jean Parker against the world. A lot of good times and more than a few really bad ones. Patches on my pants and casserole suppers. Most of the other kids took a quarter a week to buy the hot lunch; I always got a peanut-butter sandwich or a piece of bologna rolled up in day-old bread, like a kid in one of those dopey rags-to-riches stories. Her working in God knew how many different restaurants and cocktail lounges to support us. The time she took the day off work to talk to the ADC man, her dressed in her best pants suit, him sitting in our kitchen rocker in a suit of his own, one even a nine-year-old kid like me could tell was a lot better than hers, with a clipboard in his lap and a fat, shiny pen in his fingers. Her answering the insulting, embarrassing questions he asked with a fixed smile on her mouth, even offering him more coffee, because if he turned in the right report she'd get an extra fifty dollars a month, a lousy fifty bucks. Lying on her bed after he'd gone, crying, and when I came in to sit beside her she had tried to smile and said ADC didn't stand for Aid to Dependent Children but Awful Damn Crapheads. I had laughed and then she laughed, too, because you had to laugh, we'd found that out. When it was just you and your fat chain-SMOKING Ma against the world, laughing was quite often the only way you could get through without going insane and beating your fists on the walls. But there was more to it than that, you know. For people like us, little people who went scurrying through the world like mice in a cartoon, sometimes laughing at the assholes was the only revenge you could ever get. Her working all those jobs and taking the overtime and taping her ankles when they swelled and putting her tips away in a jar marked ALAN'S COLLEGE FUND-just like one of those dopey rags-to-riches stories, yeah, yeah-and telling me again and again that I had to work hard, other kids could maybe afford to play Freddy Fuckaround at school but I couldn't because she could put away her tips until doomsday cracked and there still wouldn't be enough; in the end it was going to come down to scholarships and loans if I was going to go to college and I had to go to college because it was the only way out for me . . . and for her. So I had worked hard, you want to believe I did, because I wasn't blind-I saw how heavy she was, I saw how much she SMOKED (it was her only private pleasure . . . her only vice, if you're one of those who must take that view), and I knew that someday our positions would reverse and I'd be the one taking care of her. With a college education and a good job, maybe I could do that. I wanted to do that. I loved her. She had a fierce temper and an ugly mouth on her-that day we waited for the Bullet and then I chickened out wasn't the only time she ever yelled at me and then swatted me-but I loved her in spite of it. Partly even because of it. I loved her when she hit me as much as when she kissed me. Do you understand that? Me either. And that's all right. I don't think you can sum up lives or explain families, and we were a family, she and I, the smallest family there is, a shared secret. If you had asked, I would have said I'd do anything for her. And now that was exactly what I was being asked to do. I was being asked to die for her, to die in her place, even though she had lived half her life, probably a lot more. I had hardly begun mine.

"Collections\Everything's Eventual\Riding the Bullet.txt" 38 119:Her laughter was dry and a little cracked around the edges-Mrs. McCurdy was a great one to talk about giving up the CIGARETTES, her and her Winstons. "Good boy! You'll go straight to the hospital, won't you, then drive out to the house?"

"Collections\Everything's Eventual\Riding the Bullet.txt" 572 8:"Her SMOKING, you mean."

"Collections\Everything's Eventual\Riding the Bullet.txt" 598 276:Not that I would. Time would dull the memory, time always did . . . but it was amazing how real and immediate the night before still seemed. Every edge and corner was sharp and clear. I could still see Staub's good-looking young face beneath his turned-around cap, and the CIGARETTE behind his ear, and the way the SMOKE had seeped out of the incision on his neck when he inhaled. I could still hear him telling the story of the Cadillac that was selling cheap. Time would blunt the edges and round the corners, but not for awhile. After all, I had the button, it was on the dresser by the bathroom door. The button was my souvenir. Didn't the hero of every ghost-story come away with a souvenir, something that proved it had all really happened?

"Collections\Everything's Eventual\Riding the Bullet.txt" 598 318:Not that I would. Time would dull the memory, time always did . . . but it was amazing how real and immediate the night before still seemed. Every edge and corner was sharp and clear. I could still see Staub's good-looking young face beneath his turned-around cap, and the CIGARETTE behind his ear, and the way the SMOKE had seeped out of the incision on his neck when he inhaled. I could still hear him telling the story of the Cadillac that was selling cheap. Time would blunt the edges and round the corners, but not for awhile. After all, I had the button, it was on the dresser by the bathroom door. The button was my souvenir. Didn't the hero of every ghost-story come away with a souvenir, something that proved it had all really happened?

"Collections\Everything's Eventual\Riding the Bullet.txt" 620 25:My mother tried to quit SMOKING and for a little while she did. Then I came back from school for April vacation a day early, and the kitchen was just as smoky as it had ever been. She looked at me with eyes that were both ashamed and defiant. "I can't," she said. "I'm sorry, Al-I know you want me to and I know I should, but there's such a hole in my life without it. Nothing fills it. The best I can do is wish I'd never started in the first place."

"Collections\Everything's Eventual\Riding the Bullet.txt" 624 107:Two weeks after I graduated from college, my Ma had another stroke-just a little one. She tried to quit SMOKING again when the doctor scolded her, then put on fifty pounds and went back to the tobacco. "As a dog returneth to its vomit," the Bible says; I've always liked that one. I got a pretty good job in Portland on my first try-lucky, I guess-and started the work of convincing her to quit her own job. It was a tough sled at first. I might have given up in disgust, but I had a certain memory that kept me digging away at her Yankee defenses.

"Collections\Everything's Eventual\Riding the Bullet.txt" 636 203:When the funeral was over, and the wake, and the seemingly endless line of mourners had finally come to its end, I went back to the little house in Harlow where my mother had spent her final few years, SMOKING and eating powdered doughnuts. It had been Jean and Alan Parker against the world; now it was just me.

"Collections\Everything's Eventual\That Feeling, You Can Only Say What It Is in French.txt" 104 770:"Nothing," she said. Up ahead by the road was a little pink bungalow, the porch flanked by palms-seeing those trees with their fringy heads lifted against the blue sky made her think of Japanese Zeros coming in low, their underwing machine guns firing, such an association clearly the result of a youth misspent in front of the TV-and as they passed a black woman would come out. She would be drying her hands on a piece of pink towelling and would watch them expressionlessly as they passed, rich folks in a Crown Vic headed for Captiva, and she'd have no idea that Carol Shelton once lay awake in a ninety-dollar-a-month apartment, listening to the records and the drug deals upstairs, feeling something alive inside her, something that made her think of a CIGARETTE that had fallen down behind the drapes at a party, small and unseen but smoldering away next to the fabric.

"Collections\Everything's Eventual\That Feeling, You Can Only Say What It Is in French.txt" 262 547:Now that it was too late she was beginning to understand. Beginning to see the light the way she could see the subtropical sun sparkling off the water on their left. Wondering how many wrongs she had done in her life, how many sins if you liked that word, God knew her parents and her Gram certainly had, sin this and sin that and wear the medallion between those growing things the boys look at. And years later she had lain in bed with her new husband on hot summer nights, knowing a decision had to be made, knowing the clock was ticking, the CIGARETTE butt was smoldering, and she remembered making the decision, not telling him out loud because about some things you could be silent.

"Collections\Everything's Eventual\The Death of Jack Hamilton.txt" 218 381:Jack sat down on a cot in the corner, and got himself a CIGARETTE and a cold draft beer. The beer brought him back wonderful; he was almost himself again. "Did Lester get away?" he asked Mooney. I looked over at him when he spoke up and saw a terrible thing. When he took a drag off his Lucky and inhaled, a little puff come out of the hole in the back of his overcoat like a SMOKE signal.

"Collections\Everything's Eventual\The Death of Jack Hamilton.txt" 218 57:Jack sat down on a cot in the corner, and got himself a CIGARETTE and a cold draft beer. The beer brought him back wonderful; he was almost himself again. "Did Lester get away?" he asked Mooney. I looked over at him when he spoke up and saw a terrible thing. When he took a drag off his Lucky and inhaled, a little puff come out of the hole in the back of his overcoat like a SMOKE signal.

"Collections\Everything's Eventual\The Death of Jack Hamilton.txt" 222 173:"You don't want to call him that where he can hear you," Johnnie said, grinning. He was happier now that Jack had come back around, but he hadn't seen that puff of SMOKE coming out of his back. I wished I hadn't, either.

"Collections\Everything's Eventual\The Little Sisters of Eluria.txt" 1282 119:She had brought him the purse with his tobacco in it. He rolled a CIGARETTE and SMOKED it hunkered over his knees. He SMOKED it down to a glowing roach, looking at her empty clothes the while, remembering the steady gaze of her dark eyes. Remembering the scorch-marks on her fingers from the chain of the medallion. Yet she had picked it up, because she had known he would want it; had dared that pain, and Roland now wore both around his neck.

"Collections\Everything's Eventual\The Little Sisters of Eluria.txt" 1282 67:She had brought him the purse with his tobacco in it. He rolled a CIGARETTE and SMOKED it hunkered over his knees. He SMOKED it down to a glowing roach, looking at her empty clothes the while, remembering the steady gaze of her dark eyes. Remembering the scorch-marks on her fingers from the chain of the medallion. Yet she had picked it up, because she had known he would want it; had dared that pain, and Roland now wore both around his neck.

"Collections\Everything's Eventual\The Little Sisters of Eluria.txt" 1282 81:She had brought him the purse with his tobacco in it. He rolled a CIGARETTE and SMOKED it hunkered over his knees. He SMOKED it down to a glowing roach, looking at her empty clothes the while, remembering the steady gaze of her dark eyes. Remembering the scorch-marks on her fingers from the chain of the medallion. Yet she had picked it up, because she had known he would want it; had dared that pain, and Roland now wore both around his neck.

"Collections\Everything's Eventual\The Little Sisters of Eluria.txt" 386 220:"I suppose you must," she said with a sigh. It tinkled the bells at her forehead, which were darker in color than those the others wore-not black like her hair but charry, somehow, as if they had been hung in the SMOKE of a campfire. Their sound, however, was brightest silver. "Promise me you'll not scream and wake the pube in yonder bed."

"Collections\Everything's Eventual\The Little Sisters of Eluria.txt" 872 40:"Yes, yes, plenty whiskey and plenty SMOKE, but not until you have these wretched things off!" Impatient. Perhaps afraid, as well.

"Collections\Everything's Eventual\The Man in the Black Suit.txt" 338 720:That day in the woods is eighty-one years gone, and for many of the years in between I have never even thought of it . . . not awake, at least. Like any other man or woman who ever lived, I can't say about my dreams, not for sure. But now I'm old, and I dream awake, it seems. My infirmities have crept up like waves which will soon take a child's abandoned sand castle, and my memories have also crept up, making me think of some old rhyme that went, in part, "Just leave them alone/And they'll come home/Wagging their tails behind them." I remember meals I ate, games I played, girls I kissed in the school cloakroom when we played Post Office, boys I chummed with, the first drink I ever took, the first CIGARETTE I ever SMOKED (cornshuck behind Dicky Hammer's pig-shed, and I threw up). Yet of all the memories, the one of the man in the black suit is the strongest, and glows with its own spectral, haunted light. He was real, he was the Devil, and that day I was either his errand or his luck. I feel more and more strongly that escaping him was my luck-just luck, and not the intercession of the God I have worshipped and sung hymns to all my life.

"Collections\Everything's Eventual\The Man in the Black Suit.txt" 338 737:That day in the woods is eighty-one years gone, and for many of the years in between I have never even thought of it . . . not awake, at least. Like any other man or woman who ever lived, I can't say about my dreams, not for sure. But now I'm old, and I dream awake, it seems. My infirmities have crept up like waves which will soon take a child's abandoned sand castle, and my memories have also crept up, making me think of some old rhyme that went, in part, "Just leave them alone/And they'll come home/Wagging their tails behind them." I remember meals I ate, games I played, girls I kissed in the school cloakroom when we played Post Office, boys I chummed with, the first drink I ever took, the first CIGARETTE I ever SMOKED (cornshuck behind Dicky Hammer's pig-shed, and I threw up). Yet of all the memories, the one of the man in the black suit is the strongest, and glows with its own spectral, haunted light. He was real, he was the Devil, and that day I was either his errand or his luck. I feel more and more strongly that escaping him was my luck-just luck, and not the intercession of the God I have worshipped and sung hymns to all my life.

"Collections\Everything's Eventual\The Road Virus Heads North.txt" 208 268:The scrubby pines behind the service area sloped down to a boggy acre that stank of plant and animal decomposition. The carpet of pine-needles was a road-litter fallout zone: burger wrappers, paper soft-drink cups, TCBY napkins, beer cans, empty wine-cooler bottles, CIGARETTE butts. He saw a used condom lying like a dead snail next to a torn pair of panties with the word TUESDAY stitched on them in cursive girly-girl script.

"Collections\Everything's Eventual\The Road Virus Heads North.txt" 242 196:It had changed yet again. The car was now parked in the driveway of the yard sale yard. The goods were still spread out everywhere-glassware and furniture and ceramic knickknacks (Scottie dogs SMOKING pipes, bare-assed toddlers, winking fish), but now they gleamed beneath the light of the same skullface moon that rode in the sky above Kinnell's house. The TV was still there, too, and it was still on, casting its own pallid radiance onto the grass, and what lay in front of it, next to an overturned lawn chair. Judy Diment was on her back, and she was no longer all there. After a moment, Kinnell saw the rest. It was on the ironing board, dead eyes glowing like fifty-cent pieces in the moonlight.

"Collections\Everything's Eventual\The Road Virus Heads North.txt" 412 258:Now he could hear feet ascending the stairs. It was a heavy tread, and he knew without having to see that the blond kid was wearing motorcycle boots. People with DEATH BEFORE DISHONOR tattooed on their arms always wore motorcycle boots, just as they always SMOKED unfiltered Camels. These things were like a national law.

"Collections\Four Past Midnight\Secret Window, Secret Garden.txt" 1218 203:Mort Rainey experienced one of these cataclysmic epiphanies after the representatives of the police and fire departments had gone and he and Amy and Ted Milner were left alone to walk slowly around the SMOKING ruin of the green Victorian house which had stood at 92 Kansas Street for one hundred and thirty-six years. It was while they were making that mournful inspection tour that he understood that his marriage to the former Amy Dowd of Portland, Maine, was over. It was no "period of marital stress." It was no "trial separation." It was not going to be one of those cases you heard of from time to time where both parties repented their decision and remarried. It was over. Their lives together were history. Even the house where they had shared so many good times was nothing but evilly smouldering beams tumbled into the cellar-hole like the teeth of a giant.

"Collections\Four Past Midnight\Secret Window, Secret Garden.txt" 1541 127:The words died into dusty silence. He could smell old tobacco SMOKE in that dust. His eye happened on the battered package of CIGARETTES he had excavated from the drawer of his desk. It occurred to him that the house had a smell-almost a stink-that was horribly negative: it was an unwoman smell. Then he thought: No. That's a mistake. That's not it. What you smell is Shooter. You smell the man, and you smell his CIGARETTES. Not yours, his.

"Collections\Four Past Midnight\Secret Window, Secret Garden.txt" 1541 424:The words died into dusty silence. He could smell old tobacco SMOKE in that dust. His eye happened on the battered package of CIGARETTES he had excavated from the drawer of his desk. It occurred to him that the house had a smell-almost a stink-that was horribly negative: it was an unwoman smell. Then he thought: No. That's a mistake. That's not it. What you smell is Shooter. You smell the man, and you smell his CIGARETTES. Not yours, his.

"Collections\Four Past Midnight\Secret Window, Secret Garden.txt" 1541 63:The words died into dusty silence. He could smell old tobacco SMOKE in that dust. His eye happened on the battered package of CIGARETTES he had excavated from the drawer of his desk. It occurred to him that the house had a smell-almost a stink-that was horribly negative: it was an unwoman smell. Then he thought: No. That's a mistake. That's not it. What you smell is Shooter. You smell the man, and you smell his CIGARETTES. Not yours, his.

"Collections\Four Past Midnight\Secret Window, Secret Garden.txt" 2019 59:The Buick's ashtray was pulled open, and there were two CIGARETTE butts in it. They were unfiltered. Mort picked one of them out with his fingernails, his face contorted into a grimace of distaste, sure it would be a Pall Mall, Shooter's brand. It was.

"Collections\Four Past Midnight\Secret Window, Secret Garden.txt" 2021 265:He turned the key and the engine started at once. Mort hadn't heard it ticking and popping when he came out, but it started as if it were warm, all the same. Shooter's hat was now in the trunk. Mort had picked it up with the same distaste he had shown for the CIGARETTE butt, putting only enough of his fingers on the brim to get a grip on it. There had been nothing under it, and nothing inside it but a very old sweat-stained inner band. It had some other smell, however, one which was sharper and more acrid than sweat. It was a smell which Mort recognized in some vague way but could not place. Perhaps it would come to him. He put the hat in the back seat, then remembered he would be seeing Greg and Tom in a little less than an hour. He wasn't sure he wanted them to see the hat. He didn't know exactly why he felt that way, but this morning it seemed safer to follow his instincts than to question them, so he put the hat in the trunk and set off for town.

"Collections\Four Past Midnight\Secret Window, Secret Garden.txt" 2135 409:Sonny pushed PLAY. Roger Whittaker told them there were times (he was sure they knew) when he bit off more than he could chew. That was also something Mort had done without the horn section. He strolled to the edge of the driveway and tapped absently at his shirt pocket. He was a little surprised to find that the old pack of L & M's, now reduced to a single hardy survivor, was in there. He lit the last CIGARETTE, wincing in anticipation of the harsh taste. But it wasn't bad. It had, in fact, almost no taste at all . . . as if the years had stolen it away.

"Collections\Four Past Midnight\Secret Window, Secret Garden.txt" 2139 36:How true. Irrelevant, but true. He SMOKED and looked at the road. Now Roger Whittaker was telling him and Sonny that a ship lay loaded in the harbor, and that soon for England they would sail. Sonny Trotts sang the last word of each line. No more; just the last word. Cars and trucks went back and forth on Route 23. Greg's Ford Ranger did not come. Mort pitched away his CIGARETTE, looked at his watch, and saw it was quarter to ten. He understood that Greg, who was almost religiously punctual, was not coming, either.

"Collections\Four Past Midnight\Secret Window, Secret Garden.txt" 2139 375:How true. Irrelevant, but true. He SMOKED and looked at the road. Now Roger Whittaker was telling him and Sonny that a ship lay loaded in the harbor, and that soon for England they would sail. Sonny Trotts sang the last word of each line. No more; just the last word. Cars and trucks went back and forth on Route 23. Greg's Ford Ranger did not come. Mort pitched away his CIGARETTE, looked at his watch, and saw it was quarter to ten. He understood that Greg, who was almost religiously punctual, was not coming, either.

"Collections\Four Past Midnight\Secret Window, Secret Garden.txt" 230 411:He sat down and began to rummage slowly and thoroughly through the drawers of his desk. It was a big one, so big the furniture men had had to bring it into the room in sections, and it had a lot of drawers. The desk was solely his domain; neither Amy nor Mrs. G. had ever set a hand to it, and the drawers were full of ten years' worth of accumulated rickrack. It had been four years since Mort had given up SMOKING, and if there were any CIGARETTES left in the house, this was where they would be. If he found some, he would SMOKE. Just about now, he was crazy for a SMOKE. If he didn't find any, that was all right, too; going through his junk was soothing. Old letters which he'd put aside to answer and never had, what had once seemed so important now looking antique, even arcane; postcards he'd bought but never mailed; chunks of manuscript in varying stages of completion; half a bag of very elderly Doritos; envelopes; paper-clips; cancelled checks. He could sense layers here which were almost geological-layers of summer life frozen in place. And it was soothing. He finished one drawer and went on to the next, thinking all the while about John Shooter and how John Shooter's story-his story, goddammit!-had made him feel.

"Collections\Four Past Midnight\Secret Window, Secret Garden.txt" 230 442:He sat down and began to rummage slowly and thoroughly through the drawers of his desk. It was a big one, so big the furniture men had had to bring it into the room in sections, and it had a lot of drawers. The desk was solely his domain; neither Amy nor Mrs. G. had ever set a hand to it, and the drawers were full of ten years' worth of accumulated rickrack. It had been four years since Mort had given up SMOKING, and if there were any CIGARETTES left in the house, this was where they would be. If he found some, he would SMOKE. Just about now, he was crazy for a SMOKE. If he didn't find any, that was all right, too; going through his junk was soothing. Old letters which he'd put aside to answer and never had, what had once seemed so important now looking antique, even arcane; postcards he'd bought but never mailed; chunks of manuscript in varying stages of completion; half a bag of very elderly Doritos; envelopes; paper-clips; cancelled checks. He could sense layers here which were almost geological-layers of summer life frozen in place. And it was soothing. He finished one drawer and went on to the next, thinking all the while about John Shooter and how John Shooter's story-his story, goddammit!-had made him feel.

"Collections\Four Past Midnight\Secret Window, Secret Garden.txt" 230 529:He sat down and began to rummage slowly and thoroughly through the drawers of his desk. It was a big one, so big the furniture men had had to bring it into the room in sections, and it had a lot of drawers. The desk was solely his domain; neither Amy nor Mrs. G. had ever set a hand to it, and the drawers were full of ten years' worth of accumulated rickrack. It had been four years since Mort had given up SMOKING, and if there were any CIGARETTES left in the house, this was where they would be. If he found some, he would SMOKE. Just about now, he was crazy for a SMOKE. If he didn't find any, that was all right, too; going through his junk was soothing. Old letters which he'd put aside to answer and never had, what had once seemed so important now looking antique, even arcane; postcards he'd bought but never mailed; chunks of manuscript in varying stages of completion; half a bag of very elderly Doritos; envelopes; paper-clips; cancelled checks. He could sense layers here which were almost geological-layers of summer life frozen in place. And it was soothing. He finished one drawer and went on to the next, thinking all the while about John Shooter and how John Shooter's story-his story, goddammit!-had made him feel.

"Collections\Four Past Midnight\Secret Window, Secret Garden.txt" 230 571:He sat down and began to rummage slowly and thoroughly through the drawers of his desk. It was a big one, so big the furniture men had had to bring it into the room in sections, and it had a lot of drawers. The desk was solely his domain; neither Amy nor Mrs. G. had ever set a hand to it, and the drawers were full of ten years' worth of accumulated rickrack. It had been four years since Mort had given up SMOKING, and if there were any CIGARETTES left in the house, this was where they would be. If he found some, he would SMOKE. Just about now, he was crazy for a SMOKE. If he didn't find any, that was all right, too; going through his junk was soothing. Old letters which he'd put aside to answer and never had, what had once seemed so important now looking antique, even arcane; postcards he'd bought but never mailed; chunks of manuscript in varying stages of completion; half a bag of very elderly Doritos; envelopes; paper-clips; cancelled checks. He could sense layers here which were almost geological-layers of summer life frozen in place. And it was soothing. He finished one drawer and went on to the next, thinking all the while about John Shooter and how John Shooter's story-his story, goddammit!-had made him feel.

"Collections\Four Past Midnight\Secret Window, Secret Garden.txt" 232 83:The most obvious thing, of course, was that it had made him feel like he needed a CIGARETTE. This wasn't the first time he'd felt that way in the last four years; there had been times when just seeing someone puffing away behind the wheel of a car next to his at a stoplight could set off a raging momentary lust for tobacco. But the key word there, of course, was "momentary." Those feelings passed in a hurry, like fierce rainsqualls-five minutes after a blinding silver curtain of rain has dropped out of the sky, the sun is shining again. He'd never felt the need to turn in to the next convenience store on his way for a deck of smokes . . . or go rummaging through his glove compartment for a stray or two as he was now rummaging through his desk.

"Collections\Four Past Midnight\Secret Window, Secret Garden.txt" 242 126:At that moment Mort lifted up a Xerox of The Organ-Grinder's Boy manuscript, and there, beneath it, was a package of L & M CIGARETTES. Did they even make L & M's anymore? He didn't know. The pack was old, crumpled, but definitely not flat. He took it out and looked at it. He reflected that he must have bought this particular pack in 1985, according to the informal science of stratification one might call-for want of a better word-Deskology.

"Collections\Four Past Midnight\Secret Window, Secret Garden.txt" 246 69:Time-travellers from another age, Mort thought. He stuck one of the CIGARETTES in his mouth, then went out into the kitchen to get a match from the box by the stove. Time-travellers from another age, riding up through the years, patient cylindrical voyagers, their mission to wait, to persevere, to bide until the proper moment to start me on the road to lung cancer again finally arrives. And it seems the time has finally come.

"Collections\Four Past Midnight\Secret Window, Secret Garden.txt" 248 144:"It'll probably taste like shit," he said aloud to the empty house (Mrs. Gavin had long since gone home), and set fire to the tip of the CIGARETTE. It didn't taste like shit, though. It tasted pretty good. He wandered back toward his study, puffing away and feeling pleasantly lightheaded. Ah, the dreadful patient persistence of addiction, he thought. What had Hemingway said? Not this August, nor this September-this year you have to do what you like. But the time comes around again. It always does. Sooner or later you stick something back in your big dumb old mouth again. A drink, a SMOKE, maybe the barrel of a shotgun. Not this August, nor this September . . .

"Collections\Four Past Midnight\Secret Window, Secret Garden.txt" 248 600:"It'll probably taste like shit," he said aloud to the empty house (Mrs. Gavin had long since gone home), and set fire to the tip of the CIGARETTE. It didn't taste like shit, though. It tasted pretty good. He wandered back toward his study, puffing away and feeling pleasantly lightheaded. Ah, the dreadful patient persistence of addiction, he thought. What had Hemingway said? Not this August, nor this September-this year you have to do what you like. But the time comes around again. It always does. Sooner or later you stick something back in your big dumb old mouth again. A drink, a SMOKE, maybe the barrel of a shotgun. Not this August, nor this September . . .

"Collections\Four Past Midnight\Secret Window, Secret Garden.txt" 262 22:Mort crushed out his CIGARETTE and decided to take a nap. Then he decided that was a bad idea. It would be better, healthier both mentally and physically, to eat some lunch, read for half an hour or so, and then go for a nice long walk down by the lake. He was sleeping too much, and sleeping too much was a sign of depression. Halfway to the kitchen, he deviated to the long sectional couch by the window-wall in the living room. The hell with it, he thought, putting a pillow under his neck and another one behind his head. I AM depressed.

"Collections\Four Past Midnight\Secret Window, Secret Garden.txt" 2639 318:The steadily falling rain made him feel listless and stupid. He made a little fire in the woodstove, drew a chair over, and tried to read the current issue of Harper's, but he kept nodding off and then jerking awake again as his chin dropped, squeezing his windpipe and producing a snore. I should have bought some CIGARETTES today, he thought. A few smokes would have kept me awake. But he hadn't bought any smokes, and he wasn't really sure they would have kept him awake, anyway. He wasn't just tired; he was suffering from shock.

"Collections\Four Past Midnight\Secret Window, Secret Garden.txt" 2865 269:On the way, he became suddenly sure that Federal Express would have come and gone . . . and Juliet would stand there at the window with her bare face hanging out and shake her head and tell him there was nothing for him, sorry. And his proof ? It would be gone like SMOKE. This feeling was irrational-Herb was a cautious man, one who did not make promises that couldn't be kept-but it was almost too strong to deny.

"Collections\Four Past Midnight\Secret Window, Secret Garden.txt" 3167 493:Shooter came after her, bringing the scissors down in a silver arc. He would have buried them up to the handles between her shoulderblades if his feet had not slid on the papers scattered about the hardwood floor. He fell full-length with a cry of mingled perplexity and anger. The blades stabbed down through page nine of "Secret Window, Secret Garden" and the tips broke off. His mouth struck the floor and sprayed blood. The package of Pall Malls-the brand John Kintner had silently SMOKED during the breaks halfway through the writing class he and Mort Rainey had shared-shot out of his pocket and slid along the slick wood like the weight in a barroom shuffleboard game. He got up on his knees, his mouth snarling and smiling through the blood which ran over his lips and teeth.

"Collections\Four Past Midnight\The Langoliers.txt" 1122 109:"I was also asleep. Corked off even before the captain-our original captain, I mean-turned off the NO SMOKING light. I've always been that way. Trains, busses, planes-I drift off like a baby the minute they turn on the motors. What about you, dear boy?"

"Collections\Four Past Midnight\The Langoliers.txt" 2188 223:There was a dry scratching noise just behind him. Albert nearly jumped out of his skin and whirled around fast, holding his violin case up like a cudgel. Bethany was standing there, just touching a match to the tip of her CIGARETTE.

"Collections\Four Past Midnight\The Langoliers.txt" 2194 87:"Sorry." She shook out the match, dropped it on the floor, and drew deeply on her CIGARETTE. "There. At least that's better. I didn't dare to on the plane. I was afraid something might blow up."

"Collections\Four Past Midnight\The Langoliers.txt" 2202 125:Bethany smiled and offered him a Marlboro. Jenkins took it and she lit it for him. He inhaled, then coughed out a series of SMOKE-signal puffs.

"Collections\Four Past Midnight\The Langoliers.txt" 2262 144:"Yeah, I guess I did, but I don't get what you mean. There's probably a newsstand upstairs, Mr. Jenkins. They'll have lots of matches. CIGARETTES and disposable lighters, too."

"Collections\Four Past Midnight\The Langoliers.txt" 2539 113:Robert Jenkins was standing by the cash register. As Albert and Bethany came in, he said: "May I have another CIGARETTE, Bethany?"

"Collections\Four Past Midnight\The Langoliers.txt" 2569 163:Bob Jenkins pulled one of the matches from Bethany's book and struck it. It lit on the first strike. "Ah," he said, and applied the flame to the tip of his CIGARETTE. The SMOKE smelled incredibly pungent, incredibly sweet to Brian, and a moment's reflection suggested a reason why: it was the only thing, save for the faint tang of Nick Hopewell's shaving lotion and Laurel's perfume, that he could smell. Now that he thought about it, Brian realized that he could hardly even smell his travelling companions' sweat.

"Collections\Four Past Midnight\The Langoliers.txt" 2569 178:Bob Jenkins pulled one of the matches from Bethany's book and struck it. It lit on the first strike. "Ah," he said, and applied the flame to the tip of his CIGARETTE. The SMOKE smelled incredibly pungent, incredibly sweet to Brian, and a moment's reflection suggested a reason why: it was the only thing, save for the faint tang of Nick Hopewell's shaving lotion and Laurel's perfume, that he could smell. Now that he thought about it, Brian realized that he could hardly even smell his travelling companions' sweat.

"Collections\Four Past Midnight\The Langoliers.txt" 2573 195:At last there was a sickly phsssss sound, and a few of the matches erupted into dull, momentary life. They did not really burn at all; there was a weak glow and they went out. A few tendrils of SMOKE drifted up . . . SMOKE which seemed to have no odor at all.

"Collections\Four Past Midnight\The Langoliers.txt" 2573 218:At last there was a sickly phsssss sound, and a few of the matches erupted into dull, momentary life. They did not really burn at all; there was a weak glow and they went out. A few tendrils of SMOKE drifted up . . . SMOKE which seemed to have no odor at all.

"Collections\Four Past Midnight\The Langoliers.txt" 2689 265:"Correct," Bob said softly. "One hundred per cent correct. As you say, none of that stuff is here. But it was on the airplane when we survivors woke up, wasn't it? There were even a cup of coffee and a half-eaten Danish in the cockpit. The equivalent of a SMOKING pipe on the foredeck."

"Collections\Four Past Midnight\The Langoliers.txt" 3301 22:Bethany took out her CIGARETTES and offered the pack to Bob. He shook his head. She stuck one in her mouth, took out her matches, and struck one.

"Collections\Four Past Midnight\The Langoliers.txt" 3317 186:"Wait a minute," Albert said, and struck the match again. This time it lit . . . but the flame was low, guttering, unenthusiastic. He applied it to the quivering tip of Bethany's CIGARETTE and a clear image suddenly filled his mind: a sign he had passed as he rode his ten-speed to Pasadena High School every day for the last three years. CAUTION, this sign said. TWO-WAY TRAFFIC AHEAD.

"Collections\Four Past Midnight\The Langoliers.txt" 3325 21:Bethany drew on her CIGARETTE, then grimaced. "Blick! It tastes like a Carlton, or something."

"Collections\Four Past Midnight\The Langoliers.txt" 3327 9:"Blow SMOKE in my face," Albert said.

"Collections\Four Past Midnight\The Langoliers.txt" 3333 48:She did as he asked, and Albert sniffed at the SMOKE. Its former sweet fragrance was now muted. Whatever it is, it seems to be catching.

"Collections\Four Past Midnight\The Langoliers.txt" 3341 69:"Come on," Bethany said. "Let's go." She dropped her half-SMOKED CIGARETTE into an ashtray and used Bob's handkerchief to wipe her eyes. Then she took Albert's hand.

"Collections\Four Past Midnight\The Langoliers.txt" 3341 76:"Come on," Bethany said. "Let's go." She dropped her half-SMOKED CIGARETTE into an ashtray and used Bob's handkerchief to wipe her eyes. Then she took Albert's hand.

"Collections\Four Past Midnight\The Langoliers.txt" 3463 106:"We don't know," Bethany said. She had managed to coax a flame from another of her matches and was SMOKING again. When she removed the CIGARETTE from her mouth, Laurel saw she had torn off the filter. "They went inside the plane; they're still inside the plane; end of story."

"Collections\Four Past Midnight\The Langoliers.txt" 3463 142:"We don't know," Bethany said. She had managed to coax a flame from another of her matches and was SMOKING again. When she removed the CIGARETTE from her mouth, Laurel saw she had torn off the filter. "They went inside the plane; they're still inside the plane; end of story."

"Collections\Four Past Midnight\The Langoliers.txt" 3547 18:"Where's the SMOKE?" Brian asked.

"Collections\Four Past Midnight\The Langoliers.txt" 3549 4:"SMOKE?" Bob asked, puzzled.

"Collections\Four Past Midnight\The Langoliers.txt" 3551 114:"Well, I guess it's not SMOKE, exactly, but when you open a beer there's usually something that looks like SMOKE around the mouth of the bottle."

"Collections\Four Past Midnight\The Langoliers.txt" 3551 29:"Well, I guess it's not SMOKE, exactly, but when you open a beer there's usually something that looks like SMOKE around the mouth of the bottle."

"Collections\Four Past Midnight\The Langoliers.txt" 3555 103:Brian did, and began to grin. He couldn't help it. "By God, it sure smells like beer, SMOKE or no SMOKE."

"Collections\Four Past Midnight\The Langoliers.txt" 3555 91:Brian did, and began to grin. He couldn't help it. "By God, it sure smells like beer, SMOKE or no SMOKE."

"Collections\Four Past Midnight\The Langoliers.txt" 4359 46:"Hi, Bethany. May I borrow another of your CIGARETTES?"

"Collections\Four Past Midnight\The Langoliers.txt" 4379 40:Bob nodded reluctantly. He drew on his CIGARETTE and the glowing ember momentarily illuminated a pair of tired, terrified eyes.

"Collections\Four Past Midnight\The Langoliers.txt" 4541 44:Bethany had cast away her almost tasteless CIGARETTE and was halfway up the ladder again when Bob Jenkins shouted: "I think they're coming out!"

"Collections\Four Past Midnight\The Langoliers.txt" 5416 21:She fumbled out her CIGARETTES, looked up at the NO SMOKING light, and put them away again. "Yeah," she said. "I know. We crash. End of story. And do you know what?"

"Collections\Four Past Midnight\The Langoliers.txt" 5416 53:She fumbled out her CIGARETTES, looked up at the NO SMOKING light, and put them away again. "Yeah," she said. "I know. We crash. End of story. And do you know what?"

"Collections\Four Past Midnight\The Langoliers.txt" 6478 401:He set off toward the concourse and the others fell into line behind him, Albert and Bethany walking together with arms linked about each other's waists. Once off the carpeted surface of the United boarding lounge and in the concourse itself, their heels clicked and echoed, as if there were two dozen of them instead of only six. They passed dim, dark advertising posters on the walls: Watch CNN, SMOKE Marlboros, Drive Hertz, Read Newsweek, See Disneyland.

"Collections\Four Past Midnight\The Langoliers.txt" 6540 80:Smells suddenly struck Brian with a bang: sweat, perfume, aftershave, cologne, CIGARETTE SMOKE, leather, soap, industrial cleaner.

"Collections\Four Past Midnight\The Langoliers.txt" 6540 90:Smells suddenly struck Brian with a bang: sweat, perfume, aftershave, cologne, CIGARETTE SMOKE, leather, soap, industrial cleaner.

"Collections\Four Past Midnight\The Langoliers.txt" 69 60:A fire, he thought. A goddamned fire. What happened to the SMOKE-detectors, for Christ's sake? It was a brand-new building!

"Collections\Four Past Midnight\The Langoliers.txt" 701 141:Crew-Neck raised a hand to his nose, verifying that it was still there. A narrow ribbon of blood, no wider than the pull-strip on a pack of CIGARETTES, ran from each nostril. The tips of his fingers came away bloody, and he looked at them unbelievingly. He opened his mouth.

"Collections\Four Past Midnight\The Library Policeman.txt" 116 170:Instead of going bowling that night as he had planned, Sam Peebles shut himself in his study at home with a yellow legal pad, three sharpened pencils, a package of Kent CIGARETTES, and a six-pack of Jolt. He unplugged the telephone from the wall, lit a CIGARETTE, and stared at the yellow pad. After five minutes of staring, he wrote this on the top line of the top sheet:

"Collections\Four Past Midnight\The Library Policeman.txt" 116 254:Instead of going bowling that night as he had planned, Sam Peebles shut himself in his study at home with a yellow legal pad, three sharpened pencils, a package of Kent CIGARETTES, and a six-pack of Jolt. He unplugged the telephone from the wall, lit a CIGARETTE, and stared at the yellow pad. After five minutes of staring, he wrote this on the top line of the top sheet:

"Collections\Four Past Midnight\The Library Policeman.txt" 1288 11:Sam lit a CIGARETTE and started back to his car. He had gone only half a dozen steps when he saw something familiar lying on the ground. He picked it up. It was the bookjacket of Best Loved Poems of the American People. The words PROPERTY OF THE JUNCTION CITY PUBLIC LIBRARY were stamped across it.

"Collections\Four Past Midnight\The Library Policeman.txt" 135 28:Sam stopped, crushed out a CIGARETTE in the ashtray on his office desk, and looked hopefully at Naomi Higgins.

"Collections\Four Past Midnight\The Library Policeman.txt" 1693 10:He lit a CIGARETTE and inhaled deeply.

"Collections\Four Past Midnight\The Library Policeman.txt" 2510 77:She tossed another glance Sam's way. This one was so furious it was still SMOKING around the edges, and even in the depths of his own distress, Sam realized something. Before, even on the two occasions when he had taken Naomi out, he had thought she was pretty. Now he saw she was beautiful.

"Collections\Four Past Midnight\The Library Policeman.txt" 2702 480:"I wasn't always Dirty Dave Duncan," he began. "In the early fifties I was just plain old Dave Duncan, and people liked me just fine. I was a member of that same Rotary Club you talked to the other night, Sam. Why not? I had my own business, and it made money. I was a sign-painter, and I was a damned good one. I had all the work I could handle in Junction City and Proverbia, but I sometimes did a little work up in Cedar Rapids, as well. Once I painted a Lucky Strike CIGARETTE ad on the right-field wall of the minor-league ballpark all the way to hell and gone in Omaha. I was in great demand, and I deserved to be. I was good. I was just the best sign-painter around these parts.

"Collections\Four Past Midnight\The Library Policeman.txt" 3272 286:"She'd picked the right kids, all right; those two really were brats, and birds of a feather flock together. They was always chummin around. They lived on the same block, and the story said they'd gotten in trouble the week before when Patsy Harrigan's mother caught em smokin CIGARETTES in the back shed. The Gibson boy had a no-account uncle with a farm in Nebraska, and Norm Beeman was pretty sure that's where they were headed-I told you he wasn't much in the brains department. But how could he know? And he was right about one thing-they weren't the kind of kids who fall down wells or get drownded swimmin in the Proverbia River. But I knew where they were, and I knew Ardelia had beaten the clock again. I knew they'd find all three of them together, and later on that day, they did. I'd saved Tansy Power, and I'd saved myself, but I couldn't find much consolation in that.

"Collections\Four Past Midnight\The Library Policeman.txt" 747 128:Well, it's just the booze, he told himself. They would have applauded you if you'd told them about how you managed to quit SMOKING after you found Jesus at a Tupperware party.

"Collections\Four Past Midnight\The Library Policeman.txt" 943 90:The PLAY MESSAGES lamp on his answering machine was lit. He pushed the button, got out a CIGARETTE, and struck a match.

"Collections\Four Past Midnight\The Library Policeman.txt" 945 126:"Hello, Sam," Ardelia Lortz's soft and utterly unmistakable voice said, and the match paused six inches shy of Sam's CIGARETTE. "I'm very disappointed in you. Your books are overdue."

"Collections\Four Past Midnight\The Library Policeman.txt" 955 91:Sam, to his great exasperation, found he was standing here in his own house with an unlit CIGARETTE between his lips and a guilty flush climbing up his neck and beginning to overrun his cheeks. Once more he had been deposited firmly back in the fourth grade-this time sitting on a stool facing into the corner with a pointed dunce-cap perched firmly on his head.

"Collections\Four Past Midnight\The Library Policeman.txt" 968 37:Sam used a fresh match to light his SMOKE. He was still exhaling the first drag when a course of action popped into his mind. It might be a trifle cowardly, but it would close his accounts with Ms. Lortz for good. And it also had a certain rough justice to it.

"Collections\Four Past Midnight\The Sun Dog.txt" 1019 202:"The third week I almost went into the roller myself, and it scared me so bad I woke up for a few minutes-enough to have an idea, anyway, so I guess it was a blessing in disguise. I had to give up SMOKING. I couldn't understand why I hadn't seen it before. In those days a pack of smokes cost forty cents. I SMOKED two packs a day. That was five dollars and sixty cents a week!

"Collections\Four Past Midnight\The Sun Dog.txt" 1019 317:"The third week I almost went into the roller myself, and it scared me so bad I woke up for a few minutes-enough to have an idea, anyway, so I guess it was a blessing in disguise. I had to give up SMOKING. I couldn't understand why I hadn't seen it before. In those days a pack of smokes cost forty cents. I SMOKED two packs a day. That was five dollars and sixty cents a week!

"Collections\Four Past Midnight\The Sun Dog.txt" 1021 128:"We had a CIGARETTE break every two hours and I looked at my pack of Tareytons and saw I had ten, maybe twelve. I made those CIGARETTES last a week and a half, and I never bought another pack.

"Collections\Four Past Midnight\The Sun Dog.txt" 1021 13:"We had a CIGARETTE break every two hours and I looked at my pack of Tareytons and saw I had ten, maybe twelve. I made those CIGARETTES last a week and a half, and I never bought another pack.

"Collections\Four Past Midnight\The Sun Dog.txt" 1037 71:"He even did me a favor," Mr. Delevan mused. "He got me to quit SMOKING. But I don't trust him. Walk careful around him, Kevin. And no matter what, let me do the talking. I might know him a little better now."

"Collections\Four Past Midnight\The Sun Dog.txt" 1054 143:"Well, and here you are, father and son," Pop said, giving them an admiring, grandfatherly smile. His eyes twinkled behind a haze of pipe-SMOKE and for a moment, although he was clean-shaven, Kevin thought Pop looked like Father Christmas. "You've got a fine boy, Mr. Delevan. Fine."

"Collections\Four Past Midnight\The Sun Dog.txt" 1100 354:The living room was tiny. Here the smell was not of sardines and (maybe) feet but of old pipe-SMOKE. Two windows looked out on nothing more scenic than the alley that ran behind Mulberry Street, and while their panes showed some signs of having been washed-at least swiped at occasionally-the corners were bleared and greasy with years of condensed SMOKE. The whole place had an air of nasty things swept under the faded hooked rugs and hidden beneath the old-fashioned, overstuffed easy-chair and sofa. Both of these articles were light green, and your eye wanted to tell you they matched but couldn't, because they didn't. Not quite.

"Collections\Four Past Midnight\The Sun Dog.txt" 1100 95:The living room was tiny. Here the smell was not of sardines and (maybe) feet but of old pipe-SMOKE. Two windows looked out on nothing more scenic than the alley that ran behind Mulberry Street, and while their panes showed some signs of having been washed-at least swiped at occasionally-the corners were bleared and greasy with years of condensed SMOKE. The whole place had an air of nasty things swept under the faded hooked rugs and hidden beneath the old-fashioned, overstuffed easy-chair and sofa. Both of these articles were light green, and your eye wanted to tell you they matched but couldn't, because they didn't. Not quite.

"Collections\Four Past Midnight\The Sun Dog.txt" 1358 78:"Well," Pop said, smiling enigmatically from behind folds of rising blue SMOKE, "there was five of us, you know."

"Collections\Four Past Midnight\The Sun Dog.txt" 139 71:"Yes, psychology!" Kevin replied firmly. "When a guy loads your CIGARETTE or hands you a stick of pepper gum, he hangs around to watch the fun, doesn't he? But unless you or Mom have been pulling my leg-"

"Collections\Four Past Midnight\The Sun Dog.txt" 1723 129:The Pus Sisters were identical twins who lived in Portland. They were eighty or so but looked older than Stonehenge. They chain-SMOKED Camel CIGARETTES, and had done so since they were seventeen, they were happy to tell you. They never coughed in spite of the six packs they SMOKED between them each and every day. They were driven about-on those rare occasions when they left their red brick Colonial mansion-in a 1958 Lincoln Continental which had the somber glow of a hearse. This vehicle was piloted by a black woman only a little younger than the Pus Sisters themselves. This female chauffeur was probably a mute, but might just be something a bit more special: one of the few truly taciturn human beings God ever made. Pop did not know and had never asked. He had dealt with the two old ladies for nearly thirty years, the black woman had been with them all that time, mostly driving the car, sometimes washing it, sometimes mowing the lawn or clipping the hedges around the house, sometimes stalking down to the mailbox on the corner with letters from the Pus Sisters to God alone knew who (he didn't know if the black woman ever went or was allowed inside the house, either, only that he had never seen her there), and during all that time he had never heard this marvellous creature speak.

"Collections\Four Past Midnight\The Sun Dog.txt" 1723 142:The Pus Sisters were identical twins who lived in Portland. They were eighty or so but looked older than Stonehenge. They chain-SMOKED Camel CIGARETTES, and had done so since they were seventeen, they were happy to tell you. They never coughed in spite of the six packs they SMOKED between them each and every day. They were driven about-on those rare occasions when they left their red brick Colonial mansion-in a 1958 Lincoln Continental which had the somber glow of a hearse. This vehicle was piloted by a black woman only a little younger than the Pus Sisters themselves. This female chauffeur was probably a mute, but might just be something a bit more special: one of the few truly taciturn human beings God ever made. Pop did not know and had never asked. He had dealt with the two old ladies for nearly thirty years, the black woman had been with them all that time, mostly driving the car, sometimes washing it, sometimes mowing the lawn or clipping the hedges around the house, sometimes stalking down to the mailbox on the corner with letters from the Pus Sisters to God alone knew who (he didn't know if the black woman ever went or was allowed inside the house, either, only that he had never seen her there), and during all that time he had never heard this marvellous creature speak.

"Collections\Four Past Midnight\The Sun Dog.txt" 1723 276:The Pus Sisters were identical twins who lived in Portland. They were eighty or so but looked older than Stonehenge. They chain-SMOKED Camel CIGARETTES, and had done so since they were seventeen, they were happy to tell you. They never coughed in spite of the six packs they SMOKED between them each and every day. They were driven about-on those rare occasions when they left their red brick Colonial mansion-in a 1958 Lincoln Continental which had the somber glow of a hearse. This vehicle was piloted by a black woman only a little younger than the Pus Sisters themselves. This female chauffeur was probably a mute, but might just be something a bit more special: one of the few truly taciturn human beings God ever made. Pop did not know and had never asked. He had dealt with the two old ladies for nearly thirty years, the black woman had been with them all that time, mostly driving the car, sometimes washing it, sometimes mowing the lawn or clipping the hedges around the house, sometimes stalking down to the mailbox on the corner with letters from the Pus Sisters to God alone knew who (he didn't know if the black woman ever went or was allowed inside the house, either, only that he had never seen her there), and during all that time he had never heard this marvellous creature speak.

"Collections\Four Past Midnight\The Sun Dog.txt" 1737 168:The Pus Sister who opened the door some thirty seconds later looked not only dead but embalmed; a mummy between whose lips someone had poked the smouldering butt of a CIGARETTE for a joke.

"Collections\Four Past Midnight\The Sun Dog.txt" 1781 156:"I couldn't agree more," Meleusippus said, stubbing out her half-SMOKED Camel in a fish-shaped ashtray which was doing everything but shitting Camel CIGARETTE butts.

"Collections\Four Past Midnight\The Sun Dog.txt" 1781 72:"I couldn't agree more," Meleusippus said, stubbing out her half-SMOKED Camel in a fish-shaped ashtray which was doing everything but shitting Camel CIGARETTE butts.

"Collections\Four Past Midnight\The Sun Dog.txt" 1835 279:Consternation turned to gratification; the sisters exchanged smug, comfy looks, and Pop found himself wishing he could douse a couple of their goddam packs of Camels with barbecue lighter fluid and jam them up their tight little old-maid asses and then strike a match. They'd SMOKE then, all right. They'd SMOKE just like plugged chimneys, was what he meant to say.

"Collections\Four Past Midnight\The Sun Dog.txt" 1835 311:Consternation turned to gratification; the sisters exchanged smug, comfy looks, and Pop found himself wishing he could douse a couple of their goddam packs of Camels with barbecue lighter fluid and jam them up their tight little old-maid asses and then strike a match. They'd SMOKE then, all right. They'd SMOKE just like plugged chimneys, was what he meant to say.

"Collections\Four Past Midnight\The Sun Dog.txt" 1967 545:The dog-well, it wasn't a dog, not anymore, but you had to call it something-hadn't begun its leap at the photographer yet, but it was getting ready; its hindquarters were simultaneously bunching and lowering toward the cracked anonymous sidewalk in a way that somehow reminded Pop of a kid's souped-up car, trembling, barely leashed by the clutch during the last few seconds of a red light; the needle on the rpm dial already standing straight up at 60 × 10, the engine screaming through chrome pipes, fat deep-tread tires ready to SMOKE the macadam in a hot soul-kiss.

"Collections\Four Past Midnight\The Sun Dog.txt" 1969 381:The dog's face was no longer a recognizable thing at all. It had twisted and distorted into a carny freak-show thing that seemed to have but a single dark and malevolent eye, neither round nor oval but somehow runny, like the yolk of an egg that has been stabbed with the tines of a fork. Its nose was a black beak with deep flared holes drilled into either side. And was there SMOKE coming from those holes-like steam from the vents of a volcano? Maybe-or maybe that part was just imagination.

"Collections\Four Past Midnight\The Sun Dog.txt" 2069 1096:Take the business of the goddam Kraut record-player, for instance. When Pop found out that antique dealer from Boston-Donahue, his name had been-had gotten fifty bucks more than he'd ought to have gotten for a 1915 Victor-Graff gramophone (which had actually turned out to be a much more common 1919 model), Pop had lost three hundred dollars' worth of sleep over it, sometimes plotting various forms of revenge (each more wild-eyed and ridiculous than the last), sometimes just damning himself for a fool, telling himself he must really be slipping if a city man like that Donahue could skin Pop Merrill. And sometimes he imagined the fucker telling his poker-buddies about how easy it had been, hell, they were all just a bunch of rubes up there, he believed that if you tried to sell the Brooklyn Bridge to a fellow like that country mouse Merrill in Castle Rock, the damned fool would ask "How much?" Then him and his cronies rocking back in their chairs around that poker-table (why he always saw them around such a table in this morbid daydream Pop didn't know, but he did), SMOKING dollar cigars and roaring with laughter like a bunch of trolls.

"Collections\Four Past Midnight\The Sun Dog.txt" 2153 424:Then she would disappear for a moment because she had no width, and when she reappeared again she was out of reach. Well just go back to her, then, Kevin would think each time the dream reached this point, but he couldn't. His feet carried him heedlessly and serenely onward to the peeling white picket fence and Pop and the dog . . . only the dog was no longer a dog but some horrible mixed thing that gave off heat and SMOKE like a dragon and had the teeth and twisted, scarred snout of a wild pig. Pop and the Sun dog would turn toward him at the same time, and Pop would have the camera-his camera, Kevin knew, because there was a piece chipped out of the side-up to his right eye. His left eye was squinted shut. His rimless spectacles glinted on top of his head in hazy sunlight. Pop and the Sun dog had all three dimensions. They were the only things in this seedy, creepy little dreamtown that did.

"Collections\Four Past Midnight\The Sun Dog.txt" 2198 650:The dog-creature had begun its spring. Its forepaws had barely left the ground, but along its misshapen backbone and in the bunches of muscle under the hide with its hair like the stiff filaments sticking out of black steel brushes he could see all that kinetic energy beginning to release itself. Its face and head were actually a little blurred in this photograph as its mouth yawned wider, and drifting up from the picture, like a sound heard under glass, he seemed to hear a low and throaty snarl beginning to rise toward a roar. The shadow-photographer looked as if he were trying to stumble back another pace, but what did it matter? That was SMOKE jetting from the holes in the dog-thing's muzzle, all right, SMOKE, and more SMOKE drifting back from the hinges of its open jaws in the little space where the croggled and ugly stake-wall of its teeth ended, and any man would stumble back from a horror like that, any man would try to turn and run, but all Pop had to do was look to tell you that the man (of course it was a man, maybe once it had been a boy, a teenage boy, but who had the camera now?) who had taken that picture in mere startled reflex, with a kind of wince of the finger . . . that man didn't have a nickel's worth of chances. That man could keep his feet or trip over them, and all the difference it would make would be as to how he died: while he was on his feet or while he was on his ass.

"Collections\Four Past Midnight\The Sun Dog.txt" 2198 719:The dog-creature had begun its spring. Its forepaws had barely left the ground, but along its misshapen backbone and in the bunches of muscle under the hide with its hair like the stiff filaments sticking out of black steel brushes he could see all that kinetic energy beginning to release itself. Its face and head were actually a little blurred in this photograph as its mouth yawned wider, and drifting up from the picture, like a sound heard under glass, he seemed to hear a low and throaty snarl beginning to rise toward a roar. The shadow-photographer looked as if he were trying to stumble back another pace, but what did it matter? That was SMOKE jetting from the holes in the dog-thing's muzzle, all right, SMOKE, and more SMOKE drifting back from the hinges of its open jaws in the little space where the croggled and ugly stake-wall of its teeth ended, and any man would stumble back from a horror like that, any man would try to turn and run, but all Pop had to do was look to tell you that the man (of course it was a man, maybe once it had been a boy, a teenage boy, but who had the camera now?) who had taken that picture in mere startled reflex, with a kind of wince of the finger . . . that man didn't have a nickel's worth of chances. That man could keep his feet or trip over them, and all the difference it would make would be as to how he died: while he was on his feet or while he was on his ass.

"Collections\Four Past Midnight\The Sun Dog.txt" 2198 735:The dog-creature had begun its spring. Its forepaws had barely left the ground, but along its misshapen backbone and in the bunches of muscle under the hide with its hair like the stiff filaments sticking out of black steel brushes he could see all that kinetic energy beginning to release itself. Its face and head were actually a little blurred in this photograph as its mouth yawned wider, and drifting up from the picture, like a sound heard under glass, he seemed to hear a low and throaty snarl beginning to rise toward a roar. The shadow-photographer looked as if he were trying to stumble back another pace, but what did it matter? That was SMOKE jetting from the holes in the dog-thing's muzzle, all right, SMOKE, and more SMOKE drifting back from the hinges of its open jaws in the little space where the croggled and ugly stake-wall of its teeth ended, and any man would stumble back from a horror like that, any man would try to turn and run, but all Pop had to do was look to tell you that the man (of course it was a man, maybe once it had been a boy, a teenage boy, but who had the camera now?) who had taken that picture in mere startled reflex, with a kind of wince of the finger . . . that man didn't have a nickel's worth of chances. That man could keep his feet or trip over them, and all the difference it would make would be as to how he died: while he was on his feet or while he was on his ass.

"Collections\Four Past Midnight\The Sun Dog.txt" 2406 114:After a moment's consideration in which he did not look at her at all but seemed instead to study the racks of CIGARETTES behind her left shoulder, he jerked out: "For a Polaroid Sun camera. Model 660." And then it came to her, even as she told him she'd have to get it from the display. Her niece owned a big soft panda toy, which she had, for reasons which would probably make sense only to another little girl, named Paulette. Somewhere inside of Paulette was an electronic circuit-board and a memory chip on which were stored about four hundred short, simple sentences such as "I like to hug, don't you?" and "I wish you'd never go away." Whenever you poked Paulette above her fuzzy little navel, there was a brief pause and then one of those lovesome little remarks would come out, almost jerk out, in a somehow remote and emotionless voice that seemed by its tone to deny the content of the words. Ellen thought Paulette was the nuts. Molly thought there was something creepy about it; she kept expecting Ellen to poke the panda-doll in the guts someday and it would surprise them all (except for Aunt Molly from Castle Rock) by saying what was really on its mind. "I think tonight after you're asleep I'll strangle you dead," perhaps, or maybe just "I have a knife."

"Collections\Four Past Midnight\The Sun Dog.txt" 2410 404:Molly bent over the display, for once totally unconscious of the way her rump was poking out, and tried to find what the old man wanted as quickly as she could. She was sure that when she turned around, Pop would be looking at anything but her. This time she was right. When she had the film and started back (brushing a couple of errant fall leaves from one of the boxes), Pop was still staring at the CIGARETTE racks, at first glance appearing to look so closely he might have been inventorying the stock. It took a second or two to see that that expression was no expression at all, really, but a gaze of almost divine blankness.

"Collections\Four Past Midnight\The Sun Dog.txt" 2465 323:Pop's vacant gaze held as he left LaVerdiere's. It held as he crossed the sidewalk with the boxes of film in his hand. It broke and became an expression of somehow unsettling alertness as he stepped off into the gutter . . . and stopped there, with one foot on the sidewalk and one planted amid the litter of squashed CIGARETTE butts and empty potato-chip bags. Here was another Pop Molly would not have recognized, although there were those who had been sharp-traded by the old man who would have known it quite well. This was neither Merrill the lecher nor Merrill the robot, but Merrill the animal with its wind up. All at once he was there, in a way he seldom allowed himself to be there in public. Showing so much of one's true self in public was not, in Pop's estimation, a good idea. This morning, however, he was far from being in command of himself, and there was no one out to observe him, anyway. If there had been, that person would not have seen Pop the folksy crackerbarrel philosopher or even Pop the sharp trader, but something like the spirit of the man. In that moment of being totally there, Pop looked like a rogue dog himself, a stray who has gone feral and now pauses amid a midnight henhouse slaughter, raggedy ears up, head cocked, bloodstreaked teeth showing a little as he hears some sound from the farmer's house and thinks of the shotgun with its wide black holes like a figure eight rolled onto its side. The dog knows nothing of figure eights, but even a dog may recognize the dim shape of eternity if its instincts are honed sharp enough.

"Collections\Four Past Midnight\The Sun Dog.txt" 2798 338:The second Polaroid Pop took forced the first one out of the slot. It fluttered down to the top of the desk, where it landed with a thud heavier than such a square of chemically treated cardboard could possibly make. The Sun dog filled almost the entire frame now; the foreground was its impossible head, the black pits of the eyes, the SMOKING, teeth-filled jaws. The skull seemed to be elongating into a shape like a bullet or a teardrop as the dog-thing's speed and the shortening distance between it and the lens combined to drive it further out of focus. Only the tops of the pickets in the fence behind it were visible now; the bulk of the thing's flexed shoulders ate up the rest of the frame.

"Collections\Four Past Midnight\The Sun Dog.txt" 2853 340:He tried to make his hands relax their death-grip on the camera and was horrified to find he could not open his fingers. The field of gravity around the camera seemed to have increased. And the horrid thing was growing steadily hotter. Between Pop's splayed, white-nailed fingers, the gray plastic of the camera's housing had begun to SMOKE.

"Collections\Four Past Midnight\The Sun Dog.txt" 2875 305:Dark plastic, heated to a sludge like warm wax, ran over Pop's fingers and the backs of his hands in thick runnels, carving troughs in his flesh. The plastic cauterized what it burned, but Kevin saw blood squeezing from the sides of these runnels and dripping down Pop's flesh to strike the table in SMOKING droplets which sizzled like hot fat.

"Collections\Four Past Midnight\The Sun Dog.txt" 2916 247:The camera did not moan or whine this time; the sound of its mechanism was a scream, high and drilling, like a woman who is dying in the throes of a breech delivery. The square of paper which shoved and bulled its way out of that slitted opening SMOKED and fumed. Then the dark delivery-slot itself began to melt, one side drooping downward, the other wrinkling upward, all of it beginning to yawn like a toothless mouth. A bubble was forming upon the shiny surface of the last picture, which still hung in the widening mouth of the channel from which the Polaroid Sun gave birth to its photographs.

"Collections\Four Past Midnight\The Sun Dog.txt" 2924 428:The edges of the picture struck the edges of the camera delivery-slot, where they should have stuck firmly. But the camera was no longer a solid; was, in fact, losing all resemblance to what it had been. The edges of the picture sliced through its sides as cleanly as the razor-sharp sides of a good double-edged knife slide through tender meat. They poked through what had been the Polaroid's housing, sending gray drops of SMOKING plastic flying into the dim air. One landed on a dry, crumbling stack of old Popular Mechanics magazines and burrowed a fuming, charred hole into them.

"Collections\Four Past Midnight\The Sun Dog.txt" 2949 121:Pop Merrill died leaning back in the chair behind his work-table, where he had spent so many hours sitting: sitting and SMOKING; sitting and fixing things up so they would run for at least awhile and he could sell the worthless to the thoughtless; sitting and loaning money to the impulsive and the improvident after the sun went down. He died staring up at the ceiling, from which his own blood dripped back down to splatter on his cheeks and into his open eyes.

"Collections\Four Past Midnight\The Sun Dog.txt" 2993 48:The shiny surface of the bubble tore open. Red SMOKE, like the blast from a tea-kettle set in front of red neon, billowed out.

"Collections\Four Past Midnight\The Sun Dog.txt" 3023 205:The dog paused, head turning almost aimlessly . . . until its muddy, burning gaze settled on Kevin Delevan. Its black lips peeled back from its corkscrewed boar's fangs, its muzzle opened to reveal the SMOKING channel of its throat, and it gave a high, drilling howl of fury. The ancient hanging globes that lit Pop's place at night shattered one after another in rows, sending down spinning shards of frosted fly-beshitted glass. It lunged, its broad, panting chest bursting through the membrane between the worlds.

"Collections\Four Past Midnight\The Sun Dog.txt" 3048 546:In the white afterglare he saw the Sun dog frozen, a perfect black-and-white Polaroid photograph, its head thrown back, every twisting fold and crevasse in its wildly bushed-out fur caught like the complicated topography of a dry river-valley. Its teeth shone, no longer subtly shaded yellow but as white and nasty as old bones in that sterile emptiness where water had quit running millennia ago. Its single swollen eye, robbed of the dark and bloody porthole of iris by the merciless flash, was as white as an eye in the head of a Greek bust. SMOKING snot drizzled from its flared nostrils and ran like hot lava in the narrow gutters between its rolled-back muzzle and its gums.

"Collections\Four Past Midnight\The Sun Dog.txt" 3078 105:He tightened his grip around Kevin's shoulders, wanting to lead him toward the door and away from the SMOKING, bloody body of the old man (Kevin hadn't really noticed yet, Mr. Delevan thought, but if they spent much longer here, he would), and for a moment Kevin resisted him.

"Collections\Four Past Midnight\The Sun Dog.txt" 3088 70:"I love you, too," Kevin said hoarsely, and they went out of the SMOKE and the stink of old things best left forgotten and into the bright light of day. Behind them, a pile of old magazines burst into flame . . . and the fire was quick to stretch out its hungry orange fingers.

"Collections\Four Past Midnight\The Sun Dog.txt" 316 144:Pop snapped the match alight on the first try, which of course he would always do, and applied it to the corncob, his words sending out little SMOKE-signals which looked pretty and smelled absolutely foul.

"Collections\Four Past Midnight\The Sun Dog.txt" 322 92:"Oh, ayuh!" Pop said, chipper as a chickadee, blue eyes twinkling at Kevin through the SMOKE from his fuming stewpot of a pipe and from behind his round rimless glasses. It was the sort of twinkle which may indicate either good humor or avarice. "What I mean to say is that people laughed at those cameras the way they laughed at the Volkswagen Beetles when they first come out . . . but they bought the Polaroids just like they bought the VWs. Because the Beetles got good gas mileage and didn't go bust so often as American cars, and the Polaroids did one thing the Kodaks and even the Nikons and Minoltas and Leicas didn't."

"Collections\Four Past Midnight\The Sun Dog.txt" 356 98:Kevin observed Pop's eye drop momentarily closed again behind the semi-transparent mat of blue SMOKE.

"Collections\Four Past Midnight\The Sun Dog.txt" 360 718:"But-this camera." He spoke in the ritualistic tone of distaste all philosophers of the crackerbarrel, whether in Athens of the golden age or in a small-town junk-shop during this current one of brass, adopt to express their view of entropy without having to come right out and state it. "Wasn't put together, son. What I mean to say is it was poured. I could maybe pop the lens, and will if you want me to, and I did look in the film compartment, although I knew I wouldn't see a goddam thing wrong-that I recognized, at least-and I didn't. But beyond that I can't go. I could take a hammer and wind it right to her, could break it, what I mean to say, but fix it?" He spread his hands in pipe-SMOKE. "Nossir."

"Collections\Four Past Midnight\The Sun Dog.txt" 442 327:Pop let go of the switch in the base of the magnifying glass, placed it on the square of jeweler's velvet, and with a care which approached reverence folded the sides over it. He returned it to its former place in the drawer and closed the drawer. He looked at Kevin closely. He had put his pipe aside, and there was now no SMOKE to obscure his eyes, which were still sharp but not twinkling anymore.

"Collections\Four Past Midnight\The Sun Dog.txt" 733 124:"Did him a favor one time," Pop said. He popped a match alight with his thumbnail, and veiled those eyes behind enough SMOKE so you couldn't tell if it was amusement, sentiment, or contempt in them.

"Collections\Four Past Midnight\The Sun Dog.txt" 741 135:"Nope!" Pop said in his chipper way. "You let me take care of everything." And for a moment, in spite of the obfuscating pipe-SMOKE, there was something in Pop Merrill's eyes Kevin Delevan didn't care for. He went out, a sorely confused boy who knew only one thing for sure: he wanted this to be over.

"Collections\Four Past Midnight\The Sun Dog.txt" 745 371:When he was gone, Pop sat silent and moveless for nearly five minutes. He allowed his pipe to go out in his mouth and drummed his fingers, which were nearly as knowing and talented as those of a concert violinist but masqueraded as equipment which should more properly have belonged to a digger of ditches or a pourer of cement, next to the stack of photographs. As the SMOKE dissipated, his eyes stood out clearly, and they were as cold as ice in a December puddle.

"Collections\Four Past Midnight\The Sun Dog.txt" 915 224:"In those days I'd make a friendly bet on a football game or the World Series with somebody, five dollars was the most, I think, and usually it was a lot less than that, just a token thing, a quarter or maybe a pack of CIGARETTES."

"Collections\Four Past Midnight\The Sun Dog.txt" 919 11:"Yes, I SMOKED in those days, too. Now I don't SMOKE and I don't bet. Not since that last one. That last one cured me.

"Collections\Four Past Midnight\The Sun Dog.txt" 919 52:"Yes, I SMOKED in those days, too. Now I don't SMOKE and I don't bet. Not since that last one. That last one cured me.

"Collections\Four Past Midnight\The Sun Dog.txt" 963 103:"I went to him the same night I made the bet," he said. "I told your mother I was going out for CIGARETTES. I went after dark, so no one would see me. From town, I mean. They would have known I was in some kind of trouble, and I didn't want that. I went in and Pop said, 'What's a professional man like you doing in a place like this, Mr. John Delevan?' and I told him what I'd done and he said, 'You made a bet and already you have got your head set to the idea you've lost it.' 'If I do lose it,' I said, 'I want to make sure I don't lose anything else.'

"Collections\Four Past Midnight\The Sun Dog.txt" 973 131:"Never mind," John Delevan said. "After that last game ended, I went upstairs to tell your mother I was going to go out for CIGARETTES-again. She was asleep, though, so I was spared that lie. It was late, late for Castle Rock, anyway, going on eleven, but the lights were on in his place. I knew they would be. He gave me the money in tens. He took them out of an old Crisco can. All tens. I remember that. They were crumpled but he had made them straight. Forty ten-dollar bills, him counting them out like a bank-clerk with that pipe going and his glasses up on his head and for just a second there I felt like knocking his teeth out. Instead I thanked him. You don't know how hard it can be to say thank you sometimes. I hope you never do. He said, 'You understand the terms, now, don't you?' and I said I did, and he said, 'That's good. I ain't worried about you. What I mean to say is you got an honest face. You go on and take care of your business with that fella at work, and then take care of your business with me. And don't make any more bets. Man only has to look in your face to see you weren't cut out to be a gambler.' So I took the money and went home and put it under the floor-mat of the old Chevy and lay next to your mother and didn't sleep a wink all night long because I felt filthy. Next day I gave the tens to the engineer I bet with, and he counted them out, and then he just folded them over and tucked them into one of his shirt pockets and buttoned the flap like that cash didn't mean any more than a gas receipt he'd have to turn in to the chief contractor at the end of the day. Then he clapped me on the shoulder and said, 'Well, you're a good man, Johnny. Better than I thought. I won four hundred but I lost twenty to Bill Untermeyer. He bet you'd come up with the dough first thing this morning and I bet him I wouldn't see it till the end of the week. If I ever did.' 'I pay my debts,' I said. 'Easy, now,' he said, and clapped me on the shoulder again, and I think that time I really did come close to popping his eyeballs out with my thumbs."

"Collections\Full Dark, No Stars\1922.txt" 15 364:This is ironic, considering where I now live, but I will not live here for long; I know that as well as I know what is making the sounds I hear in the walls. And I know where I shall find myself after this earthly life is done. I wonder if Hell can be worse than the City of Omaha. Perhaps it is the City of Omaha, but with no good country surrounding it; only a SMOKING, brimstone-stinking emptiness full of lost souls like myself.

"Collections\Full Dark, No Stars\1922.txt" 1823 561:A thick boy would have attempted to strike up a conversation with one of these unfortunate daughters of Eve right there at the soda fountain, thus attracting attention. Henry took up a position outside, at the mouth of an alley running between the candy store and the notions shoppe next to it, sitting on a crate and reading the newspaper with his bike leaning against the brick next to him. He was waiting for a girl a little more adventurous than those content simply to sip their ice-cream sodas and then scuttle back to the sisters. That meant a girl who SMOKED. On his third afternoon in the alley, such a girl arrived.

"Collections\Full Dark, No Stars\1922.txt" 2185 76:Then I was in the street, and puffing out cold winter air that looked like CIGARETTE SMOKE. "Don't come back unless you have business to do," Kevin said. "And unless you can keep a civil tongue."

"Collections\Full Dark, No Stars\1922.txt" 2185 86:Then I was in the street, and puffing out cold winter air that looked like CIGARETTE SMOKE. "Don't come back unless you have business to do," Kevin said. "And unless you can keep a civil tongue."

"Collections\Full Dark, No Stars\1922.txt" 2231 352:Oddly enough, I felt closest to my son in an alley. It was the one next to the Gallatin Street Drug Store & Soda Fountain (Schrafft's Candy & Best Homemade Fudge Our Specialty), two blocks from St. Eusebia's. There was a crate there, probably too new to be the one Henry sat on while waiting for a girl adventurous enough to trade information for CIGARETTES, but I could pretend, and I did. Such pretense was easier when I was drunk, and most days when I turned up on Gallatin Street, I was very drunk indeed. Sometimes I pretended it was 1922 again and it was I who was waiting for Victoria Stevenson. If she came, I would trade her a whole carton of CIGARETTES to take one message: When a young man who calls himself Hank turns up here, asking about Shan Cotterie, tell him to get lost. To take his jazz elsewhere. Tell him his father needs him back on the farm, that maybe with two of them working together, they can save it.

"Collections\Full Dark, No Stars\1922.txt" 2231 657:Oddly enough, I felt closest to my son in an alley. It was the one next to the Gallatin Street Drug Store & Soda Fountain (Schrafft's Candy & Best Homemade Fudge Our Specialty), two blocks from St. Eusebia's. There was a crate there, probably too new to be the one Henry sat on while waiting for a girl adventurous enough to trade information for CIGARETTES, but I could pretend, and I did. Such pretense was easier when I was drunk, and most days when I turned up on Gallatin Street, I was very drunk indeed. Sometimes I pretended it was 1922 again and it was I who was waiting for Victoria Stevenson. If she came, I would trade her a whole carton of CIGARETTES to take one message: When a young man who calls himself Hank turns up here, asking about Shan Cotterie, tell him to get lost. To take his jazz elsewhere. Tell him his father needs him back on the farm, that maybe with two of them working together, they can save it.

"Collections\Full Dark, No Stars\1922.txt" 2243 629:John Hanrahan was the storage foreman at the Bilt-Rite factory. He didn't want to hire a man with only one hand, but I begged for a trial, and when I proved to him that I could pull a pallet fully loaded with shirts or overalls as well as any man on his payroll, he took me on. I hauled those pallets for 14 months, and often limped back to the boardinghouse where I was staying with my back and stump on fire. But I never complained, and I even found time to learn sewing. This I did on my lunch hour (which was actually 15 minutes long), and during my afternoon break. While the other men were out back on the loading dock, SMOKING and telling dirty jokes, I was teaching myself to sew seams, first in the burlap shipping bags we used, and then in the overalls that were the company's main stock-in-trade. I turned out to have a knack for it; I could even lay in a zipper, which is no mean skill on a garment assembly line. I'd press my stump on the garment to hold it in place as my foot ran the electric treadle.

"Collections\Full Dark, No Stars\1922.txt" 707 80:I hoed in the garden (pulling up more peas than weeds), then sat on the porch, SMOKING a pipe and waiting for him to come back. Just before moon-rise, he did. His head was down, his shoulders were slumped, and he was trudging rather than walking. I hated to see him that way, but I was still relieved. If he had shared his secret-or even part of it-he wouldn't have been walking like that. If he'd shared his secret, he might not have come back at all.

"Collections\Full Dark, No Stars\Big Driver.txt" 355 358:"7Up," she said. Her voice was hoarse but serviceable. "That's what it is. You like it and it likes you." She heard herself raising her own voice in song. She had a good singing voice, and being choked had given it a surprisingly pleasant rasp. It was like listening to Bonnie Tyler sing out here in the moonlight. "7Up tastes good . . . like a CIGARETTE should!" It came to her that that wasn't right, and even if it was, she should be singing something better than fucked-up advertising jingles while she had that pleasing rasp in her voice; if you were going to be raped and left for dead in a pipe with two rotting corpses, something good should come out of it.

"Collections\Full Dark, No Stars\Big Driver.txt" 477 764:The roadhouse, a big old honkytonk barn with a huge dirt parking lot that looked full to capacity, was called The Stagger Inn. She stood at the edge of the glare cast by the parking lot lights, frowning. Why so many cars? Then she remembered it was Friday night. Apparently The Stagger Inn was the place to go on Friday nights if you were from Colewich or any of the surrounding towns. They would have a phone, but there were too many people. They would see her bruised face and leaning nose. They would want to know what had happened to her, and she was in no shape to make up a story. At least not yet. Even a pay phone outside was no good, because she could see people out there, too. Lots of them. Of course. These days you had to go outside if you wanted to SMOKE a CIGARETTE. Also . . .

"Collections\Full Dark, No Stars\Big Driver.txt" 477 772:The roadhouse, a big old honkytonk barn with a huge dirt parking lot that looked full to capacity, was called The Stagger Inn. She stood at the edge of the glare cast by the parking lot lights, frowning. Why so many cars? Then she remembered it was Friday night. Apparently The Stagger Inn was the place to go on Friday nights if you were from Colewich or any of the surrounding towns. They would have a phone, but there were too many people. They would see her bruised face and leaning nose. They would want to know what had happened to her, and she was in no shape to make up a story. At least not yet. Even a pay phone outside was no good, because she could see people out there, too. Lots of them. Of course. These days you had to go outside if you wanted to SMOKE a CIGARETTE. Also . . .

"Collections\Full Dark, No Stars\Big Driver.txt" 49 117:Tess, who had indeed added a GPS to her Expedition's dashboard array (it was called a Tomtom and plugged into the CIGARETTE lighter), said that ten miles off her return journey would be very nice.

"Collections\Full Dark, No Stars\Big Driver.txt" 717 113:Tess burst into perfectly genuine laughter. "I go downstairs half-shot in the middle of the night because the SMOKE detector's beeping, trip over the cat and almost kill myself, and your sympathies are with the cat. Nice."

"Collections\Full Dark, No Stars\Big Driver.txt" 883 79:Tess thought of revisiting the story she'd already told Patsy-the beeping SMOKE detector alarm, the cat under her feet, the collision with the newel post-and didn't bother. This woman had a look of daytime efficiency about her and probably visited The Stagger Inn as infrequently as possible during its hours of operation, but she was clearly under no illusions about what sometimes happened here when the hour grew late and the guests grew drunk. She was, after all, the one who came in early on Saturday mornings to make the courtesy calls. She had probably heard her share of morning-after stories featuring midnight stumbles, slips in the shower, etc., etc.

"Collections\Full Dark, No Stars\Big Driver.txt" 981 217:She made sure her Expedition would start, then tipped the cabdriver twenty instead of ten. He thanked her with feeling, then drove away toward the I-84. Tess followed, but not until she'd plugged Tom back into the CIGARETTE lighter receptacle and powered him up.

"Collections\Full Dark, No Stars\Fair Extension.txt" 431 368:"That's one thing the ladies don't have to worry about," Goodhugh said, and stroked a hand back through his own locks, which were as full and rich as they had been at eighteen. Not a touch of gray in them, either. Janet Streeter could still look forty on a good day, but in the red light of the declining sun, the Garbage King looked thirty-five. He didn't SMOKE, he didn't drink to excess, and he worked out at a health club that did business with Streeter's bank but which Streeter could not afford himself. His middle child, Carl, was currently doing the European thing with Justin Streeter, the two of them traveling on Carl Goodhugh's dime. Which was, of course, actually the Garbage King's dime.

"Collections\Full Dark, No Stars\Fair Extension.txt" 559 106:"Well . . ." Streeter observed with no surprise that the raindrops striking Elvid's hands and arms SMOKED and sizzled. "Yes."

"Collections\Full Dark, No Stars\Fair Extension.txt" 595 204:In October, Carl Goodhugh's roommate at Emerson came back from class to find Carl facedown on the kitchen floor of their apartment with the grilled cheese sandwich he'd been making for himself still SMOKING in the frypan. Although only twenty-two years of age, Carl had suffered a heart attack. The doctors attending the case pinpointed a congenital heart defect-something about a thin atrial wall-that had gone undetected. Carl didn't die; his roommate got to him just in time and knew CPR. But he suffered oxygen deprivation, and the bright, handsome, physically agile young man who had not long before toured Europe with Justin Streeter became a shuffling shadow of his former self. He was not always continent, he got lost if he wandered more than a block or two from home (he had moved back with his still-grieving father), and his speech had become a blurred blare that only Tom could understand. Goodhugh hired a companion for him. The companion administered physical therapy and saw that Carl changed his clothes. He also took Carl on biweekly "outings." The most common "outing" was to Wishful Dishful Ice Cream, where Carl would always get a pistachio cone and smear it all over his face. Afterward the companion would clean him up, patiently, with Wet-Naps.

"Collections\Full Dark, No Stars\Fair Extension.txt" 63 101:"Never thought of it that way, but I suppose you're right. Although sometimes a cigar is just a SMOKE and a coincidence is just a coincidence. Everyone wants an extension, Mr. Streeter. If you were a young woman with a love of shopping, I'd offer you a credit extension. If you were a man with a small penis-genetics can be so cruel-I'd offer you a dick extension."

"Collections\Hearts in Atlantis\Blind Willie.txt" 318 943:I'm blind, I'm blind, I'm blind! That's what Willie Shearman was screaming as he toted Sullivan, and it's true that much of the world was blast-white, but he still remembers seeing bullets twitch through leaves and thud into the trunks of trees; remembers seeing one of the men who had been in the 'ville earlier that day clap his hand to his throat. He remembers seeing the blood come bursting through that man's fingers in a flood, drenching his uniform. One of the other men from Delta Company two-two-Pagano, his name had been-grabbed this fellow around the middle and hustled him past the staggering Willie Shearman, who really couldn't see very much. Screaming I'm blind I'm blind I'm blind and smelling Sullivan's blood, the stink of it. And in the copter that whiteness had started to come on strong. His face was burned, his hair was burned, his scalp was burned, the world was white. He was scorched and SMOKING, just one more escapee from hell's half acre. He had believed he would never see again, and that had actually been a relief. But of course he had.

"Collections\Hearts in Atlantis\Blind Willie.txt" 715 282:He flips away from it, toward the back of the book, where he's put the pictures and clippings of Carol Gerber he has collected over the years: Carol with her mother, Carol holding her brand-new baby brother and smiling nervously, Carol and her father (him in Navy dress blue and SMOKING a CIGARETTE, her looking up at him with big wonderstruck eyes), Carol on the j.v. cheering squad at Harwich High her freshman year, caught in midleap with one hand waving a pom-pom and the other holding down her pleated skirt, Carol and John Sullivan on tinfoil thrones at Harwich High in 1965, the year they were elected Snow Queen and Snow King at the Junior-Senior prom. They look like a couple on a wedding cake, Willie thinks this every time he looks at the old yellow newsprint. Her gown is strapless, her shoulders flawless. There is no sign that for a little while, once upon a time, the left one was hideously deformed, sticking up in a witchlike double hump. She had cried before that last hit, cried plenty, but mere crying hadn't been enough for Harry Doolin. That last time he had swung from the heels, and the smack of the bat hitting her had been like the sound of a mallet hitting a half-thawed roast, and then she had screamed, screamed so loud that Harry had fled without even looking back to see if Willie and Richie O'Meara were following him. Took to his heels, had old Harry Doolin, ran like a jackrabbit. But if he hadn't? Suppose that, instead of running, Harry had said Hold her, guys, I ain't listening to that, I'm going to shut her up, meaning to swing from the heels again, this time at her head? Would they have held her? Would they have held her for him even then?

"Collections\Hearts in Atlantis\Blind Willie.txt" 715 292:He flips away from it, toward the back of the book, where he's put the pictures and clippings of Carol Gerber he has collected over the years: Carol with her mother, Carol holding her brand-new baby brother and smiling nervously, Carol and her father (him in Navy dress blue and SMOKING a CIGARETTE, her looking up at him with big wonderstruck eyes), Carol on the j.v. cheering squad at Harwich High her freshman year, caught in midleap with one hand waving a pom-pom and the other holding down her pleated skirt, Carol and John Sullivan on tinfoil thrones at Harwich High in 1965, the year they were elected Snow Queen and Snow King at the Junior-Senior prom. They look like a couple on a wedding cake, Willie thinks this every time he looks at the old yellow newsprint. Her gown is strapless, her shoulders flawless. There is no sign that for a little while, once upon a time, the left one was hideously deformed, sticking up in a witchlike double hump. She had cried before that last hit, cried plenty, but mere crying hadn't been enough for Harry Doolin. That last time he had swung from the heels, and the smack of the bat hitting her had been like the sound of a mallet hitting a half-thawed roast, and then she had screamed, screamed so loud that Harry had fled without even looking back to see if Willie and Richie O'Meara were following him. Took to his heels, had old Harry Doolin, ran like a jackrabbit. But if he hadn't? Suppose that, instead of running, Harry had said Hold her, guys, I ain't listening to that, I'm going to shut her up, meaning to swing from the heels again, this time at her head? Would they have held her? Would they have held her for him even then?

"Collections\Hearts in Atlantis\Blind Willie.txt" 719 1005:Here's Carol Gerber in her graduation gown; Spring 1966, it's marked. On the next page is a news clipping from the Harwich Journal marked Fall 1966. The accompanying picture is her again, but this version of Carol seems a million years removed from the young lady in the graduation gown, the young lady with the diploma in her hand, the white pumps on her feet, and her eyes demurely downcast. This girl is fiery and smiling, these eyes look straight into the camera. She seems unaware of the blood coursing down her left cheek. She is flashing the peace sign. This girl is on her way to Danbury already, this girl has got her Danbury dancing shoes on. People died in Danbury, the guts flew, baby, and Willie does not doubt that he is partly responsible. He touches the fiery smiling bleeding girl with her sign that says STOP THE MURDER (only instead of stopping it she became a part of it) and knows that in the end her face is the only one that matters, her face is the spirit of the age. 1960 is SMOKE; here is fire. Here is Death with blood on her cheek and a smile on her lips and a sign in her hand. Here is that good old Danbury dementia.

"Collections\Hearts in Atlantis\Hearts in Atlantis.txt" 1000 185:"What's that supposed to mean?" As if I didn't know. Through the glass of the phone-booth and that of the lounge, I could see most of my floor-mates playing cards in a fume of CIGARETTE SMOKE. And even in here with the door closed I could hear Ronnie Malenfant's high-pitched cackle. We're chasing The Bitch, boys, we are cherchez-ing la cunt noire, and we're going to have her out of the bushes.

"Collections\Hearts in Atlantis\Hearts in Atlantis.txt" 1000 195:"What's that supposed to mean?" As if I didn't know. Through the glass of the phone-booth and that of the lounge, I could see most of my floor-mates playing cards in a fume of CIGARETTE SMOKE. And even in here with the door closed I could hear Ronnie Malenfant's high-pitched cackle. We're chasing The Bitch, boys, we are cherchez-ing la cunt noire, and we're going to have her out of the bushes.

"Collections\Hearts in Atlantis\Hearts in Atlantis.txt" 1048 599:She laughed. The sound had none of the brightness I had heard in her earlier giggle, but I thought even a rueful laugh was better than none at all. "I won't have to. He'll find it. That's just the way he is. But I had to go, Pete. And I'll probably join the Committee of Resistance even though George Gilman always looks like a little kid who just got caught eating boogers and Harry Swidrowski has the world's worst breath. Because it's . . . the thing of it is . . . you see . . ." She blew a frustrated I-can't-explain sigh into my ear. "Listen, you know where we go out for SMOKE-breaks?"

"Collections\Hearts in Atlantis\Hearts in Atlantis.txt" 1060 106:I hung up the phone and stepped out of the booth. Ashley Rice was standing in the doorway of the lounge, SMOKING and doing a little shuffle-step. I deduced that he was between games. His face was too pale, the black stubble on his cheeks standing out like pencil-marks, and his shirt had gone beyond simply soiled; it looked lived-in. He had a wide-eyed Danger High Voltage look that I later came to associate with heavy cocaine users. And that's what the game really was; a kind of drug. Not the kind that mellowed you out, either.

"Collections\Hearts in Atlantis\Hearts in Atlantis.txt" 1077 181:Carol was already at Holyoke when I got there. She had brought a couple of milk-boxes from the area where the Dumpsters were lined up and was sitting on one of them, legs crossed, SMOKING a CIGARETTE. I sat down on the other one, put my arm around her, and kissed her. She put her head on my shoulder for a moment, not saying anything. This wasn't much like her, but it was nice. I kept my arm around her and looked up at the stars. The night was mild for so late in the season, and lots of people-couples, mostly-were out walking, taking advantage of the weather. I could hear their murmured conversations. From above us, in the Commons dining room, a radio was playing "Hang On, Sloopy." One of the janitors, I suppose.

"Collections\Hearts in Atlantis\Hearts in Atlantis.txt" 1077 191:Carol was already at Holyoke when I got there. She had brought a couple of milk-boxes from the area where the Dumpsters were lined up and was sitting on one of them, legs crossed, SMOKING a CIGARETTE. I sat down on the other one, put my arm around her, and kissed her. She put her head on my shoulder for a moment, not saying anything. This wasn't much like her, but it was nice. I kept my arm around her and looked up at the stars. The night was mild for so late in the season, and lots of people-couples, mostly-were out walking, taking advantage of the weather. I could hear their murmured conversations. From above us, in the Commons dining room, a radio was playing "Hang On, Sloopy." One of the janitors, I suppose.

"Collections\Hearts in Atlantis\Hearts in Atlantis.txt" 1089 17:She flicked her CIGARETTE away and we watched it fountain sparks when it struck the bricks of Bennett's Walk. Then she took her little clutch purse out of her lap, opened it, found her wallet, opened that, and thumbed through a selection of snapshots stuck in those small celluloid windows. She stopped, slipped one out, and handed it to me. I leaned forward so I could see it by the light falling through the dining-hall windows, where the janitors were probably doing the floors.

"Collections\Hearts in Atlantis\Hearts in Atlantis.txt" 1235 206:"Nope. What would be the use? For that matter, what would I tell him? That for me it's all about Bobby Garfield? That all the stuff Harry Swidrowski and George Gilman and Hunter McPhail say seems like SMOKE and mirrors compared to Bobby carrying me up Broad Street Hill? Sully would think I was crazy. Or say it's because I'm too smart. Sully feels sorry for people who are too smart. He says being too smart is a disease. And maybe he's right. I kind of love him, you know. He's sweet. He's also the kind of guy who needs someone to take care of him."

"Collections\Hearts in Atlantis\Hearts in Atlantis.txt" 1338 275:Carol had pulled the sides of her sweater together but her bra still hung over the back of the seat and she looked madly desirable with her breasts trying to tumble out through the gap and half an areola visible in the dim light. She had her purse open and was fumbling her CIGARETTES out with shaky hands.

"Collections\Hearts in Atlantis\Hearts in Atlantis.txt" 1350 38:I burst out laughing and took my own CIGARETTES off the dashboard. "That was always the third feature at the Gates Falls Drive-In on Friday and Saturday nights."

"Collections\Hearts in Atlantis\Hearts in Atlantis.txt" 1356 62:"I'm not coming back to school," she said, and lit her CIGARETTE. She spoke so calmly that at first I thought we were still talking about old movies, or midnight in Calcutta, or whatever it took to persuade our bodies that it was time to go back to sleep, the action was over. Then it clicked in my head.

"Collections\Hearts in Atlantis\Hearts in Atlantis.txt" 1364 36:She shook her head, drawing on her CIGARETTE. In the light of its coal her face was all orange highlights and crescents of gray shadow. She looked older. Still beautiful, but older. On the radio Paul Anka was singing "Diana." I snapped it off.

"Collections\Hearts in Atlantis\Hearts in Atlantis.txt" 1408 104:She looked at me with an expression I couldn't read, then cranked down her window and tossed out her CIGARETTE. She rolled the window back up and held out her arms to me. "Come here."

"Collections\Hearts in Atlantis\Hearts in Atlantis.txt" 1410 18:I put out my own CIGARETTE in the overflowing ashtray and slipped across to her side of the seat. Into her arms. She kissed me, then looked into my eyes. "Maybe you love me and maybe you don't. I'd never try to talk anyone out of loving me, I can tell you that much, because there's never enough loving to go around. But you're confused, Pete. About school, about Hearts, about Annmarie, and about me, too."

"Collections\Hearts in Atlantis\Hearts in Atlantis.txt" 1458 799:Jackie Wilson sang "Lonely Teardrops" and I went slow. Roy Orbison sang "Only the Lonely" and I went slow. Wanda Jackson sang "Let's Have a Party" and I went slow. Mighty John did an ad for Brannigan's, Derry's hottest bottle club, and I went slow. Then she began to moan and it wasn't her fingers on my neck but her nails digging into it, and when she began to move her hips up against me in short hard thrusts I couldn't go slow and then The Platters were on the radio, The Platters were singing "Twilight Time" and she began to moan that she hadn't known, hadn't had a clue, oh gee, oh Pete, oh gee, oh Jesus, Jesus Christ, Pete, and her lips were all over my mouth and my chin and my jaw, she was frantic with kisses. I could hear the seat creaking, I could smell CIGARETTE SMOKE and the pine air-freshener hanging from the rearview mirror, and by then I was moaning, too, I don't know what, The Platters were singing "Each day I pray for evening just to be with you," and then it started to happen. The pump turns on in ecstasy. I closed my eyes, I held her with my eyes closed and went into her that way, that way you do, shaking all over, hearing the heel of my shoe drumming against the driver's-side door in a spastic tattoo, thinking that I could do this even if I was dying, even if I was dying, even if I was dying; thinking also that it was information. The pump turns on in ecstasy, the cards fall where they fall, the world never misses a beat, the queen hides, the queen is found, and it was all information.

"Collections\Hearts in Atlantis\Hearts in Atlantis.txt" 1458 809:Jackie Wilson sang "Lonely Teardrops" and I went slow. Roy Orbison sang "Only the Lonely" and I went slow. Wanda Jackson sang "Let's Have a Party" and I went slow. Mighty John did an ad for Brannigan's, Derry's hottest bottle club, and I went slow. Then she began to moan and it wasn't her fingers on my neck but her nails digging into it, and when she began to move her hips up against me in short hard thrusts I couldn't go slow and then The Platters were on the radio, The Platters were singing "Twilight Time" and she began to moan that she hadn't known, hadn't had a clue, oh gee, oh Pete, oh gee, oh Jesus, Jesus Christ, Pete, and her lips were all over my mouth and my chin and my jaw, she was frantic with kisses. I could hear the seat creaking, I could smell CIGARETTE SMOKE and the pine air-freshener hanging from the rearview mirror, and by then I was moaning, too, I don't know what, The Platters were singing "Each day I pray for evening just to be with you," and then it started to happen. The pump turns on in ecstasy. I closed my eyes, I held her with my eyes closed and went into her that way, that way you do, shaking all over, hearing the heel of my shoe drumming against the driver's-side door in a spastic tattoo, thinking that I could do this even if I was dying, even if I was dying, even if I was dying; thinking also that it was information. The pump turns on in ecstasy, the cards fall where they fall, the world never misses a beat, the queen hides, the queen is found, and it was all information.

"Collections\Hearts in Atlantis\Hearts in Atlantis.txt" 1704 75:I felt equipped to wear the jacket, though, and I did. I spilled beer and CIGARETTE ashes on it, puked on it, bled on it, got teargassed in Chicago while wearing it and screaming "The whole world is watching!" at the top of my lungs. Girls cried on the entwined GF on the left breast (by my senior year those letters were dingy gray instead of white), and one girl lay on it while we made love. We did it with no protection, so probably there's a trace of semen on the quilted lining, too. By the time I packed up and left LSD Acres in 1970, the peace sign I drew on the back in my mother's kitchen was only a shadow. But the shadow remained. Others might not see it, but I always knew what it was.

"Collections\Hearts in Atlantis\Hearts in Atlantis.txt" 1717 81:I thanked her and hung up. I stood there a minute, fogging up the booth with my CIGARETTE SMOKE, then turned around. Across the hall I could see Skip sitting at one of the card-tables, just picking up a spilled trick.

"Collections\Hearts in Atlantis\Hearts in Atlantis.txt" 1717 91:I thanked her and hung up. I stood there a minute, fogging up the booth with my CIGARETTE SMOKE, then turned around. Across the hall I could see Skip sitting at one of the card-tables, just picking up a spilled trick.

"Collections\Hearts in Atlantis\Hearts in Atlantis.txt" 1721 35:I stood there in the phone-booth, SMOKING a Pall Mall and feeling sorry for myself. Then, from across the way, someone screamed: "Oh shit no! I don't fuckin BELIEVE IT!"

"Collections\Hearts in Atlantis\Hearts in Atlantis.txt" 1743 51:Pretty soon we were in the corner, all four of us SMOKING furiously and the cards flying. I remembered the desperate cramming I'd done over the holiday weekend; remembered my mother saying that boys who didn't work hard in school were dying these days. I remembered those things, but they seemed as distant as making love to Carol in my car while The Platters sang "Twilight Time."

"Collections\Hearts in Atlantis\Hearts in Atlantis.txt" 1769 298:Nate was deep in his closet, hanging up his clothes. Not only was he the only person I ever knew in college who wore pajamas, he was the only one who ever used the hangers. The only thing I myself had hung up was my high-school jacket. Now I took it out and began to rummage in the pockets for my CIGARETTES.

"Collections\Hearts in Atlantis\Hearts in Atlantis.txt" 1868 244:I wanted to say a lot of stuff about a lot of things . . . but then again I didn't. We went back inside, and by mid-afternoon the game was in full swing once more. There were five four-handed "sub-games" going on, the room was blue with SMOKE, and someone had dragged in a phonograph so we could listen to the Beatles and the Stones. Someone else produced a scratched-up Cameo forty-five of "96 Tears" and that spun for at least an hour non-stop: cry cry cry. The windows gave a good view on Bennett's Run and Bennett's Walk, and I kept looking out there, expecting to see David Dearborn and some of his khaki buddies staring at the north side of the dorm, perhaps discussing if they should go after Stoke Jones with their carbines or just chase him with their bayonets. Of course they wouldn't do anything of the sort. They might chant "Kill Cong! Go U.S.!" while drilling on the football field, but Stoke was a cripple. They would happily settle for seeing his commie-loving ass busted out of the University of Maine.

"Collections\Hearts in Atlantis\Hearts in Atlantis.txt" 1947 76:At first they were joking, she had said as we sat there on the milk-boxes, SMOKING our CIGARETTES. By then she was crying, her tears silver in the white light from the dining hall above us. At first they were joking and then . . . they weren't.

"Collections\Hearts in Atlantis\Hearts in Atlantis.txt" 1947 88:At first they were joking, she had said as we sat there on the milk-boxes, SMOKING our CIGARETTES. By then she was crying, her tears silver in the white light from the dining hall above us. At first they were joking and then . . . they weren't.

"Collections\Hearts in Atlantis\Hearts in Atlantis.txt" 1953 488:The lounge looked like a lunatic asylum where the inmates had all come down with food-poisoning at the same time. We staggered aimlessly about, laughing and clutching at our throats, our eyes spouting tears. I was hanging onto Skip because my legs would no longer support me; my knees felt like noodles. I was laughing harder than I ever had in my life, harder than I ever have since, I think, and still I kept thinking about Carol sitting there on the milk-box beside me, legs crossed, CIGARETTE in one hand, snapshot in the other, Carol saying Harry Doolin hit me . . . Willie and the other one held me so I couldn't run away . . . at first they were joking, I think, and then . . . they weren't.

"Collections\Hearts in Atlantis\Hearts in Atlantis.txt" 2049 506:The waiting room was empty, the television in the corner showing an old episode of Bonanza to no one at all. In those days they hadn't really found the handle on color TV yet, and Pa Cartwright's face was the color of a fresh avocado. We must have sounded like a herd of hippopotami just out of the watering-hole, and the duty-nurse came on the run. Following her was a candystriper (probably a work-study kid like me) and a little guy in a white coat. He had a stethoscope hung around his neck and a CIGARETTE poked in the corner of his mouth. In Atlantis even the doctors SMOKED.

"Collections\Hearts in Atlantis\Hearts in Atlantis.txt" 2049 579:The waiting room was empty, the television in the corner showing an old episode of Bonanza to no one at all. In those days they hadn't really found the handle on color TV yet, and Pa Cartwright's face was the color of a fresh avocado. We must have sounded like a herd of hippopotami just out of the watering-hole, and the duty-nurse came on the run. Following her was a candystriper (probably a work-study kid like me) and a little guy in a white coat. He had a stethoscope hung around his neck and a CIGARETTE poked in the corner of his mouth. In Atlantis even the doctors SMOKED.

"Collections\Hearts in Atlantis\Hearts in Atlantis.txt" 2079 53:"Out," the doctor told Skip. He had ditched the CIGARETTE somewhere. He looked around at us, a gaggle of perhaps a dozen boys, most still grinning, all dripping on the hall's tile floor. "Does anyone know the nature of his disability? It can make a difference in how we treat him."

"Collections\Hearts in Atlantis\Hearts in Atlantis.txt" 2247 56:After we had settled in the chairs and those of us who SMOKED had lit up, Dearie looked first over his shoulder at Garretsen, then at Ebersole. Ebersole gave him a little smile. "Go ahead, David. Please. They're your boys."

"Collections\Hearts in Atlantis\Hearts in Atlantis.txt" 2515 188:I never told my mom, but I actually hired two tutors with her three hundred, one a grad student who helped me with the mysteries of tectonic plates and continental drift, the other a pot-SMOKING senior from King Hall who helped Skip with his anthropology (and might have written a paper or two for him, although I don't know that for sure). This second fellow's name was Harvey Brundage, and he was the first person to ever say "Wow, man, bummer!" in my presence.

"Collections\Hearts in Atlantis\Hearts in Atlantis.txt" 2519 421:We did it, loathing every minute of the process; one of the factors that made us powerful friends in those years was being raised with the same Yankee ideas, one of which was that you didn't ask for help unless you absolutely had to, and maybe not even then. The only thing that got us through that embarrassing round of calls was the buddy system. When Skip was in with his teachers I waited for him out in the hall, SMOKING one CIGARETTE after another. When it was my turn, he waited for me.

"Collections\Hearts in Atlantis\Hearts in Atlantis.txt" 2519 433:We did it, loathing every minute of the process; one of the factors that made us powerful friends in those years was being raised with the same Yankee ideas, one of which was that you didn't ask for help unless you absolutely had to, and maybe not even then. The only thing that got us through that embarrassing round of calls was the buddy system. When Skip was in with his teachers I waited for him out in the hall, SMOKING one CIGARETTE after another. When it was my turn, he waited for me.

"Collections\Hearts in Atlantis\Hearts in Atlantis.txt" 2587 204:I ended up in a holding cell meant for fifteen prisoners-twenty, max-with about sixty gassed-out, punched-out, drugged-out, beat-up, messed-up, worked-over, fucked-over, blood-all-over hippies, some SMOKING joints, some crying, some puking, some singing protest songs (from far over in the corner, issuing from some guy I never even saw, came a stoned-out version of "I'm Not Marchin' Anymore"). It was like some weird penal version of telephone-booth cramming.

"Collections\Hearts in Atlantis\Hearts in Atlantis.txt" 2626 14:"You still SMOKING?"

"Collections\Hearts in Atlantis\Hearts in Atlantis.txt" 512 109:When I turned around, I saw Carol Gerber and a couple of other kids standing by the corner of the building, SMOKING and watching the moon rise. The other two started away just as I walked over, pulling my Pall Malls out of my jacket pocket.

"Collections\Hearts in Atlantis\Hearts in Atlantis.txt" 516 22:"Yeah." I lit my CIGARETTE. Then, without thinking about it much one way or the other, I said: "There's a couple of Bogart movies playing at Hauck tonight. They start at seven. We've got time to walk over. Want to go?"

"Collections\Hearts in Atlantis\Hearts in Atlantis.txt" 518 5:She SMOKED, not answering me for a moment, but she was still smiling and I knew she was going to say yes. Earlier, all I'd wanted was to get back to the third-floor lounge and play Hearts. Now that I was away from the game, however, the game seemed a lot less important. Had I been hot enough to say something about beating the snot out of Ronnie Malenfant? It seemed I had-the memory was clear enough-but standing out here in the cool air with Carol, it was hard for me to understand why.

"Collections\Hearts in Atlantis\Hearts in Atlantis.txt" 524 54:She shook her head, still with the little smile. The SMOKE from her CIGARETTE drifted across her face. Her hair, free of the net the girls had to wear on the dishline, blew lightly across her brow. "That's information. Remember that show The Prisoner? 'Number Six, we want . . . information.' "

"Collections\Hearts in Atlantis\Hearts in Atlantis.txt" 524 69:She shook her head, still with the little smile. The SMOKE from her CIGARETTE drifted across her face. Her hair, free of the net the girls had to wear on the dishline, blew lightly across her brow. "That's information. Remember that show The Prisoner? 'Number Six, we want . . . information.' "

"Collections\Hearts in Atlantis\Hearts in Atlantis.txt" 552 153:"That's the game, all right," I said, knowing that for a moment I wasn't there for her at all. Then she came back, gave me a grin, and took her CIGARETTES out of her jeans pocket. We SMOKED a lot back then. All of us. Back then you could SMOKE in hospital waiting rooms. I told my daughter that and at first she didn't believe me.

"Collections\Hearts in Atlantis\Hearts in Atlantis.txt" 552 192:"That's the game, all right," I said, knowing that for a moment I wasn't there for her at all. Then she came back, gave me a grin, and took her CIGARETTES out of her jeans pocket. We SMOKED a lot back then. All of us. Back then you could SMOKE in hospital waiting rooms. I told my daughter that and at first she didn't believe me.

"Collections\Hearts in Atlantis\Hearts in Atlantis.txt" 552 247:"That's the game, all right," I said, knowing that for a moment I wasn't there for her at all. Then she came back, gave me a grin, and took her CIGARETTES out of her jeans pocket. We SMOKED a lot back then. All of us. Back then you could SMOKE in hospital waiting rooms. I told my daughter that and at first she didn't believe me.

"Collections\Hearts in Atlantis\Hearts in Atlantis.txt" 554 19:I took out my own CIGARETTES and lit us both. It was a good moment, the two of us looking at each other in the Zippo's flame. Not as sweet as a kiss, but nice. I felt that lightness inside me again, that sense of lifting off. Sometimes your view widens and grows hopeful. Sometimes you think you can see around corners, and maybe you can. Those are good moments. I snapped my lighter shut and we walked on, SMOKING, the backs of our hands close but not quite brushing.

"Collections\Hearts in Atlantis\Hearts in Atlantis.txt" 554 410:I took out my own CIGARETTES and lit us both. It was a good moment, the two of us looking at each other in the Zippo's flame. Not as sweet as a kiss, but nice. I felt that lightness inside me again, that sense of lifting off. Sometimes your view widens and grows hopeful. Sometimes you think you can see around corners, and maybe you can. Those are good moments. I snapped my lighter shut and we walked on, SMOKING, the backs of our hands close but not quite brushing.

"Collections\Hearts in Atlantis\Hearts in Atlantis.txt" 639 168:"Eat more Maine beans," I said. That made her laugh. She went inside. I watched her go, standing outside with my collar turned up and my hands in my pockets and a CIGARETTE between my lips, feeling like Bogie. I watched her say something to the girl on the reception desk and then hurry upstairs, still laughing.

"Collections\Hearts in Atlantis\Hearts in Atlantis.txt" 64 731:He and I lived in Room 302, next to the stairwell, across from the Proctor's Suite (lair of the hideous Dearie) and all the way down the hall from the lounge with its card-tables, stand-up ashtrays, and its view of the Palace on the Plains. Our pairing suggested-to me, at least-that everyone's most macabre musings about the University Housing Office might well be true. On the questionnaire which I had returned to Housing in April of '66 (when my biggest concern was deciding where I should take Annmarie Soucie to eat after the Senior Prom), I had said that I was A. a smoker; B. a Young Republican; C. an aspiring folk guitarist; D. a night owl. In its dubious wisdom, the Housing Office paired me with Nate, a non-SMOKING dentist-in-progress whose folks were Aroostook County Democrats (the fact that Lyndon Johnson was a Democrat made Nate feel no better about U.S. soldiers running around South Vietnam). I had a poster of Humphrey Bogart above my bed; above his, Nate hung photos of his dog and his girl. The girl was a sallow creature dressed in a Wisdom High majorette's uniform and clutching a baton like a cudgel. She was Cindy. The dog was Rinty. Both the girl and the dog were sporting identical grins. It was fucking surreal.

"Collections\Hearts in Atlantis\Hearts in Atlantis.txt" 693 152:In San Diego, Bob Hope did a show for Army boys headed in-country. "I wanted to call Bing and send him along with you," Bob said, "but that pipe-SMOKING son of a gun has unlisted his number." The Army boys roared with laughter.

"Collections\Hearts in Atlantis\Hearts in Atlantis.txt" 715 78:About halfway through the Saturday-night dance, she and I had gone out for a SMOKE. It was a mild night, and along Lengyll's brick north side maybe twenty couples were hugging and kissing by the light of the moon rising over Chadbourne Hall. Carol and I joined them. Before long I had my hand inside her sweater. I rubbed my thumb over the smooth cotton of her bra-cup, feeling the stiff little rise of her nipple. My temperature was also rising. I could feel hers rising, as well. She looked into my face with her arms still locked around my neck and said, "If you really want to put your hand there, I think you owe somebody a phone-call, don't you?"

"Collections\Hearts in Atlantis\Hearts in Atlantis.txt" 732 598:Ashley Rice broke out in horrible oozing acne all over his face, Mark St. Pierre had a sleepwalking interlude after losing almost twenty bucks in one catastrophic night, and Brad Witherspoon got into a fight with a guy on the first floor. The guy made some innocuous little crack-later on Brad himself admitted it had been innocuous-but Brad, who'd just been hit with The Bitch three times in four hands and only wanted a Coke out of the first-floor machine to soothe his butt-parched throat, wasn't in an innocuous mood. He turned, dropped his unopened soda into the sandwell of a nearby CIGARETTE urn, and started punching. Broke the kid's glasses, loosened one of his teeth. So Brad Witherspoon, ordinarily about as dangerous as a library mimeograph, was the first of us to go on disciplinary pro.

"Collections\Hearts in Atlantis\Hearts in Atlantis.txt" 76 31:I was sitting at my own desk, SMOKING a Pall Mall and looking for my meal ticket. I was always losing the fucking thing.

"Collections\Hearts in Atlantis\Hearts in Atlantis.txt" 831 536:Barry Margeaux and Brad Witherspoon both got the Derry News delivered to their rooms, and the two copies had usually made the rounds of the third floor by the end of the day-we'd find the remnants in the lounge when we took our seats for the evening session of Hearts, the pages torn and out of order, the crossword filled in by three or four different hands. There would be mustaches inked on the photodot faces of Lyndon Johnson and Ramsey Clark and Martin Luther King (someone, I never found out who, would invariably put large SMOKING horns on Vice President Humphrey and print HUBERT THE DEVIL underneath in tiny anal capital letters). The News was hawkish on the war, putting the most positive spin on each day's military events and relegating any protest news to the depths . . . usually beneath the Community Calendar.

"Collections\Hearts in Atlantis\Hearts in Atlantis.txt" 833 360:Yet more and more we found ourselves discussing not movies or dates or classes as the cards were shuffled and dealt; more and more it was Vietnam. No matter how good the news or how high the Cong body count, there always seemed to be at least one picture of agonized U.S. soldiers after an ambush or crying Vietnamese children watching their village go up in SMOKE. There was always some unsettling detail tucked away near the bottom of what Skip called "the daily kill-column," like the thing about the kids who got wasted when we hit the Cong PT boats in the Delta.

"Collections\Hearts in Atlantis\Hearts in Atlantis.txt" 841 77:"Riley, your roommate's fucked, you know that?" Ronnie said. He had a CIGARETTE tucked in the corner of his mouth. Now he scratched a match one-handed, a specialty of his-college guys too ugly and abrasive to get girls have all sorts of specialties-and lit up.

"Collections\Hearts in Atlantis\Low Men in Yellow Coats.txt" 1043 162:The next morning he sat on the front porch and read several pieces aloud from the Harwich Sunday Journal. Ted perched on the porch glider, listening quietly and SMOKING Chesterfields. Behind him and to his left, the curtains flapped in and out of the open windows of the Garfield front room. Bobby imagined his mom sitting in the chair where the light was best, sewing basket beside her, listening and hemming skirts (hemlines were going down again, she'd told him a week or two before; take them up one year, pick out the stitches the following spring and lower them again, all because a bunch of poofers in New York and London said to, and why she bothered she didn't know). Bobby had no idea if she really was there or not, the open windows and blowing curtains meant nothing by themselves, but he imagined it all the same. When he was a little older it would occur to him that he had always imagined her there-outside doors, in that part of the bleachers where the shadows were too thick to see properly, in the dark at the top of the stairs, he had always imagined she was there.

"Collections\Hearts in Atlantis\Low Men in Yellow Coats.txt" 1047 498:That was still part of his job, though, crazy or not, and he began doing it that Sunday afternoon. Bobby walked around the block while his mom was napping, looking for either low men in yellow coats or signs of them. He saw a number of interesting things-over on Colony Street a woman arguing with her husband about something, the two of them standing nose-to-nose like Gorgeous George and Haystacks Calhoun before the start of a rassling match; a little kid on Asher Avenue bashing caps with a SMOKE-blackened rock; liplocked teenagers outside of Spicer's Variety Store on the corner of Commonwealth and Broad; a panel truck with the interesting slogan YUMMY FOR THE TUMMY written on the side-but he saw no yellow coats or lost-pet announcements on phone poles; not a single kite tail hung from a single telephone wire.

"Collections\Hearts in Atlantis\Low Men in Yellow Coats.txt" 1117 107:He might have noticed more and worried even more than he did-she was getting thin and had picked up the CIGARETTE habit again after almost stopping for two years-if he hadn't had lots of stuff to occupy his own mind and time. The best thing was the adult library card, which seemed like a better gift, a more inspired gift, each time he used it. Bobby felt there were a billion science-fiction novels alone in the adult section that he wanted to read. Take Isaac Asimov, for instance. Under the name of Paul French, Mr. Asimov wrote science-fiction novels for kids about a space pilot named Lucky Starr, and they were pretty good. Under his own name he had written other novels, even better ones. At least three of them were about robots. Bobby loved robots. Robby the Robot in Forbidden Planet was one of the all-time great movie characters, in his opinion, totally ripshit, and Mr. Asimov's were almost as good. Bobby thought he would be spending a lot of time with them in the summer ahead. (Sully called this great writer Isaac Ass-Move, but of course Sully was almost totally ignorant about books.)

"Collections\Hearts in Atlantis\Low Men in Yellow Coats.txt" 1125 172:"Never mind," she said. "He's fine, I guess. Got his head in the clouds, no question about it, but he doesn't seem like a . . ." She trailed off, watching the SMOKE from her Kool CIGARETTE rise in the living-room air. It went up from the coal in a pale gray ribbon and then disappeared, making Bobby think of the way the characters in Mr. Simak's Ring Around the Sun followed the spiraling top into other worlds.

"Collections\Hearts in Atlantis\Low Men in Yellow Coats.txt" 1125 192:"Never mind," she said. "He's fine, I guess. Got his head in the clouds, no question about it, but he doesn't seem like a . . ." She trailed off, watching the SMOKE from her Kool CIGARETTE rise in the living-room air. It went up from the coal in a pale gray ribbon and then disappeared, making Bobby think of the way the characters in Mr. Simak's Ring Around the Sun followed the spiraling top into other worlds.

"Collections\Hearts in Atlantis\Low Men in Yellow Coats.txt" 1141 189:Ted dropped to one knee (he was too old to just hunker, Bobby guessed) and took hold of Bobby's shoulders. He drew Bobby forward until their brows were almost bumping. Bobby could smell CIGARETTES on Ted's breath and ointment on his skin-he rubbed his joints with Musterole because they ached. These days they ached even in warm weather, he said.

"Collections\Hearts in Atlantis\Low Men in Yellow Coats.txt" 1183 386:He got to his feet and looked around, half-expecting to see a whole line of long, overbright cars coming down Asher Avenue, rolling slow the way cars did when they were following a hearse to the graveyard, with their headlights on in the middle of the day. Half-expecting to see men in yellow coats standing beneath the marquee of the Asher Empire or out in front of Sukey's Tavern, SMOKING Camels and watching him.

"Collections\Hearts in Atlantis\Low Men in Yellow Coats.txt" 1218 3:A CIGARETTE was burning in the ashtray, except it was now nothing but stub and ash. Looking at it, Bobby realized Ted must have been out for almost the entire article on Mantle. And that thing his eyes were doing, the pupils swelling and contracting, swelling and contracting . . .

"Collections\Hearts in Atlantis\Low Men in Yellow Coats.txt" 1258 51:"Nothing to concern you." Ted reached for his CIGARETTE and seemed surprised to see only a tiny smoldering scrap left in the groove where he had set it. He brushed it into the ashtray with his knuckle. "I went off again, didn't I?"

"Collections\Hearts in Atlantis\Low Men in Yellow Coats.txt" 1266 17:Ted lit a fresh CIGARETTE. "Just because. Will you promise?"

"Collections\Hearts in Atlantis\Low Men in Yellow Coats.txt" 1290 45:Ted looked at him through a scurf of rising CIGARETTE SMOKE, his blue eyes steady. "Yes," he said, "and with luck they'll stay west. Seattle would be fine with me. Have a good time at the seaside, Bobby."

"Collections\Hearts in Atlantis\Low Men in Yellow Coats.txt" 1290 55:Ted looked at him through a scurf of rising CIGARETTE SMOKE, his blue eyes steady. "Yes," he said, "and with luck they'll stay west. Seattle would be fine with me. Have a good time at the seaside, Bobby."

"Collections\Hearts in Atlantis\Low Men in Yellow Coats.txt" 1314 100:She lit a Kool, striking the match so hard it made a snapping sound, and looked at him through the SMOKE with her eyes narrowed. "You're earning your own money now, Bob. Most people pay three cents for the paper and you get paid for reading it. A dollar a week! My God! When I was a girl-"

"Collections\Hearts in Atlantis\Low Men in Yellow Coats.txt" 1318 189:She had turned to the mirror, frowning and fussing at the shoulders of her blouse-Mr. Biderman had asked her to come in for a few hours even though it was Saturday. Now she turned back, CIGARETTE still clamped between her lips, and bent her frown on him.

"Collections\Hearts in Atlantis\Low Men in Yellow Coats.txt" 1334 85:His mother snatched her purse off the table by the end of the couch, butted out her CIGARETTE hard enough to split the filter, then turned and looked at him. "If I said to you, 'Gee, we can't eat this week because I saw a pair of shoes at Hunsicker's that I just had to have,' what would you think?"

"Collections\Hearts in Atlantis\Low Men in Yellow Coats.txt" 1348 1017:"-or the Indian Railroad. But of course if we were the Gotrocks, you wouldn't need to save for a bike in the first place, would you?" Her voice rising, rising. Whatever had been troubling her over the last few months threatening to come rushing out, foaming like sodapop and biting like acid. "I don't know if you ever noticed this, but your father didn't exactly leave us well off, and I'm doing the best I can. I feed you, I put clothes on your back, I paid for you to go to Sterling House this summer and play baseball while I push paper in that hot office. You got invited to go to the beach with the other kids, I'm very happy for you, but how you finance your day off is your business. If you want to ride the rides, take some of the money you've got in that jar and ride them. If you don't, just play on the beach or stay home. Makes no difference to me. I just want you to stop whining. I hate it when you whine. It's like . . ." She stopped, sighed, opened her purse, took out her CIGARETTES. "I hate it when you whine," she repeated.

"Collections\Hearts in Atlantis\Low Men in Yellow Coats.txt" 1358 185:Bobby looked at his sneakers and said nothing. Kept all the blubbering and all the angry words locked in his throat and said nothing. Silence spun out between them. He could smell her CIGARETTE and all of last night's CIGARETTES behind this one, and those SMOKED on all the other nights when she didn't so much look at the TV as through it, waiting for the phone to ring.

"Collections\Hearts in Atlantis\Low Men in Yellow Coats.txt" 1358 221:Bobby looked at his sneakers and said nothing. Kept all the blubbering and all the angry words locked in his throat and said nothing. Silence spun out between them. He could smell her CIGARETTE and all of last night's CIGARETTES behind this one, and those SMOKED on all the other nights when she didn't so much look at the TV as through it, waiting for the phone to ring.

"Collections\Hearts in Atlantis\Low Men in Yellow Coats.txt" 1358 259:Bobby looked at his sneakers and said nothing. Kept all the blubbering and all the angry words locked in his throat and said nothing. Silence spun out between them. He could smell her CIGARETTE and all of last night's CIGARETTES behind this one, and those SMOKED on all the other nights when she didn't so much look at the TV as through it, waiting for the phone to ring.

"Collections\Hearts in Atlantis\Low Men in Yellow Coats.txt" 1861 101:"Keep it to yourself," his mom said. They were sitting at Ted's kitchen table, the two adults SMOKING, Bobby with a rootbeer in front of him.

"Collections\Hearts in Atlantis\Low Men in Yellow Coats.txt" 1873 138:"If you're going to have beans and franks, it might be wise to bring that down," his mom said, and pointed the fingers holding her CIGARETTE at Ted's fan.

"Collections\Hearts in Atlantis\Low Men in Yellow Coats.txt" 1875 81:Ted and Bobby laughed. Liz Garfield smiled her cynical half-smile, finished her CIGARETTE, and put it out in Ted's ashtray. When she did, Bobby again noticed the puffiness of her eyelids.

"Collections\Hearts in Atlantis\Low Men in Yellow Coats.txt" 1891 4:"SMOKING?" he asked with a frown. "Hell, Bobby, you're too young to SMOKE."

"Collections\Hearts in Atlantis\Low Men in Yellow Coats.txt" 1891 77:"SMOKING?" he asked with a frown. "Hell, Bobby, you're too young to SMOKE."

"Collections\Hearts in Atlantis\Low Men in Yellow Coats.txt" 1919 130:"Fine!" She spied the CIGARETTE, grabbed it, SMOKED furiously. She exhaled with such force that Bobby almost expected to see SMOKE come from her ears as well as her nose and mouth. "I'd be finer if I could find a cocktail dress that didn't make me look like Elsie the Cow. Once I was a size six, do you know that? Before I married your father I was a size six. Now look at me! Elsie the Cow! Moby-damn-Dick!"

"Collections\Hearts in Atlantis\Low Men in Yellow Coats.txt" 1919 27:"Fine!" She spied the CIGARETTE, grabbed it, SMOKED furiously. She exhaled with such force that Bobby almost expected to see SMOKE come from her ears as well as her nose and mouth. "I'd be finer if I could find a cocktail dress that didn't make me look like Elsie the Cow. Once I was a size six, do you know that? Before I married your father I was a size six. Now look at me! Elsie the Cow! Moby-damn-Dick!"

"Collections\Hearts in Atlantis\Low Men in Yellow Coats.txt" 1919 50:"Fine!" She spied the CIGARETTE, grabbed it, SMOKED furiously. She exhaled with such force that Bobby almost expected to see SMOKE come from her ears as well as her nose and mouth. "I'd be finer if I could find a cocktail dress that didn't make me look like Elsie the Cow. Once I was a size six, do you know that? Before I married your father I was a size six. Now look at me! Elsie the Cow! Moby-damn-Dick!"

"Collections\Hearts in Atlantis\Low Men in Yellow Coats.txt" 193 219:Bobby looked up, even more startled than he'd been when Carol Gerber raced out from behind the tree to put a birthday smackeroo on his cheek. It was the new man in the house. He was sitting on the top porch step and SMOKING a CIGARETTE. He had exchanged his old scuffed shoes for a pair of old scuffed slippers and had taken off his poplin jacket-the evening was warm. He looked at home, Bobby thought.

"Collections\Hearts in Atlantis\Low Men in Yellow Coats.txt" 193 229:Bobby looked up, even more startled than he'd been when Carol Gerber raced out from behind the tree to put a birthday smackeroo on his cheek. It was the new man in the house. He was sitting on the top porch step and SMOKING a CIGARETTE. He had exchanged his old scuffed shoes for a pair of old scuffed slippers and had taken off his poplin jacket-the evening was warm. He looked at home, Bobby thought.

"Collections\Hearts in Atlantis\Low Men in Yellow Coats.txt" 1953 142:"Waste not, want not," Liz said-it was another of her favorites, right up there with the fool and his money soon parted. She plucked a CIGARETTE out of the pack on the table beside the sofa and lit it with a hand which was not quite steady. "You boys will be fine. Probably have a better time than I will."

"Collections\Hearts in Atlantis\Low Men in Yellow Coats.txt" 1961 103:"You don't have to wait out here with me, you know," Liz said. She was wearing a light coat and SMOKING a CIGARETTE. She had on a little more makeup than usual, but Bobby thought he could still detect shadows under her eyes-she had passed another restless night.

"Collections\Hearts in Atlantis\Low Men in Yellow Coats.txt" 1961 113:"You don't have to wait out here with me, you know," Liz said. She was wearing a light coat and SMOKING a CIGARETTE. She had on a little more makeup than usual, but Bobby thought he could still detect shadows under her eyes-she had passed another restless night.

"Collections\Hearts in Atlantis\Low Men in Yellow Coats.txt" 2023 104:A hand fell on his shoulder. He looked around and saw Ted standing there in his bathrobe and slippers, SMOKING a CIGARETTE. His hair, which had yet to make its morning acquaintance with the brush, stood up around his ears in comical sprays of white.

"Collections\Hearts in Atlantis\Low Men in Yellow Coats.txt" 2023 114:A hand fell on his shoulder. He looked around and saw Ted standing there in his bathrobe and slippers, SMOKING a CIGARETTE. His hair, which had yet to make its morning acquaintance with the brush, stood up around his ears in comical sprays of white.

"Collections\Hearts in Atlantis\Low Men in Yellow Coats.txt" 2225 415:Straight ahead was a big room filled with Gottlieb pinball machines: a billion red and orange lights stuttered stomachache colors off a large sign which read IF YOU TILT THE SAME MACHINE TWICE YOU WILL BE ASKED TO LEAVE. A young man wearing another stingybrim hat-apparently the approved headgear for the bad motorscooters residing down there-was bent over Frontier Patrol, working the flippers frantically. A CIGARETTE hung off his lower lip, the SMOKE rising past his face and the whorls of his combed-back hair. He was wearing a jacket tied around his waist and turned inside-out.

"Collections\Hearts in Atlantis\Low Men in Yellow Coats.txt" 2225 453:Straight ahead was a big room filled with Gottlieb pinball machines: a billion red and orange lights stuttered stomachache colors off a large sign which read IF YOU TILT THE SAME MACHINE TWICE YOU WILL BE ASKED TO LEAVE. A young man wearing another stingybrim hat-apparently the approved headgear for the bad motorscooters residing down there-was bent over Frontier Patrol, working the flippers frantically. A CIGARETTE hung off his lower lip, the SMOKE rising past his face and the whorls of his combed-back hair. He was wearing a jacket tied around his waist and turned inside-out.

"Collections\Hearts in Atlantis\Low Men in Yellow Coats.txt" 223 94:"Ben Jonson called time the old bald cheater," Ted Brautigan said, drawing deeply on his CIGARETTE and then exhaling twin streams through his nose. "And Boris Pasternak said we are time's captives, the hostages of eternity."

"Collections\Hearts in Atlantis\Low Men in Yellow Coats.txt" 2307 300:"Really, I'm not being sarcastic, you should take one." She held out one of the keyrings. It had a green fob. "They're just cheap little things, but they're free. We give em away for the advertising. Like matches, you know, although I wouldn't give a pack of matches to a kid. Don't SMOKE, do you?"

"Collections\Hearts in Atlantis\Low Men in Yellow Coats.txt" 241 260:Bobby handed them over. Mr. Brautigan (Ted, he reminded himself, you're supposed to call him Ted) passed the Perry Mason back after a cursory glance at the title. The Clifford Simak novel he held longer, at first squinting at the cover through the curls of CIGARETTE SMOKE that rose past his eyes, then paging through it. He nodded as he did so.

"Collections\Hearts in Atlantis\Low Men in Yellow Coats.txt" 241 270:Bobby handed them over. Mr. Brautigan (Ted, he reminded himself, you're supposed to call him Ted) passed the Perry Mason back after a cursory glance at the title. The Clifford Simak novel he held longer, at first squinting at the cover through the curls of CIGARETTE SMOKE that rose past his eyes, then paging through it. He nodded as he did so.

"Collections\Hearts in Atlantis\Low Men in Yellow Coats.txt" 247 140:"One of his best," Mr. Brautigan-Ted-replied. He looked sideways at Bobby, one eye open, the other still squinted shut against the SMOKE. It gave him a look that was at once wise and mysterious, like a not-quite-trustworthy character in a detective movie. "But are you sure you can read this? You can't be much more than twelve."

"Collections\Hearts in Atlantis\Low Men in Yellow Coats.txt" 251 79:"Your birthday!" Ted said, looking impressed. He took a final drag on his CIGARETTE, then flicked it away. It hit the cement walk and fountained sparks. "Happy birthday dear Robert, happy birthday to you!"

"Collections\Hearts in Atlantis\Low Men in Yellow Coats.txt" 2517 102:Ted looked out the window, brow furrowed, lips drawn down tightly. At last he sighed, pulled out his CIGARETTES, and lit one. "Bobby," he said, "Mr. Biderman is not a nice man. Your mother knows it, but she also knows that sometimes we have to go along with people who are not nice. Go along to get along, she thinks, and she has done this. She's done things over the last year that she's not proud of, but she has been careful. In some ways she has needed to be as careful as I have, and whether I like her or not, I admire her for that."

"Collections\Hearts in Atlantis\Low Men in Yellow Coats.txt" 2529 649:"Yes indeed. The first time, anyway. I did it to know you a little. But friends don't spy; true friendship is about privacy, too. Besides, when I touch, I pass on a kind of-well, a kind of window. I think you know that. The second time I touched you . . . really touching, holding on, you know what I mean . . . that was a mistake, but not such an awful one; for a little while you knew more than you should, but it wore off, didn't it? If I'd gone on, though . . . touching and touching, the way people do when they're close . . . there'd come a point where things would change. Where it wouldn't wear off." He raised his mostly SMOKED CIGARETTE and looked at it distastefully. "The way you SMOKE one too many of these and you're hooked for life."

"Collections\Hearts in Atlantis\Low Men in Yellow Coats.txt" 2529 656:"Yes indeed. The first time, anyway. I did it to know you a little. But friends don't spy; true friendship is about privacy, too. Besides, when I touch, I pass on a kind of-well, a kind of window. I think you know that. The second time I touched you . . . really touching, holding on, you know what I mean . . . that was a mistake, but not such an awful one; for a little while you knew more than you should, but it wore off, didn't it? If I'd gone on, though . . . touching and touching, the way people do when they're close . . . there'd come a point where things would change. Where it wouldn't wear off." He raised his mostly SMOKED CIGARETTE and looked at it distastefully. "The way you SMOKE one too many of these and you're hooked for life."

"Collections\Hearts in Atlantis\Low Men in Yellow Coats.txt" 2529 713:"Yes indeed. The first time, anyway. I did it to know you a little. But friends don't spy; true friendship is about privacy, too. Besides, when I touch, I pass on a kind of-well, a kind of window. I think you know that. The second time I touched you . . . really touching, holding on, you know what I mean . . . that was a mistake, but not such an awful one; for a little while you knew more than you should, but it wore off, didn't it? If I'd gone on, though . . . touching and touching, the way people do when they're close . . . there'd come a point where things would change. Where it wouldn't wear off." He raised his mostly SMOKED CIGARETTE and looked at it distastefully. "The way you SMOKE one too many of these and you're hooked for life."

"Collections\Hearts in Atlantis\Low Men in Yellow Coats.txt" 2535 93:Ted suddenly stiffened. He was looking out the window at something up ahead. He smashed his CIGARETTE into the armrest ashtray, doing it hard enough to send sparks scattering across the back of his hand. He didn't seem to feel them. "Christ," he said. "Oh Christ, Bobby, we're in for it."

"Collections\Hearts in Atlantis\Low Men in Yellow Coats.txt" 2579 108:"Say what, kid?" the driver asked, and snapped off the radio. The game was over. Mel Allen was selling CIGARETTES.

"Collections\Hearts in Atlantis\Low Men in Yellow Coats.txt" 2708 611:"If she loves him you just better get used to the idea." Carol spoke in an older-woman, worldly-wise fashion that Bobby could have done without; he guessed she had already spent too much time this summer watching the oh John, oh Marsha shows on TV with her mom. And in a weird way he wouldn't have cared if his mom loved Mr. Biderman and that was all. It would be wretched, certainly, because Mr. Biderman was a creep, but it would have been understandable. More was going on, though. His mother's miserliness about money-her cheapskatiness-was a part of it, and so was whatever had made her start SMOKING again and caused her to cry in the night sometimes. The difference between his mother's Randall Garfield, the untrustworthy man who left the unpaid bills, and Alanna's Randy Garfield, the nice guy who liked the jukebox turned up loud . . . even that might be a part of it. (Had there really been unpaid bills? Had there really been a lapsed insurance policy? Why would his mother lie about such things?) This was stuff he couldn't talk about to Carol. It wasn't reticence; it was that he didn't know how.

"Collections\Hearts in Atlantis\Low Men in Yellow Coats.txt" 2840 37:Ted was sitting in the living room, SMOKING a CIGARETTE and reading Life magazine. Anita Ekberg was on the cover. Bobby had no doubt that Ted's suitcases and the paper bags were packed, but there was no sign of them; he must have left them upstairs in his room. Bobby was glad. He didn't want to look at them. It was bad enough just knowing they were there.

"Collections\Hearts in Atlantis\Low Men in Yellow Coats.txt" 2840 47:Ted was sitting in the living room, SMOKING a CIGARETTE and reading Life magazine. Anita Ekberg was on the cover. Bobby had no doubt that Ted's suitcases and the paper bags were packed, but there was no sign of them; he must have left them upstairs in his room. Bobby was glad. He didn't want to look at them. It was bad enough just knowing they were there.

"Collections\Hearts in Atlantis\Low Men in Yellow Coats.txt" 2868 100:"Call," Bobby said, and although he'd never had a CIGARETTE in his life (by 1964 he would be SMOKING over a carton a week), his voice sounded as harsh as Ted's did late at night, after a day's worth of Chesterfields.

"Collections\Hearts in Atlantis\Low Men in Yellow Coats.txt" 2868 57:"Call," Bobby said, and although he'd never had a CIGARETTE in his life (by 1964 he would be SMOKING over a carton a week), his voice sounded as harsh as Ted's did late at night, after a day's worth of Chesterfields.

"Collections\Hearts in Atlantis\Low Men in Yellow Coats.txt" 2916 159:Bobby laid the keyring on the shelf, next to the toothglass, then went into his bedroom to put on his pj's. When he came out, Ted was sitting on the couch, SMOKING a CIGARETTE and looking at him.

"Collections\Hearts in Atlantis\Low Men in Yellow Coats.txt" 2916 169:Bobby laid the keyring on the shelf, next to the toothglass, then went into his bedroom to put on his pj's. When he came out, Ted was sitting on the couch, SMOKING a CIGARETTE and looking at him.

"Collections\Hearts in Atlantis\Low Men in Yellow Coats.txt" 2926 51:"I don't know." Ted studied the coal of his CIGARETTE, and when he looked up, Bobby saw that his eyes were swimming with tears. "I don't think so."

"Collections\Hearts in Atlantis\Low Men in Yellow Coats.txt" 3241 469:Bobby held it wide. Ted carried Carol through the foyer and into the Garfield apartment. At that same moment Liz Garfield was descending the iron steps leading from the Harwich stop of the New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad to Main Street, where there was a taxi stand. She moved with the slow deliberation of a chronic invalid. A suitcase dangled from each hand. Mr. Burton, proprietor of the newsstand kiosk, happened to be standing in his doorway and having a SMOKE. He watched Liz reach the bottom of the steps, turn back the veil of her little hat, and gingerly dab at her face with a bit of handkerchief. She winced at each touch. She was wearing makeup, a lot, but the makeup didn't help. The makeup only drew attention to what had happened to her. The veil was better, even though it only covered the upper part of her face, and now she lowered it again. She approached the first of three idling taxis, and the driver got out to help her with her bags.

"Collections\Hearts in Atlantis\Low Men in Yellow Coats.txt" 3515 331:Liz looked at him, seemingly without much interest, then back at Ted, who sat in the straight-backed chair with the table in his lap and the legs poking at his face. Blood was dripping down one of his cheeks now, and his hair was more red than white. He tried to speak and what came out instead was a dry and flailing old man's CIGARETTE cough.

"Collections\Hearts in Atlantis\Low Men in Yellow Coats.txt" 3597 133:"In a way I suppose I was," Ted said. He seemed calmer now in spite of the blood flowing down the side of his face. He took the CIGARETTES out of his shirt pocket, looked at them, put them back. "But not the kind you're thinking of."

"Collections\Hearts in Atlantis\Low Men in Yellow Coats.txt" 370 316:During the next few weeks, as the weather warmed toward summer, Ted was usually on the porch SMOKING when Liz came home from work. Sometimes he was alone and sometimes Bobby was sitting with him, talking about books. Sometimes Carol and Sully-John were there, too, the three kids playing pass on the lawn while Ted SMOKED and watched them throw. Sometimes other kids came by-Denny Rivers with a taped-up balsa glider to throw, soft-headed Francis Utterson, always pushing along on his scooter with one overdeveloped leg, Angela Avery and Yvonne Loving to ask Carol if she wanted to go over Yvonne's and play dolls or a game called Hospital Nurse-but mostly it was just S-J and Carol, Bobby's special friends. All the kids called Mr. Brautigan Ted, but when Bobby explained why it would be better if they called him Mr. Brautigan when his mom was around, Ted agreed at once.

"Collections\Hearts in Atlantis\Low Men in Yellow Coats.txt" 370 94:During the next few weeks, as the weather warmed toward summer, Ted was usually on the porch SMOKING when Liz came home from work. Sometimes he was alone and sometimes Bobby was sitting with him, talking about books. Sometimes Carol and Sully-John were there, too, the three kids playing pass on the lawn while Ted SMOKED and watched them throw. Sometimes other kids came by-Denny Rivers with a taped-up balsa glider to throw, soft-headed Francis Utterson, always pushing along on his scooter with one overdeveloped leg, Angela Avery and Yvonne Loving to ask Carol if she wanted to go over Yvonne's and play dolls or a game called Hospital Nurse-but mostly it was just S-J and Carol, Bobby's special friends. All the kids called Mr. Brautigan Ted, but when Bobby explained why it would be better if they called him Mr. Brautigan when his mom was around, Ted agreed at once.

"Collections\Hearts in Atlantis\Low Men in Yellow Coats.txt" 3793 134:Ted gave up and hugged him tight. Bobby could smell a ghost of the lather he shaved with, and the stronger aroma of his Chesterfield CIGARETTES. They were smells he would carry with him a long time, as he would the memories of Ted's big hands touching him, stroking his back, cupping the curve of his skull. "Bobby, I love you too," he said.

"Collections\Hearts in Atlantis\Low Men in Yellow Coats.txt" 3849 126:He put the ashtray down again. The urge to sneeze had passed. I'm going to SMOKE Chesterfields, he decided. I'm going to SMOKE them all my life.

"Collections\Hearts in Atlantis\Low Men in Yellow Coats.txt" 3849 78:He put the ashtray down again. The urge to sneeze had passed. I'm going to SMOKE Chesterfields, he decided. I'm going to SMOKE them all my life.

"Collections\Hearts in Atlantis\Low Men in Yellow Coats.txt" 4000 336:He stood there until the cab's taillights disappeared, then began walking slowly in the direction of The Corner Pocket, pausing long enough to look through the dusty window of SPECIAL SOUVENIRS. The bamboo blind was up but the only special souvenir on display was a ceramic ashtray in the shape of a toilet. There was a groove for a CIGARETTE in the seat. PARK YOUR BUTT was written on the tank. Bobby considered this quite witty but not much of a window display; he had sort of been hoping for items of a sexual nature. Especially now that the sun had gone down.

"Collections\Hearts in Atlantis\Low Men in Yellow Coats.txt" 4038 41:Moso stepped back, frowning, and took a CIGARETTE out of his pocket. One of the others snapped him a light, and Dee drew Bobby a little farther down the street.

"Collections\Hearts in Atlantis\Low Men in Yellow Coats.txt" 4128 250:The smell of beer was much stronger and much fresher, and the room with the pinball machines in it banged and jangled with lights and noise. Where before only Dee had been playing pinball, there now seemed to be at least two dozen guys, all of them SMOKING, all of them wearing strap-style undershirts and Frank Sinatra hello-young-lovers hats, all of them with bottles of Bud parked on the glass tops of the Gottlieb machines.

"Collections\Hearts in Atlantis\Low Men in Yellow Coats.txt" 4130 350:The area by Len Files's desk was brighter than before because there were more lights on in the bar (where every stool was taken) as well as in the pinball room. The poolhall itself, which had been mostly dark on Wednesday, was now lit like an operating theater. There were men at every table bending and circling and making shots in a blue fog of CIGARETTE SMOKE; the chairs along the walls were all taken. Bobby could see Old Gee with his feet up on the shoeshine posts, and-

"Collections\Hearts in Atlantis\Low Men in Yellow Coats.txt" 4130 360:The area by Len Files's desk was brighter than before because there were more lights on in the bar (where every stool was taken) as well as in the pinball room. The poolhall itself, which had been mostly dark on Wednesday, was now lit like an operating theater. There were men at every table bending and circling and making shots in a blue fog of CIGARETTE SMOKE; the chairs along the walls were all taken. Bobby could see Old Gee with his feet up on the shoeshine posts, and-

"Collections\Hearts in Atlantis\Low Men in Yellow Coats.txt" 4172 230:Bobby didn't doze, exactly, but fell into a kind of daydream. He and Ted were living on a farm somewhere, maybe in Florida. They worked long hours, but Ted could work pretty hard for an old guy, especially now that he had quit SMOKING and had some of his wind back. Bobby went to school under another name-Ralph Sullivan-and at night they sat on the porch, eating Ted's cooking and drinking iced tea. Bobby read to him from the newspaper and when they went in to bed they slept deeply and their sleep was peaceful, interrupted by no bad dreams. When they went to the grocery store on Fridays, Bobby would check the bulletin board for lost-pet posters or upside-down file-cards advertising items for sale by owner, but he never found any. The low men had lost Ted's scent. Ted was no longer anyone's dog and they were safe on their farm. Not father and son or grandfather and grandson, but only friends.

"Collections\Hearts in Atlantis\Low Men in Yellow Coats.txt" 4212 116:Sobbing with terror, Bobby pressed his face against Ted's shirt. He could smell the comforting aromas of Ted's CIGARETTES and shaving soap, but they weren't strong enough to cover the stench that was coming from the low men-a meaty, garbagey smell-and a higher smell like burning whiskey that was coming from their cars.

"Collections\Hearts in Atlantis\Low Men in Yellow Coats.txt" 4226 204:From across the street there came a thick slobbering grunt. Bobby looked in that direction and saw that one of the Oldsmobile's tires had turned into a blackish-gray tentacle. It reached out, snared a CIGARETTE wrapper, and pulled it back. A moment later the tentacle was a tire again, but the CIGARETTE wrapper was sticking out of it like something half swallowed.

"Collections\Hearts in Atlantis\Low Men in Yellow Coats.txt" 4226 297:From across the street there came a thick slobbering grunt. Bobby looked in that direction and saw that one of the Oldsmobile's tires had turned into a blackish-gray tentacle. It reached out, snared a CIGARETTE wrapper, and pulled it back. A moment later the tentacle was a tire again, but the CIGARETTE wrapper was sticking out of it like something half swallowed.

"Collections\Hearts in Atlantis\Low Men in Yellow Coats.txt" 4332 511:"Bug out, kid," Len Files said. His face was cheesy-white, seeming to hang off his skull the way the flesh hung off his sister's upper arms. Behind him the lights of the Gottlieb machines in the little arcade flashed and flickered with no one to watch them; the cool cats who made an evening specialty of Corner Pocket pinball were clustered behind Len Files like children. To Len's right were the pool and billiard players, many of them clutching cues like clubs. Old Gee stood off to one side by the CIGARETTE machine. He didn't have a pool-cue; from one gnarled old hand there hung a small automatic pistol. It didn't scare Bobby. After Cam and his yellowcoat friends, he didn't think anything would have the power to scare him right now. For the time being he was all scared out.

"Collections\Hearts in Atlantis\Low Men in Yellow Coats.txt" 450 282:"School is different." They were sitting at Ted's kitchen table, looking out over the back yard, where everything was in bloom. On Colony Street, which was the next street over, Mrs. O'Hara's dog Bowser barked its endless roop-roop-roop into the mild spring air. Ted was SMOKING a Chesterfield. "And speaking of school, don't take this book there with you. There are things in it your teacher might not want you to read. There could be a brouhaha."

"Collections\Hearts in Atlantis\Low Men in Yellow Coats.txt" 454 180:"An uproar. And if you get in trouble at school, you get in trouble at home-this I'm sure you don't need me to tell you. And your mother . . ." The hand not holding the CIGARETTE made a little seesawing gesture which Bobby understood at once. Your mother doesn't trust me.

"Collections\Hearts in Atlantis\Low Men in Yellow Coats.txt" 460 75:"Nothing to froth at the mouth about," Ted said dryly. He crushed his CIGARETTE out in a tin ashtray, went to his little refrigerator, and took out two bottles of pop. There was no beer or wine in there, just pop and a glass bottle of cream. "Some talk of putting a spear up a wild pig's ass, I think that's the worst. Still, there is a certain kind of grownup who can only see the trees and never the forest. Read the first twenty pages, Bobby. You'll never look back. This I promise you."

"Collections\Hearts in Atlantis\Low Men in Yellow Coats.txt" 466 40:Ted Brautigan smiled and shot the last CIGARETTE out of a crumpled pack. "You'll find out," he said.

"Collections\Hearts in Atlantis\Low Men in Yellow Coats.txt" 4723 259:Liz prospered in her new career as a real-estate agent. Bobby did well enough in English (he got an A-plus on a paper in which he compared Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men to Golding's Lord of the Flies) and did poorly in the rest of his classes. He began to SMOKE CIGARETTES.

"Collections\Hearts in Atlantis\Low Men in Yellow Coats.txt" 4723 265:Liz prospered in her new career as a real-estate agent. Bobby did well enough in English (he got an A-plus on a paper in which he compared Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men to Golding's Lord of the Flies) and did poorly in the rest of his classes. He began to SMOKE CIGARETTES.

"Collections\Hearts in Atlantis\Low Men in Yellow Coats.txt" 4745 143:Bobby was fourteen when the cop caught him coming out of the convenience store with two six-packs of beer (Narragansett) and three cartons of CIGARETTES (Chesterfields, naturally; twenty-one great tobaccos make twenty wonderful smokes). This was the blond Village of the Damned cop.

"Collections\Hearts in Atlantis\Low Men in Yellow Coats.txt" 4757 258:Carol Gerber's letters stopped coming in 1963, which happened to be the year of Bobby's first school expulsion and also the year of his first visit to Massachusetts Youth Correctional in Bedford. The cause of this visit was possession of five marijuana CIGARETTES, which Bobby and his friends called joysticks. Bobby was sentenced to ninety days, the last thirty forgiven for good behavior. He read a lot of books. Some of the other kids called him Professor. Bobby didn't mind.

"Collections\Hearts in Atlantis\Low Men in Yellow Coats.txt" 658 310:Bobby shook his head and said no thanks. He didn't like rootbeer all that much; he mostly drank it out of politeness when he was with Ted. They were sitting at Ted's kitchen table again, Mrs. O'Hara's dog was still barking (so far as Bobby could tell, Bowser never stopped barking), and Ted was still SMOKING Chesterfields. Bobby had peeked in at his mother when he came back from the park, saw she was napping on her bed, and then had hastened up to the third floor to ask Ted about the ending of Lord of the Flies.

"Collections\Hearts in Atlantis\Low Men in Yellow Coats.txt" 688 52:"Consider it," Ted said. He drew deeply on his CIGARETTE, then blew out a plume of SMOKE. "Good books are for consideration after, too."

"Collections\Hearts in Atlantis\Low Men in Yellow Coats.txt" 688 88:"Consider it," Ted said. He drew deeply on his CIGARETTE, then blew out a plume of SMOKE. "Good books are for consideration after, too."

"Collections\Hearts in Atlantis\Low Men in Yellow Coats.txt" 929 321:"I don't need a full glass, that will be fine," she said a little impatiently. Ted brought the glass to her, and she raised it to him. "Here's how." She took a swallow and grimaced as if it had been rye instead of rootbeer. Then she watched over the top of the glass as Ted sat down, tapped the ash from his SMOKE, and tucked the stub of the CIGARETTE back into the corner of his mouth.

"Collections\Hearts in Atlantis\Low Men in Yellow Coats.txt" 929 355:"I don't need a full glass, that will be fine," she said a little impatiently. Ted brought the glass to her, and she raised it to him. "Here's how." She took a swallow and grimaced as if it had been rye instead of rootbeer. Then she watched over the top of the glass as Ted sat down, tapped the ash from his SMOKE, and tucked the stub of the CIGARETTE back into the corner of his mouth.

"Collections\Hearts in Atlantis\Low Men in Yellow Coats.txt" 987 35:"Three years." He crushed his CIGARETTE out in the brimming tin ashtray and immediately lit another.

"Collections\Hearts in Atlantis\Why We're in Vietnam.txt" 101 36:"Want to come outside and have a SMOKE?" the new lieutenant asked. "Or did you give that up when everyone else did?"

"Collections\Hearts in Atlantis\Why We're in Vietnam.txt" 113 388:Sully had nodded, still grinning. "Said if he shoved it up there far enough, Pags could play 'Red River Valley' when he farted." He had glanced fondly back at the coffin, as if expecting Pagano would also be grinning at the memory. Pagano wasn't. Pagano was just lying there with makeup on his face. Pagano had gotten over. "Tell you what-I'll come outside and watch you SMOKE."

"Collections\Hearts in Atlantis\Why We're in Vietnam.txt" 139 212:There was an alley beside the funeral parlor with a green-painted bench placed against one side. At either end of the bench was a butt-studded bucket of sand. Dieffenbaker sat beside one of the buckets, stuck a CIGARETTE in his mouth (it was a Dunhill, Sully observed, pretty impressive), then offered the pack to Sully.

"Collections\Hearts in Atlantis\Why We're in Vietnam.txt" 143 144:"Excellent." Dieffenbaker lit up with a Zippo, and Sully realized an odd thing: he had never seen anyone who'd been in Vietnam light his CIGARETTE with matches or those disposable butane lighters; Nam vets all seemed to carry Zippos. Of course that couldn't really be true. Could it?

"Collections\Hearts in Atlantis\Why We're in Vietnam.txt" 177 36:Dieffenbaker dragged deeply on his CIGARETTE and gave Sully what was still a Lieutenant Look. Even after all these years he could muster that up. Sort of amazing. "If he'd done it, you would have read about it in the Post. Don't you read the Post?"

"Collections\Hearts in Atlantis\Why We're in Vietnam.txt" 197 43:"Have you quit the booze as well as the CIGARETTES?"

"Collections\Hearts in Atlantis\Why We're in Vietnam.txt" 227 71:"Vietnam vets carry Zippos," he said. "At least until they stop SMOKING."

"Collections\Hearts in Atlantis\Why We're in Vietnam.txt" 249 59:"Old mamasan," Dieffenbaker said, and brought out his CIGARETTES again. "The one Malenfant killed. You said you used to see her. 'Sometimes she wears different clothes, but it's always her,' you said. Do you still see her?"

"Collections\Hearts in Atlantis\Why We're in Vietnam.txt" 25 802:In San Francisco Willie was on the same ward and visited him a lot until the Army in its wisdom sent First Lieutenant Shearman somewhere else; they had talked for hours about the old days in Harwich and people they knew in common. Once they'd even gotten their picture taken by an AP news photographer-Willie sitting on Sully's bed, both of them laughing. Willie's eyes had been better by then but still not right; Willie had confided to Sully that he was afraid they never would be right. The story that went with the picture had been pretty dopey, but had it brought them letters? Holy Christ! More than either of them could read! Sully had even gotten the crazy idea that he might hear from Carol, but of course he never did. It was the spring of 1970 and Carol Gerber was undoubtedly busy SMOKING pot and giving blowjobs to end-the-war hippies while her old high-school boyfriend was getting his balls blown off on the other side of the world. That's right, Art, people are funny. Also, kids say the darndest things.

"Collections\Hearts in Atlantis\Why We're in Vietnam.txt" 277 12:There were CIGARETTES in the Caprice's glove compartment, an old pack of Winstons Sully kept for emergencies, transferring from one car to the next whenever he switched rides. That one CIGARETTE he'd bummed from Dieffenbaker had awakened the tiger and now he reached past old mamasan, opened the glove-box, pawed past all the paperwork, and found the pack. The CIGARETTE would taste stale and hot in his throat, but that was okay. That was sort of what he wanted.

"Collections\Hearts in Atlantis\Why We're in Vietnam.txt" 277 188:There were CIGARETTES in the Caprice's glove compartment, an old pack of Winstons Sully kept for emergencies, transferring from one car to the next whenever he switched rides. That one CIGARETTE he'd bummed from Dieffenbaker had awakened the tiger and now he reached past old mamasan, opened the glove-box, pawed past all the paperwork, and found the pack. The CIGARETTE would taste stale and hot in his throat, but that was okay. That was sort of what he wanted.

"Collections\Hearts in Atlantis\Why We're in Vietnam.txt" 277 366:There were CIGARETTES in the Caprice's glove compartment, an old pack of Winstons Sully kept for emergencies, transferring from one car to the next whenever he switched rides. That one CIGARETTE he'd bummed from Dieffenbaker had awakened the tiger and now he reached past old mamasan, opened the glove-box, pawed past all the paperwork, and found the pack. The CIGARETTE would taste stale and hot in his throat, but that was okay. That was sort of what he wanted.

"Collections\Hearts in Atlantis\Why We're in Vietnam.txt" 279 951:"Two weeks of shooting and squeezing," he told her, pushing in the lighter. "Shake and bake and don't look for the fuckin ARVN, baby, because they always seemed to have better things to do. Bitches, barbecues, and bowling tournaments, Malenfant used to say. We kept taking casualties, the air cover was never there when it was supposed to be, no one was getting any sleep, and it seemed like the more other guys from the A Shau linked up with us the worse it got. I remember one of Willie's guys-Havers or Haber, something like that-got it right in the head. Got it in the fuckin head and then just lay there on the path with his eyes open, trying to talk. Blood pouring out of this hole right here . . ." Sully tapped a finger against his skull just over his ear. " . . . and we couldn't believe he was still alive, let alone trying to talk. Then the thing with the choppers . . . that was like something out of a movie, all the SMOKE and shooting, bup-bup-bup-bup. That was the lead-in for us-you know, into your 'ville. We came up on it and boy . . . there was this one chair, like a kitchen chair with a red seat and steel legs pointing up at the sky, in the street. It just looked crapass, I'm sorry but it did, not worth living in, let alone dying for. Your guys, the ARVN, they didn't want to die for places like that, why would we? The place stank, it smelled like shit, but they all did. That's how it seemed. I didn't care so much about the smell, anyway. Mostly I think it was the chair that got to me. That one chair said it all."

"Collections\Hearts in Atlantis\Why We're in Vietnam.txt" 281 152:Sully pulled out the lighter, started to apply the cherry-red coil to the tip of his CIGARETTE, and then remembered he was in a demonstrator. He could SMOKE in a demo-hell, it was off his own lot-but if one of the salesmen smelled the SMOKE and concluded that the boss was doing what was a firing offense for anyone else, it wouldn't be good. You had to walk the walk as well as talk the talk . . . at least you did if you wanted to get a little respect.

"Collections\Hearts in Atlantis\Why We're in Vietnam.txt" 281 240:Sully pulled out the lighter, started to apply the cherry-red coil to the tip of his CIGARETTE, and then remembered he was in a demonstrator. He could SMOKE in a demo-hell, it was off his own lot-but if one of the salesmen smelled the SMOKE and concluded that the boss was doing what was a firing offense for anyone else, it wouldn't be good. You had to walk the walk as well as talk the talk . . . at least you did if you wanted to get a little respect.

"Collections\Hearts in Atlantis\Why We're in Vietnam.txt" 281 86:Sully pulled out the lighter, started to apply the cherry-red coil to the tip of his CIGARETTE, and then remembered he was in a demonstrator. He could SMOKE in a demo-hell, it was off his own lot-but if one of the salesmen smelled the SMOKE and concluded that the boss was doing what was a firing offense for anyone else, it wouldn't be good. You had to walk the walk as well as talk the talk . . . at least you did if you wanted to get a little respect.

"Collections\Hearts in Atlantis\Why We're in Vietnam.txt" 283 101:"Excusez-moi," he told the old mamasan. He got out of the car, which was still running, lit his CIGARETTE, then bent in the window to slide the lighter back into its dashboard receptacle. The day was hot, and the four-lane sea of idling cars made it seem even hotter. Sully could sense the impatience all around him, but his was the only radio he could hear; everyone else was under glass, buttoned into their little air-conditioned cocoons, listening to a hundred different kinds of music, from Liz Phair to William Ackerman. He guessed that any vets caught in the jam who didn't have the Allman Brothers on CD or Big Brother and the Holding Company on tape were probably also listening to WKND, where the past had never died and the future never came. Toot-toot, beep-beep.

"Collections\Hearts in Atlantis\Why We're in Vietnam.txt" 289 158:He took a deep drag on the Winston, then coughed out stale hot SMOKE. Black dots began a sudden dance in the afternoon brightness, and he looked down at the CIGARETTE between his fingers with an expression of nearly comic horror. What was he doing, starting up with this shit again? Was he crazy? Well yes, of course he was crazy, anyone who saw dead old ladies sitting beside them in their cars had to be crazy, but that didn't mean he had to start up with this shit again. CIGARETTES were Agent Orange that you paid for. Sully threw the Winston away. It felt like the right decision, but it didn't slow the accelerating beat of his heart or his sense-so well remembered from the patrols he'd been on-that the inside of his mouth was drying out and pulling together, puckering and crinkling like burned skin. Some people were afraid of crowds-agoraphobia, it was called, fear of the marketplace-but the only time Sully ever had that sense of too much and too many was at times like this. He was okay in elevators and crowded lobbies at intermission and on rush-hour train platforms, but when traffic clogged to a stop all around him, he got dinky-dau. There was, after all, nowhere to run, baby, nowhere to hide.

"Collections\Hearts in Atlantis\Why We're in Vietnam.txt" 289 478:He took a deep drag on the Winston, then coughed out stale hot SMOKE. Black dots began a sudden dance in the afternoon brightness, and he looked down at the CIGARETTE between his fingers with an expression of nearly comic horror. What was he doing, starting up with this shit again? Was he crazy? Well yes, of course he was crazy, anyone who saw dead old ladies sitting beside them in their cars had to be crazy, but that didn't mean he had to start up with this shit again. CIGARETTES were Agent Orange that you paid for. Sully threw the Winston away. It felt like the right decision, but it didn't slow the accelerating beat of his heart or his sense-so well remembered from the patrols he'd been on-that the inside of his mouth was drying out and pulling together, puckering and crinkling like burned skin. Some people were afraid of crowds-agoraphobia, it was called, fear of the marketplace-but the only time Sully ever had that sense of too much and too many was at times like this. He was okay in elevators and crowded lobbies at intermission and on rush-hour train platforms, but when traffic clogged to a stop all around him, he got dinky-dau. There was, after all, nowhere to run, baby, nowhere to hide.

"Collections\Hearts in Atlantis\Why We're in Vietnam.txt" 289 64:He took a deep drag on the Winston, then coughed out stale hot SMOKE. Black dots began a sudden dance in the afternoon brightness, and he looked down at the CIGARETTE between his fingers with an expression of nearly comic horror. What was he doing, starting up with this shit again? Was he crazy? Well yes, of course he was crazy, anyone who saw dead old ladies sitting beside them in their cars had to be crazy, but that didn't mean he had to start up with this shit again. CIGARETTES were Agent Orange that you paid for. Sully threw the Winston away. It felt like the right decision, but it didn't slow the accelerating beat of his heart or his sense-so well remembered from the patrols he'd been on-that the inside of his mouth was drying out and pulling together, puckering and crinkling like burned skin. Some people were afraid of crowds-agoraphobia, it was called, fear of the marketplace-but the only time Sully ever had that sense of too much and too many was at times like this. He was okay in elevators and crowded lobbies at intermission and on rush-hour train platforms, but when traffic clogged to a stop all around him, he got dinky-dau. There was, after all, nowhere to run, baby, nowhere to hide.

"Collections\Hearts in Atlantis\Why We're in Vietnam.txt" 341 180:Sully could still remember Dieffenbaker standing in the street by that overturned kitchen chair: how pale he had been, how his lips had trembled, how his clothes still smelled of SMOKE and spilled copter fuel. Dieffenbaker looking around from Malenfant and the old woman to the others who were starting to pour fire into the hooches to the howling kid Mims had shot; he could remember Deef looking at Lieutenant Shearman but there was no help there. No help from Sully himself, for that matter. He could also remember how Slocum was staring at Deef, Deef the lieutenant now that Packer was dead. And finally Deef had looked back at Slocum. Sly Slocum was no officer-not even one of those bigmouth bush generals who were always second-guessing everything-and never would be. Slocum was just your basic E-3 or E-4 who thought that a group who sounded like Rare Earth had to be black. Just a grunt, in other words, but one prepared to do what the rest of them weren't. Never losing hold of the new lieutenant's distraught eye, Slocum had turned his head back the other way just a little, toward Malenfant and Clemson and Peasley and Mims and the rest, self-appointed regulators whose names Sully no longer remembered. Then Slocum was back to total eye-contact with Dieffenbaker again. There were six or eight men in all who had gone loco, trotting down the muddy street past the screaming bleeding kid and into that scurgy little 'ville, shouting as they went-football cheers, basic-training cadences, the chorus to "Hang On Sloopy," shit like that-and Slocum was saying with his eyes Hey, what you want? You the boss now, what you want?

"Collections\Hearts in Atlantis\Why We're in Vietnam.txt" 347 119:At the time Sully had thought Clemson got the bullet because Slocum knew Malenfant too well, Slocum and Malenfant had SMOKED more than a few loco-leaves together and Slocum had also been known to spend at least some of his spare time hunting The Bitch with the other Hearts players. But as he sat here rolling Dieffenbaker's Dunhill CIGARETTE between his fingers, it occurred to Sully that Slocum didn't give a shit about Malenfant and his loco-leaves; Malenfant's favorite card-game, either. There was no shortage of bhang or card-games in Vietnam. Slocum picked Clemson because shooting Malenfant wouldn't have worked. Malenfant, screaming all his bullshit about putting heads up on sticks to show the Cong what happened to people who fucked with Delta Lightning, was too far away to get the attention of the men splashing and squashing and shooting their way down that muddy street. Plus old mamasan was already dead, so what the fuck, let him carve on her.

"Collections\Hearts in Atlantis\Why We're in Vietnam.txt" 347 336:At the time Sully had thought Clemson got the bullet because Slocum knew Malenfant too well, Slocum and Malenfant had SMOKED more than a few loco-leaves together and Slocum had also been known to spend at least some of his spare time hunting The Bitch with the other Hearts players. But as he sat here rolling Dieffenbaker's Dunhill CIGARETTE between his fingers, it occurred to Sully that Slocum didn't give a shit about Malenfant and his loco-leaves; Malenfant's favorite card-game, either. There was no shortage of bhang or card-games in Vietnam. Slocum picked Clemson because shooting Malenfant wouldn't have worked. Malenfant, screaming all his bullshit about putting heads up on sticks to show the Cong what happened to people who fucked with Delta Lightning, was too far away to get the attention of the men splashing and squashing and shooting their way down that muddy street. Plus old mamasan was already dead, so what the fuck, let him carve on her.

"Collections\Hearts in Atlantis\Why We're in Vietnam.txt" 349 158:Now Deef was Dieffenbaker, a bald computer salesman who had quit going to the reunions. He gave Sully a light with his Zippo, then watched as Sully drew the SMOKE deep and coughed it back out.

"Collections\Hearts in Atlantis\Why We're in Vietnam.txt" 375 76:"What'd I say about the old lady?" he asked Dieffenbaker as they sat SMOKING in the alley beside the chapel.

"Collections\Hearts in Atlantis\Why We're in Vietnam.txt" 379 58:"Fuck," Sully said, and put the hand not holding the CIGARETTE in his hair.

"Collections\Hearts in Atlantis\Why We're in Vietnam.txt" 413 142:"Yeah. You remember. Remember. But I see him, Sully, right down to the whiteheads on his chin. I hear him, I can smell the fucking dope he SMOKED . . . but mostly I see him, how he knocked her over and she was lying there on the ground, still shaking her fists at him, still running her mouth-"

"Collections\Hearts in Atlantis\Why We're in Vietnam.txt" 455 88:They sat without talking much for a little while. Sully asked Dieffenbaker for another CIGARETTE and Dieffenbaker gave him one, also another flick of the old Zippo. From around the corner came tangles of conversation and some low laughter. Pags's funeral was over. And somewhere in California Ronnie Malenfant was perhaps reading his AA Big Book and getting in touch with that fabled higher power he chose to call God. Maybe Ronnie was also a GSR, whatever the fuck that was. Sully wished Ronnie was dead. Sully wished Ronnie Malenfant had died in a Viet Cong spiderhole, his nose full of sores and the smell of ratshit, bleeding internally and puking up chunks of his own stomach lining. Malenfant with his poke and his cards, Malenfant with his bayonet, Malenfant with his feet planted on either side of the old mamasan in her green pants and orange top and red sneakers.

"Collections\Hearts in Atlantis\Why We're in Vietnam.txt" 533 105:Sully walked toward her through the noisy hail of falling televisions and backyard pools and cartons of CIGARETTES and high-heeled shoes and a great big pole hairdryer and a pay telephone that hit and vomited a jackpot of quarters. He walked toward her with a feeling of relief, that feeling you get only when you are coming home.

"Collections\Hearts in Atlantis\Why We're in Vietnam.txt" 87 2220:Sully had a clear, fierce flash of how Deef had looked on that day in the 'ville when Malenfant, Clemson, and those other nimrods had all of a sudden started paying off the morning's terror . . . the whole last week's terror. They wanted to put it somewhere, the howls in the night and the sudden mortar-shots and finally the burning copters that had fallen with their rotors still turning, dispersing the SMOKE of their own deaths as they dropped. Down they came, whacko! And the little men in the black pajamas were shooting at Delta two-two and Bravo two-one from the bush just as soon as the Americans ran out into the clearing. Sully had run with Willie Shearman beside him on the right and Lieutenant Packer in front of him; then Lieutenant Packer took a round in the face and no one was in front of him. Ronnie Malenfant was on his left and Malenfant had been yelling in his high-pitched voice, on and on and on, he was like some mad high-pressure telephone salesman gourded out on amphetamines: Come on, you fuckin ringmeats! Come on, you slopey Joes! Shoot me, ya fucks! You fuckin fucks! Can't shoot fa shit! Pagano was behind them, and Slocum was beside Pags. Some Bravo guys but mostly Delta boys, that was his memory. Willie Shearman yelled for his own guys, but a lot of them hung back. Delta two-two didn't hang back. Clemson was there, and Wollensky, and Hackermeyer, and it was amazing how he could remember their names; their names and the smell of that day. The smell of the green and the smell of the kerosene. The sight of the sky, blue on green, and oh man how they would shoot, how those little fuckers would shoot, you never forgot how they would shoot or the feel of a round passing close beside you, and Malenfant was screaming Shoot me, ya deadass ringmeats! Can't! Fuckin blind! Come on, I'm right here! Fuckin blindeye homo slopehead assholes, I'm right here! And the men in the downed helicopters were screaming, so they pulled them out, got the foam on the fire and pulled them out, only they weren't men anymore, not what you'd call men, they were screaming TV dinners for the most part, TV dinners with eyes and belt-buckles and these clittery reaching fingers with SMOKE rising from the melted nails, yeah, like that, not stuff you could tell people like Dr. Conroy, how when you pulled them parts of them came off, kind of slid off the way the baked skin of a freshly cooked turkey will slide along the hot liquefied fat just beneath, like that, and all the time you're smelling the green and the kerosene, it's all happening, it's a rilly rilly big shew, as Ed Sullivan used to say, and it's all happening on our stage, and all you can do is roll with it, try to get over.

"Collections\Hearts in Atlantis\Why We're in Vietnam.txt" 87 413:Sully had a clear, fierce flash of how Deef had looked on that day in the 'ville when Malenfant, Clemson, and those other nimrods had all of a sudden started paying off the morning's terror . . . the whole last week's terror. They wanted to put it somewhere, the howls in the night and the sudden mortar-shots and finally the burning copters that had fallen with their rotors still turning, dispersing the SMOKE of their own deaths as they dropped. Down they came, whacko! And the little men in the black pajamas were shooting at Delta two-two and Bravo two-one from the bush just as soon as the Americans ran out into the clearing. Sully had run with Willie Shearman beside him on the right and Lieutenant Packer in front of him; then Lieutenant Packer took a round in the face and no one was in front of him. Ronnie Malenfant was on his left and Malenfant had been yelling in his high-pitched voice, on and on and on, he was like some mad high-pressure telephone salesman gourded out on amphetamines: Come on, you fuckin ringmeats! Come on, you slopey Joes! Shoot me, ya fucks! You fuckin fucks! Can't shoot fa shit! Pagano was behind them, and Slocum was beside Pags. Some Bravo guys but mostly Delta boys, that was his memory. Willie Shearman yelled for his own guys, but a lot of them hung back. Delta two-two didn't hang back. Clemson was there, and Wollensky, and Hackermeyer, and it was amazing how he could remember their names; their names and the smell of that day. The smell of the green and the smell of the kerosene. The sight of the sky, blue on green, and oh man how they would shoot, how those little fuckers would shoot, you never forgot how they would shoot or the feel of a round passing close beside you, and Malenfant was screaming Shoot me, ya deadass ringmeats! Can't! Fuckin blind! Come on, I'm right here! Fuckin blindeye homo slopehead assholes, I'm right here! And the men in the downed helicopters were screaming, so they pulled them out, got the foam on the fire and pulled them out, only they weren't men anymore, not what you'd call men, they were screaming TV dinners for the most part, TV dinners with eyes and belt-buckles and these clittery reaching fingers with SMOKE rising from the melted nails, yeah, like that, not stuff you could tell people like Dr. Conroy, how when you pulled them parts of them came off, kind of slid off the way the baked skin of a freshly cooked turkey will slide along the hot liquefied fat just beneath, like that, and all the time you're smelling the green and the kerosene, it's all happening, it's a rilly rilly big shew, as Ed Sullivan used to say, and it's all happening on our stage, and all you can do is roll with it, try to get over.

"Collections\Just After Sunset\A Very Tight Place.txt" 391 142:"LUNG CANCER!" Grunwald proclaimed to his empty, deserted development-and then began coughing again. Crows cawed in protest. "I quit SMOKING thirty years ago, and I get lung cancer NOW?"

"Collections\Just After Sunset\A Very Tight Place.txt" 55 615:Grunwald, on the other hand, saw it as the perfect site for development: one condominium or perhaps even two (when Curtis thought of two, he thought of them as The Motherfucker Twin Towers). Curtis had seen such developments before-in Florida they popped up like dandelions on an indifferently maintained lawn-and he knew what The Motherfucker would be inviting in: idiots who mistook retirement funds for the keys to the kingdom of heaven. There would be four years of construction, followed by decades of old men on bicycles with pee bags strapped to their scrawny thighs. And old women who wore sun visors, SMOKED Parliaments, and didn't pick up the droppings after their designer dogs shat on the beach. Plus, of course, ice cream–slathered grandbrats with names like Lindsay and Jayson. If he let it happen, Curtis knew, he would die with their howls of discontent-"You said we'd go to Disney World today!"-in his ears.

"Collections\Just After Sunset\Ayana.txt" 127 337:"Is he going?" I asked. Ruth stopped folding things and came over. She put a hand on my shoulder. We had been expecting this-hoping for it, really-but now that it was here, it was too absurd to hurt. Doc had taught me how to use a Bolo-Bouncer when I was a kid no older than that day's little blind intruder. He had caught me SMOKING under the grape arbor and had told me-not angrily but kindly-that it was a stupid habit, and I'd do well not to let it get a hold on me. The idea that he might not be alive when tomorrow's paper came? Absurd.

"Collections\Just After Sunset\Graduation Afternoon.txt" 47 235:Bruce's mother comes out on the patio and stands next to her, shading her eyes. She is wearing a new blue dress. A tea-dress. Her shoulder brushes Janice's and they look south at the crimson mushroom climbing, eating up the blue. SMOKE is rising from around the edges-dark purple in the sunshine-and then being pulled back in. The red of the fireball is too intense to look at, it will blind her, but Janice cannot look away. Water is gushing down her cheeks in broad warm streams, but she cannot look away.

"Collections\Just After Sunset\Harvey's Dream.txt" 85 166:Well, then, he's pretty slow, isn't he? Because Janet-who was Jax at Sarah Lawrence, Jax in the Dramatics Club, Jax the truly excellent French-kisser, Jax who SMOKED Gitanes and affected enjoyment of tequila shooters-Janet has been scared for quite some time now, was scared even before Harvey mentioned the dent in the side of Frank Friedman's Volvo. And thinking of that makes her think of the phone conversation she had with her friend Hannah not even a week ago, the one that eventually progressed to Alzheimer's ghost stories. Hannah in the city, Janet curled up on the window seat in the living room and looking out at their one-acre share of Westport, at all the beautiful growing things that make her sneeze and water at the eyes, and before the conversation turned to Alzheimer's they had discussed first Lucy Friedman and then Frank, and which one of them had said it? Which one of them had said, "If he doesn't do something about his drinking and driving, he's eventually going to kill somebody"?

"Collections\Just After Sunset\N.txt" 505 422:The darkness was back inside the stones-there were only seven, of course, that's why I'd been drawn out there-but I saw no eyes. Thank God, I was still in time. There was just the darkness, turning and turning, seeming to mock the beauty of that silent spring morning, seeming to exult in the fragility of our world. I could see the Androscoggin through it, but the darkness-it was almost Biblical, a pillar of SMOKE-turned the river to a filthy gray smear.

"Collections\Just After Sunset\Rest Stop.txt" 71 116:It was followed by another thump and a sharp cry, almost a dog's yelp, of pain. Old Mr. PT Cruiser had once more SMOKED her hard enough to bounce the back of her head off the tiled bathroom wall, and what was that old joke? Why are there three hundred thousand cases of spousal abuse in America each year? Because they won't . . . fuckin' . . . listen.

"Collections\Just After Sunset\Stationary Bike.txt" 19 333:"You're six feet tall and thirty-eight years old," Dr. Brady said. "Your weight should be about a hundred and ninety, and your cholesterol should be just about the same. Once upon a time, back in the seventies, you could get away with a cholesterol reading of two-forty, but of course back in the seventies, you could still SMOKE in the waiting rooms at hospitals." He shook his head. "No, the correlation between high cholesterol and heart disease was simply too clear. The two-forty number consequently went by the boards.

"Collections\Just After Sunset\Stationary Bike.txt" 265 141:He dropped to one knee, slipped the tip of the borrowed tool into the slot of the first screw, and hesitated. He wondered if his friend had SMOKED one more rock before turning the rest of them down the toilet, just one more rock for old times' sake. He bet the guy had. Being a little stoned had probably stilled the cravings, made the disposal job a little easier. And if he had one more ride, then knelt here to take off the pedals with the endorphins flowing, wouldn't he feel a little less depressed about it? A little less likely to imagine Berkowitz, Freddy, and Whelan retiring to the nearest roadside bar, where they would buy first one pitcher of Rolling Rock and then another, toasting each other and Carlos's memory, congratulating each other on how they had beaten the bastard?

"Collections\Just After Sunset\The Gingerbread Girl.txt" 401 517:"I have maybe fifteen minutes," she said to the empty room-or perhaps it was the bloodstain on the floor she was talking to. He hadn't gagged her, at least; why bother? There would be no one to hear her scream, not in this ugly, boxy, concrete fortress. She thought she could have stood in the middle of the road, screaming at the top of her lungs, and still no one would have heard her. Right now even the Mexican groundskeepers would be under cover, sitting in the cabs of their trucks drinking coffee and SMOKING CIGARETTES.

"Collections\Just After Sunset\The Gingerbread Girl.txt" 401 525:"I have maybe fifteen minutes," she said to the empty room-or perhaps it was the bloodstain on the floor she was talking to. He hadn't gagged her, at least; why bother? There would be no one to hear her scream, not in this ugly, boxy, concrete fortress. She thought she could have stood in the middle of the road, screaming at the top of her lungs, and still no one would have heard her. Right now even the Mexican groundskeepers would be under cover, sitting in the cabs of their trucks drinking coffee and SMOKING CIGARETTES.

"Collections\Just After Sunset\The New York Times at Special Bargain Rates.txt" 163 220:People stand on the sidewalks, looking east toward the sound of the explosion and the rising SMOKE, shading their eyes with their hands. Annie hurries past them, not looking. She doesn't want to see a plume of rising SMOKE after a big bang; she thinks of James enough as it is, especially on the nights when she can't sleep. When she gets home she can hear the phone ringing inside. Either everyone has gone down the block to where the local school is having a sidewalk art sale, or no one can hear that ringing phone. Except for her, that is. And by the time she gets her key turned in the lock, the ringing has stopped.

"Collections\Just After Sunset\The New York Times at Special Bargain Rates.txt" 163 94:People stand on the sidewalks, looking east toward the sound of the explosion and the rising SMOKE, shading their eyes with their hands. Annie hurries past them, not looking. She doesn't want to see a plume of rising SMOKE after a big bang; she thinks of James enough as it is, especially on the nights when she can't sleep. When she gets home she can hear the phone ringing inside. Either everyone has gone down the block to where the local school is having a sidewalk art sale, or no one can hear that ringing phone. Except for her, that is. And by the time she gets her key turned in the lock, the ringing has stopped.

"Collections\Just After Sunset\The New York Times at Special Bargain Rates.txt" 97 189:Find your way home, she almost says. Find the right door and find your way home. But if he did, would she want to see him? A ghost might be all right, but what if she opened the door on a SMOKING cinder with red eyes and the remains of jeans (he always traveled in jeans) melted into his legs? And what if Mrs. Corey was with him, his baked deck of cards in one twisted hand?

"Collections\Just After Sunset\The Things They Left Behind.txt" 141 185:He claimed to have seen a photo that caught her as she dropped, Sonja with her hands placed primly on her skirt to keep it from skating up her thighs, her hair standing up against the SMOKE and blue of that day's sky, the tips of her shoes pointed down. The description made me think of "Falling," the poem James Dickey wrote about the stewardess who tries to aim the plummeting stone of her body for water, as if she could come up smiling, shaking beads of water from her hair and asking for a Coca-Cola.

"Collections\Just After Sunset\The Things They Left Behind.txt" 161 589:Lying in bed and thinking of this stuff-remembering the crash of the surf at Jones Beach and the Frisbees flying under the sky-filled me with an awful sadness that finally emptied in tears. But I have to admit it was a learning experience. That was the night I came to understand that things-even little ones, like a penny in a Lucite cube-can get heavier as time passes. But because it's a weight of the mind, there's no mathematical formula for it, like the ones you can find in an insurance company's Blue Books, where the rate on your whole life policy goes up x if you SMOKE and coverage on your crops goes up y if your farm's in a tornado zone. You see what I'm saying?

"Collections\Just After Sunset\The Things They Left Behind.txt" 407 176:I lay back down and after a while I was able to go to sleep. I dreamed I was in Central Park, feeding the ducks, when all at once there was a loud noise like a sonic boom and SMOKE filled the sky. In my dream, the SMOKE smelled like burning hair.

"Collections\Just After Sunset\The Things They Left Behind.txt" 407 215:I lay back down and after a while I was able to go to sleep. I dreamed I was in Central Park, feeding the ducks, when all at once there was a loud noise like a sonic boom and SMOKE filled the sky. In my dream, the SMOKE smelled like burning hair.

"Collections\Just After Sunset\The Things They Left Behind.txt" 417 622:On September seventh, I said-the Friday before-I had tried to blow a note from the conch Bruce kept on his desk, as I had heard Bruce himself do at the Jones Beach picnic. (Janice, Mrs. Lord of the Flies, nodding; she had been there, of course.) Well, I said, to make a long story short, I had persuaded Bruce to let me have the conch shell over the weekend so I could practice. Then, on Tuesday morning, I'd awakened with a raging sinus infection and a horrible headache to go with it. (This was a story I had already told several people.) I'd been drinking a cup of tea when I heard the boom and saw the rising SMOKE. I hadn't thought of the conch shell again until just this week. I'd been cleaning out my little utility closet and by damn, there it was. And I just thought . . . well, it's not much of a keepsake, but I just thought maybe you'd like to . . . you know . . .

"Collections\Just After Sunset\The Things They Left Behind.txt" 99 569:When something goes wrong in your life and you need to talk about it, I think that the first impulse for most people is to call a family member. This wasn't much of an option for me. My father put an egg in his shoe and beat it when I was two and my sister was four. My mother, no quitter she, hit the ground running and raised the two of us, managing a mail-order clearinghouse out of our home while she did so. I believe this was a business she actually created, and she made an adequate living at it (only the first year was really scary, she told me later). She SMOKED like a chimney, however, and died of lung cancer at the age of forty-eight, six or eight years before the Internet might have made her a dot-com millionaire.

"Collections\Just After Sunset\Willa.txt" 311 23:"They didn't sell CIGARETTES where you were, doll?" Palmer asked. He was the kind of man who called all women of a certain age doll; you knew that just looking at him, as you knew that if you happened to pass the time of day with him on a steamy August afternoon, he'd tip his hat back on his head to wipe his brow and tell you it wasn't the heat, it was the humidity.

"Collections\Just After Sunset\Willa.txt" 321 75:"We're dead, Phil," David said. "That's why. Ghosts can't buy CIGARETTES."

"Collections\Just After Sunset\Willa.txt" 355 159:"You get an A. Now let's go see if anyone else wants to go to town and hear The Derailers. I'll tell Palmer to look on the bright side-we can't buy CIGARETTES, but for people like us there's never a cover charge."

"Collections\Just After Sunset\Willa.txt" 73 57:To which David answered, as he always did: "I don't SMOKE, Mr. Palmer."

"Collections\Just After Sunset\Willa.txt" 99 83:"If I pass a Nite Owl store or a 7-Eleven, you want me to pick you up a pack of CIGARETTES?"

"Collections\Night Shift\Battleground.txt" 77 146:There was a tiny, coughing explosion and blinding agony ripped his thigh. One of the bazooka men had come out of the footlocker. A small curl of SMOKE rose lazily from his weapon. Renshaw looked down at his leg and saw a blackened, SMOKING hole in his pants the size of a quarter. The flesh beneath was charred.

"Collections\Night Shift\Battleground.txt" 77 233:There was a tiny, coughing explosion and blinding agony ripped his thigh. One of the bazooka men had come out of the footlocker. A small curl of SMOKE rose lazily from his weapon. Renshaw looked down at his leg and saw a blackened, SMOKING hole in his pants the size of a quarter. The flesh beneath was charred.

"Collections\Night Shift\Children of the Corn.txt" 637 202:At last, he collapsed onto his knees and put his forehead against the ground. He could only hear his own taxed breathing, and the thought that played over and over in his mind was: Thank God I gave up SMOKING, thank God I gave up SMOKING, thank God-

"Collections\Night Shift\Children of the Corn.txt" 637 231:At last, he collapsed onto his knees and put his forehead against the ground. He could only hear his own taxed breathing, and the thought that played over and over in his mind was: Thank God I gave up SMOKING, thank God I gave up SMOKING, thank God-

"Collections\Night Shift\Graveyard Shift.txt" 107 21:"Let's stop for a SMOKE," Wisconsky said. He sounded out of breath, but Hall had no idea why; he had been goldbricking all night. Still, it was about that time, and they were currently out of sight of everyone else.

"Collections\Night Shift\Graveyard Shift.txt" 121 40:"Come on," Hall said, snuffing his CIGARETTE. "The faster, the quicker."

"Collections\Night Shift\Graveyard Shift.txt" 187 163:They couldn't go in until the crap crews had finished a section, and quite often they were done hosing before the next section was clear-which meant time for a CIGARETTE. Hall worked the nozzle of one of the long hoses and Wisconsky pattered back and forth, unsnagging lengths of the hose, turning the water on and off, moving obstructions.

"Collections\Night Shift\Graveyard Shift.txt" 251 60:"Happy Fourth," Wisconsky said when they stopped for a SMOKE. They were working near the north wall, far from the stairs. The light was extremely dim, and some trick of acoustics made the other men seem miles away.

"Collections\Night Shift\Graveyard Shift.txt" 253 35:"Thanks." Hall dragged on his SMOKE. "Haven't seen many rats tonight."

"Collections\Night Shift\Graveyard Shift.txt" 5 116:Hall was sitting on the bench by the elevator, the only place on the third floor where a working joe could catch a SMOKE, when Warwick came up. He wasn't happy to see Warwick. The foreman wasn't supposed to show up on three during the graveyard shift; he was supposed to stay down in his office in the basement drinking coffee from the urn that stood on the corner of his desk. Besides, it was hot.

"Collections\Night Shift\Graveyard Shift.txt" 527 82:Ippeston looked down into the darkness thoughtfully. "Maybe they stopped for a SMOKE," he said. "A few rats, what the hell."

"Collections\Night Shift\Graveyard Shift.txt" 61 40:He left. Hall sat down and lit another SMOKE, holding a soda can in one hand and watching for the rats. He could just imagine how it would be in the basement-the sub-basement, actually, a level below the dye house. Damp, dark, full of spiders and rotten cloth and ooze from the river-and rats. Maybe even bats, the aviators of the rodent family. Gah.

"Collections\Night Shift\Graveyard Shift.txt" 67 44:He stopped smiling abruptly and butted his SMOKE. A few moments later Wisconsky started to send rough nylon down through the blowers, and Hall went to work. And after a while the rats came out and sat atop the bags at the back of the long room watching him with their unblinking black eyes. They looked like a jury.

"Collections\Night Shift\I Am the Doorway.txt" 15 54:"Yes." I reached into my breast pocket and got a CIGARETTE. My hands were awkward with their covering of bandages. They itched abominably. "If you want to see it, you'll have to get the dune buggy. You can't roll this"-I indicated my wheelchair-"through the sand." Richard's dune buggy was a 1959 VW with pillow-sized tires. He collected driftwood in it. Ever since he retired from the real estate business in Maryland he had been living on Key Caroline and building driftwood sculptures which he sold to the winter tourists at shameless prices.

"Collections\Night Shift\I Am the Doorway.txt" 19 32:I sighed and tried to light my CIGARETTE. He took the matches away from me and did it himself. I puffed twice, dragging deep. The itch in my fingers was maddening.

"Collections\Night Shift\I Am the Doorway.txt" 21 88:"All right" I said. "Last night at seven I was out here, looking at the Gulf and SMOKING, just like now, and-"

"Collections\Night Shift\I Am the Doorway.txt" 3 76:Richard and I sat on my porch, looking out over the dunes to the Gulf. The SMOKE from his cigar drifted mellowly in the air, keeping the mosquitoes at a safe distance. The water was a cool aqua, the sky a deeper, truer blue. It was a pleasant combination.

"Collections\Night Shift\I Know What You Need.txt" 263 80:When she looked up again her plate was empty and she laughed nervously. Ed was SMOKING a CIGARETTE and watching her.

"Collections\Night Shift\I Know What You Need.txt" 263 90:When she looked up again her plate was empty and she laughed nervously. Ed was SMOKING a CIGARETTE and watching her.

"Collections\Night Shift\I Know What You Need.txt" 285 49:"That's true, I guess. But . . . Can I have a CIGARETTE?"

"Collections\Night Shift\I Know What You Need.txt" 289 57:She took one. "How did you know I didn't like menthol CIGARETTES?"

"Collections\Night Shift\I Know What You Need.txt" 333 13:The menthol CIGARETTES, the way he had kissed her good night, exactly as she had wanted to be kissed. And-

"Collections\Night Shift\I Know What You Need.txt" 613 9:Menthol CIGARETTES. The stock exchange. The way he had known her mother's nickname was Deedee. A little boy sitting at the back of a first-grade classroom, making sheep's eyes at a vivacious little girl too young to understand that-

"Collections\Night Shift\Night Surf.txt" 105 4:We SMOKED and I watched the surf come in and go out. Needles had Captain Trips. That made everything real all over again. It was late August already, and in a couple of weeks the first chill of fall would be creeping in. Time to move inside someplace. Winter. Dead by Christmas, maybe, all of us. In somebody's front room with Corey's expensive radio/tape-player on top of a bookcase full of Reader's Digest Condensed Books and the weak winter sun lying on the rug in meaningless windowpane patterns.

"Collections\Night Shift\Night Surf.txt" 169 9:I lit a CIGARETTE.

"Collections\Night Shift\Night Surf.txt" 57 10:"Got a CIGARETTE, Bernie?" Needles asked.

"Collections\Night Shift\Night Surf.txt" 63 14:I gave him a SMOKE and sat down. Susie and I met Needles in Portland. He was sitting on the curb in front of the State Theater, playing Leadbelly tunes on a big old Gibson guitar he had looted someplace. The sound had echoed up and down Congress Street as if he were playing in a concert hall.

"Collections\Night Shift\Night Surf.txt" 81 23:"What?" I sat and SMOKED and thought about Needles flipping back the top of his Zippo, spinning the wheel, making fire with flint and steel like a caveman.

"Collections\Night Shift\One for the Road.txt" 361 267:Her small hands clasped themselves around my neck and I was thinking: Well, maybe it won't be so bad, not so bad, maybe it won't be so awful after a while-when something black flew out of the Scout and struck her on the chest. There was a puff of strange-smelling SMOKE, a flashing glow that was gone an instant later, and then she was backing away, hissing. Her face was twisted into a vulpine mask of rage, hate, and pain. She turned sideways and then . . . and then she was gone. One moment she was there, and the next there was a twisting knot of snow that looked a little bit like a human shape. Then the wind tattered it away across the fields.

"Collections\Night Shift\Quitters, Inc.txt" 13 104:"So do you," McCann said, but Morrison knew it was a lie. He had been overworking, overeating, and SMOKING too much. "What are you drinking?"

"Collections\Night Shift\Quitters, Inc.txt" 15 95:"Bourbon and bitters," Morrison said. He hooked his feet around a bar stool and lighted a CIGARETTE. "Meeting someone, Jimmy?"

"Collections\Night Shift\Quitters, Inc.txt" 155 165:He sat between the woman, who was wearing a severe blue suit, and a young executive type wearing a herringbone jacket and modish sideburns. He took out his pack of CIGARETTES, looked around, and saw there were no ashtrays.

"Collections\Night Shift\Quitters, Inc.txt" 159 171:He was called a quarter of an hour later, after the woman in the blue suit. His nicotine center was speaking quite loudly now. A man who had come in after him took out a CIGARETTE case, snapped it open, saw there were no ashtrays, and put it away-looking a little guilty, Morrison thought. It made him feel better.

"Collections\Night Shift\Quitters, Inc.txt" 169 55:"Pleased to know you," Morrison said. He wanted a CIGARETTE very badly.

"Collections\Night Shift\Quitters, Inc.txt" 173 163:Donatti put the receptionist's form on the desk, and then drew another form from the desk drawer. He looked directly into Morrison's eyes. "Do you want to quit SMOKING?"

"Collections\Night Shift\Quitters, Inc.txt" 181 174:"Good," Donatti said. "We don't bother with propaganda here, Mr. Morrison. Questions of health or expense or social grace. We have no interest in why you want to stop SMOKING. We are pragmatists."

"Collections\Night Shift\Quitters, Inc.txt" 185 154:"We employ no drugs. We employ no Dale Carnegie people to sermonize you. We recommend no special diet. And we accept no payment until you have stopped SMOKING for one year."

"Collections\Night Shift\Quitters, Inc.txt" 211 157:"What has that got to do with kicking the habit?" Morrison asked. He sounded a little angrier than he had intended, but he wanted-hell, he needed-a CIGARETTE.

"Collections\Night Shift\Quitters, Inc.txt" 229 62:"One final question," Donatti said. "You haven't had a CIGARETTE for over an hour. How do you feel?"

"Collections\Night Shift\Quitters, Inc.txt" 233 140:"Good for you!" Donatti exclaimed. He stepped around the desk and opened the door. "Enjoy them tonight. After tomorrow, you'll never SMOKE again."

"Collections\Night Shift\Quitters, Inc.txt" 245 236:In the end, something Jimmy McCann had said convinced him to keep the appointment-It changed my whole life. God knew his own life could do with some changing. And then there was his own curiosity. Before going up in the elevator, he SMOKED a CIGARETTE down to the filter. Too damn bad if it's the last one, he thought. It tasted horrible.

"Collections\Night Shift\Quitters, Inc.txt" 245 245:In the end, something Jimmy McCann had said convinced him to keep the appointment-It changed my whole life. God knew his own life could do with some changing. And then there was his own curiosity. Before going up in the elevator, he SMOKED a CIGARETTE down to the filter. Too damn bad if it's the last one, he thought. It tasted horrible.

"Collections\Night Shift\Quitters, Inc.txt" 247 256:The wait in the outer office was shorter this time. When the receptionist told him to go in, Donatti was waiting. He offered his hand and smiled, and to Morrison the smile looked almost predatory. He began to feel a little tense, and that made him want a CIGARETTE.

"Collections\Night Shift\Quitters, Inc.txt" 255 80:"Oh, it already has. It started when we shook hands in the hall. Do you have CIGARETTES with you, Mr. Morrison?"

"Collections\Night Shift\Quitters, Inc.txt" 263 151:Donatti put the pack on the desk. Then, smiling into Morrison's eyes, he curled his right hand into a fist and began to hammer it down on the pack of CIGARETTES, which twisted and flattened. A broken CIGARETTE end flew out. Tobacco crumbs spilled. The sound of Donatti's fist was very loud in the closed room. The smile remained on his face in spite of the force of the blows, and Morrison was chilled by it. Probably just the effect they want to inspire, he thought.

"Collections\Night Shift\Quitters, Inc.txt" 263 201:Donatti put the pack on the desk. Then, smiling into Morrison's eyes, he curled his right hand into a fist and began to hammer it down on the pack of CIGARETTES, which twisted and flattened. A broken CIGARETTE end flew out. Tobacco crumbs spilled. The sound of Donatti's fist was very loud in the closed room. The smile remained on his face in spite of the force of the blows, and Morrison was chilled by it. Probably just the effect they want to inspire, he thought.

"Collections\Night Shift\Quitters, Inc.txt" 285 51:Morrison glanced into the wastebasket. One of the CIGARETTES, although twisted, still looked smokeable. Donatti laughed good-naturedly, reached into the wastebasket, and broke it between his fingers.

"Collections\Night Shift\Quitters, Inc.txt" 287 96:"State legislatures sometimes hear a request that the prison systems do away with the weekly CIGARETTE ration. Such proposals are invariably defeated. In a few cases where they have passed, there have been fierce prison riots. Riots, Mr. Morrison. Imagine it."

"Collections\Night Shift\Quitters, Inc.txt" 291 249:"But consider the implications. When you put a man in prison you take away any normal sex life, you take away his liquor, his politics, his freedom of movement. No riots-or few in comparison to the number of prisons. But when you take away his CIGARETTES-wham! bam!" He slammed his fist on the desk for emphasis.

"Collections\Night Shift\Quitters, Inc.txt" 293 254:"During World War I, when no one on the German home front could get CIGARETTES, the sight of German aristocrats picking butts out of the gutter was a common one. During World War II, many American women turned to pipes when they were unable to obtain CIGARETTES. A fascinating problem for the true pragmatist, Mr. Morrison."

"Collections\Night Shift\Quitters, Inc.txt" 293 71:"During World War I, when no one on the German home front could get CIGARETTES, the sight of German aristocrats picking butts out of the gutter was a common one. During World War II, many American women turned to pipes when they were unable to obtain CIGARETTES. A fascinating problem for the true pragmatist, Mr. Morrison."

"Collections\Night Shift\Quitters, Inc.txt" 325 158:Morrison looked at Donatti. His brown eyes were muddy and frightening. My God, he thought, I'm locked in here with a psycho. He licked his lips. He wanted a CIGARETTE more than he ever had in his life.

"Collections\Night Shift\Quitters, Inc.txt" 337 122:"Sure," Morrison said. "As long as you understand that as soon as I get out of here I'm going to buy five packs of CIGARETTES and SMOKE them all on the way to the police station." He suddenly realized he was biting his thumbnail, sucking on it, and made himself stop.

"Collections\Night Shift\Quitters, Inc.txt" 337 137:"Sure," Morrison said. "As long as you understand that as soon as I get out of here I'm going to buy five packs of CIGARETTES and SMOKE them all on the way to the police station." He suddenly realized he was biting his thumbnail, sucking on it, and made himself stop.

"Collections\Night Shift\Quitters, Inc.txt" 343 221:"For the first month of the treatment, our operatives will have you under constant supervision," Donatti said. "You'll be able to spot some of them. Not all. But they'll always be with you. Always. If they see you SMOKE a CIGARETTE, I get a call."

"Collections\Night Shift\Quitters, Inc.txt" 343 229:"For the first month of the treatment, our operatives will have you under constant supervision," Donatti said. "You'll be able to spot some of them. Not all. But they'll always be with you. Always. If they see you SMOKE a CIGARETTE, I get a call."

"Collections\Night Shift\Quitters, Inc.txt" 35 125:McCann laughed. "You know it. Well, to put the capper on it, the doc told me I had an incipient ulcer. He told me to quit SMOKING." McCann grimaced. "Might as well tell me to quit breathing."

"Collections\Night Shift\Quitters, Inc.txt" 37 100:Morrison nodded in perfect understanding. Nonsmokers could afford to be smug. He looked at his own CIGARETTE with distaste and stubbed it out, knowing he would be lighting another in five minutes.

"Collections\Night Shift\Quitters, Inc.txt" 405 182:"In a manner of speaking." He opened one of the desk drawers and laid a silenced .45 on the desk. He smiled into Morrison's eyes. "But even the unregenerate two percent never SMOKE again. We guarantee it."

"Collections\Night Shift\Quitters, Inc.txt" 41 224:"Yes, I did. At first I didn't think I'd be able to-I was cheating like hell. Then I met a guy who told me about an outfit over on Forty-sixth Street. Specialists. I said what do I have to lose and went over. I haven't SMOKED since."

"Collections\Night Shift\Quitters, Inc.txt" 415 62:"Nothing . . . everything," he growled. "I'm giving up SMOKING."

"Collections\Night Shift\Quitters, Inc.txt" 421 29:"You really haven't had a CIGARETTE since then?"

"Collections\Night Shift\Quitters, Inc.txt" 441 118:He slept badly that night, dozing in and out of sleep. Around three o'clock he woke up completely. His craving for a CIGARETTE was like a low-grade fever. He went downstairs and to his study. The room was in the middle of the house. No windows. He slid open the top drawer of his desk and looked in, fascinated by the CIGARETTE box. He looked around and licked his lips.

"Collections\Night Shift\Quitters, Inc.txt" 441 319:He slept badly that night, dozing in and out of sleep. Around three o'clock he woke up completely. His craving for a CIGARETTE was like a low-grade fever. He went downstairs and to his study. The room was in the middle of the house. No windows. He slid open the top drawer of his desk and looked in, fascinated by the CIGARETTE box. He looked around and licked his lips.

"Collections\Night Shift\Quitters, Inc.txt" 447 164:"We may audit you every other month," Donatti said. "Or every other day. Or constantly for one week two years from now. The point is, you won't know. If you SMOKE, you'll be gambling with loaded dice. Are they watching? Are they picking up my wife or sending a man after my son right now? Beautiful, isn't it? And if you do sneak a SMOKE, it'll taste awful. It will taste like your son's blood."

"Collections\Night Shift\Quitters, Inc.txt" 447 339:"We may audit you every other month," Donatti said. "Or every other day. Or constantly for one week two years from now. The point is, you won't know. If you SMOKE, you'll be gambling with loaded dice. Are they watching? Are they picking up my wife or sending a man after my son right now? Beautiful, isn't it? And if you do sneak a SMOKE, it'll taste awful. It will taste like your son's blood."

"Collections\Night Shift\Quitters, Inc.txt" 451 187:He looked at the CIGARETTES in the box for almost two minutes, unable to tear his gaze away. Then he went to the study door, peered out into the empty hall, and went back to look at the CIGARETTES some more. A horrible picture came: his life stretching before him and not a CIGARETTE to be found. How in the name of God was he ever going to be able to make another tough presentation to a wary client, without that CIGARETTE burning nonchalantly between his fingers as he approached the charts and layouts? How would he be able to endure Cindy's endless garden shows without a CIGARETTE? How could he even get up in the morning and face the day without a CIGARETTE to SMOKE as he drank his coffee and read the paper?

"Collections\Night Shift\Quitters, Inc.txt" 451 18:He looked at the CIGARETTES in the box for almost two minutes, unable to tear his gaze away. Then he went to the study door, peered out into the empty hall, and went back to look at the CIGARETTES some more. A horrible picture came: his life stretching before him and not a CIGARETTE to be found. How in the name of God was he ever going to be able to make another tough presentation to a wary client, without that CIGARETTE burning nonchalantly between his fingers as he approached the charts and layouts? How would he be able to endure Cindy's endless garden shows without a CIGARETTE? How could he even get up in the morning and face the day without a CIGARETTE to SMOKE as he drank his coffee and read the paper?

"Collections\Night Shift\Quitters, Inc.txt" 451 275:He looked at the CIGARETTES in the box for almost two minutes, unable to tear his gaze away. Then he went to the study door, peered out into the empty hall, and went back to look at the CIGARETTES some more. A horrible picture came: his life stretching before him and not a CIGARETTE to be found. How in the name of God was he ever going to be able to make another tough presentation to a wary client, without that CIGARETTE burning nonchalantly between his fingers as he approached the charts and layouts? How would he be able to endure Cindy's endless garden shows without a CIGARETTE? How could he even get up in the morning and face the day without a CIGARETTE to SMOKE as he drank his coffee and read the paper?

"Collections\Night Shift\Quitters, Inc.txt" 451 416:He looked at the CIGARETTES in the box for almost two minutes, unable to tear his gaze away. Then he went to the study door, peered out into the empty hall, and went back to look at the CIGARETTES some more. A horrible picture came: his life stretching before him and not a CIGARETTE to be found. How in the name of God was he ever going to be able to make another tough presentation to a wary client, without that CIGARETTE burning nonchalantly between his fingers as he approached the charts and layouts? How would he be able to endure Cindy's endless garden shows without a CIGARETTE? How could he even get up in the morning and face the day without a CIGARETTE to SMOKE as he drank his coffee and read the paper?

"Collections\Night Shift\Quitters, Inc.txt" 451 578:He looked at the CIGARETTES in the box for almost two minutes, unable to tear his gaze away. Then he went to the study door, peered out into the empty hall, and went back to look at the CIGARETTES some more. A horrible picture came: his life stretching before him and not a CIGARETTE to be found. How in the name of God was he ever going to be able to make another tough presentation to a wary client, without that CIGARETTE burning nonchalantly between his fingers as he approached the charts and layouts? How would he be able to endure Cindy's endless garden shows without a CIGARETTE? How could he even get up in the morning and face the day without a CIGARETTE to SMOKE as he drank his coffee and read the paper?

"Collections\Night Shift\Quitters, Inc.txt" 451 656:He looked at the CIGARETTES in the box for almost two minutes, unable to tear his gaze away. Then he went to the study door, peered out into the empty hall, and went back to look at the CIGARETTES some more. A horrible picture came: his life stretching before him and not a CIGARETTE to be found. How in the name of God was he ever going to be able to make another tough presentation to a wary client, without that CIGARETTE burning nonchalantly between his fingers as he approached the charts and layouts? How would he be able to endure Cindy's endless garden shows without a CIGARETTE? How could he even get up in the morning and face the day without a CIGARETTE to SMOKE as he drank his coffee and read the paper?

"Collections\Night Shift\Quitters, Inc.txt" 451 669:He looked at the CIGARETTES in the box for almost two minutes, unable to tear his gaze away. Then he went to the study door, peered out into the empty hall, and went back to look at the CIGARETTES some more. A horrible picture came: his life stretching before him and not a CIGARETTE to be found. How in the name of God was he ever going to be able to make another tough presentation to a wary client, without that CIGARETTE burning nonchalantly between his fingers as he approached the charts and layouts? How would he be able to endure Cindy's endless garden shows without a CIGARETTE? How could he even get up in the morning and face the day without a CIGARETTE to SMOKE as he drank his coffee and read the paper?

"Collections\Night Shift\Quitters, Inc.txt" 455 240:Stealthily, he glanced around the study again. He reached into the drawer and brought out a CIGARETTE. He caressed it, fondled it. What was that old slogan? So round, so firm, so fully packed. Truer words had never been spoken. He put the CIGARETTE in his mouth and then paused, cocking his head.

"Collections\Night Shift\Quitters, Inc.txt" 455 93:Stealthily, he glanced around the study again. He reached into the drawer and brought out a CIGARETTE. He caressed it, fondled it. What was that old slogan? So round, so firm, so fully packed. Truer words had never been spoken. He put the CIGARETTE in his mouth and then paused, cocking his head.

"Collections\Night Shift\Quitters, Inc.txt" 473 13:"Have you SMOKED yet?" she asked, pouring orange juice.

"Collections\Night Shift\Quitters, Inc.txt" 479 99:"Lot of goddamn help you are!" he rasped, rounding on her. "You and anyone else who doesn't SMOKE, you all think . . . ah, never mind."

"Collections\Night Shift\Quitters, Inc.txt" 501 80:Morrison and a crony from Larkin Studios at Jack Dempsey's bar. Crony offers a CIGARETTE. Morrison grips his glass a little more tightly and says: I'm quitting. Crony laughs and says: I give you a week.

"Collections\Night Shift\Quitters, Inc.txt" 505 46:Morrison getting drunk at a party, wanting a CIGARETTE-but not quite drunk enough to take one.

"Collections\Night Shift\Quitters, Inc.txt" 509 44:Morrison losing the physical compulsion to SMOKE little by little, but never quite losing the psychological craving, or the need to have something in his mouth-cough drops, Life Savers, a toothpick. Poor substitutes, all of them.

"Collections\Night Shift\Quitters, Inc.txt" 511 230:And finally, Morrison hung up in a colossal traffic jam in the Midtown Tunnel. Darkness. Horns blaring. Air stinking. Traffic hopelessly snarled. And suddenly, thumbing open the glove compartment and seeing the half-open pack of CIGARETTES in there. He looked at them for a moment, then snatched one and lit it with the dashboard lighter. If anything happens, it's Cindy's fault, he told himself defiantly. I told her to get rid of all the damn CIGARETTES.

"Collections\Night Shift\Quitters, Inc.txt" 511 446:And finally, Morrison hung up in a colossal traffic jam in the Midtown Tunnel. Darkness. Horns blaring. Air stinking. Traffic hopelessly snarled. And suddenly, thumbing open the glove compartment and seeing the half-open pack of CIGARETTES in there. He looked at them for a moment, then snatched one and lit it with the dashboard lighter. If anything happens, it's Cindy's fault, he told himself defiantly. I told her to get rid of all the damn CIGARETTES.

"Collections\Night Shift\Quitters, Inc.txt" 513 31:The first drag made him cough SMOKE out furiously. The second made his eyes water. The third made him feel lightheaded and swoony. It tastes awful, he thought.

"Collections\Night Shift\Quitters, Inc.txt" 517 98:Horns blatted impatiently behind him. Ahead, the traffic had begun to move again. He stubbed the CIGARETTE out in the ashtray, opened both front windows, opened the vents, and then fanned the air helplessly like a kid who has just flushed his first butt down the john.

"Collections\Night Shift\Quitters, Inc.txt" 53 18:Stop Going Up in SMOKE!

"Collections\Night Shift\Quitters, Inc.txt" 633 156:The phone rang one evening a week later, and when Morrison recognized Donatti's voice, he said, "Your boys have got it wrong. I haven't even been near a CIGARETTE."

"Collections\Night Shift\Quitters, Inc.txt" 675 108:Crony: Lord, how'd you ever stop? I'm locked into this damn habit tighter than Tillie. The crony stubs his CIGARETTE out with real revulsion and drains his scotch.

"Collections\Night Shift\Quitters, Inc.txt" 85 133:"Wait a second," Morrison said. He motioned for another drink and lit a CIGARETTE. "Do these guys strap you down and make you SMOKE until you throw up?"

"Collections\Night Shift\Quitters, Inc.txt" 85 77:"Wait a second," Morrison said. He motioned for another drink and lit a CIGARETTE. "Do these guys strap you down and make you SMOKE until you throw up?"

"Collections\Night Shift\Quitters, Inc.txt" 91 86:"No, it's nothing like that. Go and see for yourself." He gestured at Morrison's CIGARETTE. "You don't really like that, do you?"

"Collections\Night Shift\Sometimes They Come Back.txt" 447 35:"It's not about that. Uh, can I SMOKE in here?"

"Collections\Night Shift\Sometimes They Come Back.txt" 451 12:He lit his CIGARETTE with a hand that trembled slightly. He didn't speak for perhaps as long as a minute. It seemed that he couldn't. His lips twitched, his hands came together, and his eyes slitted, as if some inner self was struggling to find expression.

"Collections\Night Shift\Sometimes They Come Back.txt" 467 74:"The CIGARETTE," he said thickly. "Haven't ever gotten used to the SMOKE."

"Collections\Night Shift\Sometimes They Come Back.txt" 467 8:"The CIGARETTE," he said thickly. "Haven't ever gotten used to the SMOKE."

"Collections\Night Shift\Sometimes They Come Back.txt" 959 686:He opened his pocketknife, turned to his desk, laid his right hand down flat, and hacked off his right index finger with four hard chops. Blood flew across the blotter in dark patterns. It didn't hurt at all. He brushed the finger aside and switched the pocketknife to his right hand. Cutting off the left finger was harder. His right hand felt awkward and alien with the missing finger, and the knife kept slipping. At last, with an impatient grunt, he threw the knife away, snapped the bone, and ripped the finger free. He picked them both up like breadsticks and threw them into the pentagram. There was a bright flash of light, like an old-fashioned photographer's flashpowder. No SMOKE, he noted. No smell of brimstone.

"Collections\Night Shift\Strawberry Spring.txt" 115 510:Twilight came and the fog with it, drifting up the tree-lined avenues slowly, almost thoughtfully, blotting out the buildings one by one. It was soft, insubstantial stuff, but somehow implacable and frightening. Springheel Jack was a man, no one seemed to doubt that, but the fog was his accomplice and it was female . . . or so it seemed to me. It was as if our little school was caught between them, squeezed in some crazy lovers' embrace, part of a marriage that had been consummated in blood. I sat and SMOKED and watched the lights come on in the growing darkness and wondered if it was all over. My roommate came in and shut the door quietly behind him.

"Collections\Night Shift\Strawberry Spring.txt" 13 204:And when night came the fog came with it, moving silent and white along the narrow college avenues and thoroughfares. The pines on the mall poked through it like counting fingers and it drifted, slow as CIGARETTE SMOKE, under the little bridge down by the Civil War cannons. It made things seem out of joint, strange, magical. The unwary traveler would step out of the juke-thumping, brightly lit confusion of the Grinder, expecting the hard clear starriness of winter to clutch him . . . and instead he would suddenly find himself in a silent, muffled world of white drifting fog, the only sound his own footsteps and the soft drip of water from the ancient gutters. You half expected to see Gollum or Frodo and Sam go hurrying past, or to turn and see that the Grinder was gone, vanished, replaced by a foggy panorama of moors and yew trees and perhaps a Druid-circle or a sparkling fairy ring.

"Collections\Night Shift\Strawberry Spring.txt" 13 214:And when night came the fog came with it, moving silent and white along the narrow college avenues and thoroughfares. The pines on the mall poked through it like counting fingers and it drifted, slow as CIGARETTE SMOKE, under the little bridge down by the Civil War cannons. It made things seem out of joint, strange, magical. The unwary traveler would step out of the juke-thumping, brightly lit confusion of the Grinder, expecting the hard clear starriness of winter to clutch him . . . and instead he would suddenly find himself in a silent, muffled world of white drifting fog, the only sound his own footsteps and the soft drip of water from the ancient gutters. You half expected to see Gollum or Frodo and Sam go hurrying past, or to turn and see that the Grinder was gone, vanished, replaced by a foggy panorama of moors and yew trees and perhaps a Druid-circle or a sparkling fairy ring.

"Collections\Night Shift\Strawberry Spring.txt" 131 44:He smiled benevolently and stole one of my CIGARETTES from the open pack on the window ledge. "I suspect everyone but me and thee," he said, and then the smile faded a little. "And sometimes I wonder about thee. Want to go over to the Union and shoot some eight-ball? I'll spot you ten."

"Collections\Night Shift\The Lawnmower Man.txt" 41 384:Harold stood helplessly aside and the lawnmower man tromped ahead of him down the hall, through the living room and kitchen, and onto the back porch. Now Harold had placed the man and everything was all right. He had seen the type before, working for the sanitation department and the highway repair crews out on the turnpike. Always with a spare minute to lean on their shovels and SMOKE Lucky Strikes or Camels, looking at you as if they were the salt of the earth, able to hit you for five or sleep with your wife anytime they wanted to. Harold had always been slightly afraid of men like this; they were always tanned dark brown, there were always nets of wrinkles around their eyes, and they always knew what to do.

"Collections\Night Shift\The Lawnmower Man.txt" 73 347:The aged red power mower the fat man had brought in his van was running on its own. No one was pushing it; in fact, no one was within five feet of it. It was running at a fever pitch, tearing through the unfortunate grass of Harold Parkette's back lawn like an avenging red devil straight from hell. It screamed and bellowed and farted oily blue SMOKE in a crazed kind of mechanical madness that made Harold feel ill with terror. The overripe smell of cut grass hung in the air like sour wine.

"Collections\Night Shift\The Ledge.txt" 13 59:"Twenty thousand dollars," he said, and puffed on his CIGARETTE.

"Collections\Night Shift\The Ledge.txt" 135 597:"On the contrary. I have proposed this wager six times to six different people during my dozen years in this apartment. Three of the six were professional athletes, like you-one of them a notorious quarterback more famous for his TV Commercials than his passing game, one a baseball player, one a rather famous jockey who made an extraordinary yearly salary and who was also afflicted with extraordinary alimony problems. The other three were more ordinary citizens who had differing professions but two things in common: a need for money and a certain degree of body grace." He puffed his CIGARETTE thoughtfully and then continued. "The wager was declined five times out of hand. On the other occasion, it was accepted. The terms were twenty thousand dollars against six months' service to me. I collected. The fellow took one look over the edge of the balcony and nearly fainted." Cressner looked amused and contemptuous. "He said everything down there looked so small. That was what killed his nerve."

"Collections\Night Shift\The Ledge.txt" 149 60:The old tom sitting there and puffing his imported Turkish CIGARETTE knew all that, of course. And something else, as well. I had no guarantee that he wouldn't turn me in if I accepted his wager and won, but I knew damn well that I'd be in the cooler by ten o'clock if I didn't. And the next time I'd be free would be at the turn of the century.

"Collections\Night Shift\The Ledge.txt" 195 289:I swung over the railing and carefully lowered myself until I was standing on the ledge. My heels were out over the drop. The floor on the balcony was about chest-high, and I was looking into Cressner's penthouse through the wrought-iron ornamental bars. He was standing inside the door, SMOKING, watching me the way a scientist watches a guinea pig to see what the latest injection will do.

"Collections\Night Shift\The Ledge.txt" 29 29:"Oh, yes." He waved the CIGARETTE holder negligently. "Even a motion picture of the two of you in that Bayside Motel. A camera was behind the mirror. But pictures are hardly the same, are they?"

"Collections\Night Shift\The Ledge.txt" 61 145:Cressner sighed, removed the smoldering CIGARETTE holder, and dropped it into a chromium ashtray with a sliding lid. No fuss, no muss. The used CIGARETTE and Stan Norris had been taken care of with equal ease.

"Collections\Night Shift\The Ledge.txt" 61 41:Cressner sighed, removed the smoldering CIGARETTE holder, and dropped it into a chromium ashtray with a sliding lid. No fuss, no muss. The used CIGARETTE and Stan Norris had been taken care of with equal ease.

"Collections\Night Shift\The Ledge.txt" 83 69:"I don't like my wife very much," Cressner said, fixing another CIGARETTE carefully in the holder. "That's no secret. I'm sure she's told you as much. And I'm sure a man of your . . . experience knows that contented wives do not jump into the hay with the local tennis-club pro at the drop of a racket. In my opinion, Marcia is a prissy, whey-faced little prude, a whiner, a weeper, a bearer of tales, a-"

"Collections\Night Shift\The Ledge.txt" 9 62:"It's money, but it's not a payoff. Go on. Look." He was SMOKING a Turkish CIGARETTE in an onyx holder. The air-circulation system allowed me just a dry whiff of the tobacco and then whipped it away. He was wearing a silk dressing gown on which a dragon was embroidered. His eyes were calm and intelligent behind his glasses. He looked just like what he was: an A-number-one, 500-carat, dyed-in-the-wool son of a bitch. I loved his wife, and she loved me. I had expected him to make trouble, and I knew this was it, but I just wasn't sure what brand it was.

"Collections\Night Shift\The Ledge.txt" 9 80:"It's money, but it's not a payoff. Go on. Look." He was SMOKING a Turkish CIGARETTE in an onyx holder. The air-circulation system allowed me just a dry whiff of the tobacco and then whipped it away. He was wearing a silk dressing gown on which a dragon was embroidered. His eyes were calm and intelligent behind his glasses. He looked just like what he was: an A-number-one, 500-carat, dyed-in-the-wool son of a bitch. I loved his wife, and she loved me. I had expected him to make trouble, and I knew this was it, but I just wasn't sure what brand it was.

"Collections\Night Shift\The Ledge.txt" 91 46:"Tough to the end," he said, and lit his CIGARETTE. "At any rate, you may wonder why, if I dislike Marcia so much, I do not simply give her her freedom-"

"Collections\Night Shift\The Man Who Loved Flowers.txt" 17 329:"My young friend," the flower vendor said, as the man in the gray suit came back, running his eyes over the stock in the handcart. The vendor was maybe sixty-eight, wearing a torn gray knitted sweater and a soft cap in spite of the warmth of the evening. His face was a map of wrinkles, his eyes were deep in pouches, and a CIGARETTE jittered between his fingers. But he also remembered how it was to be young in the spring-young and so much in love that you practically zoomed everywhere. The vendor's face was normally sour, but now he smiled a little, just as the old woman pushing the groceries had, because this guy was such an obvious case. He brushed pretzel crumbs from the front of his baggy sweater and thought: If this kid were sick, they'd have him in intensive care right now.

"Collections\Night Shift\The Man Who Loved Flowers.txt" 33 61:"My young friend," the flower vendor said, flicking his CIGARETTE butt into the gutter and returning the smile, "no one buys flowers for themselves in May. It's like a national law, you understand what I mean?"

"Collections\Night Shift\The Man Who Loved Flowers.txt" 67 617:On the radio, the Four Seasons began singing "Sherry." The young man pocketed his change and went on up the street, eyes wide and alert and eager, looking not so much around him at the life ebbing and flowing up and down Third Avenue as inward and ahead, anticipating. But certain things did impinge: a mother pulling a baby in a wagon, the baby's face comically smeared with ice cream; a little girl jumping rope and singsonging out her rhyme: "Betty and Henry up in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G! First comes love, then comes marriage, here comes Henry with a baby carriage!" Two women stood outside a washateria, SMOKING and comparing pregnancies. A group of men were looking in a hardware-store window at a gigantic color TV with a four-figure price tag-a baseball game was on, and all the players' faces looked green. The playing field was a vague strawberry color, and the New York Mets were leading the Phillies by a score of six to one in the top of the ninth.

"Collections\Night Shift\The Mangler.txt" 501 56:There was a sudden, gnashing scream of tortured metal. SMOKE rose from the canvas belts where the holy water had touched and took on writhing, red-tinged shapes. The mangler suddenly jerked into life.

"Collections\Night Shift\The Mangler.txt" 509 173:Sparks began to jump across the arc between the main motor and the secondary; the smell of ozone filled the air, like the copper smell of hot blood. Now the main motor was SMOKING; the mangler was running at an insane, blurred speed: a finger touched to the central belt would have caused the whole body to be hauled in and turned to a bloody rag in the space of five seconds. The concrete beneath their feet trembled and thrummed.

"Collections\Night Shift\The Woman in the Room.txt" 113 15:He snuffs the CIGARETTE in her ashtray and slinks from the room, thinking: I want to talk to that doctor. Goddamn it, I want to talk to the doctor who did that.

"Collections\Night Shift\The Woman in the Room.txt" 31 316:Ectoplasmic music drifts everywhere from transistor radios. Voices babble. He can hear Black Oak Arkansas singing "Jim Dandy" ("Go Jim Dandy, go Jim Dandy!" a falsetto voice screams merrily at the slow hall walkers). He can hear a talk-show host discussing Nixon in tones that have been dipped in acid like SMOKING quills. He can hear a polka with French lyrics-Lewiston is still a French-speaking town and they love their jigs and reels almost as much as they love to cut each other in the bars on lower Lisbon Street.

"Collections\Night Shift\The Woman in the Room.txt" 77 21:-Would you like a SMOKE?

"Collections\Night Shift\The Woman in the Room.txt" 87 150:She chokes on the water a little and it frightens him even though he has been thinking about giving her pills. He asks her again if she would like a CIGARETTE and she says:

"Collections\Night Shift\The Woman in the Room.txt" 91 245:He shakes a Kool out of one of the packages scattered on the table by her bed and lights it. He holds it between the first and second fingers of his right hand, and she puffs it, her lips stretching to grasp the filter. Her inhale is weak. The SMOKE drifts from her lips.

"Collections\Night Shift\The Woman in the Room.txt" 93 54:-I had to live sixty years so my son could hold my CIGARETTES for me.

"Collections\Night Shift\Trucks.txt" 107 268:Her boy friend told her to hush. The trucker got the CIGARETTE machine open and helped himself to six or eight packs of Viceroys. He put them in different pockets and then ripped one pack open. From the intent expression on his face, I wasn't sure if he was going to SMOKE them or eat them up.

"Collections\Night Shift\Trucks.txt" 107 54:Her boy friend told her to hush. The trucker got the CIGARETTE machine open and helped himself to six or eight packs of Viceroys. He put them in different pockets and then ripped one pack open. From the intent expression on his face, I wasn't sure if he was going to SMOKE them or eat them up.

"Collections\Night Shift\Trucks.txt" 159 129:He looked at her and she didn't say anything else, but she picked up a napkin and began to tear at the corners. The trucker was SMOKING another CIGARETTE and grinning at the floor. He didn't speak up.

"Collections\Night Shift\Trucks.txt" 159 145:He looked at her and she didn't say anything else, but she picked up a napkin and began to tear at the corners. The trucker was SMOKING another CIGARETTE and grinning at the floor. He didn't speak up.

"Collections\Night Shift\Trucks.txt" 211 33:The trucker began hunting for a SMOKE.

"Collections\Night Shift\Trucks.txt" 275 133:"That's right, buddy. And they can't pump their own. We got it knocked. All we have to do is wait." He smiled and fumbled for a CIGARETTE.

"Collections\Night Shift\Trucks.txt" 333 168:I went over to the CIGARETTE machine and got a pack without looking at the brand. I'd stopped SMOKING a year ago, but this seemed like a good time to start again. The SMOKE rasped harsh in my lungs.

"Collections\Night Shift\Trucks.txt" 333 20:I went over to the CIGARETTE machine and got a pack without looking at the brand. I'd stopped SMOKING a year ago, but this seemed like a good time to start again. The SMOKE rasped harsh in my lungs.

"Collections\Night Shift\Trucks.txt" 333 95:I went over to the CIGARETTE machine and got a pack without looking at the brand. I'd stopped SMOKING a year ago, but this seemed like a good time to start again. The SMOKE rasped harsh in my lungs.

"Collections\Night Shift\Trucks.txt" 341 96:It glittered like a yellowjacket in the sun, a Caterpillar with clattering steel treads. Black SMOKE belched from its short stack as it wheeled around to face us.

"Collections\Night Shift\Trucks.txt" 347 97:The bulldozer was still revving. Gear-shift levers moved themselves. Heat shimmer hung over its SMOKING stack. Suddenly the dozer blade lifted, a heavy steel curve clotted with dried dirt. Then, with a screaming howl of power, it roared straight at us.

"Collections\Night Shift\Trucks.txt" 435 220:The counterman held her. I went around the corner of the counter, picking my way through the rubble, and out through the supply room. My heart was thudding heavily when I stepped out into the warm sun. I wanted another CIGARETTE, but you don't SMOKE around fuel islands.

"Collections\Night Shift\Trucks.txt" 435 245:The counterman held her. I went around the corner of the counter, picking my way through the rubble, and out through the supply room. My heart was thudding heavily when I stepped out into the warm sun. I wanted another CIGARETTE, but you don't SMOKE around fuel islands.

"Collections\Night Shift\Trucks.txt" 95 61:The trucker came over and blinked at us. "I'm dead out of CIGARETTES. Now that CIGARETTE machine . . ."

"Collections\Night Shift\Trucks.txt" 95 82:The trucker came over and blinked at us. "I'm dead out of CIGARETTES. Now that CIGARETTE machine . . ."

"Collections\Nightmares & Dreamscapes\Chattery Teeth.txt" 202 34:"Second, if you really have to SMOKE, we part company right now. That okay?"

"Collections\Nightmares & Dreamscapes\Chattery Teeth.txt" 204 263:For just a moment Hogan saw the kid's other look (and even on short acquaintance, Hogan was almost willing to bet he only had two): the mean, watchful look. Then he was all wide-eyed innocence again, just a harmless refugee from Wayne's World. He tucked the CIGARETTE behind his ear and showed Hogan his empty hands. As he raised them, Hogan noticed the hand-lettered tattoo on the kid's left bicep: DEFLEPPARD 4-EVER.

"Collections\Nightmares & Dreamscapes\Chattery Teeth.txt" 242 334:He wished the kid wouldn't talk. He wanted to concentrate on his driving. Up ahead, fog-lights loomed out of the murk like yellow ghosts. They were followed by an Iroc Z with California plates. The van and the Z crept past each other like old ladies in a nursing-home corridor. In the corner of his eye, Hogan saw the kid take the CIGARETTE from behind his ear and begin to play with it. Bryan Adams indeed. Why had the kid given him a false name? It was like something out of an old Republic movie, the kind of thing you could still see on the late-late show, a black-and-white crime movie where the travelling salesman (probably played by Ray Milland) picks up the tough young con (played by Nick Adams, say) who has just broken out of jail in Gabbs or Deeth or some place like that-

"Collections\Nightmares & Dreamscapes\Chattery Teeth.txt" 308 230:"Pull over, I said. You're either walking, Label Dude, or you're lying in the nearest gully with your throat cut and one of your own price-reading gadgets jammed up your ass. And you wanna know something? I'm gonna chain-SMOKE all the way to Los Angeles, and every time I finish a CIGARETTE I'm gonna butt it out on your fuckin dashboard."

"Collections\Nightmares & Dreamscapes\Chattery Teeth.txt" 308 290:"Pull over, I said. You're either walking, Label Dude, or you're lying in the nearest gully with your throat cut and one of your own price-reading gadgets jammed up your ass. And you wanna know something? I'm gonna chain-SMOKE all the way to Los Angeles, and every time I finish a CIGARETTE I'm gonna butt it out on your fuckin dashboard."

"Collections\Nightmares & Dreamscapes\Chattery Teeth.txt" 48 153:The kid with the ponytail was still going through his pockets; the sullen expression on his face deepened each time he came up dry. Hogan was no fan of SMOKING-his father, a two-pack-a-day man, had died of lung cancer-but he had visions of still waiting to be waited on an hour from now. "Hey! Kid!"

"Collections\Nightmares & Dreamscapes\Chattery Teeth.txt" 532 410:The store looked bigger and cleaner inside. Hogan guessed this was partly because the day outside was not so threatening, but that wasn't all; the windows had been washed, for one thing, and that made a big difference. The board walls had been replaced with pine-panelling that still smelled fresh and sappy. A snackbar with five stools had been added at the back. The novelty case was still there, but the CIGARETTE loads, the joy-buzzers, and Dr. Wacky's Sneezing Powder were gone. The case was filled with videotape boxes. A hand-lettered sign read X-RATED IN BACK ROOM • "B 18 OR B GONE."

"Collections\Nightmares & Dreamscapes\Chattery Teeth.txt" 56 72:The kid concluded his transaction with the beefy Mrs. Scooter, put the CIGARETTES in one pocket, and dropped the remaining fifteen cents in another. He made no offer of the change to Hogan, who hadn't really expected it. Boys and girls like this were legion these days-they cluttered the highways from coast to coast, blowing along like tumbleweeds. Perhaps they had always been there, but to Hogan the current breed seemed both unpleasant and a little scary, like the rattlers Scooter was now storing in the back room.

"Collections\Nightmares & Dreamscapes\Chattery Teeth.txt" 578 160:Hogan frowned, puzzled, but the woman was already going behind the counter. She stood on tiptoe and brought something down from a high shelf above the rack of CIGARETTES. It was, Hogan saw with absolutely no surprise at all, the Jumbo Chattery Teeth. The woman set them down beside the cash register.

"Collections\Nightmares & Dreamscapes\Chattery Teeth.txt" 6 255:Hogan looked up at the fat woman behind the counter. She was wearing a tee-shirt that said NEVADA IS GOD'S COUNTRY on top (the words swelling and receding across her enormous breasts) and about an acre of jeans on the bottom. She was selling a pack of CIGARETTES to a pallid young man whose long blonde hair had been tied back in a ponytail with a sneaker shoelace. The young man, who had the face of an intelligent lab-rat, was paying in small change, counting it laboriously out of a grimy hand.

"Collections\Nightmares & Dreamscapes\Chattery Teeth.txt" 62 246:"How much are these?" Hogan asked, pointing through the dirty glass at what the sign identified as JUMBO CHATTERY TEETH-THEY WALK! The case was filled with novelty items-Chinese finger-pullers, Pepper Gum, Dr. Wacky's Sneezing Powder, CIGARETTE loads (A Laff Riot! according to the package-Hogan guessed they were more likely a great way to get your teeth knocked out), X-ray glasses, plastic vomit (So Realistic!), joy-buzzers.

"Collections\Nightmares & Dreamscapes\Chattery Teeth.txt" 92 80:The long-haired kid was standing by the door, tearing the top from the pack of CIGARETTES Hogan had helped buy and watching this small comic opera with an expression of mean amusement. His small gray-green eyes gleamed, flicking back and forth between Scooter and his wife.

"Collections\Nightmares & Dreamscapes\Crouch End.txt" 10 74:"It'll go in the back file," Vetter agreed, and looked round for a CIGARETTE. "But I wonder . . ."

"Collections\Nightmares & Dreamscapes\Crouch End.txt" 20 270:"Give us a fag, mate," Vetter said, looking amused. "There! What a good boy you are." He lit it with a wooden match from a bright red railway box, shook it out, and tossed the match stub into Farnham's ashtray. He peered at the lad through a haze of drifting SMOKE. His own days of laddie good looks were long gone; Vetter's face was deeply lined and his nose was a map of broken veins. He liked his six of Harp a night, did PC Vetter. "You think Crouch End's a very quiet place, then, do you?"

"Collections\Nightmares & Dreamscapes\Crouch End.txt" 254 535:They turned right. Standing on the corner beside their parked motorcycles were three boys in leathers. They looked up at the cab and for a moment-the setting sun was almost full in her face from this angle-it seemed that the bikers did not have human heads at all. For that one moment she was nastily sure that the sleek heads of rats sat atop those black leather jackets, rats with black eyes staring at the cab. Then the light shifted just a tiny bit and she saw of course she had been mistaken; there were only three young men SMOKING CIGARETTES in front of the British version of the American candy store.

"Collections\Nightmares & Dreamscapes\Crouch End.txt" 254 543:They turned right. Standing on the corner beside their parked motorcycles were three boys in leathers. They looked up at the cab and for a moment-the setting sun was almost full in her face from this angle-it seemed that the bikers did not have human heads at all. For that one moment she was nastily sure that the sleek heads of rats sat atop those black leather jackets, rats with black eyes staring at the cab. Then the light shifted just a tiny bit and she saw of course she had been mistaken; there were only three young men SMOKING CIGARETTES in front of the British version of the American candy store.

"Collections\Nightmares & Dreamscapes\Crouch End.txt" 256 421:"Here we go," Lonnie said, giving up the search and pointing out the window. They were passing a sign which read "Crouch Hill Road." Elderly brick houses like sleepy dowagers had closed in, seeming to look down at the cab from their blank windows. A few kids passed back and forth, riding bikes or trikes. Two others were trying to ride a skateboard with no notable success. Fathers home from work sat together, SMOKING and talking and watching the children. It all looked reassuringly normal.

"Collections\Nightmares & Dreamscapes\Crouch End.txt" 358 208:She stepped after him nervously. The hedge was high but thin. He was able to brush it aside and reveal a small square of lawn outlined with flowers. The lawn was very green. In the center of it was a black, SMOKING patch-or at least that was her first impression. When she peered around Lonnie's shoulder again-his shoulder was too high for her to peer over it-she saw it was a hole, vaguely man-shaped. The tendrils of SMOKE were emanating from it.

"Collections\Nightmares & Dreamscapes\Crouch End.txt" 358 429:She stepped after him nervously. The hedge was high but thin. He was able to brush it aside and reveal a small square of lawn outlined with flowers. The lawn was very green. In the center of it was a black, SMOKING patch-or at least that was her first impression. When she peered around Lonnie's shoulder again-his shoulder was too high for her to peer over it-she saw it was a hole, vaguely man-shaped. The tendrils of SMOKE were emanating from it.

"Collections\Nightmares & Dreamscapes\Crouch End.txt" 36 47:"I thought so," Vetter said, crushing his SMOKE. "Gets in your blood, doesn't it? You could go far, too, and it wouldn't be boring old Crouch End you'd finish up in, either. Still, you don't know everything. Crouch End is strange. You ought to have a peek in the back file sometime, Farnham. Oh, a lot of it's the usual . . . girls and boys run away from home to be hippies or punks or whatever it is they call themselves now . . . husbands gone missing (and when you clap an eye to their wives you can most times understand why). . . unsolved arsons . . . purse-snatchings . . . all of that. But in between, there's enough stories to curdle your blood. And some to make you sick to your stomach."

"Collections\Nightmares & Dreamscapes\Crouch End.txt" 380 363:Now there were sounds of a struggle. The moaning had stopped. But there were wet, sloshing sounds from the other side of the hedge. Then, suddenly, Lonnie came flying back through the stiff dusty-green bristles as if he had been given a tremendous push. The left arm of his suit-coat was torn, and it was splattered with runnels of black stuff that seemed to be SMOKING, as the pit in the lawn had been SMOKING.

"Collections\Nightmares & Dreamscapes\Crouch End.txt" 380 404:Now there were sounds of a struggle. The moaning had stopped. But there were wet, sloshing sounds from the other side of the hedge. Then, suddenly, Lonnie came flying back through the stiff dusty-green bristles as if he had been given a tremendous push. The left arm of his suit-coat was torn, and it was splattered with runnels of black stuff that seemed to be SMOKING, as the pit in the lawn had been SMOKING.

"Collections\Nightmares & Dreamscapes\Crouch End.txt" 396 265:Where? Farnham had asked, but she didn't know. Lonnie was totally undone, in a hysteria of panic and revulsion-that was all she really knew. He clamped his fingers over her wrist like a handcuff and they ran from the house looming over the hedge, and from the SMOKING hole in the lawn. She knew those things for sure; all the rest was only a chain of vague impressions.

"Collections\Nightmares & Dreamscapes\Crouch End.txt" 410 25:Raymond crushed out the CIGARETTE he had cadged from Farnham. "I'm off," he announced, and then looked more closely at Farnham. "My poppet should take better care of himself. He's got big dark circles under his eyes. Any hair on your palms to go with it, my pet?" He laughed uproariously.

"Collections\Nightmares & Dreamscapes\Crouch End.txt" 604 41:"Thank you," she said, and took the CIGARETTE although she had quit nearly four years ago. The elderly man had to follow the jittering tip of it with his lighted match to get it going for her.

"Collections\Nightmares & Dreamscapes\Crouch End.txt" 622 223:Now PC Farnham stood leaning in the doorway between the common room and the main filing room-although the back files Vetter had spoken of were certainly not kept here. Farnham had made himself a fresh cup of tea and was SMOKING the last CIGARETTE in his pack-the woman had also helped herself to several.

"Collections\Nightmares & Dreamscapes\Crouch End.txt" 622 240:Now PC Farnham stood leaning in the doorway between the common room and the main filing room-although the back files Vetter had spoken of were certainly not kept here. Farnham had made himself a fresh cup of tea and was SMOKING the last CIGARETTE in his pack-the woman had also helped herself to several.

"Collections\Nightmares & Dreamscapes\Dedication.txt" 152 295:"The whole bottle? No ma'am. I wasn't getting much fun out of life, but I didn't want to die. If he'd come home from wherever he was at and found that two-gram bottle gone, he would have plowed me like a pea-field. What I did was take a little and put it in the cellophane from off a CIGARETTE pack. Then I went to 'Tavia and 'Tavia told me to go to Mama Delorme and I went."

"Collections\Nightmares & Dreamscapes\Dedication.txt" 264 361:"I was back home before I woke up all the way, and because I couldn't remember hardly any of what had gone on at Mama Delorme's, I decided the best thing-the safest thing-was to believe it had all been a dream. But the powder I'd taken from Johnny's bottle wasn't a dream; it was still in my dress pocket, wrapped up in the cellophane from the CIGARETTE pack. All I wanted to do right then was get rid of it, and never mind all the bruja in the world. Maybe I didn't make a business of going through Johnny's pockets, but he surely made a business of going through mine, 'case I was holding back a dollar or two he might want.

"Collections\Nightmares & Dreamscapes\Dedication.txt" 296 365:"He'd come in to talk to his publishers or sometimes movie and TV people, and he'd call up his friends-some of them were in publishing, too, others were agents or writers like him-and there'd be a party. Always a party. Most I just knew about by the messes I had to clean up the next day-dozens of empty bottles (mostly Jack Daniel's), millions of CIGARETTE butts, wet towels in the sinks and the tub, leftover room service everywhere. Once I found a whole platter of jumbo shrimp turned into the toilet bowl. There were glass-rings on everything, and people snoring on the sofa and floors, like as not.

"Collections\Nightmares & Dreamscapes\Dedication.txt" 400 268:"No, he wasn't a homosexual, or a gay, or whatever it is you're supposed to call them these days. He wasn't sexy for men, but he wasn't what you could call sexy for women, either. There were two, maybe three times in all the years I did for him when I seen CIGARETTE butts with lipstick on them in the bedroom ashtrays when I cleaned up, and smelled perfume on the pillows. One of those times I also found an eyeliner pencil in the bathroom-it had rolled under the door and into the corner. I reckon they were call-girls (the pillows never smelled like the kind of perfume decent women wear), but two or three times in all those years isn't much, is it?"

"Collections\Nightmares & Dreamscapes\Dedication.txt" 428 209:"I stood there looking at it for . . . oh, I don't know how long. It was like I was hypnotized. I saw him, lying there all by himself after his friends had gone home, lying there smelling nothing but the SMOKE they'd left behind and his own sweat. I saw him lying there on his back and then starting to make love to Mother Thumb and her four daughters. I saw that as clear as I see you now, Darcy; the only thing I didn't see is what he was thinking about, what sort of pictures he was making in his head. . . and considering the way he talked and how he was when he wasn't writing his books, I'm glad I didn't."

"Collections\Nightmares & Dreamscapes\Dolan's Cadillac.txt" 1134 136:The wind was stronger than ever, rocking the van on its springs. The dust it pulled up from the desert and drove before it looked like SMOKE in the headlights.

"Collections\Nightmares & Dreamscapes\Dolan's Cadillac.txt" 52 143:Dolan stood to one side, slim in an open-throated shirt and dark slacks, his silver hair blowing around his head in the desert breeze. He was SMOKING a CIGARETTE and watching the men as if he were somewhere else, a restaurant or a ballroom or a drawing room perhaps.

"Collections\Nightmares & Dreamscapes\Dolan's Cadillac.txt" 52 153:Dolan stood to one side, slim in an open-throated shirt and dark slacks, his silver hair blowing around his head in the desert breeze. He was SMOKING a CIGARETTE and watching the men as if he were somewhere else, a restaurant or a ballroom or a drawing room perhaps.

"Collections\Nightmares & Dreamscapes\Dolan's Cadillac.txt" 564 124:I fixed that and then tried the wires again. The motor turned over and turned over. It coughed once, puffing a dirty brown SMOKE signal into the air to be torn away by the ceaseless wind, and then the motor just went on cranking. I kept trying to tell myself the machine was just in rough shape-a man who'd go off without putting the sand-flaps down, after all, was apt to forget anything-but I became more and more sure that they had drained the diesel, just as I had feared.

"Collections\Nightmares & Dreamscapes\Dolan's Cadillac.txt" 568 57:I let the wires go-the bare patch on the blue one was SMOKING-and goosed the throttle. When it was running smoothly, I geared it into first, swung it around, and started back toward the long brown rectangle cut neatly into the westbound lane of the highway.

"Collections\Nightmares & Dreamscapes\Home Delivery.txt" 312 391:Goddam good thing, too, Dave Eamons said, because a few of the deaders almost got away. Old Frank Daggett, still two hours from the heart attack that would carry him off just as the excitement was dying down, organized the new men so they wouldn't shoot each other, either, and for the final ten minutes the Jenny boneyard sounded like Bull Run. By the end of the festivities, the powder SMOKE was so thick that some men choked on it. The sour smell of vomit was almost heavier than the smell of gunsmoke . . . it was sharper, too, and lingered longer.

"Collections\Nightmares & Dreamscapes\It Grows on You.txt" 120 20:A blue membrane of SMOKE from Old Clut's pipe drifts up over the stove and spreads there like a delicate fisherman's net. Lenny Partridge tilts his chin up to stretch the wattles of his neck taut and then runs his hand slowly down his throat, producing a dry rasp.

"Collections\Nightmares & Dreamscapes\It Grows on You.txt" 6 355:The Newall house out on Town Road #3 overlooks that part of Castle Rock known as the Bend. It is somehow impossible to sense anything good about this house. It has a deathly look which can be only partially explained by its lack of paint. The front lawn is a mass of dried hummocks which the frost will soon heave into even more grotesque postures. Thin SMOKE rises from Brownie's Store at the foot of the hill. Once the Bend was a fairly important part of Castle Rock, but that time passed around the time Korea got over. On the old bandstand across the road from Brownie's two small children roll a red firetruck between them. Their faces are tired and washed out, the faces of old men, almost. Their hands actually seem to cut the air as they roll the truck between them, pausing only to swipe at their endlessly running noses every now and again.

"Collections\Nightmares & Dreamscapes\My Pretty Pony.txt" 100 21:Grandpa removed the CIGARETTE from his mouth and put his thumb and forefinger in, looking for a moment like a man who means to whistle for his dog, or a taxi. Instead he brought them out again wet and pressed them against the match-head. The boy needed no explanation; the only thing Grandpa and his friends out here in the country feared more than sudden freezes was fire. Grandpa dropped the match and ground it under his boot. When he looked up and saw the boy staring at him, he misinterpreted the subject of his fascination.

"Collections\Nightmares & Dreamscapes\My Pretty Pony.txt" 114 153:His grandfather stood ruminating, his Kool burning with unnatural rapidity (the tobacco was dry, and although he puffed seldom, the greedy hilltop wind SMOKED the CIGARETTE ceaselessly), and Clive thought the old man had said everything he had to say. He was sorry. He loved to hear Grandpa talk. The things Grandpa said continually amazed him because they almost always made sense. His mother, his father, Gramma, Uncle Don-they all said things he was supposed to take to heart, but they rarely made sense. Handsome is as handsome does, for instance-what did that mean?

"Collections\Nightmares & Dreamscapes\My Pretty Pony.txt" 114 164:His grandfather stood ruminating, his Kool burning with unnatural rapidity (the tobacco was dry, and although he puffed seldom, the greedy hilltop wind SMOKED the CIGARETTE ceaselessly), and Clive thought the old man had said everything he had to say. He was sorry. He loved to hear Grandpa talk. The things Grandpa said continually amazed him because they almost always made sense. His mother, his father, Gramma, Uncle Don-they all said things he was supposed to take to heart, but they rarely made sense. Handsome is as handsome does, for instance-what did that mean?

"Collections\Nightmares & Dreamscapes\My Pretty Pony.txt" 154 57:Clive looked down at the smeared results of Grandpa's CIGARETTE, face hot with blush, proud.

"Collections\Nightmares & Dreamscapes\My Pretty Pony.txt" 182 38:Grandpa took the battered package of CIGARETTES from his pocket, considered it briefly, then put it back.

"Collections\Nightmares & Dreamscapes\My Pretty Pony.txt" 232 104:Grandpa took the packet of Kools from the kangaroo pouch again, and this time he carefully extracted a CIGARETTE-not just the last one in the packet but the last one the boy would ever see him SMOKE. The old man crumpled the package and stowed it back in the place from which it had come. He lit this last CIGARETTE as he had the other, with the same effortless ease. He did not ignore the hilltop wind; he seemed somehow to negate it.

"Collections\Nightmares & Dreamscapes\My Pretty Pony.txt" 232 196:Grandpa took the packet of Kools from the kangaroo pouch again, and this time he carefully extracted a CIGARETTE-not just the last one in the packet but the last one the boy would ever see him SMOKE. The old man crumpled the package and stowed it back in the place from which it had come. He lit this last CIGARETTE as he had the other, with the same effortless ease. He did not ignore the hilltop wind; he seemed somehow to negate it.

"Collections\Nightmares & Dreamscapes\My Pretty Pony.txt" 232 309:Grandpa took the packet of Kools from the kangaroo pouch again, and this time he carefully extracted a CIGARETTE-not just the last one in the packet but the last one the boy would ever see him SMOKE. The old man crumpled the package and stowed it back in the place from which it had come. He lit this last CIGARETTE as he had the other, with the same effortless ease. He did not ignore the hilltop wind; he seemed somehow to negate it.

"Collections\Nightmares & Dreamscapes\My Pretty Pony.txt" 240 125:Grandpa tapped a roll of ash from his CIGARETTE without taking it from his mouth. He did it with his thumb, knocking on the CIGARETTE the way a man may rap a low knock on a table. The boy never forgot that small sound.

"Collections\Nightmares & Dreamscapes\My Pretty Pony.txt" 240 39:Grandpa tapped a roll of ash from his CIGARETTE without taking it from his mouth. He did it with his thumb, knocking on the CIGARETTE the way a man may rap a low knock on a table. The boy never forgot that small sound.

"Collections\Nightmares & Dreamscapes\My Pretty Pony.txt" 258 175:He looked at the boy, who only looked back at him, not even nodding, so deep in concentration was he. Grandpa nodded for both of them and knocked another roll of ash off his CIGARETTE with the side of his thumb. The boy believed Grandpa was so lost in thought that the wind was SMOKING practically all of this one for him.

"Collections\Nightmares & Dreamscapes\My Pretty Pony.txt" 258 279:He looked at the boy, who only looked back at him, not even nodding, so deep in concentration was he. Grandpa nodded for both of them and knocked another roll of ash off his CIGARETTE with the side of his thumb. The boy believed Grandpa was so lost in thought that the wind was SMOKING practically all of this one for him.

"Collections\Nightmares & Dreamscapes\My Pretty Pony.txt" 278 21:Grandpa dropped his CIGARETTE, brought his heel down upon it, and began the ritual of first murdalizing and then burying it.

"Collections\Nightmares & Dreamscapes\My Pretty Pony.txt" 4 93:The old man sat in the barn doorway in the smell of apples, rocking, wanting not to want to SMOKE not because of the doctor but because now his heart fluttered all the time. He watched that stupid son of a bitch Osgood do a fast count with his head against the tree and watched him turn and catch Clivey out and laugh, his mouth open wide enough so the old man could observe how his teeth were already rotting in his head and imagine how the kid's breath would smell: like the back part of a wet cellar. Although the whelp couldn't be more than eleven.

"Collections\Nightmares & Dreamscapes\My Pretty Pony.txt" 6 368:The old man watched Osgood laugh his gaspy hee-hawing laugh. The boy laughed so hard he finally had to lean over and put his hands on his knees, so hard the others came out of their hiding places to see what it was, and when they saw, they laughed, too. They all stood around in the morning sun and laughed at his grandson and the old man forgot how much he wanted a SMOKE. What he wanted now was to see if Clivey would cry. He found he was more curious on this subject than on any other which had engaged his attention over the last several months, including the subject of his own fast-approaching death.

"Collections\Nightmares & Dreamscapes\My Pretty Pony.txt" 60 746:Grandpa laughed until he started to cough. He doubled over, coughing and laughing, his face going a plum-purple color. Some of Clive's joy and wonder were lost in concern. He remembered his mother telling him again and again on their way up here that he was not to tire Grandpa out because Grandpa was ill. When Clive had asked him two days before-cautiously-what had made him sick, George Banning had replied with a single mysterious word. It was only on the night after their talk in the orchard, as he was drifting off to sleep with the pocket watch curled warmly in his hand, that Clive realized the word Grandpa had spoken, "ticka," referred not to some dangerous poison-bug but to Grandpa's heart. The doctor had made him stop SMOKING and said if he tried anything too strenuous, like shovelling snow or trying to hoe the garden, he would end up playing a harp. The boy knew well enough what that meant.

"Collections\Nightmares & Dreamscapes\My Pretty Pony.txt" 98 1111:Grandpa reached into the pouch pocket in the bib of his overalls and brought out a pack of unfiltered Kools. Apparently Grandpa hadn't stopped SMOKING after all, dicky heart or not. Still, it seemed to the boy as if maybe Grandpa had cut down drastically, because that pack of Kools looked as if it had done hard travelling; it had escaped the fate of most packs, torn open after breakfast and tossed empty into the gutter at three, a crushed ball. Grandpa rummaged, brought out a CIGARETTE almost as bent as the pack from which it had come. He stuck it in the corner of his mouth, replaced the pack in the bib, and brought out a wooden match which he snapped alight with one practiced flick of his old man's thick yellow thumbnail. Clive watched with the fascination of a child who watches a magician produce a fan of cards from an empty hand. The flick of the thumb was always interesting, but the amazing thing was that the match did not go out. In spite of the high wind which steadily combed this hilltop, Grandpa cupped the small flame with an assurance that could afford to be leisurely. He lit his SMOKE and then was actually shaking the match, as if he had negated the wind by simple will. Clive looked closely at the CIGARETTE and saw no black scorch-marks trailing up the white paper from the glowing tip. His eyes had not deceived him, then; Grandpa had taken his light from a straight flame, like a man who takes a light from a candle in a closed room. It was sorcery, pure and simple.

"Collections\Nightmares & Dreamscapes\My Pretty Pony.txt" 98 1232:Grandpa reached into the pouch pocket in the bib of his overalls and brought out a pack of unfiltered Kools. Apparently Grandpa hadn't stopped SMOKING after all, dicky heart or not. Still, it seemed to the boy as if maybe Grandpa had cut down drastically, because that pack of Kools looked as if it had done hard travelling; it had escaped the fate of most packs, torn open after breakfast and tossed empty into the gutter at three, a crushed ball. Grandpa rummaged, brought out a CIGARETTE almost as bent as the pack from which it had come. He stuck it in the corner of his mouth, replaced the pack in the bib, and brought out a wooden match which he snapped alight with one practiced flick of his old man's thick yellow thumbnail. Clive watched with the fascination of a child who watches a magician produce a fan of cards from an empty hand. The flick of the thumb was always interesting, but the amazing thing was that the match did not go out. In spite of the high wind which steadily combed this hilltop, Grandpa cupped the small flame with an assurance that could afford to be leisurely. He lit his SMOKE and then was actually shaking the match, as if he had negated the wind by simple will. Clive looked closely at the CIGARETTE and saw no black scorch-marks trailing up the white paper from the glowing tip. His eyes had not deceived him, then; Grandpa had taken his light from a straight flame, like a man who takes a light from a candle in a closed room. It was sorcery, pure and simple.

"Collections\Nightmares & Dreamscapes\My Pretty Pony.txt" 98 146:Grandpa reached into the pouch pocket in the bib of his overalls and brought out a pack of unfiltered Kools. Apparently Grandpa hadn't stopped SMOKING after all, dicky heart or not. Still, it seemed to the boy as if maybe Grandpa had cut down drastically, because that pack of Kools looked as if it had done hard travelling; it had escaped the fate of most packs, torn open after breakfast and tossed empty into the gutter at three, a crushed ball. Grandpa rummaged, brought out a CIGARETTE almost as bent as the pack from which it had come. He stuck it in the corner of his mouth, replaced the pack in the bib, and brought out a wooden match which he snapped alight with one practiced flick of his old man's thick yellow thumbnail. Clive watched with the fascination of a child who watches a magician produce a fan of cards from an empty hand. The flick of the thumb was always interesting, but the amazing thing was that the match did not go out. In spite of the high wind which steadily combed this hilltop, Grandpa cupped the small flame with an assurance that could afford to be leisurely. He lit his SMOKE and then was actually shaking the match, as if he had negated the wind by simple will. Clive looked closely at the CIGARETTE and saw no black scorch-marks trailing up the white paper from the glowing tip. His eyes had not deceived him, then; Grandpa had taken his light from a straight flame, like a man who takes a light from a candle in a closed room. It was sorcery, pure and simple.

"Collections\Nightmares & Dreamscapes\My Pretty Pony.txt" 98 484:Grandpa reached into the pouch pocket in the bib of his overalls and brought out a pack of unfiltered Kools. Apparently Grandpa hadn't stopped SMOKING after all, dicky heart or not. Still, it seemed to the boy as if maybe Grandpa had cut down drastically, because that pack of Kools looked as if it had done hard travelling; it had escaped the fate of most packs, torn open after breakfast and tossed empty into the gutter at three, a crushed ball. Grandpa rummaged, brought out a CIGARETTE almost as bent as the pack from which it had come. He stuck it in the corner of his mouth, replaced the pack in the bib, and brought out a wooden match which he snapped alight with one practiced flick of his old man's thick yellow thumbnail. Clive watched with the fascination of a child who watches a magician produce a fan of cards from an empty hand. The flick of the thumb was always interesting, but the amazing thing was that the match did not go out. In spite of the high wind which steadily combed this hilltop, Grandpa cupped the small flame with an assurance that could afford to be leisurely. He lit his SMOKE and then was actually shaking the match, as if he had negated the wind by simple will. Clive looked closely at the CIGARETTE and saw no black scorch-marks trailing up the white paper from the glowing tip. His eyes had not deceived him, then; Grandpa had taken his light from a straight flame, like a man who takes a light from a candle in a closed room. It was sorcery, pure and simple.

"Collections\Nightmares & Dreamscapes\Popsy.txt" 104 127:There was only one problem in his life. It wasn't broads, although he liked to hear the swish of a skirt or feel the smooth SMOKE of silken hose as well as any man, and it wasn't booze, although he had been known to take a drink or three of an evening. Sheridan's problem-his fatal flaw, you might even say-was cards. Any kind of cards, as long as it was the kind of game where wagers were allowed. He had lost jobs, credit cards, the home his mother had left him. He had never, at least so far, been in jail, but the first time he got in trouble with Mr. Reggie, he'd thought jail would be a rest-cure by comparison.

"Collections\Nightmares & Dreamscapes\Popsy.txt" 174 38:"Yeah," Sheridan said, and lit a CIGARETTE. He turned off State Road 28 and onto an unmarked stretch of two-lane blacktop. There was a long marshy area on the left, unbroken woods on the right.

"Collections\Nightmares & Dreamscapes\Popsy.txt" 26 165:He had almost reached the kid when he saw a mall rent-a-cop ambling slowly up the concourse toward the doors. He was reaching in his pocket, probably for a pack of CIGARETTES. He would come out, see the boy, and there would go Sheridan's sure thing.

"Collections\Nightmares & Dreamscapes\Popsy.txt" 32 256:The girl in the information booth flagged down the cop and said something to him. She was pretty, dark-haired, about twenty-five; he was sandy-blonde with a moustache. As the cop leaned on his elbows, smiling at her, Sheridan thought they looked like the CIGARETTE ads you saw on the backs of magazines. Salem Spirit. Light My Lucky. He was dying out here and they were in there making chit-chat-whatcha doin after work, ya wanna go and get a drink at that new place, and blah-blah-blah. Now she was also batting her eyes at him. How cute.

"Collections\Nightmares & Dreamscapes\Rainy Season.txt" 160 72:"Nor can we help that," Henry Eden said, and began to roll another SMOKE.

"Collections\Nightmares & Dreamscapes\Rainy Season.txt" 172 51:"I wouldn't worry about it-judging from his CIGARETTES, he's reached the stage of life where he's meeting everyone for the first time. Even his oldest friends."

"Collections\Nightmares & Dreamscapes\Rainy Season.txt" 18 192:They got out of the car and mounted the porch steps. An elderly man in a straw hat sat in a rocker with a cane seat, looking at them from shrewd little blue eyes. He was fiddling a home-made CIGARETTE together and dribbling little bits of tobacco on the dog which lay crashed out at his feet. It was a big yellow dog of no particular make or model. Its paws lay directly beneath one of the rocker's curved runners. The old man took no notice of the dog, seemed not even to realize it was there, but the runner stopped a quarter of an inch from the vulnerable paws each time the old man rocked forward. Elise found this unaccountably fascinating.

"Collections\Nightmares & Dreamscapes\Rainy Season.txt" 30 352:"It do travel," the old party agreed. "Small town, don'tcha know." He stuck the CIGARETTE in his mouth, where it promptly fell apart, sprinkling tobacco all over his legs and the dog's limp hide. The dog didn't stir. "Aw, flapdoodle," the old man said, and peeled the uncoiling paper from his lower lip. "Wife doesn't want me to SMOKE nummore anyway. She says she read it's givin her cancer as well as m'ownself."

"Collections\Nightmares & Dreamscapes\Rainy Season.txt" 30 91:"It do travel," the old party agreed. "Small town, don'tcha know." He stuck the CIGARETTE in his mouth, where it promptly fell apart, sprinkling tobacco all over his legs and the dog's limp hide. The dog didn't stir. "Aw, flapdoodle," the old man said, and peeled the uncoiling paper from his lower lip. "Wife doesn't want me to SMOKE nummore anyway. She says she read it's givin her cancer as well as m'ownself."

"Collections\Nightmares & Dreamscapes\Rainy Season.txt" 42 83:"Yessum," Eden agreed. He began to sprinkle tobacco. Some of it landed on the CIGARETTE paper, but most went onto the dog below. Just as John Graham was beginning to wonder if maybe the dog was dead, it lifted its tail and farted. So much for that idea, he thought. "In Willow, just about everybody's related to everybody else. Lucy lives down at the foot of the hill. I was gonna call you m'self, but since she said you was comin in anyway . . ."

"Collections\Nightmares & Dreamscapes\Rainy Season.txt" 50 55:"Well, I kinda have to," Eden said. He sealed his CIGARETTE and stuck it in his mouth. John waited to see if it would fall apart, as the other one had. He felt mildly disoriented by all this, as if he had walked unknowingly into some bucolic version of the CIA.

"Collections\Nightmares & Dreamscapes\Rainy Season.txt" 52 175:The CIGARETTE somehow held together. There was a charred scrap of sandpaper tacked to one of the arms of the rocker. Eden struck the match on it and applied the flame to his CIGARETTE, half of which incinerated on contact.

"Collections\Nightmares & Dreamscapes\Rainy Season.txt" 52 5:The CIGARETTE somehow held together. There was a charred scrap of sandpaper tacked to one of the arms of the rocker. Eden struck the match on it and applied the flame to his CIGARETTE, half of which incinerated on contact.

"Collections\Nightmares & Dreamscapes\Rainy Season.txt" 60 210:The Grahams looked around and saw a tall woman with slumped shoulders standing inside the Mercantile's rusty screen door. Her face looked out at them from just above an old tin sign advertising Chesterfield CIGARETTES-TWENTY-ONE GREAT TOBACCOS MAKE TWENTY WONDERFUL SMOKES. She opened the door and came out on the porch. Her face looked sallow and tired but not stupid. She had a loaf of bread in one hand and a six-pack of Dawson's Ale in the other.

"Collections\Nightmares & Dreamscapes\Rainy Season.txt" 68 63:"No'm," Eden said. He took one giant drag on his eroded CIGARETTE and then pitched it over the porch rail.

"Collections\Nightmares & Dreamscapes\Sneakers.txt" 150 280:Click-clack of shoes on the old white hexagonal bathroom tiles, whooze of the door being opened, hisshh of it settling slowly back into place. You could bang it open but the pneumatic elbow-joint kept it from banging shut. That might upset the third-floor receptionist as he sat SMOKING Camels and reading the latest issue of Krrang!

"Collections\Nightmares & Dreamscapes\Sneakers.txt" 260 754:Tell slept badly that night, and what sleep he did get was haunted by bad dreams: one of Jannings groping him in McManus's was followed by one of the sneakers under the stall door, only in this one Tell opened the door and saw Paul Jannings sitting there. He had died naked, and in a state of sexual excitement that somehow continued even in death, even after all this time. Paul's mouth dropped open with an audible creak. "That's right; I knew you were ready," the corpse said on a puff of greenly rotten air, and Tell woke himself up by tumbling onto the floor in a tangle of coverlet. It was four in the morning. The first touches of light were just creeping through the chinks between the buildings outside his window. He dressed and sat SMOKING one CIGARETTE after another until it was time to go to work.

"Collections\Nightmares & Dreamscapes\Sneakers.txt" 260 766:Tell slept badly that night, and what sleep he did get was haunted by bad dreams: one of Jannings groping him in McManus's was followed by one of the sneakers under the stall door, only in this one Tell opened the door and saw Paul Jannings sitting there. He had died naked, and in a state of sexual excitement that somehow continued even in death, even after all this time. Paul's mouth dropped open with an audible creak. "That's right; I knew you were ready," the corpse said on a puff of greenly rotten air, and Tell woke himself up by tumbling onto the floor in a tangle of coverlet. It was four in the morning. The first touches of light were just creeping through the chinks between the buildings outside his window. He dressed and sat SMOKING one CIGARETTE after another until it was time to go to work.

"Collections\Nightmares & Dreamscapes\Sneakers.txt" 294 411:Although he recognized these thoughts as paranoid fantasies, recognition did not lead to dispersion. He would tell them to go away, would insist there was no Jannings-led cabal out to get him, and his mind would say Yeah, okay, makes sense to me, and five hours later-or maybe only twenty minutes-he would imagine a bunch of them sitting around Desmond's Steak House two blocks downtown: Paul, the chain-SMOKING receptionist with the taste for heavy-metal, heavy-leather groups, maybe even the skinny guy from Snappy Kards, all of them eating shrimp cocktails and drinking. And laughing, of course. Laughing at him, while the dirty white sneakers they took turns wearing sat under the table in a crumpled brown bag.

"Collections\Nightmares & Dreamscapes\Sneakers.txt" 492 297:Yes, all right, the latch had been broken. It didn't make any difference. And the pencil? Tell was positive the killer had been holding it in his hand when he pushed open the stall door, but not as a murder weapon. He had been holding it only because sometimes you wanted something to hold-a CIGARETTE, a bunch of keys, a pen or pencil to fiddle with. Tell thought maybe the pencil had been in Sneakers's eye before either of them had any idea that the killer was going to put it there. Then, probably because the killer had also been a customer who knew what was in the briefcase, he had closed the door again, leaving his victim seated on the john, had exited the building, got . . . well, got something . . .

"Collections\Nightmares & Dreamscapes\Suffer the Little Children.txt" 238 54:Miss Sidley fell, and the huge wheels shuddered to a SMOKING stop just eight inches from her frail, brace-armored body. She lay shuddering on the pavement, hearing the crowd gather around her.

"Collections\Nightmares & Dreamscapes\The Doctor's Case.txt" 42 223:"So," Holmes said thoughtfully, lighting his pipe, "you believe the study of this unpleasant Lord Hull is the perfect locked room of my dreams, do you?" His eyes gleamed skeptically through a rising rafter of blue SMOKE.

"Collections\Nightmares & Dreamscapes\The House on Maple Street.txt" 44 447:They took along two empty suitcases, one for each of them, but their precautions proved unnecessary; their stepfather never came out of his study. It was probably just as well; he had worked up a grand head of steam, from the sound. The two children could hear him stamping about, muttering, opening drawers, slamming them shut again. A familiar odor seeped out from under the door-to Laurie it smelled like smouldering athletic socks. Lew was SMOKING his pipe.

"Collections\Nightmares & Dreamscapes\The House on Maple Street.txt" 850 260:He looked at her solemnly for several seconds, then began to giggle. Laurie joined in. So did the little ones. Brian took one of Trent's hands; Lissa took the other. They helped pull him to his feet, and then the four of them stood together, looking at the SMOKING cellar-hole in the middle of the shattered lawn. People were coming out of their houses now, but the Bradbury children ignored them. Or perhaps it would be truer to say the Bradbury children didn't know they were there at all.

"Collections\Nightmares & Dreamscapes\The Moving Finger.txt" 522 87:The finger blurted up from the drain-joint after impossible joint of it. It was now SMOKING, and it smelled like a rubber boot sizzling on a hot barbecue grill.

"Collections\Nightmares & Dreamscapes\The Moving Finger.txt" 524 495:"Take this! Lunch is served, you bastard!" Howard screamed, continuing to pour as the finger rose to a height of just over a foot, rising out of the drain like a cobra from a snake-charmer's basket. It had almost reached the mouth of the plastic bottle when it wavered, seemed to shudder, and suddenly reversed its field, zipping back down into the drain. Howard leaned farther over the basin to watch it go and saw just a retreating flash of white far down in the dark. Lazy tendrils of SMOKE drifted up.

"Collections\Nightmares & Dreamscapes\The Moving Finger.txt" 544 400:It was easily seven feet long now, and getting longer all the time. It curved out of the sink in a stiff arc made by perhaps a dozen knuckles, descended to the floor, then curved again (Doublejointed! some distant commentator in his disintegrating mind reported with interest). Now it was tapping and feeling its way across the tile floor toward him. The last nine or ten inches were discolored and SMOKING. The nail had turned a greenish-black color. Howard thought he could see the whitish shine of bone just below the first of its knuckles. It was quite badly burned, but it was not by any stretch of the imagination dissolved.

"Collections\Nightmares & Dreamscapes\The Moving Finger.txt" 548 30:"No!" he screamed as the SMOKING Hydroxide Twins-Sodium and Potassium-ate through his nylon sock and sizzled his skin. He gave his foot a tremendous yank. For a moment the finger held-it was very strong-and then he pulled free. He crawled toward the door with a huge clump of vomit-loaded hair hanging in his eyes. As he crawled he tried to look back over his shoulder, but he could see nothing through his coagulated hair. Now his chest had unlocked and he gave voice to a series of barking, frightful screams.

"Collections\Nightmares & Dreamscapes\The Night Flier.txt" 169 330:There were many things Inside View was not-literate, for one, overconcerned with such minor matters as accuracy and ethics, for another-but one thing was undeniable: it was exquisitely attuned to horrors. Merton Morrison was a bit of an asshole (although not as much of one as Dees had thought when he'd first seen the man SMOKING that dumb fucking pipe of his), but Dees had to give him one thing-he had remembered the things that had made Inside View a success in the first place: buckets of blood and guts by the handful.

"Collections\Nightmares & Dreamscapes\The Night Flier.txt" 204 394:The airport sat on the outskirts of the much plusher town of Falmouth, existing mostly on landing fees paid by rich summer residents. Claire Bowie, the Night Flier's first victim, had been CCA's night traffic controller and owned a quarter interest in the airfield. The other employees had consisted of two mechanics and a second ground controller (the ground controllers also sold chips, CIGARETTES, and sodas; further, Dees had learned, the murdered man had made a pretty mean cheeseburger).

"Collections\Nightmares & Dreamscapes\The Night Flier.txt" 248 200:"Yep," Ezra said. He unzipped a pocket of his grease-stained coverall, removed a pack of Chesterfields, lit one up, and coughed a dismal old man's cough. He looked at Dees through the drifting SMOKE with an expression of half-baked craftiness. "Might not mean nothing, but then again, it might. It sure struck Claire perculyer, though. Must have, because most of the time old Claire wouldn't say shit if he had a mouthful."

"Collections\Nightmares & Dreamscapes\The Night Flier.txt" 278 154:Ezra scratched his stubbly chin with long, yellow nails, looked wisely at Dees from the corners of his bloodshot eyes, and then took another puff on his CIGARETTE.

"Collections\Nightmares & Dreamscapes\The Night Flier.txt" 360 601:Dees's self-preservation instincts were every bit as well honed as those which smelled blood in the bush. He never even saw the Piedmont Airlines 727's strobe lights. He was too busy banking as tightly to port as the Beech could bank-which was as tight as a virgin's cooze, and Dees would be happy to testify to that fact if he got out of this shitstorm alive-as soon as the second word was out of Farmer John's mouth. He had a momentary sight/sense of something huge only inches above him, and then the Beech 55 was taking a beating that made the previous rough air seem like glass. His CIGARETTES flew out of his breast pocket and streamed everywhere. The half-dark Wilmington skyline tilted crazily. His stomach seemed to be trying to squeeze his heart all the way up his throat and into his mouth. Spit ran up one cheek like a kid whizzing along a greased slide. Maps flew like birds. The air outside now raved with jet thunder as well as the kind nature made. One of the windows in the four-seat passenger compartment imploded, and an asthmatic wind whooped in, skirling everything not tied down back there into a tornado.

"Collections\Nightmares & Dreamscapes\The Night Flier.txt" 401 501:Further, Dees learned, the Sarches watched the private air-traffic in and out of their field with a close eye; they had a personal stake in the war on drugs. Their only son had died in the Florida Everglades, trying to land in what looked like a clear stretch of water with better than a ton of Acapulco Gold packed into a stolen Beech 18. The water had been clear . . . except for a single stump, that was. The Beech 18 hit it, water-looped, and exploded. Doug Sarch had been thrown clear, his body SMOKING and singed but probably still alive, as little as his grieving parents would want to believe such a thing. He had been eaten by gators, and all that remained of him when the DEA guys finally found him a week later was a dismembered skeleton, a few maggoty scraps of flesh, a charred pair of Calvin Klein jeans, and a sport coat from Paul Stuart in New York. One of the sport-coat pockets had contained better than twenty thousand dollars in cash; another had yielded nearly an ounce of Peruvian flake cocaine.

"Collections\Nightmares & Dreamscapes\The Night Flier.txt" 9 447:For Dees, however, there was bad news as well as good. The good news was that he had gotten to the story ahead of the rest of the pack; he was still undefeated, still champeen, still top hog in the sty. The bad news was that the roses really belonged to Morrison . . . so far, at least. Morrison, the freshman editor, had gone on picking away at the damned thing even after Dees, the veteran reporter, had assured him there was nothing there but SMOKE and echoes. Dees didn't like the idea that Morrison had smelled blood first-hated it, in fact-and this left him with a completely understandable urge to piss the man off. And he knew just how to do it.

"Collections\Nightmares & Dreamscapes\The Ten O'Clock People.txt" 1051 254:One police-bat had been left to stand sentry on the porch, but it was turned in the direction of the street, possibly watching for unwanted interference. Pearson leaned through the open door toward it and said, "Hey, you ugly ringmeat asshole-got a CIGARETTE?"

"Collections\Nightmares & Dreamscapes\The Ten O'Clock People.txt" 1074 415:The eye of his mind opened wide in that moment and he saw his wife sitting in her chair in the living room, her face puffy with crying and her eyes red. He saw her telling two uniformed policemen that her husband had gone missing. He even saw the stack of Jenny's Pop-Up books on the little table beside her. Was that really going on? Yes; in one form or another, he supposed it was. And Lisabeth, who had never SMOKED a single CIGARETTE in her whole life, would not be aware of the black eyes and fanged mouths beneath the young faces of the policemen sitting across from her on the couch; she would not see the oozing tumors or the black, pulsing lines which crisscrossed their naked skulls.

"Collections\Nightmares & Dreamscapes\The Ten O'Clock People.txt" 1074 431:The eye of his mind opened wide in that moment and he saw his wife sitting in her chair in the living room, her face puffy with crying and her eyes red. He saw her telling two uniformed policemen that her husband had gone missing. He even saw the stack of Jenny's Pop-Up books on the little table beside her. Was that really going on? Yes; in one form or another, he supposed it was. And Lisabeth, who had never SMOKED a single CIGARETTE in her whole life, would not be aware of the black eyes and fanged mouths beneath the young faces of the policemen sitting across from her on the couch; she would not see the oozing tumors or the black, pulsing lines which crisscrossed their naked skulls.

"Collections\Nightmares & Dreamscapes\The Ten O'Clock People.txt" 1096 135:He turned over and looked up at them through a matted tangle of hair, resting on his elbows and panting. "Never mind. Who's got a CIGARETTE? I'm dying for one."

"Collections\Nightmares & Dreamscapes\The Ten O'Clock People.txt" 111 147:But why didn't they run? Pearson wondered now, as a raindrop fell on the back of his hand and another fell on the clean white paper of his half-SMOKED CIGARETTE. They should have run screaming, the way the people run from the giant bugs in those fifties monster movies. Then he thought, But then . . . I didn't run, either.

"Collections\Nightmares & Dreamscapes\The Ten O'Clock People.txt" 111 154:But why didn't they run? Pearson wondered now, as a raindrop fell on the back of his hand and another fell on the clean white paper of his half-SMOKED CIGARETTE. They should have run screaming, the way the people run from the giant bugs in those fifties monster movies. Then he thought, But then . . . I didn't run, either.

"Collections\Nightmares & Dreamscapes\The Ten O'Clock People.txt" 1110 295:They mounted their first raid early the following year, across the river in Council Bluffs, and killed thirty very surprised mid-western bat-bankers and bat-executives. It wasn't much, but Brand Pearson had learned that killing bats had at least one thing in common with cutting down on your CIGARETTE intake: you had to start somewhere.

"Collections\Nightmares & Dreamscapes\The Ten O'Clock People.txt" 125 126:More raindrops splattered on his hands and face. Next to him on the curved lip of marble, Rhinemann took a final drag on his CIGARETTE, pitched it away, and stood up. "Come on," he said. "Starting to rain."

"Collections\Nightmares & Dreamscapes\The Ten O'Clock People.txt" 133 79:"You want to hear something totally nuts?" Pearson asked, tossing his own CIGARETTE away. He didn't know where he was going now, home, he supposed, but he knew one place he was most assuredly not going, and that was back inside The First Mercantile Bank of Boston.

"Collections\Nightmares & Dreamscapes\The Ten O'Clock People.txt" 195 340:"You're doin great, man," Rhinemann said. "You're going to be fine. See you at three." He entered the revolving door and gave it a push. Pearson stepped into the segment behind him, feeling as though he had somehow left his mind out there in the plaza . . . all of it, that was, except for the part that already wanted another CIGARETTE.

"Collections\Nightmares & Dreamscapes\The Ten O'Clock People.txt" 199 86:The day crawled, but everything was all right until he came back from lunch (and two CIGARETTES) with Tim Flanders. They stepped out of the elevator on the third floor and the first thing Pearson saw was another batman . . . except this one was actually a batwoman wearing black patent-leather heels, black nylon hose, and a formidable silk tweed suit-Samuel Blue was Pearson's guess. The perfect power outfit . . . until you got to the head nodding over it like a mutated sunflower, that was.

"Collections\Nightmares & Dreamscapes\The Ten O'Clock People.txt" 255 41:"Now if we could only get you to quit SMOKING."

"Collections\Nightmares & Dreamscapes\The Ten O'Clock People.txt" 271 114:Duke Rhinemann was standing under the awning of the flower shop just around the corner, his shoulders hunched, a CIGARETTE in the corner of his own mouth. Pearson joined him, glanced at his watch, and decided he could wait a little longer. He poked his head forward a little bit just the same, to catch the tang of Rhinemann's CIGARETTE. He did this without being aware of it.

"Collections\Nightmares & Dreamscapes\The Ten O'Clock People.txt" 271 330:Duke Rhinemann was standing under the awning of the flower shop just around the corner, his shoulders hunched, a CIGARETTE in the corner of his own mouth. Pearson joined him, glanced at his watch, and decided he could wait a little longer. He poked his head forward a little bit just the same, to catch the tang of Rhinemann's CIGARETTE. He did this without being aware of it.

"Collections\Nightmares & Dreamscapes\The Ten O'Clock People.txt" 289 183:"I know where Gallagher's is," the driver said, "but we don't go anywhere until you dispose of the cancer-stick, my friend." He tapped the sign clipped to the taximeter. SMOKING IS NOT PERMITTED IN THIS LIVERY, it read.

"Collections\Nightmares & Dreamscapes\The Ten O'Clock People.txt" 291 254:The two men exchanged a glance. Rhinemann lifted his shoulders in the half-embarrassed, half-surly shrug that has been the principal tribal greeting of the Ten O'Clock People since 1990 or so. Then, without a murmur of protest, he pitched his quarter-SMOKED Winston out into the driving rain.

"Collections\Nightmares & Dreamscapes\The Ten O'Clock People.txt" 297 549:Pearson subsided into silence, contenting himself with watching the rain-streaked highrises of midtown Boston slip by. He found himself almost exquisitely attuned to the little street-life scenes going on outside the taxicab's smeary window. He was especially interested in the little clusters of Ten O'Clock People he observed standing in front of every business building they passed. Where there was shelter, they took it; where there wasn't, they took that, too-simply turned up their collars, hooded their hands protectively over their CIGARETTES, and SMOKED anyway. It occurred to Pearson that easily ninety per cent of the posh midtown highrises they were passing were now no-SMOKING zones, just like the one he and Rhinemann worked in. It occurred to him further (and this thought came with the force of a revelation) that the Ten O'Clock People were not really a new tribe at all but the raggedy-ass remnants of an old one, renegades running before a new broom that intended to sweep their bad old habit clean out the door of American life. Their unifying characteristic was their unwillingness or inability to quit killing themselves; they were junkies in a steadily shrinking twilight zone of acceptability. An exotic social group, he supposed, but not one that was apt to last very long. He guessed that by the year 2020, 2050 at the latest, the Ten O'Clock People would have gone the way of the dodo.

"Collections\Nightmares & Dreamscapes\The Ten O'Clock People.txt" 297 565:Pearson subsided into silence, contenting himself with watching the rain-streaked highrises of midtown Boston slip by. He found himself almost exquisitely attuned to the little street-life scenes going on outside the taxicab's smeary window. He was especially interested in the little clusters of Ten O'Clock People he observed standing in front of every business building they passed. Where there was shelter, they took it; where there wasn't, they took that, too-simply turned up their collars, hooded their hands protectively over their CIGARETTES, and SMOKED anyway. It occurred to Pearson that easily ninety per cent of the posh midtown highrises they were passing were now no-SMOKING zones, just like the one he and Rhinemann worked in. It occurred to him further (and this thought came with the force of a revelation) that the Ten O'Clock People were not really a new tribe at all but the raggedy-ass remnants of an old one, renegades running before a new broom that intended to sweep their bad old habit clean out the door of American life. Their unifying characteristic was their unwillingness or inability to quit killing themselves; they were junkies in a steadily shrinking twilight zone of acceptability. An exotic social group, he supposed, but not one that was apt to last very long. He guessed that by the year 2020, 2050 at the latest, the Ten O'Clock People would have gone the way of the dodo.

"Collections\Nightmares & Dreamscapes\The Ten O'Clock People.txt" 297 691:Pearson subsided into silence, contenting himself with watching the rain-streaked highrises of midtown Boston slip by. He found himself almost exquisitely attuned to the little street-life scenes going on outside the taxicab's smeary window. He was especially interested in the little clusters of Ten O'Clock People he observed standing in front of every business building they passed. Where there was shelter, they took it; where there wasn't, they took that, too-simply turned up their collars, hooded their hands protectively over their CIGARETTES, and SMOKED anyway. It occurred to Pearson that easily ninety per cent of the posh midtown highrises they were passing were now no-SMOKING zones, just like the one he and Rhinemann worked in. It occurred to him further (and this thought came with the force of a revelation) that the Ten O'Clock People were not really a new tribe at all but the raggedy-ass remnants of an old one, renegades running before a new broom that intended to sweep their bad old habit clean out the door of American life. Their unifying characteristic was their unwillingness or inability to quit killing themselves; they were junkies in a steadily shrinking twilight zone of acceptability. An exotic social group, he supposed, but not one that was apt to last very long. He guessed that by the year 2020, 2050 at the latest, the Ten O'Clock People would have gone the way of the dodo.

"Collections\Nightmares & Dreamscapes\The Ten O'Clock People.txt" 31 366:There was something else, too. When Pearson had stepped out through the revolving doors just a few minutes ago with an unlit Marlboro between his fingers, the day had been overcast-threatening rain, in fact. Now everything was not just bright but over-bright. The red skirt on the pretty blonde standing beside the building fifty feet or so farther down (she was SMOKING a CIGARETTE and reading a paperback) screamed into the day like a firebell; the yellow of a passing delivery boy's shirt stung like the barb of a wasp. People's faces stood out like the faces in his daughter Jenny's beloved Pop-Up books.

"Collections\Nightmares & Dreamscapes\The Ten O'Clock People.txt" 31 376:There was something else, too. When Pearson had stepped out through the revolving doors just a few minutes ago with an unlit Marlboro between his fingers, the day had been overcast-threatening rain, in fact. Now everything was not just bright but over-bright. The red skirt on the pretty blonde standing beside the building fifty feet or so farther down (she was SMOKING a CIGARETTE and reading a paperback) screamed into the day like a firebell; the yellow of a passing delivery boy's shirt stung like the barb of a wasp. People's faces stood out like the faces in his daughter Jenny's beloved Pop-Up books.

"Collections\Nightmares & Dreamscapes\The Ten O'Clock People.txt" 336 1094:It looked like one bar, Pearson reflected as he followed Duke beneath the sign which read SMOKING PERMITTED THIS SECTION ONLY, but it was really two . . . the way that, back in the fifties, every lunch-counter below the Mason-Dixon had really been two: one for the white folks and one for the black. And now as then, you could see the difference. A Sony almost the size of a cineplex movie screen overlooked the center of the no-SMOKING section; in the nicotine ghetto there was only an elderly Zenith bolted to the wall (a sign beside it read: FEEL FREE TO ASK FOR CREDIT, WE WILL FEEL FREE TO TELL YOU TO F!!K OFF). The surface of the bar itself was dirtier down here-Pearson thought at first that this must be just his imagination, but a second glance confirmed the dingy look of the wood and the faint overlapping rings that were the Ghosts of Schooners Past. And, of course, there was the sallow, yellowish odor of tobacco SMOKE. He swore it came puffing up from the bar-stool when he sat down, like popcorn farts out of an elderly movie-theater seat. The newscaster on their battered, SMOKE-bleared TV appeared to be dying of zinc poisoning; the same guy playing to the healthy folks farther down the bar looked ready to run the four-forty and then bench-press his weight in blondes.

"Collections\Nightmares & Dreamscapes\The Ten O'Clock People.txt" 336 430:It looked like one bar, Pearson reflected as he followed Duke beneath the sign which read SMOKING PERMITTED THIS SECTION ONLY, but it was really two . . . the way that, back in the fifties, every lunch-counter below the Mason-Dixon had really been two: one for the white folks and one for the black. And now as then, you could see the difference. A Sony almost the size of a cineplex movie screen overlooked the center of the no-SMOKING section; in the nicotine ghetto there was only an elderly Zenith bolted to the wall (a sign beside it read: FEEL FREE TO ASK FOR CREDIT, WE WILL FEEL FREE TO TELL YOU TO F!!K OFF). The surface of the bar itself was dirtier down here-Pearson thought at first that this must be just his imagination, but a second glance confirmed the dingy look of the wood and the faint overlapping rings that were the Ghosts of Schooners Past. And, of course, there was the sallow, yellowish odor of tobacco SMOKE. He swore it came puffing up from the bar-stool when he sat down, like popcorn farts out of an elderly movie-theater seat. The newscaster on their battered, SMOKE-bleared TV appeared to be dying of zinc poisoning; the same guy playing to the healthy folks farther down the bar looked ready to run the four-forty and then bench-press his weight in blondes.

"Collections\Nightmares & Dreamscapes\The Ten O'Clock People.txt" 336 91:It looked like one bar, Pearson reflected as he followed Duke beneath the sign which read SMOKING PERMITTED THIS SECTION ONLY, but it was really two . . . the way that, back in the fifties, every lunch-counter below the Mason-Dixon had really been two: one for the white folks and one for the black. And now as then, you could see the difference. A Sony almost the size of a cineplex movie screen overlooked the center of the no-SMOKING section; in the nicotine ghetto there was only an elderly Zenith bolted to the wall (a sign beside it read: FEEL FREE TO ASK FOR CREDIT, WE WILL FEEL FREE TO TELL YOU TO F!!K OFF). The surface of the bar itself was dirtier down here-Pearson thought at first that this must be just his imagination, but a second glance confirmed the dingy look of the wood and the faint overlapping rings that were the Ghosts of Schooners Past. And, of course, there was the sallow, yellowish odor of tobacco SMOKE. He swore it came puffing up from the bar-stool when he sat down, like popcorn farts out of an elderly movie-theater seat. The newscaster on their battered, SMOKE-bleared TV appeared to be dying of zinc poisoning; the same guy playing to the healthy folks farther down the bar looked ready to run the four-forty and then bench-press his weight in blondes.

"Collections\Nightmares & Dreamscapes\The Ten O'Clock People.txt" 336 931:It looked like one bar, Pearson reflected as he followed Duke beneath the sign which read SMOKING PERMITTED THIS SECTION ONLY, but it was really two . . . the way that, back in the fifties, every lunch-counter below the Mason-Dixon had really been two: one for the white folks and one for the black. And now as then, you could see the difference. A Sony almost the size of a cineplex movie screen overlooked the center of the no-SMOKING section; in the nicotine ghetto there was only an elderly Zenith bolted to the wall (a sign beside it read: FEEL FREE TO ASK FOR CREDIT, WE WILL FEEL FREE TO TELL YOU TO F!!K OFF). The surface of the bar itself was dirtier down here-Pearson thought at first that this must be just his imagination, but a second glance confirmed the dingy look of the wood and the faint overlapping rings that were the Ghosts of Schooners Past. And, of course, there was the sallow, yellowish odor of tobacco SMOKE. He swore it came puffing up from the bar-stool when he sat down, like popcorn farts out of an elderly movie-theater seat. The newscaster on their battered, SMOKE-bleared TV appeared to be dying of zinc poisoning; the same guy playing to the healthy folks farther down the bar looked ready to run the four-forty and then bench-press his weight in blondes.

"Collections\Nightmares & Dreamscapes\The Ten O'Clock People.txt" 340 4:"CIGARETTE?" Duke asked, perhaps displaying certain rudimentary mind-reading skills.

"Collections\Nightmares & Dreamscapes\The Ten O'Clock People.txt" 342 151:Pearson glanced at his watch, then accepted the butt, along with another light from Duke's faux-classy lighter. He drew deep, relishing the way the SMOKE slid into his pipes, even relishing the slight swimming in his head. Of course the habit was dangerous, potentially lethal; how could anything that got you off like this not be? It was the way of the world, that was all.

"Collections\Nightmares & Dreamscapes\The Ten O'Clock People.txt" 344 52:"What about you?" he asked as Duke slipped his CIGARETTES back into his pocket.

"Collections\Nightmares & Dreamscapes\The Ten O'Clock People.txt" 354 109:The bartender came over, and Pearson found himself fascinated at the way the man avoided the thin ribbon of SMOKE rising from his CIGARETTE. I doubt if he even knows he's doing it. . . but if I blew some in his face, I bet he'd come over the top and clean my clock for me.

"Collections\Nightmares & Dreamscapes\The Ten O'Clock People.txt" 354 131:The bartender came over, and Pearson found himself fascinated at the way the man avoided the thin ribbon of SMOKE rising from his CIGARETTE. I doubt if he even knows he's doing it. . . but if I blew some in his face, I bet he'd come over the top and clean my clock for me.

"Collections\Nightmares & Dreamscapes\The Ten O'Clock People.txt" 360 151:Pearson nodded and dropped a five-dollar bill on the counter when the bartender came back with the beers. He took a deep swallow, then dragged on his CIGARETTE. There were people who thought a CIGARETTE never tasted better than it did after a meal, but Pearson disagreed; he believed in his heart that it wasn't an apple that had gotten Eve in trouble but a beer and a CIGARETTE.

"Collections\Nightmares & Dreamscapes\The Ten O'Clock People.txt" 360 194:Pearson nodded and dropped a five-dollar bill on the counter when the bartender came back with the beers. He took a deep swallow, then dragged on his CIGARETTE. There were people who thought a CIGARETTE never tasted better than it did after a meal, but Pearson disagreed; he believed in his heart that it wasn't an apple that had gotten Eve in trouble but a beer and a CIGARETTE.

"Collections\Nightmares & Dreamscapes\The Ten O'Clock People.txt" 360 372:Pearson nodded and dropped a five-dollar bill on the counter when the bartender came back with the beers. He took a deep swallow, then dragged on his CIGARETTE. There were people who thought a CIGARETTE never tasted better than it did after a meal, but Pearson disagreed; he believed in his heart that it wasn't an apple that had gotten Eve in trouble but a beer and a CIGARETTE.

"Collections\Nightmares & Dreamscapes\The Ten O'Clock People.txt" 364 108:If it had been Duke's humorous effort at a curve-ball, it didn't work. Pearson had been thinking about SMOKING a lot this afternoon. "Yeah, the patch," he said. "I wore it for two years, starting just after my daughter was born. I took one look at her through the nursery window and made up my mind to quit the habit. It seemed crazy to go on setting fire to forty or fifty CIGARETTES a day when I'd just taken on an eighteen-year commitment to a brand-new human being." With whom I had fallen instantly in love, he could have added, but he had an idea Duke already knew that.

"Collections\Nightmares & Dreamscapes\The Ten O'Clock People.txt" 364 385:If it had been Duke's humorous effort at a curve-ball, it didn't work. Pearson had been thinking about SMOKING a lot this afternoon. "Yeah, the patch," he said. "I wore it for two years, starting just after my daughter was born. I took one look at her through the nursery window and made up my mind to quit the habit. It seemed crazy to go on setting fire to forty or fifty CIGARETTES a day when I'd just taken on an eighteen-year commitment to a brand-new human being." With whom I had fallen instantly in love, he could have added, but he had an idea Duke already knew that.

"Collections\Nightmares & Dreamscapes\The Ten O'Clock People.txt" 376 207:Pearson grimaced. "Or when you have to go upstairs and turn a few cartwheels for Grosbeck and Keefer and Fine and the rest of the boys in the boardroom. The first time I had to do that without grabbing a CIGARETTE before I walked in . . . man, that was tough."

"Collections\Nightmares & Dreamscapes\The Ten O'Clock People.txt" 384 137:"Finally I started chipping again. That was 1992, right around the time the news stories started coming out about how some people who SMOKED while they were still wearing the patch had heart attacks. Do you remember those?"

"Collections\Nightmares & Dreamscapes\The Ten O'Clock People.txt" 386 137:"Uh-huh," Duke said, and tapped his forehead. "I got a complete file of SMOKING stories up here, my man, alphabetically arranged. SMOKING and Alzheimer's, SMOKING and blood-pressure, SMOKING and cataracts . . . you know."

"Collections\Nightmares & Dreamscapes\The Ten O'Clock People.txt" 386 164:"Uh-huh," Duke said, and tapped his forehead. "I got a complete file of SMOKING stories up here, my man, alphabetically arranged. SMOKING and Alzheimer's, SMOKING and blood-pressure, SMOKING and cataracts . . . you know."

"Collections\Nightmares & Dreamscapes\The Ten O'Clock People.txt" 386 192:"Uh-huh," Duke said, and tapped his forehead. "I got a complete file of SMOKING stories up here, my man, alphabetically arranged. SMOKING and Alzheimer's, SMOKING and blood-pressure, SMOKING and cataracts . . . you know."

"Collections\Nightmares & Dreamscapes\The Ten O'Clock People.txt" 386 79:"Uh-huh," Duke said, and tapped his forehead. "I got a complete file of SMOKING stories up here, my man, alphabetically arranged. SMOKING and Alzheimer's, SMOKING and blood-pressure, SMOKING and cataracts . . . you know."

"Collections\Nightmares & Dreamscapes\The Ten O'Clock People.txt" 390 139:"Quit wearing the patch!" they finished together, and then burst into a gust of laughter that caused a smooth-browed patron in the no-SMOKING area to glance over at them for a moment, frowning, before returning his attention to the newscast on the tube.

"Collections\Nightmares & Dreamscapes\The Ten O'Clock People.txt" 392 211:"Life's one fucked-up proposition, isn't it?" Duke asked, still laughing, and started to reach inside his cream-colored jacket. He stopped when he saw Pearson holding out his pack of Marlboros with one CIGARETTE popped up. They exchanged another glance, Duke's surprised and Pearson's knowing, and then burst into another mingled shout of laughter. The smoothbrowed guy glanced over again, his frown a little deeper this time. Neither man noticed. Duke took the offered CIGARETTE and lit it. The whole thing took less than ten seconds, but it was long enough for the two men to become friends.

"Collections\Nightmares & Dreamscapes\The Ten O'Clock People.txt" 392 483:"Life's one fucked-up proposition, isn't it?" Duke asked, still laughing, and started to reach inside his cream-colored jacket. He stopped when he saw Pearson holding out his pack of Marlboros with one CIGARETTE popped up. They exchanged another glance, Duke's surprised and Pearson's knowing, and then burst into another mingled shout of laughter. The smoothbrowed guy glanced over again, his frown a little deeper this time. Neither man noticed. Duke took the offered CIGARETTE and lit it. The whole thing took less than ten seconds, but it was long enough for the two men to become friends.

"Collections\Nightmares & Dreamscapes\The Ten O'Clock People.txt" 396 190:"I SMOKED like a chimney from the time I was fifteen right up until I got married back in '91," Duke said. "My mother didn't like it, but she appreciated the fact that I wasn't SMOKING rock or selling it, like half the other kids on my street-I'm talking Roxbury, you know-and so she didn't say too much.

"Collections\Nightmares & Dreamscapes\The Ten O'Clock People.txt" 396 6:"I SMOKED like a chimney from the time I was fifteen right up until I got married back in '91," Duke said. "My mother didn't like it, but she appreciated the fact that I wasn't SMOKING rock or selling it, like half the other kids on my street-I'm talking Roxbury, you know-and so she didn't say too much.

"Collections\Nightmares & Dreamscapes\The Ten O'Clock People.txt" 398 171:"Wendy and I went to Hawaii for a week on our honeymoon, and the day we got back, she gave me a present." Duke dragged deep and then feathered twin jets of blue-gray SMOKE from his nose. "She found it in the Sharper Image catalogue, I think, or maybe it was one of the other ones. Had some fancy name, but I don't remember what it was; I just called the goddamned thing Pavlov's Thumbscrews. Still, I loved her like fire-still do, too, you better believe it-so I rared back and gave it my best shot. It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be, either. You know the gadget I'm talking about?"

"Collections\Nightmares & Dreamscapes\The Ten O'Clock People.txt" 400 88:"You bet," Pearson said. "The beeper. It makes you wait a little longer for each CIGARETTE. Lisabeth-my wife-kept pointing them out to me while she was pregnant with Jenny. About as subtle as a wheelbarrow of cement falling off a scaffold, you know."

"Collections\Nightmares & Dreamscapes\The Ten O'Clock People.txt" 404 121:"Okay," Pearson said. He glanced around, saw the bartender had once more retreated to the relative safety of the no-SMOKING section (The unions'll have two bartenders in here by 2005, he thought, one for the smokers and one for the non-smokers), and turned back to Duke again. When he spoke this time, he pitched his voice lower. "I thought we were going to talk about the batmen."

"Collections\Nightmares & Dreamscapes\The Ten O'Clock People.txt" 450 64:"All right. I guess I better start by telling you about your SMOKING habits."

"Collections\Nightmares & Dreamscapes\The Ten O'Clock People.txt" 452 255:The juke, which had been silent for the last few minutes, now began to emit a tired-sounding version of Billy Ray Cyrus's golden clunker, "Achy Breaky Heart." Pearson stared at Duke Rhinemann with confused eyes and opened his mouth to ask what his SMOKING habits had to do with the price of coffee in San Diego. Only nothing came out. Nothing at all.

"Collections\Nightmares & Dreamscapes\The Ten O'Clock People.txt" 464 327:"Anyway, you've worked out an accommodation with your habit. A whatdoyoucallit, modus vivendi. You can't bring yourself to quit, but you've discovered that's not the end of the world-it's not like being a coke-addict who can't let go of the rock or a boozehound who can't stop chugging down the Night Train. SMOKING's a bastard of a habit, but there really is a middle ground between two or three packs a day and total abstinence."

"Collections\Nightmares & Dreamscapes\The Ten O'Clock People.txt" 474 125:So Pearson explained a little about the Ten O'Clock People and their tribal gestures (surly glances when confronted by NO SMOKING signs, surly shrugs of acquiescence when asked by some accredited authority to Please Put Your CIGARETTE Out, Sir), their tribal sacraments (gum, hard candies, toothpicks, and, of course, little Binaca push-button spray cans), and their tribal litanies (I'm quitting for good next year being the most common).

"Collections\Nightmares & Dreamscapes\The Ten O'Clock People.txt" 474 228:So Pearson explained a little about the Ten O'Clock People and their tribal gestures (surly glances when confronted by NO SMOKING signs, surly shrugs of acquiescence when asked by some accredited authority to Please Put Your CIGARETTE Out, Sir), their tribal sacraments (gum, hard candies, toothpicks, and, of course, little Binaca push-button spray cans), and their tribal litanies (I'm quitting for good next year being the most common).

"Collections\Nightmares & Dreamscapes\The Ten O'Clock People.txt" 480 83:"Anyway, it all fits in," Duke told him. "Let me ask you something-do you SMOKE around your kid?"

"Collections\Nightmares & Dreamscapes\The Ten O'Clock People.txt" 490 121:Pearson considered it and discovered a peculiar thing: he couldn't remember. Nowadays he asked to be seated in the no-SMOKING section even when he was alone, deferring his CIGARETTE until after he'd finished, paid up, and left. And the days when he had actually SMOKED between courses were long in the past, of course.

"Collections\Nightmares & Dreamscapes\The Ten O'Clock People.txt" 490 175:Pearson considered it and discovered a peculiar thing: he couldn't remember. Nowadays he asked to be seated in the no-SMOKING section even when he was alone, deferring his CIGARETTE until after he'd finished, paid up, and left. And the days when he had actually SMOKED between courses were long in the past, of course.

"Collections\Nightmares & Dreamscapes\The Ten O'Clock People.txt" 490 267:Pearson considered it and discovered a peculiar thing: he couldn't remember. Nowadays he asked to be seated in the no-SMOKING section even when he was alone, deferring his CIGARETTE until after he'd finished, paid up, and left. And the days when he had actually SMOKED between courses were long in the past, of course.

"Collections\Nightmares & Dreamscapes\The Ten O'Clock People.txt" 536 119:"And nobody knows the victims all had one thing in common-they'd cut down their SMOKING to between five and ten CIGARETTES a day. I have an idea that sort of similarity's a little too obscure even for the FBI."

"Collections\Nightmares & Dreamscapes\The Ten O'Clock People.txt" 536 87:"And nobody knows the victims all had one thing in common-they'd cut down their SMOKING to between five and ten CIGARETTES a day. I have an idea that sort of similarity's a little too obscure even for the FBI."

"Collections\Nightmares & Dreamscapes\The Ten O'Clock People.txt" 55 217:"Start saying the states," the black man ordered. He crossed his legs, shook out the fabric of his pants to preserve the crease, and brought a package of Winstons out of an inner pocket. Pearson realized his own CIGARETTE was gone; he must have dropped it in that first shocked moment, when he had seen the monstrous thing in the expensive suit crossing the west side of the plaza.

"Collections\Nightmares & Dreamscapes\The Ten O'Clock People.txt" 59 137:The young black man nodded, produced a lighter that was probably quite a bit less expensive than it looked at first glance, and lit his CIGARETTE. "Start with this one and work your way west," he invited.

"Collections\Nightmares & Dreamscapes\The Ten O'Clock People.txt" 608 29:"Get transparent, turn to SMOKE, disappear. I know how crazy it sounds, but nothing I could ever say would make you understand how crazy it was to actually be there and watch it happen.

"Collections\Nightmares & Dreamscapes\The Ten O'Clock People.txt" 612 12:"Turn to SMOKE and disappear," Pearson said. "Jesus Christ."

"Collections\Nightmares & Dreamscapes\The Ten O'Clock People.txt" 670 425:"Because this is the only country that's gone bonkers about CIGARETTES . . . probably because it's the only one where people believe-and down deep they really do-that if they just eat the right foods, take the right combination of vitamins, think enough of the right thoughts, and wipe their asses with the right kind of toilet-paper, they'll live forever and be sexually active the whole time. When it comes to SMOKING, the battle-lines are drawn, and the result has been this weird hybrid. Us, in other words."

"Collections\Nightmares & Dreamscapes\The Ten O'Clock People.txt" 670 65:"Because this is the only country that's gone bonkers about CIGARETTES . . . probably because it's the only one where people believe-and down deep they really do-that if they just eat the right foods, take the right combination of vitamins, think enough of the right thoughts, and wipe their asses with the right kind of toilet-paper, they'll live forever and be sexually active the whole time. When it comes to SMOKING, the battle-lines are drawn, and the result has been this weird hybrid. Us, in other words."

"Collections\Nightmares & Dreamscapes\The Ten O'Clock People.txt" 712 90:Duke's white teeth flashed in the drizzly dark. "You're about to attend your first SMOKING-allowed meeting in five years or so," he said. "Come on-let's go in."

"Collections\Nightmares & Dreamscapes\The Ten O'Clock People.txt" 73 31:Pearson dragged deeply on the CIGARETTE and looked toward the revolving doors which gave ingress upon all the gloomy depths and cloudy heights of The First Mercantile. "That wasn't just a hallucination, was it?" he asked. "What I saw . . . you saw it, too, right?"

"Collections\Nightmares & Dreamscapes\The Ten O'Clock People.txt" 759 18:Duke lit his own CIGARETTE, then pointed it at the skinny, freckle-splattered man now standing by the easel. Freckles was deep in conversation with Lester Olson, who had shot the batman, pop-pop-pop, in a Newburyport barn.

"Collections\Nightmares & Dreamscapes\The Ten O'Clock People.txt" 765 266:By this time all the seats had been taken, and there were even a few people standing at the back of the room near the coffeemaker. Conversation, animated and jittery, zinged and caromed around Pearson's head like pool-balls after a hard break. A mat of blue-gray CIGARETTE SMOKE had already gathered just below the ceiling.

"Collections\Nightmares & Dreamscapes\The Ten O'Clock People.txt" 765 276:By this time all the seats had been taken, and there were even a few people standing at the back of the room near the coffeemaker. Conversation, animated and jittery, zinged and caromed around Pearson's head like pool-balls after a hard break. A mat of blue-gray CIGARETTE SMOKE had already gathered just below the ceiling.

"Collections\Nightmares & Dreamscapes\The Ten O'Clock People.txt" 841 378:Except he couldn't, and in a weird way it was almost as if Robbie Delray couldn't, either. Pearson looked back from his scan of the audience just in time to see Delray snatch another quick glance at his watch. It was a gesture Pearson had grown very familiar with since he'd joined the Ten O'clock People. He guessed that the man was counting down the time to his next CIGARETTE.

"Collections\Nightmares & Dreamscapes\The Ten O'Clock People.txt" 917 84:That feeling-flushed face, pounding heart, above all else the desire for another CIGARETTE-was stronger than ever. Like the anxiety attacks he'd sometimes had back in college. What was it? If it wasn't fear, what was it?

"Collections\Nightmares & Dreamscapes\Umney's Last Case.txt" 150 444:Bill was standing next to Vernon Klein, world's oldest elevator operator, in Car 2. In his frayed red suit and ancient pillbox hat, Vernon looks like a cross between the Philip Morris bellboy and a rhesus monkey which has fallen into an industrial steam-cleaning machine. He looked up at me with his mournful basset-hound eyes, which were watering from the Camel pasted in the middle of his mouth. His peepers should have gotten used to the SMOKE years ago; I couldn't remember ever having seen him without a Camel parked in that same position.

"Collections\Nightmares & Dreamscapes\Umney's Last Case.txt" 194 222:"What's gotten into you?" I shouted at him. "What's gotten into all of you?" But by then the inner door was closed and we were headed up again-this time to Seven. My little slice of heaven. Vern dropped his CIGARETTE butt into the bucket of sand that squats in the corner, and immediately stuck a fresh one in his kisser. He popped a wooden match alight with his thumbnail, set the fag on fire, and immediately started coughing again. Now I could see fine drops of blood misting out from between his cracked lips. It was a gruesome sight. His eyes had dropped; they stared vacantly into the far corner, seeing nothing, hoping for nothing. Bill Tuggle's B.O. hung between us like the Ghost of Binges Past.

"Collections\Nightmares & Dreamscapes\Umney's Last Case.txt" 214 86:"Well . . . forever," I said, and the word hung between us, another ghost in the CIGARETTE-smokey elevator car. Given a choice of ghosts, I guess I would have picked Bill Tuggle's B.O . . . . but I wasn't given a choice. Instead, I said it again. "Forever, Vern."

"Collections\Nightmares & Dreamscapes\Umney's Last Case.txt" 216 38:He dragged on his Camel, coughed out SMOKE and a fine spray of blood, and went on looking at me. "It ain't my place to give the tenants advice, Mr. Umney, but I guess I'll give you some, anyway-it being my last week and all. You might consider seeing a doctor. The kind that shows you ink-pitchers and you say what they look like."

"Collections\Nightmares & Dreamscapes\Umney's Last Case.txt" 220 23:"No?" He took his CIGARETTE out of his mouth-fresh blood was already soaking into the tip-and then looked back at me. His smile was ghastly. "The way it looks to me, I ain't exactly got a choice, Mr. Umney."

"Collections\Nightmares & Dreamscapes\Umney's Last Case.txt" 229 84:The smell of fresh paint seared my nose, overpowering both the smell of Vernon's SMOKE and Bill Tuggle's armpits. The men in the coveralls were currently taking up space not far from my office door. They had put down a dropcloth, and the tools of their trade were spread out all along it-tins and brushes and turp. There were two step-ladders as well, flanking the painters like scrawny bookends. What I wanted to do was to run down the hall, kicking the whole works every whichway as I went. What right had they to paint these old dark walls that glaring, sacrilegious white?

"Collections\Nightmares & Dreamscapes\Umney's Last Case.txt" 547 140:I looked back at the picture. George Washington was gone, replaced by a photo of Franklin Roosevelt. F.D.R. had a grin on his face and his CIGARETTE holder jutting upward at that angle his supporters think of as jaunty and his detractors as arrogant. The picture was hanging slightly askew.

"Collections\Nightmares & Dreamscapes\Umney's Last Case.txt" 659 79:He shifted in the overstuffed client's chair, moved his hand, and I saw the CIGARETTE burn Ardis McGill had put in the overstuffed arm was also gone. He voiced a bitterly cold laugh.

"Collections\Nightmares & Dreamscapes\Umney's Last Case.txt" 725 308:"Then I thought, 'But that's Clyde Umney, and Clyde is make-believe. . . just a figment of your imagination.' That idea wouldn't live, though. It's the dumbbells of the world-politicians and lawyers, for the most part-who sneer at imagination, and think a thing isn't real unless they can SMOKE it or stroke it or feel it or fuck it. They think that way because they have no imagination themselves, and they have no idea of its power. I knew better. Hell, I ought to-my imagination has been buying my food and paying the mortgage for the last ten years or so.

"Collections\Nightmares & Dreamscapes\You Know They Got a Hell of a Band.txt" 236 17:There should be SMOKE curling from a chimney or two, Mary thought, and after a little examination, she saw that there was. She suddenly found herself remembering a story from Ray Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles. "Mars Is Heaven," it had been called, and in it the Martians had cleverly disguised the slaughterhouse so it had looked like everybody's fondest hometown dream.

"Collections\Nightmares & Dreamscapes\You Know They Got a Hell of a Band.txt" 370 363:"Naw; might take awhile," the redhead disagreed. "We're awful busy. See?" She swept an arm at the room, deserted as only a small-town restaurant can be as the afternoon balances perfectly between lunch and dinner, and laughed cheerily at her own witticism. Like her voice, the laugh had a husky, splintered quality that Mary associated with Scotch and CIGARETTES. But it's a voice I know, she thought. I'd swear it is.

"Collections\Nightmares & Dreamscapes\You Know They Got a Hell of a Band.txt" 590 196:She threw herself into the passenger bucket head-first and he was backing out before she could even make a try at slamming the door. The Princess's rear tires howled and sent up clouds of blue SMOKE. Mary was thrown forward with neck-snapping force when Clark stamped the brake, and her head connected with the padded dashboard. She groped behind her for the open door as Clark cursed and yanked the transmission down into drive.

"Collections\Nightmares & Dreamscapes\You Know They Got a Hell of a Band.txt" 650 160:Clark gave it his best, but wasn't quite able to stop. The Princess slid into The Magic Bus at ten or fifteen miles an hour, her wheels locked and her tires SMOKING fiercely. There was a hollow bang as the Mercedes hit the tie-dyed bus amidships. Mary was thrown forward against her safety harness again. The bus rocked on its springs a little, but that was all.

"Collections\Skeleton Crew\Beachworld.txt" 392 238:Dud went back and knelt by it. The andy's legs were still moving as if it dreamed, in the 1.5 million Freon-cooled micro-circuits that made up its mind, that it still walked. But the leg movements were slow and cracking. They stopped. SMOKE began to come out of its pores and its tentacles shivered in the sand. It was gruesomely like watching a human die. A deep grinding came from inside it: Graaaagggg!

"Collections\Skeleton Crew\Big Wheels.txt" 106 187:They ran into the side of the garage. The Chrysler had another seizure, grand mal this time. A small yellow flame appeared at the end of the sagging tailpipe, followed by a puff of blue SMOKE. The car stalled gratefully. Leo lurched forward, spilling more beer. Rocky keyed the engine and backed off for another try.

"Collections\Skeleton Crew\Big Wheels.txt" 12 67:Leo held his watch up until it was almost touching the tip of his CIGARETTE and then puffed madly until he could get a reading. "Almost eight."

"Collections\Skeleton Crew\Big Wheels.txt" 298 62:Leo walked in a drunken semicircle, still trying to coax his CIGARETTES out of his shirt sleeve. "'Z dark. And cold."

"Collections\Skeleton Crew\Big Wheels.txt" 382 58:He suddenly floored the Chrysler, which belched blue oil SMOKE and reluctantly creaked its way up to sixty.

"Collections\Skeleton Crew\Big Wheels.txt" 396 184:The Chrysler had reached eighty, a speed which Rocky in a more sober frame of mind would not have believed possible. They came around the turn which leads onto the Johnson Flat Road, SMOKE spurting up from Rocky's bald tires. The Chrysler screamed into the night like a ghost, lights searching the empty road ahead.

"Collections\Skeleton Crew\Mrs. Todd's Shortcut.txt" 22 449:It used to be that Homer never talked about his summer people. But then his wife died. Five years ago it was. She was plowing a grade and the tractor tipped over on her and Homer was taken bad off about it. He grieved for two years or so and then seemed to feel better. But he was not the same. He seemed waiting for something to happen, waiting for the next thing. You'd pass his neat little house sometimes at dusk and he would be on the porch SMOKING a pipe with a glass of mineral water on the porch rail and the sunset would be in his eyes and pipe SMOKE around his head and you'd think-I did, anyway-Homer is waiting for the next thing. This bothered me over a wider range of my mind than I liked to admit, and at last I decided it was because if it had been me, I wouldn't have been waiting for the next thing, like a groom who has put on his morning coat and finally has his tie right and is only sitting there on a bed in the upstairs of his house and looking first at himself in the mirror and then at the clock on the mantel and waiting for it to be eleven o'clock so he can get married. If it had been me, I would not have been waiting for the next thing; I would have been waiting for the last thing.

"Collections\Skeleton Crew\Mrs. Todd's Shortcut.txt" 22 557:It used to be that Homer never talked about his summer people. But then his wife died. Five years ago it was. She was plowing a grade and the tractor tipped over on her and Homer was taken bad off about it. He grieved for two years or so and then seemed to feel better. But he was not the same. He seemed waiting for something to happen, waiting for the next thing. You'd pass his neat little house sometimes at dusk and he would be on the porch SMOKING a pipe with a glass of mineral water on the porch rail and the sunset would be in his eyes and pipe SMOKE around his head and you'd think-I did, anyway-Homer is waiting for the next thing. This bothered me over a wider range of my mind than I liked to admit, and at last I decided it was because if it had been me, I wouldn't have been waiting for the next thing, like a groom who has put on his morning coat and finally has his tie right and is only sitting there on a bed in the upstairs of his house and looking first at himself in the mirror and then at the clock on the mantel and waiting for it to be eleven o'clock so he can get married. If it had been me, I would not have been waiting for the next thing; I would have been waiting for the last thing.

"Collections\Skeleton Crew\Mrs. Todd's Shortcut.txt" 408 522:Olympus must be a glory to the eyes and the heart, and there are those who crave it and those who find a clear way to it, mayhap, but I know Castle Rock like the back of my hand and I could never leave it for no shortcuts where the roads may go; in October the sky over the lake is no glory but it is passing fair, with those big white clouds that move so slow; I sit here on the bench, and think about 'Phelia Todd and Homer Buckland, and I don't necessarily wish I was where they are . . . but I still wish I was a SMOKING man.

"Collections\Skeleton Crew\Mrs. Todd's Shortcut.txt" 8 1040:This was just about two years ago and we were sitting on a bench in front of Bell's Market, me with an orange soda-pop, Homer with a glass of mineral water. It was October, which is a peaceful time in Castle Rock. Lots of the lake places still get used on the weekends, but the aggressive, boozy summer socializing is over by then and the hunters with their big guns and their expensive nonresident permits pinned to their orange caps haven't started to come into town yet. Crops have been mostly laid by. Nights are cool, good for sleeping, and old joints like mine haven't yet started to complain. In October the sky over the lake is passing fair, with those big white clouds that move so slow; I like how they seem so flat on the bottoms, and how they are a little gray there, like with a shadow of sundown foretold, and I can watch the sun sparkle on the water and not be bored for some space of minutes. It's in October, sitting on the bench in front of Bell's and watching the lake from afar off, that I still wish I was a SMOKING man.

"Collections\Skeleton Crew\Nona.txt" 304 115:When I was three I got a bad case of the flu and had to go to the hospital. While I was there, my dad fell asleep SMOKING in bed and the house burned down with my folks and my older brother Drake in it. I have their pictures. They look like actors in an old 1958 American International horror movie, faces you don't know like those of the big stars, more like Elisha Cook, Jr., and Mara Corday and some child actor you can't quite remember-Brandon de Wilde, maybe.

"Collections\Skeleton Crew\Nona.txt" 318 342:In the first semester of my sophomore year I fell in love. It was the biggest thing that had ever happened to me. Pretty? She would have knocked you back two steps. To this day I have no idea what she saw in me. I don't even know if she loved me or not. I think she did at first. After that I was just a habit that's hard to break, like SMOKING or driving with your elbow poked out the window. She held me for a while, maybe not wanting to break the habit. Maybe she held me for wonder, or maybe it was just her vanity. Good boy, roll over, sit up, fetch the paper. Here's a kiss good night. It doesn't matter. For a while it was love, then it was like love, then it was over.

"Collections\Skeleton Crew\Paranoid A Chant.txt" 10 11:SMOKING a CIGARETTE.

"Collections\Skeleton Crew\Paranoid A Chant.txt" 10 1:SMOKING a CIGARETTE.

"Collections\Skeleton Crew\Paranoid A Chant.txt" 42 5:His CIGARETTE winks from just

"Collections\Skeleton Crew\Survivor Type.txt" 162 166:I was coming around to help him when he began to scream. He'd succeeded in untangling the snarl and had gotten his hand caught at the same time. The whizzing rope SMOKED over his open palm, flaying off skin, and he was jerked over the side.

"Collections\Skeleton Crew\The Ballad of the Flexible Bullet.txt" 108 46:The editor indented the evening air with his CIGARETTE.

"Collections\Skeleton Crew\The Ballad of the Flexible Bullet.txt" 118 517:"No, he didn't call. Shortly after Underworld Figures, Thorpe stopped using the telephone altogether. His wife told me that. When they moved to Omaha from New York, they didn't even have a phone put in the new house. He had decided, you see, that the telephone system didn't really run on electricity but on radium. He thought it was one of the two or three best-kept secrets in the history of the modern world. He claimed-to his wife-that all the radium was responsible for the growing cancer rate, not CIGARETTES or automobile emissions or industrial pollution. Each telephone had a small radium crystal in the handset, and every time you used the phone, you shot your head full of radiation."

"Collections\Skeleton Crew\The Ballad of the Flexible Bullet.txt" 122 55:"He wrote instead," the editor said, flicking his CIGARETTE in the direction of the lake. "His letter said this: 'Dear Henry Wilson (or just Henry, if I may), Your letter was both exciting and gratifying. My wife was, if anything, more pleased than I. The money is fine . . . although in all honesty I must say that the idea of being published in Logan's at all seems like more than adequate compensation (but I'll take it, I'll take it). I've looked over your cuts, and they seem fine. I think they'll improve the story as well as clear space for those cartoons. All best wishes, Reg Thorpe.' "

"Collections\Skeleton Crew\The Ballad of the Flexible Bullet.txt" 204 37:"Bravo." The editor lit a fresh CIGARETTE. "And she removed the food for the same reason. If the food continued to accumulate in the typewriter, Reg would make the logical assumption, proceeding directly from his own decidedly illogical premise. Namely, that his Fornit had either died or left. Hence, no more fornus. Hence, no more writing. Hence . . ."

"Collections\Skeleton Crew\The Ballad of the Flexible Bullet.txt" 206 39:The editor let the word drift away on CIGARETTE SMOKE and then resumed:

"Collections\Skeleton Crew\The Ballad of the Flexible Bullet.txt" 206 49:The editor let the word drift away on CIGARETTE SMOKE and then resumed:

"Collections\Skeleton Crew\The Ballad of the Flexible Bullet.txt" 212 290:The editor said slowly, "That's where the trouble really began. For both of us. Jane had said, 'Humor him,' so that's what I did. Unfortunately, I rather overdid it. I answered his letter at home, and I was very drunk. The apartment seemed much too empty. It had a stale smell-CIGARETTE SMOKE, not enough airing. Things were going to seed with Sandra gone. The dropcloth on the couch all wrinkled. Dirty dishes in the sink, that sort of thing. The middle-aged man unprepared for domesticity.

"Collections\Skeleton Crew\The Ballad of the Flexible Bullet.txt" 212 300:The editor said slowly, "That's where the trouble really began. For both of us. Jane had said, 'Humor him,' so that's what I did. Unfortunately, I rather overdid it. I answered his letter at home, and I was very drunk. The apartment seemed much too empty. It had a stale smell-CIGARETTE SMOKE, not enough airing. Things were going to seed with Sandra gone. The dropcloth on the couch all wrinkled. Dirty dishes in the sink, that sort of thing. The middle-aged man unprepared for domesticity.

"Collections\Skeleton Crew\The Ballad of the Flexible Bullet.txt" 284 114:The agent said, "You know, you've got something there, Henry. I've got this thing about not lighting three CIGARETTES on a match. I don't know how I got it, but I did. Then I read somewhere that it came from the trench warfare in World War I. It seems that the German sharpshooters would wait for the Tommies to start lighting each other's CIGARETTES. On the first light, you got the range. On the second one, you got the windage. And on the third one, you blew the guy's head off. But knowing all that didn't make any difference. I still can't light three on a match. One part of me says it doesn't matter if I light a dozen CIGARETTES on one match. But the other part-this very ominous voice, like an interior Boris Karloff-says 'Ohhhh, if you dooo . . .'"

"Collections\Skeleton Crew\The Ballad of the Flexible Bullet.txt" 284 351:The agent said, "You know, you've got something there, Henry. I've got this thing about not lighting three CIGARETTES on a match. I don't know how I got it, but I did. Then I read somewhere that it came from the trench warfare in World War I. It seems that the German sharpshooters would wait for the Tommies to start lighting each other's CIGARETTES. On the first light, you got the range. On the second one, you got the windage. And on the third one, you blew the guy's head off. But knowing all that didn't make any difference. I still can't light three on a match. One part of me says it doesn't matter if I light a dozen CIGARETTES on one match. But the other part-this very ominous voice, like an interior Boris Karloff-says 'Ohhhh, if you dooo . . .'"

"Collections\Skeleton Crew\The Ballad of the Flexible Bullet.txt" 284 645:The agent said, "You know, you've got something there, Henry. I've got this thing about not lighting three CIGARETTES on a match. I don't know how I got it, but I did. Then I read somewhere that it came from the trench warfare in World War I. It seems that the German sharpshooters would wait for the Tommies to start lighting each other's CIGARETTES. On the first light, you got the range. On the second one, you got the windage. And on the third one, you blew the guy's head off. But knowing all that didn't make any difference. I still can't light three on a match. One part of me says it doesn't matter if I light a dozen CIGARETTES on one match. But the other part-this very ominous voice, like an interior Boris Karloff-says 'Ohhhh, if you dooo . . .'"

"Collections\Skeleton Crew\The Ballad of the Flexible Bullet.txt" 346 28:The editor paused to get a CIGARETTE, but his pack was empty. "Does anyone have a CIGARETTE?"

"Collections\Skeleton Crew\The Ballad of the Flexible Bullet.txt" 346 85:The editor paused to get a CIGARETTE, but his pack was empty. "Does anyone have a CIGARETTE?"

"Collections\Skeleton Crew\The Ballad of the Flexible Bullet.txt" 434 349:"I had to go somewhere, so I went to Four Fathers, a bar on Forty-ninth. I remember picking that bar specifically because there was no juke and no color TV and not many lights. I remember ordering the first drink. After that I don't remember anything until I woke up the next day in my bed at home. There was puke on the floor and a very large CIGARETTE burn in the sheet over me. In my stupor I had apparently escaped dying in one of two extremely nasty ways-choking or burning. Not that I probably would have felt either."

"Collections\Skeleton Crew\The Ballad of the Flexible Bullet.txt" 520 25:"May I borrow another CIGARETTE, dear?"

"Collections\Skeleton Crew\The Ballad of the Flexible Bullet.txt" 544 374:"I had a Coleman gas lantern and I lit it. Saw what it was at once. Only instead of relieving me, it made me feel worse. As soon as I got a good look at it, it seemed I could feel large, clear bursts of pain going through my head-like radio waves. For a moment it was as if my eyes had rotated in their sockets and I could look into my own brain and see cells in there SMOKING, going black, dying. It was a SMOKE detector-a gadget which was even newer than microwave ovens back in 1969.

"Collections\Skeleton Crew\The Ballad of the Flexible Bullet.txt" 544 412:"I had a Coleman gas lantern and I lit it. Saw what it was at once. Only instead of relieving me, it made me feel worse. As soon as I got a good look at it, it seemed I could feel large, clear bursts of pain going through my head-like radio waves. For a moment it was as if my eyes had rotated in their sockets and I could look into my own brain and see cells in there SMOKING, going black, dying. It was a SMOKE detector-a gadget which was even newer than microwave ovens back in 1969.

"Collections\Skeleton Crew\The Ballad of the Flexible Bullet.txt" 546 447:"I bolted out of the apartment and went downstairs-I was on the fifth floor but by then I was always taking the stairs-and hammered on the super's door. I told him I wanted that thing out of there, wanted it out of there right away, wanted it out of there tonight, wanted it out of there within the hour. He looked at me as though I had gone completely-you should pardon the expression-bonzo seco, and I can understand that now. That SMOKE detector was supposed to make me feel good, it was supposed to make me safe. Now, of course, they're the law, but back then it was a Great Leap Forward, paid for by the building tenants' association.

"Collections\Skeleton Crew\The Ballad of the Flexible Bullet.txt" 552 259:"All of that was very secondary in my thoughts that evening, however. I sat in the glow of the Coleman lantern, the only light in the three rooms except for all the electricity in Manhattan that came through the windows. I sat with a bottle in one hand, a CIGARETTE in the other, looking at the plate in the ceiling where the SMOKE detector with its single red eye-an eye which was so unobtrusive in the daytime that I had never even noticed it-had been. I thought of the undeniable fact that, although I'd had all the electricity turned off in my place, there had been that one live item . . . and where there was one, there might be more.

"Collections\Skeleton Crew\The Ballad of the Flexible Bullet.txt" 552 329:"All of that was very secondary in my thoughts that evening, however. I sat in the glow of the Coleman lantern, the only light in the three rooms except for all the electricity in Manhattan that came through the windows. I sat with a bottle in one hand, a CIGARETTE in the other, looking at the plate in the ceiling where the SMOKE detector with its single red eye-an eye which was so unobtrusive in the daytime that I had never even noticed it-had been. I thought of the undeniable fact that, although I'd had all the electricity turned off in my place, there had been that one live item . . . and where there was one, there might be more.

"Collections\Skeleton Crew\The Ballad of the Flexible Bullet.txt" 588 28:He paused, crushed out his CIGARETTE, looked at his watch. Then, oddly like a conductor announcing a train's arrival in some city of importance, he said, "We have reached the inexplicable.

"Collections\Skeleton Crew\The Ballad of the Flexible Bullet.txt" 646 53:He drank deeply, coughed, waved away the offer of a CIGARETTE.

"Collections\Skeleton Crew\The Ballad of the Flexible Bullet.txt" 84 47:"Anyway," the editor said, taking out his CIGARETTE case, "this story came in, and the girl in the mailroom took it out, paper-clipped the form rejection to the first page, and was getting ready to put it in the return envelope when she glanced at the author's name. Well, she had read Underworld Figures. That fall, everybody had read it, or was reading it, or was on the library waiting list, or checking the drugstore racks for the paperback."

"Collections\Skeleton Crew\The Ballad of the Flexible Bullet.txt" 86 154:The writer's wife, who had seen the momentary unease on her husband's face, took his hand. He smiled at her. The editor snapped a gold Ronson to his CIGARETTE, and in the growing dark they could all see how haggard his face was-the loose, crocodile-skinned pouches under the eyes, the runneled cheeks, the old man's jut of chin emerging out of that late-middle-aged face like the prow of a ship. That ship, the writer thought, is called old age. No one particularly wants to cruise on it, but the staterooms are full. The gangholds too, for that matter.

"Collections\Skeleton Crew\The Ballad of the Flexible Bullet.txt" 88 51:The lighter winked out, and the editor puffed his CIGARETTE meditatively.

"Collections\Skeleton Crew\The Man Who Would Not Shake Hands.txt" 18 42:There was a pause while he lit his pipe. SMOKE drifted around his seamed face in a blue raft, and he shook the wooden match out with the slow, declamatory gestures of a man whose joints hurt him badly. He threw the stick into the fireplace, where it landed on the ashy remains of the packet. He watched the flames char the wood. His sharp blue eyes brooded beneath their bushy salt-and-pepper brows. His nose was large and hooked, his lips thin and firm, his shoulders hunched almost to the back of his skull.

"Collections\Skeleton Crew\The Man Who Would Not Shake Hands.txt" 186 316:"I left him then, before he could reconsider, and went downstairs. Someone-probably Jack Wilden; he always had an orderly mind-had changed all the markers for greenbacks and had stacked the money neatly in the center of the green felt. None of them spoke to me as I gathered it up. Baker and Jack Wilden were SMOKING wordlessly; Jason Davidson was hanging his head and looking at his feet. His face was a picture of misery and shame. I touched him on the shoulder as I went back to the stairs and he looked at me gratefully.

"Collections\Skeleton Crew\The Man Who Would Not Shake Hands.txt" 232 420:"This was all Greer could tell me, because it was all Brower had told him that made any sense. The rest was a kind of deranged harangue on the folly of two such disparate cultures ever mixing. The dead boy's father evidently confronted Brower before he was recalled and flung a slaughtered chicken at him. There was a curse. At this point, Greer gave me a smile which said that we were both men of the world, lit a CIGARETTE, and remarked, 'There's always a curse when a thing of this sort happens. The miserable heathens must keep up appearances at all costs. It's their bread and butter.'

"Collections\Skeleton Crew\The Mist.txt" 1258 87:Mrs. Carmody was seated on the stationary conveyor belt of one of the checkout lanes, SMOKING a Parliament in a One Step at a Time filter. Her eyes measured me, found me wanting, and passed on. She looked as if she might be dreaming awake.

"Collections\Skeleton Crew\The Mist.txt" 132 577:I went downstairs again. All three of us slept together in the guest bed, Billy between Steff and me. I had a dream that I saw God walking across Harrison on the far side of the lake, a God so gigantic that above the waist He was lost in a clear blue sky. In the dream I could hear the rending crack and splinter of breaking trees as God stamped the woods into the shape of His footsteps. He was circling the lake, coming toward the Bridgton side, toward us, and all the houses and cottages and summer places were bursting into purple-white flame like lightning, and soon the SMOKE covered everything. The SMOKE covered everything like a mist.

"Collections\Skeleton Crew\The Mist.txt" 132 607:I went downstairs again. All three of us slept together in the guest bed, Billy between Steff and me. I had a dream that I saw God walking across Harrison on the far side of the lake, a God so gigantic that above the waist He was lost in a clear blue sky. In the dream I could hear the rending crack and splinter of breaking trees as God stamped the woods into the shape of His footsteps. He was circling the lake, coming toward the Bridgton side, toward us, and all the houses and cottages and summer places were bursting into purple-white flame like lightning, and soon the SMOKE covered everything. The SMOKE covered everything like a mist.

"Collections\Skeleton Crew\The Mist.txt" 14 112:After supper Billy went out back to play on his monkey bars for a while. Steff and I sat without talking much, SMOKING and looking across the sullen flat mirror of the lake to Harrison on the far side. A few powerboats droned back and forth. The evergreens over there looked dusty and beaten. In the west, great purple thunderheads were slowly building up, massing like an army. Lightning flashed inside them. Next door, Brent Norton's radio, tuned to that classical-music station that broadcasts from the top of Mount Washington, sent out a loud bray of static each time the lightning flashed. Norton was a lawyer from New Jersey and his place on Long Lake was only a summer cottage with no furnace or insulation. Two years before, we had a boundary dispute that finally wound up in county court. I won. Norton claimed I won because he was an out-of-towner. There was no love lost between us.

"Collections\Skeleton Crew\The Mist.txt" 1627 276:"It's yours," Miller said, blinking a little at the exchange. He handed it over and Ollie checked it again, more professionally. He put the gun into his right-front pants pocket and slipped the cartridge box into his breast pocket, where it made a bulge like a pack of CIGARETTES. Then he leaned back against the cooler, round face still trickling sweat, and cracked a fresh beer. The sensation that I was seeing a totally unsuspected Ollie Weeks persisted.

"Collections\Skeleton Crew\The Mist.txt" 2010 243:Heads turned up to follow its flaming, dying course. I think that nothing in the entire business stands in my memory so strongly as that bird-thing blazing a zigzagging course above the aisles of the Federal Supermarket, dropping charred and SMOKING bits of itself here and there. It finally crashed into the spaghetti sauces, splattering Ragú and Prince and Prima Salsa everywhere like gouts of blood. It was little more than ash and bone. The smell of its burning was high and sickening. And underlying it like a counterpoint was the thin and acrid stench of the mist, eddying in through the broken place in the glass.

"Collections\Skeleton Crew\The Mist.txt" 2245 63:I shook my head. "All that white sugar is death. Worse than CIGARETTES."

"Collections\Skeleton Crew\The Mist.txt" 2249 185:I was surprised to find a little laughter left inside me-he had surprised it out, and I liked him for it. I did take two of his donuts. They tasted pretty good. I chased them with a CIGARETTE, although it is not normally my habit to SMOKE in the mornings.

"Collections\Skeleton Crew\The Mist.txt" 2249 236:I was surprised to find a little laughter left inside me-he had surprised it out, and I liked him for it. I did take two of his donuts. They tasted pretty good. I chased them with a CIGARETTE, although it is not normally my habit to SMOKE in the mornings.

"Collections\Skeleton Crew\The Mist.txt" 2257 74:He nodded again and didn't say anything for a long time. Then he lit a CIGARETTE of his own and looked at me. "We can't stay here, Drayton," he said.

"Collections\Skeleton Crew\The Mist.txt" 72 128:I was pawing through the fourth cabinet, past the half-ounce of grass that Steff and I bought four years ago and had still not SMOKED much of, past Billy's wind-up set of chattering teeth from the Auburn Novelty Shop, past the drifts of photos Steffy kept forgetting to glue in our album. I looked under a Sears catalogue and behind a Kewpie doll from Taiwan that I had won at the Fryeburg Fair knocking over wooden milk bottles with tennis balls.

"Collections\Skeleton Crew\The Mist.txt" 746 191:I didn't want to be in this line. All of a sudden I very badly didn't want to be in it. But it was moving again, and it seemed foolish to leave now. We had gotten down by the cartons of CIGARETTES.

"Collections\Skeleton Crew\The Mist.txt" 951 128:I unlatched the door in the generator partition and stepped through. The machine was obscured in drifting, oily clouds of blue SMOKE. The exhaust pipe ran out through a hole in the wall. Something must have blocked off the outside end of the pipe. There was a simple on/off switch and I flipped it. The generator hitched, belched, coughed, and died. Then it ran down in a diminishing series of popping sounds that reminded me of Norton's stubborn chainsaw.

"Collections\Skeleton Crew\The Monkey.txt" 200 135:Hal slammed the boy against the door again. "Yes," he said. "A real mouth problem. Did you learn that in school? Or back in the SMOKING area?"

"Collections\Skeleton Crew\The Monkey.txt" 558 615:Hal stood by, a small boy in old corduroy pants and scuffed Buster Browns, as the rag-man, an Italian gent who wore a crucifix and whistled through the space in his teeth, began loading boxes and barrels into an ancient truck with wooden stake sides. Hal watched as he lifted both the barrel and the Ralston-Purina box balanced atop it; he watched the monkey disappear into the bed of the truck; he watched as the rag-man climbed back into the cab, blew his nose mightily into the palm of his hand, wiped his hand with a huge red handkerchief, and started the truck's engine with a roar and a blast of oily blue SMOKE; he watched the truck draw away. And a great weight had dropped away from his heart-he actually felt it go. He had jumped up and down twice, as high as he could jump, his arms spread, palms held out, and if any of the neighbors had seen him, they would have thought it odd almost to the point of blasphemy, perhaps-why is that boy jumping for joy (for that was surely what it was; a jump for joy can hardly be disguised), they surely would have asked themselves, with his mother not even a month in her grave?

"Collections\Skeleton Crew\The Monkey.txt" 74 206:And he was losing Dennis. He could feel the kid going, achieving a premature escape velocity, so long, Dennis, bye-bye stranger, it was nice sharing this train with you. Terry said she thought the boy was SMOKING reefer. She smelled it sometimes. You have to talk to him, Hal. And he agreed, but so far he had not.

"Collections\Skeleton Crew\The Raft.txt" 282 27:"Stop it or I'm gonna SMOKE you, LaVerne," Deke said, raising his voice again. "I'm not kidding."

"Collections\Skeleton Crew\The Reach.txt" 100 226:"It was washday," Stella almost snapped, and then Missy Bowie, Russell's widow, broke into loud, braying sobs. Stella looked over and there sat Bill Flanders in his red-and-black-checked jacket, hat cocked to one side, SMOKING a Herbert Tareyton with another tucked behind his ear for later. She felt her heart leap into her chest and choke between beats.

"Collections\Skeleton Crew\The Reach.txt" 214 419:"On the island we always watched out for our own. When Gerd Henreid broke the blood vessel in his chest that time, we had covered-dish suppers one whole summer to pay for his operation in Boston-and Gerd came back alive, thank God. When George Dinsmore ran down those power poles and the Hydro slapped a lien on his home, it was seen to that the Hydro had their money and George had enough of a job to keep him in CIGARETTES and booze . . . why not? He was good for nothing else when his workday was done, although when he was on the clock he would work like a dray-horse. That one time he got into trouble was because it was at night, and night was always George's drinking time. His father kept him fed, at least. Now Missy Bowie's alone with another baby. Maybe she'll stay here and take her welfare and ADC money here, and most likely it won't be enough, but she'll get the help she needs. Probably she'll go, but if she stays she'll not starve . . . and listen, Lona and Hal: if she stays, she may be able to keep something of this small world with the little Reach on one side and the big Reach on the other, something it would be too easy to lose hustling hash in Lewiston or donuts in Portland or drinks at the Nashville North in Bangor. And I am old enough not to beat around the bush about what that something might be: a way of being and a way of living-a feeling."

"Collections\Skeleton Crew\The Wedding Gig.txt" 136 100:"You can-" she began, but just then a ruff-tuff-creampuff of about nineteen strolled over. A CIGARETTE was dangling from the corner of his mouth, but so far as I could see it wasn't doing a thing for his image except making his left eye water.

"Collections\Skeleton Crew\The Wedding Gig.txt" 150 126:"-two roasts of pork and a capon and Mr. Scollay will be just furious if-" She saw one of her men pausing to light a CIGARETTE just below a dangling streamer of crepe and shrieked, "HENRY!" The man jumped as if he had been shot. I escaped to the bandstand.

"Collections\Skeleton Crew\The Wedding Gig.txt" 158 243:I walked outside to grab a fag and just about halfway through it I heard them coming-tooting away and raising a racket. I stayed where I was until I saw the lead car coming around the corner of the block below the church, then I snubbed my SMOKE and went inside.

"Collections\Skeleton Crew\The Wedding Gig.txt" 38 256:I followed him out. The air was cool on my skin after the smoky atmosphere of the club, sweet with fresh-cut alfalfa. The stars were out, soft and flickering. The hoods were out, too, but they didn't look soft, and the only things flickering were their CIGARETTES.

"Collections\Skeleton Crew\The Wedding Gig.txt" 56 223:"There's two reasons," Scollay said. He puffed on his pipe. It looked out of place in the middle of that yegg's face. He should have had a Lucky Strike Green dangling from that mouth, or maybe a Sweet Caporal. The CIGARETTE of Bums. With the pipe he didn't look like a bum. The pipe made him look sad and funny.

"Collections\Skeleton Crew\The Wedding Gig.txt" 8 91:We were playing "Bamboo Bay" when this big fellow walked in, wearing a white suit and SMOKING a pipe with more squiggles in it than a French horn. The whole band was a little tight by that time but everyone in the crowd was absolutely blind and really ramping the joint. They were in a good mood, though; there hadn't been a single fight all night. All of us guys were sweating rivers and Tommy Englander, the guy who ran the place, kept sending up rye as smooth as a varnished plank. Englander was a good joe to work for, and he liked our sound. Of course that made him aces in my book.

"Collections\Skeleton Crew\The Wedding Gig.txt" 94 55:They drove away. I stayed out awhile longer and had a SMOKE. The evening was soft and fine and Scollay seemed more and more like something I might have dreamed. I was just wishing we could bring the bandstand out to the parking lot and play when Biff tapped me on the shoulder.

"Collections\Skeleton Crew\Uncle Otto's Truck.txt" 124 244:In his own way, Uncle Otto became as much a fixture as the truck across the road, although I doubt if any tourists ever wanted to take his picture. He had grown a beard, which came more yellow than white, as if infected by the nicotine of his CIGARETTES. He had gotten very fat. His jowls sagged down into wrinkly dewlaps creased with dirt. Folks often saw him standing in the doorway of his peculiar little house, just standing there motionlessly, looking out at the road, and across it.

"Collections\Skeleton Crew\Uncle Otto's Truck.txt" 134 184:I was attending the University of Maine myself by then, but I was home for the summer and had fallen into my old habit of taking Uncle Otto his weekly groceries. He sat at his table, SMOKING, watching me put the canned goods away and listening to me chatter. I thought he might have forgotten who I was; sometimes he did that . . . or pretended to. And once he had turned my blood cold by calling "That you, George?" out the window as I walked up to the house.

"Collections\Skeleton Crew\Uncle Otto's Truck.txt" 186 85:"That's just what you see, boy," he said with a wild and infinite contempt, a CIGARETTE shaking in one hand, his eyeballs rolling. "That's just what you see."

"Collections\Skeleton Crew\Uncle Otto's Truck.txt" 228 60:In that instant the truck disappeared from the window like SMOKE-or like the ghost I suppose it was. In the same instant I heard an awful squirting noise. Hot liquid filled my hand. I looked down, feeling not just yielding flesh and wetness but something hard and angled. I looked down, and saw, and that was when I began to scream. Oil was pouring out of Uncle Otto's mouth and nose. Oil was leaking from the corners of his eyes like tears. Diamond Gem Oil-the recycled stuff you can buy in a five-gallon plastic container, the stuff McCutcheon had always run in the Cresswell.

"Collections\Skeleton Crew\Word Processor Of The Gods.txt" 190 75:The transformer smell was richer, stronger now, and he could see wisps of SMOKE rising from the vents in the screen housing. The noise from the CPU was louder, too. It was time to turn it off-smart as Jon had been, he apparently hadn't had time to work out all the bugs in the crazy thing.

"Collections\Skeleton Crew\Word Processor Of The Gods.txt" 258 213:But time had run out for Jon, and so this totally amazing word processor, which could apparently insert new things or delete old things from the real world, smelled like a frying train transformer and started to SMOKE after a few minutes. Jon hadn't had a chance to perfect it. He had been-

"Collections\Skeleton Crew\Word Processor Of The Gods.txt" 280 187:He heard the back door of the house bang open and then the voices of Seth and the other members of Seth's band. The voices were too loud, too raucous. They had either been drinking or SMOKING dope.

"Collections\Skeleton Crew\Word Processor Of The Gods.txt" 390 318:This time when he turned the unit on, the CPU did not hum or roar; it began to make an uneven howling noise. That hot train transformer smell came almost immediately from the housing behind the screen, and as soon as he pushed the EXECUTE button, erasing the HAPPY BIRTHDAY, UNCLE RICHARD! message, the unit began to SMOKE.

"Collections\Skeleton Crew\Word Processor Of The Gods.txt" 412 131:The SMOKE coming from the vents in the video cabinet was thicker and grayer now. He looked down at the screaming CPU and saw that SMOKE was also coming from its vents . . . and down in that SMOKE he could see a sullen red spark of fire.

"Collections\Skeleton Crew\Word Processor Of The Gods.txt" 412 191:The SMOKE coming from the vents in the video cabinet was thicker and grayer now. He looked down at the screaming CPU and saw that SMOKE was also coming from its vents . . . and down in that SMOKE he could see a sullen red spark of fire.

"Collections\Skeleton Crew\Word Processor Of The Gods.txt" 412 5:The SMOKE coming from the vents in the video cabinet was thicker and grayer now. He looked down at the screaming CPU and saw that SMOKE was also coming from its vents . . . and down in that SMOKE he could see a sullen red spark of fire.

"Collections\The Bazaar of Bad Dreams\Afterlife.txt" 124 23:"I wasn't the one SMOKING," Harris says in a low and brooding tone. "I wasn't the one dropped the match."

"Collections\The Bazaar of Bad Dreams\Afterlife.txt" 98 354:"Just so. I'd ask if you know what a shirtwaist is, Bill, but since I know you don't, I'll tell you: a woman's blouse. At the turn of the century, I and my partner, Max Blanck, owned a business called the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory. Profitable business, but the women who worked there were a large pain in the keister. Always sneaking out to SMOKE, and-this was worse-stealing stuff, which they would put in their purses or tuck up under their skirts. So we locked the doors to keep them in during their shifts, and searched them on their way out. Long story short, the damned place caught fire one day. Max and I escaped by going up to the roof and down the fire escape. Many of the women were not so lucky. Although, let's be honest and admit there's lots of blame to go around. SMOKING in the factory was strictly verboten, but plenty of them did it anyway, and it was a CIGARETTE that started the blaze. Fire marshal said so. Max and I were tried for manslaughter and acquitted."

"Collections\The Bazaar of Bad Dreams\Afterlife.txt" 98 801:"Just so. I'd ask if you know what a shirtwaist is, Bill, but since I know you don't, I'll tell you: a woman's blouse. At the turn of the century, I and my partner, Max Blanck, owned a business called the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory. Profitable business, but the women who worked there were a large pain in the keister. Always sneaking out to SMOKE, and-this was worse-stealing stuff, which they would put in their purses or tuck up under their skirts. So we locked the doors to keep them in during their shifts, and searched them on their way out. Long story short, the damned place caught fire one day. Max and I escaped by going up to the roof and down the fire escape. Many of the women were not so lucky. Although, let's be honest and admit there's lots of blame to go around. SMOKING in the factory was strictly verboten, but plenty of them did it anyway, and it was a CIGARETTE that started the blaze. Fire marshal said so. Max and I were tried for manslaughter and acquitted."

"Collections\The Bazaar of Bad Dreams\Afterlife.txt" 98 894:"Just so. I'd ask if you know what a shirtwaist is, Bill, but since I know you don't, I'll tell you: a woman's blouse. At the turn of the century, I and my partner, Max Blanck, owned a business called the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory. Profitable business, but the women who worked there were a large pain in the keister. Always sneaking out to SMOKE, and-this was worse-stealing stuff, which they would put in their purses or tuck up under their skirts. So we locked the doors to keep them in during their shifts, and searched them on their way out. Long story short, the damned place caught fire one day. Max and I escaped by going up to the roof and down the fire escape. Many of the women were not so lucky. Although, let's be honest and admit there's lots of blame to go around. SMOKING in the factory was strictly verboten, but plenty of them did it anyway, and it was a CIGARETTE that started the blaze. Fire marshal said so. Max and I were tried for manslaughter and acquitted."

"Collections\The Bazaar of Bad Dreams\Bad Little Kid.txt" 318 74:Carla said sure. By then she was positive Vicky had screwed up her meds, SMOKED some dope, or both.

"Collections\The Bazaar of Bad Dreams\Bad Little Kid.txt" 442 297:I went to take her arm, I think, but maybe not. Maybe I was just frozen, the way I was when Vicky and I saw that kid after her lousy tryout for The Music Man. Before I could unfreeze, or say anything, the bad little kid stepped forward. He reached into the pocket of his shorts and whipped out a CIGARETTE lighter. As soon as he flicked it and I saw the spark, I knew what had happened that day in the Fair Deep mine, and it had nothing to do with the hobnails on my father's boots. Something started to fizz and spark on top of the red ball the ordinary kid was holding. He threw it just to get rid of it, and the bad little kid laughed. Except it was really a deep, snotty chuckle-hgurr-hgurr-hgurr, like that.

"Collections\The Bazaar of Bad Dreams\Blockade Billy.txt" 130 115:"He'll find out how big a deal it is the first time Ike Delock throws one at his nose," Joe said, and lit a CIGARETTE. He took a drag and started hacking. "I got to quit these Luckies. Not a cough in a carload, my ass. I'll bet you twenty goddam bucks that kid lets Danny Doo's first curve go right through his wickets. Then Danny'll be all upset-you know how he gets when someone fucks up his train ride-and Boston'll be off to the races."

"Collections\The Bazaar of Bad Dreams\Blockade Billy.txt" 354 216:I got in late because of traffic, but figured it didn't matter because the uniform snafu was sorted out. Most of the guys were already there, dressing or playing poker or just sitting around shooting the shit and SMOKING. Dusen and the kid were over in the corner by the CIGARETTE machine, sitting in a couple of folding chairs, the kid with his uniform pants on, Dusen still wearing nothing but his jock-not a pretty sight. I went over to get a pack of Winstons and listened in. Danny was doing most of the talking.

"Collections\The Bazaar of Bad Dreams\Blockade Billy.txt" 354 274:I got in late because of traffic, but figured it didn't matter because the uniform snafu was sorted out. Most of the guys were already there, dressing or playing poker or just sitting around shooting the shit and SMOKING. Dusen and the kid were over in the corner by the CIGARETTE machine, sitting in a couple of folding chairs, the kid with his uniform pants on, Dusen still wearing nothing but his jock-not a pretty sight. I went over to get a pack of Winstons and listened in. Danny was doing most of the talking.

"Collections\The Bazaar of Bad Dreams\Blockade Billy.txt" 36 497:What Joe did was call the front office in Newark and say, "I need a guy who can catch Hank Masters's fastball and Danny Doo's curve without falling on his keister. I don't care if he plays for Testicle Tire in Tremont, just make sure he's got a mitt and have him at the Swamp in time for the National Anthem. Then get to work finding me a real catcher. If you want to have any chance at all of contending this season, that is." Then he hung up and lit what was probably his eightieth CIGARETTE of the day.

"Collections\The Bazaar of Bad Dreams\Drunken Fireworks.txt" 344 547:And yes, that's just what he done. He must've spent ten or fifteen thousand dollars on that twenty-minute sky-show, what with the Double Excalibur and the Wolfpack that come near the end. The crowd on the lake was whoopin and hollerin to beat the band, bammin on their car horns and cheerin and screamin. The Ben Afflict–lookin one was blowin his trumpet hard enough to give him a brain hemorrhage, but you couldn't even hear him over the gunnery practice goin on in the sky, which was lit up bright as day, and in every color. Sheets of SMOKE rose from where the fireworks crew was settin off their goods down on the beach, but none of it blew across the lake. It blew toward the house instead. Toward Twelve Pines. You could say I should have noticed that, but I didn't. Ma didn't, either. Nobody did. We was too gobsmacked. Massimo was sendin us a message, you see: It's over. Don't even think about it next year, you poor-ass Yankees.

"Collections\The Bazaar of Bad Dreams\Drunken Fireworks.txt" 52 268:"The macrobiotic sonofabitch is probably right," she said as we tottered back to the cabin-along about ten, this was, and both of us bit to shit in spite of the DEET we'd slathered ourselves with. "But at least when I go, I'll know I lived. And I don't SMOKE, everybody knows that's the worst. Not SMOKING should keep me going for awhile, but what about you, Alden? What are you going to do after I die and the money runs out?"

"Collections\The Bazaar of Bad Dreams\Drunken Fireworks.txt" 52 315:"The macrobiotic sonofabitch is probably right," she said as we tottered back to the cabin-along about ten, this was, and both of us bit to shit in spite of the DEET we'd slathered ourselves with. "But at least when I go, I'll know I lived. And I don't SMOKE, everybody knows that's the worst. Not SMOKING should keep me going for awhile, but what about you, Alden? What are you going to do after I die and the money runs out?"

"Collections\The Bazaar of Bad Dreams\Herman Wouk Is Still Alive.txt" 281 537:Freddy will go for a soldier and fight in foreign lands, the way Jasmine's brother Tommy did. Jazzy's boys, Eddie and Truth, will do the same. They'll own muscle cars when and if they come home, always supposing gas is still available twenty years from now. And the girls? They'll go with boys. They'll give up their virginity while game shows play on TV. They'll believe the boys who tell them they'll pull out in time. They'll have babies and fry meat in skillets and put on weight, same as she and Jaz did. They'll SMOKE a little dope and eat a lot of ice cream-the cheap stuff from Walmart. Maybe not Rose Ellen, though. Something is wrong with Rose. She'll still have drool on her sharp little chin when she's in the eighth grade, same as now. The seven kids will beget seventeen, and the seventeen will beget seventy, and the seventy will beget two hundred. She can see a ragged fool's parade marching into the future, some wearing jeans that show the ass of their underwear, some wearing heavy-metal tee-shirts, some wearing gravy-spotted waitress uniforms, some wearing stretch pants from Kmart that have little MADE IN PARAGUAY tags sewn into the seams of the roomy seats. She can see the mountain of Fisher-Price toys they will own and which will later be sold at yard sales (which was where they were bought in the first place). They will buy the products they see on TV and go in debt to the credit card companies, as she did . . . and will again, because the Pick-3 was a fluke and she knows it. Worse than a fluke, really: a tease. Life is a rusty hubcap lying in a ditch at the side of the road, and life goes on. She will never again feel like she's sitting in the cockpit of a jet fighter. This is as good as it gets. There are no boats for nobody, and no camera is filming her life. This is reality, not a reality show.

"Collections\The Bazaar of Bad Dreams\Herman Wouk Is Still Alive.txt" 334 18:He points to the SMOKE. Then to the three or four cars that are already pulling over. "Getting through won't matter," he says, "but try."

"Collections\The Bazaar of Bad Dreams\Mile 81.txt" 105 103:He wandered toward the loading dock, and there, once again: jackpot. There were dozens of stamped-out CIGARETTE butts at the foot of the concrete island, plus a few more of those tiny brown bottles surrounding their king: a dark green NyQuil bottle. The surface of the dock, where the big semis backed up to unload, was eye-high to Pete, but the cement was crumbling and there were plenty of footholds for an agile kid in Chuck Taylor High Tops. Pete raised his arms over his head, snagged fingerholds in the dock's pitted surface . . . and the rest, as they say, is history.

"Collections\The Bazaar of Bad Dreams\Mile 81.txt" 129 181:He began to wander around, still snorting small carbonated bubbles of laughter. It was dank in the rest area, but not actually cold. The smell was the worst part, a combination of CIGARETTE SMOKE, pot SMOKE, old booze, and creeping rot in the walls. Pete thought he could also smell rotting meat. Probably from sandwiches purchased at Rosselli's or Subway.

"Collections\The Bazaar of Bad Dreams\Mile 81.txt" 129 191:He began to wander around, still snorting small carbonated bubbles of laughter. It was dank in the rest area, but not actually cold. The smell was the worst part, a combination of CIGARETTE SMOKE, pot SMOKE, old booze, and creeping rot in the walls. Pete thought he could also smell rotting meat. Probably from sandwiches purchased at Rosselli's or Subway.

"Collections\The Bazaar of Bad Dreams\Mile 81.txt" 129 202:He began to wander around, still snorting small carbonated bubbles of laughter. It was dank in the rest area, but not actually cold. The smell was the worst part, a combination of CIGARETTE SMOKE, pot SMOKE, old booze, and creeping rot in the walls. Pete thought he could also smell rotting meat. Probably from sandwiches purchased at Rosselli's or Subway.

"Collections\The Bazaar of Bad Dreams\Mile 81.txt" 143 336:He took his saddlebag over to the mattresses and sat down (being careful to avoid the stains, of which there were many). He took out the vodka bottle and studied it with a certain grim fascination. At ten-going-on-eleven, he had no particular longing to sample adult pleasures. The year before he had hawked one of his grandfather's CIGARETTES and SMOKED it behind the 7-Eleven. SMOKED half of it, anyway. Then he had leaned over and spewed his lunch between his sneakers. He had obtained an interesting but not very valuable piece of information that day: beans and franks didn't look great when they went into your mouth, but at least they tasted good. When they came back out, they looked fucking horrible and tasted worse.

"Collections\The Bazaar of Bad Dreams\Mile 81.txt" 143 351:He took his saddlebag over to the mattresses and sat down (being careful to avoid the stains, of which there were many). He took out the vodka bottle and studied it with a certain grim fascination. At ten-going-on-eleven, he had no particular longing to sample adult pleasures. The year before he had hawked one of his grandfather's CIGARETTES and SMOKED it behind the 7-Eleven. SMOKED half of it, anyway. Then he had leaned over and spewed his lunch between his sneakers. He had obtained an interesting but not very valuable piece of information that day: beans and franks didn't look great when they went into your mouth, but at least they tasted good. When they came back out, they looked fucking horrible and tasted worse.

"Collections\The Bazaar of Bad Dreams\Mile 81.txt" 143 382:He took his saddlebag over to the mattresses and sat down (being careful to avoid the stains, of which there were many). He took out the vodka bottle and studied it with a certain grim fascination. At ten-going-on-eleven, he had no particular longing to sample adult pleasures. The year before he had hawked one of his grandfather's CIGARETTES and SMOKED it behind the 7-Eleven. SMOKED half of it, anyway. Then he had leaned over and spewed his lunch between his sneakers. He had obtained an interesting but not very valuable piece of information that day: beans and franks didn't look great when they went into your mouth, but at least they tasted good. When they came back out, they looked fucking horrible and tasted worse.

"Collections\The Bazaar of Bad Dreams\Mile 81.txt" 167 170:Pete took a slightly larger swallow and shouted, "Zoom, we have liftoff!" This made him laugh. He felt a little light-headed, but it was a totally pleasant feeling. SMOKING he didn't get. Drinking, he did.

"Collections\The Bazaar of Bad Dreams\Mile 81.txt" 63 331:He understood-vaguely-that although he thought of George and his Raider pals as Big Kids (and certainly that was how the Raiders thought of themselves), they weren't really Big Kids. The true Big Kids were badass teenagers who had driver's licenses and girlfriends. True Big Kids went to high school. They liked to drink, SMOKE pot, listen to heavy metal or hip-hop, and suck major face with their girlfriends.

"Collections\The Bazaar of Bad Dreams\Mile 81.txt" 81 37:And there it was, marked by stamped CIGARETTE butts and a few discarded beer and soda bottles: a path leading deeper into the undergrowth. Still pushing his bike, Pete followed it. The high bushes swallowed him up. Behind him, Rosewood Terrace dreamed through another overcast spring day.

"Collections\The Bazaar of Bad Dreams\Mile 81.txt" 870 140:He moved the magnifying glass closer. The circle of light shrank to a brilliant white dot. For a moment nothing happened. Then tendrils of SMOKE began to drift up. The muddy white surface beneath the dot turned black.

"Collections\The Bazaar of Bad Dreams\Mile 81.txt" 876 5:The SMOKING black spot on the flank of the station wagon began to spread. The white SMOKE curling up from it began to thicken. It turned gray, then black. What happened next happened fast. Pete saw tiny blue flames pop into being around the black spot. They spread, seeming to dance above the surface of the car-thing. It was the way charcoal briquettes looked in their backyard barbecue after their father doused them with lighter fluid and then tossed in a match.

"Collections\The Bazaar of Bad Dreams\Mile 81.txt" 876 85:The SMOKING black spot on the flank of the station wagon began to spread. The white SMOKE curling up from it began to thicken. It turned gray, then black. What happened next happened fast. Pete saw tiny blue flames pop into being around the black spot. They spread, seeming to dance above the surface of the car-thing. It was the way charcoal briquettes looked in their backyard barbecue after their father doused them with lighter fluid and then tossed in a match.

"Collections\The Bazaar of Bad Dreams\Mister Yummy.txt" 15 250:She looked up briefly, then back down at the puzzle-a thousand pieces, according to the box, and most now where they belonged. "These girders are a bugger. I see them floating in front of me every time I close my eyes. I believe I'll go for a SMOKE and wake up my lungs."

"Collections\The Bazaar of Bad Dreams\Mister Yummy.txt" 17 1:SMOKING was supposedly verboten in Lakeview, but Olga and a few other diehards were allowed to slip through the kitchen to the loading dock, where there was a butt can. She rose, tottered, cursed in either Russian or Polish, caught her balance, and shuffled away. Then she stopped and looked back at Dave, eyebrows drawn together. "Leave some for me, Bob. Do you promise?"

"Collections\The Bazaar of Bad Dreams\Mister Yummy.txt" 178 202:"Undoubtedly, but it was him. It was. The first time I saw him, he was on Maryland Avenue, at the foot of the main drive. A few days later he was lounging on the porch steps below the main entrance, SMOKING a clove CIGARETTE. Two days ago he was sitting on a bench outside the admission office. Still wearing that blue sleeveless tee and those blinding white shorts. He should have stopped traffic, but nobody saw him. Except for me, that is."

"Collections\The Bazaar of Bad Dreams\Mister Yummy.txt" 178 218:"Undoubtedly, but it was him. It was. The first time I saw him, he was on Maryland Avenue, at the foot of the main drive. A few days later he was lounging on the porch steps below the main entrance, SMOKING a clove CIGARETTE. Two days ago he was sitting on a bench outside the admission office. Still wearing that blue sleeveless tee and those blinding white shorts. He should have stopped traffic, but nobody saw him. Except for me, that is."

"Collections\The Bazaar of Bad Dreams\Mister Yummy.txt" 222 71:She stuck out her lower lip like a pouty child. "No. I'm going to SMOKE. If you want to take that damn thing apart, be my guest. Put it back in the box or knock it on the floor. Your choice. It's no good the way it is."

"Collections\The Bazaar of Bad Dreams\Morality.txt" 13 172:Chad was down to just a pack a week, but that didn't make her like his habit any better. The health issue was part of it, but the expense was an even bigger part. Every CIGARETTE meant forty cents up in SMOKE.

"Collections\The Bazaar of Bad Dreams\Morality.txt" 13 206:Chad was down to just a pack a week, but that didn't make her like his habit any better. The health issue was part of it, but the expense was an even bigger part. Every CIGARETTE meant forty cents up in SMOKE.

"Collections\The Bazaar of Bad Dreams\Morality.txt" 15 18:He didn't like SMOKING around her, even outside, but he got the current pack out of the drawer under the dish drainer and put it in his pocket. There was something about her solemn face that suggested he might want them.

"Collections\The Bazaar of Bad Dreams\Morality.txt" 183 22:Chad had lit another CIGARETTE. She motioned with her fingers. "Give me a drag on that."

"Collections\The Bazaar of Bad Dreams\Morality.txt" 185 26:"Norrie, you haven't SMOKED a CIGARETTE in five-"

"Collections\The Bazaar of Bad Dreams\Morality.txt" 185 35:"Norrie, you haven't SMOKED a CIGARETTE in five-"

"Collections\The Bazaar of Bad Dreams\Morality.txt" 189 15:He passed the CIGARETTE to her. She dragged deep, coughed the SMOKE out. Then she told him.

"Collections\The Bazaar of Bad Dreams\Morality.txt" 189 63:He passed the CIGARETTE to her. She dragged deep, coughed the SMOKE out. Then she told him.

"Collections\The Bazaar of Bad Dreams\Morality.txt" 37 47:"That's a good question. Go on, light up. SMOKING lamp's lit."

"Collections\The Bazaar of Bad Dreams\Morality.txt" 67 17:He drew out his CIGARETTES and lit one. He felt a strong urge to give an over-optimistic answer, but overcame it. He had no idea what was going on with her, but she deserved the truth.

"Collections\The Bazaar of Bad Dreams\Morality.txt" 81 88:He reached for the aluminum ashtray he kept tucked under the windowsill and butted his CIGARETTE in it. Then he took her hand. "Tell me."

"Collections\The Bazaar of Bad Dreams\Morality.txt" 9 54:She was sitting on the fire escape, where he went to SMOKE, and she had some paperwork in her hands. He looked at the refrigerator and saw that the email printout was gone from beneath the magnet that had been holding it in place for almost four months.

"Collections\The Bazaar of Bad Dreams\Premium Harmony.txt" 234 198:"Well, you're with her now, ain't you?" he says, and this thought is so sad-yet so sweet-that he begins to cry. It's a hard storm. While he's crying it comes to him that now he can SMOKE all he wants, and anywhere in the house. He can SMOKE right there at her dining room table.

"Collections\The Bazaar of Bad Dreams\Premium Harmony.txt" 234 252:"Well, you're with her now, ain't you?" he says, and this thought is so sad-yet so sweet-that he begins to cry. It's a hard storm. While he's crying it comes to him that now he can SMOKE all he wants, and anywhere in the house. He can SMOKE right there at her dining room table.

"Collections\The Bazaar of Bad Dreams\Premium Harmony.txt" 238 140:Still crying, and with the purple kickball still tucked under his arm, he goes back into the Quik-Pik. He tells Mr. Ghosh he forgot to get CIGARETTES. He thinks maybe Mr. Ghosh will give him a pack of Premium Harmonys on the house as well, but Mr. Ghosh's generosity doesn't stretch that far. Ray smokes all the way to the hospital with the windows shut and Biz in the backseat and the air-conditioning on high.

"Collections\The Bazaar of Bad Dreams\Premium Harmony.txt" 44 14:"I used to SMOKE two packs a day," he says. "Now I SMOKE less than half a pack." Actually, most days he smokes more. She knows it, and Ray knows she knows it. That's marriage after awhile. That weight on his head gets a little heavier. Also, he can see Biz still looking at her. He feeds the damn thing, and he makes the money that pays for the food, but it's her he's looking at. And Jack Russells are supposed to be smart.

"Collections\The Bazaar of Bad Dreams\Premium Harmony.txt" 44 58:"I used to SMOKE two packs a day," he says. "Now I SMOKE less than half a pack." Actually, most days he smokes more. She knows it, and Ray knows she knows it. That's marriage after awhile. That weight on his head gets a little heavier. Also, he can see Biz still looking at her. He feeds the damn thing, and he makes the money that pays for the food, but it's her he's looking at. And Jack Russells are supposed to be smart.

"Collections\The Bazaar of Bad Dreams\Premium Harmony.txt" 72 27:"Where are you going to SMOKE, anyway? In the car, I suppose, so I have to breathe it."

"Collections\The Bazaar of Bad Dreams\Premium Harmony.txt" 84 12:He wants a CIGARETTE.

"Collections\The Bazaar of Bad Dreams\Premium Harmony.txt" 90 140:The time goes by and she doesn't come out. Ray opens the glove compartment. He paws through the rat's nest of papers, looking for some CIGARETTES he might have forgotten, but there aren't any. He does find a Hostess Sno Ball still in its wrapper. He pokes it. It's as stiff as a corpse. It's got to be a thousand years old. Maybe older. Maybe it came over on the Ark.

"Collections\The Bazaar of Bad Dreams\That Bus Is Another World.txt" 78 315:The Jolly Dingle eventually returned to Madison. It sprinted almost to Thirty-Sixth Street, then stopped short. Wilson imagined a football announcer telling the audience that while the run had been flashy, any gain on the play had been negligible. The windshield wipers thumped. A reporter talked about electronic CIGARETTES. Then there was an ad for Sleepy's.

"Collections\The Bazaar of Bad Dreams\The Bone Church.txt" 46 13:an ash-baby SMOKED at the cheeks and throat.

"Collections\The Bazaar of Bad Dreams\The Little Green God of Agony.txt" 618 209:Rhett talked for ten minutes or so, about how he and his two brothers would lie on the living-room rug after supper, them with their schoolbooks, his father in his easy chair with his feet up on the hassock, SMOKING his pipe, all of them listening to the Philco. He told Dale about The Shadow and The Jack Benny Program-how Jack was such a cheapskate-and his own favorite, Major Bowes Amateur Hour, where the host would hurry talky guests along by saying "All right, all right," and bang a gong if their performances were bad. But he began to slow down as more vivid memories slipped into the flow of his recollections. Those bus rides with Jack, for instance. And he thought, Why not tell him? You have never told anyone, and you'll be dead soon enough. Blood in the toilet does not lie, not when you're ninety.

"Collections\The Bazaar of Bad Dreams\The Little Green God of Agony.txt" 620 46:"That amateur show was really sponsored by CIGARETTES?" Dale asked.

"Collections\The Bazaar of Bad Dreams\The Little Green God of Agony.txt" 622 67:"Yup, Old Golds. 'If you want a treat instead of a treatment, SMOKE Old Golds. They're good for you!' "

"Collections\The Bazaar of Bad Dreams\The Little Green God of Agony.txt" 797 246:"It can't hold out," George Alderson said, puffing his pipe. There were only two boys listening to the Philco table model with him now; Pete was living nine blocks away with his new wife, and on the road most of the time, selling beer and CIGARETTES and stocking jukeboxes with new records. "Thank God there's a long stretch of ocean between us and the maniac with the mustache."

"Collections\The Bazaar of Bad Dreams\Tommy.txt" 58 4:We SMOKED dope in Zig-Zag papers.

"Collections\The Bazaar of Bad Dreams\Tommy.txt" 60 4:We SMOKED Winstons and Pall Malls.

"Collections\The Bazaar of Bad Dreams\Under the Weather.txt" 256 159:I explain about my deficient sense of smell, and Ellen's bronchitis. In her current condition, I say, she wouldn't know the drapes were on fire until the SMOKE detector went off. I'm sure Lady smells it, I tell him, but to a dog, the stench of a decaying rat probably smells like Chanel No. 5.

"Collections\The Bazaar of Bad Dreams\Ur.txt" 447 129:And thought: What else is there by Raymond Carver in the worlds of Ur? Is there one-or a dozen, or a thousand-where he quit SMOKING, lived to be seventy, and wrote another half a dozen books?

"Novellas\Cycle of the Werewolf.txt" 1134 5:The SMOKING butt end of the year, November's dark iron, has come to Tarker's Mills.

"Novellas\Cycle of the Werewolf.txt" 1195 29:of his troubled parishoners SMOKE) . He takes a book of matches from his Saturday

"Novellas\Cycle of the Werewolf.txt" 1543 31:Marty turnes to Uncle Al, the SMOKING gun in his hands. His face looks tired . . .

"Novellas\Cycle of the Werewolf.txt" 16 1:CIGARETTE jutting from one comer of his mouth, his seamed New England face lit in

"Novels\'Salem's Lot.txt" 10059 216:They went up the porch steps and Jimmy tried the door. It was unlocked. When they stepped into Eva Miller's compulsively neat big kitchen, the odor smote them both, like an open garbage pit-yet dry, as with the SMOKE of years.

"Novels\'Salem's Lot.txt" 10239 86:Parkins Gillespie was standing on the small covered porch of the Municipal Building, SMOKING a Pall Mall and looking out at the western sky. He turned his attention to Ben Mears and Mark Petrie reluctantly. His face looked sad and old, like the glasses of water they bring you in cheap diners.

"Novels\'Salem's Lot.txt" 10251 44:Parkins Gillespie spat out the stub of his CIGARETTE without raising his hands from the rail of the small covered porch. Without looking at either of them, he said calmly, "I don't want to hear it."

"Novels\'Salem's Lot.txt" 10267 52:"It ain't alive," Parkins said, lighting his SMOKE with a wooden kitchen match. "That's why he came here. It's dead, like him. Has been for twenty years or more. Whole country's goin' the same way. Me and Nolly went to a drive-in show up in Falmouth a couple of weeks ago, just before they closed her down for the season. I seen more blood and killin's in that first Western than I seen both years in Korea. Kids was eatin' popcorn and cheerin' 'em on." He gestured vaguely at the town, now lying unnaturally gilded in the broken rays of the westering sun, like a dream village. "They prob'ly like bein' vampires. But not me; Nolly'd be in after me tonight. I'm goin'."

"Novels\'Salem's Lot.txt" 10687 322:He took his manuscript, threw it in, and made a paper spill of the title page. He lit it with his Cricket, and when it flared up he tossed it in on top of the drift of typewritten pages. The flame tasted them, found them good, and began to crawl eagerly over the paper. Corners charred, turned upward, blackened. Whitish SMOKE began to billow out of the wastebasket, and without thinking about it, he leaned over his desk and opened the window.

"Novels\'Salem's Lot.txt" 10843 158:"The old-timers say this is where it started," Ben said. "Back in 1951. The wind was blowing from the west. They think maybe a guy got careless with a CIGARETTE. One little CIGARETTE. It took off across the Marshes and no one could stop it."

"Novels\'Salem's Lot.txt" 10843 180:"The old-timers say this is where it started," Ben said. "Back in 1951. The wind was blowing from the west. They think maybe a guy got careless with a CIGARETTE. One little CIGARETTE. It took off across the Marshes and no one could stop it."

"Novels\'Salem's Lot.txt" 10845 186:He took a package of Pall Malls from his pocket, looked at the emblem thoughtfully-in hoc signo vinces-and then tore the cellophane top off. He lit one and shook out the match. The CIGARETTE tasted surprisingly good, although he had not SMOKED in months.

"Novels\'Salem's Lot.txt" 10845 242:He took a package of Pall Malls from his pocket, looked at the emblem thoughtfully-in hoc signo vinces-and then tore the cellophane top off. He lit one and shook out the match. The CIGARETTE tasted surprisingly good, although he had not SMOKED in months.

"Novels\'Salem's Lot.txt" 10865 107:He flicked the smoldering CIGARETTE into a pile of dead brush and old brittle leaves. The white ribbon of SMOKE rose thinly against the green background of junipers for two or three feet, and then was pulled apart by the wind. Twenty feet away, downwind, was a large, jumbled deadfall.

"Novels\'Salem's Lot.txt" 10865 27:He flicked the smoldering CIGARETTE into a pile of dead brush and old brittle leaves. The white ribbon of SMOKE rose thinly against the green background of junipers for two or three feet, and then was pulled apart by the wind. Twenty feet away, downwind, was a large, jumbled deadfall.

"Novels\'Salem's Lot.txt" 10867 18:They watched the SMOKE, transfixed, fascinated.

"Novels\'Salem's Lot.txt" 11247 271:Her small hands clasped themselves around my neck and I was thinking: Well, maybe it won't be so bad, not so bad, maybe it won't be so awful after a while-when something black flew out of the Scout and struck her on the chest. There was a puff of strange-smelling SMOKE, a flashing glow that was gone an instant later, and then she was backing away, hissing. Her face was twisted into a vulpine mask of rage, hate, and pain. She turned sideways and then...and then she was gone. One moment she was there, and the next there was a twisting knot of snow that looked a little bit like a human shape. Then the wind tattered it away across the fields.

"Novels\'Salem's Lot.txt" 1125 304:Richie was eleven years old and weighed 140 pounds. All his life his mother had been calling on people to see what a huge young man her son was. And so he knew he was big. Sometimes he fancied that he could feel the ground tremble underneath his feet when he walked. And when he grew up he was going to SMOKE Camels, just like his old man.

"Novels\'Salem's Lot.txt" 1199 329:He overbalanced on his knees and went facedown in the dust. The pain in his arm was paralyzing. He was eating dirt. There was dirt in his eyes. He thrashed his legs helplessly. He had forgotten about being huge. He had forgotten about how the ground trembled under his feet when he walked. He had forgotten that he was going to SMOKE Camels, just like his old man, when he grew up.

"Novels\'Salem's Lot.txt" 1243 95:Now, sitting in his easy chair and watching the fire catch and begin to send its greasy black SMOKE into the air, sending the gulls aloft, Dud held his .22 target pistol loosely in his hand and waited for the rats to come out.

"Novels\'Salem's Lot.txt" 1267 595:The town whistle went off with a great twelve-second blast, ushering in lunch hour at all three schools and welcoming the afternoon. Lawrence Crockett, the Lot's second selectman and proprietor of Crockett's Southern Maine Insurance and Realty, put away the book he had been reading (Satan's Sex Slaves) and set his watch by the whistle. He went to the door and hung the "Back at One O'clock" sign from the shade pull. His routine was unvarying. He would walk up to the Excellent Café, have two cheeseburgers with the works and a cup of coffee, and watch Pauline's legs while he SMOKED a William Penn.

"Novels\'Salem's Lot.txt" 1307 109:Straker smiled thinly. He reached inside his suit coat, produced a flat gold CIGARETTE case, and selected a CIGARETTE. He tamped it and then lit it with a wooden match. The harsh aroma of a Turkish blend filled the office and was eddied around by the fan.

"Novels\'Salem's Lot.txt" 1307 78:Straker smiled thinly. He reached inside his suit coat, produced a flat gold CIGARETTE case, and selected a CIGARETTE. He tamped it and then lit it with a wooden match. The harsh aroma of a Turkish blend filled the office and was eddied around by the fan.

"Novels\'Salem's Lot.txt" 1309 162:There had been silence in the office for the next ten minutes, broken only by the hum of the fan and the muted passage of traffic on the street outside. Straker SMOKED his CIGARETTE down to a shred, crushed the glowing ash between his fingers, and lit another.

"Novels\'Salem's Lot.txt" 1309 173:There had been silence in the office for the next ten minutes, broken only by the hum of the fan and the muted passage of traffic on the street outside. Straker SMOKED his CIGARETTE down to a shred, crushed the glowing ash between his fingers, and lit another.

"Novels\'Salem's Lot.txt" 1599 162:Babs Griffen's prediction of rain was a million miles wrong, and the backyard dinner went well. A light breeze sprang up, combining with the eddies of hickory SMOKE from the barbecue to keep the worst of the late-season mosquitoes away. The women cleared away the paper plates and condiments, then came back to drink a beer each and laugh as Bill, an old hand at playing the tricky wind currents, trimmed Ben 21–6 at badminton. Ben declined a rematch with real regret, pointing at his watch.

"Novels\'Salem's Lot.txt" 183 345:A big BSA cycle with jacked handlebars suddenly roared past him in the passing lane, a kid in a T-shirt driving, a girl in a red cloth jacket and huge mirror-lensed sunglasses riding pillion behind him. They cut in a little too quickly and he overreacted, jamming on his brakes and laying both hands on the horn. The BSA sped up, belching blue SMOKE from its exhaust, and the girl jabbed her middle finger back at him.

"Novels\'Salem's Lot.txt" 1833 356:The men talked it over. Yes, the boys had gone by the woods path. No, the little brook was very shallow at this time of year, especially after the fine weather. No more than ankle-deep. Henry suggested that he start from his end of the path with a high-powered flashlight and Mr Glick start from his. Perhaps the boys had found a woodchuck burrow or were SMOKING CIGARETTES or something. Tony agreed and thanked Mr Petrie for his trouble. Mr Petrie said it was no trouble at all. Tony hung up and comforted his wife a little; she was frightened. He had mentally decided that neither of the boys was going to be able to sit down for a week when he found them.

"Novels\'Salem's Lot.txt" 1833 364:The men talked it over. Yes, the boys had gone by the woods path. No, the little brook was very shallow at this time of year, especially after the fine weather. No more than ankle-deep. Henry suggested that he start from his end of the path with a high-powered flashlight and Mr Glick start from his. Perhaps the boys had found a woodchuck burrow or were SMOKING CIGARETTES or something. Tony agreed and thanked Mr Petrie for his trouble. Mr Petrie said it was no trouble at all. Tony hung up and comforted his wife a little; she was frightened. He had mentally decided that neither of the boys was going to be able to sit down for a week when he found them.

"Novels\'Salem's Lot.txt" 185 33:He resumed speed, wishing for a CIGARETTE. His hands were trembling slightly. The BSA was almost out of sight now, moving fast. The kids. The goddamned kids. Memories tried to crowd in on him, memories of a more recent vintage. He pushed them away. He hadn't been on a motorcycle in two years. He planned never to ride on one again.

"Novels\'Salem's Lot.txt" 1927 49:"No. Nothing." He pulled a battered pack of CIGARETTES out of his breast pocket and lit one.

"Novels\'Salem's Lot.txt" 1935 29:"God knows." He exhaled SMOKE. "Maybe somebody crept up behind the older brother, coshed him with a sock full of sand or something, and abducted the kid."

"Novels\'Salem's Lot.txt" 1969 27:When she left him, he was SMOKING and looking up at the Marsten House.

"Novels\'Salem's Lot.txt" 1999 311:Crockett himself had changed very little, even after playing "Let's Make a Deal" with the unsettling Mr Straker. No fag decorator came to redo his office. He still got by with the cheap electric fan instead of air conditioning. He wore the same shiny-seat suits or glaring sports jacket combinations. He SMOKED the same cheap cigars and still dropped by Dell's on Saturday night to have a few beers and shoot some bumper pool with the boys. He had kept his hand in hometown real estate, which had borne two fruits: First, it had gotten him elected selectman, and second, it wrote off nicely on his income tax return, because each year's visible operation was one rung below the breakeven point. Besides the Marsten House, he was and had been the selling agent for perhaps three dozen other decrepit manses in the area. There were some good deals of course. But Larry didn't push them. The money was, after all, rolling in.

"Novels\'Salem's Lot.txt" 2337 155:His shopping took place in utter silence. The store's habitués sat around the large Pearl Kineo stove that Milt's father had converted to range oil, SMOKED, looked wisely out at the sky, and observed the stranger from the corners of their eyes.

"Novels\'Salem's Lot.txt" 2343 204:Joe Crane tamped a load of Planter's into his corncob. Clyde Corliss hawked back and spat a mass of phlegm and chewing tobacco into the dented pail beside the stove. Vinnie Upshaw produced his old Top CIGARETTE roller from inside his vest, spilled a line of tobacco into it, and inserted a CIGARETTE paper with arthritis-swelled fingers.

"Novels\'Salem's Lot.txt" 2343 293:Joe Crane tamped a load of Planter's into his corncob. Clyde Corliss hawked back and spat a mass of phlegm and chewing tobacco into the dented pail beside the stove. Vinnie Upshaw produced his old Top CIGARETTE roller from inside his vest, spilled a line of tobacco into it, and inserted a CIGARETTE paper with arthritis-swelled fingers.

"Novels\'Salem's Lot.txt" 2347 49:"Peculiar fella," Vinnie said. He stuck his CIGARETTE in his mouth, plucked a few bits of tobacco from the end of it, and took a kitchen match from his vest pocket.

"Novels\'Salem's Lot.txt" 2393 231:And so the argument was begun, progressing more in the silences than in the speeches, like a chess game played by mail. And the day seemed to stand still and stretch into eternity for them, and Vinnie Upshaw began to make another CIGARETTE with sweet, arthritic slowness.

"Novels\'Salem's Lot.txt" 2399 62:He opened the door and Parkins Gillespie was standing there, SMOKING a CIGARETTE. He was holding a paperback in one hand, and Ben saw with some amusement that it was the Bantam edition of Conway's Daughter.

"Novels\'Salem's Lot.txt" 2399 72:He opened the door and Parkins Gillespie was standing there, SMOKING a CIGARETTE. He was holding a paperback in one hand, and Ben saw with some amusement that it was the Bantam edition of Conway's Daughter.

"Novels\'Salem's Lot.txt" 2423 114:"I appreciate that," Parkins said, without looking at what Ben had written. He bent over and crushed out his SMOKE on the side of the wastebasket. "That's the only signed book I got."

"Novels\'Salem's Lot.txt" 2443 35:Parkins shrugged and produced his CIGARETTES. "That's your business, son."

"Novels\'Salem's Lot.txt" 2455 71:"Now, I don't think that, not at all." He gazed at Ben over his CIGARETTE, and his eyes had gone flinty. "I'm just tryin' to close you off. If I thought you had anything to do with anything, you'd be down in the tank."

"Novels\'Salem's Lot.txt" 2479 18:Parkins blew out SMOKE and went to the door. "I won't drip on your rug anymore, Mr Mears. Want to thank you for y'time, and just for the record, I don't think you ever saw that Glick boy. But it's my job to kind of ask round about these things."

"Novels\'Salem's Lot.txt" 2501 82:Ben threw back his head and laughed, and Parkins Gillespie went out, smiling and SMOKING. Ben went to the window and watched until he saw the constable come out and cross the street, walking carefully around puddles in his black galoshes.

"Novels\'Salem's Lot.txt" 2541 112:"Anything's possible, I guess," Parkins said, looking around for an ashtray. He saw none, and tapped his CIGARETTE ash into his coat pocket. "Anyway, I hope you'll have the best of luck, and tell Mr. Barlow when you see him that I'm gonna try and get around."

"Novels\'Salem's Lot.txt" 2577 177:"Oh? Well, you learn somethin' new every day, don't you? 'By." He stepped out into the rain and closed the door behind him. "Not familiar to me, it ain't." His CIGARETTE was soaked. He threw it away.

"Novels\'Salem's Lot.txt" 2709 314:On September 25 Ben took dinner with the Nortons again. It was Thursday night, and the meal was traditional-beans and franks. Bill Norton grilled the franks on the outdoor grill, and Ann had had her kidney beans simmering in molasses since nine that morning. They ate at the picnic table and afterward they sat SMOKING, the four of them, talking desultorily of Boston's fading pennant chances.

"Novels\'Salem's Lot.txt" 387 64:Ben didn't reply at once. Miss Coogan was opening cartons of CIGARETTES and filling the display rack by the cash register. The pharmacist, Mr Labree, was puttering around behind the high drug counter like a frosty ghost. The Air Force kid was standing by the door to the bus, waiting for the driver to come back from the bathroom.

"Novels\'Salem's Lot.txt" 4009 191:In the living room Matt put on a stack of albums and went to work firing up a huge, knotted calabash pipe. After he had it going to his satisfaction (sitting in the middle of a huge raft of SMOKE), he looked up at Ben.

"Novels\'Salem's Lot.txt" 461 181:Nolly Gardener came out of the Municipal Building and sat down on the steps next to Parkins Gillespie just in time to see Ben and Susan walk into Spencer's together. Parkins was SMOKING a Pall Mall and cleaning his yellowed fingernails with a pocketknife.

"Novels\'Salem's Lot.txt" 4739 175:James Cody, M.D., arrived next, fresh from a delivery in Cumberland. After the amenities had passed among them ("Good t'seeya," Parkins Gillespie said, and lit a fresh CIGARETTE), Matt led them all upstairs again. Now, if we all only played instruments, Ben thought, we could give the guy a real send-off. He felt the laughter trying to come up his throat again.

"Novels\'Salem's Lot.txt" 4761 57:"He dead?" Parkins asked, and tapped the ash of his CIGARETTE into an empty flower vase. Matt winced.

"Novels\'Salem's Lot.txt" 4795 107:"Norbert couldn't find his own ass with both hands and a flashlight," Parkins said, and flipped his CIGARETTE butt out the open window. "You lost your screen offa this window, Matt. I seen it down on the lawn when I drove in."

"Novels\'Salem's Lot.txt" 4829 104:Parkins Gillespie stood on the stoop for a moment and watched the hearse trundle slowly up the road, a CIGARETTE dangling between his lips. "All the times Mike drove that, I bet he never guessed how soon he'd be ridin' in the back." He turned to Ben. "You ain't leavin' the Lot just yet, are you? Like you to testify for the coroner's jury, if that's okay by you."

"Novels\'Salem's Lot.txt" 4845 36:He sighed and cast the butt of his CIGARETTE away. "Sure do. Duplicate, triplicate, don't-punch-spindle-or-mutilate. This job's been more trouble than a she-bitch with crabs the last couple of weeks. Maybe that old Marsten House has got a curse on it."

"Novels\'Salem's Lot.txt" 489 98:"Floyd can crap in his hat and wear it backward for all of me," Parkins said. He crushed his SMOKE on the step, took a Sucrets box out of his pocket, put the dead butt inside, and put the box back in his pocket.

"Novels\'Salem's Lot.txt" 497 45:"Funny, that's all." Parkins took his CIGARETTES out. The sun felt warm and good on his face. "Then he went to see Larry Crockett. Wanted to lease the place."

"Novels\'Salem's Lot.txt" 517 50:"You do that," Parkins said, and lit another CIGARETTE.

"Novels\'Salem's Lot.txt" 5507 58:They know that a fire burned up half of the town in that SMOKE-hazed September of 1951, but they don't know that it was set, and they don't know that the boy who set it graduated valedictorian of his class in 1953 and went on to make a hundred thousand dollars on Wall Street, and even if they had known, they would not have known the compulsion that drove him to it or the way it ate at his mind for the next twenty years of his life, until a brain embolism hustled him into his grave at the age of forty-six.

"Novels\'Salem's Lot.txt" 5899 585:The two of them climbed up without a word and began heaving the Crappie off the end. Green plastic bags spun through the clear air and smashed open as they hit. It was an old job for them. They were a part of the town that few tourists ever saw (or cared to)-firstly, because the town ignored them by tacit agreement, and secondly, because they had developed their own protective coloration. If you met Franklin's pickup on the road, you forgot it the instant it was gone from your rearview mirror. If you happened to see their shack with its tin chimney sending a pencil line of SMOKE into the white November sky, you overlooked it. If you met Virgil coming out of the Cumberland greenfront with a bottle of welfare vodka in a brown bag, you said hi and then couldn't quite remember who it was you had spoken to; the face was familiar but the name just slipped your mind. Franklin's brother was Derek Boddin, father of Richie (lately deposed king of Stanley Street Elementary School), and Derek had nearly forgotten that Franklin was still alive and in town. He had progressed beyond black sheepdom; he was totally gray.

"Novels\'Salem's Lot.txt" 597 84:"Oh, Mother, for Christ's sake." She helped herself to one of her mother's CIGARETTES.

"Novels\'Salem's Lot.txt" 599 111:"No need to curse," Mrs Norton said, unperturbed. She handed the book back and tapped the long ash on her CIGARETTE into a ceramic ashtray in the shape of a fish. It had been given to her by one of her Ladies' Auxiliary friends, and it had always irritated Susan in a formless sort of way. There was something obscene about tapping your ashes into a perch's mouth.

"Novels\'Salem's Lot.txt" 6117 53:"I know a great deal. It's my business to know. SMOKE?"

"Novels\'Salem's Lot.txt" 6119 328:"Thanks." He took the offered CIGARETTE gratefully. He put it between his lips. The stranger struck a light, and in the glow of the wooden match he saw that the stranger's cheekbones were high and Slavic, his forehead pale and bony, his dark hair swept straight back. Then the light was gone and Corey was dragging harsh SMOKE into his lungs. It was a dago CIGARETTE, but any CIGARETTE was better than none. He began to feel a little calmer.

"Novels\'Salem's Lot.txt" 6119 35:"Thanks." He took the offered CIGARETTE gratefully. He put it between his lips. The stranger struck a light, and in the glow of the wooden match he saw that the stranger's cheekbones were high and Slavic, his forehead pale and bony, his dark hair swept straight back. Then the light was gone and Corey was dragging harsh SMOKE into his lungs. It was a dago CIGARETTE, but any CIGARETTE was better than none. He began to feel a little calmer.

"Novels\'Salem's Lot.txt" 6119 364:"Thanks." He took the offered CIGARETTE gratefully. He put it between his lips. The stranger struck a light, and in the glow of the wooden match he saw that the stranger's cheekbones were high and Slavic, his forehead pale and bony, his dark hair swept straight back. Then the light was gone and Corey was dragging harsh SMOKE into his lungs. It was a dago CIGARETTE, but any CIGARETTE was better than none. He began to feel a little calmer.

"Novels\'Salem's Lot.txt" 6119 383:"Thanks." He took the offered CIGARETTE gratefully. He put it between his lips. The stranger struck a light, and in the glow of the wooden match he saw that the stranger's cheekbones were high and Slavic, his forehead pale and bony, his dark hair swept straight back. Then the light was gone and Corey was dragging harsh SMOKE into his lungs. It was a dago CIGARETTE, but any CIGARETTE was better than none. He began to feel a little calmer.

"Novels\'Salem's Lot.txt" 6123 111:The stranger laughed, a startlingly rich and full-bodied sound that drifted off on the slight breeze like the SMOKE of Corey's CIGARETTE.

"Novels\'Salem's Lot.txt" 6123 130:The stranger laughed, a startlingly rich and full-bodied sound that drifted off on the slight breeze like the SMOKE of Corey's CIGARETTE.

"Novels\'Salem's Lot.txt" 6145 104:"Yes!" Corey exclaimed. The man had put his finger on the right, the exact, the perfect, word. The CIGARETTE dropped unnoticed from his fingers and lay smoldering on the road.

"Novels\'Salem's Lot.txt" 633 53:"Well," Mrs Norton said softly. She stubbed her CIGARETTE out on the perch's lip and dropped it into his belly.

"Novels\'Salem's Lot.txt" 6337 210:His scream was horrible, unearthly...and silent. It echoed only in the corridors of his brain and the chambers of his soul. The smile of triumph on the Glick-thing's mouth became a yawning grimace of agony. SMOKE spurted from the pallid flesh, and for just a moment, before the creature twisted away and half dived, half fell out the window, Mark felt the flesh yield like SMOKE.

"Novels\'Salem's Lot.txt" 6337 376:His scream was horrible, unearthly...and silent. It echoed only in the corridors of his brain and the chambers of his soul. The smile of triumph on the Glick-thing's mouth became a yawning grimace of agony. SMOKE spurted from the pallid flesh, and for just a moment, before the creature twisted away and half dived, half fell out the window, Mark felt the flesh yield like SMOKE.

"Novels\'Salem's Lot.txt" 65 233:What is mystifying about these found people is their unanimous unwillingness-or inability-to talk about Jerusalem's Lot and what, if anything, might have happened there. Parkins Gillespie simply looked at this reporter, lit a CIGARETTE, and said, "I just decided to leave." Charles James claims he was forced to leave because his business dried up with the town. Pauline Dickens, who worked as a waitress in the Excellent Café for years, never answered this reporter's letter of inquiry. And Mrs Curless refuses to speak of 'salem's Lot at all.

"Novels\'Salem's Lot.txt" 6863 19:"I wish I had a CIGARETTE," he said.

"Novels\'Salem's Lot.txt" 6865 216:"They're killers," Jimmy told him without turning around. He was watching a Sunday night wildlife program on Maury Green's small Sony. "Actually, so do I. I quit when the surgeon general did his number on CIGARETTES ten years ago. Bad P.R. not to. But I always wake up grabbing for the pack on the nightstand."

"Novels\'Salem's Lot.txt" 7047 804:He brought the cross up just as she jerked him forward into her embrace, her strength making him feel like something made of rags. The rounded point of the tongue depressor that formed the cross's down-stroke struck her under the chin-and then continued upward with no fleshy resistance. Ben's eyes were stunned by a flash of not-light that happened not before his eyes but seemingly behind them. There was the hot and porcine smell of burning flesh. Her scream this time was full-throated and agonized. He sensed rather than saw her throw herself backward, stumble over the television, and fall on the floor, one white arm thrown outward to break her fall. She was up again with wolflike agility, her eyes narrowed in pain, yet still filled with her insane hunger. The flesh of her lower jaw was SMOKING and black. She was snarling at him.

"Novels\'Salem's Lot.txt" 7057 360:And before his eyes her body seemed to elongate and become translucent. For a moment he thought she was still there, laughing at him, and then the white glow of the streetlamp outside was shining on bare wall, and there was only a fleeting sensation on his nerve endings, which seemed to be reporting that she had seeped into the very pores of the wall, like SMOKE.

"Novels\'Salem's Lot.txt" 763 40:"Reach in the glove box and get me a CIGARETTE, would you? I'm trying to quit, but I need one for this."

"Novels\'Salem's Lot.txt" 779 29:Ben took a huge drag on his CIGARETTE and pitched it out his window into the dark.

"Novels\'Salem's Lot.txt" 787 21:She took one of his CIGARETTES and lit it.

"Novels\'Salem's Lot.txt" 8067 224:Homer McCaslin had gone directly from Green's Mortuary to the Norton home on Brock Street. It was eleven o'clock by the time he got there. Mrs Norton was in tears, and while Bill Norton seemed calm enough, he was chain-SMOKING and his face looked drawn.

"Novels\'Salem's Lot.txt" 8457 103:"Very striking," the proprietor said, putting his pot down. "Tall, totally bald. Piercing eyes. SMOKED foreign CIGARETTES, by the smell. He had to take the flowers out in three armloads. He put them in the back of a very old car, a Dodge, I think-"

"Novels\'Salem's Lot.txt" 8457 118:"Very striking," the proprietor said, putting his pot down. "Tall, totally bald. Piercing eyes. SMOKED foreign CIGARETTES, by the smell. He had to take the flowers out in three armloads. He put them in the back of a very old car, a Dodge, I think-"

"Novels\'Salem's Lot.txt" 8641 164:Parkins studied the sky. There were mackerel scales directly overhead and a building bar of clouds to the southwest. "Yes," he said, and threw the stub of his CIGARETTE away.

"Novels\'Salem's Lot.txt" 8757 100:By quarter of seven, most meals have been eaten, most after-dinner CIGARETTES and cigars and pipes SMOKED, most tables cleared. Dishes are being washed, rinsed, and stacked in drainers. Young children are being packed into Dr Dentons and sent into the other room to watch game shows on TV until bedtime.

"Novels\'Salem's Lot.txt" 8757 68:By quarter of seven, most meals have been eaten, most after-dinner CIGARETTES and cigars and pipes SMOKED, most tables cleared. Dishes are being washed, rinsed, and stacked in drainers. Young children are being packed into Dr Dentons and sent into the other room to watch game shows on TV until bedtime.

"Novels\'Salem's Lot.txt" 8795 121:Ben came obediently, his face blank and dazed. He sat down and folded his hands neatly in his lap. His eyes were burned CIGARETTE holes.

"Novels\'Salem's Lot.txt" 9511 271:It was a strange dream, not quite a nightmare. The fire of '51 was raging under an unforgiving sky that shaded from pale blue at the horizons to a hot and merciless white overhead. The sun glared from this inverted bowl like a glinting copper coin. The acrid smell of SMOKE was everywhere; all business activity had stopped and people stood in the streets, looking southwest, toward the Marshes, and northwest, toward the woods. The SMOKE had been in the air all morning, but now, at one in the afternoon, you could see the bright arteries of fire dancing in the green beyond Griffen's pasture. The steady breeze that had allowed the flames to jump one firebreak now brought a steady fall of white ash over the town like summer snow.

"Novels\'Salem's Lot.txt" 9511 436:It was a strange dream, not quite a nightmare. The fire of '51 was raging under an unforgiving sky that shaded from pale blue at the horizons to a hot and merciless white overhead. The sun glared from this inverted bowl like a glinting copper coin. The acrid smell of SMOKE was everywhere; all business activity had stopped and people stood in the streets, looking southwest, toward the Marshes, and northwest, toward the woods. The SMOKE had been in the air all morning, but now, at one in the afternoon, you could see the bright arteries of fire dancing in the green beyond Griffen's pasture. The steady breeze that had allowed the flames to jump one firebreak now brought a steady fall of white ash over the town like summer snow.

"Novels\'Salem's Lot.txt" 9525 94:Her eyes drifted dreamily to the fire as his lips and teeth worked against her neck, and the SMOKE was very black, as black as night, obscuring that hot gunmetal sky, turning day to night; yet the fire moved inside it in those pulsing scarlet threads and blossoms-rioting flowers in a midnight jungle.

"Novels\'Salem's Lot.txt" 967 78:At quarter of six, just as she was finishing up her second cup of coffee and SMOKING a Chesterfield, the Press-Herald thumped against the side of the house and dropped into the rosebushes. The third time this week; the Kilby kid was batting a thousand. Probably delivering the papers wrecked out of his mind. Well, let it sit there awhile. The earliest sunshine, thin and precious gold, was slanting in through the east windows. It was the best time of her day, and she would not disturb its moveless peace for anything.

"Novels\Bachman\Long Walk, The.txt" 1339 60:The groundfog spread across the road in thin ribbons, like SMOKE. The shapes of the boys moved through it like dark islands somehow set adrift. At fifty miles into the Walk they passed a small, shut-up garage with a rusted-out gas pump in front. It was little more than an ominous, leaning shape in the fog. The clear fluorescent light from a telephone booth cast the only glow. The Major didn't come. No one came.

"Novels\Bachman\Long Walk, The.txt" 1620 197:The lights were the beams of several trucks, directed at a plank bridge spanning a fast-running rill of water. "Truly I love that bridge," Olson said, and helped himself to one of McVries's CIGARETTES. "Truly."

"Novels\Bachman\Long Walk, The.txt" 1622 86:But as they drew closer, Olson made a soft, ugly sound in his throat and pitched the CIGARETTE away into the weeds. One of the bridge's supports and two of the heavy butt planks had been washed away, but the Squad up ahead had been working diligently. A sawed-off telephone pole had been planted in the bed of the stream, anchored in what looked like a gigantic cement plug. They hadn't had a chance to replace the butts, so they had put down a big convoy-truck tailgate in their place. Makeshift, but it would serve.

"Novels\Bachman\Long Walk, The.txt" 1630 105:Two men in corduroy coats leaned against a big asphalt-spattered truck marked HIGHWAY REPAIR. They were SMOKING. They wore green gum-rubber boots. They watched the Walkers go by. As Davidson, McVries, Olson, Pearson, Harkness, Baker, and Garraty passed in a loose sort of group one of them flicked his CIGARETTE end over end into the stream and said: "That's him. That's Garraty."

"Novels\Bachman\Long Walk, The.txt" 1630 303:Two men in corduroy coats leaned against a big asphalt-spattered truck marked HIGHWAY REPAIR. They were SMOKING. They wore green gum-rubber boots. They watched the Walkers go by. As Davidson, McVries, Olson, Pearson, Harkness, Baker, and Garraty passed in a loose sort of group one of them flicked his CIGARETTE end over end into the stream and said: "That's him. That's Garraty."

"Novels\Bachman\Long Walk, The.txt" 2442 11:"Did he SMOKE?" Abraham asked, waving at a family of four and their cat. The cat was on a leash. It was a Persian cat. It looked mean and pissed off.

"Novels\Bachman\Long Walk, The.txt" 3619 104:"I don't know that either. I don't even know why I bother talking to you. It's like talking to SMOKE."

"Novels\Bachman\Long Walk, The.txt" 4042 27:Again the smell of powder SMOKE, acrid, heavy with cordite. In what book did they fire guns over the water to bring the body of a drowned man to the surface?

"Novels\Bachman\Long Walk, The.txt" 4522 195:All gone. The carny just left town, pulled stakes in the middle of everything and blew town, no one left but this here kid Garraty to face the emptiness of flattened candy wrappers and squashed CIGARETTE butts and discarded junk prizes.

"Novels\Bachman\Long Walk, The.txt" 4989 47:Their feet moved but they did not. The cherry CIGARETTE glows in the crowd, the occasional flashlight or flaring sparkler might have been stars, weird low constellations that marked their existence ahead and behind, narrowing into nothing both ways.

"Novels\Bachman\Long Walk, The.txt" 842 68:McVries fumbled in his pocket and came up with a package of Mellow CIGARETTES. "SMOKE?"

"Novels\Bachman\Long Walk, The.txt" 842 83:McVries fumbled in his pocket and came up with a package of Mellow CIGARETTES. "SMOKE?"

"Novels\Bachman\Long Walk, The.txt" 846 148:"Neither do I," McVries said, and then put a CIGARETTE into his mouth. He found a book of matches with a tomato sauce recipe on it. He lit the CIGARETTE, drew SMOKE in, and coughed it out. Garraty thought of Hint 10: Save your wind. If you SMOKE ordinarily, try not to SMOKE on the Long Walk.

"Novels\Bachman\Long Walk, The.txt" 846 164:"Neither do I," McVries said, and then put a CIGARETTE into his mouth. He found a book of matches with a tomato sauce recipe on it. He lit the CIGARETTE, drew SMOKE in, and coughed it out. Garraty thought of Hint 10: Save your wind. If you SMOKE ordinarily, try not to SMOKE on the Long Walk.

"Novels\Bachman\Long Walk, The.txt" 846 245:"Neither do I," McVries said, and then put a CIGARETTE into his mouth. He found a book of matches with a tomato sauce recipe on it. He lit the CIGARETTE, drew SMOKE in, and coughed it out. Garraty thought of Hint 10: Save your wind. If you SMOKE ordinarily, try not to SMOKE on the Long Walk.

"Novels\Bachman\Long Walk, The.txt" 846 274:"Neither do I," McVries said, and then put a CIGARETTE into his mouth. He found a book of matches with a tomato sauce recipe on it. He lit the CIGARETTE, drew SMOKE in, and coughed it out. Garraty thought of Hint 10: Save your wind. If you SMOKE ordinarily, try not to SMOKE on the Long Walk.

"Novels\Bachman\Long Walk, The.txt" 846 50:"Neither do I," McVries said, and then put a CIGARETTE into his mouth. He found a book of matches with a tomato sauce recipe on it. He lit the CIGARETTE, drew SMOKE in, and coughed it out. Garraty thought of Hint 10: Save your wind. If you SMOKE ordinarily, try not to SMOKE on the Long Walk.

"Novels\Bachman\Long Walk, The.txt" 852 54:McVries looked at him, surprised, and then threw the CIGARETTE away. "Yeah," he said. "I think it is."

"Novels\Bachman\Long Walk, The.txt" 884 19:"Could I have a CIGARETTE?" Olson asked. His voice was low again.

"Novels\Bachman\Long Walk, The.txt" 908 102:When they got up over the rise they saw the halftrack sitting on the shoulder half a mile away. Blue SMOKE was coming from its dual exhaust pipes. Of Zuck there was no sign. No sign at all.

"Novels\Bachman\Regulators, The.txt" 1136 1125:Before Collie could say anything, there was a final shot from the black van and a sound-he would have sworn it-like the whistle of an artillery shell. Marielle Soderson, who had reached the stoop (Gary had already disappeared inside, no gentleman he), screamed and staggered sideways against the door. Her left arm flew bonelessly upward. Blood splashed Doc's aluminum siding; the rain began to wash it down the side of the house in membranes. Collie heard the store-girl scream, and felt a little like screaming himself. The slug had taken Marielle in the shoulder and torn her left arm almost entirely off her body. It flopped back down and dangled precariously from a glistening knot of flesh with a mole on it. It was the mole-a flaw Gary might have lovingly kissed in his younger, less pickled days-that made it somehow real. She stood in the doorway, shrieking, her left arm hanging beside her like a door which has been ripped off two of its three hinges. And behind her, the black van now also accelerated down the hill, the turret sliding closed as it went. It disappeared into the rain and the billowing SMOKE from the empty Hobart house, where the roof was now sharing its gift of fire with the walls.

"Novels\Bachman\Regulators, The.txt" 1239 341:She slipped the blouse on and did up the buttons, glancing at the clock on the mantel as she did so. Only 4:15; Jan had been right to say so soon. But the weather had certainly changed, Catskills or no Catskills. Thunder rolled, lightning flashed, and rain pelted so furiously against the living room's picture window that it looked like SMOKE.

"Novels\Bachman\Regulators, The.txt" 1267 193:She started for the kitchen again, then stopped again, this time staring at the big window with its view of the street. She had thought the rain was pelting the glass hard enough to look like SMOKE, but actually the first fury of the storm was already passing. What she was seeing didn't just look like SMOKE; it was SMOKE.

"Novels\Bachman\Regulators, The.txt" 1267 306:She started for the kitchen again, then stopped again, this time staring at the big window with its view of the street. She had thought the rain was pelting the glass hard enough to look like SMOKE, but actually the first fury of the storm was already passing. What she was seeing didn't just look like SMOKE; it was SMOKE.

"Novels\Bachman\Regulators, The.txt" 1267 320:She started for the kitchen again, then stopped again, this time staring at the big window with its view of the street. She had thought the rain was pelting the glass hard enough to look like SMOKE, but actually the first fury of the storm was already passing. What she was seeing didn't just look like SMOKE; it was SMOKE.

"Novels\Bachman\Regulators, The.txt" 1269 203:She hurried to the window, looked down the street, and saw that the Hobart place was burning in the rain, sending big white clouds up into the gray sky. She saw no vehicles or people around it (and the SMOKE itself obscured her view of the dead boy and dog), so she looked up toward Bear Street. Where were the police cars? The fire engines? She didn't see them, but she saw enough to make her cry out softly through hands-she didn't know how they had gotten there-that were cupped to her mouth.

"Novels\Bachman\Regulators, The.txt" 1281 289:Audrey glanced down the block, suddenly sure she was imagining the whole thing, and that reality would snap back into place like a released elastic as soon as she saw the Hobart place standing intact. But the Hobart place was still burning, still sending huge white clouds of cedar-fumed SMOKE into the air, and when she looked back up the street, she still saw bodies. The corpses of her neighbors.

"Novels\Bachman\Regulators, The.txt" 1324 444:He looked slowly to his left, hearing the tendons in his neck creak, and saw the Carvers' front door still standing open. The screen was ajar; the redhead's hand, white and still as a starfish cast up on a beach, was caught in it. Outside, the air was gray with rain. It came down with a steady hissing sound, like the world's biggest steam iron. He could smell the grass, like some sweet wet perfume. It was spiced with a tang of cedar SMOKE. God bless the lightning, he thought. The burning house would bring the police and the fire engines. But for now . . .

"Novels\Bachman\Regulators, The.txt" 14 282:On the block of Poplar which runs between Bear Street at the top of the hill and Hyacinth at the bottom, there are eleven houses and one store. The store, which stands on the corner of Poplar and Hyacinth, is the ever-popular, all-American convenience mart, where you can get your CIGARETTES, your Blatz or Rolling Rock, your penny candy (although these days most of it costs a dime), your BBQ supplies (paper plates plastic forks taco chips ice cream ketchup mustard relish), your Popsicles, and your wide variety of Snapple, made from the best stuff on earth. You can even get a copy of Penthouse at the E-Z Stop 24 if you want one, but you have to ask the clerk; in the Kingdom of Ohio, they mostly keep the skin magazines under the counter. And hey, that's perfectly all right. The important thing is that you should know where to get one if you need one.

"Novels\Bachman\Regulators, The.txt" 1495 361:as a palmistry guru on the boardwalk in Wildwood, New Jersey, and then as a guitar tech. That felt like home, somehow, and he became a gun for hire in upstate New York and eastern Pennsylvania. He liked tuning and repairing guitars-it was peaceful. Also, he was a lot better at repairing them than he was at playing them. During this period he had also quit SMOKING dope and playing bridge, which simplified things even further.

"Novels\Bachman\Regulators, The.txt" 1589 76:To the left of Charlotte was a photograph of a parrot which appeared to be SMOKING a Camel.

"Novels\Bachman\Regulators, The.txt" 1635 261:"Get it on ice!" Gary bawled. "Get it on ice right away! Right aw-" Then, all at once, he seemed to really realize what had happened. What the cop was holding. He opened his mouth, twisted his head in a peculiar way, and unloaded on the photo of the CIGARETTE-SMOKING parrot.

"Novels\Bachman\Regulators, The.txt" 1635 271:"Get it on ice!" Gary bawled. "Get it on ice right away! Right aw-" Then, all at once, he seemed to really realize what had happened. What the cop was holding. He opened his mouth, twisted his head in a peculiar way, and unloaded on the photo of the CIGARETTE-SMOKING parrot.

"Novels\Bachman\Regulators, The.txt" 2313 306:Holes open in the crushed back deck of Mary Jackson's Lumina, and then it too explodes, flames belching up and swallowing the car back to front. Bullets tear off two of Old Doc's shutters. A hole the size of a baseball appears in the mailbox mounted beside his door; the box drops to the welcome mat, SMOKING. Inside it, a Kmart circular and a letter from the Ohio Veterinary Society are blazing. Another ka-bam and the bungalow's door-knocker-a silver St. Bernard's head-disappears as conclusively as a coin in a magician's hand. Seeming oblivious of all this, Peter Jackson struggles to his feet with his dead wife in his arms. His round rimless glasses, the lenses spotted with water, glint in the strengthening light. His pale face is more than distracted; it is the face of a man whose entire bank of fuses has burned out. But he's standing there, Audrey sees, miraculously whole, miraculously-

"Novels\Bachman\Regulators, The.txt" 2505 118:Just how much he cannot tell, mostly because he is a stranger here, he doesn't know the street, partly because the SMOKE from the burning house and the mist still rising off the wet street give the houses over there a look which is almost spectral, like houses seen in a mirage . . . but there has been a change.

"Novels\Bachman\Regulators, The.txt" 2569 147:A buzzard-it might be a buzzard, although it looks like nothing she's ever seen in a book or a movie-has come cruising out of the billowing SMOKE from the Hobart house and landed in the street next to Mary Jackson. It's a huge unnatural awkwardness with an ugly, peeled head. It walks around the corpse, looking for all the world like a diner reconnoitering the buffet before actually grabbing a plate, and then it darts its head forward and pulls off most of the woman's nose.

"Novels\Bachman\Regulators, The.txt" 2639 803:Seth's cereal bowl went flipping across the room, spilling milk and cereal all over the kitchen floor. It his the wall & broke. The drawer under the stove came open, and all the things I keep under there-frying pans, cookie-sheets, muffin-tins-came flying out. The sink faucets turned on. The dishwasher supposedly can't start with the door open, but it did & water went all over the floor. The vase I keep on the window-shelf over the sink flew all the way across the room & broke against the wall. Scariest of all was the toaster. It was on, I was making a couple of slices to have with my o.j., & all at once it glowed bright red inside the slots, as if it was a furnace instead of a little counter-gadget. The handle went up & the toast flew all the way up to the ceiling. It was black and SMOKING. Looked nuclear. It landed in the sink.

"Novels\Bachman\Regulators, The.txt" 2828 179:"I don't know, but it does." Cynthia pointed down toward the thick billows which had now blotted out all vestiges of the world below Hyacinth Street. "It flew out of the SMOKE. I saw it."

"Novels\Bachman\Regulators, The.txt" 3022 100:Halfway down the walk with that red light falling like strained blood through the rising pillar of SMOKE from the Hobart place, the Rory Calhoun voice filled his head, ripping at it like a razor blade: Close the door behind you, partner, was you born in a barn?

"Novels\Bachman\Regulators, The.txt" 3918 493:They did another half-turn, and Steve's feet tangled in each other. For a moment he tottered on the edge of balance, still holding off the lunging mountain lion with his crossed arms. Beyond them, Entragian had reached the cactus. He butted the top of his bleeding and horribly distended head into its spines, then collapsed and rolled over on his side. To Johnny he looked like a machine that has finally run down. Coyotes wailed, still out of sight but closer now; the air was tangy with SMOKE from the burning house.

"Novels\Bachman\Regulators, The.txt" 4071 280:It went on up the path, kicking the leg of the outstretched animal, and Brad saw a weird thing: the animal-it had been some sort of cat-was decaying with the speed of time-lapse photography, its pelt turning black and beginning to send up tendrils of nasty-smelling steam or SMOKE.

"Novels\Bachman\Regulators, The.txt" 4182 25:"It's like prodding CIGARETTE SMOKE," he said, handing the gun back to Cynthia. "I don't think it's here at all. I don't think any of it's here, not really."

"Novels\Bachman\Regulators, The.txt" 4182 35:"It's like prodding CIGARETTE SMOKE," he said, handing the gun back to Cynthia. "I don't think it's here at all. I don't think any of it's here, not really."

"Novels\Bachman\Regulators, The.txt" 4184 300:Steve Ames stepped forward, took Johnny's hand, and guided it to the shoulder of his shirt. Johnny felt a line of ragged punctures made by the mountain lion's claws. Blood had soaked through the cotton enough for it to squelch under Johnny's fingers. "The thing that did this to me wasn't CIGARETTE SMOKE," Steve said.

"Novels\Bachman\Regulators, The.txt" 4184 310:Steve Ames stepped forward, took Johnny's hand, and guided it to the shoulder of his shirt. Johnny felt a line of ragged punctures made by the mountain lion's claws. Blood had soaked through the cotton enough for it to squelch under Johnny's fingers. "The thing that did this to me wasn't CIGARETTE SMOKE," Steve said.

"Novels\Bachman\Regulators, The.txt" 4268 62:And its perceptions had also boomed. It saw the boy with the SMOKING pistol in his hand, understood what had happened, felt the boy's horror and guilt, sensed the potential. Without thinking-Tak didn't think, not really-it leaped into Jim Reed's mind. It could not control him physically at this range, but all the failsafe equipment guarding the boy's emotional armory had temporarily shorted out, leaving that part of him wide open. Tak had only a second-two, at most-to get in and turn up all the dials, overloading the boy with feedback, but a second had been enough. The boy might even have done it, anyway. All Tak had done, after all, was to amplify emotions which had already been present.

"Novels\Bachman\Regulators, The.txt" 4306 236:Across the street, where the Jackson and Billingsley homes had been, were Lushan's Chinese Laundry and Worrell's Dry Goods. Where the Hobart house had been the Owl County General Store now stood, and although Tak could still smell SMOKE, the store wasn't showing so much as a single charred board.

"Novels\Bachman\Regulators, The.txt" 4440 211:"Seth!" she yelled. "You come back now!" She yelled it two or three times, then dropped her camera on the ground and just ran. That was all I needed to see, her dropping her expensive Nikon like a used CIGARETTE pack. I was back down the ladder in about three jumps. Wonder I didn't fall off and break my neck. Even more of a wonder Garin or his older boy didn't, I suppose, but I never even thought about that at the time. Never thought about them at all, tell the truth.

"Novels\Bachman\Regulators, The.txt" 462 353:He sighed, nodded. Sure, what the hell, take them anywhere. Take them to Alaska. He wanted a CIGARETTE, but they were back in the house. He had managed to quit for almost ten years before the bastards downtown had first shown him the door and then run him through it. He had picked up the habit again with a speed that was spooky. And now he wanted to SMOKE because he was nervous. Not just cranked up because of the dead kid on his lawn, which would have been understandable, but nervous. Nervous like-a de vitch, his mother would have said. And why?

"Novels\Bachman\Regulators, The.txt" 462 94:He sighed, nodded. Sure, what the hell, take them anywhere. Take them to Alaska. He wanted a CIGARETTE, but they were back in the house. He had managed to quit for almost ten years before the bastards downtown had first shown him the door and then run him through it. He had picked up the habit again with a speed that was spooky. And now he wanted to SMOKE because he was nervous. Not just cranked up because of the dead kid on his lawn, which would have been understandable, but nervous. Nervous like-a de vitch, his mother would have said. And why?

"Novels\Bachman\Regulators, The.txt" 4796 51:"Oh gosh, don't you think your shit comes out SMOKING," Kim said, and rolled her eyes theatrically.

"Novels\Bachman\Regulators, The.txt" 5067 533:On the other side of the street, the false front of Worrell's Market & Mercantile (once Tom Billingsley's house; the corpses of the Sodersons lie in an aisle of big round bags, all labelled ) disintegrates under a series of rifle shots from the Justice Wagon-each arriving round as loud as a mortar shell. Colonel Henry is driving; poked out of the firing trap and doing the shooting is Chuck Connors, also known as the Rifleman. His son is right next to him, grinning from ear to ear. "Good shootin, Paw!" he exclaims as SMOKING boards from the false front ignite the decade's worth of trash and dust that has been hiding behind it. Soon the entire building will be on fire.

"Novels\Bachman\Regulators, The.txt" 5193 113:Tom Billingsley goes to the jagged hole in the west wall where the picture window used to be, stepping over the SMOKING and exploded ruins of the TV in order to get there. "They're gone," he says. "The vans." He pauses, then adds: "Unfortunately, Poplar Street's gone, too. It looks like Deadwood, South Dakota, out there. Right around the time Jack McCall shot Wild Bill Hickok in the back."

"Novels\Bachman\Regulators, The.txt" 5217 164:The stoop of the Wyler house looks about the same, but that's all. The rest is now a long, low building made of logs. Hitching-posts are ranged along the front. SMOKE puffs from the stone chimney in spite of the night's warmth. "Looks like a bunkhouse," he says.

"Novels\Bachman\Regulators, The.txt" 5489 799:Screaming, revolted to the point of madness, Johnny wipes at the stuff, using his thumbs to try and clear his eyes. Faintly, the way you hear things when someone at the other end of the line temporarily puts the phone down, he can hear Steve and Cynthia, also screaming. Then blinding light fills up the room, as sudden and shocking as an unexpected slap. Johnny thinks at first it's an explosion of some sort-the end for all of them. But as his eyes (still burning and salty and full of Cammie's blood) begin to adjust, he sees it's not an explosion but daylight-the strong, hazy light of a summer afternoon. Thunder rumbles off in the east, a throaty sound with no real threat in it. The storm is over; it has lit up the Hobart place (that much he's sure of, because he can smell the SMOKE), then moved on to play hob with someone else's life. There's another sound, though, the one they waited for so eagerly and in vain earlier: the tangled wail of sirens. Police, fire engines, ambulances, maybe the fucking National Guard, for all Johnny knows. Or cares. The sound of sirens doesn't interest him much at this point.

"Novels\Bachman\Regulators, The.txt" 908 937:But she never sees. The guy in the buckskin shirt opens up, firing three times, pumping his weapon rapidly after each shot and then reshouldering it. The first round goes wild, as far as Johnny can see. The second erases the Lumina's radio aerial. The third blows off the left side of Mary Jackson's head. She staggers away from her car and toward Old Doc's house nevertheless, blood pouring down her neck and soaking the left side of her blouse, her hair briefly burning in the rain (he sees this, he sees everything), and then for a moment she turns in Johnny's direction and looks at him with her one remaining eye and the lightning flashes, filling that eye with fire; in the last second or two of her life she is empty of everything but electricity, it seems. Then she stumbles out of one of her high heels and falls backward, swandives into the sound of thunder, the brief low flames in her hair going out, her head still SMOKING like the tip of an indifferently butted CIGARETTE. She sprawls near the ceramic German shepherd on Billingsley's lawn, the one with his name and the number of his house on it, and as her legs relax apart Johnny sees something which is terrible and sad and inexplicable, all at the same time: a dark shadow that can only be one thing. Grotesquely, the punchline of an old joke goes on for a moment in his head like a neon sign: I don't know about the other two, but the guy in the middle looks like Willie Nelson. He laughs out loud in the rain. Peter Jackson's accountant wife has just been killed by a ghost, shot from a van piloted by another ghost (this one the ghost of an alien in a Sesech uniform), and the lady has died drawerless. None of this is funny, but he laughs just the same. Maybe to keep himself from screaming. He's afraid that if he starts doing that, he won't be able to stop.

"Novels\Bachman\Regulators, The.txt" 908 985:But she never sees. The guy in the buckskin shirt opens up, firing three times, pumping his weapon rapidly after each shot and then reshouldering it. The first round goes wild, as far as Johnny can see. The second erases the Lumina's radio aerial. The third blows off the left side of Mary Jackson's head. She staggers away from her car and toward Old Doc's house nevertheless, blood pouring down her neck and soaking the left side of her blouse, her hair briefly burning in the rain (he sees this, he sees everything), and then for a moment she turns in Johnny's direction and looks at him with her one remaining eye and the lightning flashes, filling that eye with fire; in the last second or two of her life she is empty of everything but electricity, it seems. Then she stumbles out of one of her high heels and falls backward, swandives into the sound of thunder, the brief low flames in her hair going out, her head still SMOKING like the tip of an indifferently butted CIGARETTE. She sprawls near the ceramic German shepherd on Billingsley's lawn, the one with his name and the number of his house on it, and as her legs relax apart Johnny sees something which is terrible and sad and inexplicable, all at the same time: a dark shadow that can only be one thing. Grotesquely, the punchline of an old joke goes on for a moment in his head like a neon sign: I don't know about the other two, but the guy in the middle looks like Willie Nelson. He laughs out loud in the rain. Peter Jackson's accountant wife has just been killed by a ghost, shot from a van piloted by another ghost (this one the ghost of an alien in a Sesech uniform), and the lady has died drawerless. None of this is funny, but he laughs just the same. Maybe to keep himself from screaming. He's afraid that if he starts doing that, he won't be able to stop.

"Novels\Bachman\Running Man, The.txt" 1237 54:"Quite understandable," Thompson said, and lit a CIGARETTE. Richards felt a wave of unreality surge over him. "Under the circumstances."

"Novels\Bachman\Running Man, The.txt" 1255 26:Victor frowned and lit a CIGARETTE. "He comes on after you, at six-fifteen. We run two contests simultaneously because often one of the contestants is, uh, inadept at staying ahead of the Hunters."

"Novels\Bachman\Running Man, The.txt" 1773 335:The corridor was narrow enough to make Richards feel claustrophobic, and the carpet, which might have been red, had worn away in the middle to random strings. The doors were industrial gray, and several of them showed the marks of fresh kicks, smashes, or attempts to jimmy. Signs at every twenty paces advised that there would be NO SMOKING IN THIS HALL BY ORDER OF FIRE MARSHAL. There was a communal bathroom in the center, and the urine stench became suddenly sharp. It was a smell Richards associated automatically with despair. People moved restlessly behind the gray doors like animals in cages-animals too awful, too frightening, to be seen. Someone was chanting what might have been the Hail Mary over and over in a drunken voice. Strange gobbling noises came from behind another door. A country-western tune from behind another ("I ain't got a buck for the phone and I'm so alone . . ."). Shuffling noises. The solitary squeak of bedsprings that might mean a man in his own hand. Sobbing. Laughter. The hysterical grunts of a drunken argument. And from behind these, silence. And silence. A man with a hideously sunken chest walked past Richards without looking at him, carrying a bar of soap and a towel in one hand, wearing gray pajama bottoms tied with string. He wore paper slippers on his feet.

"Novels\Bachman\Running Man, The.txt" 1829 57:Richards tucked his shirt in, sat on his bed, and lit a CIGARETTE. He was hungry but would wait until dusk to go out and eat.

"Novels\Bachman\Running Man, The.txt" 1835 156:A Wint pulled out of the space directly in front of the store and a Ford pulled in, settling to an inch above the pavement as the driver, a crewcut fellow SMOKING a foot-long cigar, put it in idle. The car dipped slightly as his passenger, a dude in a brown and white hunting jacket, got out and zipped inside.

"Novels\Bachman\Running Man, The.txt" 1859 7:A man SMOKING a foot-long cigar was standing nonchalantly at the bus stop on the corner. He was the only person there. With good reason. Richards had seen the buses come and go, and knew there wouldn't be another one along for forty-five minutes.

"Novels\Bachman\Running Man, The.txt" 1891 221:The trick had popped effortlessly into his mind as he had stood by the window, watching them gather in their offhand, sinister way. If it hadn't occurred to him, he thought he would be there yet, like Aladdin watching SMOKE from the lamp coalesce into an omnipotent djinn. They had used the trick as boys to steal newspapers from Development basements. Molie bought them; two cents a pound.

"Novels\Bachman\Running Man, The.txt" 1905 294:There was a noise from inside the control panel that sounded like a brief electronic curse. There was a light, tingling jolt up his arm. For a moment, nothing else. Then the folding brass gate slid across, the doors closed, and the elevator lurched unhappily downward. A small tendril of blue SMOKE curled out of the slot in the panel.

"Novels\Bachman\Running Man, The.txt" 2041 34:The boy, seven years old, black, SMOKING a CIGARETTE, leaned closer to the mouth of the alley, watching the street.

"Novels\Bachman\Running Man, The.txt" 2041 44:The boy, seven years old, black, SMOKING a CIGARETTE, leaned closer to the mouth of the alley, watching the street.

"Novels\Bachman\Running Man, The.txt" 2175 832:The woman was very old; Richards thought he had never seen anyone as old. She was wearing a cotton print housedress with a large rip under one arm; an ancient, wrinkled dug swayed back and forth against the rip as she went about making the meal that Richards's New Dollars had purchased. The nicotine-yellowed fingers diced and pared and peeled. Her feet, splayed into grotesque boat shapes by years of standing, were clad in pink terrycloth slippers. Her hair looked as if it might have been self-waved by an iron held in a trembling hand; it was pushed back into a kind of pyramid by the twisted hairnet which had gone askew at the back of her head. Her face was a delta of time, no longer brown or black, but grayish, stitched with a radiating galaxy of wrinkles, pouches, and sags. Her toothless mouth worked craftily at the CIGARETTE held there, blowing out puffs of blue SMOKE that seemed to hang above and behind her in little bunched blue balls. She puffed back and forth, describing a triangle between counter, skillet, and table. Her cotton stockings were rolled at the knee, and above them and the flapping hem of her dress varicose veins bunched in clocksprings.

"Novels\Bachman\Running Man, The.txt" 2175 880:The woman was very old; Richards thought he had never seen anyone as old. She was wearing a cotton print housedress with a large rip under one arm; an ancient, wrinkled dug swayed back and forth against the rip as she went about making the meal that Richards's New Dollars had purchased. The nicotine-yellowed fingers diced and pared and peeled. Her feet, splayed into grotesque boat shapes by years of standing, were clad in pink terrycloth slippers. Her hair looked as if it might have been self-waved by an iron held in a trembling hand; it was pushed back into a kind of pyramid by the twisted hairnet which had gone askew at the back of her head. Her face was a delta of time, no longer brown or black, but grayish, stitched with a radiating galaxy of wrinkles, pouches, and sags. Her toothless mouth worked craftily at the CIGARETTE held there, blowing out puffs of blue SMOKE that seemed to hang above and behind her in little bunched blue balls. She puffed back and forth, describing a triangle between counter, skillet, and table. Her cotton stockings were rolled at the knee, and above them and the flapping hem of her dress varicose veins bunched in clocksprings.

"Novels\Bachman\Running Man, The.txt" 2201 166:"Then you ballsier than me, man. I put a guy in the hospital once with a rupture. Some rich guy. Cops chased me three days. But you ballsier than me." He took a CIGARETTE and lit it. "Maybe you'll go the whole month. A billion dollars. You'd have to buy a fuckin freight train to haul it off."

"Novels\Bachman\Running Man, The.txt" 2239 196:Bradley leaned forward, concentrating on his plate. None of them said anything more until the meal was done. Richards and Bradley had two helpings; the old woman had three. As they were lighting CIGARETTES, a key scratched in the lock and all of them stiffened until Stacey came in, looking guilty, frightened, and excited. He was carrying a brown bag in one hand and he gave Ma a bottle of medicine.

"Novels\Bachman\Running Man, The.txt" 2255 249:"Yeah. Well, Vermont's no good. Not enough of our kind of people. Tough cops. I get some good fella like Rich Goleon to drive that Wint to Manchester and park it in an automatic garage. Then I drive you up in another car." He crushed out his CIGARETTE. "In the trunk. They're only using Jiffy Sniffers on the back road. We'll go right up 495."

"Novels\Bachman\Running Man, The.txt" 2281 23:Richards finished his CIGARETTE in silence while Bradley went in to give Cassie some medicine.

"Novels\Bachman\Running Man, The.txt" 2353 171:"They don't talk about that one," Bradley said, as if he had read Richards's thought. "Now the pollution count in Boston is twenty on a good day. That's like SMOKING four packs of CIGARETTES a day just breathing. On a bad day it gets up as high as forty-two. Old dudes drop dead all over town. Asthma goes on the death certificate. But it's the air, the air, the air. And they're pouring it out just as fast as they can, big smokestacks going twenty-four hours a day. The big boys like it that way.

"Novels\Bachman\Running Man, The.txt" 2353 193:"They don't talk about that one," Bradley said, as if he had read Richards's thought. "Now the pollution count in Boston is twenty on a good day. That's like SMOKING four packs of CIGARETTES a day just breathing. On a bad day it gets up as high as forty-two. Old dudes drop dead all over town. Asthma goes on the death certificate. But it's the air, the air, the air. And they're pouring it out just as fast as they can, big smokestacks going twenty-four hours a day. The big boys like it that way.

"Novels\Bachman\Running Man, The.txt" 237 299:They crowded in to a depth where a deep breath was impossible. Sad flesh walled Richards on every side. They went up to the second floor. The doors snapped open. Richards, who stood a head taller than anyone else in the car, saw a huge waiting room with many chairs dominated by a huge Free-Vee. A CIGARETTE dispenser stood in one corner.

"Novels\Bachman\Running Man, The.txt" 243 164:Richards showed his card and was waved on. He went to the CIGARETTE machine, got a package of Blams and sat down as far from the Free-Vee as possible. He lit up a SMOKE and exhaled, coughing. He hadn't had a CIGARETTE in almost six months.

"Novels\Bachman\Running Man, The.txt" 243 211:Richards showed his card and was waved on. He went to the CIGARETTE machine, got a package of Blams and sat down as far from the Free-Vee as possible. He lit up a SMOKE and exhaled, coughing. He hadn't had a CIGARETTE in almost six months.

"Novels\Bachman\Running Man, The.txt" 243 59:Richards showed his card and was waved on. He went to the CIGARETTE machine, got a package of Blams and sat down as far from the Free-Vee as possible. He lit up a SMOKE and exhaled, coughing. He hadn't had a CIGARETTE in almost six months.

"Novels\Bachman\Running Man, The.txt" 2597 35:They SMOKED in the shadows, their CIGARETTES gleaming like eyes. For a little while, neither of them said anything.

"Novels\Bachman\Running Man, The.txt" 2597 6:They SMOKED in the shadows, their CIGARETTES gleaming like eyes. For a little while, neither of them said anything.

"Novels\Bachman\Running Man, The.txt" 2609 230:"We almost got it at that first roadblock," Bradley was saying as Richards tried to massage feeling back into his arm. It felt as if phantom nails had been pushed into it. "That cop almost opened it. Almost." He blew out SMOKE in a huge huff. Richards said nothing.

"Novels\Bachman\Running Man, The.txt" 2617 22:Richards lit another CIGARETTE from the stub of the first. A dozen charley horses were loosening slowly.

"Novels\Bachman\Running Man, The.txt" 3575 64:"You know what's disgusting?" Richards asked, lighting a CIGARETTE from the pack on the dashboard. "I'll tell you. It's disgusting to get blackballed because you don't want to work in a General Atomics job that's going to make you sterile. It's disgusting to sit home and watch your wife earning the grocery money on her back. It's disgusting to know the Network is killing millions of people each year with air pollutants when they could be manufacturing nose filters for six bucks a throw."

"Novels\Bachman\Running Man, The.txt" 3689 155:The second car came almost as fast, and it took Richards four shots to find a tire. Two slugs splattered sand next to his spot. This one slid around in a SMOKING half-turn and rolled three times, spraying glass and metal.

"Novels\Bachman\Running Man, The.txt" 4369 61:The gate to the service area (CAUTION-EMPLOYEES ONLY-NO SMOKING-UNAUTHORIZED PERSONS KEEP OUT) had been swung open, and Richards drove sedately through, passing ranks of high-octane tanker trucks and small private planes pulled up on their chocks. Beyond them was a taxiway, wide oil-blackened cement with expansion joints. Here his bird was waiting, a huge white jumbo jet with a dozen turbine engines softly grumbling. Beyond, runways stretched straight and clean into the gathering twilight, seeming to approach a meeting point on the horizon. The bird's roll-up stairway was just being put into place by four men wearing coveralls. To Richards, it looked like the stairs leading to a scaffold.

"Novels\Bachman\Running Man, The.txt" 4611 26:The FASTEN SEAT BELTS/NO SMOKING sign to the right of the trundled-up movie screen flashed on. The airplane began a slow, ponderous turn beneath them. Richards had gained all his knowledge of jets from the Free-Vee and from reading, much of it lurid adventure fiction, but this was only the second time he had ever been on one; and it made the shuttle from Harding to New York look like a bathtub toy. He found the huge motion beneath his feet disturbing.

"Novels\Bachman\Running Man, The.txt" 4945 425:Drunks sleeping in alleys wake foggily to the thunder of the passing trucks and stare mutely at the slices of sky between close-leaning buildings. Their eyes are faded and yellow, their mouths are dripping lines. Hands pull with senile reflex for newsies to protect against the autumn cold, but the newsies are no longer there, the Free-Vee has killed the last of them. Free-Vee is king of the world. Hallelujah. Rich folks SMOKE Dokes. The yellow eyes catch an unknown glimpse of high, blinking lights in the sky. Flash, flash. Red and green, red and green. The thunder of the trucks has faded, ramming back and forth in the stone canyons like the fists of vandals. The drunks sleep again. Bitchin'.

"Novels\Bachman\Running Man, The.txt" 5637 436:Bent haglike, a man in a reverse hurricane, Richards made his way from the blown door, holding the backs of seats. If they had been flying higher, with a greater difference in air pressure, he would have been pulled out, too. As it was he was being badly buffeted, his poor old intestines accordioning out and trailing after him on the floor. The cool night air, thin and sharp at two thousand feet, was like a slap of cold water. The CIGARETTE lighter had become a torch, and his insides were burning.

"Novels\Bachman\Running Man, The.txt" 829 85:There was a huge collective sigh, followed by some laughter and back-slapping. More CIGARETTES were lit up.

"Novels\Bachman\Running Man, The.txt" 85 90:The drizzle had deepened into a steady rain by the time Richards hit the street. The big SMOKE Dokes for Hallucinogenic Jokes thermometer across the street stood at fifty-one degrees. (Just the Right Temp to Stoke Up a Doke-High to the Nth Degree!) That might make it sixty in their apartment. And Cathy had the flu.

"Novels\Bachman\Running Man, The.txt" 905 69:"The Running Man? Bet your sweet ass. Give me one of those cruddy CIGARETTES, pal."

"Novels\Bachman\Running Man, The.txt" 915 112:He got up and went over to the free CIGARETTE machine in the corner. Laughlin must be right, he reflected. The CIGARETTE machine dispensed Dokes. They must have hit the big leagues. He got a package of Blams, sat down, and lit one up.

"Novels\Bachman\Running Man, The.txt" 915 37:He got up and went over to the free CIGARETTE machine in the corner. Laughlin must be right, he reflected. The CIGARETTE machine dispensed Dokes. They must have hit the big leagues. He got a package of Blams, sat down, and lit one up.

"Novels\Bachman\Running Man, The.txt" 93 324:Richards walked three miles and the occasional liquor stores and SMOKE shops, at first heavily grilled, became more numerous. Then the X-Houses (!!24 Perversions-Count 'Em 24!!), the Hockeries, the Blood Emporiums. Greasers sitting on cycles at every corner, the gutters buried in snowdrifts of roach ends. Rich Blokes SMOKE Dokes.

"Novels\Bachman\Running Man, The.txt" 93 66:Richards walked three miles and the occasional liquor stores and SMOKE shops, at first heavily grilled, became more numerous. Then the X-Houses (!!24 Perversions-Count 'Em 24!!), the Hockeries, the Blood Emporiums. Greasers sitting on cycles at every corner, the gutters buried in snowdrifts of roach ends. Rich Blokes SMOKE Dokes.

"Novels\Bachman\Running Man, The.txt" 939 70:A sling chair was next to the desk. Richards sat down and butted his SMOKE in an ashtray with the Games emblem embossed on it.

"Novels\Bachman\Running Man, The.txt" 95 281:He could see the skyscrapers rising into the clouds now, high and clean. The highest of all was the Network Games Building, one hundred stories, the top half buried in cloud and smog cover. He fixed his eyes on it and walked another mile. Now the more expensive movie houses, and SMOKE shops with no grills (but Rent-A-Pigs stood outside, electric move-alongs hanging from their Sam Browne belts). A city cop on every corner. The People's Fountain Park: Admission 75¢. Well-dressed mothers watching their children as they frolicked on the astroturf behind chain-link fencing. A cop on either side of the gate. A tiny, pathetic glimpse of the fountain.

"Novels\Bag of Bones.txt" 1042 156:"The well needs to be tested, and the gennie, too, although I'm sure both of em's okay. I seen a hornet's nest by Jo's old studio that I want to SMOKE before the woods get dry. Oh, and the roof of the old house-you know, the middle piece-needs to be reshingled. I shoulda talked to you about that last year, but with you not using the place, I let her slide. You stand good for that, too?"

"Novels\Bag of Bones.txt" 1205 542:Just how scared was I as I approached Sara Laughs? I don't remember. I suspect that fright, like pain, is one of those things that slip our minds once they have passed. What I do remember is a feeling I'd had before when I was down here, especially when I was walking this road by myself. It was a sense that reality was thin. I think it is thin, you know, thin as lake ice after a thaw, and we fill our lives with noise and light and motion to hide that thinness from ourselves. But in places like Lane Forty-two, you find that all the SMOKE and mirrors have been removed. What's left is the sound of crickets and the sight of green leaves darkening toward black; branches that make shapes like faces; the sound of your heart in your chest, the beat of the blood against the backs of your eyes, and the look of the sky as the day's blue blood runs out of its cheek.

"Novels\Bag of Bones.txt" 1434 118:The Scout sped by, still accelerating and still sounding pissed off about it. The exhaust was blowing clouds of blue SMOKE. There was a further hideous grinding from the Scout's old transmission. It was like some crazy version of Let's Make a Deal: "Mattie, you've succeeded in getting into second gear-would you like to quit and take the Maytag washer, or do you want to try for third?"

"Novels\Bag of Bones.txt" 1448 273:The brakes screamed in fresh agony. The Jeep took one last walloping, unhappy jerk backward as Mattie stopped without benefit of the clutch. That final lunge took the Scout's rear bumper so close to the rear bumper of my Chevy that you could have bridged the gap with a CIGARETTE. The smell of oil in the air was huge and furry. The kid was waving a hand in front of her face and coughing theatrically.

"Novels\Bag of Bones.txt" 18 511:This time it happened-the sort of accident which happened at that stupid X-shaped intersection at least once a week, it seemed. A 1989 Toyota was pulling out of the shopping-center parking lot and turning left onto Jackson Street. Behind the wheel was Mrs. Esther Easterling of Barrett's Orchards. She was accompanied by her friend Mrs. Irene Deorsey, also of Barrett's Orchards, who had shopped the video store without finding anything she wanted to rent. Too much violence, Irene said. Both women were CIGARETTE widows.

"Novels\Bag of Bones.txt" 20 276:Esther could hardly have missed the orange Public Works dump truck coming down the hill; although she denied this to the police, to the newspaper, and to me when I talked to her some two months later, I think it likely that she just forgot to look. As my own mother (another CIGARETTE widow) used to say, "The two most common ailments of the elderly are arthritis and forgetfulness. They can be held responsible for neither."

"Novels\Bag of Bones.txt" 208 415:Johanna and I had both been English majors at the University of Maine, and like many others, I reckon, we fell in love to the sound of Shakespeare and the Tilbury Town cynicism of Edwin Arlington Robinson. Yet the writer who had bound us closest together was no college-friendly poet or essayist but W. Somerset Maugham, that elderly globetrotting novelist-playwright with the reptile's face (always obscured by CIGARETTE SMOKE in his photographs, it seems) and the romantic's heart. So it did not surprise me much to find that the book under the bed was The Moon and Sixpence. I had read it myself as a late teenager, not once but twice, identifying passionately with the character of Charles Strickland. (It was writing I wanted to do in the South Seas, of course, not painting.)

"Novels\Bag of Bones.txt" 208 425:Johanna and I had both been English majors at the University of Maine, and like many others, I reckon, we fell in love to the sound of Shakespeare and the Tilbury Town cynicism of Edwin Arlington Robinson. Yet the writer who had bound us closest together was no college-friendly poet or essayist but W. Somerset Maugham, that elderly globetrotting novelist-playwright with the reptile's face (always obscured by CIGARETTE SMOKE in his photographs, it seems) and the romantic's heart. So it did not surprise me much to find that the book under the bed was The Moon and Sixpence. I had read it myself as a late teenager, not once but twice, identifying passionately with the character of Charles Strickland. (It was writing I wanted to do in the South Seas, of course, not painting.)

"Novels\Bag of Bones.txt" 255 62:I was sitting on the back stoop, looking up at the stars and SMOKING, when she came out, sat down beside me, and put her hand on the back of my neck.

"Novels\Bag of Bones.txt" 2586 405:"Michael Noonan?" He was handsome in a way that would be attractive to certain women-the kind who cringe when anybody in their immediate vicinity raises his voice, the kind who rarely call the police when things go wrong at home because, on some miserable secret level, they believe they deserve things to go wrong at home. Wrong things that result in black eyes, dislocated elbows, the occasional CIGARETTE burn on the booby. These are women who more often than not call their husbands or lovers daddy, as in "Can I bring you a beer, daddy?" or "Did you have a hard day at work, daddy?"

"Novels\Bag of Bones.txt" 275 72:Later, in bed with the lights out-the last orange eaten and the last CIGARETTE shared-I said, "No one's ever going to confuse it with Look Homeward, Angel, are they?" My book, I meant. She knew it, just as she knew I had been fairly depressed by my old creative-writing teacher's response to Two.

"Novels\Bag of Bones.txt" 3099 240:"I may only be twenty-one, but I'm not stupid," she said. "He's watching me. I know it, and you probably do, too. On another night I might be tempted to say fuck him if he can't take a joke, but it's cooler out there and the SMOKE from the hibachi will keep the worst of the bugs away. Have I shocked you? If so, I'm sorry."

"Novels\Bag of Bones.txt" 3105 328:"I'm glad you came on a Tuesday," she said. "Tuesday nights are hard for me. I'm always thinking of the ballgame down at Warrington's. The guys'll be picking up the gear by now-the bats and bases and catcher's mask-and putting it back in the storage cabinet behind home plate. Drinking their last beers and SMOKING their last CIGARETTES. That's where I met my husband, you know. I'm sure you've been told all that by now."

"Novels\Bag of Bones.txt" 3105 347:"I'm glad you came on a Tuesday," she said. "Tuesday nights are hard for me. I'm always thinking of the ballgame down at Warrington's. The guys'll be picking up the gear by now-the bats and bases and catcher's mask-and putting it back in the storage cabinet behind home plate. Drinking their last beers and SMOKING their last CIGARETTES. That's where I met my husband, you know. I'm sure you've been told all that by now."

"Novels\Bag of Bones.txt" 3123 276:She thought about it carefully. "He played hard, but he wasn't crazed. He was there just for the fun of it. We all were. We women-shit, really just us girls, Barney Therriault's wife, Cindy, was only sixteen-we'd stand behind the backstop on the first-base side, SMOKING CIGARETTES or waving punks to keep the bugs away, cheering our guys when they did something good, laughing when they did something stupid. We'd swap sodas or share a can of beer. I'd admire Helen Geary's twins and she'd kiss Ki under the chin until Ki giggled. Sometimes we'd go down to the Village Cafe afterward and Buddy'd make us pizzas, losers pay. All friends again, you know, after the game. We'd sit there laughing and yelling and blowing straw-wrappers around, some of the guys half-loaded but nobody mean. In those days they got all the mean out on the ballfield. And you know what? None of them come to see me. Not Helen Geary, who was my best friend. Not Richie Lattimore, who was Lance's best friend-the two of them would talk about rocks and birds and the kinds of trees there were across the lake for hours on end. They came to the funeral, and for a little while after, and then . . . you know what it was like? When I was a kid, our well dried up. For awhile you'd get a trickle when you turned on the tap, but then there was just air. Just air." The cynicism was gone and there was only hurt in her voice. "I saw Helen at Christmas, and we promised to get together for the twins' birthday, but we never did. I think she's scared to come near me."

"Novels\Bag of Bones.txt" 3123 284:She thought about it carefully. "He played hard, but he wasn't crazed. He was there just for the fun of it. We all were. We women-shit, really just us girls, Barney Therriault's wife, Cindy, was only sixteen-we'd stand behind the backstop on the first-base side, SMOKING CIGARETTES or waving punks to keep the bugs away, cheering our guys when they did something good, laughing when they did something stupid. We'd swap sodas or share a can of beer. I'd admire Helen Geary's twins and she'd kiss Ki under the chin until Ki giggled. Sometimes we'd go down to the Village Cafe afterward and Buddy'd make us pizzas, losers pay. All friends again, you know, after the game. We'd sit there laughing and yelling and blowing straw-wrappers around, some of the guys half-loaded but nobody mean. In those days they got all the mean out on the ballfield. And you know what? None of them come to see me. Not Helen Geary, who was my best friend. Not Richie Lattimore, who was Lance's best friend-the two of them would talk about rocks and birds and the kinds of trees there were across the lake for hours on end. They came to the funeral, and for a little while after, and then . . . you know what it was like? When I was a kid, our well dried up. For awhile you'd get a trickle when you turned on the tap, but then there was just air. Just air." The cynicism was gone and there was only hurt in her voice. "I saw Helen at Christmas, and we promised to get together for the twins' birthday, but we never did. I think she's scared to come near me."

"Novels\Bag of Bones.txt" 3295 311:"I'll never forget it." She reached into the pocket of her dress, found a battered pack of CIGARETTES, and shook one out. She looked at it with a mixture of greed and disgust. "I quit these because Lance said we couldn't really afford them, and I knew he was right. But the habit creeps back. I only SMOKE a pack a week, and I know damned well even that's too much, but sometimes I need the comfort. Do you want one?"

"Novels\Bag of Bones.txt" 3295 98:"I'll never forget it." She reached into the pocket of her dress, found a battered pack of CIGARETTES, and shook one out. She looked at it with a mixture of greed and disgust. "I quit these because Lance said we couldn't really afford them, and I knew he was right. But the habit creeps back. I only SMOKE a pack a week, and I know damned well even that's too much, but sometimes I need the comfort. Do you want one?"

"Novels\Bag of Bones.txt" 3303 170:"The casket was closed but they still call it a viewing. Weird. I came out to have a CIGARETTE. I told Ki to sit on the funeral parlor steps so she wouldn't get the SMOKE, and I went a little way down the walk. This big gray limo pulled up. I'd never seen anything like it before, except on TV. I knew who it was right away. I put my CIGARETTES back in my purse and told Ki to come. She toddled down the walk and took hold of my hand. The limo door opened, and Rogette Whitmore got out. She had an oxygen mask in one hand, but he didn't need it, at least not then. He got out after her. A tall man-not as tall as you, Mike, but tall-wearing a gray suit and black shoes as shiny as mirrors."

"Novels\Bag of Bones.txt" 3303 341:"The casket was closed but they still call it a viewing. Weird. I came out to have a CIGARETTE. I told Ki to sit on the funeral parlor steps so she wouldn't get the SMOKE, and I went a little way down the walk. This big gray limo pulled up. I'd never seen anything like it before, except on TV. I knew who it was right away. I put my CIGARETTES back in my purse and told Ki to come. She toddled down the walk and took hold of my hand. The limo door opened, and Rogette Whitmore got out. She had an oxygen mask in one hand, but he didn't need it, at least not then. He got out after her. A tall man-not as tall as you, Mike, but tall-wearing a gray suit and black shoes as shiny as mirrors."

"Novels\Bag of Bones.txt" 3303 88:"The casket was closed but they still call it a viewing. Weird. I came out to have a CIGARETTE. I told Ki to sit on the funeral parlor steps so she wouldn't get the SMOKE, and I went a little way down the walk. This big gray limo pulled up. I'd never seen anything like it before, except on TV. I knew who it was right away. I put my CIGARETTES back in my purse and told Ki to come. She toddled down the walk and took hold of my hand. The limo door opened, and Rogette Whitmore got out. She had an oxygen mask in one hand, but he didn't need it, at least not then. He got out after her. A tall man-not as tall as you, Mike, but tall-wearing a gray suit and black shoes as shiny as mirrors."

"Novels\Bag of Bones.txt" 3305 27:She paused, thinking. Her CIGARETTE rose briefly to her mouth, then went back down to the arm of her chair, a red firefly in the weak moonlight.

"Novels\Bag of Bones.txt" 3319 5:Her CIGARETTE paused in front of her mouth. Her eyes were round. "How do you know that? How can you know that?"

"Novels\Bag of Bones.txt" 3335 59:"I'm pretty sure that's the one." She dropped her CIGARETTE-she'd SMOKED it all the way down to the filter-and stepped on it, grinding it into the bony, rock-riddled ground with one white sneaker. "But Ki wasn't scared of her a bit. Not then, not later. She bent down to Kyra and said, 'What rhymes with lady?' and Kyra said 'Shady!' right off. Even at two she loved rhymes. Rogette reached into her purse and brought out a Hershey's Kiss. Ki looked at me to see if she had permission and I said, 'All right, but just one, and I don't want to see any of it on your dress.' Ki popped it into her mouth and smiled at Rogette as if they'd been friends since forever.

"Novels\Bag of Bones.txt" 3335 79:"I'm pretty sure that's the one." She dropped her CIGARETTE-she'd SMOKED it all the way down to the filter-and stepped on it, grinding it into the bony, rock-riddled ground with one white sneaker. "But Ki wasn't scared of her a bit. Not then, not later. She bent down to Kyra and said, 'What rhymes with lady?' and Kyra said 'Shady!' right off. Even at two she loved rhymes. Rogette reached into her purse and brought out a Hershey's Kiss. Ki looked at me to see if she had permission and I said, 'All right, but just one, and I don't want to see any of it on your dress.' Ki popped it into her mouth and smiled at Rogette as if they'd been friends since forever.

"Novels\Bag of Bones.txt" 3353 128:"Well . . . one day in February Lindy Briggs told me that George Footman had been in to check the fire extinguishers and the SMOKE detectors in the library. He also asked if Lindy had found any beer cans or liquor bottles in the trash lately. Or CIGARETTE butts that were obviously homemade."

"Novels\Bag of Bones.txt" 3353 249:"Well . . . one day in February Lindy Briggs told me that George Footman had been in to check the fire extinguishers and the SMOKE detectors in the library. He also asked if Lindy had found any beer cans or liquor bottles in the trash lately. Or CIGARETTE butts that were obviously homemade."

"Novels\Bag of Bones.txt" 3375 40:"I don't know." She took out her CIGARETTES, looked at them, then stuffed the pack back in her pocket. "It wasn't just that my father-in-law was looking for dirty laundry in my closets, either. It was Ki. I started to worry about Ki all the time she was with him . . . with them. Rogette would come in the BMW they'd bought or leased, and Ki would be sitting out on the steps waiting for her. With her bag of toys if it was a day-visit, with her little pink Minnie Mouse suitcase if it was an overnight. And she'd always come back with one more thing than she left with. My father-in-law's a great believer in presents. Before popping her into the car, Rogette would give me that cold little smile of hers and say, 'Seven o'clock then, we'll give her supper' or 'Eight o'clock then, and a nice hot breakfast before she leaves.' I'd say okay, and then Rogette would reach into her bag and hold out a Hershey's Kiss to Ki just the way you'd hold a biscuit out to a dog to make it shake hands. She'd say a word and Kyra would rhyme it. Rogette would toss her her treat-woof-woof, good dog, I always used to think-and off they'd go. Come seven in the evening or eight in the morning, the BMW would pull in right where your car's parked now. You could set your clock by the woman. But I got worried."

"Novels\Bag of Bones.txt" 3694 378:On the path between Jo's studio and the house I stood in the dark with the typewriter in my arms and that dream-spanning erection quivering below its metal bulk-all that ready and nothing willing. Except maybe for the night breeze. Then I became aware I was no longer alone. The shroud-thing was behind me, called like the moths to the party lights. It laughed-a brazen, SMOKE-broken laugh that could belong to only one woman. I didn't see the hand that reached around my hip to grip me-the typewriter was in the way-but I didn't need to see it to know its color was brown. It squeezed, slowly tightening, the fingers wriggling.

"Novels\Bag of Bones.txt" 4072 418:There was one mentionably odd detail to these festivities. The stenographer wasn't using one of those keyboards-on-a-post that look like adding machines, but a Stenomask, a gadget which fit over the lower half of his face. I had seen them before, but only in old black-and-white crime movies, the ones where Dan Duryea or John Payne is always driving around in a Buick with portholes on the sides, looking grim and SMOKING a Camel. Glancing over into the corner and seeing a guy who looked like the world's oldest fighter-pilot was weird enough, but hearing everything you said immediately repeated in a muffled monotone was even weirder.

"Novels\Bag of Bones.txt" 4863 203:"Elmer Durgin's a little lawyer from a little township tucked away in the big woods of western Maine, that's all. How could he know that some guardian angel would come along with the resources to SMOKE him out? He also bought a boat, by the way. Two weeks ago. It's a twin outboard. A big 'un. It's over, Mike. The home team scores nine runs in the bottom of the ninth and the fucking pennant is ours."

"Novels\Bag of Bones.txt" 4883 655:We said goodbye, and I sat watching the muted baseball game. I thought about getting up to get a beer, but it seemed too far to the refrigerator-a safari, in fact. What I felt was a kind of dull hurt, followed by a better emotion: rueful relief, I guess you'd call it. Was he too old for her? No, I didn't think so. Just about right. Prince Charming No. 2, this time in a three-piece suit. Mattie's luck with men might finally be changing, and if so I should be glad. I would be glad. And relieved. Because I had a book to write, and never mind the look of white sneakers flashing below a red sundress in the deepening gloom, or the ember of her CIGARETTE dancing in the dark.

"Novels\Bag of Bones.txt" 5603 285:"Did you enjoy your swim?" Rogette Whitmore asked in a smoky, mocking voice. If I hadn't seen her in the flesh, I might have imagined a Barbara Stanwyck type at her most coldly attractive, coiled on a red velvet couch in a peach-silk dressing gown, telephone in one hand, ivory CIGARETTE holder in the other.

"Novels\Bag of Bones.txt" 5816 304:"I understand how you feel, but tell her not to shove it in folks' faces," he almost pleaded. "Do that much, Mike. It wouldn't kill her to drag her grill around back of her trailer, would it? At least with it there, folks lookin out from the store or the garage wouldn't see nothing but the SMOKE."

"Novels\Bag of Bones.txt" 6483 50:"She went inside. I sat on the hood of my car, SMOKING CIGARETTES. I was still SMOKING then. And you know, I did start to feel something then that wasn't right. As if there might be someone in the house who'd been waiting for her, someone who didn't like her. Maybe someone who wanted to hurt her. Probably I just picked that up from Jo-the way her nerves seemed all strung up, the way she kept looking over my shoulder at the house even while she was hugging me-but it seemed like something else. Like a . . . I don't know . . ."

"Novels\Bag of Bones.txt" 6483 58:"She went inside. I sat on the hood of my car, SMOKING CIGARETTES. I was still SMOKING then. And you know, I did start to feel something then that wasn't right. As if there might be someone in the house who'd been waiting for her, someone who didn't like her. Maybe someone who wanted to hurt her. Probably I just picked that up from Jo-the way her nerves seemed all strung up, the way she kept looking over my shoulder at the house even while she was hugging me-but it seemed like something else. Like a . . . I don't know . . ."

"Novels\Bag of Bones.txt" 6483 82:"She went inside. I sat on the hood of my car, SMOKING CIGARETTES. I was still SMOKING then. And you know, I did start to feel something then that wasn't right. As if there might be someone in the house who'd been waiting for her, someone who didn't like her. Maybe someone who wanted to hurt her. Probably I just picked that up from Jo-the way her nerves seemed all strung up, the way she kept looking over my shoulder at the house even while she was hugging me-but it seemed like something else. Like a . . . I don't know . . ."

"Novels\Bag of Bones.txt" 6491 29:"I sat and waited. I only SMOKED two CIGARETTES so I don't guess it could have been longer than twenty minutes or half an hour, but it seemed longer. I kept noticing how the sounds from the lake seemed to make it most of the way up the hill and then just kind of . . . quit. And how there didn't seem to be any birds, except far off in the distance.

"Novels\Bag of Bones.txt" 6491 40:"I sat and waited. I only SMOKED two CIGARETTES so I don't guess it could have been longer than twenty minutes or half an hour, but it seemed longer. I kept noticing how the sounds from the lake seemed to make it most of the way up the hill and then just kind of . . . quit. And how there didn't seem to be any birds, except far off in the distance.

"Novels\Bag of Bones.txt" 6497 87:"I don't know. She was gone another fifteen minutes or so-time enough for me to SMOKE another butt-and then she came back out the front door. She checked to make sure it was locked, and then she came up to me. She looked a lot better. Relieved. The way people look when they do some dirty job they've been putting off, finally get it behind them. She suggested we walk down that path she called The Street to the resort that's down there-"

"Novels\Bag of Bones.txt" 6539 439:"All right. I understand." And I did-just not enough. What had Jo discovered? That Normal Auster had drowned his infant son under a handpump? That back around the turn of the century an animal trap had been left in a place where a young Negro boy would be apt to come along and step into it? That another boy, perhaps the incestuous child of Son and Sara Tidwell, had been drowned by his mother in the lake, she maybe laughing that SMOKE-broken, lunatic laugh as she held him down? You gotta wiggle when you wobble, honey, and hold that young 'un way down deep.

"Novels\Bag of Bones.txt" 6694 1365:I started walking in that direction, aware of cows mooing and sheep blatting from the exhibition barns-the Fair's version of my childhood Hi-Ho Dairy-O. I walked past the shooting gallery and the ringtoss and the penny-pitch; I walked past a stage where The Handmaidens of Angelina were weaving in a slow, snakelike dance with their hands pressed together as a guy with a turban on his head and shoe-polish on his face tooted a flute. The picture painted on stretched canvas suggested that Angelina-on view inside for just one tenth of a dollar, neighbor-would make these two look like old boots. I walked past the entrance to Freak Alley, the corn-roasting pit, the Ghost House, where more stretched canvas depicted spooks coming out of broken windows and crumbling chimneys. Everything in there is death, I thought . . . but from inside I could hear children who were very much alive laughing and squealing as they bumped into things in the dark. The older among them were likely stealing kisses. I passed the Test Your Strength pole, where the gradations leading to the brass bell at the top were marked BABY NEEDS HIS BOTTLE, SISSY, TRY AGAIN, BIG BOY, HE-MAN, and, just below the bell itself, in red: HERCULES! Standing at the center of a little crowd a young man with red hair was removing his shirt, revealing a heavily muscled upper torso. A cigar-SMOKING carny held a hammer out to him. I passed the quilting booth, a tent where people were sitting on benches and playing Bingo, the baseball pitch. I passed them all and hardly noticed. I was in the zone, tranced out. "You'll have to call him back," Jo had sometimes told Harold when he phoned, "Michael is currently in the Land of Big Make-Believe." Only now nothing felt like pretend and the only thing that interested me was the stage at the base of the Ferris wheel. There were eight black folks up there on it, maybe ten. Standing at the front, wearing a guitar and whaling on it as she sang, was Sara Tidwell. She was alive. She was in her prime. She threw back her head and laughed at the October sky.

"Novels\Bag of Bones.txt" 6728 23:Onstage, the band was SMOKING through an instrumental break. Reginald "Son" Tidwell strolled over to Sara, feet ambling, hands a brown blur on the strings and frets of his guitar, and she turned to face him. They put their foreheads together, she laughing and he solemn; they looked into each other's eyes and tried to play each other down, the crowd cheering and clapping, the rest of the Red-Tops laughing as they played. Seeing them together like that, I realized that I had been right: they were brother and sister. The resemblance was too strong to be missed or mistaken. But mostly what I looked at was the way her hips and butt switched in that white dress. Kyra and I might be dressed in turn-of-the-century country clothes, but Sara was thoroughly modern Millie. No bloomers for her, no petticoats, no cotton stockings. No one seemed to notice that she was wearing a dress that stopped above her knees-that she was all but naked by the standards of this time. And under Mattie's dress she'd be wearing garments the like of which these people had never seen: a Lycra bra and hip-hugger nylon panties. If I put my hands on her waist, the dress would slip not against an unwelcoming corset but against soft bare skin. Brown skin, not white. What do you want, sugar?

"Novels\Bag of Bones.txt" 7309 879:A draft-not cold but warm, like the rush of air produced by a subway train on a summer night-buffeted past me. In it I heard a strange voice which seemed to be saying Bye-BY, bye-BY, bye-BY, as if wishing me a good trip home. Then, as it dawned on me that the voice was actually saying Ki-Ki, Ki-Ki, Ki-Ki, something struck me and knocked me violently forward. It felt like a large soft fist. I buckled over the table, clawing at it to stay up, overturning the lazy susan with the salt and pepper shakers on it, the napkin holder, the little vase Mrs. M. had filled with daisies. The vase rolled off the table and shattered. The kitchen TV blared on, some politician talking about how inflation was on the march again. The CD player started up, drowning out the politician; it was the Rolling Stones doing a cover of Sara Tidwell's "I Regret You, Baby." Upstairs, one SMOKE alarm went off, then another, then a third. They were joined a moment later by the warble-whoop of the Chevy's car alarm. The whole world was cacophony.

"Novels\Bag of Bones.txt" 7319 154:I turned off the CD player just as Mick and Keith moved on to a white-boy version of Howling Wolf, then ran upstairs and pushed the reset buttons on the SMOKE-detectors. I leaned out the window of the big guest bedroom while I was up there, aimed the fob of my keyring down at the Chevrolet, and pushed the button on it. The alarm quit.

"Novels\Bag of Bones.txt" 8252 387:I carried her to her room and put her on her bed. By then she was totally conked out. I wiped the cream off her nose and picked the corn-kernel off her chin. I glanced at my watch and saw it was ten 'til two. They would be gathering at Grace Baptist by now. Bill Dean was wearing a gray tie. Buddy Jellison had a hat on. He was standing behind the church with some other men who were SMOKING before going inside.

"Novels\Bag of Bones.txt" 8302 291:And I saw the car I'd seen before-the nondescript sedan with the joke sticker on it. It had gone up the road-the men inside making that first pass to check us out-then turned around and come back. The shooter was still leaning out the front passenger window. I could see the stubby SMOKING weapon in his hands. It had a wire stock. His features were a blue blank broken only by huge gaping eyesockets-a ski-mask.

"Novels\Bag of Bones.txt" 8326 325:She slid against me, slippery as a fish, and screamed her daughter's name, holding out her bloody hands toward the trailer. The rose-colored shorts and top had gone bright red. Blood spattered the grass as she thrashed and pulled. From down the hill there was a guttural explosion as the Ford's gas-tank exploded. Black SMOKE rose toward a black sky. Thunder roared long and loud, as if the sky were saying You want noise? Yeah? I'll give you noise.

"Novels\Bag of Bones.txt" 8379 212:The shooter said, "Jesus Christ," and yanked off his mask. It was George Footman. Not much surprise there. From behind him, the driver gave one more shriek from within the Ford fireball and then was silent. SMOKE rose in black billows. More thunder roared.

"Novels\Bag of Bones.txt" 8419 303:"No, Kyra, no!" I sprinted across the kitchen, almost tripping over Rommie (he looked at me with the dim incomprehension of someone who is no longer completely conscious), and grabbed her just in time. As I did, I saw Buddy Jellison leaving Grace Baptist by a side door. Two of the men he had been SMOKING with went with him. Now I understood why Bill was holding so tightly to Yvette, and loved him for it-loved both of them. Something wanted him to go with Buddy and the others . . . but Bill wasn't going.

"Novels\Bag of Bones.txt" 8501 250:I didn't answer. There wasn't time. I stopped and took George Kennedy's pulse. Slow but strong. Beside him, Footman was deep in unconsciousness, but muttering thickly. Nowhere near dead. It takes a lot to kill a daddy. The jerky wind blew the SMOKE from the overturned car in my direction, and now I could smell cooking flesh as well as barbecued steak. My stomach clenched again.

"Novels\Bag of Bones.txt" 8777 134:over that way, I was sure of it," she said, "but when I couldn't see her anywhere, I went to look in the hot tub." She lit a CIGARETTE. "What I saw made me feel like screaming, Andy-Karen was underwater. All that was out was her hand . . . the nails were turning purple. After that . . . I guess I dived in, but I don't remember; I was zoned out. Everything from then on is like a dream where stuff runs together in your mind. The yard-guy-Sanborn-shoved me aside and dived. His foot hit me in the throat and I couldn't swallow for a week. He yanked up on Karen's arm. I thought he'd pull it off her damn shoulder, but he got her. He got her."

"Novels\Bag of Bones.txt" 8882 412:The sound of moving air began to-how do I express this?-to focus somehow, until it wasn't the sound of air but the sound of voices-panting, unearthly voices full of fury. They would have screamed if they'd had vocal cords to scream with. Dusty air swirled up in the beam of my flashlight, making helix shapes that danced together, then reeled apart again. For just a moment I heard Sara's snarling, SMOKE-broken voice: "Git out, bitch! You git on out! This ain't none of yours-" And then a curious insubstantial thud, as if air had collided with air. This was followed by a rushing wind-tunnel shriek that I recognized: I'd heard it in the middle of the night. Jo was screaming. Sara was hurting her, Sara was punishing her for presuming to interfere, and Jo was screaming.

"Novels\Bag of Bones.txt" 8928 630:"Jo," I said, and then couldn't say anything else. My throat had closed up with tears. I held the negative for a moment, not wanting to lose contact with it, then put it back in the box with the papers and steno books. This stuff was why she had come to Sara in July of 1994; to gather it up and hide it as well as she could. She had taken the owls off the deck (Frank had heard the door out there bang) and had carried them out here. I could almost see her prying the base off one owl and stuffing the tin box up its plastic wazoo, wrapping both of them in plastic, then dragging them down here, all while her brother sat SMOKING Marlboros and feeling the vibrations. The bad vibrations. I doubted if I would ever know all the reasons why she'd done it, or what her frame of mind had been . . . but she had almost certainly believed I'd find my own way down here eventually. Why else had she left the negative?

"Novels\Bag of Bones.txt" 8940 850:I shuffled through them quickly, looking for anything about the circumstances under which "our Southern blackbirds" had left. I found nothing. What I found instead was a clipping from the Call marked July 19th (go down nineteen, I thought), 1933. The headline read VETERAN GUIDE, CARETAKER, CANNOT SAVE DAUGHTER. According to the story, Fred Dean had been fighting the wildfires in the eastern part of the TR with two hundred other men when the wind had suddenly changed, menacing the north end of the lake, which had previously been considered safe. At that time a great many local people had kept fishing and hunting camps up there (this much I knew myself). The community had had a general store and an actual name, Halo Bay. Fred's wife, Hilda, was there with the Dean twins, William and Carla, age three, while her husband was off eating SMOKE. A good many other wives and kids were in Halo Bay, as well.

"Novels\Bag of Bones.txt" 8946 204:The road was too narrow to get a vehicle turned around and too blocked to get one of those pointed in the right direction through the crush. So Fred Dean, hero that he was, set off on the run toward the SMOKE-blackened horizon, where bright ribbons of orange had already begun to shine through. The wind-driven fire had crowned and raced to meet him like a lover.

"Novels\Bag of Bones.txt" 8982 325:Her white dress floats around her like a lily. Her red stockings shimmer in the water. She hugs his neck tightly and now they are among the fleeing loons; the loons spank the water with their powerful wings, churning up curds of foam and staring at the man and the girl with their distraught red eyes. The air is heavy with SMOKE and the sky is gone. I stagger after them, wading-I can feel the cold of the water, although I don't splash and leave no wake. The eastern and northern edges of the lake are both on fire now-there is a burning crescent around us as Fred Dean wades deeper with his daughter, carrying her as if to some baptismal rite. And still he tells himself he is trying to save her, only to save her, just as all her life Hilda will tell herself that the child just wandered back to the cottage to look for a toy, that she was not left behind on purpose, left in her white dress and red stockings to be found by her father, who once did something unspeakable. This is the past, this is the Land of Ago, and here the sins of the fathers are visited on the children, even unto the seventh generation, which is not yet.

"Novels\Bag of Bones.txt" 9173 489:Then he trips over a root or a rock (perhaps it's the very rock behind which she will finally come to rest) and falls down. His cap falls off, showing the big old bald spot on top of his head. His pants split all the way up the seam. And Sara makes a crucial mistake. Perhaps she underestimates Jared Devore's own very considerable personal force, or perhaps she just cannot help herself-the sound of his britches ripping is like a loud fart. In any case she laughs-that raucous, SMOKE-broken laugh which is her trademark. And her laugh becomes her doom.

"Novels\Bag of Bones.txt" 9297 469:I pulled the sack out of the carry-bag and grabbed the plastic bottle which had been inside. Lye stille, the Magnabet letters had said; another little wordtrick. Another message passed behind the unsuspecting guard's back. Sara Tidwell was a fearsome creature, but she had underestimated Jo . . . and she had underestimated the telepathy of long association, as well. I had gone to Slips 'n Greens, I had bought a bottle of lye, and now I opened it and poured it, SMOKING, over the bones of Sara and her son.

"Novels\Bag of Bones.txt" 9333 296:Than what? Than what? Either it was all real or none of it was real. If none of it was real, I was out of my mind and ready for the Blue Wing at Juniper Hill. I looked over toward the gray rock and saw the bag of bones I had pulled out of the wet ground like a festering tooth. Lazy tendrils of SMOKE were still rising from its ripped length. That much was real. So was the Green Lady, who was now a soot-colored Black Lady-as dead as the dead branch behind her, the one that seemed to point like an arm.

"Novels\Black House.txt" 10217 208:"Turn left," Burny grunts, settling back. "Three miles. Give or take." And, as Tyler makes the turn, he realizes the ribbons of mist rising from the ground aren't mist at all. They're ribbons of SMOKE.

"Novels\Black House.txt" 10407 316:They are in a foul little shack. The sounds of clashing machinery are much closer. Ty can also hear screams and sobs and harsh yells and what can only be the whistling crack of whips. They are very near the Big Combination now. Ty has seen it, a great crisscrossing confusion of metal rising into the clouds from a SMOKING pit about half a mile east. It looks like a madman's conception of a skyscraper, a Rube Goldberg collection of chutes and cables and belts and platforms, everything run by the marching, staggering children who roll the belts and pull the great levers. Red-tinged SMOKE rises from it in stinking fumes.

"Novels\Black House.txt" 10407 589:They are in a foul little shack. The sounds of clashing machinery are much closer. Ty can also hear screams and sobs and harsh yells and what can only be the whistling crack of whips. They are very near the Big Combination now. Ty has seen it, a great crisscrossing confusion of metal rising into the clouds from a SMOKING pit about half a mile east. It looks like a madman's conception of a skyscraper, a Rube Goldberg collection of chutes and cables and belts and platforms, everything run by the marching, staggering children who roll the belts and pull the great levers. Red-tinged SMOKE rises from it in stinking fumes.

"Novels\Black House.txt" 10445 440:Ah, but it's hard. The cap he's wearing actually helps a little in this respect-it has a dulling effect that helps hold the panic at bay-but it's still hard. Because he's not the first kid the old man has brought here, no more than he was the first to spend long, slow hours in that cell back at the old man's house. There's a blackened, grease-caked barbecue set up in the left corner of the shed, underneath a tin-plated SMOKE hole. The grill is hooked up to a couple of gas bottles with LA RIVIERE PROPANE stenciled on the sides. Hung on the wall are oven mitts, spatulas, tongs, basting brushes, and meat forks. There are scissors and tenderizing hammers and at least four keen-bladed carving knives. One of the knives looks almost as long as a ceremonial sword.

"Novels\Black House.txt" 10503 226:He lets go and turns to his left, pivoting on his shackled hand. He sees the old man swaying before him in the shadows. Beyond him, the golf cart stands in the open door, outlined against a sky filled with clouds and burning SMOKE. The old monster's eyes are huge and disbelieving, bulging with tears. He gapes at the little boy who has done this.

"Novels\Black House.txt" 10649 748:Jack lets out a little sigh of awe. There's enough kid left in him to react to the object that he sees, even though he never played the game once he was too old for Little League. Because there's something about a bat, isn't there? Something that speaks to our primitive beliefs about the purity of struggle and the strength of our team. The home team. Of the right and the white. Surely Bernard Malamud knew it; Jack has read The Natural a score of times, always hoping for a different ending (and when the movie offered him one, he hated it), always loving the fact that Roy Hobbs named his cudgel Wonderboy. And never mind the critics with all their stuffy talk about the Arthurian legend and phallic symbols; sometimes a cigar is just a SMOKE and sometimes a bat is just a bat. A big stick. Something to hit home runs with.

"Novels\Black House.txt" 10807 159:Jack's mind is suddenly filled with thoughts and images of his mother: Lily dancing, Lily pacing around behind one of the cameras before a big scene with a CIGARETTE clamped between her teeth, Lily sitting at the living-room window and looking out as Patsy Cline sings "Crazy Arms."

"Novels\Black House.txt" 10987 228:Dale Gilbertson has lived in the Coulee Country his entire life, and he's used to greenery. To him trees and lawns and fields that roll all the way to the horizon are the norm. Perhaps this is why he looks at the charred and SMOKING lands that surround Conger Road with such distaste and growing dismay.

"Novels\Black House.txt" 11145 120:Jack steps forward to where the blinded, howling, charred thing reels back and forth in the Conger Road, his bony vest SMOKING, his long white hands groping. Jack cocks the bat back on his right shoulder and sets his grip all the way down to the knob. No choking up this afternoon; this afternoon he's wielding a bat that blazes with glowing white fire, and he'd be a fool not to swing for the fences.

"Novels\Black House.txt" 11205 74:Jack points at the ugly complication of struts and belts and girders and SMOKING chimneys. He points at the straining ants. The Big Combination disappears up into the clouds and down into the dead ground. How far in each direction? A mile? Two? Are there children above the clouds, shivering in oxygen masks as they trudge the treadmills and yank the levers and turn the cranks? Children below who bake in the heat of underground fires? Down there in the foxholes and the ratholes where the sun never shines?

"Novels\Black House.txt" 11277 377:Then a rumble emerges from the bowels of the Big Combination. Its upper portion wavers like a heat mirage. The guards hesitate, and the screams of tortured metal rip through the air. Visibly confused, the toiling children look up, look in all directions. The mechanical screaming intensifies, then divides into a hundred different versions of torture. Gears reverse. Cogs jam SMOKING to a halt; cogs accelerate and strip their teeth. The whole of the Big Combination shivers and quakes. Deep in the earth, boilers detonate, and columns of fire and steam shoot upward, halting, sometimes shredding belts that have run for thousands of years, powered by billions of bleeding footsies.

"Novels\Black House.txt" 11321 483:Dale stops, peers in the rearview mirror, and whispers: "Oh, Jack. Holy Mother of God." He puts the cruiser in park and gets out. They all get out, looking back at Black House. Its shape remains ordinary, but it has not quite given up all of its magic after all, it seems. Somewhere a door-perhaps in the cellar or a bedroom or a dirty and neglected but otherwise perfectly ordinary kitchen-remains open. On this side is the Coulee Country; on the other is Conger Road, the SMOKING, newly stopped hulk of the Big Combination, and the Din-tah.

"Novels\Black House.txt" 119 522:At 11:15 the previous night, Armand "Beezer" St. Pierre and his fellow travelers in the Thunder Five had roared up from Nailhouse Row to surge into the police station and demand of its three occupants, each of whom had worked an eighteen-hour shift, exact details of the progress they were making on the issue that most concerned them all. What the hell was going on here? What about the third one, huh, what about Irma Freneau? Had they found her yet? Did these clowns have anything, or were they still just blowing SMOKE? You need help? Beezer roared, Then deputize us, we'll give you all the goddamn help you need and then some. A giant named Mouse had strolled smirking up to Bobby Dulac and kept on strolling, jumbo belly to six-pack belly, until Bobby was backed up against a filing cabinet, whereupon the giant Mouse had mysteriously inquired, in a cloud of beer and marijuana, whether Bobby had ever dipped into the works of a gentleman named Jacques Derrida. When Bobby replied that he had never heard of the gentleman, Mouse said, "No shit, Sherlock," and stepped aside to glare at the names on the chalkboard. Half an hour later, Beezer, Mouse, and their companions were sent away unsatisfied, undeputized, but pacified, and Dale Gilbertson said he had to go home and get some sleep, but Tom ought to remain, just in case. The regular night men had both found excuses not to come in. Bobby said he would stay, too, no problem, Chief, which is why we find these two men in the station so early in the morning.

"Novels\Black House.txt" 1251 566:Jack bends over the sink and, for the sake of refreshment internal and external, immerses his face in a double handful of cold water. For the moment, the cleansing shock washes away the ruined breakfast, the ridiculous telephone call, and the corrosive image flashes. It is time to strap on his skates and get going. In twenty-five minutes, Jack Sawyer's best friend and only confidant will, with his customary aura of rotary perception, emerge through the front door of KDCUAM's cinder-block building and, applying his golden lighter's flame to the tip of a CIGARETTE, glide down the walkway to Peninsula Drive. Should rotary perception inform him that Jack Sawyer's pickup awaits, Henry Leyden will unerringly locate the handle and climb in. This exhibition of blind-man cool is too dazzling to miss.

"Novels\Black House.txt" 1501 166:We glimpsed a janitor on our whirlwind early-morning tour of Maxton Elder Care-do you happen to remember him? Baggy overalls? A wee bit thick in the gut? Dangling CIGARETTE in spite of the NO SMOKING! LUNGS AT WORK! signs that have been posted every twenty feet or so along the patient corridors? A mop that looks like a clot of dead spiders? No? Don't apologize. It's easy enough to overlook Pete Wexler, a onetime nondescript youth (final grade average at French Landing High School: 79) who passed through a nondescript young manhood and has now reached the edge of what he expects to be a nondescript middle age. His only hobby is administering the occasional secret, savage pinch to the moldy oldies who fill his days with their grunts, nonsensical questions, and smells of gas and piss. The Alzheimer's assholes are the worst. He has been known to stub out the occasional CIGARETTE on their scrawny backs or buttocks. He likes their strangled cries when the heat hits and the pain cores in. This small and ugly torture has a double-barreled effect: it wakes them up a little and satisfies something in him. Brightens his days, somehow. Refreshes the old outlook. Besides, who are they going to tell?

"Novels\Black House.txt" 1501 195:We glimpsed a janitor on our whirlwind early-morning tour of Maxton Elder Care-do you happen to remember him? Baggy overalls? A wee bit thick in the gut? Dangling CIGARETTE in spite of the NO SMOKING! LUNGS AT WORK! signs that have been posted every twenty feet or so along the patient corridors? A mop that looks like a clot of dead spiders? No? Don't apologize. It's easy enough to overlook Pete Wexler, a onetime nondescript youth (final grade average at French Landing High School: 79) who passed through a nondescript young manhood and has now reached the edge of what he expects to be a nondescript middle age. His only hobby is administering the occasional secret, savage pinch to the moldy oldies who fill his days with their grunts, nonsensical questions, and smells of gas and piss. The Alzheimer's assholes are the worst. He has been known to stub out the occasional CIGARETTE on their scrawny backs or buttocks. He likes their strangled cries when the heat hits and the pain cores in. This small and ugly torture has a double-barreled effect: it wakes them up a little and satisfies something in him. Brightens his days, somehow. Refreshes the old outlook. Besides, who are they going to tell?

"Novels\Black House.txt" 1501 887:We glimpsed a janitor on our whirlwind early-morning tour of Maxton Elder Care-do you happen to remember him? Baggy overalls? A wee bit thick in the gut? Dangling CIGARETTE in spite of the NO SMOKING! LUNGS AT WORK! signs that have been posted every twenty feet or so along the patient corridors? A mop that looks like a clot of dead spiders? No? Don't apologize. It's easy enough to overlook Pete Wexler, a onetime nondescript youth (final grade average at French Landing High School: 79) who passed through a nondescript young manhood and has now reached the edge of what he expects to be a nondescript middle age. His only hobby is administering the occasional secret, savage pinch to the moldy oldies who fill his days with their grunts, nonsensical questions, and smells of gas and piss. The Alzheimer's assholes are the worst. He has been known to stub out the occasional CIGARETTE on their scrawny backs or buttocks. He likes their strangled cries when the heat hits and the pain cores in. This small and ugly torture has a double-barreled effect: it wakes them up a little and satisfies something in him. Brightens his days, somehow. Refreshes the old outlook. Besides, who are they going to tell?

"Novels\Black House.txt" 1505 80:Thank God cleaning 'em up isn't my job, Pete thinks, and smirks around his CIGARETTE. Over to you, Butch.

"Novels\Black House.txt" 1507 220:But the desk up there by the little boys' and girls' rooms is for the time being unattended. Butch Yerxa is going to miss the charming sight of Burny's dirty ass sailing by. Butch has apparently stepped out for a SMOKE, although Pete has told the idiot a hundred times that all those NO SMOKING signs mean nothing-Chipper Maxton could care less about who SMOKED where (or where the smokes were butted out, for that matter). The signs are just there to keep good old Drooler Manor in compliance with certain tiresome state laws.

"Novels\Black House.txt" 1507 294:But the desk up there by the little boys' and girls' rooms is for the time being unattended. Butch Yerxa is going to miss the charming sight of Burny's dirty ass sailing by. Butch has apparently stepped out for a SMOKE, although Pete has told the idiot a hundred times that all those NO SMOKING signs mean nothing-Chipper Maxton could care less about who SMOKED where (or where the smokes were butted out, for that matter). The signs are just there to keep good old Drooler Manor in compliance with certain tiresome state laws.

"Novels\Black House.txt" 1507 364:But the desk up there by the little boys' and girls' rooms is for the time being unattended. Butch Yerxa is going to miss the charming sight of Burny's dirty ass sailing by. Butch has apparently stepped out for a SMOKE, although Pete has told the idiot a hundred times that all those NO SMOKING signs mean nothing-Chipper Maxton could care less about who SMOKED where (or where the smokes were butted out, for that matter). The signs are just there to keep good old Drooler Manor in compliance with certain tiresome state laws.

"Novels\Black House.txt" 1525 83:"Common room, Pete. On the double. And how many times have you been told not to SMOKE in the patient wings?"

"Novels\Black House.txt" 1773 46:Butch Yerxa intended to go in after a single SMOKE-there's always a lot to do on Strawberry Fest! days (although kindhearted Butch doesn't hate the little artificial holiday the way Pete Wexler does). Then Petra English, an orderly from Asphodel, wandered over and they started talking motorcycles, and before you know it twenty minutes have passed.

"Novels\Black House.txt" 1775 515:He tells Petra he has to go, she tells him to keep the shiny side up and the rubber side down, and Butch slips back in through the door to an unpleasant surprise. There is Charles Burnside, starkers, standing beside the desk with his hand on the rock Butch uses as a paperweight. (His son made it in camp last year-painted the words on it, anyway-and Butch thinks it's cute as hell.) Butch has nothing against the residents-certainly he would give Pete Wexler a pasting if he knew about the thing with the CIGARETTES, never mind just reporting him-but he doesn't like them touching his things. Especially this guy, who is fairly nasty when he has his few wits about him. Which he does now. Butch can see it in his eyes. The real Charles Burnside has come up for air, perhaps in honor of Strawberry Fest!

"Novels\Black House.txt" 215 373:. . . and before Chipper obliges her, we do the sensible thing and float out into the lobby, which is still empty. A corridor to the left of the reception desk takes us to two large, blond, glass-inset doors marked DAISY and BLUEBELL, the names of the wings to which they give entrance. Far down the gray length of Bluebell, a man in baggy coveralls dribbles ash from his CIGARETTE onto the tiles over which he is dragging, with exquisite slowness, a filthy mop. We move into Daisy.

"Novels\Black House.txt" 2161 252:In Dale Gilbertson's office there is a bulletin board dominated by enlarged photographs of Amy St. Pierre and Johnny Irkenham. A third photo will be added soon, he fears-that of Irma Freneau. Beneath the two current photos, Dale sits at his desk, SMOKING a Marlboro 100. He's got the fan on. It will, he hopes, blow the SMOKE away. Sarah would just about kill him if she knew he was SMOKING again, but dear Jesus Christ, he needs something.

"Novels\Black House.txt" 2161 327:In Dale Gilbertson's office there is a bulletin board dominated by enlarged photographs of Amy St. Pierre and Johnny Irkenham. A third photo will be added soon, he fears-that of Irma Freneau. Beneath the two current photos, Dale sits at his desk, SMOKING a Marlboro 100. He's got the fan on. It will, he hopes, blow the SMOKE away. Sarah would just about kill him if she knew he was SMOKING again, but dear Jesus Christ, he needs something.

"Novels\Black House.txt" 2161 390:In Dale Gilbertson's office there is a bulletin board dominated by enlarged photographs of Amy St. Pierre and Johnny Irkenham. A third photo will be added soon, he fears-that of Irma Freneau. Beneath the two current photos, Dale sits at his desk, SMOKING a Marlboro 100. He's got the fan on. It will, he hopes, blow the SMOKE away. Sarah would just about kill him if she knew he was SMOKING again, but dear Jesus Christ, he needs something.

"Novels\Black House.txt" 2167 65:The door opens. Bobby Dulac sticks his head in. Dale mashes his CIGARETTE out on the inside lip of the wastebasket, burning the back of his hand with sparks in the process.

"Novels\Black House.txt" 2171 40:"Sorry, Chief." Bobby looks at the SMOKE ribboning up from the wastebasket with neither surprise nor interest. "Danny Tcheda's on the phone. I think you better take it."

"Novels\Black House.txt" 2397 193:"Sure. What happened was, I went outside for a SMOKE, see?" This is less than strictly truthful. Faced with the choice of walking ten yards to the Daisy corridor men's room to flush his CIGARETTE down a toilet or walking ten feet to the entrance and pitching it into the parking lot, Pete had sensibly elected outdoor disposal. "So I get outside and that's when I saw it. This police car, parked right out there. So I walked up to the hedge, and there's this cop, a young guy, I think his name is Cheetah, or something like that, and he's loadin' this bike, like a kid's bike, into his trunk. And something else, too, only I couldn't see what it was except it was small. And after he did that, he got a piece a chalk outta his glove compartment and he came back and made like X marks on the sidewalk."

"Novels\Black House.txt" 2397 50:"Sure. What happened was, I went outside for a SMOKE, see?" This is less than strictly truthful. Faced with the choice of walking ten yards to the Daisy corridor men's room to flush his CIGARETTE down a toilet or walking ten feet to the entrance and pitching it into the parking lot, Pete had sensibly elected outdoor disposal. "So I get outside and that's when I saw it. This police car, parked right out there. So I walked up to the hedge, and there's this cop, a young guy, I think his name is Cheetah, or something like that, and he's loadin' this bike, like a kid's bike, into his trunk. And something else, too, only I couldn't see what it was except it was small. And after he did that, he got a piece a chalk outta his glove compartment and he came back and made like X marks on the sidewalk."

"Novels\Black House.txt" 2673 725:He veers off the road, bumps over the weedy shoulder, and heads toward a looming telephone pole. The lighter drops back into the tray with a loud, metallic thwack no egg in the world could have produced. The telephone pole swims closer and nearly fills the windshield. Jack stamps on the brake and jerks to a halt, arousing a flurry of ticks and rattles from the ashtray. If he had not cut his speed before opening the ashtray, he would have driven straight into the pole, which stands about four feet from the hood of the pickup. Jack wipes the sweat off his face and picks up the lighter. "Shit on a shingle." He clicks the attachment into its receptacle and collapses backward against the seat. "No wonder they say SMOKING can kill you," he says. The joke is too feeble to amuse him, and for a couple of seconds he does nothing but slump against the seat and regard the sparse traffic on Lyall Road. When his heart rate drops back to something like normal, he reminds himself that he did, after all, open the ashtray.

"Novels\Black House.txt" 311 583:Beyond the showy glass bubble and the asphalt sea of Goltz's parking lot, a half mile of stony, long-neglected field eventually degenerates into bare earth and spindly weeds. At the end of a long, overgrown turn-in, what seems to be a pile of rotting lumber stands between an old shed and an antique gas pump. This is our destination. We glide toward the earth. The heap of lumber resolves into a leaning, dilapidated structure on the verge of collapse. An old tin Coca-Cola sign pocked with bullet holes tilts against the front of the building. Beer cans and the milkweed of old CIGARETTE filters litter the scrubby ground. From within comes the steady, somnolent buzz of a great many flies. We wish to retreat into the cleansing air and depart. The black house was pretty bad; in fact, it was terrible, but this . . . this is going to be worse.

"Novels\Black House.txt" 321 391:We enter. Mild sunlight filtering in through gaps in the eastern wall and the battered roof paints luminous streaks across the gritty floor. Feathers, dust, eddy and stir over animal tracks and the dim impressions left by many long-gone shoes. Threadbare army-surplus blankets speckled with mold lie crumpled against the wall to our left; a few feet away, discarded beer cans and flattened CIGARETTE ends surround a kerosene-burning hurricane lamp with a cracked glass housing. The sunlight lays warm stripes over crisp footprints advancing in a wide curve around the remains of Ed's appalling counter and into the vacancy formerly occupied by the stove, a sink, and a rank of storage shelves. There, in what once was Ed's sacred domain, the footprints vanish. Some ferocious activity has scattered the dust and grit, and something that is not an old army blanket, though we wish it were, lies disarrayed against the rear wall, half in, half out of a dark, irregular pool of tacky liquid. Delirious flies hover and settle upon the dark pool. In the far corner, a rust-colored mongrel with quill-like hair gets its teeth into the knuckle of meat and bone protruding from the white object held between its front paws. The white object is a running shoe, a sneaker. A New Balance sneaker, to be exact. To be more exact, a child's New Balance sneaker, size 5.

"Novels\Black House.txt" 325 930:As for the something that is not an old army-surplus blanket, beyond a swirl of dusty tracks and furrows, at the floor's far edge, its pale form lies flattened and face-up on the floor, its top half extending out of the dark pool. One arm stretches limply out into the grit; the other props upright against the wall. The fingers of both hands curl palmward. Blunt, strawberry-blond hair flops back from the small face. If the eyes and mouth display any recognizable expression, it is that of mild surprise. This is an accident of structure; it means nothing, for the configuration of this child's face caused her to look faintly surprised even while she was asleep. Bruises like ink stains and eraser smudges lie upon her cheekbones, her temple, her neck. A white T-shirt bearing the logo of the Milwaukee Brewers and smeared with dirt and dried blood covers her torso from neck to navel. The lower half of her body, pale as SMOKE except where drizzled with blood, lengthens into the dark pool, where the ecstatic flies hover and settle. Her bare, slender left leg incorporates a scabby knee and concludes with the uptick of a bloodstained New Balance sneaker, size 5, laces double-knotted, toe pointed to the ceiling. Where the partner to this leg should be is a vacancy, for her right hip ends, abruptly, at a ragged stump.

"Novels\Black House.txt" 3369 370:Jack has been turning in a slow circle, seeing nothing but open fields (the mist over them now fading to a faint haze in the day's growing warmth) and blue-gray woods beyond them. Now there's something else. To the southwest, there's a dirt road about a mile away. Beyond it, at the horizon or perhaps just beyond, the perfect summer sky is a little stained with SMOKE.

"Novels\Black House.txt" 3383 82:He walks on, and has almost reached the road when he realizes there is more than SMOKE in the southwest. There is a kind of vibration, as well. It beats into his head like the start of a migraine headache. And it's strangely variable. If he stands with his face pointed dead south, that unpleasant pulse is less. Turn east and it's gone. North and it's almost gone. Then, as he continues to turn, it comes all the way back to full. Worse than ever now that he's noticed it, the way the buzz of a fly or the knock of a radiator in a hotel room is worse after you really start to notice it.

"Novels\Black House.txt" 3385 307:Jack turns another slow, full circle. South, and the vibration sinks. East, it's gone. North, it's starting to come back. West, it's coming on strong. Southwest and he's locked in like the SEEK button on a car radio. Pow, pow, pow. A black and nasty vibration like a headache, a smell like ancient SMOKE . . .

"Novels\Black House.txt" 3387 20:"No, no, no, not SMOKE," Jack says. He's standing almost up to his chest in summer grass, pants soaked, white moths flittering around his head like a half-assed halo, eyes wide, cheeks once more pale. In this moment he looks twelve again. It is eerie how he has rejoined his younger (and perhaps better) self. "Not SMOKE, that smells like . . ."

"Novels\Black House.txt" 3387 324:"No, no, no, not SMOKE," Jack says. He's standing almost up to his chest in summer grass, pants soaked, white moths flittering around his head like a half-assed halo, eyes wide, cheeks once more pale. In this moment he looks twelve again. It is eerie how he has rejoined his younger (and perhaps better) self. "Not SMOKE, that smells like . . ."

"Novels\Black House.txt" 3403 192:"Of course," Jack says. "Giant bunny rabbits. Get me to the nearest A.A. meeting." Then, as he steps out onto the road, he looks toward the southwestern horizon again. At the haze of SMOKE there. A village. And do the residents fear as the shadows of the evening come on? Fear the coming of the night? Fear the creature that is taking their children? Do they need a coppiceman? Of course they do. Of course they-

"Novels\Black House.txt" 3917 102:"Yes indeed. And coming from there." Henry points at the ruined restaurant and then produces his CIGARETTES. "If I'd known, I would have brought a jar of Vicks and an El Producto."

"Novels\Black House.txt" 3999 1789:At first, Richie thought the Thunder Five was a bunch of hoodlums, those big guys with scraggly shoulder-length hair and foaming beards roaring through town on their Harleys, but one Friday he happened to be standing alongside the one called Mouse in the pay-window line, and Mouse looked down at him and said something funny about how working for love never made the paycheck look bigger, and they got into a conversation that made Richie Bumstead's head spin. Two nights later he saw Beezer St. Pierre and the one called Doc shooting the breeze in the yard when he came off-shift, and after he got his rig locked down for the night he went over and got into another conversation that made him feel like he'd walked into a combination of a raunchy blues bar and a Jeopardy! championship. These guys-Beezer, Mouse, Doc, Sonny, and Kaiser Bill-looked like rockin', stompin', red-eyed violence, but they were smart. Beezer, it turned out, was head brewmaster in Kingsland Ale's special-projects division, and the other guys were just under him. They had all gone to college. They were interested in making great beer and having a good time, and Richie sort of wished he could get a bike and let it all hang out like them, but a long Saturday afternoon and evening at the Sand Bar proved that the line between a high old time and utter abandon was too fine for him. He didn't have the stamina to put away two pitchers of Kingsland, play a decent game of pool, drink two more pitchers while talking about the influences of Sherwood Anderson and Gertrude Stein on the young Hemingway, get into some serious head-butting, put down another couple of pitchers, emerge clearheaded enough to go barrel-assing through the countryside, pick up a couple of experimental Madison girls, SMOKE a lot of high-grade shit, and romp until dawn. You have to respect people who can do that and still hold down good jobs.

"Novels\Black House.txt" 4159 395:Then another police car breaches the defenses down on 35 and rolls up beside the part-timers'. Golden Boy and Gilbertson walk up to it and greet Bobby Dulac and that other one, the fat boy, Dit Jesperson, but the dude in the hat doesn't even look their way. Now, that's cool. He stands there, all by himself, like a general surveying his troops. Wendell watches the mystery man produce a CIGARETTE, light up, and exhale a plume of white SMOKE. Jack and Dale walk the new arrivals into the old store, and this bird keeps on SMOKING his CIGARETTE, sublimely detached from everything around him. Through the rotting wall, Wendell can hear Dulac and Jesperson complaining about the smell; then one of them grunts Uh! when he sees the body. "Hello boys?" Dulac says. "Is this shit for real? Hello boys?" The voices give Wendell a good fix on the location of the corpse, way back against the far wall.

"Novels\Black House.txt" 4159 444:Then another police car breaches the defenses down on 35 and rolls up beside the part-timers'. Golden Boy and Gilbertson walk up to it and greet Bobby Dulac and that other one, the fat boy, Dit Jesperson, but the dude in the hat doesn't even look their way. Now, that's cool. He stands there, all by himself, like a general surveying his troops. Wendell watches the mystery man produce a CIGARETTE, light up, and exhale a plume of white SMOKE. Jack and Dale walk the new arrivals into the old store, and this bird keeps on SMOKING his CIGARETTE, sublimely detached from everything around him. Through the rotting wall, Wendell can hear Dulac and Jesperson complaining about the smell; then one of them grunts Uh! when he sees the body. "Hello boys?" Dulac says. "Is this shit for real? Hello boys?" The voices give Wendell a good fix on the location of the corpse, way back against the far wall.

"Novels\Black House.txt" 4159 530:Then another police car breaches the defenses down on 35 and rolls up beside the part-timers'. Golden Boy and Gilbertson walk up to it and greet Bobby Dulac and that other one, the fat boy, Dit Jesperson, but the dude in the hat doesn't even look their way. Now, that's cool. He stands there, all by himself, like a general surveying his troops. Wendell watches the mystery man produce a CIGARETTE, light up, and exhale a plume of white SMOKE. Jack and Dale walk the new arrivals into the old store, and this bird keeps on SMOKING his CIGARETTE, sublimely detached from everything around him. Through the rotting wall, Wendell can hear Dulac and Jesperson complaining about the smell; then one of them grunts Uh! when he sees the body. "Hello boys?" Dulac says. "Is this shit for real? Hello boys?" The voices give Wendell a good fix on the location of the corpse, way back against the far wall.

"Novels\Black House.txt" 4159 542:Then another police car breaches the defenses down on 35 and rolls up beside the part-timers'. Golden Boy and Gilbertson walk up to it and greet Bobby Dulac and that other one, the fat boy, Dit Jesperson, but the dude in the hat doesn't even look their way. Now, that's cool. He stands there, all by himself, like a general surveying his troops. Wendell watches the mystery man produce a CIGARETTE, light up, and exhale a plume of white SMOKE. Jack and Dale walk the new arrivals into the old store, and this bird keeps on SMOKING his CIGARETTE, sublimely detached from everything around him. Through the rotting wall, Wendell can hear Dulac and Jesperson complaining about the smell; then one of them grunts Uh! when he sees the body. "Hello boys?" Dulac says. "Is this shit for real? Hello boys?" The voices give Wendell a good fix on the location of the corpse, way back against the far wall.

"Novels\Black House.txt" 4185 310:It is at this tender moment that Danny hears the unmistakable rumble of the Thunder Five charging toward him down the highway. He has not felt right since he found Tyler Marshall's bicycle in front of the old folks' home, and the thought of wrangling with Beezer St. Pierre fills his brain with dark oily SMOKE and whirling red sparks. He lowers his head and stares directly into the eyes of the red-faced George Rathbun look-alike. His voice emerges in a low, dead monotone. "Sir, if you continue on your present course, I will handcuff you, park you in the back of my car until I am free to leave, and then take you to the station and charge you with everything that comes to mind. That is a promise. Now do yourself a favor and get the hell out of here."

"Novels\Black House.txt" 5079 1151:The dog gives a single disinterested growl as we pass him and slip into the Nelson's lobby, where moth-eaten heads-a wolf, a bear, an elk, and an ancient half-bald bison with a single glass eye-look at empty sofas, empty chairs, the elevator that hasn't worked since 1994 or so, and the empty registration desk. (Morty Fine, the clerk, is in the office with his feet propped up on an empty file-cabinet drawer, reading People and picking his nose.) The lobby of the Nelson Hotel always smells of the river-it's in the pores of the place-but this evening the smell is heavier than usual. It's a smell that makes us think of bad ideas, blown investments, forged checks, deteriorating health, stolen office supplies, unpaid alimony, empty promises, skin tumors, lost ambition, abandoned sample cases filled with cheap novelties, dead hope, dead skin, and fallen arches. This is the kind of place you don't come to unless you've been here before and all your other options are pretty much foreclosed. It's a place where men who left their families two decades before now lie on narrow beds with pee-stained mattresses, coughing and SMOKING CIGARETTES. The scuzzy old lounge (where scuzzy old Hoover Dalrymple once held court and knocked heads most every Friday and Saturday night) has been closed by unanimous vote of the town council since early June, when Dale Gilbertson scandalized the local political elite by showing them a video of three traveling strippers who billed themselves as the Anal University Trio, performing a synchronized cucumber routine on the tiny stage (FLPD cameraman: Officer Tom Lund, let's give him a hand), but the Nelson's residents still have only to go next door to get a beer; it's convenient. You pay by the week at the Nelson. You can keep a hot plate in your room, but only by permission and after the cord has been inspected. You can die on a fixed income at the Nelson, and the last sound you hear could well be the creaking of bedsprings over your head as some other helpless old loser jacks off.

"Novels\Black House.txt" 5079 1159:The dog gives a single disinterested growl as we pass him and slip into the Nelson's lobby, where moth-eaten heads-a wolf, a bear, an elk, and an ancient half-bald bison with a single glass eye-look at empty sofas, empty chairs, the elevator that hasn't worked since 1994 or so, and the empty registration desk. (Morty Fine, the clerk, is in the office with his feet propped up on an empty file-cabinet drawer, reading People and picking his nose.) The lobby of the Nelson Hotel always smells of the river-it's in the pores of the place-but this evening the smell is heavier than usual. It's a smell that makes us think of bad ideas, blown investments, forged checks, deteriorating health, stolen office supplies, unpaid alimony, empty promises, skin tumors, lost ambition, abandoned sample cases filled with cheap novelties, dead hope, dead skin, and fallen arches. This is the kind of place you don't come to unless you've been here before and all your other options are pretty much foreclosed. It's a place where men who left their families two decades before now lie on narrow beds with pee-stained mattresses, coughing and SMOKING CIGARETTES. The scuzzy old lounge (where scuzzy old Hoover Dalrymple once held court and knocked heads most every Friday and Saturday night) has been closed by unanimous vote of the town council since early June, when Dale Gilbertson scandalized the local political elite by showing them a video of three traveling strippers who billed themselves as the Anal University Trio, performing a synchronized cucumber routine on the tiny stage (FLPD cameraman: Officer Tom Lund, let's give him a hand), but the Nelson's residents still have only to go next door to get a beer; it's convenient. You pay by the week at the Nelson. You can keep a hot plate in your room, but only by permission and after the cord has been inspected. You can die on a fixed income at the Nelson, and the last sound you hear could well be the creaking of bedsprings over your head as some other helpless old loser jacks off.

"Novels\Black House.txt" 5147 264:Andy looks up there, knowing he's being absurd, giving in to the whim-whams big time, but there's no one here to see him, so what the hey? And nothing for him to see overhead, either. Just an ordinary tin ceiling, now yellowed by age and decades of cigar and CIGARETTE SMOKE.

"Novels\Black House.txt" 5147 274:Andy looks up there, knowing he's being absurd, giving in to the whim-whams big time, but there's no one here to see him, so what the hey? And nothing for him to see overhead, either. Just an ordinary tin ceiling, now yellowed by age and decades of cigar and CIGARETTE SMOKE.

"Novels\Black House.txt" 5543 40:"Hey, Chief," Doc chips in. He's SMOKING an unfiltered CIGARETTE, looks to Dale like a Pall Mall or a Chesterfield. Some doctor, Dale thinks. "If I may egregiously misquote Misterogers," Doc goes on, "it's a beautiful night in the neighborhood. Wouldn't you say?"

"Novels\Black House.txt" 5543 62:"Hey, Chief," Doc chips in. He's SMOKING an unfiltered CIGARETTE, looks to Dale like a Pall Mall or a Chesterfield. Some doctor, Dale thinks. "If I may egregiously misquote Misterogers," Doc goes on, "it's a beautiful night in the neighborhood. Wouldn't you say?"

"Novels\Black House.txt" 5603 285:The man behind the wheel thinks back, all the way back to when Jacky was six. His father and Uncle Morgan had been the jazz fiends; his mother had had simpler tastes. He remembers her playing the same song over and over one endless L.A. summer, sitting and looking out the window and SMOKING. Who is that lady, Mom? Jacky asks, and his mother says, Patsy Cline. She died in an airplane crash.

"Novels\Black House.txt" 5751 182:And Jack simply sat with one leg in Dale's car and one out of it, not moving, eyes narrowed. So far as Dale could tell, he didn't even breathe. Jack watched Kinderling open his CIGARETTES, tap one out, put it in his mouth, and light it. He watched Kinderling glance at the headline of the Herald and then saunter to his own car, an all-wheel-drive Subaru. Watched him get in. Watched him drive away. And by that time, Dale realized he was holding his own breath.

"Novels\Black House.txt" 583 73:We watch in growing puzzlement as he produces a pack of American Spirit CIGARETTES from his shirt pocket and fires one up with a gold lighter. Surely this elegant fellow in the braces, Dockers, and Bass Weejuns cannot be George Rathbun. In our minds we have already built up a picture of George, and it is one of a fellow very different from this. In our mind's eye we see a guy with a huge belly hanging over the white belt of his checked pants (all those ballpark bratwursts), a brick-red complexion (all those ballpark beers, not to mention all that bellowing at the dastardly umps), and a squat, broad neck (perfect for housing those asbestos vocal cords). The George Rathbun of our imagination-and all of Coulee Country's, it almost goes without saying-is a pop-eyed, broad-assed, wild-haired, leather-lunged, Rolaids-popping, Chevy-driving, Republican-voting heart attack waiting to happen, a churning urn of sports trivia, mad enthusiasms, crazy prejudices, and high cholesterol.

"Novels\Black House.txt" 595 62:"Horst P. Lepplemier," says the slim man, drawing on his CIGARETTE with what appears to be great enjoyment. "Try saying that one ten times fast, you moke."

"Novels\Black House.txt" 611 126:"Only two people around here smell like marijuana in the morning," Henry Leyden says. "One of them follows his morning SMOKE with Scope; the other-that's you, Morris-just lets her rip."

"Novels\Black House.txt" 629 65:For the first time, Henry looks alarmed. He takes a drag on his CIGARETTE, then drops it (without even looking-of course, ha ha) into the sand-filled plastic bucket by the door.

"Novels\Black House.txt" 655 138:"And you won't, will you? Because rumors have a way of taking root. Just like certain bad habits." Henry mimes puffing, pulling in SMOKE.

"Novels\Black House.txt" 6827 160:"These dark shapes coming up to the edge of the road and looking out through the trees. A couple of them ran toward me, but I rolled right through them like SMOKE. I don't know, maybe they were SMOKE."

"Novels\Black House.txt" 6827 199:"These dark shapes coming up to the edge of the road and looking out through the trees. A couple of them ran toward me, but I rolled right through them like SMOKE. I don't know, maybe they were SMOKE."

"Novels\Black House.txt" 6855 615:"My head is splitting in half, but I get Little Nancy on the bike, and she sags against me, like pure dead weight except she's hanging on, and I kick the hog on and spin around and take off. When we get back to my place, she goes to bed and stays there for three days. To me, it seemed like I could hardly remember what happened. The whole thing went kind of dark. In my mind. I hardly had time to think about it anyhow, because Little Nancy got sick and I had to take care of her whenever I wasn't at work. Doc gave her some stuff to get her temperature down, and she got better, so we could drink beer and SMOKE shit and ride around, like before, but she was never really the same. End of August, she started getting bad again, and I had to put her in the hospital. Second week of September, hard as she was fighting, Little Nancy passed away."

"Novels\Black House.txt" 7169 306:Sonny fights off the impulse to collapse under a wave of relief and fatigue. Doc swivels his body and keeps firing into the darkness behind the trees until Beezer puts a hand on his arm and orders him to stop. The air stinks of cordite and some animal odor that is musky and disgustingly sweet. Pale gray SMOKE shimmers almost white as it filters upward through the darker air.

"Novels\Black House.txt" 735 224:Morris gives him a final grateful look and goes back inside. Henry Leyden, alias George Rathbun, alias the Wisconsin Rat, also alias Henry Shake (we'll get to that one, but not now; the hour draweth late), lights another CIGARETTE and drags deep. He won't have time to finish it; the farm report is already in full flight (hog bellies up, wheat futures down, and the corn as high as an elephant's eye), but he needs a couple of drags just now to steady himself. A long, long day stretches out ahead of him, ending with the Strawberry Fest Hop at Maxton Elder Care, that house of antiquarian horrors. God save him from the clutches of William "Chipper" Maxton, he has often thought. Given a choice between ending his days at MEC and burning his face off with a blowtorch, he would reach for the blowtorch every time. Later, if he's not totally exhausted, perhaps his friend from up the road will come over and they can begin the long-promised reading of Bleak House. That would be a treat.

"Novels\Black House.txt" 741 30:He takes another drag on his CIGARETTE, then drops it into the bucket of sand. It is time to go back inside, time to replay last night's Mark Loretta home run, time to start taking more calls from the Coulee Country's dedicated sports fans.

"Novels\Black House.txt" 7829 115:"The past," he says. "Isn't that always what does it?" And thinks of his mother, sitting by the window, SMOKING a CIGARETTE, and listening while the radio plays "Crazy Arms." Yes, it's always the past. That's where the hurt is, all you can't get over.

"Novels\Black House.txt" 7829 125:"The past," he says. "Isn't that always what does it?" And thinks of his mother, sitting by the window, SMOKING a CIGARETTE, and listening while the radio plays "Crazy Arms." Yes, it's always the past. That's where the hurt is, all you can't get over.

"Novels\Black House.txt" 8307 137:"There are machines," Sophie says. She looks caught in some dark and unhappy dream. "Red machines and black machines, all lost in SMOKE. There are great belts and children without number upon them. They trudge and trudge, turning the belts that turn the machines. Down in the foxholes. Down in the ratholes where the sun never shines. Down in the great caverns where the furnace-lands lie."

"Novels\Black House.txt" 8797 302:The swing door to the other room opens, and a trim little woman with shoulder-length blond hair comes through. She's carrying a bowl. When the light strikes the figure lying on the couch, Mouse screams. It's a horribly thick sound, as if the man's lungs have begun to liquefy. Something-maybe SMOKE, maybe steam-starts to rise up from the skin of his forehead.

"Novels\Black House.txt" 9909 166:The burning building grows taller and taller as he approaches. Screams and cries come from it, and around it lies a grotesque perimeter of dead, blackened trees and SMOKING ashes. This perimeter widens with every second, as if the building is devouring all of nature, one foot at a time. Everything is lost, and the burning building and the soulless creature who is both its master and its prisoner will triumph, blasted world without end, amen. Din-tah, the great furnace, eating all in its path.

"Novels\Colorado Kid, The.txt" 1586 8:"The CIGARETTES?" Stephanie asked. "I bet she was curious about those."

"Novels\Colorado Kid, The.txt" 1588 148:Vince barked a laugh. "Curious isn't the right word. That pack of smokes drove her almost crazy. She couldn't understand why he'd have had CIGARETTES on him. And we didn't need her to tell us he wasn't the kind who'd stopped for awhile and then decided to take the habit up again. Cathcart took a good look at his lungs during the autopsy, for reasons I'm sure you'll understand-"

"Novels\Colorado Kid, The.txt" 1592 355:"That's right," Vince said. "If Dr. Cathcart had found water in the lungs beneath that chunk of meat, it would have suggested someone trying to cover up the way Mr. Cogan actually died. And while that wouldn't have proved murder, it would've suggested it. Cathcart didn't find water in Cogan's lungs, and he didn't find any evidence of SMOKING, either. Nice and pink down there, he said. Yet someplace between Cogan's office building and Stapleton Airport, and in spite of the tearing hurry he had to've been in, he must've had his driver stop so he could pick up a pack. Either that or he had em put by already, which is what I tend to believe. Maybe with his Russian coin."

"Novels\Colorado Kid, The.txt" 1635 19:"Because of the CIGARETTES. The CIGARETTES almost had to have been deliberate on his part. He just never thought it would take a year and a half for someone to discover that Colorado stamp. Cogan believed a man found dead on a beach with no identification would rate more investigation than he got."

"Novels\Colorado Kid, The.txt" 1635 35:"Because of the CIGARETTES. The CIGARETTES almost had to have been deliberate on his part. He just never thought it would take a year and a half for someone to discover that Colorado stamp. Cogan believed a man found dead on a beach with no identification would rate more investigation than he got."

"Novels\Colorado Kid, The.txt" 1657 223:"All right," he said. "I started to think something might be funny about how he died as well as how he got here long before all that about the stamp. I started askin myself questions when I realized he had a pack of CIGARETTES with only one gone, although he'd been on the island since at least six-thirty. I made a real pest of myself at Bayside News."

"Novels\Colorado Kid, The.txt" 1661 546:"I showed everyone at the shop Cogan's picture, including the sweep-up boy. I was convinced he must have bought that pack there, unless he got it out of a vendin machine at a place like the Red Roof or the Shuffle Inn or maybe Sonny's Sunoco. The way I figured, he must have finished his smokes while wanderin around Moosie, after gettin off the ferry, then bought a fresh supply. And I also figured that if he got em at the News, he must have gotten em shortly before eleven, which is when the News closes. That would explain why he just SMOKED one, and only used one of his new matches, before he died."

"Novels\Colorado Kid, The.txt" 1679 23:"So he bought those CIGARETTES, hoping they'd be overlooked," Stephanie said.

"Novels\Colorado Kid, The.txt" 1691 8:"The CIGARETTES?"

"Novels\Colorado Kid, The.txt" 1695 125:"Then, later, on the beach..." She saw Cogan, her mind's-eye version of the Colorado Kid, lighting his life's first CIGARETTE-first and last-and then strolling down to the water's edge with it, there on Hammock Beach, alone in the moonlight. The midnight moonlight. He takes one puff of the harsh, unfamiliar SMOKE. Maybe two. Then he throws the CIGARETTE into the sea. Then...what?

"Novels\Colorado Kid, The.txt" 1695 324:"Then, later, on the beach..." She saw Cogan, her mind's-eye version of the Colorado Kid, lighting his life's first CIGARETTE-first and last-and then strolling down to the water's edge with it, there on Hammock Beach, alone in the moonlight. The midnight moonlight. He takes one puff of the harsh, unfamiliar SMOKE. Maybe two. Then he throws the CIGARETTE into the sea. Then...what?

"Novels\Colorado Kid, The.txt" 1695 361:"Then, later, on the beach..." She saw Cogan, her mind's-eye version of the Colorado Kid, lighting his life's first CIGARETTE-first and last-and then strolling down to the water's edge with it, there on Hammock Beach, alone in the moonlight. The midnight moonlight. He takes one puff of the harsh, unfamiliar SMOKE. Maybe two. Then he throws the CIGARETTE into the sea. Then...what?

"Novels\Colorado Kid, The.txt" 1737 115:"If the meat was in foil or a Baggie, the Kid might very well have tossed it into the water, along with his one CIGARETTE," Vince said.

"Novels\Colorado Kid, The.txt" 518 74:"Oh yes, ma'am! In any case, Johnny started away, then saw a pack of CIGARETTES that had fallen out on the sand. And because the worst was over and it was only lousy, he was able to pick em up-even reminding himself to tell George Wournos what he'd done in case the State Police checked for fingerprints and found his on the cellophane-and put em back in the breast pocket of the dead man's white shirt. Then he went back to where Nancy was standing, hugging herself in her BCHS warmup jacket and dancing from foot to foot, probably cold in those skimpy shorts she was wearing. Although it was more than the cold she was feeling, accourse.

"Novels\Colorado Kid, The.txt" 524 294:"George asked her if she was sure the man was dead, and Nancy said yes. Then he asked her to put Johnny on, and he asked Johnny the same question. Johnny also said yes. He said he'd shaken the man and that he was stiff as a board. He told George about how the man had fallen over, and the CIGARETTES falling out of his pocket, and how he'd put em back in, thinking George might give him hell for that, but he never did. Nobody ever did. Not much like a mystery show on TV, was it?"

"Novels\Colorado Kid, The.txt" 872 1033:"Devane finished out his tour with O'Shanny and Morrison to the bitter end," he said. "He probably even gave them each a tie or something at the end of his three months or his quarter or whatever it was; as I think I told you, Stephanie, there was no quit in that young fella. But as soon as he was finished, he put in his paperwork at whatever his college was-I think he told me Georgetown, but you mustn't hold me to that-and started back up again, taking whatever courses he needed for law school. And except for two things, that might have been where Mr. Paul Devane leaves this story-which, as Vince says, isn't a story at all, except maybe for this part. The first thing is that Devane peeked into the evidence bag at some point, and looked over John Doe's personal effects. The second is that he got serious about a girl, and she took him home to meet her parents, as girls often do when things get serious, and this girl's father had at least one bad habit that was more common then than it is now. He SMOKED CIGARETTES."

"Novels\Colorado Kid, The.txt" 872 1040:"Devane finished out his tour with O'Shanny and Morrison to the bitter end," he said. "He probably even gave them each a tie or something at the end of his three months or his quarter or whatever it was; as I think I told you, Stephanie, there was no quit in that young fella. But as soon as he was finished, he put in his paperwork at whatever his college was-I think he told me Georgetown, but you mustn't hold me to that-and started back up again, taking whatever courses he needed for law school. And except for two things, that might have been where Mr. Paul Devane leaves this story-which, as Vince says, isn't a story at all, except maybe for this part. The first thing is that Devane peeked into the evidence bag at some point, and looked over John Doe's personal effects. The second is that he got serious about a girl, and she took him home to meet her parents, as girls often do when things get serious, and this girl's father had at least one bad habit that was more common then than it is now. He SMOKED CIGARETTES."

"Novels\Colorado Kid, The.txt" 874 104:Stephanie's mind, which was a good one (both of the men knew this), at once flashed upon the pack of CIGARETTES that had fallen onto the sand of Hammock Beach when the dead man fell over. Johnny Gravlin (now Moose-Look's mayor) had picked it up and put it back into the dead man's pocket. And then something else came to her, not in a flash but in a blinding glare. She jerked as if stung. One of her feet struck the side of her glass and knocked it over. Coke fizzed across the weathered boards of the porch and dripped between them to the rocks and weeds far below. The old men didn't notice. They knew a state of grace perfectly well when they saw one, and were watching their intern with interest and delight.

"Novels\Colorado Kid, The.txt" 913 409:Dave pressed ahead. "There was a roll of Certs and a pack of Big Red chewin gum with all but one stick gone. There was a book of matches with an ad for stamp-collectin on the front-I'm sure you've seen that kind, they hand em out at every convenience store-and Devane said he could see a strike-mark on the strip across the bottom for that purpose, pink and bright. And then there was that pack of CIGARETTES, open and with one or two CIGARETTES gone. Devane thought only one, and the single strike-mark on the matchbook seemed to bear that out, he said."

"Novels\Colorado Kid, The.txt" 913 446:Dave pressed ahead. "There was a roll of Certs and a pack of Big Red chewin gum with all but one stick gone. There was a book of matches with an ad for stamp-collectin on the front-I'm sure you've seen that kind, they hand em out at every convenience store-and Devane said he could see a strike-mark on the strip across the bottom for that purpose, pink and bright. And then there was that pack of CIGARETTES, open and with one or two CIGARETTES gone. Devane thought only one, and the single strike-mark on the matchbook seemed to bear that out, he said."

"Novels\Colorado Kid, The.txt" 931 484:"It's funny how things work, sometimes; it makes you wonder how often they don't. If that pack had been turned a different way-so the top had been facing him instead of the bottom-John Doe might have gone on being John Doe instead of first the Colorado Kid and then Mr. James Cogan of Nederland, a town just west of Boulder. But the bottom of the pack was facing him, and he saw the stamp on it. It was a stamp, like a postage stamp, and that made him think of the pack of CIGARETTES in the evidence bag that day.

"Novels\Colorado Kid, The.txt" 933 202:"You see, Steffi, one of Paul Devane's minders-I disremember if it was O'Shanny or Morrison-had been a smoker, and among Paul's other chores, he'd bought this fella a fair smack of Camel CIGARETTES, and while they also had a stamp on them, it seemed to him it wasn't the same as the one on the pack in the evidence bag. It seemed to him that the stamp on the State of Maine CIGARETTES he bought for the detective was an ink stamp, like the kind you sometimes get on your hand when you go to a small-town dance, or...I dunno..."

"Novels\Colorado Kid, The.txt" 933 391:"You see, Steffi, one of Paul Devane's minders-I disremember if it was O'Shanny or Morrison-had been a smoker, and among Paul's other chores, he'd bought this fella a fair smack of Camel CIGARETTES, and while they also had a stamp on them, it seemed to him it wasn't the same as the one on the pack in the evidence bag. It seemed to him that the stamp on the State of Maine CIGARETTES he bought for the detective was an ink stamp, like the kind you sometimes get on your hand when you go to a small-town dance, or...I dunno..."

"Novels\Colorado Kid, The.txt" 937 268:"You got it!" he said, pointing a plump finger at her like a gun. "Anyway, this wa'nt the kind of thing where you jump up yelling 'Eureka! I have found it!', but his mind kep' returnin to it over and over again that weekend, because the memory of those CIGARETTES in the evidence bag bothered him. For one thing, it seemed to Paul Devane that John Doe's CIGARETTES certainly should have had a Maine tax-stamp on them, no matter where he came from."

"Novels\Colorado Kid, The.txt" 937 371:"You got it!" he said, pointing a plump finger at her like a gun. "Anyway, this wa'nt the kind of thing where you jump up yelling 'Eureka! I have found it!', but his mind kep' returnin to it over and over again that weekend, because the memory of those CIGARETTES in the evidence bag bothered him. For one thing, it seemed to Paul Devane that John Doe's CIGARETTES certainly should have had a Maine tax-stamp on them, no matter where he came from."

"Novels\Colorado Kid, The.txt" 941 50:"Because there was only one gone. What kind of CIGARETTE smoker only smokes one in six hours?"

"Novels\Colorado Kid, The.txt" 945 55:"A man who has a full pack and don't take but one CIGARETTE out of it in six hours ain't a light smoker, that's a non-smoker," Vince said mildly. "Also, Devane saw the man's tongue. So did I-I was on my knees in front of him, shining Doc Robinson's otoscope into his mouth. It was as pink as peppermint candy. Not a smoker's tongue at all."

"Novels\Colorado Kid, The.txt" 964 333:"Devane waited until Monday," Dave said, "and when the business about the CIGARETTES still wouldn't quit nagging him-wouldn't quit even though he was almost a year and a half downriver from that part of his life-he called me on the telephone and explained to me that he had an idea that maybe, just maybe, the pack of CIGARETTES John Doe had been carrying around hadn't come from the State of Maine. If not, the stamp on the bottom would show where they had come from. He voiced his doubts about whether John Doe was a smoker at all, but said the tax-stamp might be a clue even if he wasn't. I agreed with him, but was curious as to why he'd called me. He said he couldn't think of anyone else who still might be interested at that late date. He was right, I was still interested-Vince, too-and he turned out to be right about the stamp, as well.

"Novels\Colorado Kid, The.txt" 964 81:"Devane waited until Monday," Dave said, "and when the business about the CIGARETTES still wouldn't quit nagging him-wouldn't quit even though he was almost a year and a half downriver from that part of his life-he called me on the telephone and explained to me that he had an idea that maybe, just maybe, the pack of CIGARETTES John Doe had been carrying around hadn't come from the State of Maine. If not, the stamp on the bottom would show where they had come from. He voiced his doubts about whether John Doe was a smoker at all, but said the tax-stamp might be a clue even if he wasn't. I agreed with him, but was curious as to why he'd called me. He said he couldn't think of anyone else who still might be interested at that late date. He was right, I was still interested-Vince, too-and he turned out to be right about the stamp, as well.

"Novels\Colorado Kid, The.txt" 970 100:"-so I made a little trip downstreet to Bayside News and asked if I could examine a package of CIGARETTES. My request was granted, and I observed that there was indeed an ink-stamp on the bottom, not a postage-type stamp. I then made a call to the Attorney General's Office and spoke to a fellow name of Murray in a department called Evidence Storage and filing. I was as diplomatic as I could possibly be, Stephanie, because at that time those two dumbbell detectives would still have been on active duty-"

"Novels\Colorado Kid, The.txt" 990 469:"In big cities evidence gets lost all the time, I understand, but I guess Augusta's not that big yet, even if it is the state capital. Sergeant Murray had no trouble whatsoever finding the evidence bag with Paul Devane's signature on the Possession Slip; he said he had it ten minutes after we got done talking. The rest of the time that went by he was trying to get permission from the right person to let me know what was inside it...which he finally did. The CIGARETTES were Winstons, and the stamp on the bottom was just the way Paul Devane remembered: a regular little stick-on type that said colorado in tiny dark letters. Murray said he'd be turning the information over to the Attorney General's office, and they'd appreciate knowing 'in advance of publication' if we got anywhere in identifying the Colorado Kid. That's what he called him, so I guess you could say it was Sergeant Murray in the A.G.'s Evidence Storage and filing Department who coined the phrase. He also said he hoped that if we did have any luck identifying the guy, that we'd note in our story that the A.G.'s office had been helpful. You know, I thought that was sort of sweet."

"Novels\Dark Half, The.txt" 1161 376:He tipped his flashlight downward. The seat and the floor of the GMC was a sty. He saw beer cans, soft-drink cans, empty or near-empty potato chip and pork rind bags, boxes which had contained Big Macs and Whoppers. A wad of what looked like bubble-gum was squashed onto the metal dashboard above the hole where there had once been a radio. There were a number of unfiltered CIGARETTE butts in the ashtray.

"Novels\Dark Half, The.txt" 1279 230:She saw the two bottles of Amstel beer on the coffee-table, one empty and the other half-full, with a collar of foam still inside the bottle-neck. She saw the ashtray with CHICAGOLAND! written on its curving surface. She saw two CIGARETTE butts, unfiltered, squashed into the center of the tray's pristine whiteness, although the bigshot didn't SMOKE-not CIGARETTES, at least. She saw the small plastic box which had once been full of push-pins lying on its side between the bottles and the ashtray. Most of the push-pins, which the bigshot used to tack things to his kitchen bulletin board, were scattered across the glass surface of the coffee-table. She saw a few had come to rest on an open copy of People magazine, the one featuring the Thad Beaumont/George Stark story. She could see Mr. and Mrs. Beaumont shaking hands across Stark's gravestone, although from here they were upside down. It was the story that, according to Frederick Clawson, would never be printed. It was going to make him a moderately wealthy man instead. He had been wrong about that. In fact, it seemed he had been wrong about everything.

"Novels\Dark Half, The.txt" 1279 350:She saw the two bottles of Amstel beer on the coffee-table, one empty and the other half-full, with a collar of foam still inside the bottle-neck. She saw the ashtray with CHICAGOLAND! written on its curving surface. She saw two CIGARETTE butts, unfiltered, squashed into the center of the tray's pristine whiteness, although the bigshot didn't SMOKE-not CIGARETTES, at least. She saw the small plastic box which had once been full of push-pins lying on its side between the bottles and the ashtray. Most of the push-pins, which the bigshot used to tack things to his kitchen bulletin board, were scattered across the glass surface of the coffee-table. She saw a few had come to rest on an open copy of People magazine, the one featuring the Thad Beaumont/George Stark story. She could see Mr. and Mrs. Beaumont shaking hands across Stark's gravestone, although from here they were upside down. It was the story that, according to Frederick Clawson, would never be printed. It was going to make him a moderately wealthy man instead. He had been wrong about that. In fact, it seemed he had been wrong about everything.

"Novels\Dark Half, The.txt" 1279 362:She saw the two bottles of Amstel beer on the coffee-table, one empty and the other half-full, with a collar of foam still inside the bottle-neck. She saw the ashtray with CHICAGOLAND! written on its curving surface. She saw two CIGARETTE butts, unfiltered, squashed into the center of the tray's pristine whiteness, although the bigshot didn't SMOKE-not CIGARETTES, at least. She saw the small plastic box which had once been full of push-pins lying on its side between the bottles and the ashtray. Most of the push-pins, which the bigshot used to tack things to his kitchen bulletin board, were scattered across the glass surface of the coffee-table. She saw a few had come to rest on an open copy of People magazine, the one featuring the Thad Beaumont/George Stark story. She could see Mr. and Mrs. Beaumont shaking hands across Stark's gravestone, although from here they were upside down. It was the story that, according to Frederick Clawson, would never be printed. It was going to make him a moderately wealthy man instead. He had been wrong about that. In fact, it seemed he had been wrong about everything.

"Novels\Dark Half, The.txt" 1949 11:"Do you SMOKE?" he asked, looking up.

"Novels\Dark Half, The.txt" 1957 12:"You did SMOKE, though."

"Novels\Dark Half, The.txt" 1973 19:"But not that I SMOKED Pall Mall CIGARETTES for fifteen years," Thad said. "So far as I know, stuff like that's not part of the records the army keeps."

"Novels\Dark Half, The.txt" 1973 36:"But not that I SMOKED Pall Mall CIGARETTES for fifteen years," Thad said. "So far as I know, stuff like that's not part of the records the army keeps."

"Novels\Dark Half, The.txt" 1975 140:"This is stuff that's come in since this morning," Alan told them. "The ashtray in Homer Gamache's pick-up was full of Pall Mall CIGARETTE butts. The old man only SMOKED an occasional pipe. There were a couple of Pall Mall butts in an ashtray in Frederick Clawson's apartment, as well. He didn't SMOKE at all, except maybe for a joint now and then. That's according to his landlady. We got our perp's blood-type from the spittle on the butts. The serologist's report also gave us a lot of other information. Better than fingerprints."

"Novels\Dark Half, The.txt" 1975 174:"This is stuff that's come in since this morning," Alan told them. "The ashtray in Homer Gamache's pick-up was full of Pall Mall CIGARETTE butts. The old man only SMOKED an occasional pipe. There were a couple of Pall Mall butts in an ashtray in Frederick Clawson's apartment, as well. He didn't SMOKE at all, except maybe for a joint now and then. That's according to his landlady. We got our perp's blood-type from the spittle on the butts. The serologist's report also gave us a lot of other information. Better than fingerprints."

"Novels\Dark Half, The.txt" 1975 311:"This is stuff that's come in since this morning," Alan told them. "The ashtray in Homer Gamache's pick-up was full of Pall Mall CIGARETTE butts. The old man only SMOKED an occasional pipe. There were a couple of Pall Mall butts in an ashtray in Frederick Clawson's apartment, as well. He didn't SMOKE at all, except maybe for a joint now and then. That's according to his landlady. We got our perp's blood-type from the spittle on the butts. The serologist's report also gave us a lot of other information. Better than fingerprints."

"Novels\Dark Half, The.txt" 1983 155:"Maybe," Alan agreed. "If so, it was made of human hair. And why bother changing the color of your hair if you're going to leave fingerprints and CIGARETTE butts everywhere? Either the guy is very dumb or he was deliberately trying to implicate you. The blonde hair doesn't fit either way."

"Novels\Dark Half, The.txt" 2025 213:"Doesn't matter," Alan said, shaking his head. "We don't even have photos. I think we've got almost everything on the table that belongs there, Thad. Your fingerprints, your blood-type, your brand of CIGARETTES-"

"Novels\Dark Half, The.txt" 2029 48:Alan held up a placatory hand. "Old brand of CIGARETTES. I suppose I could be crazy for letting you in on all this-there's a part of me that says I am, anyway-but as long as we've gone this far, there's no sense ignoring the forest while we look at a few trees. You're tied in other ways, as well. Castle Rock is your legal residence as well as Ludlow, being as how you pay taxes in both places. Homer Gamache was more than just an acquaintance; he did . . . would odd jobs be correct?"

"Novels\Dark Half, The.txt" 2110 152:Thad put a finger in the saucepan to test the water, then leaned back against the stove with his arms crossed, listening. He realized that he wanted a CIGARETTE-for the first time in years he wanted a CIGARETTE again.

"Novels\Dark Half, The.txt" 2110 204:Thad put a finger in the saucepan to test the water, then leaned back against the stove with his arms crossed, listening. He realized that he wanted a CIGARETTE-for the first time in years he wanted a CIGARETTE again.

"Novels\Dark Half, The.txt" 2139 271:He took the bottles back into the living room, avoiding a collision with the kitchen table on the way. He gave a bottle to each twin. They hoisted them solemnly, sleepily, and began to suck. Thad sat down again. He listened to Liz and told himself that the thought of a CIGARETTE was the furthest thing from his mind.

"Novels\Dark Half, The.txt" 2171 75:"Thad believes that's who it was, too," Liz went on, "because the SMOKING gun turned out to be photostats of royalty statements for George Stark. They came from the office of Roland Burrets."

"Novels\Dark Half, The.txt" 2730 175:Miriam Cowley opened her mouth to scream. The big blonde man had been standing just inside the door, waiting patiently for just over four hours now, not drinking coffee, not SMOKING CIGARETTES. He wanted a CIGARETTE, and would have one as soon as this was over, but before, the smell might have alerted her-New Yorkers were like very small animals cowering in the underbrush, senses attuned for danger even when they thought they were having a good time.

"Novels\Dark Half, The.txt" 2730 183:Miriam Cowley opened her mouth to scream. The big blonde man had been standing just inside the door, waiting patiently for just over four hours now, not drinking coffee, not SMOKING CIGARETTES. He wanted a CIGARETTE, and would have one as soon as this was over, but before, the smell might have alerted her-New Yorkers were like very small animals cowering in the underbrush, senses attuned for danger even when they thought they were having a good time.

"Novels\Dark Half, The.txt" 2730 207:Miriam Cowley opened her mouth to scream. The big blonde man had been standing just inside the door, waiting patiently for just over four hours now, not drinking coffee, not SMOKING CIGARETTES. He wanted a CIGARETTE, and would have one as soon as this was over, but before, the smell might have alerted her-New Yorkers were like very small animals cowering in the underbrush, senses attuned for danger even when they thought they were having a good time.

"Novels\Dark Half, The.txt" 2971 674:No; of course he wasn't. And if he stopped to explain, he would appear to be making even less . . . and while he paused to confide his fears to his wife, probably accomplishing nothing but causing her to wonder how long it took to get the proper committal papers filled out, George Stark could be crossing the nine city blocks in Manhattan that separated Rick's apartment from his ex-wife's. Sitting in the back of a cab or behind the wheel of a stolen car, hell, sitting behind the wheel of the black Toronado from his dream, for all Thad knew-if you were going to go this far down the path to insanity, why not just say fuck it and go all the way? Sitting there, SMOKING, getting ready to kill Rick as he had Miriam-

"Novels\Dark Half, The.txt" 3150 52:No, he had to go to Lodi, California, for beer and CIGARETTES.

"Novels\Dark Half, The.txt" 3229 546:Suppose, he thought, watching her bring her mug of tea to her mouth with both hands and sipping at his own, suppose we were sitting here one night, with books in our hands (we'd look, to an outsider, as if we were reading, and we might be, a little, but what we'd really be doing is savoring the silence as if it were some particularly fine wine, the way only parents of very young children can savor it, because they have so little of it), and further suppose that while we were doing that, a meteorite crashed through the roof and landed, SMOKING and glowing, on the living-room floor. Would one of us go into the kitchen and fill up the floor-bucket with water, douse it before it could light up the carpet, and then just go on reading? No-we'd talk about it. We'd have to. The way we have to talk about this.

"Novels\Dark Half, The.txt" 3504 182:He looked out the window and saw a State Police cruiser parked across the road, dark and silent. He might have thought it was also deserted if he hadn't seen the fitful wink of a CIGARETTE ember. It seemed that he, Liz, and the twins were also under police protection.

"Novels\Dark Half, The.txt" 3660 243:The blind man jerked his head in the direction of Extremely's voice but did not stop. He plunged onward, waving his empty hand and his dirty white cane, looking a bit like Leonard Bernstein trying to conduct the New York Philharmonic after SMOKING a vial or two of crack. "Po-leeece! They killed my dog! They killed Daisy! PO-LEEECE!"

"Novels\Dark Half, The.txt" 3664 350:Cautious reached for the reeling blind man. The reeling blind man put his empty hand in the left pocket of his sport-coat and came out not with two tickets to the Blind Man's Gala Ball but a .45 revolver. He pointed it at Cautious and pulled the trigger twice. The reports were deafening and toneless in the close hallway. There was a lot of blue SMOKE. Cautious took the bullets at nearly point-blank range. He went down with his chest caved in like a broken peach-basket. His tunic was scorched and smouldering.

"Novels\Dark Half, The.txt" 3668 180:"Jesus please don't," Extremely said in a very tiny voice. He sounded as if someone had knocked the wind out of him. The blind man fired two more times. There was more blue SMOKE. He shot very well for a blind man. Extremely flew backward, away from the blue SMOKE, hit the hall carpet on his shoulder-blades, went through a sudden, shuddery spasm, and lay still.

"Novels\Dark Half, The.txt" 3668 266:"Jesus please don't," Extremely said in a very tiny voice. He sounded as if someone had knocked the wind out of him. The blind man fired two more times. There was more blue SMOKE. He shot very well for a blind man. Extremely flew backward, away from the blue SMOKE, hit the hall carpet on his shoulder-blades, went through a sudden, shuddery spasm, and lay still.

"Novels\Dark Half, The.txt" 3677 126:In Ludlow, five hundred miles away, Thad Beaumont turned over restlessly on his side. "Blue SMOKE," he muttered. "Blue SMOKE."

"Novels\Dark Half, The.txt" 3677 95:In Ludlow, five hundred miles away, Thad Beaumont turned over restlessly on his side. "Blue SMOKE," he muttered. "Blue SMOKE."

"Novels\Dark Half, The.txt" 3702 86:Stark tossed the dark glasses and the cane aside. The hallway was acrid with cordite SMOKE. He had fired four Colt Hi-Point loads which he had dum-dummed. Two of them had passed through the cops and had left plate-sized holes in the corridor wall. He walked over to Phyllis Myers's door. He was ready to talk her out if he had to, but she was right there on the other side, and he could tell just listening to her that she would be easy.

"Novels\Dark Half, The.txt" 3814 92:"Do wha-" Rick began, turning his key, and the door exploded in a flash of light and SMOKE and sound. The cop whose instincts had triggered just an instant too late was recognizable to his relatives; Rick Cowley was nearly vaporized. The other cop, who had been standing a little farther back and who had instinctively shielded his face when his partner cried out, was treated for burns, concussion, and internal injuries. Mercifully-almost magically-the shrapnel from the door and the wall flew around him in a cloud but never touched him. He would never work for the N.Y.P.D. again, however; the blast struck him stone deaf in an instant.

"Novels\Dark Half, The.txt" 3933 199:"All right," Thad said. He cleared his throat nervously and got up. His hand went to his breast pocket and he realized with an amusement that was half-bitter what he was doing: reaching for the CIGARETTES which had not been there for years now. He stuffed his hands into his pockets and looked at Alan Pangborn as he might look at a troubled advisee who had washed up on the mostly friendly shores of Thad's office.

"Novels\Dark Half, The.txt" 3996 80:"Three," Thad said quietly from his place by the mantel. His craving for a CIGARETTE had become a dry fever. "I started talking about it after the first one."

"Novels\Dark Half, The.txt" 4076 673:"She's got it right," Thad said. "Hooray-that's just what it felt like. Let me sum up what we have if we leave the blackouts and the automatic writing out of the picture entirely. The man you're looking for is killing people I know, people who were, with the exception of Homer Gamache, responsible for 'executing' George Stark . . . in conspiracy with me, of course. He's got my blood-type, which isn't one of the really rare ones, but is still one that only about six people in every hundred have. He conforms to the description I gave you, which was a distillation of my own image of what George Stark would look like if he existed. He smokes the CIGARETTES I used to SMOKE. Last, and most interesting, he appears to have fingerprints which are identical to mine. Maybe six in every hundred have type-A blood with a negative Rh factor, but so far as we know, nobody else in this whole green world has my fingerprints. Despite all of this, you refuse to even consider my assertion that Stark is somehow alive. Now, Sheriff Alan Pangborn, you tell me: who is the one who's operating in a fog, so to speak?"

"Novels\Dark Half, The.txt" 4076 694:"She's got it right," Thad said. "Hooray-that's just what it felt like. Let me sum up what we have if we leave the blackouts and the automatic writing out of the picture entirely. The man you're looking for is killing people I know, people who were, with the exception of Homer Gamache, responsible for 'executing' George Stark . . . in conspiracy with me, of course. He's got my blood-type, which isn't one of the really rare ones, but is still one that only about six people in every hundred have. He conforms to the description I gave you, which was a distillation of my own image of what George Stark would look like if he existed. He smokes the CIGARETTES I used to SMOKE. Last, and most interesting, he appears to have fingerprints which are identical to mine. Maybe six in every hundred have type-A blood with a negative Rh factor, but so far as we know, nobody else in this whole green world has my fingerprints. Despite all of this, you refuse to even consider my assertion that Stark is somehow alive. Now, Sheriff Alan Pangborn, you tell me: who is the one who's operating in a fog, so to speak?"

"Novels\Dark Half, The.txt" 4517 977:A woman had requested and had received police protection after her estranged husband had beaten her severely and threatened to come back and kill her if she went through with her plans for a divorce. For two weeks, the man had done nothing. The Bangor P.D. had been about to cancel the watch when the husband showed up, driving a laundry truck and wearing green fatigues with the laundry's name on the back of the shirt. He had walked up to the door, carrying a bundle of laundry. The police might have recognized the man, even in the uniform, if he had come earlier, when the watch order was fresh, but that was moot; they hadn't recognized him when he did show up. He knocked on the door, and when the woman opened it, her husband pulled a gun out of his pants pocket and shot her dead. Before the cops assigned to her had fully realized what was happening, let alone got out of their car, the man had been standing on the stoop with his hands raised. He had tossed the SMOKING gun into the rose bushes. "Don't shoot me," he'd said calmly. "I'm finished." The truck and the uniform, it turned out, had been borrowed from an old drinking buddy who didn't even know the perp had been fighting with his wife.

"Novels\Dark Half, The.txt" 4551 106:Because none of it was right, that was why. The fingerprints weren't, the blood-type obtained from the CIGARETTE ends wasn't, the combination of cleverness and homicidal rage which their man had displayed wasn't, Thad's and Liz's insistence that the pen name was real wasn't. That most of all. That was the assertion of a couple of lunatics. And now he had something else which wasn't right. The State Police accepted the man's assertion that he now understood who he really was without a qualm. To Alan, it had all the authenticity of a three-dollar bill. It screamed trick, ruse, runaround.

"Novels\Dark Half, The.txt" 4928 154:Rosalie had taken herself down to the far end of the counter, where she was removing packs of CIGARETTES from a pile of cartons and re-stocking the long CIGARETTE dispenser. She was ostentatiously not listening to Thad's end of the conversation in a way that was almost funny. There was no one in Ludlow-this end of town, anyway-who wasn't aware that Thad was under police guard or police protection or police some-damn-thing, and he didn't have to hear the rumors to know they had already begun to fly. Those who didn't think he was about to be arrested for drug-trafficking no doubt believed it was child abuse or wife-beating. Poor old Rosalie was down there trying to be good, and Thad felt absurdly grateful. He also felt as if he were looking at her through the wrong end of a powerful telescope. He was down the telephone line, down the rabbit hole, where there was no white rabbit but only foxy old George Stark, the man who could not be there but somehow was, all the same.

"Novels\Dark Half, The.txt" 4928 95:Rosalie had taken herself down to the far end of the counter, where she was removing packs of CIGARETTES from a pile of cartons and re-stocking the long CIGARETTE dispenser. She was ostentatiously not listening to Thad's end of the conversation in a way that was almost funny. There was no one in Ludlow-this end of town, anyway-who wasn't aware that Thad was under police guard or police protection or police some-damn-thing, and he didn't have to hear the rumors to know they had already begun to fly. Those who didn't think he was about to be arrested for drug-trafficking no doubt believed it was child abuse or wife-beating. Poor old Rosalie was down there trying to be good, and Thad felt absurdly grateful. He also felt as if he were looking at her through the wrong end of a powerful telescope. He was down the telephone line, down the rabbit hole, where there was no white rabbit but only foxy old George Stark, the man who could not be there but somehow was, all the same.

"Novels\Dark Half, The.txt" 4948 102:Rosalie's head turned a little; Thad glimpsed one wide eye before she turned hurriedly back to the CIGARETTE racks again.

"Novels\Dark Half, The.txt" 5381 315:He stared down at the words pouring out of his fist, his heart thumping so hard he felt the pulse, high and fast, in his throat. The sentences spilling out on the blue lines were in his own handwriting-but then, all of Stark's novels had been written in his hand. With the same fingerprints, the same taste in CIGARETTES, and exactly the same vocal characteristics, it would be odder if it were someone else's handwriting, he thought.

"Novels\Dark Half, The.txt" 5445 1234:Cute. Very cute. But it had only a second-cousinship with the actual facts, didn't it? It wasn't the first time Thad had told a story that had only a tenuous relationship to the truth, and he supposed it wouldn't be the last-assuming he lived through this, of course. It wasn't exactly lying; it wasn't even embroidering the truth, strictly speaking. It was the almost unconscious act of fictionalizing one's own life, and Thad didn't know a single writer of novels or short stories who didn't do it. You didn't do it to make yourself look better than you'd actually been in any given situation; sometimes that happened, but you were just as apt to relate a story that cast you in a bad light or made you look comically stupid. What was the movie where some newspaperman had said, "When you've got a choice between truth and legend, print the legend"? The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, maybe. It might make for shitty and immoral reporting, but it made for wonderful fiction. The overflow of make-believe into one's own life seemed to be an almost unavoidable side-effect of story-telling-like getting calluses on the pads of your fingers from playing the guitar, or developing a cough after years of SMOKING.

"Novels\Dark Half, The.txt" 5535 368:The pain was better, but the after-effects of the sudden shock-all the sudden shocks-still lingered, and he thought it would be some time yet before he could sleep. He went down to the first floor and peeked out at the State Police cruiser parked in the driveway through the sheers drawn across the big living-room window. He could see the firefly flicker of two CIGARETTES inside.

"Novels\Dark Half, The.txt" 6020 1004:It turned out not to be entirely deserted, but he got off easily just the same. Rawlie DeLesseps was wandering down the hallway from the Department common room toward his own office, drifting in his usual Rawlie DeLesseps way . . . which meant he looked as if he might have recently sustained a hard blow to the head which had disrupted both his memory and his motor control. He moved dreamily from one side of the corridor to the other in mild loops, peering at the cartoons, poems, and announcements tacked to the bulletin boards on the locked doors of his colleagues. He might have been on his way to his office-it looked that way-but even someone who knew him well would probably have declined to make book on it. The stem of an enormous yellow pipe was clamped between his dentures. The dentures were not quite as yellow as the pipe, but they were close. The pipe was dead, had been since late 1985, when his doctor had forbidden him to SMOKE it following a mild heart attack. I never liked to SMOKE that much anyway, Rawlie would explain in his gentle, distracted voice when someone asked him about the pipe. But without the bit in my teeth . . . gentlemen, I would not know where to go or what to do if I were lucky enough to arrive there. Most times he gave the impression of not knowing where to go or what to do anyway . . . as he did now. Some people knew Rawlie for years before discovering he was not at all the absent-minded educated fool he seemed to be. Some never discovered it at all.

"Novels\Dark Half, The.txt" 6020 947:It turned out not to be entirely deserted, but he got off easily just the same. Rawlie DeLesseps was wandering down the hallway from the Department common room toward his own office, drifting in his usual Rawlie DeLesseps way . . . which meant he looked as if he might have recently sustained a hard blow to the head which had disrupted both his memory and his motor control. He moved dreamily from one side of the corridor to the other in mild loops, peering at the cartoons, poems, and announcements tacked to the bulletin boards on the locked doors of his colleagues. He might have been on his way to his office-it looked that way-but even someone who knew him well would probably have declined to make book on it. The stem of an enormous yellow pipe was clamped between his dentures. The dentures were not quite as yellow as the pipe, but they were close. The pipe was dead, had been since late 1985, when his doctor had forbidden him to SMOKE it following a mild heart attack. I never liked to SMOKE that much anyway, Rawlie would explain in his gentle, distracted voice when someone asked him about the pipe. But without the bit in my teeth . . . gentlemen, I would not know where to go or what to do if I were lucky enough to arrive there. Most times he gave the impression of not knowing where to go or what to do anyway . . . as he did now. Some people knew Rawlie for years before discovering he was not at all the absent-minded educated fool he seemed to be. Some never discovered it at all.

"Novels\Dark Half, The.txt" 6663 351:He entered the stand of trees between the two properties, stepped over the crumbled remnant of a rock wall, and then sank down to one knee. For the first time he was looking directly at the house of his stubborn twin. There was a police cruiser parked in the driveway, and the two cops who belonged to it were standing in the shade of a nearby tree, SMOKING and talking. Good.

"Novels\Dark Half, The.txt" 6701 40:Chatterton lifted his boot to butt his CIGARETTE-he planned to put the stub in the cruiser's ashtray once it was dead; Maine State Police did not litter the driveways of the taxpayers-and when he looked up the man with the skinned face was there, lurching slowly up the driveway. One hand waved slowly at him and Jack Eddings for help; the other was bent behind his back and looked broken.

"Novels\Dark Half, The.txt" 7303 43:Thad closed his eyes at the sound of that SMOKE-roughened voice and leaned against the cool metal side of the parts shop for a moment.

"Novels\Dark Half, The.txt" 7374 198:Rawlie pulled up beside the end of the parts building and got out. Thad was a little surprised to see that his pipe was lit, and giving off great clouds of what would have been extremely offensive SMOKE in a closed room.

"Novels\Dark Half, The.txt" 7376 29:"You're not supposed to SMOKE, Rawlie," was the first thing he could think of to say.

"Novels\Dark Half, The.txt" 7702 262:Alan pushed the inter-office telephone back to its normal place. God favored fools and drunks-a fact he had learned well in his many years of police work-and it seemed that Fuzzy's house and barn were still standing in spite of his habit of flicking live CIGARETTE butts here, there, and everywhere while he was drunk. Now all I have to do, Alan thought, is sit here until he unravels whatever the problem is. Then I can figure out-or try to-if it's in the real world or only inside whatever is left of Fuzzy's mind.

"Novels\Dark Half, The.txt" 7710 633:A picture at last began to form in Alan's mind. With his cows, his kids, and his wife gone, Fuzzy Martin didn't need a whole lot of hard cash-the land had been his free and clear, except for taxes, when he inherited it from his dad. What money Fuzzy did see came from various odd sources. Alan believed, almost knew, in fact, that a bale or two of marijuana joined the hay in Fuzzy's barn loft every couple of months or so, and that was just one of Fuzzy's little scams. He had thought from time to time that he ought to make a serious effort to bust Fuzzy for possession with intent to sell, but he doubted if Fuzzy even SMOKED the stuff, let alone had brains enough to sell it. Most likely he just collected a hundred or two hundred dollars every now and again for providing storage space. And even in a little burg like Castle Rock, there were more important things to do than busting drunks for holding weed.

"Novels\Dark Half, The.txt" 7714 114:Over the years, Fuzzy's car-storage business had fallen off radically. Alan supposed that word of his careless SMOKING habits had gotten around and that had done it. No one wants to lose their car in a barn-fire, even if it's just an old lag you kept around to run errands when summer came. The last time he had been out to Fuzzy's, Alan had seen only two cars in the barn: Ossie Brannigan's '59 T-Bird-a car which would have been a classic if it hadn't been so rusted out and beat-to-shit-and Thad Beaumont's old Ford Woody wagon.

"Novels\Dark Half, The.txt" 7987 247:Duplicate key, his mind whispered, but Alan didn't think so. If Fuzzy was storing wacky tobaccy in there from time to time, Alan thought Fuzzy would be pretty careful of where he left his keys lying around, no matter how careless he was of his CIGARETTE ends.

"Novels\Dark Half, The.txt" 9271 14:"Give me a CIGARETTE," he said.

"Novels\Dark Half, The.txt" 9277 93:There was a pack of Pall Malls lying on the desk. Stark shook one out and Thad took it. The CIGARETTE felt strange between his lips after so many years . . . too big, somehow. But it felt good. It felt right.

"Novels\Dark Half, The.txt" 9279 74:Stark scratched a match and held it out to Thad, who inhaled deeply. The SMOKE bit his lungs in its old merciless, necessary way. He felt immediately woozy, but he didn't mind the feeling at all.

"Novels\Dark Half, The.txt" 9285 105:Thad nodded. "Me too. What can I say, George? I was wrong." He took another deep drag and feathered SMOKE out through his nostrils. He turned his notebook toward Stark. "Your turn," he said.

"Novels\Dark Half, The.txt" 9368 17:Stark smashed a CIGARETTE out in the overflowing ashtray. "You want to go on or take a break?"

"Novels\Dark Half, The.txt" 9445 1:SMOKE-detectors began to go off as birds crashed into them. Somewhere there was a monstrous crash as the TV screen exploded. Clatters as pictures on the walls fell. A series of metallic xylophone bonks as sparrows struck the pots hanging on the wall by the stove and knocked them to the floor.

"Novels\Dark Half, The.txt" 9788 694:When he was done, he knotted the two cotton socks together. Then he took Thad's and added them to his own. He walked around to the passenger-side rear, dead sparrows crunching under his shoes like newspaper, and opened the Toronado's fuel port. He spun off the gas cap and stuck the makeshift fuse into the throat of the tank. When he pulled it out again, it was soaked. He reversed it, sticking in the dry end, leaving the wet end hanging against the guano-splattered flank of the car. Then he turned to Thad, who had followed him. Alan fumbled in the pocket of his uniform shirt and brought out a book of paper matches. It was the sort of matchbook they give you at newsstands with your CIGARETTES. He didn't know where he had gotten this one, but there was a stamp-collecting ad on the cover.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower I The Gunslinger.txt" 1333 22:The gunslinger lit a SMOKE without replying.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower I The Gunslinger.txt" 135 121:"Here." Brown produced a sulfur-headed match and struck it with a grimed nail. The gunslinger pushed the tip of his SMOKE into the flame and drew.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower I The Gunslinger.txt" 1619 986:Now he is on the street, Jake Chambers is on the street, he has "hit the bricks." He is clean and well-mannered, comely, sensitive. He bowls once a week at Mid-Town Lanes. He has no friends, only acquaintances. He has never bothered to think about this, but it hurts him. He does not know or understand that a long association with professional people has caused him to take on many of their traits. Mrs. Greta Shaw (better than the rest of them, but gosh, is that ever a consolation prize) makes very professional sandwiches. She quarters them and cuts off the breadcrusts so that when he eats in the gym period four he looks like he ought to be at a cocktail party with a drink in his other hand instead of a sports novel or a Clay Blaisdell Western from the school library. His father makes a great deal of money because he is a master of "the kill"-that is, placing a stronger show on his Network against a weaker show on a rival Network. His father smokes four packs of CIGARETTES a day. His father does not cough, but he has a hard grin, and he's not averse to the occasional shot of the old Coca-Cola.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower I The Gunslinger.txt" 1625 1631:He comes to the corner and stands with his bookbag at his side. Traffic roars by-grunting blue-and-white busses, yellow taxis, Volkswagens, a large truck. He is just a boy, but not average, and he sees the man who kills him out of the corner of his eye. It is the man in black, and he doesn't see the face, only the swirling robe, the outstretched hands, and the hard, professional grin. He falls into the street with his arms outstretched, not letting go of the bookbag which contains Mrs. Greta Shaw's extremely professional lunch. There is a brief glance through a polarized windshield at the horrified face of a businessman wearing a dark-blue hat in the band of which is a small, jaunty feather. Somewhere a radio is blasting rock and roll. An old woman on the far curb screams-she is wearing a black hat with a net. Nothing jaunty about that black net; it is like a mourner's veil. Jake feels nothing but surprise and his usual sense of headlong bewilderment-is this how it ends? Before he's bowled better than two-seventy? He lands hard in the street and looks at an asphalt-sealed crack some two inches from his eyes. The bookbag is jolted from his hand. He is wondering if he has skinned his knees when the car belonging to the businessman wearing the blue hat with the jaunty feather passes over him. It is a big blue 1976 Cadillac with whitewall Firestone tires. The car is almost exactly the same color as the businessman's hat. It breaks Jake's back, mushes his guts to gravy, and sends blood from his mouth in a high-pressure jet. He turns his head and sees the Cadillac's flaming taillights and SMOKE spurting from beneath its locked rear wheels. The car has also run over his bookbag and left a wide black tread on it. He turns his head the other way and sees a large gray Ford screaming to a stop inches from his body. A black fellow who has been selling pretzels and sodas from a pushcart is coming toward him on the run. Blood runs from Jake's nose, ears, eyes, rectum. His genitals have been squashed. He wonders irritably how badly he has skinned his knees. He wonders if he'll be late for school. Now the driver of the Cadillac is running toward him, babbling. Somewhere a terrible, calm voice, the voice of doom, says: "I am a priest. Let me through. An Act of Contrition . . ."

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower I The Gunslinger.txt" 1687 356:"You did just right." The gunslinger sat down, seeing but not thinking about the dust of years that puffed up around his rump. He thought it something of a wonder that the porch didn't simply collapse beneath their combined weight. The flame from the lamp shadowed the boy's face with delicate tones. The gunslinger produced his poke and rolled a CIGARETTE.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower I The Gunslinger.txt" 1701 116:"To find a tower," the gunslinger said. He held his CIGARETTE over the chimney of the lamp and drew on it; the SMOKE drifted away on the rising night breeze. Jake watched it. His face showed neither fear nor curiosity, certainly not enthusiasm.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower I The Gunslinger.txt" 1701 57:"To find a tower," the gunslinger said. He held his CIGARETTE over the chimney of the lamp and drew on it; the SMOKE drifted away on the rising night breeze. Jake watched it. His face showed neither fear nor curiosity, certainly not enthusiasm.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower I The Gunslinger.txt" 1727 112:"I guess that depends on where you're standing," the gunslinger said absently. He got up and pitched his CIGARETTE out onto the hardpan. "I'm going to sleep."

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower I The Gunslinger.txt" 1849 327:The boy was fine on the trail. He was tough, but more than that, he seemed to fight exhaustion with a calm reservoir of will which the gunslinger appreciated and admired. He didn't talk much and he didn't ask questions, not even about the jawbone, which the gunslinger turned over and over in his hands during his evening SMOKE. He caught a sense that the boy felt highly flattered by the gunslinger's companionship-perhaps even exalted by it-and this disturbed him. The boy had been placed in his path-While you travel with the boy, the man in black travels with your soul in his pocket-and the fact that Jake was not slowing him down only opened the way to more sinister possibilities.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower I The Gunslinger.txt" 1903 55:The gunslinger got makings from his poke and rolled a CIGARETTE. There was something missing. He searched for it in his diligent, careful way and located it. The missing thing was his previous maddening sense of hurry, the feeling that he might be left behind at any time, that the trail would die out and he would be left with only a last fading footprint. All that was gone now, and the gunslinger was slowly becoming sure that the man in black wanted to be caught. 'Ware the man who fakes a limp.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower I The Gunslinger.txt" 1909 26:He watched the boy as he SMOKED, and his mind turned back on Cuthbert, who had always laughed (to his death he had gone laughing), and Cort, who never laughed, and on Marten, who sometimes smiled-a thin, silent smile that had its own disquieting gleam . . . like an eye that slips open in the dark and discloses blood. And there had been the falcon, of course. The falcon was named David, after the legend of the boy with the sling. David, he was quite sure, knew nothing but the need for murder, rending, and terror. Like the gunslinger himself. David was no dilettante; he played the center of the court.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower I The Gunslinger.txt" 1913 117:The gunslinger's stomach seemed to rise painfully against his heart, but his face didn't change. He watched the SMOKE of his CIGARETTE rise into the hot desert air and disappear, and his mind went back.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower I The Gunslinger.txt" 1913 130:The gunslinger's stomach seemed to rise painfully against his heart, but his face didn't change. He watched the SMOKE of his CIGARETTE rise into the hot desert air and disappear, and his mind went back.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower I The Gunslinger.txt" 201 34:But Brown asked no questions. He SMOKED tobacco that had been grown in Garlan years before and looked at the dying embers of the fire. It was already noticeably cooler in the hovel.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower I The Gunslinger.txt" 229 46:But Brown still had no questions to ask. His CIGARETTE was down to a smoldering roach, but when the gunslinger tapped his poke, Brown shook his head.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower I The Gunslinger.txt" 2339 5:His CIGARETTE drooped toward the grass, and he tossed it into the fire. He looked at it, the clear yellow burn so different, so much cleaner, from the way the devil-grass burned. The air was wonderfully cool, and he lay down with his back to the fire.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower I The Gunslinger.txt" 2675 200:The gunslinger sat down-almost fell down-feeling the aching joints and the pummeled, thick mind that was the unlovely afterglow of mescaline. His crotch also pulsed with a dull ache. He rolled a CIGARETTE with careful, unthinking slowness. Jake watched. The gunslinger had a sudden impulse to speak to the boy dan-dinh after telling him all he had learned, then thrust the idea away with horror. He wondered if a part of him-mind or soul-might not be disintegrating. To open one's mind and heart to the command of a child? The idea was insane.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower I The Gunslinger.txt" 2703 45:"Yar," he said gruffly, and the tang of SMOKE stung faintly in his nose. "Thee's made fire."

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower I The Gunslinger.txt" 2743 335:When the shadows began to turn purple, they camped in the overhang of a jutting brow of rock. The gunslinger anchored their blanket above and below, fashioning a kind of shanty lean-to. They sat at the mouth of it, watching the sky spread a cloak over the world. Jake dangled his feet over the drop. The gunslinger rolled his evening SMOKE and eyed Jake half humorously. "Don't roll over in your sleep," he said, "or you may wake up in hell."

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower I The Gunslinger.txt" 2785 16:The gunslinger SMOKED and thought of how it had been-the nights in the huge central hall, hundreds of richly clad figures moving through the slow, steady waltz steps or the faster, light ripples of the pol-kam, Aileen Ritter on his arm, the one his parents had chosen for him, he supposed, her eyes brighter than the most precious gems, the light of the crystal-enclosed spark-lights shining in the newly done hair of the courtesans and their half-cynical amours. The hall had been huge, an island of light whose age was beyond telling, as was the whole Central Place, which was made up of nearly a hundred stone castles. It had been unknown years since he had seen it, and leaving for the last time, Roland had ached as he turned his face away from it and began his first cast for the trail of the man in black. Even then the walls had fallen, weeds grew in the courtyards, bats roosted amongst the great beams of the central hall, and the galleries echoed with the soft swoop and whisper of swallows. The fields where Cort had taught them archery and gunnery and falconry were gone to hay and timothy and wild vines. In the huge kitchen where Hax had once held his fuming and aromatic court, a grotesque colony of Slow Mutants nested, peering at him from the merciful darkness of pantries and shadowed pillars. The warm steam that had been filled with the pungent odors of roasting beef and pork had changed to the clammy damp of moss. Giant white toadstools grew in corners where not even the Slow Muties dared to encamp. The huge oak subcellar bulkhead stood open, and the most poignant smell of all had issued from that, an odor that seemed to express with a flat finality all the hard facts of dissolution and decay: the high sharp odor of wine gone to vinegar. It had been no struggle to turn his face to the south and leave it behind-but it had hurt his heart.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower I The Gunslinger.txt" 2789 85:"Even better," the gunslinger said and pitched the last smoldering ember of his CIGARETTE away. "There was a revolution. We won every battle, and lost the war. No one won the war, unless maybe it was the scavengers. There must have been rich pickings for years after."

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower I The Gunslinger.txt" 289 1288:There were people on the streets, but not many. Three ladies wearing black slacks and identical high-collared blouses passed by on the opposite boardwalk, not looking at him with pointed curiosity. Their faces seemed to swim above their all-but-invisible bodies like pallid balls with eyes. A solemn old man with a straw hat perched firmly on top of his head watched him from the steps of a boarded-up mercantile store. A scrawny tailor with a late customer paused to watch him go by; he held up the lamp in his window for a better look. The gunslinger nodded. Neither the tailor nor his customer nodded back. He could feel their eyes resting heavily upon the low-slung holsters that lay against his hips. A young boy, perhaps thirteen, and a girl who might have been his sissa or his jilly-child crossed the street a block up, pausing imperceptibly. Their footfalls raised little hanging clouds of dust. Here in town most of the streetside lamps worked, but they weren't electric; their isinglass sides were cloudy with congealed oil. Some had been crashed out. There was a livery with a just-hanging-on look to it, probably depending on the coach line for its survival. Three boys were crouched silently around a marble ring drawn in the dust to one side of the barn's gaping maw, SMOKING cornshuck CIGARETTES. They made long shadows in the yard. One had a scorpion's tail poked in the band of his hat. Another had a bloated left eye bulging sightlessly from its socket.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower I The Gunslinger.txt" 289 1306:There were people on the streets, but not many. Three ladies wearing black slacks and identical high-collared blouses passed by on the opposite boardwalk, not looking at him with pointed curiosity. Their faces seemed to swim above their all-but-invisible bodies like pallid balls with eyes. A solemn old man with a straw hat perched firmly on top of his head watched him from the steps of a boarded-up mercantile store. A scrawny tailor with a late customer paused to watch him go by; he held up the lamp in his window for a better look. The gunslinger nodded. Neither the tailor nor his customer nodded back. He could feel their eyes resting heavily upon the low-slung holsters that lay against his hips. A young boy, perhaps thirteen, and a girl who might have been his sissa or his jilly-child crossed the street a block up, pausing imperceptibly. Their footfalls raised little hanging clouds of dust. Here in town most of the streetside lamps worked, but they weren't electric; their isinglass sides were cloudy with congealed oil. Some had been crashed out. There was a livery with a just-hanging-on look to it, probably depending on the coach line for its survival. Three boys were crouched silently around a marble ring drawn in the dust to one side of the barn's gaping maw, SMOKING cornshuck CIGARETTES. They made long shadows in the yard. One had a scorpion's tail poked in the band of his hat. Another had a bloated left eye bulging sightlessly from its socket.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower I The Gunslinger.txt" 2981 177:The gunslinger lapsed into silence, and the boy laid over and put one hand between his cheek and the stone. The little flame in front of them guttered. The gunslinger rolled a SMOKE. It seemed he could see the crystal light still, in the eye of his memory; hear the shout of accolade, empty in a husked land that stood even then hopeless against a gray ocean of time. Remembering that island of light hurt him bitterly, and he wished he had never held witness to it, or to his father's cuckoldry.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower I The Gunslinger.txt" 2983 11:He passed SMOKE between his mouth and nostrils, looking down at the boy. How we make large circles in earth for ourselves, he thought. Around we go, back to the start and the start is there again: resumption, which was ever the curse of daylight.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower I The Gunslinger.txt" 3087 69:The gunslinger had been leaning with his back against the handle, a CIGARETTE from his dwindling supply of tobacco clamped in his lips. He'd been on the verge of his usual unthinking sleep when the boy asked his question.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower I The Gunslinger.txt" 35 339:He did not take the flint and steel from his purse until the remains of the day were only fugitive heat in the ground beneath him and a sardonic orange line on the monochrome horizon. He sat with his gunna drawn across his lap and watched the southeast patiently, looking toward the mountains, not hoping to see the thin straight line of SMOKE from a new campfire, not expecting to see an orange spark of flame, but watching anyway because watching was a part of it, and had its own bitter satisfaction. You will not see what you do not look for, maggot, Cort would have said. Open the gobs the gods gave ya, will ya not?

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower I The Gunslinger.txt" 37 86:But there was nothing. He was close, but only relatively so. Not close enough to see SMOKE at dusk, or the orange wink of a campfire.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower I The Gunslinger.txt" 395 66:He was almost through, ready to call for another beer and roll a SMOKE, when the hand fell on his shoulder.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower I The Gunslinger.txt" 401 113:The cracked lips writhed, lifted, revealing the green, mossy teeth, and the gunslinger thought: He's not even SMOKING it anymore. He's chewing it. He's really chewing it.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower I The Gunslinger.txt" 43 924:Above, the stars were unwinking, also constant. Suns and worlds by the million. Dizzying constellations, cold fire in every primary hue. As he watched, the sky washed from violet to ebony. A meteor etched a brief, spectacular arc below Old Mother and winked out. The fire threw strange shadows as the devil-grass burned its slow way down into new patterns-not ideograms but a straightforward crisscross vaguely frightening in its own no-nonsense surety. He had laid his fuel in a pattern that was not artful but only workable. It spoke of blacks and whites. It spoke of a man who might straighten bad pictures in strange hotel rooms. The fire burned its steady, slow flame, and phantoms danced in its incandescent core. The gunslinger did not see. The two patterns, art and craft, were welded together as he slept. The wind moaned, a witch with cancer in her belly. Every now and then a perverse downdraft would make the SMOKE whirl and puff toward him and he breathed some of it in. It built dreams in the same way that a small irritant may build a pearl in an oyster. The gunslinger occasionally moaned with the wind. The stars were as indifferent to this as they were to wars, crucifixions, resurrections. This also would have pleased him.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower I The Gunslinger.txt" 4311 35:"Tobacco, gunslinger. Would you SMOKE?"

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower I The Gunslinger.txt" 4315 15:He rolled two CIGARETTES and bit the ends of each to release the flavor. He offered one to the man in black, who took it. Each of them took a burning twig from the fire.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower I The Gunslinger.txt" 4317 24:The gunslinger lit his CIGARETTE and drew the aromatic SMOKE deep into his lungs, closing his eyes to concentrate the senses. He blew out with long, slow satisfaction.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower I The Gunslinger.txt" 4317 56:The gunslinger lit his CIGARETTE and drew the aromatic SMOKE deep into his lungs, closing his eyes to concentrate the senses. He blew out with long, slow satisfaction.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower I The Gunslinger.txt" 4323 33:"Enjoy it. It may be the last SMOKE for you in a very long time."

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower I The Gunslinger.txt" 4335 83:"But that's not exactly right, either," the man in black said, pitching his CIGARETTE into the remains of the campfire. "No one wants to invest you with a power of any kind, gunslinger; it is simply in you, and I am compelled to tell you, partly because of the sacrifice of the boy, and partly because it is the law; the natural law of things. Water must run downhill, and you must be told. You will draw three, I understand . . . but I don't really care, and I don't really want to know."

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower I The Gunslinger.txt" 469 9:He made CIGARETTES in the dark, then lit them and passed one to her. The room held her scent, fresh lilac, pathetic. The smell of the desert had overlaid it. He realized he was afraid of the desert ahead.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower I The Gunslinger.txt" 479 196:"He was here ever since I can remember-Nort, I mean, not God." She laughed jaggedly into the dark. "He had a honeywagon for a while. Started to drink. Started to smell the grass. Then to SMOKE it. The kids started to follow him around and sic their dogs onto him. He wore old green pants that stank. Do you understand?"

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower I The Gunslinger.txt" 711 34:"Um." He was rolling another CIGARETTE.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower I The Gunslinger.txt" 717 31:Silence again. The tip of his CIGARETTE winked off and on.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower II The Drawing of the Three.txt" 1008 96:Susy Douglas was making the final approach announcement, telling the geese to extinguish their CIGARETTES, telling them they would have to stow what they had taken out, telling them a Delta gate agent would meet the flight, telling them to check and make sure they had their duty-declaration cards and proofs of citizenship, telling them it would now be necessary to pick up all cups, glasses and speaker sets.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower II The Drawing of the Three.txt" 1687 230:Eddie Dean was sitting in a chair. The chair was in a small white room. It was the only chair in the small white room. The small white room was crowded. The small white room was smoky. Eddie was in his underpants. Eddie wanted a CIGARETTE. The other six-no, seven-men in the small white room were dressed. The other men were standing around him, enclosing him. Three-no, four-of them were SMOKING CIGARETTES.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower II The Drawing of the Three.txt" 1687 398:Eddie Dean was sitting in a chair. The chair was in a small white room. It was the only chair in the small white room. The small white room was crowded. The small white room was smoky. Eddie was in his underpants. Eddie wanted a CIGARETTE. The other six-no, seven-men in the small white room were dressed. The other men were standing around him, enclosing him. Three-no, four-of them were SMOKING CIGARETTES.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower II The Drawing of the Three.txt" 1687 406:Eddie Dean was sitting in a chair. The chair was in a small white room. It was the only chair in the small white room. The small white room was crowded. The small white room was smoky. Eddie was in his underpants. Eddie wanted a CIGARETTE. The other six-no, seven-men in the small white room were dressed. The other men were standing around him, enclosing him. Three-no, four-of them were SMOKING CIGARETTES.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower II The Drawing of the Three.txt" 1697 221:"That is a very interesting red mark on your chest," one of the Customs men said. A CIGARETTE hung from the corner of his mouth. There was a pack in his shirt pocket. Eddie felt as if he could take about five of the CIGARETTES in that pack, line his mouth with them from corner to corner, light them all, inhale deeply, and be easier in his mind. "It looks like a stripe. It looks like you had something taped there, Eddie, and all at once decided it would be a good idea to rip it off and get rid of it."

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower II The Drawing of the Three.txt" 1697 89:"That is a very interesting red mark on your chest," one of the Customs men said. A CIGARETTE hung from the corner of his mouth. There was a pack in his shirt pocket. Eddie felt as if he could take about five of the CIGARETTES in that pack, line his mouth with them from corner to corner, light them all, inhale deeply, and be easier in his mind. "It looks like a stripe. It looks like you had something taped there, Eddie, and all at once decided it would be a good idea to rip it off and get rid of it."

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower II The Drawing of the Three.txt" 1753 108:"If you're clean, why won't you take a blood-test?" This was the first guy again, the guy with the CIGARETTE in the corner of his mouth. It had almost burned down to the filter.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower II The Drawing of the Three.txt" 1767 127:"You've been up my ass, you've been through my stuff, and I'm sitting here in a pair of Jockies with you guys blowing SMOKE in my face. You want a blood-test? Kay. Bring in someone to do it."

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower II The Drawing of the Three.txt" 1880 68:And suddenly that other had been gone. Simply gone. Like a wisp of SMOKE so thin that the slightest vagary of wind could blow it away. Eddie looked around again, saw nothing but drilled white panels, no door, no ocean, no weird monstrosities, and he felt his gut begin to tighten. There was no question of believing that it had all been a hallucination after all; the dope was gone, and that was all the proof Eddie needed. But Roland had . . . helped, somehow. Made it easier.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower II The Drawing of the Three.txt" 2288 249:"Henry's fine," Eddie said, but he knew better and he couldn't keep the knowing out of his voice. He heard it and knew Jack Andolini heard it, too. These days Henry was always on the nod, it seemed like. There were holes in his shirts from CIGARETTE burns. He had cut the shit out of his hand using the electric can-opener on a can of Calo for Potzie, their cat. Eddie didn't know how you cut yourself with an electric can-opener, but Henry had managed it. Sometimes the kitchen table would be powdery with Henry's leavings, or Eddie would find blackened curls of char in the bathroom sink.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower II The Drawing of the Three.txt" 3572 258:good in the dark. Something, after all this long dark dry time, something is cooking. It's not just the smell. He can hear the snap and pop of twigs, can see the faint orange flicker of a campfire. Sometimes, when the sea-breeze gusts, he smells fragrant SMOKE as well as that mouth-watering other smell. Food, he thinks. My God, am I hungry? If I'm hungry, maybe I'm getting well.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower II The Drawing of the Three.txt" 3836 154:Eddie told the gunslinger he doubted if his mother knew some of the things they had done-filching comic books from the candy store on Rincon Avenue or SMOKING CIGARETTES behind the Bonded Electroplate Factory on Cohoes Street.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower II The Drawing of the Three.txt" 3836 162:Eddie told the gunslinger he doubted if his mother knew some of the things they had done-filching comic books from the candy store on Rincon Avenue or SMOKING CIGARETTES behind the Bonded Electroplate Factory on Cohoes Street.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower II The Drawing of the Three.txt" 4186 167:Howard nodded, took the battered suitcases, and started back inside. He paused only long enough to tip his cap to Odetta Holmes-who was almost invisible behind the SMOKED glass windows-in a soft and respectful salute.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower II The Drawing of the Three.txt" 4203 495:She could remember the china plate. She could remember that. She could remember slipping it into the pocket of her dress, looking over her shoulder all the while to make sure the Blue Woman wasn't there, peeking. She had to make sure because the china plate belonged to the Blue Woman. The china plate was, Detta understood in some vague way, a forspecial. Detta took it for that why. Detta remembered taking it to a place she knew (although she didn't know how she knew) as The Drawers, a SMOKING trash-littered hole in the earth where she had once seen a burning baby with plastic skin. She remembered putting the plate carefully down on the gravelly ground and then starting to step on it and stopping, remembered taking off her plain cotton panties and putting them into the pocket where the plate had been, and then carefully slipping the first finger of her left hand carefully against the cut in her at the place where Old Stupid God had joined her and all other girlsandwomen imperfectly, but something about that place must be right, because she remembered the jolt, remembered wanting to press, remembered not pressing, remembered how delicious her vagina had been naked, without the cotton panties in the way of it and the world, and she had not pressed, not until her shoe pressed, her black patent leather shoe, not until her shoe pressed down on the plate, then she pressed on the cut with her finger the way she was pressing on the Blue Woman's forspecial china plate with her foot, she remembered the way the black patent leather shoe covered the delicate blue webbing on the edge of the plate, she remembered the press, yes, she remembered pressing in The Drawers, pressing with finger and foot, remembered the delicious promise of finger and cut, remembered that when the plate snapped with a bitter brittle snap a similar brittle pleasure had skewered upward from that cut into her guts like an arrow, she remembered the cry which had broken from her lips, an unpleasant cawing like the sound of a crow scared up from a cornpatch, she could remember staring dully at the fragments of the plate and then taking the plain white cotton panties slowly out of her dress pocket and putting them on again, step-ins, so she had heard them called in some time unhoused in memory and drifting loose like turves on a floodtide, step-ins, good, because first you stepped out to do your business and then you stepped back in, first one shiny patent leather shoe and then the other, good, panties were good, she could remember drawing them up her legs so clearly, drawing them past her knees, a scab on the left one almost ready to fall off and leave clean pink new babyskin, yes, she could remember so clearly it might not have been a week ago or yesterday but only one single moment ago, she could remember how the waistband had reached the hem of her party dress, the clear contrast of white cotton against brown skin, like cream, yes, like that, cream from a pitcher caught suspended over coffee, the texture, the panties disappearing under the hem of the dress, except then the dress was burnt orange and the panties were not going up but down but they were still white but not cotton, they were nylon, cheap see-through nylon panties, cheap in more ways than one, and she remembered stepping out of them, she remembered how they glimmered on the floormat of the '46 Dodge DeSoto, yes, how white they were, how cheap they were, not anything dignified like underwear but cheap panties, the girl was cheap and it was good to be cheap, good to be on sale, to be on the block not even like a whore but like a good breed-sow; she remembered no round china plate but the round white face of a boy, some surprised drunk fraternity boy, he was no china plate but his face was as round as the Blue Woman's china plate had been, and there was webbing on his cheeks, and this webbing looked as blue as the webbing on the Blue Woman's forspecial china plate had been, but that was only because the neon was red, the neon was garish, in the dark the neon from the roadhouse sign made the spreading blood from the places on his cheeks where she had clawed him look blue, and he had said Why did you why did you why did you do, and then he unrolled the window so he could get his face outside to puke and she remembered hearing Dodie Stevens on the jukebox, singing about tan shoes with pink shoelaces and a big Panama with a purple hatband, she remembered the sound of his puking was like gravel in a cement mixer, and his penis, which moments before had been a livid exclamation point rising from the tufted tangle of his pubic hair, was collapsing into a weak white question mark; she remembered the hoarse gravel sounds of his vomiting stopped and then started again and she thought Well I guess he ain't made enough to lay this foundation yet and laughing and pressing her finger (which now came equipped with a long shaped nail) against her vagina which was bare but no longer bare because it was overgrown with its own coarse briared tangle, and there had been the same brittle breaking snap inside her, and it was still as much pain as it was pleasure (but better, far better, than nothing at all), and then he was grabbing blindly for her and saying in a hurt breaking tone Oh you goddamned nigger cunt and she went on laughing just the same, dodging him easily and snatching up her panties and opening the door on her side of the car, feeling the last blind thud of his fingers on the back of her blouse as she ran into a May night that was redolent of early honeysuckle, red-pink neon light stuttering off the gravel of some postwar parking lot, stuffing her panties, her cheap slick nylon panties not into the pocket of her dress but into a purse jumbled with a teenager's cheerful conglomeration of cosmetics, she was running, the light was stuttering, and then she was twenty-three and it was not panties but a rayon scarf, and she was casually slipping it into her purse as she walked along a counter in the Nice Notions section of Macy's-a scarf which sold at that time for $1.99.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower II The Drawing of the Three.txt" 4239 743:The place had been a city bus in Montgomery, Alabama, and the words had been spoken by a black woman named Rosa Lee Parks, and the place from which Rosa Lee Parks was not movin was from the front of the city bus to the back of the city bus, which was, of course, the Jim Crow part of the city bus. Much later, Odetta would sing "We Shall Not Be Moved" with the rest of them, and it always made her think of Rosa Lee Parks, and she never sang it without a sense of shame. It was so easy to sing we with your arms linked to the arms of a whole crowd; that was easy even for a woman with no legs. So easy to sing we, so easy to be we. There had been no we on that bus, that bus that must have stank of ancient leather and years of cigar and CIGARETTE SMOKE, that bus with the curved ad cards saying things like LUCKY STRIKE L.S.M.F.T. and ATTEND THE CHURCH OF YOUR CHOICE FOR HEAVEN'S SAKE and DRINK OVALTINE! YOU'LL SEE WHAT WE MEAN! and CHESTERFIELD, TWENTY-ONE GREAT TOBACCOS MAKE TWENTY WONDERFUL SMOKES, no we under the disbelieving gazes of the motorman, the white passengers among whom she sat, the equally disbelieving stares of the blacks at the back.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower II The Drawing of the Three.txt" 4239 753:The place had been a city bus in Montgomery, Alabama, and the words had been spoken by a black woman named Rosa Lee Parks, and the place from which Rosa Lee Parks was not movin was from the front of the city bus to the back of the city bus, which was, of course, the Jim Crow part of the city bus. Much later, Odetta would sing "We Shall Not Be Moved" with the rest of them, and it always made her think of Rosa Lee Parks, and she never sang it without a sense of shame. It was so easy to sing we with your arms linked to the arms of a whole crowd; that was easy even for a woman with no legs. So easy to sing we, so easy to be we. There had been no we on that bus, that bus that must have stank of ancient leather and years of cigar and CIGARETTE SMOKE, that bus with the curved ad cards saying things like LUCKY STRIKE L.S.M.F.T. and ATTEND THE CHURCH OF YOUR CHOICE FOR HEAVEN'S SAKE and DRINK OVALTINE! YOU'LL SEE WHAT WE MEAN! and CHESTERFIELD, TWENTY-ONE GREAT TOBACCOS MAKE TWENTY WONDERFUL SMOKES, no we under the disbelieving gazes of the motorman, the white passengers among whom she sat, the equally disbelieving stares of the blacks at the back.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower II The Drawing of the Three.txt" 4435 162:"Maybe not. We didn't always get a real clear picture of what that was in the Projects. It was just a word you used after Your if you happened to get caught SMOKING reefer or lifting the spinners off some guy's T-Bird and got ho'ed up in court for it."

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower II The Drawing of the Three.txt" 4583 6:They SMOKED in silence for awhile. The paras were maybe chasing tail like Julio had said . . . or maybe they'd just had enough. George had been scared, all right, no joke about that. But he also knew he had been the one who saved the woman, not the paras, and he knew Julio knew it too. Maybe that was really why Julio had waited. The old black woman had helped, and the white kid who had dialed the cops while everyone else (except the old black woman) had just stood around watching like it was some goddam movie or TV show or something, part of a Peter Gunn episode, maybe, but in the end it had all come down to George Shavers, one scared cat doing his duty the best way he could.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower II The Drawing of the Three.txt" 4678 195:They opened, blazing. One hand came up and slashed five slits through the air within an inch of his face-any closer and he would have been in the E.R. getting his cheek stitched up instead of SMOKING Chesties with Julio Estavez.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower II The Drawing of the Three.txt" 5441 194:She remembered monsters coming out of the waves, and she remembered how one of the men-the older-had killed one of them. The younger had built a fire and cooked it and then had offered her SMOKING monster-meat on a stick, grinning. She remembered spitting at his face, remembered his grin turning into an angry honky scowl. He had hit her upside the face, and told her Well, that's all right, you'll come around, niggerbitch. Wait and see if you don't. Then he and the Really Bad Man-had laughed and the Really Bad Man had brought out a haunch of beef which he spitted and slowly cooked over the fire on the beach of this alien place to which they had brought her.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower II The Drawing of the Three.txt" 6110 471:"Mawnin, whitebread," Detta said, and grinned her sharklike grin at him. "Thought you was goan sleep till noon. You cain't be doin nuthin like dat, kin you? We got to bus us some miles here, ain't dat d'fac of d'matter? Sho! An I think you the one goan have to do most of de bustin, cause dat other fella, one with de voodoo eyes, he lookin mo peaky all de time, I declare he do! Yes! I doan think he goan be eatin anything much longer, not even dat fancy SMOKED meat you whitebread boys keep fo when you done joikin on each other one's little bitty white candles. So let's go, whitebread! Detta doan want to be d'one keepin you."

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower II The Drawing of the Three.txt" 7613 328:She was deeply sly. She would have laughed harshly at anyone daring to suggest it, but she was also deeply insecure. Because of the latter, she attributed the former to anyone she met whose intellect seemed to approach her own. This was how she felt about the gunslinger. She had heard a shot, and when she looked she'd seen SMOKE drifting from the muzzle of his remaining gun. He had reloaded and tossed this gun to Eddie just before going through the door.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower II The Drawing of the Three.txt" 7929 367:Roland did this, and after several Tack-Sees which were obviously empty save for their drivers had gone by him, he saw that these had signs which read Off-Duty. Since these were Great Letters, the gunslinger didn't need Mort's help. He waited, then put his hand up again. This time the Tack-See pulled over. The gunslinger got into the back seat. He smelled old SMOKE, old sweat, old perfume. It smelled like a coach in his own world.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower II The Drawing of the Three.txt" 827 40:She went back to the galley to catch a SMOKE.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower II The Drawing of the Three.txt" 829 48:She struck the match, lifted it halfway to her CIGARETTE, and there it stopped, unnoticed, because that wasn't all they taught you to expect.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower II The Drawing of the Three.txt" 8315 139:But he had done it before, hadn't he? Yes. Had not Alain himself, one of his sworn brothers, died under Roland's and Cuthbert's own SMOKING guns?

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower II The Drawing of the Three.txt" 8787 292:"Hold it, motherfucker!" Delevan screamed. Roland's eyes flew to the convex mirror in time to see one of the gunslingers-the one whose ear had bled-leaning out of the window with a scatter-rifle. As his partner pulled their carriage to a screaming halt that made its rubber wheels SMOKE on the pavement he jacked a shell into its chamber.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower II The Drawing of the Three.txt" 8987 15:Mort didn't SMOKE, but his boss-whose job Mort had confidently expected to have himself by this time next year-did. Accordingly, Mort had bought a two hundred dollar silver lighter at Dunhill's. He did not light every CIGARETTE Mr. Framingham stuck in his gob when the two of them were together-that would have made him look too much like an ass-kisser. Just once in awhile . . . and usually when someone even higher up was present, someone who could appreciate a.) Jack Mort's quiet courtesy, and b.) Jack Mort's good taste.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower II The Drawing of the Three.txt" 8987 227:Mort didn't SMOKE, but his boss-whose job Mort had confidently expected to have himself by this time next year-did. Accordingly, Mort had bought a two hundred dollar silver lighter at Dunhill's. He did not light every CIGARETTE Mr. Framingham stuck in his gob when the two of them were together-that would have made him look too much like an ass-kisser. Just once in awhile . . . and usually when someone even higher up was present, someone who could appreciate a.) Jack Mort's quiet courtesy, and b.) Jack Mort's good taste.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower II The Drawing of the Three.txt" 9003 1:SMOKE was rising from the hole in the lapel of Mort's coat in a neat little stream. It was escaping around the edge of the lapel in more untidy blotches. The cops could smell burning flesh as the wadding in the smashed lighter, soaked with Ronson lighter fluid, really began to blaze.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower II The Drawing of the Three.txt" 924 72:About twenty seconds after this had happened, Jane Dorning snuffed her CIGARETTE and crossed the head of the cabin. She got her book from her totebag, but what she really wanted was another look at 3A.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower II The Drawing of the Three.txt" 9244 72:They had food; during the days when Roland lay between life and death, SMOKING with fever, reeling and railing of times long past and people long dead, Eddie and the woman killed again and again and again. Bye and bye the lobstrosities began staying away from their part of the beach, but by then they had plenty of meat, and when they at last got into an area where weeds and smutgrass grew, all three of them ate compulsively of it. They were starved for greens, any greens. And, little by little, the sores on their skins began to fade. Some of the grass was bitter, some sweet, but they ate no matter what the taste . . . except once.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower III The Waste Lands.txt" 1441 696:The largest of these devices looked a little like the Tonka tractor Eddie had gotten for his sixth or seventh birthday; its treads churned up tiny gray clouds of bone-dust as it rolled along. Another looked like a stainless steel rat. A third appeared to be a snake constructed of jointed steel segments-it writhed and humped its way along. They formed a rough circle on the far side of the stream, going around and around on a deep course they had carved in the ground. Looking at them made Eddie think of cartoons he had seen in the stacks of old Saturday Evening Post magazines his mother had for some reason saved and stored in the front hall of their apartment. In the cartoons, worried, CIGARETTE-SMOKING men paced ruts in the carpet while they waited for their wives to give birth.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower III The Waste Lands.txt" 1441 706:The largest of these devices looked a little like the Tonka tractor Eddie had gotten for his sixth or seventh birthday; its treads churned up tiny gray clouds of bone-dust as it rolled along. Another looked like a stainless steel rat. A third appeared to be a snake constructed of jointed steel segments-it writhed and humped its way along. They formed a rough circle on the far side of the stream, going around and around on a deep course they had carved in the ground. Looking at them made Eddie think of cartoons he had seen in the stacks of old Saturday Evening Post magazines his mother had for some reason saved and stored in the front hall of their apartment. In the cartoons, worried, CIGARETTE-SMOKING men paced ruts in the carpet while they waited for their wives to give birth.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower III The Waste Lands.txt" 160 89:Susannah looked at the gun in her hand as if she had never seen it before. A tendril of SMOKE rose from the barrel, perfectly straight in the windless silence. Then, slowly, she returned it to the holster below her bosom.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower III The Waste Lands.txt" 1720 146:The hand, however, would not stop shaking. The dream began to darken, and the smells of car exhaust along Second Avenue became the smell of wood-SMOKE-thin now, because the fire was almost out.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower III The Waste Lands.txt" 2065 57:Good, his father said, lighting one of the eighty Camel CIGARETTES he SMOKED each and every day. We understand each other, then. You're going to have to work your buttsky off, but you can cut it. They never would have sent us this if you couldn't. He picked up the letter of acceptance from The Piper School and rattled it. There was a kind of savage triumph in the gesture, as if the letter was an animal he had killed in the jungle, an animal he would now skin and eat. So work hard. Make your grades. Make your mother and me proud of you. If you end the year with an A average in your courses, there's a trip to Disney World in it for you. That's something to shoot for, right, kiddo?

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower III The Waste Lands.txt" 2065 71:Good, his father said, lighting one of the eighty Camel CIGARETTES he SMOKED each and every day. We understand each other, then. You're going to have to work your buttsky off, but you can cut it. They never would have sent us this if you couldn't. He picked up the letter of acceptance from The Piper School and rattled it. There was a kind of savage triumph in the gesture, as if the letter was an animal he had killed in the jungle, an animal he would now skin and eat. So work hard. Make your grades. Make your mother and me proud of you. If you end the year with an A average in your courses, there's a trip to Disney World in it for you. That's something to shoot for, right, kiddo?

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower III The Waste Lands.txt" 2073 300:As he walked in through the double doors of The Piper School at 8:45 on the morning of May 31st, a terrible vision came to him. He saw his father in his office at 70 Rockefeller Plaza, leaning over his desk with a Camel jutting from the corner of his mouth, talking to one of his underlings as blue SMOKE wreathed his head. All of New York was spread out behind and below his father, its thump and hustle silenced by two layers of Thermopane glass.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower III The Waste Lands.txt" 2412 210:"But where do I go?" Jake whispered. He stood on the sidewalk of Fifty-sixth Street between Park and Madison, watching the traffic bolt past. A city bus snored by, laying a thin trail of acrid blue diesel SMOKE. "Where do I go? Where's the fucking door?"

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower III The Waste Lands.txt" 3239 372:To this point in his life, Jake had been aware of only three feelings about his father: puzzlement, fear, and a species of weak, confused love. Now a fourth and fifth surfaced. One was anger; the other was disgust. Mixed in with these unpleasant feelings was that sense of homesickness. It was the largest thing inside him right now, weaving through everything else like SMOKE. He looked at his father's flushed cheeks and screaming haircut and wished he was back in the vacant lot, looking at the rose and listening to the choir. This is not my place, he thought. Not anymore. I have work to do. If only I knew what it was.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower III The Waste Lands.txt" 3449 183:His father poked his head into Jake's room around quarter of ten, about twenty minutes after Jake's mother had concluded her own short, vague visit. Elmer Chambers was holding a CIGARETTE in one hand and a glass of Scotch in the other. He seemed not only calmer but almost zonked. Jake wondered briefly and indifferently if he had been hitting his mother's Valium supply.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower III The Waste Lands.txt" 3490 191:When he was sure he was over the current fit (although an occasional snicker still rumbled up his throat like an aftershock) and his father would be safely locked away in his study with his CIGARETTES, his Scotch, his papers, and his little bottle of white powder, Jake went back to his desk, turned on the study lamp, and opened Charlie the Choo-Choo. He glanced briefly at the copyright page and saw it had originally been published in 1942; his copy was from the fourth printing. He looked at the back, but there was no information at all about Beryl Evans, the book's author.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower III The Waste Lands.txt" 3588 417:It was true. And so Charlie the Choo-Choo was shunted off to a siding in the furthest corner of Mid-World's St. Louis yard to rust in the weeds. Now the HONNNK! HONNNK! of the Burlington Zephyr was heard on the St. Louis to Topeka run, and Charlie's blew no more. A family of mice nested in the seat where Engineer Bob once sat so proudly, watching the countryside speed past; a family of swallows nested in his SMOKE-stack. Charlie was lonely and very sad. He missed the steel tracks and bright blue skies and wide open spaces. Sometimes, late at night, he thought of these things and cried dark, oily tears. This rusted his fine Stratham headlight, but he didn't care, because now the Stratham headlight was old, and it was always dark.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower III The Waste Lands.txt" 3644 24:Chuffa-chuffa went the SMOKE from Charlie's stack!

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower III The Waste Lands.txt" 3986 33:His father's study smelled of CIGARETTES and ambition.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower III The Waste Lands.txt" 4618 349:I met him, Eddie thought. I must have met him, and I think I remember . . . sort of. It was just before Henry went into the Army, right? He was taking courses at Brooklyn Vocational Institute, and he was heavily into black-black jeans, black motorcycle boots with steel caps, black T-shirts with the sleeves rolled up. Henry's James Dean look. SMOKING Area Chic. I used to think that, but I never said it out loud, because I didn't want him pissed at me.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower III The Waste Lands.txt" 4638 93:Eddie tried to remember the shootout in the nightclub, but it was just a blur in his mind-SMOKE, noise, and light shining through one wall in confused, intersecting rays. He thought that wall had been torn apart by automatic-weapons fire, but couldn't remember for sure.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower III The Waste Lands.txt" 489 542:She had seen the whales at the Seaquarium near Mystic, Connecticut, and believed they had been bigger than this-much bigger, probably-but this was certainly the largest land creature she had ever seen. And it was clearly dying. Its roars had become liquid bubbling sounds, and although its eyes were open, it seemed blind. It flailed aimlessly about the camp, knocking over a rack of curing hides, stamping flat the little shelter she shared with Eddie, caroming off trees. She could see the steel post rising from its head. Tendrils of SMOKE were rising around it, as if her shot had ignited its brains.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower III The Waste Lands.txt" 4896 73:"Then go see Mom. And try to get a couple of bucks out of her. I need CIGARETTES. Take the fuckin ball up, too."

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower III The Waste Lands.txt" 4904 424:Jake's heart was thudding heavily in his chest. Shadowing people was a lot harder in real life than it was in the detective novels he sometimes read. He crossed the street and stood between two apartment buildings half a block up. From here he could see both the entrance to the Dean brothers' building and the playground. The playground was filling up now, mostly with little kids. Henry leaned against the chainlink, SMOKING a CIGARETTE and trying to look full of teenage angst. Every now and then he would stick out a foot as one of the little kids bolted toward him at an all-out run, and before Eddie returned, he had succeeded in tripping three of them. The last of these went sprawling full-length, smacking his face on the concrete, and ran wailing up the street with a bloody forehead. Henry flicked his CIGARETTE butt after him and laughed cheerfully.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower III The Waste Lands.txt" 4904 434:Jake's heart was thudding heavily in his chest. Shadowing people was a lot harder in real life than it was in the detective novels he sometimes read. He crossed the street and stood between two apartment buildings half a block up. From here he could see both the entrance to the Dean brothers' building and the playground. The playground was filling up now, mostly with little kids. Henry leaned against the chainlink, SMOKING a CIGARETTE and trying to look full of teenage angst. Every now and then he would stick out a foot as one of the little kids bolted toward him at an all-out run, and before Eddie returned, he had succeeded in tripping three of them. The last of these went sprawling full-length, smacking his face on the concrete, and ran wailing up the street with a bloody forehead. Henry flicked his CIGARETTE butt after him and laughed cheerfully.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower III The Waste Lands.txt" 4904 818:Jake's heart was thudding heavily in his chest. Shadowing people was a lot harder in real life than it was in the detective novels he sometimes read. He crossed the street and stood between two apartment buildings half a block up. From here he could see both the entrance to the Dean brothers' building and the playground. The playground was filling up now, mostly with little kids. Henry leaned against the chainlink, SMOKING a CIGARETTE and trying to look full of teenage angst. Every now and then he would stick out a foot as one of the little kids bolted toward him at an all-out run, and before Eddie returned, he had succeeded in tripping three of them. The last of these went sprawling full-length, smacking his face on the concrete, and ran wailing up the street with a bloody forehead. Henry flicked his CIGARETTE butt after him and laughed cheerfully.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower III The Waste Lands.txt" 5119 304:"I'll show you fear in a handful of dust," Jake muttered, and put his hand on the doorknob. And as he did, that clear sense of relief and surety flooded him again, the feeling that this was it, this time the door would open on that other world, he would see a sky untouched by smog and industrial SMOKE, and, on the far horizon, not the mountains but the hazy blue spires of some gorgeous unknown city.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower III The Waste Lands.txt" 5166 157:She reached up with one hand, as if to slap . . . and instead, slid it around the nape of her demon rapist's neck. It was like cupping a palmful of solid SMOKE. And did she feel it twitch backward, surprised at her caress? She tilted her pelvis upward, using her grip on the invisible neck to create the leverage. At the same time she spread her legs even wider, splitting what remained of her dress up the side-seams. God, it was huge!

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower III The Waste Lands.txt" 5294 485:Then the thing coming out of the wall grunted, and when Jake looked up, his urge to give in vanished in a single stroke of terror. Now it was all the way out of the wall, a giant plaster head with one broken wooden eye and one reaching plaster hand. Chunks of lathing stood out on its skull in random hackles, like a child's drawing of hair. It saw Jake and opened its mouth, revealing jagged wooden teeth. It grunted again. Plaster-dust drifted out of its yawning mouth like cigar SMOKE.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower III The Waste Lands.txt" 5447 491:He felt a moment of dizziness and disorientation, and as he looked through the doorway he realized why: although he was looking down-vertically-he was seeing horizontally. It was like a strange optical illusion created with prisms and mirrors. Then he saw Jake being pulled backward down the glass- and plaster-littered hallway, elbows dragging, calves pinned together by a giant hand. And he saw the monstrous mouth which awaited him, fuming some white fog that might have been either SMOKE or dust.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower III The Waste Lands.txt" 6880 345:Susannah took up the tale at this point. As she spoke, telling of how Eddie had begun to carve his own version of the key, Jake lay back, laced his hands together behind his head, and watched the clouds run slowly toward the city on their straight southeasterly course. The orderly shape they made showed the presence of the Beam as clearly as SMOKE leaving a chimney shows the direction of the wind.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower III The Waste Lands.txt" 7225 109:Jake tried again, and this time the spark flashed directly into the kindling. There was a little tendril of SMOKE but no fire.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower III The Waste Lands.txt" 7486 81:"Don't we all," Roland agreed, "but the day is windless. I think we can SMOKE them to sleep and steal their comb right out from under them without setting half the world on fire. Let's have a look."

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower III The Waste Lands.txt" 8318 59:Detta was gone like a dream, and Susannah looked from the SMOKING gun to the tiny, sprawled figure on the sidewalk with surprise, horror, and dismay. "Oh, my Jesus! I shot him! Eddie, I shot him!"

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower III The Waste Lands.txt" 8322 417:Little Lord Fauntleroy tried to scream these words defiantly, but they came out in a bubbling choke of blood that drenched the few remaining white patches on his frilly shirt. There was a muffled explosion from inside the overgrown plaza of the corner building, and the shaggy carpets of green stuff hanging in front of the arches billowed outward like flags in a brisk gale. With them came clouds of choking, acrid SMOKE. Eddie flung himself on top of Susannah to shield her, and felt a gritty shower of concrete fragments-all small ones, luckily-patter down on his back, his neck, and the crown of his head. There was a series of unpleasantly wet smacking sounds to his left. He opened his eyes a crack, looked in that direction, and saw Little Lord Fauntleroy's head just coming to a stop in the gutter. The dwarf's eyes were still open, his mouth still fixed in its final snarl.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower III The Waste Lands.txt" 8324 430:Now there were other voices, some shrieking, some yelling, all furious. Eddie rolled off Susannah's chair-it tottered on one wheel before deciding to stay up-and stared in the direction from which the dwarf had come. A ragged mob of about twenty men and women had appeared, some coming from around the corner, others pushing through the mats of foliage which obscured the corner building's arches, materializing from the SMOKE of the dwarf's grenade like evil spirits. Most were wearing blue headscarves and all were carrying weapons-a varied (and somehow pitiful) assortment of them which included rusty swords, dull knives, and splintery clubs. Eddie saw one man defiantly waving a hammer. Pubes, Eddie thought. We interrupted their necktie party, and they're pissed as hell about it.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower III The Waste Lands.txt" 9050 216:There was a sizzling sound. A ray of brilliant blue-white light lanced down from the ceiling and seared a hole the size of a golf-ball in the marble floor less than five feet to the left of Susannah's wheelchair. SMOKE that smelled like the aftermath of a lightning-bolt rose lazily from it. Susannah and Eddie stared at each other in mute terror for a moment, and then Eddie lunged for the communicator-box and thumbed the button.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower III The Waste Lands.txt" 9804 330:A scruffy, bearded fellow suddenly appeared in the doorway on the far side of the kitchen. A bloodstained, dirt-streaked yellow scarf flapped from the newcomer's upper arm. "Fires in the walls!" he screamed. In his panic, he seemed not to realize that Roland and Jake were not part of his miserable subterranean ka-tet. "SMOKE on the lower levels! People killin theirselves! Somepin's gone wrong! Hell, everythin's gone wrong! We gotta-"

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower III The Waste Lands.txt" 9818 286:There was an explosion in one of the rooms opening off this arm of the corridor; the floor shuddered beneath their feet and voices screamed in a jagged chorus. The pulsing lights and the endless, blatting siren faded momentarily, then came back strong. A little skein of bitter, acrid SMOKE drifted from the ventilators. Oy got a whiff and sneezed.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower III The Waste Lands.txt" 9871 75:There were explosions, some on their level but most far below them; acrid SMOKE occasionally drifted from the ventilator grilles, but most of the air-purifiers were still working and they whipped the worst of it away before it could gather in choking clouds. They saw no fires. Yet the Grays were reacting as if the time of the apocalypse had come. Most only fled, their faces blank O's of panic, but many had committed suicide in the halls and interconnected rooms through which the steel sphere led Roland and Jake. Some had shot themselves; many more had slashed their throats or wrists; a few appeared to have swallowed poison. On all the faces of the dead was the same expression of overmastering terror. Jake could only vaguely understand what had driven them to this. Roland had a better idea of what had happened to them-to their minds-when the long-dead city first came to life around them and then seemed to commence tearing itself apart. And it was Roland who understood that Blaine was doing it on purpose. That Blaine was driving them to it.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower IV Wizard and Glass.txt" 11589 73:"Thee'll be married tomorrow night if thee goes nigh him! Joined in SMOKE, wedded in fire, bedded in the ashes! Bedded in the ashes, do ye hear me?"

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower IV Wizard and Glass.txt" 11899 269:She shrank back against the wall, avoiding Dave's first swipe at the oversized serape, and, without thinking, pulled the trigger again. There was another loud explosion, and Dave Hollis-a young man only two years older than she herself-was flung backward with a SMOKING hole in his shirt between two points of the star he wore. His eyes were wide and unbelieving. His monocle lay by one outstretched hand on its length of black silk ribbon. One of his feet struck his guitar and knocked it to the floor with a thrum nearly as musical as the chords he had been trying to make.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower IV Wizard and Glass.txt" 12185 159:"Never mind the everfucking horses." There was another explosion at Citgo; another fireball floated into the sky. Jonas couldn't see the dark clouds of SMOKE which must be rushing up, or smell the oil; the wind, out of the east and into the west, would be carrying both away from town.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower IV Wizard and Glass.txt" 12405 196:"Thee'll hear the explosions when the tankers go, and smell the SMOKE," Roland said. "Even with the wind the wrong way, I think thee'll smell it. Then, no more than an hour later, more SMOKE. There." He pointed. "That'll be the brush piled in front of the canyon's mouth."

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower IV Wizard and Glass.txt" 12405 69:"Thee'll hear the explosions when the tankers go, and smell the SMOKE," Roland said. "Even with the wind the wrong way, I think thee'll smell it. Then, no more than an hour later, more SMOKE. There." He pointed. "That'll be the brush piled in front of the canyon's mouth."

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower IV Wizard and Glass.txt" 1250 146:"It crossed the road because it was stapled to the chicken, you dopey fuck!" Eddie yelled. He got to his feet and started to walk toward the SMOKING hole where the route-map had been. Susannah grabbed at the back of his shirt, but Eddie barely felt it. Barely knew where he was, in fact. The battle-fire had dropped over him, burning him everywhere with its righteous heat, sizzling his sight, frying his synapses and roasting his heart in its holy glow. He had Blaine in his sights, and although the thing behind the voice was already mortally wounded, he was unable to stop squeezing the trigger: I shoot with my mind.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower IV Wizard and Glass.txt" 1256 125:"Say, Blaine, you ugly, sadistic fuck! Since we're talking riddles, what is the greatest riddle of the Orient? Many men SMOKE but Fu Manchu! Get it? No? So solly, Cholly! How about this one? Why'd the woman name her son Seven and a Half? Because she drew his name out of a hat!"

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower IV Wizard and Glass.txt" 13093 91:The third rider now began to turn. Roland caught a glimpse of a bearded face-a dangling CIGARETTE, unlit because of the wind, one astonished eye-and then Cuthbert's sling thupped again. The astonished eye was replaced by a red socket. The rider slid from his saddle, groping for the horn and missing it.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower IV Wizard and Glass.txt" 13317 142:Cordelia Delgado raised her head and looked around at the men. She took a breath, pulling the sour, intermingled smells of graf and beer and SMOKE and whiskey deep into her spinster's lungs.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower IV Wizard and Glass.txt" 13342 254:"Yeee-OWWWW-by-damn!" Sheemie cried, and rocketed to his feet. There was nothing so magical as a good bite on the ass, a man of more philosophic bent might have reflected; it made all other concerns, no matter how heavy or sorrowful, disappear like SMOKE.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower IV Wizard and Glass.txt" 13558 497:Sheemie waited at the foot of the stairs which led down to the kitchen area, shifting uneasily from foot to foot and waiting for sai Thorin to come back, or to call him. He didn't know how long she'd been in the kitchen, but it felt like forever. He wanted her to come back, and more than that-more than anything-he wanted her to bring Susan-sai with her. Sheemie had a terrible feeling about this place and this day; a feeling that darkened like the sky, which was now all obscured with SMOKE in the west. What was happening out there, or if it had anything to do with the thundery sounds he'd heard earlier, Sheemie didn't know, but he wanted to be out of here before the SMOKE-hazed sun went down and the real Demon Moon, not its pallid day-ghost, rose in the sky.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower IV Wizard and Glass.txt" 13558 687:Sheemie waited at the foot of the stairs which led down to the kitchen area, shifting uneasily from foot to foot and waiting for sai Thorin to come back, or to call him. He didn't know how long she'd been in the kitchen, but it felt like forever. He wanted her to come back, and more than that-more than anything-he wanted her to bring Susan-sai with her. Sheemie had a terrible feeling about this place and this day; a feeling that darkened like the sky, which was now all obscured with SMOKE in the west. What was happening out there, or if it had anything to do with the thundery sounds he'd heard earlier, Sheemie didn't know, but he wanted to be out of here before the SMOKE-hazed sun went down and the real Demon Moon, not its pallid day-ghost, rose in the sky.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower IV Wizard and Glass.txt" 13685 142:"No. This part was all quick-I hardly snatched more than a glance before the ball took me away. Flew me away, it seemed. But . . . I saw SMOKE on the horizon. I remember that. It could have been the SMOKE of burning tankers, or the brush piled in front of Eyebolt, or both. I think we're going to succeed."

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower IV Wizard and Glass.txt" 13685 204:"No. This part was all quick-I hardly snatched more than a glance before the ball took me away. Flew me away, it seemed. But . . . I saw SMOKE on the horizon. I remember that. It could have been the SMOKE of burning tankers, or the brush piled in front of Eyebolt, or both. I think we're going to succeed."

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower IV Wizard and Glass.txt" 13728 410:Susan mounted on Pylon, which Sheemie had hastened to bring around to the rear courtyard after lighting the draperies of the great parlor on fire. Olive Thorin rode one of the Barony geldings with Sheemie double-mounted behind her and holding onto Capi's lead. Maria opened the back gate, wished them good luck, and the three trotted out. The sun was westering now, but the wind had pulled away most of the SMOKE that had risen earlier. Whatever had happened in the desert, it was over now . . . or happening on some other layer of the same present time.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower IV Wizard and Glass.txt" 13876 104:The spark flashed, but the damp powder only made a weary floop sound and disappeared in a puff of blue SMOKE. The ball-big enough to have taken Clay Reynolds's head off from the nose on up, had it fired-stayed in the barrel.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower IV Wizard and Glass.txt" 13913 397:The third tanker actually blew up on its own. The sound it made was like no explosion Alain had ever heard: a guttural, muscular ripping sound accompanied by a brilliant flash of orange-red fire. The steel shell rose in two halves. One of these spun thirty yards through the air and landed on the desert floor in a furiously burning hulk; the other rose straight up into a column of greasy black SMOKE. A burning wooden wheel spun across the sky like a plate and came back down trailing sparks and burning splinters.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower IV Wizard and Glass.txt" 13925 289:Alain shot him, exploding the side of his face and knocking him out of one old, sprung boot. A moment later the second tanker blew up. One burning steel panel shot out sidewards, landed in the growing puddle of crude oil beneath a third tanker, and then that one exploded, as well. Black SMOKE rose in the air like the fumes of a funeral pyre; it darkened the day and drew an oily veil across the sun.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower IV Wizard and Glass.txt" 13940 1119:Two more tankers exploded, whamming at Roland's ear-drums with dull iron fists, seeming to suck the air back from his lungs like a riptide. The plan had been for Alain to perforate the tankers and for Cuthbert to then shoot in a steady, arcing stream of big-bangers, lighting the spilling oil. The one big-banger he actually shot seemed to confirm that the plan had been feasible, but it was the last slingshot-work Cuthbert did that day. The ease with which the gunslingers had gotten inside the enemy's perimeter and the confusion which greeted their original charge could have been chalked up to inexperience and exhaustion, but the placing of the tankers had been Latigo's mistake, and his alone. He had drawn them tight without even thinking about it, and now they blew tight, one after another. Once the conflagration began, there was no chance of stopping it. Even before Roland raised his left arm and circled it in the air, signalling for Alain and Cuthbert to break off, the work was done. Latigo's encampment was an oily inferno, and John Farson's plans for a motorized assault were so much black SMOKE being tattered apart by the fin de año wind.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower IV Wizard and Glass.txt" 14115 129:A smell, acrid and bitter, began to fill the air-an odor like boiling juniper berries. And the first tendrils of whitish-gray SMOKE drifted past them.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower IV Wizard and Glass.txt" 14126 302:Latigo's men poured through the slot in the wall of brush like water pouring into a funnel, gradually widening the gap as they came. The bottom layer of the dead vegetation was already on fire, but in their excitement none of them saw these first low flames, or marked them if they did. The pungent SMOKE also went unnoticed; their noses had been deadened by the colossal stench of the burning oil. Latigo himself, in the lead with Hendricks close behind, had only one thought; two words that pounded at his brain in a kind of vicious triumph: Box canyon! Box canyon! Box canyon!

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower IV Wizard and Glass.txt" 14148 178:Now he heard more screaming horses. Screaming men, as well. He got up again, coughing out the dust raised by the passing horses (such acrid dust, too; it clawed his throat like SMOKE), and saw Hendricks trying to spur his horse south and east against the oncoming tide of riders. He couldn't do it. The rear third of the canyon was some sort of swamp, filled with greenish steaming water, and there must be quicksand beneath it, because Hendricks's horse seemed stuck. It screamed again, and tried to rear. Its hindquarters slewed sideways. Hendricks crashed his boots into the animal's sides again and again, attempting to get it in motion, but the horse didn't-or couldn't-move. That hungry buzzing sound filled Latigo's ears, and seemed to fill the world.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower IV Wizard and Glass.txt" 14156 9:Reeking SMOKE.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower IV Wizard and Glass.txt" 14166 285:He struggled away instead, and was now able to make some headway; the stream of riders packing its way into the canyon was easing. Some of the riders fifty or sixty yards back from the jog had even been able to turn their horses. But these were ghostly and confused in the thickening SMOKE.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower IV Wizard and Glass.txt" 14172 86:He jerked the horse's head around and spurred for the front of the canyon, but the SMOKE thickened to a choking white cloud before he got more than twenty yards. The wind was driving it this way. Latigo could make out-barely-the shifting orange glare of the burning brush at the desert end.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower IV Wizard and Glass.txt" 14197 357:Roland, his battle-lust slaked, did not want to watch what was happening below, but he couldn't turn away. The whine of the thinny-cowardly and triumphant at the same time, happy and sad at the same time, lost and found at the same time-held him like sweet, sticky ropes. He hung where he was, hypnotized, as did his friends above him, even when the SMOKE began to rise, and its pungent tang made him cough dryly.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower IV Wizard and Glass.txt" 14199 349:Men shrieked their lives away in the thickening SMOKE below. They struggled in it like phantoms. They faded as the fug thickened, climbing the canyon walls like water. Horses whinnied desperately from beneath that acrid white death. The wind swirled its surface in prankish whirlpools. The thinny buzzed, and above where it lay, the surface of the SMOKE was stained a mystic shade of palest green.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower IV Wizard and Glass.txt" 14199 49:Men shrieked their lives away in the thickening SMOKE below. They struggled in it like phantoms. They faded as the fug thickened, climbing the canyon walls like water. Horses whinnied desperately from beneath that acrid white death. The wind swirled its surface in prankish whirlpools. The thinny buzzed, and above where it lay, the surface of the SMOKE was stained a mystic shade of palest green.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower IV Wizard and Glass.txt" 14205 85:How long he might have stayed there Roland didn't know-perhaps until the rising SMOKE engulfed him as well, but then Cuthbert, who had begun to climb again, called down three words from above him; called down in a tone of surprise and dismay.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower IV Wizard and Glass.txt" 14275 269:Their horses, led by Rusher, had come to the sound of Roland's dismayed shout. They stood not far away, their manes rippling in the wind, shaking their heads and whinnying their displeasure whenever the wind dropped enough for them to get a whiff of the thick white SMOKE rising from the canyon.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower IV Wizard and Glass.txt" 14277 47:Roland paid no attention to the horses or the SMOKE. His eyes were fixed on the drawstring sack slung over Alain's shoulder. The ball inside had come alive again; in the growing dark, the bag seemed to pulse like some weird pink firefly. He held out his hands for it.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower IV Wizard and Glass.txt" 14395 153:He didn't know how long they tried unsuccessfully to bring him around-until the moon had risen high enough in the sky to turn silver again, and the SMOKE roiling out of the canyon had begun to dissipate, that was all he knew. Until Cuthbert told him it was enough; they would have to sling him over Rusher's saddle and ride with him that way. If they could get into the heavily forested lands west o' Barony before dawn, Cuthbert said, they would likely be safe . . . but they had to get at least that far. They had smashed Farson's men apart with stunning ease, but the remains would likely knit together again the following day. Best they be gone before that happened.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower IV Wizard and Glass.txt" 14665 352:On both sides of the turnpike the thinny lapped all the way up to the embankment, casting its twitching, misshapen reflections of trees and grain elevators, seeming to watch the pilgrims pass as hungry animals in a zoo might watch plump children. Susannah would find herself thinking of the thinny in Eyebolt Canyon, reaching out hungrily through the SMOKE for Latigo's milling men, pulling them in (and some going in on their own, walking like zombies in a horror movie), and then, she would find herself thinking of the guy in Central Park again, the wacko with the saw. Sounds Hawaiian, doesn't it? Counting one thinny, and it sounds Hawaiian, doesn't it?

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower IV Wizard and Glass.txt" 15280 290:Next, a somehow tired humming sound, as of a very old servomechanism being called into use one final time, began to whine its way into their ears. Panels, each at least six feet long and two feet wide, slid open in the arms of the throne. From the black slots thus revealed, a rosecolored SMOKE began to drift out and up. As it rose, it darkened to a bright red. And in it, a terribly familiar zigzag line appeared. Jake knew what it was even before the words

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower IV Wizard and Glass.txt" 15284 19:appeared, glowing SMOKE-bright.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower IV Wizard and Glass.txt" 15351 177:Red SMOKE once more began to boil out of the slots in the arms of the throne. It was thicker now. The shape which had been Blaine's route-map melted apart and joined it. The SMOKE formed a face, this time. It was narrow and hard and watchful, framed by long hair.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower IV Wizard and Glass.txt" 15351 5:Red SMOKE once more began to boil out of the slots in the arms of the throne. It was thicker now. The shape which had been Blaine's route-map melted apart and joined it. The SMOKE formed a face, this time. It was narrow and hard and watchful, framed by long hair.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower IV Wizard and Glass.txt" 15357 17:Eddie, who knew SMOKE and mirrors when he saw them, had glanced in another direction. His eyes widened and he gripped Susannah's arm above the elbow. "Look," he whispered. "Christ, Suze, look at Oy!"

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower IV Wizard and Glass.txt" 15359 38:The billy-bumbler had no interest in SMOKE-ghosts, whether they were monorail route-maps, dead Coffin Hunters, or just Hollywood special effects of the pre–World War II variety. He had seen (or smelled) something that was more interesting.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower IV Wizard and Glass.txt" 15419 95:Eddie put the gun he had used to kill the Tick-Tock Man in Roland's hand. A tendril of blue SMOKE was still rising from the barrel. Roland looked at the old revolver as if he had never seen it before, then slowly lifted it and pointed it at the grinning, rosy-cheeked figure sitting cross-legged on the Green Palace's throne.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower IV Wizard and Glass.txt" 15458 193:The man on the throne shrieked and cringed back. The bag fell from his lap, and the glass ball-once held by Rhea, once held by Jonas, once held by Roland himself-slipped out of its mouth. SMOKE, green this time instead of red, billowed from the slots in the arms of the throne. It rose in obscuring fumes. Yet Roland still might have shot the figure disappearing into the SMOKE if he had made a clean draw. He didn't, however; the Ruger slid in the grip of his reduced hand, then twisted. The front sight caught on his belt-buckle. It took only an extra quarter-second for him to free the snag, but that was the quarter-second he had needed. He pumped three shots into the billowing SMOKE, then ran forward, oblivious of the shouts of the others.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower IV Wizard and Glass.txt" 15458 377:The man on the throne shrieked and cringed back. The bag fell from his lap, and the glass ball-once held by Rhea, once held by Jonas, once held by Roland himself-slipped out of its mouth. SMOKE, green this time instead of red, billowed from the slots in the arms of the throne. It rose in obscuring fumes. Yet Roland still might have shot the figure disappearing into the SMOKE if he had made a clean draw. He didn't, however; the Ruger slid in the grip of his reduced hand, then twisted. The front sight caught on his belt-buckle. It took only an extra quarter-second for him to free the snag, but that was the quarter-second he had needed. He pumped three shots into the billowing SMOKE, then ran forward, oblivious of the shouts of the others.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower IV Wizard and Glass.txt" 15458 690:The man on the throne shrieked and cringed back. The bag fell from his lap, and the glass ball-once held by Rhea, once held by Jonas, once held by Roland himself-slipped out of its mouth. SMOKE, green this time instead of red, billowed from the slots in the arms of the throne. It rose in obscuring fumes. Yet Roland still might have shot the figure disappearing into the SMOKE if he had made a clean draw. He didn't, however; the Ruger slid in the grip of his reduced hand, then twisted. The front sight caught on his belt-buckle. It took only an extra quarter-second for him to free the snag, but that was the quarter-second he had needed. He pumped three shots into the billowing SMOKE, then ran forward, oblivious of the shouts of the others.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower IV Wizard and Glass.txt" 15460 14:He waved the SMOKE aside with his hands. His shots had shattered the back of the throne into thick green slabs of glass, but the man-shaped creature which had called itself Flagg was gone. Roland found himself already beginning to wonder if he-or it-had been there in the first place.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower IV Wizard and Glass.txt" 15556 201:"Mother?" he calls, and even his voice is the same, Jake would know it anywhere . . . but it is such a magically freshened version of it! Young and uncracked by all the years of dust and wind and CIGARETTE SMOKE. "Mother, it's Roland! I want to talk to you!"

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower IV Wizard and Glass.txt" 15556 211:"Mother?" he calls, and even his voice is the same, Jake would know it anywhere . . . but it is such a magically freshened version of it! Young and uncracked by all the years of dust and wind and CIGARETTE SMOKE. "Mother, it's Roland! I want to talk to you!"

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower IV Wizard and Glass.txt" 15608 32:Roland stands where he is, the SMOKING guns in his hands, his face cramped in a grimace of surprise and horror, just beginning to get the truth of what he must carry with him the rest of his life: he has used the guns of his father to kill his mother.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower IV Wizard and Glass.txt" 1666 232:"Both." Jake looked startled. Oy had withdrawn halfway down the platform and was looking at Roland mistrustfully. Jake poked his finger at the bullet-hole in the center of the newspaper box's locking device. A little curl of SMOKE was drifting from it.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower IV Wizard and Glass.txt" 16845 437:"So we went around, all right? Took us only two days, because Steven Deschain pushed hard. On the third day, we camped downslope and rose before dawn. Now, if ye don't know, and no reason ye should, salt-houses are just caverns in the cliff faces up there. Whole families lived in em, not just the miners themselves. The tunnels go down into the earth from the backs of em. But as I say, in those days all were deserted. Yet we saw SMOKE coming from the vent on top of one, and that was as good as a kinkman standing out in front of a carnival tent and pointing at the show inside, don'tcha see it.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower IV Wizard and Glass.txt" 17197 65:I squatted on my hunkers and thought about this. Jamie rolled a SMOKE and let me. When I looked up, he was smiling a little.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower IV Wizard and Glass.txt" 17819 40:"Those are yours, but I might roll a SMOKE." I thought about how to begin. "Do you know stories that start, 'Once upon a bye, before your grandfather's grandfather was born'?"

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower IV Wizard and Glass.txt" 17829 113:I took out my tobacco and papers. I rolled slowly, for in those days it was a skill yet new to me. When I had a SMOKE just to my liking-one with the draw end tapered to a pinhole-I struck a match on the wall. Bill sat cross-legged on the straw pallets. He took one of the chockers, rolled it between his fingers much as I'd rolled my SMOKE, then tucked it into his cheek.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower IV Wizard and Glass.txt" 17829 341:I took out my tobacco and papers. I rolled slowly, for in those days it was a skill yet new to me. When I had a SMOKE just to my liking-one with the draw end tapered to a pinhole-I struck a match on the wall. Bill sat cross-legged on the straw pallets. He took one of the chockers, rolled it between his fingers much as I'd rolled my SMOKE, then tucked it into his cheek.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower IV Wizard and Glass.txt" 18129 522:When he got home from the sawmill on the days he had work, his mother would have supper on the stove. Big Kells would come in later, first stopping to wash the sawdust from his hands, arms, and neck at the spring between the house and the barn, then gobbling his own supper. He ate prodigious amounts, calling for seconds and thirds that Nell brought promptly. She didn't speak when she did this; if she did, her new husband would only growl a response. Afterward, he would go into the back hall, sit on his trunk, and SMOKE.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower IV Wizard and Glass.txt" 18131 168:Sometimes Tim would look up from his slate, where he was working the mathmatica problems the Widow Smack still gave him, and see Kells staring at him through his pipe-SMOKE. There was something disconcerting about that gaze, and Tim began to take his slate outside, even though it was growing chilly in Tree, and dark came earlier each day.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower IV Wizard and Glass.txt" 18135 698:Tim smiled at her and said thankee, but he knew better. Next year he'd still be at the sawmill, only by then he'd be big enough to carry boards as well as stack them, and there would be less time to do problems, because he'd have work five days a week instead of three. Mayhap even six. The year after that, he'd be planing as well as carrying, then using the swing-saw like a man. In a few more years he'd be a man, coming home too tired to think about reading the Widow Smack's books even if she still wanted to lend them out, the orderly ways of the mathmatica fading in his mind. That grown Tim Ross might want no more than to fall into bed after meat and bread. He would begin to SMOKE a pipe and perhaps get a taste for graf or beer. He would watch his mother's smile grow pale; he would watch her eyes lose their sparkle.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower IV Wizard and Glass.txt" 18215 209:"Sometimes he opens it," Tim said, speaking in the slow voice of one who talks in his sleep. "He takes out his honing bar. For the blade of his ax. But then he locks it again. At night he sits on it to SMOKE, like it was a chair."

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower IV Wizard and Glass.txt" 18275 407:Tim helped her into the bedroom. There he pretended to look at interesting things out the window while she took off her mud-stained day dress and put on her nightgown. When Tim turned around again, she was under the covers. She patted the place beside her, as she had sometimes done when he was sma'. In those days his da' might have been in bed beside her, wearing his long woodsman's underwear and SMOKING one of his roll-ups.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower IV Wizard and Glass.txt" 18293 216:He stripped off the blanket and looked at his step-da's trunk. The trunk he sometimes caressed like a well-loved pet and often sat upon at night, puffing at his pipe with the back door cracked open to let out the SMOKE.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower IV Wizard and Glass.txt" 18835 197:When he came out, Tim was startled by the declining angle of the sun, which told him more than an hour had passed. Cosington and Stokes stood near the man-high ash heap at the rear of the smithy, SMOKING roll-ups. There was no news of Big Kells.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower IV Wizard and Glass.txt" 19079 466:There was no time to worry about being eaten by an oversize cannibal fish if he landed short, or being turned into a charcoal boy by the dragon's next breath if he actually reached the tussock. With an inarticulate cry, Tim leaped. It was by far his longest jump, and almost too long. He had to grab at handfuls of sawgrass to keep from tumbling off the other side and into the water. The grass was sharp, cutting into his fingers. Some bunches were also hot and SMOKING from the irritated dragon's broadside, but Tim held on. He didn't want to think about what might be waiting for him if he tumbled off this tiny island.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower IV Wizard and Glass.txt" 19139 153:Still wrapped in that coldness (and still smiling, although he wasn't aware of it), Tim broke open the four-shot and removed the spent casing. It was SMOKING and warm to the touch. He grabbed the half-loaf, stuck the bread-plug in his mouth, and thumbed one of the spare loads into the empty chamber. He snapped the pistol closed, then spat out the plug, which now had an oily taste.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower IV Wizard and Glass.txt" 19147 34:When he turned to face them, the SMOKING gun still in his hand, they dropped to their knees, fisted their foreheads, and spoke the only word of which they seemed capable. That word was hile, one of the few which is exactly the same in both low and high speech, the one the Manni called fin-Gan, or the first word; the one that set the world spinning.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower IV Wizard and Glass.txt" 19665 58:Not a click this time, nor a clunk, but an awful crunch. SMOKE drifted up from the plate and the green light went out.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower IV Wizard and Glass.txt" 19715 144:Across the gorge, the trees cracked and boomed. Now dust came rolling up from the chasm in giant clouds that were whipped away in ribbons like SMOKE.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower IV Wizard and Glass.txt" 20277 95:"Yep," Arn said. "Come on, kid, off we go. Maybe if I get out of this wind, I can get a SMOKE to stay lit."

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower IV Wizard and Glass.txt" 2273 184:At that moment the revving sound of an engine tore into the air. From beyond the fence, on the Forty-sixth Street side of the lot, chugs of dirty brown exhaust ascended like bad-news SMOKE signals. Suddenly the boards on that side burst open, and a huge red bulldozer lunged through. Even the blade was red, although the words slashed across its scoop-ALL HAIL THE CRIMSON KING-were written in a yellow as bright as panic. Sitting in the peak-seat, his rotting face leering at them from above the controls, was the man who had kidnapped Jake from the bridge over the River Send-their old pal Gasher. On the front of his cocked-back hardhat, the words LAMERK FOUNDRY stood out in black. Above them, a single staring eye had been painted.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower IV Wizard and Glass.txt" 245 387:When Blaine the Mono blammed overhead, running up the night like a bullet running up the barrel of a gun, windows broke, dust sifted down, and several of the skulls disintegrated like ancient pottery vases. Outside, a brief hurricane of radioactive dust blew up the street, and the hitching-post in front of the Elegant Beef and Pork Restaurant was sucked into the squally updraft like SMOKE. In the town square, the Candleton Fountain split in two, spilling out not water but only dust, snakes, mutie scorpions, and a few of the blindly trundling turtle-beetles.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower IV Wizard and Glass.txt" 3512 177:"In the summer, when there's time, drovers and cowboys drag loads of brush to the mouth of Eyebolt," she said. "Dead brush is all right, but live is better, for it's SMOKE that's wanted, and the heavier the better. Eyebolt's a box canyon, very short and steep-walled. Almost like a chimney lying on its side, you see?"

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower IV Wizard and Glass.txt" 3526 271:"Since before I was born," she said, "but not before my da was born. He said that the ground shook in an earthquake just before it came. Some say the earthquake brought it, some say that's superstitious nonsense. All I know is that it's always been there. The SMOKE quiets it awhile, the way it will quiet a hive of bees or wasps, but the sound always comes back. The brush piled at the mouth helps to keep any wandering livestock out, too-sometimes they're drawn to it, gods know why. But if a cow or sheep does happen to get in-after the burning and before the next year's pile has started to grow, mayhap-it doesn't come back out. Whatever it is, it's hungry."

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower IV Wizard and Glass.txt" 3673 315:But his father had had much more to say. About Marten. About Roland's mother, who was, perhaps, more sinned against than sinning. About harriers who called themselves patriots. And about John Farson, who had indeed been in Cressia, and who was gone from that place now-vanished, as he had a way of doing, like SMOKE in a high wind. Before leaving, he and his men had burned Indrie, the Barony seat, pretty much to the ground. The slaughter had been in the hundreds, and perhaps it was no surprise that Cressia had since repudiated the Affiliation and spoken for the Good Man. The Barony Governor, the Mayor of Indrie, and the High Sheriff had all ended the early summer day which concluded Farson's visit with their heads on the wall guarding the town's entrance. That was, Steven Deschain had said, "pretty persuasive politics."

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower IV Wizard and Glass.txt" 3851 148:"Morning, Clay." Jonas opened the sack, took out a paper, and sprinkled tobacco into it. His voice shook, but his hands were steady. "Like a SMOKE?"

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower IV Wizard and Glass.txt" 3855 121:Reynolds pulled out a chair, turned it around, and sat with his forearms crossed on its back. When Jonas handed him the CIGARETTE, Reynolds danced it along the backs of his fingers, an old gunslinger trick. The Big Coffin Hunters were full of old gunslinger tricks.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower IV Wizard and Glass.txt" 3863 21:Jonas made a second CIGARETTE, drew a sulfur match from the sack, and popped it alight with his thumbnail. He lit Reynolds's first, then his own.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower IV Wizard and Glass.txt" 3865 84:A small yellow cur came in under the batwing doors. The men watched it in silence, SMOKING. It crossed the room, first sniffed at the curdled vomit in the corner, then began to eat it. Its stub of a tail wagged back and forth as it dined.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower IV Wizard and Glass.txt" 3889 85:"Roy will be fine," Jonas said in his quavery voice. He dropped the stub of his CIGARETTE to the floor and crushed it under his bootheel. He looked up at The Romp's glassy eyes and squinted, as if calculating. "Tonight, your friend said? They arrived tonight, these brats?"

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower IV Wizard and Glass.txt" 3913 222:"By daylight? Preparing for dinner at Mayor's House, you clod-the dinner Thorin will be giving to introduce his guests from the Great World to the shitpicky society of the smaller one." Jonas began making another CIGARETTE. He gazed up at The Romp rather than at what he was doing, and still spilled barely a scrap of tobacco. "A bath, a shave, a trim of these tangled old man's locks . . . I might even wax my mustache, Clay, what do you say to that?"

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower IV Wizard and Glass.txt" 3921 111:"You'll be invited, oh yes, you'll be invited very warmly," Jonas said, and handed Reynolds the fresh CIGARETTE. He began making another for himself. "I'll offer your excuses. I'll do you boys proud, count on me. Strong men may weep."

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower IV Wizard and Glass.txt" 3943 181:He looked at the CIGARETTE he had made. He had been dancing it along the backs of his knuckles, as Reynolds had done earlier. Jonas pushed back the fall of his hair and tucked the CIGARETTE behind his ear.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower IV Wizard and Glass.txt" 3943 18:He looked at the CIGARETTE he had made. He had been dancing it along the backs of his knuckles, as Reynolds had done earlier. Jonas pushed back the fall of his hair and tucked the CIGARETTE behind his ear.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower IV Wizard and Glass.txt" 3945 125:"I don't want to SMOKE," he said, standing up and stretching. His back made small crackling sounds. "I'm crazy to SMOKE at this hour of the morning. Too many CIGARETTES are apt to keep an old man like me awake."

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower IV Wizard and Glass.txt" 3945 169:"I don't want to SMOKE," he said, standing up and stretching. His back made small crackling sounds. "I'm crazy to SMOKE at this hour of the morning. Too many CIGARETTES are apt to keep an old man like me awake."

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower IV Wizard and Glass.txt" 3945 22:"I don't want to SMOKE," he said, standing up and stretching. His back made small crackling sounds. "I'm crazy to SMOKE at this hour of the morning. Too many CIGARETTES are apt to keep an old man like me awake."

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower IV Wizard and Glass.txt" 4682 299:By one o' the clock, no one was left in the public rooms of Mayor's House except for a quartet of cleaning women, who performed their chores silently (and nervously) beneath the eye of Eldred Jonas. When one of them looked up and saw him gone from the window-seat where he had been sitting and SMOKING, she murmured softly to her friends, and they all loosened up a little. But there was no singing, no laughter. Il spectro, the man with the blue coffin on his hand, might only have stepped back into the shadows. He might still be watching.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower IV Wizard and Glass.txt" 4699 250:A game of darts was in progress; in a booth near the back, a whore who styled herself Countess Julian of Up'ard Killian (exiled royalty from distant Garlan, my dears, oh how special we are) was managing to give two handjobs at the same time while SMOKING a pipe. And at the bar, a whole line of assorted toughs, drifters, cowpunchers, drovers, drivers, carters, wheelwrights, stagies, carpenters, conmen, stockmen, boatmen, and gunmen drank beneath The Romp's double head.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower IV Wizard and Glass.txt" 4806 791:Depape was young, and had the speed of a snake. Nevertheless, he never came close to getting a shot off at Cuthbert Allgood. There was a thip-TWANG! as the elastic was released, a steel gleam that drew itself across the saloon's smoky air like a line on a slateboard, and then Depape screamed. His revolver tumbled to the floor, and a foot spun it away from him across the sawdust (no one would claim that foot while the Big Coffin Hunters were still in Hambry; hundreds claimed it after they were gone). Still screaming-he could not bear pain-Depape raised his bleeding hand and looked at it with agonized, unbelieving eyes. Actually, he had been lucky. Cuthbert's ball had smashed the tip of the second finger and torn off the nail. Lower, and Depape would have been able to blow SMOKE-rings through his own palm.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower IV Wizard and Glass.txt" 5427 167:Then Jonas's other friend, the one with the cloak, came sauntering out of the mercantile. She was sure he didn't see her-his head was down and he was rolling a CIGARETTE-but she had no intention of pressing her luck. Reynolds talked to Jonas, and Jonas talked-all too much!-to Aunt Cord. If Aunt Cord heard she had been passing the time of day with the boy who had brought her the flowers, there were apt to be questions. Ones she didn't want to answer.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower IV Wizard and Glass.txt" 6141 321:Beyond the jag in the canyon floor was something none of them had ever seen before . . . and when they got back to the bunkhouse several hours later, they all agreed that they weren't sure exactly what they had seen. The latter part of Eyebolt Canyon was obscured by a sullen, silvery liquescence from which snakes of SMOKE or mist were rising in streamers. The liquid seemed to move sluggishly, lapping at the walls which held it in. Later, they would discover that both liquid and mist were a light green; it was only the moonlight that had made them look silver.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower IV Wizard and Glass.txt" 6681 456:To the east of Citgo, the ground dropped sharply down a thickly wooded slope with a lane cut through the middle of it-this lane was as clear in the moonlight as a part in hair. Not far from the bottom of the slope was a crumbling building surrounded by rubble. The tumble-and-strew was the detritus of many fallen smokestacks-that much could be extrapolated from the one which still stood. Whatever else the Old People had done, they had made lots of SMOKE.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower IV Wizard and Glass.txt" 7235 398:Rhea shrieked again, this time with rage, and seized the cat before it could flee. She hurled it across the room, into the fireplace. That was as dead a hole as only a summer fireplace can be, but when Rhea cast a bony, misshapen hand at it, a yellow gust of flame rose from the single half-charred log lying in there. Musty screamed and fled from the hearth with his eyes wide and his split tail SMOKING like an indifferently butted cigar.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower IV Wizard and Glass.txt" 7713 198:They sat for awhile without speaking, looking out at the dooryard. Inside the bunkhouse, the pigeons-another bone of contention between Roland and Bert these days-cooed. Alain rolled himself a SMOKE. It was slow work, and the finished product looked rather comical, but it held together when he lit it.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower IV Wizard and Glass.txt" 7717 106:Alain nodded. The strong Outer Crescent tobacco made him swimmy in the head and raw in the throat, but a CIGARETTE had a way of calming his nerves, and right now his nerves could use some calming. He didn't know about Bert, but these days he smelled blood on the wind. Possibly some of it would be their own. He wasn't exactly frightened-not yet, at least-but he was very, very worried.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower IV Wizard and Glass.txt" 7730 178:Jonas, accompanied by a silent guest, sat playing Chancellors' Patience at Coral's table to the left of the batwing doors. Tonight he was wearing his duster, and his breath SMOKED faintly as he bent over his cards. It wasn't cold enough to frost-not quite yet-but the frost would come soon. The chill in the air left no doubt of that.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower IV Wizard and Glass.txt" 7732 30:The breath of his guest also SMOKED. Kimba Rimer's skeletal frame was all but buried in a gray serape lit with faint bands of orange. The two of them had been on the edge of getting down to business when Roy and Clay (Pinch and Jilly, Rimer thought) showed up, their plowing and planting in the second-floor cribs also apparently over for another night.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower IV Wizard and Glass.txt" 8880 115:"So ye should be," the voice said. It drifted and drifted, slipping out into the sunlight like a sick puff of SMOKE. "Never mind, though-just do as I say. Come closer, Sheemie, son of Stanley."

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower IV Wizard and Glass.txt" 927 130:A bunch of them had been sitting in the alley behind Dahlie's, some of them eating Popsicles and Hoodsie Rockets, some of them SMOKING Kents from a pack Jimmie Polino-Jimmie Polio, they had all called him, because he had that fucked-up thing wrong with him, that clubfoot-had hawked out of his mother's dresser drawer. Henry, predictably enough, had been one of the ones SMOKING.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower IV Wizard and Glass.txt" 927 380:A bunch of them had been sitting in the alley behind Dahlie's, some of them eating Popsicles and Hoodsie Rockets, some of them SMOKING Kents from a pack Jimmie Polino-Jimmie Polio, they had all called him, because he had that fucked-up thing wrong with him, that clubfoot-had hawked out of his mother's dresser drawer. Henry, predictably enough, had been one of the ones SMOKING.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower IV Wizard and Glass.txt" 931 160:The discussion that day had been about who you'd want with you if you got in a fuckin pisser. Jimmie Polio (he got to talk first because he had supplied the CIGARETTES, which Henry's homeboys called the fuckin cancer-sticks) opted for Skipper Brannigan, because, he said, Skipper wasn't afraid of anyone. One time, Jimmie said, Skipper got pissed off at this teacher-at the Friday night PAL dance, this was-and beat the living shit out of him. Sent THE FUCKIN CHAPERONE home with a fuckin rupture, if you could dig it. That was his homie Skipper Brannigan.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower IV Wizard and Glass.txt" 933 111:Everyone listened to this solemnly, nodding their heads as they ate their Rockets, sucked their Popsicles, or SMOKED their Kents. Everyone knew that Skipper Brannigan was a fuckin pussy and Jimmie was full of shit, but no one said so. Christ, no. If they didn't pretend to believe Jimmie Polio's outrageous lies, no one would pretend to believe theirs.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower IV Wizard and Glass.txt" 9628 107:Latigo sat on the end of the bed, produced a sack of tobacco from beneath his serape, and began rolling a CIGARETTE.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower IV Wizard and Glass.txt" 9658 128:"Cry your pardon, sai," Jonas replied, but perfunctorily. He sat on the floor next to Coral's rocker and began to roll a SMOKE of his own. She put her knitting aside and began to stroke his hair. Depape didn't know what there was about her that Eldred found so fascinating-when he himself looked he saw only an ugly bitch with a big nose and mosquito-bump titties.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower IV Wizard and Glass.txt" 9839 120:He looked at each in turn, and saw no disagreement in their eyes. They had repaired to the mausoleum, and their breath SMOKED from their mouths and noses. Roland squatted on his hunkers, looking at the other three, who sat in a line on a stone meditation bench flanked by skeletal bouquets in stone pots. The floor was scattered with the petals of dead roses. Cuthbert and Alain, on either side of Susan, had their arms around her in quite unself-conscious fashion. Again Roland thought of one sister and two protective brothers.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower IV Wizard and Glass.txt" 9871 370:"There's a good deal of machinery left over from the days of the Old People in those mountains," Alain said. "Most is up in the draws and canyons, they say. Robots and killer lights-razor-beams, such are called, because they'll cut you clean in half if you run into them. The gods know what else. Some of it's undoubtedly just legend, but where there's SMOKE, there's often fire. In any case, it seems the most likely spot for refining."

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower IV Wizard and Glass.txt" 9942 158:"The brush at the front of the canyon. We're going to set it on fire, aren't we, Roland? And if the prevailing winds are prevailing that day . . . the SMOKE . . ."

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower V Wolves of the Calla.txt" 10159 41:He was still there, and rolling another SMOKE, when Eddie came down the hill with his shirt flapping out behind him and his boots in one hand.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower V Wolves of the Calla.txt" 10382 119:Callahan, today dressed in jeans and a stockman's vest of many pockets, ambled out onto the porch, where Roland sat SMOKING and waiting for the ladies to settle down. Jake and Eddie were playing draughts close by.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower V Wolves of the Calla.txt" 10520 51:Roland nodded dubiously and began rolling another SMOKE. Having fresh tobacco was wonderful. "Is there anything else? Because, if there isn't-"

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower V Wolves of the Calla.txt" 10734 130:Now came the voice of Csaba Drabnik, known in Eddie's crowd as the Mad Fuckin Hungarian. Csaba was telling Eddie to give him a CIGARETTE or he'd pull Eddie's fuckin pants down. Eddie tore his attention away from this frightening but fascinating gabble with an effort.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower V Wolves of the Calla.txt" 10828 2476:Roland speaking from behind him. Because now it was just Eddie and the door. The door with UNFOUND written on it in some strange and lovely language. Once he'd read a novel called The Door Into Summer, by . . . who? One of the science-fiction guys he was always dragging home from the library, one of his old reliables, perfect for the long afternoons of summer vacation. Murray Leinster, Poul Anderson, Gordon Dickson, Isaac Asimov, Harlan Ellison . . . Robert Heinlein. He thought it was Heinlein who'd written The Door Into Summer. Henry always ragging him about the books he brought home, calling him the wittle sissy, the wittle bookworm, asking him if he could read and jerk off at the same time, wanting to know how he could sit fuckin still for so long with his nose stuck in some made-up piece of shit about rockets and time machines. Henry older than him. Henry covered with pimples that were always shiny with Noxzema and Stri-Dex. Henry getting ready to go into the Army. Eddie younger. Eddie bringing books home from the library. Eddie thirteen years old, almost the age Jake is now. It's 1977 and he's thirteen and on Second Avenue and the taxis are shiny yellow in the sun. A black man wearing Walkman earphones is walking past Chew Chew Mama's, Eddie can see him, Eddie knows the black man is listening to Elton John singing-what else?-"Someone Saved My Life Tonight." The sidewalk is crowded. It's late afternoon and people are going home after another day in the steel arroyos of Calla New York, where they grow money instead of rice, can ya say prime rate. Women looking amiably weird in expensive business suits and sneakers; their high heels are in their gunna because the workday is done and they're going home. Everyone seems to be smiling because the light is so bright and the air is so warm, it's summer in the city and somewhere there's the sound of a jackhammer, like on that old Lovin' Spoonful song. Before him is a door into the summer of '77, the cabbies are getting a buck and a quarter on the drop and thirty cents every fifth of a mile thereafter, it was less before and it'll be more after but this is now, the dancing point of now. The space shuttle with the teacher on board hasn't blown up. John Lennon is still alive, although he won't be much longer if he doesn't stop messing with that wicked heroin, that China White. As for Eddie Dean, Edward Cantor Dean, he knows nothing about heroin. A few CIGARETTES are his only vice (other than trying to jack off, at which he will not be successful for almost another year). He's thirteen. It's 1977 and he has exactly four hairs on his chest, he counts them religiously each morning, hoping for big number five. It's the summer after the Summer of the Tall Ships. It's a late afternoon in the month of June and he can hear a happy tune. The tune is coming from the speakers over the doorway of the Tower of Power record shop, it's Mungo Jerry singing "In the Summertime," and-

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower V Wolves of the Calla.txt" 11136 366:Eddie didn't reply. The cover illustration showed a small rounded building like a Quonset hut, only made of wood and thatched with pine boughs. Standing off to one side was an Indian brave wearing buckskin pants. He was shirtless, holding a tomahawk to his chest. In the background, an old-fashioned steam locomotive was charging across the prairie, boiling gray SMOKE into a blue sky.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower V Wolves of the Calla.txt" 11513 412:Ten minutes had passed since Eddie's return. They had moved a little distance down from the cave, then stopped where the path twisted through a small rocky inlet. The roaring gale that had tossed back their hair and plastered their clothes against their bodies was here reduced to occasional prankish gusts. Roland was grateful for them. He hoped they would excuse the slow and clumsy way he was building his SMOKE. Yet he felt Eddie's eyes upon him, and the young man from Brooklyn-who had once been almost as dull and unaware as Andolini and Biondi-now saw much.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower V Wolves of the Calla.txt" 11541 113:"Very amusing," Roland said dryly. He scratched a match on the seat of his pants, cupped the flame, lit his SMOKE.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower V Wolves of the Calla.txt" 11565 45:Roland eyed him carefully, then pitched his CIGARETTE over the drop. "Why do you say so, Eddie?"

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower V Wolves of the Calla.txt" 11820 120:"The drink of finer bumhugs everywhere," Jake murmured, and put the bottle down again. Beside it was a crumpled-up CIGARETTE pack. He smoothed it out, revealing a picture of a red-lipped woman wearing a jaunty red hat. She was holding a CIGARETTE between two glamorously long fingers. PARTI appeared to be the brand name.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower V Wolves of the Calla.txt" 11820 242:"The drink of finer bumhugs everywhere," Jake murmured, and put the bottle down again. Beside it was a crumpled-up CIGARETTE pack. He smoothed it out, revealing a picture of a red-lipped woman wearing a jaunty red hat. She was holding a CIGARETTE between two glamorously long fingers. PARTI appeared to be the brand name.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower V Wolves of the Calla.txt" 12597 254:To pass the time, Roland got up to look at a few of the books which had meant so much to Calvin Tower that he'd made their safety a condition for his cooperation. The first one Roland pulled out had the silhouette of a man's head on it. The man was SMOKING a pipe and wearing a sort of gamekeeper's hat. Cort had had one like it, and as a boy, Roland had thought it much more stylish than his father's old dayrider with its sweat-stains and frayed tugstring. The words on the book were of the New York world. Roland was sure he could have read them easily if he'd been on that side, but he wasn't. As it was, he could read some, and the result was almost as maddening as the chimes.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower V Wolves of the Calla.txt" 12939 154:"Far enough to run into a wall and brain themselves or fall down a hole in the dark. If one were to start a stampede on account of the yelling and the SMOKE and the fire, they might all fall down a hole in the dark. I've decided I'd like to have an even ten watching the kiddos. I'd like you to be one of em."

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower V Wolves of the Calla.txt" 12959 70:"Oh, aye, where else?" Roland said absently, and began to roll a SMOKE.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower V Wolves of the Calla.txt" 13000 51:"It'll do," he allowed, and began to roll a SMOKE.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower V Wolves of the Calla.txt" 13652 126:There was a rocker in Rosa's little living room. The gunslinger sat in it naked, holding a clay saucer in one hand. He was SMOKING and looking out at the sunrise. He wasn't sure he would ever again see it rise from this place.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower V Wolves of the Calla.txt" 13676 20:He crushed out his SMOKE and stood. He smiled. It was a younger man's smile. "Say thankya."

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower V Wolves of the Calla.txt" 13774 154:She nodded and went back inside without another word. The men sat down, flanking the open door of the privy with its new bolt-lock. Tian tried to roll a SMOKE. The first one fell apart in his shaking fingers and he had to try again. "I'm not good at this sort of thing," he said, and Eddie understood he wasn't talking about the fine art of CIGARETTE-making.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower V Wolves of the Calla.txt" 13774 350:She nodded and went back inside without another word. The men sat down, flanking the open door of the privy with its new bolt-lock. Tian tried to roll a SMOKE. The first one fell apart in his shaking fingers and he had to try again. "I'm not good at this sort of thing," he said, and Eddie understood he wasn't talking about the fine art of CIGARETTE-making.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower V Wolves of the Calla.txt" 13899 280:As dusk ended and night deepened, Roland sat on the edge of the bandstand and watched the Calla-folken tuck into their great dinner. Every one of them knew it might be the last meal they'd ever eat together, that tomorrow night at this time their nice little town might lie in SMOKING ruins all about them, but still they were cheerful. And not, Roland thought, entirely for the sake of the children. There was great relief in finally deciding to do the right thing. Even when folk knew the price was apt to be high, that relief came. A kind of giddiness. Most of these people would sleep on the Green tonight with their children and grandchildren in the tent nearby, and here they would stay, their faces turned to the northeast of town, waiting for the outcome of the battle. There would be gunshots, they reckoned (it was a sound many of them had never heard), and then the dust-cloud that marked the Wolves would either dissipate, turn back the way it had come, or roll on toward town. If the last, the folken would scatter and wait for the burning to commence. When it was over, they would be refugees in their own place. Would they rebuild, if that was how the cards fell? Roland doubted it. With no children to build for-because the Wolves would take them all this time if they won, the gunslinger did not doubt it-there would be no reason. At the end of the next cycle, this place would be a ghost town.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower V Wolves of the Calla.txt" 14447 427:As she lay in the darkness of the hide with Eddie on her left and the acrid smell of leaves in her nose, Susannah felt a sudden cramp seize her belly. She had just time to register it before an icepick of pain, blue and savage, plunged into the left side of her brain, seeming to numb that entire side of her face and neck. At the same instant the image of a great banquet hall filled her mind: steaming roasts, stuffed fish, SMOKING steaks, magnums of champagne, frigates filled with gravy, rivers of red wine. She heard a piano, and a singing voice. That voice was charged with an awful sadness. "Someone saved, someone saved, someone saved my li-iife tonight," it sang.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower V Wolves of the Calla.txt" 14548 22:Roland reloaded, the SMOKING barrel of his revolver momentarily pointed down between his feet. Beyond Jake, Eddie was doing the same.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower V Wolves of the Calla.txt" 14562 441:"No you don't, muhfuh!" she screamed, and slung the plate in her right hand. It sheared through the gleaming saber and the weapon simply exploded at the hilt, tearing off the Wolf's arm. The next moment one of Rosa's plates amputated its thinking-cap and it tumbled sideways and crashed to the ground, its gleaming mask grinning at the paralyzed, terrified Tavery twins, who lay clinging to each other. A moment later it began to SMOKE and melt.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower V Wolves of the Calla.txt" 14625 75:And so, Roland thought, our five minutes are over. He looked dully at the SMOKING barrel of his revolver, then dropped it back into its holster. One by one the alarms issuing from the downed robots were stopping.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower V Wolves of the Calla.txt" 14721 171:Roland and Eddie came over to him; Susannah, too, but she hung back a bit, as if deciding that, at least for the time being, the boys should be with the boys. Roland was SMOKING, and Jake nodded at it.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower V Wolves of the Calla.txt" 14725 107:Roland turned in Susannah's direction, eyebrows raised. She shrugged, then nodded. Roland rolled Jake a CIGARETTE, gave it to him, then scratched a match on the seat of his pants and lit it. Jake sat on the waggon wheel, taking the SMOKE in occasional puffs, holding it in his mouth, then letting it out. His mouth filled up with spit. He didn't mind. Unlike some things, spit could be got rid of. He made no attempt to inhale.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower V Wolves of the Calla.txt" 14725 235:Roland turned in Susannah's direction, eyebrows raised. She shrugged, then nodded. Roland rolled Jake a CIGARETTE, gave it to him, then scratched a match on the seat of his pants and lit it. Jake sat on the waggon wheel, taking the SMOKE in occasional puffs, holding it in his mouth, then letting it out. His mouth filled up with spit. He didn't mind. Unlike some things, spit could be got rid of. He made no attempt to inhale.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower V Wolves of the Calla.txt" 14735 89:They turned to look at him. He sat pale and thoughtful on the waggon-wheel, holding his CIGARETTE. "This morning's dance," he said.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower V Wolves of the Calla.txt" 14750 183:Slightman looked left, looked right, then looked straight ahead and saw Roland, standing beside the overturned waggon with his arms crossed. Beside him, Jake still sat on the wheel, SMOKING his first CIGARETTE.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower V Wolves of the Calla.txt" 14750 201:Slightman looked left, looked right, then looked straight ahead and saw Roland, standing beside the overturned waggon with his arms crossed. Beside him, Jake still sat on the wheel, SMOKING his first CIGARETTE.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower V Wolves of the Calla.txt" 14768 31:Jake took a final puff on his CIGARETTE and cast it away. The butt lay smoldering in the dirt next to the dead horse. "Did you even look at him?" he asked Benny's Da'. "No bullet ever made could do that. Sai Eisenhart's head fell almost on top of him and Benny crawled out of the ditch from the . . . the horror of it." It was a word, he realized, that he had never used out loud. Had never needed to use out loud. "They threw two of their sneetches at him. I got one, but . . . " He swallowed. There was a click in his throat. "The other . . . I would have, you ken . . . I tried, but . . . " His face was working. His voice was breaking apart. Yet his eyes were dry. And somehow as terrible as Slightman's. "I never had a chance at the other'n," he finished, then lowered his head and began to sob.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower V Wolves of the Calla.txt" 14874 162:"What of her?" Roland asked. Frowning, he looked around. He didn't see Susannah, couldn't remember when he had last seen her. When he'd given Jake the CIGARETTE? That long ago? He thought so. "Where is she?"

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower V Wolves of the Calla.txt" 3604 358:Cuthbert Allgood, who had once ridden into the Barony of Mejis with a rook's skull mounted on the pommel of his saddle. "The lookout," he had called it, and talked to it just as though it were alive, for such was his fancy and sometimes he drove Roland half-mad with his foolishness, and here he is under the burning sun, staggering toward him with a SMOKING revolver in one hand and Eld's Horn in the other, blood-bolted and half-blinded and dying . . . but still laughing. Ah dear gods, laughing and laughing.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower V Wolves of the Calla.txt" 4004 1152:Eddie saw people from the old neighborhood: Jimmie Polio, the kid with the clubfoot, and Tommy Fredericks, who always got so excited watching the street stickball games that he made faces and the kids called him Halloween Tommy. There was Skipper Brannigan, who would have picked a fight with Al Capone himself, had Capone shown sufficient bad judgment to come to their neighborhood, and Csaba Drabnik, the Mad Fuckin Hungarian. He saw his mother's face in a pile of broken bricks, her glimmering eyes re-created from the broken pieces of a soft-drink bottle. He saw her friend, Dora Bertollo (all the kids on the block called her Tits Bertollo because she had really big ones, big as fuckin watermelons). And of course he saw Henry. Henry standing far back in the shadows, watching him. Only Henry was smiling instead of scowling, and he looked straight. Holding out one hand and giving Eddie what looked like a thumbs-up. Go on, the rising hum seemed to whisper, and now it whispered in Henry Dean's voice. Go on, Eddie, show em what you're made of. Didn't I tell those other guys? When we were out behind Dahlie's smokin Jimmie Polio's CIGARETTES, didn't I tell em? "My little bro could talk the devil into settin himself on fire," I said. Didn't I? Yes. Yes he had. And that's the way I always felt, the hum whispered. I always loved you. Sometimes I put you down, but I always loved you. You were my little man.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower V Wolves of the Calla.txt" 5609 465:Callahan nods. No cutting up, that's a big ten-four. The driver goes into the combination grocery store–liquor store–short-order restaurant that exists here on the rim of Hartford, on the rim of morning, under yellow hi-intensity lights. There are secret highways in America, highways in hiding. This place stands at one of the entrance ramps leading into that network of darkside roads, and Callahan senses it. It's in the way the Dixie cups and crumpled CIGARETTE packs blow across the tarmac in the pre-dawn wind. It whispers from the sign on the gas pumps, the one that says PAY FOR GAS IN ADVANCE AFTER SUNDOWN. It's in the teenage boy across the street, sitting on a porch stoop at four-thirty in the morning with his head in his arms, a silent essay in pain. The secret highways are out close, and they whisper to him. "Come on, buddy," they say. "Here is where you can forget everything, even the name they tied on you when you were nothing but a naked, blatting baby still smeared with your mother's blood. They tied a name to you like a can to a dog's tail, didn't they? But you don't need to drag it around here. Come. Come on." But he goes nowhere. He's waiting for the bus driver, and pretty soon the bus driver comes back, and he's got a pint of Old Log Cabin in a brown paper sack. This is a brand Callahan knows well, a pint of the stuff probably goes for two dollars and a quarter out here in the boonies, which means the bus driver has just earned himself a twenty-eight-dollar tip, give or take. Not bad. But it's the American way, isn't it? Give a lot to get a little. And if the Log Cabin will take that terrible taste out of his mouth-much worse than the throbbing in his burned hand-it will be worth every penny of the thirty bucks. Hell, it would be worth a C-note.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower V Wolves of the Calla.txt" 5613 686:By the time the Greyhound pulls into the Port Authority, Don Callahan is drunk. But he doesn't cut up; he simply sits quietly until it's time to get off and join the flow of six o'clock humanity under the cold fluorescent lights: the junkies, the cabbies, the shoeshine boys, the girls who'll blow you for ten dollars, the boys dressed up as girls who'll blow you for five dollars, the cops twirling their nightsticks, the dope dealers carrying their transistor radios, the blue-collar guys who are just coming in from New Jersey. Callahan joins them, drunk but quiet; the nightstick-twirling cops do not give him so much as a second glance. The Port Authority air smells of CIGARETTE SMOKE and joysticks and exhaust. The docked buses rumble. Everyone here looks cut loose. Under the cold white fluorescents, they all look dead.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower V Wolves of the Calla.txt" 5613 696:By the time the Greyhound pulls into the Port Authority, Don Callahan is drunk. But he doesn't cut up; he simply sits quietly until it's time to get off and join the flow of six o'clock humanity under the cold fluorescent lights: the junkies, the cabbies, the shoeshine boys, the girls who'll blow you for ten dollars, the boys dressed up as girls who'll blow you for five dollars, the cops twirling their nightsticks, the dope dealers carrying their transistor radios, the blue-collar guys who are just coming in from New Jersey. Callahan joins them, drunk but quiet; the nightstick-twirling cops do not give him so much as a second glance. The Port Authority air smells of CIGARETTE SMOKE and joysticks and exhaust. The docked buses rumble. Everyone here looks cut loose. Under the cold white fluorescents, they all look dead.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower V Wolves of the Calla.txt" 5846 105:Lupe gives him a smile, and when he smiles, he is more beautiful than ever. "Just out there, having a SMOKE," he says. "It was too nice to come in. Didn't you see me?"

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower V Wolves of the Calla.txt" 5875 67:"Except he wasn't," Roland said. He was carefully rolling a CIGARETTE from the crumbs at the bottom of his poke. The paper was brittle, the tobacco really not much more than dust.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower V Wolves of the Calla.txt" 5877 110:"No," Callahan agreed. "He wasn't. Roland, I have no CIGARETTE papers, but I can do you better for a SMOKE than that. There's good tobacco in the house, from down south. I don't use it, but Rosalita sometimes likes a pipe in the evening."

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower V Wolves of the Calla.txt" 5877 62:"No," Callahan agreed. "He wasn't. Roland, I have no CIGARETTE papers, but I can do you better for a SMOKE than that. There's good tobacco in the house, from down south. I don't use it, but Rosalita sometimes likes a pipe in the evening."

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower V Wolves of the Calla.txt" 5991 270:"Quite often I'd go down to First and Forty-seventh and stand across from Home. Sometimes I'd find myself there in the late afternoon, watching the drunks and the homeless people showing up for dinner. Sometimes Rowan would come out and talk to them. He didn't SMOKE, but he always kept CIGARETTES in his pockets, a couple of packs, and he'd pass them out until they were gone. I never made any particular effort to hide from him, but if he ever pegged me, I never saw any sign of it."

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower V Wolves of the Calla.txt" 5991 296:"Quite often I'd go down to First and Forty-seventh and stand across from Home. Sometimes I'd find myself there in the late afternoon, watching the drunks and the homeless people showing up for dinner. Sometimes Rowan would come out and talk to them. He didn't SMOKE, but he always kept CIGARETTES in his pockets, a couple of packs, and he'd pass them out until they were gone. I never made any particular effort to hide from him, but if he ever pegged me, I never saw any sign of it."

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower V Wolves of the Calla.txt" 5997 45:"They never go far," Roland agreed. His CIGARETTE was done; the dry paper and crumbles of tobacco had disappeared up to his fingernails in two puffs. "Ghosts always haunt the same house."

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower V Wolves of the Calla.txt" 6260 358:For a moment or two there's nothing. Then a white-over-red Cadillac comes pounding down Highway 3 from the direction of Yazoo City. It's doing seventy easy, and Callahan's peephole is small, but he still sees them with supernatural clarity: three men, two in what appear to be yellow dusters, the third in what might be a flight-jacket. All three are SMOKING; the Cadillac's closed cabin fumes with it.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower V Wolves of the Calla.txt" 6580 284:Roland rummaged through his purse for his tobacco pouch, found it, and built himself a CIGARETTE with Callahan's fresh, sweet tobacco. Rosalita had added her own present, a little stack of delicate cornshuck wraps she called "pulls." Roland thought they wrapped as good as any CIGARETTE paper, and he paused a moment to admire the finished product before tipping the end into the match Eisenhart had popped alight with one horny thumbnail. The gunslinger dragged deep and exhaled a long plume that rose but slowly in the evening air, which was still and surprisingly muggy for summer's end. "Good," he said, and nodded.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower V Wolves of the Calla.txt" 6580 88:Roland rummaged through his purse for his tobacco pouch, found it, and built himself a CIGARETTE with Callahan's fresh, sweet tobacco. Rosalita had added her own present, a little stack of delicate cornshuck wraps she called "pulls." Roland thought they wrapped as good as any CIGARETTE paper, and he paused a moment to admire the finished product before tipping the end into the match Eisenhart had popped alight with one horny thumbnail. The gunslinger dragged deep and exhaled a long plume that rose but slowly in the evening air, which was still and surprisingly muggy for summer's end. "Good," he said, and nodded.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower V Wolves of the Calla.txt" 7471 55:"Ah." The old man drew on his pipe. Twin curls of SMOKE drifted from his nose. "And the brownie's yours?" Eddie was about to ask for clarification when Gran-pere gave it. "The woman."

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower V Wolves of the Calla.txt" 7592 472:Without rising-he doesn't have the strength to find his feet again, not yet, can still hardly believe he is alive-Jamie Jaffords knee-walks toward the monster Molly has killed . . . and it is dead now, or at least lying still. He wants to pull off its mask, see it plain. First he kicks at it with both feet, like a child doing a tantrum. The Wolf's body rocks from side to side, then lies still again. A pungent, reeky smell is coming from it. A rotten-smelling SMOKE is rising from the mask, which appears to be melting.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower V Wolves of the Calla.txt" 7904 107:Jake thought that was bullshit. If being a grown-up really meant knowing better, why did his father go on SMOKING three packs of unfiltered CIGARETTES a day and snorting cocaine until his nose bled? If being a grown-up gave you some sort of special knowledge of the right things to do, how come his mother was sleeping with her masseuse, who had huge biceps and no brains? Why had neither of them noticed, as the spring of 1977 marched toward summer, that their kid (who had a nickname-'Bama-known only to the housekeeper) was losing his fucking mind?

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower V Wolves of the Calla.txt" 7904 141:Jake thought that was bullshit. If being a grown-up really meant knowing better, why did his father go on SMOKING three packs of unfiltered CIGARETTES a day and snorting cocaine until his nose bled? If being a grown-up gave you some sort of special knowledge of the right things to do, how come his mother was sleeping with her masseuse, who had huge biceps and no brains? Why had neither of them noticed, as the spring of 1977 marched toward summer, that their kid (who had a nickname-'Bama-known only to the housekeeper) was losing his fucking mind?

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower V Wolves of the Calla.txt" 8346 189:"No. In time, there might be. It's a grow-bag." Roland returned the ancient leather sack to his purse, came out with the fresh supply of tobacco Callahan had given him, and rolled a SMOKE. "Go in the store. Buy what you fancy. A few shirts, perhaps-and one for me, if it does ya; I could use one. Then you'll go out on the porch and take your ease, as town folk do. Sai Took won't care much for it, there's nothing he'd like to see so well as our backs going east toward Thunderclap, but he'll not shoo you off."

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower V Wolves of the Calla.txt" 8399 168:"Good idea, too," Eddie said. "One step below devil grass, and the Surgeon General says thankya. But you'll sell it to me, won't you, sai? Our dinh enjoys a SMOKE in the evening, while he's planning out new ways to help folks in need."

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower V Wolves of the Calla.txt" 858 87:"Not by my warrant," the gunslinger said comfortably, and began rolling himself a SMOKE.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower V Wolves of the Calla.txt" 864 192:"What's that supposed to mean?" Eddie asked, but Roland would say no more. He simply lay in the road with a rolled-up piece of deerskin beneath his neck, looking up at the dark sky and SMOKING.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower V Wolves of the Calla.txt" 8952 795:Then the room begins filling up with nurses, there's a doctor with an arrogant face yelling for the patient's chart, and pretty soon Rowan's twin sister will be back, this time possibly breathing fire. Callahan decides it's time to blow this pop-shop, and the greater pop-shop that is New York City. The low men are still interested in him, it seems, very interested indeed, and if they have a base of operations, it's probably right here in Fun City, USA. Consequently, a return to the West Coast would probably be an excellent idea. He can't afford another plane ticket, but he has enough cash to ride the Big Grey Dog. Won't be for the first time, either. Another trip west, why not? He can see himself with absolute clarity, the man in Seat 29-C: a fresh, unopened package of CIGARETTES in his shirt pocket; a fresh, unopened bottle of Early Times in a paper bag; the new John D. MacDonald novel, also fresh and unopened, lying on his lap. Maybe he'll be on the far side of the Hudson and riding through Fort Lee, deep into Chapter One and nipping his second drink before they finally turn off all the machines in Room 577 and his old friend goes out into the darkness and toward whatever waits for us there.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower V Wolves of the Calla.txt" 9072 243:When they get to Forty-seventh, Callahan is swept off the main thoroughfare. Down the hill on the left is a pool of bright white light: Home. He can even see a few slope-shouldered silhouettes, men standing on the corner, talking Program and SMOKING. I might even know some of them, he thinks confusedly. Hell, probably do.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower V Wolves of the Calla.txt" 9148 253:But Lennie kneels in front of him, the hardon in his pants all too visible, and the cavalry doesn't come. He leans forward with the scalpel outstretched, and the cops don't come. Callahan can smell not garlic and tomatoes on this one but sweat and CIGARETTES.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower V Wolves of the Calla.txt" 9309 94:Roland made the twirling go-on gesture, but it didn't look urgent. He'd rolled himself a SMOKE and looked about as content as his three companions had ever seen him. Only Oy, sleeping at Jake's feet, looked more at peace with himself.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower V Wolves of the Calla.txt" 9405 222:"Yes, that's right," Callahan said. He showed no surprise at all. They might have been discussing rice, or the possibility that Andy ran on ant-nomics. "That's when I died. Roland, I wonder if you'd roll me a CIGARETTE? I seem to need something a little stronger than apple cider."

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower V Wolves of the Calla.txt" 9492 537:Callahan's alarm systems are fully engaged now, not pinging but howling, and when he looks around the executive conference room, dominated at the far end by a large window giving a terrific view of Lake Michigan, he sees there's good reason for this and has time to think Dear Christ-Mary, mother of God-how could I have been so foolish? He can see thirteen people in the room. Three are low men, and this is his first good look at their heavy, unhealthy-looking faces, red-glinting eyes, and full, womanish lips. All three are SMOKING. Nine are Type Three vampires. The thirteenth person in the conference room is wearing a loud shirt and clashing tie, low-men attire for certain, but his face has a lean and foxy look, full of intelligence and dark humor. On his brow is a red circle of blood that seems neither to ooze nor to clot.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower V Wolves of the Calla.txt" 9949 165:The thought of absolution had never crossed Roland's mind, and he found the idea that he might need it (or that this man could give it) almost comic. He rolled a CIGARETTE, doing it slowly, thinking of how to begin and how much to say. Callahan waited, respectfully quiet.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower VI Song of Susannah.txt" 1065 808:Mia. And impossible not to respond to that cry. Even while she felt Mia pushing her aside (as Roland had once pushed Detta Walker aside), it was impossible not to respond to that wild mother's cry. Partly, Susannah supposed, because it was her body they shared, and the body had declared itself on behalf of the baby. Probably could not do otherwise. And so she had helped. She had done what Mia herself no longer could do, had stopped the labor a bit longer. Although that in itself would become dangerous to the chap (funny how that word insinuated itself into her thoughts, became her word as well as Mia's word) if it was allowed to go on too long. She remembered a story some girl had told during a late-night hen party in the dorm at Columbia, half a dozen of them sitting around in their pj's, SMOKING CIGARETTES and passing a bottle of Wild Irish Rose-absolutely verboten and therefore twice as sweet. The story had been about a girl their age on a long car-trip, a girl who'd been too embarrassed to tell her friends she needed a pee-stop. According to the story, the girl had suffered a ruptured bladder and died. It was the kind of tale you simultaneously thought was bullshit and believed absolutely. And this thing with the chap . . . the baby . . .

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower VI Song of Susannah.txt" 1065 816:Mia. And impossible not to respond to that cry. Even while she felt Mia pushing her aside (as Roland had once pushed Detta Walker aside), it was impossible not to respond to that wild mother's cry. Partly, Susannah supposed, because it was her body they shared, and the body had declared itself on behalf of the baby. Probably could not do otherwise. And so she had helped. She had done what Mia herself no longer could do, had stopped the labor a bit longer. Although that in itself would become dangerous to the chap (funny how that word insinuated itself into her thoughts, became her word as well as Mia's word) if it was allowed to go on too long. She remembered a story some girl had told during a late-night hen party in the dorm at Columbia, half a dozen of them sitting around in their pj's, SMOKING CIGARETTES and passing a bottle of Wild Irish Rose-absolutely verboten and therefore twice as sweet. The story had been about a girl their age on a long car-trip, a girl who'd been too embarrassed to tell her friends she needed a pee-stop. According to the story, the girl had suffered a ruptured bladder and died. It was the kind of tale you simultaneously thought was bullshit and believed absolutely. And this thing with the chap . . . the baby . . .

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower VI Song of Susannah.txt" 2467 179:The big truck's front brakes shrieked. From the rear came the angry-dragon chuff of the airbrakes. There was an accompanying scream of huge rubber tires first locking and then SMOKING black tracks on the metaled surface of the road. The truck's multi-ton load began to slew sideways. Roland saw splinters flying from the trees and into the blue sky as the outlaws on the far side of the road continued to fire heedlessly. There was something almost hypnotic about all this, like watching one of the Lost Beasts of Eld come tumbling out of the sky with its wings on fire.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower VI Song of Susannah.txt" 2558 317:From inside the store there came a dull, percussive thud. Soot blew out of the chimney and was lost against the darker, oilier cloud rising from the crashed pulp truck. Eddie thought somebody had tossed a grenade. The door to the storeroom blew off its hinges, walked halfway down the aisle surrounded by a cloud of SMOKE, and fell flat. Soon the fellow who'd thrown the grenade would throw another, and with the floor of the storeroom now covered in an inch of diesel fuel-

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower VI Song of Susannah.txt" 2605 326:"You Slick's big brother?" Andolini asked. He sounded amused. And he sounded closer. Roland put him in front of the store, perhaps on the very spot where he and Eddie had come through. He wouldn't wait long to make his next move; this was the countryside, but there were still people about. The rising black plume of SMOKE from the overturned wood-waggon would already have been noticed. Soon they would hear sirens.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower VI Song of Susannah.txt" 2635 152:"That fire's a little slow for my taste, boys," said John, and leaped up onto the loading dock. The store was barely visible through the rolling SMOKE of the deflected grenado, but bullets came flying through it. John seemed not to notice them, and Roland thanked ka for putting such a good man in their path. Such a hard man.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower VI Song of Susannah.txt" 2645 31:More bullets came through the SMOKE and flame, but the harriers in the store showed no interest in trying to charge through the growing fire. No more came around the sides of the store, either.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower VI Song of Susannah.txt" 2657 191:"Oh, ayuh, I think so." The wind shifted. A draft blew through the mercantile's broken front windows, through the place where the back wall had been, and out the back door. The diesel SMOKE was black and oily. John coughed and waved it away. "Follow me. Let's step lively."

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower VI Song of Susannah.txt" 2667 107:John led them onto the way into the woods and quickly down it, away from the rising pillars of thick dark SMOKE and the approaching whine of the sirens.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower VI Song of Susannah.txt" 2703 201:The skiff moved as quietly and as gracefully over the water as any motor-powered thing can, skating on its own reflection beneath a sky of summer's most pellucid blue. Behind them the plume of dark SMOKE sullied that blue, rising higher and higher, spreading as it went. Dozens of folk, most of them in shorts or bathing costumes, stood upon the banks of this little lake, turned in the SMOKE's direction, hands raised to shade against the sun. Few if any marked the steady (and completely unshowy) passage of the motorboat.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower VI Song of Susannah.txt" 2703 390:The skiff moved as quietly and as gracefully over the water as any motor-powered thing can, skating on its own reflection beneath a sky of summer's most pellucid blue. Behind them the plume of dark SMOKE sullied that blue, rising higher and higher, spreading as it went. Dozens of folk, most of them in shorts or bathing costumes, stood upon the banks of this little lake, turned in the SMOKE's direction, hands raised to shade against the sun. Few if any marked the steady (and completely unshowy) passage of the motorboat.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower VI Song of Susannah.txt" 2715 187:"My place is about half a mile back from the water. Name's John Cullum." He held out his right hand to Roland, continuing to steer a straight course away from the rising pillar of SMOKE and toward the boathouse with the other.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower VI Song of Susannah.txt" 2850 256:"Those ain't nothing," Cullum said, picking up the briar pipe. "Look up on t' top shelf." He took a sack of Prince Albert tobacco from the drawer of an endtable and began to fill his pipe. As he did so, he caught Roland watching him. "Do ya SMOKE?"

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower VI Song of Susannah.txt" 2858 383:"Ayuh," Cullum said. "Not when he was a Yankee, either, I got no use for baseballs autographed by Yankees. That 'us signed when Ruth was still wearing a Red Sox . . ." He broke off. "Here they are, knew I had em. Might be stale, but it's a lot staler where there's none, my mother used to say. Here you go, mister. My nephew left em. He ain't hardly old enough to SMOKE, anyway."

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower VI Song of Susannah.txt" 2860 43:Cullum handed the gunslinger a package of CIGARETTES, three-quarters full. Roland turned them thoughtfully over in his hand, then pointed to the brand name. "I see a picture of a dromedary, but that isn't what this says, is it?"

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower VI Song of Susannah.txt" 2864 82:"Ah," Roland said, and tried to look as if he understood. He took one of the CIGARETTES out, studied the filter, then put the tobacco end in his mouth.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower VI Song of Susannah.txt" 2892 46:Roland, meanwhile, had taken a drag from his SMOKE. He blew it out and looked at the CIGARETTE, frowning.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower VI Song of Susannah.txt" 2892 86:Roland, meanwhile, had taken a drag from his SMOKE. He blew it out and looked at the CIGARETTE, frowning.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower VI Song of Susannah.txt" 2902 19:"This isn't a SMOKE, it's nothing but murky air," Roland said. He gave Cullum a reproachful look that was so un-Roland that it made Eddie grin. "No taste to speak of at all. People here actually SMOKE these?"

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower VI Song of Susannah.txt" 2902 206:"This isn't a SMOKE, it's nothing but murky air," Roland said. He gave Cullum a reproachful look that was so un-Roland that it made Eddie grin. "No taste to speak of at all. People here actually SMOKE these?"

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower VI Song of Susannah.txt" 2904 17:Cullum took the CIGARETTE from Roland's fingers, broke the filter off the end, and gave it back to him. "Try it now," he said, and returned his attention to Eddie. "So? I got you out of a jam on t'other side of the water. Seems like you owe me one. Have they ever won the Series? At least up to your time?"

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower VI Song of Susannah.txt" 2934 255:Roland, the last stub of the Dromedary CIGARETTE smoldering between his fingers, had gone to the window for a looksee. Nothing behind the house but trees and a few seductive blue winks from what Cullum called "the Keywadin." But that pillar of black SMOKE still rose in the sky, as if to remind him that any sense of peace he might feel in these surroundings was only an illusion. They had to get out of here. And no matter how terribly afraid he was for Susannah Dean, now that they were here they had to find Calvin Tower and finish their business with him. And they'd have to do it quickly. Because-

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower VI Song of Susannah.txt" 2934 40:Roland, the last stub of the Dromedary CIGARETTE smoldering between his fingers, had gone to the window for a looksee. Nothing behind the house but trees and a few seductive blue winks from what Cullum called "the Keywadin." But that pillar of black SMOKE still rose in the sky, as if to remind him that any sense of peace he might feel in these surroundings was only an illusion. They had to get out of here. And no matter how terribly afraid he was for Susannah Dean, now that they were here they had to find Calvin Tower and finish their business with him. And they'd have to do it quickly. Because-

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower VI Song of Susannah.txt" 2985 195:"His friend's name is Deepneau," Eddie said, and tossed the Yaz ball to Roland. The gunslinger caught it, tossed it to Cullum, then went to the fireplace and dropped the last shred of his CIGARETTE onto the little pile of logs stacked on the grate.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower VI Song of Susannah.txt" 3066 159:"Oh, he's real, all right," Cullum said. He glanced out his window toward Keywadin Pond and the sound of the sirens on the other side. At the pillar of SMOKE, now diffusing the blue sky with its ugly smudge. Then he held his hands up for the baseball. Roland threw it in a soft arc whose apogee almost skimmed the ceiling. "And I read that book you're all het up about. Got it up to the City, at Bookland. Thought it was a corker, too."

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower VI Song of Susannah.txt" 3385 245:Deepneau had been out for a walk on the Rocket Road when he heard gunfire, loud and clear, and then explosions. He'd hurried back to the cabin (not that he was capable of too much hurry in his current condition, he said), and when he saw the SMOKE starting to rise in the south, had decided that returning to the boathouse might be wise, after all. By then he was almost positive it was the Italian hoodlum, Andolini, so-

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower VI Song of Susannah.txt" 3421 160:"I understand that you are a scrip," Roland said, speaking for the first time since Deepneau had led them into the cabin. He had lit another of Cullum's CIGARETTES (after plucking the filter off as the caretaker had shown him) and now sat SMOKING with what looked to Eddie like absolutely no satisfaction at all.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower VI Song of Susannah.txt" 3421 246:"I understand that you are a scrip," Roland said, speaking for the first time since Deepneau had led them into the cabin. He had lit another of Cullum's CIGARETTES (after plucking the filter off as the caretaker had shown him) and now sat SMOKING with what looked to Eddie like absolutely no satisfaction at all.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower VI Song of Susannah.txt" 3463 71:Eddie glanced at Roland. Roland nodded slightly, then crushed out his CIGARETTE on one bootheel. Eddie looked back at Deepneau, silent but glowering.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower VI Song of Susannah.txt" 3521 139:Tower opened the trunk of his rental Chevy and pulled out a large bag. His latest haul, Eddie thought. Tower looked briefly south, at the SMOKE in the sky, then shrugged and started for the cabin.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower VI Song of Susannah.txt" 3616 144:There was a pop. Eddie jumped, sending a fresh throb of pain up his leg from the hole in his shin. It was a match. Roland was lighting another CIGARETTE. The filter lay on the oilcloth covering the table with two others. They looked like little pills.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower VI Song of Susannah.txt" 3652 49:Roland regarded him through rising membranes of CIGARETTE SMOKE. "You say true, I say thank ya."

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower VI Song of Susannah.txt" 3652 59:Roland regarded him through rising membranes of CIGARETTE SMOKE. "You say true, I say thank ya."

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower VI Song of Susannah.txt" 3987 115:Five minutes later the four of them stood in the needle-carpeted dooryard, listening to sirens and looking at the SMOKE, which had now begun to thin. Eddie was bouncing the keys to John Cullum's Ford impatiently in one hand. Roland had asked him twice if this trip to Bridgton was necessary, and Eddie had told him twice that he was almost sure it was. The second time he'd added (almost hopefully) that as dinh, Roland could overrule him, if he wished.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower VI Song of Susannah.txt" 4453 35:Well, dis Freud-dis smart cigar-SMOKING Viennese honky muhfuh-he claim dat we got dis mind under our mind, he call it the unconscious or subconscious or some fuckin conscious. Now I ain't claimin dere is such a thing, only dat he say dere was.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower VI Song of Susannah.txt" 4762 135:"Aye, if you like." Mia pursed her lips and blew. The disturbingly beautiful woman-the spirit without a name-disappeared like SMOKE.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower VI Song of Susannah.txt" 5464 47:"That's okay, neither am I." King found CIGARETTES, Pall Malls, on the bureau and lit one. "Finish what you were going to say."

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower VI Song of Susannah.txt" 5470 119:King had been transferring his coins and keys from his wet jeans to the dry ones, right eye squinted shut against the SMOKE of the CIGARETTE tucked in the corner of his mouth. Now he stopped and looked at Eddie with his eyebrows raised. "Is this a trick question?"

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower VI Song of Susannah.txt" 5470 132:King had been transferring his coins and keys from his wet jeans to the dry ones, right eye squinted shut against the SMOKE of the CIGARETTE tucked in the corner of his mouth. Now he stopped and looked at Eddie with his eyebrows raised. "Is this a trick question?"

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower VI Song of Susannah.txt" 5486 34:King nodded, then butted out his CIGARETTE. "You're an okay guy. It's your pal I don't much care for. And never did. I think that's part of the reason I quit on the story."

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower VI Song of Susannah.txt" 5537 305:King raised his eyebrows. "So you know about that. Do they have the Literary Guild wherever you came from?" He downed the rest of his beer. He drank, Roland thought, like a man with a gift for it. "A couple of hours ago there were sirens way over on the other side of the lake, plus a big plume of SMOKE. I could see it from my office. At the time I thought it was probably just a grassfire, maybe in Harrison or Stoneham, but now I wonder. Did that have anything to do with you guys? It did, didn't it?"

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower VI Song of Susannah.txt" 5698 177:You wouldn't like that faint shadow I see swirling around you, Eddie thought. That black nimbus. No, sai, I don't think you'd like that at all, and what am I seeing? The CIGARETTES? The beer? Something else addictive you maybe have a taste for? A car accident one drunk night? And how far ahead? How many years?

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower VI Song of Susannah.txt" 6067 159:Eddie stopped him with a touch on the arm. "One other thing occurs to me, Roland. While he's hypnotized, maybe you ought to tell him to quit drinking and SMOKING. Especially the ciggies. He's a fiend for them. Did you see this place? Fuckin ashtrays everywhere."

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower VI Song of Susannah.txt" 6069 161:Roland looked amused. "Eddie, if one waits until the lungs are fully formed, tobacco prolongs life, not shortens it. It's the reason why in Gilead everyone SMOKED but the very poorest, and even they had their shuckies, like as not. Tobacco keeps away ill-sick vapors, for one thing. Many dangerous insects, for another. Everyone knows this."

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower VI Song of Susannah.txt" 6280 328:Callahan forgot about his bashed ankle and sizzling palms. He ran around the preacher's little crowd (it had turned as one to the street and the preacher had quit his rant in mid-flow) and saw Jake standing in Second Avenue, in front of a Yellow Cab that had slewed to a crooked stop no more than an inch from his legs. Blue SMOKE was still drifting up from its rear tires. The driver's face was a pallid, craning O of shock. Oy was crouched between Jake's feet. To Callahan the bumbler looked freaked out but otherwise all right.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower VI Song of Susannah.txt" 6795 98:Remembering a conversation in the alley behind Home. He and Frankie Chase and Magruder, out on a SMOKE-break. The talk had turned to protecting your valuables in New York, especially if you had to go away for awhile, and Magruder had said the safest storage in New York . . . the absolute safest storage . . .

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower VI Song of Susannah.txt" 6973 64:On the corner of Lex and Sixtieth, Jake pointed to a number of CIGARETTE ends mashed into the sidewalk. "This is where he was," he said. "The man playing the guitar."

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower VI Song of Susannah.txt" 7016 245:On the corner of Lex and Sixty-first they stopped again. Jake pointed across the street. Callahan saw the green awning and nodded. It was imprinted with a cartoon porker that was grinning blissfully in spite of having been roasted a bright and SMOKING red. THE DIXIE PIG was written on the awning's overhang. Parked in a row in front of it were five long black limousines with their accent lights glowing a slightly blurred yellow in the dark. Callahan realized for the first time that a mist was creeping down the Avenue.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower VI Song of Susannah.txt" 7059 270:The driver's seat of the first limo was empty. There was a fellow in a cap and a uniform behind the wheel of the second, but to Pere Callahan the sai looked asleep. Another man in cap and uniform was leaning against the sidewalk side of the third limo. The coal of a CIGARETTE made a lazy arc from his side to his mouth and then back down again. He glanced their way, but with no appreciable interest. What was there to see? A man going on elderly, a boy going on teenage, and a scurrying dog. Big deal.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower VI Song of Susannah.txt" 7157 384:"Awwww, man, wouldja looka-dat!" the cab driver exclaimed, and lifted his hand to his windshield in an exasperated gesture. A bus was parked on the corner of Lexington and Sixty-first, its diesel engine rumbling and its taillights flashing what Mia took to be some kind of distress code. The bus driver was standing by one of the rear wheels, looking at the dark cloud of diesel SMOKE pouring from the bus's rear vent.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower VI Song of Susannah.txt" 7165 447:Mia's question had called her back from her version of the Dogan, where she'd been trying to get in touch with Eddie. She'd had no luck doing that, and was appalled at the state of the place. The cracks in the floor now ran deep, and one of the ceiling panels had crashed down, bringing the fluorescent lights and several long snarls of electrical cable with it. Some of the instrument panels had gone dark. Others were seeping tendrils of SMOKE. The needle on the SUSANNAH-MIO dial was all the way over into the red. Below her feet, the floor was vibrating and the machinery was screaming. And saying that none of this was real, it was all only a visualization technique, kind of missed the whole point, didn't it? She'd shut down a very powerful process, and her body was paying a price. The Voice of the Dogan had warned her that what she was doing was dangerous; that it wasn't (in the words of a TV ad) nice to fool Mother Nature. Susannah had no idea which of her glands and organs were taking the biggest beating, but she knew that they were hers. Not Mia's. It was time to call a halt to this madness before everything went sky-high.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower VI Song of Susannah.txt" 7222 169:The young man looked about twenty, and while there was nothing very handsome about him, with his pale, spotty complexion, the gold ring in one of his nostrils, and the CIGARETTE jutting from the corner of his mouth, he had an engaging air. His eyes widened as he realized whose face was on the bit of currency she was holding. "Lady, for fifty bucks I'd play every Ralph Stanley song I know . . . and I know quite a few of em."

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower VI Song of Susannah.txt" 7480 234:She looked up at the screen again. Mia was now on the Dixie Pig side of the street, peering at the green awning. Hesitating. Could she read the words DIXIE PIG? Probably not, but she could surely understand the cartoon. The smiling, SMOKING pig. And she wouldn't hesitate long in any case, now that her labor had started.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower VI Song of Susannah.txt" 8116 399:Publishers Weekly (our son Owen calls it Pudlishers Weakness, which is actually sorta accurate) reviewed the latest Richard Bachman book . . . and once more, baby, I got roasted. They implied it was boring, and that, my friend, it ain't. Oh well, thinking about it made it that much easier to go to North Windham and pick up those 2 kegs of beer for the party. Got em at Discount Beverage. I'm SMOKING again, too, so sue me. I'll quit the day I turn 40 and that's a promise.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower VI Song of Susannah.txt" 8182 78:I do tend to get depressed when I look at my life: the booze, the drugs, the CIGARETTES. As if I'm actually trying to kill myself. Or something else is . . .

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower VII The Dark Tower.txt" 11166 64:"Why?" Susannah asked as she watched the last few wisps of SMOKE dissipate. "Why?"

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower VII The Dark Tower.txt" 1196 335:"What the dev-" he began, and then she pulled the trigger with her middle finger, at the same time yanking back on the shoulder-rig with all her force. The straps binding the holster to Scowther's body held, but the thinner one holding the automatic in place snapped, and as Scowther fell sideways, trying to look down at the SMOKING black hole in his white lab-coat, Susannah took full possession of his gun. She shot Straw and the vampire beside him, the one with the electric sword. For a moment the vampire was there, still staring at the spider-god that had looked so much like a baby to begin with, and then its aura whiffed out. The thing's flesh went with it. For a moment there was nothing where it had been but an empty shirt tucked into an empty pair of bluejeans. Then the clothes collapsed.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower VII The Dark Tower.txt" 1204 129:Sayre leaned forward, pointing the gun at the makeshift double bed just beyond Mia's deflating body. There were already three SMOKING, smoldering holes in the groundsheet. Before he could add a fourth, one of the spider's legs caressed his cheek, tearing open the mask he wore and revealing the hairy cheek beneath. Sayre recoiled, crying out. The spider turned to him and made a mewling noise. The white thing high on its back-a node with a human face-glared, as if to warn Sayre away from its meal. Then it turned back to the woman, who was really not recognizable as a woman any longer; she looked like the ruins of some incredibly ancient mummy which had now turned to rags and powder.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower VII The Dark Tower.txt" 12230 167:On their second day in what Susannah was coming to think of as the Hide Camp, Roland built a large and rickety frame over a new fire, one that was low and slow. They SMOKED the hides two by two and then laid them aside. The smell of the finished product was surprisingly pleasant. It smells like leather, she thought, holding one to her face, and then had to laugh. That was, after all, exactly what it was.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower VII The Dark Tower.txt" 12405 34:"Well, it looks like there's SMOKE coming from one of the houses. Although it's hard to tell for sure with the sky so white."

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower VII The Dark Tower.txt" 12428 506:All but one of the cottages clustered around the intersection were deserted, and many lay in half-buried heaps, broken beneath the weight of accumulating snow. One, however-it was about three-quarters of the way down the lefthand arm of Odd's Lane-was clearly different from the others. The roof had been mostly cleared of its potentially crushing weight of snow, and a path had been shoveled from the lane to the front door. It was from the chimney of this quaint, tree-surrounded cottage that the SMOKE was issuing, feather-white. One window was lit a wholesome butter-yellow, too, but it was the SMOKE that captured Susannah's eye. As far as she was concerned, it was the final touch. The only question in her mind was who would answer the door when they knocked. Would it be Hansel or his sister Gretel? (And were those two twins? Had anyone ever researched the matter?) Perhaps it would be Little Red Riding Hood, or Goldilocks, wearing a guilty goatee of porridge.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower VII The Dark Tower.txt" 12428 606:All but one of the cottages clustered around the intersection were deserted, and many lay in half-buried heaps, broken beneath the weight of accumulating snow. One, however-it was about three-quarters of the way down the lefthand arm of Odd's Lane-was clearly different from the others. The roof had been mostly cleared of its potentially crushing weight of snow, and a path had been shoveled from the lane to the front door. It was from the chimney of this quaint, tree-surrounded cottage that the SMOKE was issuing, feather-white. One window was lit a wholesome butter-yellow, too, but it was the SMOKE that captured Susannah's eye. As far as she was concerned, it was the final touch. The only question in her mind was who would answer the door when they knocked. Would it be Hansel or his sister Gretel? (And were those two twins? Had anyone ever researched the matter?) Perhaps it would be Little Red Riding Hood, or Goldilocks, wearing a guilty goatee of porridge.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower VII The Dark Tower.txt" 12438 203:The old man was rosy-cheeked, the picture of wintry good health, but he limped heavily, depending on the stout stick in his left hand. From behind his quaint little cottage with its fairy-tale plume of SMOKE came the piercing whinny of a horse.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower VII The Dark Tower.txt" 12787 486:Susannah's smile widened. There was a rhythm to comedy, even she knew that, although she couldn't have done even five minutes of stand-up in front of a noisy nightclub crowd, not if her life had depended on it. There was a rhythm, and after an uncertain beginning, Joe was finding his. His eyes were half-lidded, and she guessed he was seeing the mixed colors of the gels over the stage-so like the colors of the Wizard's Rainbow, now that she thought of it-and smelling the SMOKE of fifty smoldering CIGARETTES. One hand on the chrome pole of the mike; the other free to make any gesture it liked. Joe Collins playing Jango's on a Friday night-

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower VII The Dark Tower.txt" 12787 512:Susannah's smile widened. There was a rhythm to comedy, even she knew that, although she couldn't have done even five minutes of stand-up in front of a noisy nightclub crowd, not if her life had depended on it. There was a rhythm, and after an uncertain beginning, Joe was finding his. His eyes were half-lidded, and she guessed he was seeing the mixed colors of the gels over the stage-so like the colors of the Wizard's Rainbow, now that she thought of it-and smelling the SMOKE of fifty smoldering CIGARETTES. One hand on the chrome pole of the mike; the other free to make any gesture it liked. Joe Collins playing Jango's on a Friday night-

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower VII The Dark Tower.txt" 13469 179:Near the end of the third night, Susannah awoke in the loft, looked at Patrick lying asleep beside her, and descended the ladder. Roland was standing in the doorway of the barn, SMOKING a CIGARETTE and looking out. The snow had stopped. A late moon had made its appearance, turning the fresh snow on Tower Road into a sparkling land of silent beauty. The air was still and so cold she felt the moisture in her nose crackle. Far in the distance she heard the sound of a motor. As she listened, it seemed to her that it was drawing closer. She asked Roland if he had any idea what it was or what it might mean to them.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower VII The Dark Tower.txt" 13469 189:Near the end of the third night, Susannah awoke in the loft, looked at Patrick lying asleep beside her, and descended the ladder. Roland was standing in the doorway of the barn, SMOKING a CIGARETTE and looking out. The snow had stopped. A late moon had made its appearance, turning the fresh snow on Tower Road into a sparkling land of silent beauty. The air was still and so cold she felt the moisture in her nose crackle. Far in the distance she heard the sound of a motor. As she listened, it seemed to her that it was drawing closer. She asked Roland if he had any idea what it was or what it might mean to them.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower VII The Dark Tower.txt" 15449 116:A voice whispered from above him: It would have been the work of three seconds to bend and pick it up. Even in the SMOKE and the death. Three seconds. Time, Roland-it always comes back to that.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower VII The Dark Tower.txt" 2123 624:They passed a sign that said FENN, 11, and another that said ISRAEL, 12. Then they came around a curve and Eddie stamped on the Galaxie's brakes, bringing the car to a hard and dusty stop. Parked at the side of the road beside a sign reading BECKHARDT, 13, was a familiar Ford pickup truck and an even more familiar man leaning nonchalantly against the truck's rust-spotted longbed, dressed in cuffed bluejeans and an ironed blue chambray shirt buttoned all the way to the closeshaved, wattled neck. He also wore a Boston Red Sox cap tilted just a little to one side as if to say I got the drop on you, partner. He was SMOKING a pipe, the blue SMOKE rising and seeming to hang suspended around his seamed and good-humored face on the breathless pre-storm air.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower VII The Dark Tower.txt" 2123 649:They passed a sign that said FENN, 11, and another that said ISRAEL, 12. Then they came around a curve and Eddie stamped on the Galaxie's brakes, bringing the car to a hard and dusty stop. Parked at the side of the road beside a sign reading BECKHARDT, 13, was a familiar Ford pickup truck and an even more familiar man leaning nonchalantly against the truck's rust-spotted longbed, dressed in cuffed bluejeans and an ironed blue chambray shirt buttoned all the way to the closeshaved, wattled neck. He also wore a Boston Red Sox cap tilted just a little to one side as if to say I got the drop on you, partner. He was SMOKING a pipe, the blue SMOKE rising and seeming to hang suspended around his seamed and good-humored face on the breathless pre-storm air.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower VII The Dark Tower.txt" 2212 152:They saw wonder on Cullum's face but no shade of disbelief. "So you do come from the future! Gorry!" He leaned forward through the fragrant pipe-SMOKE. "Son," he said, "tell your tale. And don'tcha skip a goddam word."

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower VII The Dark Tower.txt" 2247 77:He looked at Roland for confirmation. Roland nodded and lit the last of the CIGARETTES John had given him earlier.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower VII The Dark Tower.txt" 3190 109:He had put the gun in the left pocket of his parka. Now, from the right, he withdrew a gadget the size of a CIGARETTE-pack, pulled out a silver antenna, and pushed a button. A section of the gray tiles withdrew silently, revealing a flight of stairs. Mordred nodded. Walter-or Randall Flagg, if that was what he was currently calling himself-had indeed come out of the floor. A neat trick, but of course he had once served Roland's father Steven as Gilead's court magician, hadn't he? Under the name of Marten. A man of many faces and many neat tricks was Walter o' Dim, but never as clever as he seemed to think. Not by half. For Mordred now had the final thing he had been looking for, which was the way Roland and his friends had gotten out of here. There was no need to pluck it from its hiding place in Walter's mind, after all. He only needed to follow the fool's backtrail.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower VII The Dark Tower.txt" 390 403:Someone passing would undoubtedly have been thunderstruck at the sight of all this stuff-and people! people who might be dead!-floating around in the car like jetsam in a space capsule. But no one did come along. Those who lived on this side of Long Lake were mostly looking across the water toward the East Stoneham side even though there was really nothing over there to see any longer. Even the SMOKE was almost gone.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower VII The Dark Tower.txt" 4870 115:"If you have an extra CIGARETTE or two, no one can be more sympathetic-or admiring-than a mork in need of a SMOKE. Once he's got it, though, he's gone.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower VII The Dark Tower.txt" 4870 25:"If you have an extra CIGARETTE or two, no one can be more sympathetic-or admiring-than a mork in need of a SMOKE. Once he's got it, though, he's gone.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower VII The Dark Tower.txt" 5556 142:Roland glanced at him, then reached into his pocket and brought out his tobacco pouch. "Old and full of aches, as you must know. Would you SMOKE?"

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower VII The Dark Tower.txt" 5564 118:Roland smiled. "A man who can't bear to share his habits is a man who needs to quit them." He rolled a pair of CIGARETTES, using some sort of leaf which he tore in two, handed one to Jake, then lit them up with a match he popped alight on his thumbnail. In the still, chill air of Can Steek-Tete, the SMOKE hung in front of them, then rose slowly, stacking on the air. Jake thought the tobacco was hot, harsh, and stale, but he said no word of complaint. He liked it. He thought of all the times he'd promised himself he wouldn't SMOKE like his father did-never in life-and now here he was, starting the habit. And with his new father's agreement, if not approval.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower VII The Dark Tower.txt" 5564 308:Roland smiled. "A man who can't bear to share his habits is a man who needs to quit them." He rolled a pair of CIGARETTES, using some sort of leaf which he tore in two, handed one to Jake, then lit them up with a match he popped alight on his thumbnail. In the still, chill air of Can Steek-Tete, the SMOKE hung in front of them, then rose slowly, stacking on the air. Jake thought the tobacco was hot, harsh, and stale, but he said no word of complaint. He liked it. He thought of all the times he'd promised himself he wouldn't SMOKE like his father did-never in life-and now here he was, starting the habit. And with his new father's agreement, if not approval.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower VII The Dark Tower.txt" 5564 541:Roland smiled. "A man who can't bear to share his habits is a man who needs to quit them." He rolled a pair of CIGARETTES, using some sort of leaf which he tore in two, handed one to Jake, then lit them up with a match he popped alight on his thumbnail. In the still, chill air of Can Steek-Tete, the SMOKE hung in front of them, then rose slowly, stacking on the air. Jake thought the tobacco was hot, harsh, and stale, but he said no word of complaint. He liked it. He thought of all the times he'd promised himself he wouldn't SMOKE like his father did-never in life-and now here he was, starting the habit. And with his new father's agreement, if not approval.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower VII The Dark Tower.txt" 5570 38:"No pimples," Roland agreed, and SMOKED. Below them in the seeping light was the village. The peaceful village, Jake thought, but it looked more than peaceful; it looked downright dead. Then he saw two figures, little more than specks from here, strolling toward each other. Hume guards patrolling the outer run of the fence, he presumed. They joined together into a single speck long enough for Jake to imagine a bit of their palaver, and then the speck divided again. "No pimples, but my hip hurts like a son of a bitch. Feels like someone opened it in the night and poured it full of broken glass. Hot glass. But this is far worse." He touched the right side of his head. "It feels cracked."

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower VII The Dark Tower.txt" 5620 56:Roland sighed and cast away the smoldering butt of his CIGARETTE; Jake had already finished with his. "Because we have two jobs to do where we should have only one. Having to do the second one is sai King's fault. He knew what he was supposed to do, and I think that on some level he knew that doing it would keep him safe. But he was afraid. He was tired." Roland's upper lip curled. "Now his irons are in the fire, and we have to pull them out. It's going to cost us, and probably a-dearly."

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower VII The Dark Tower.txt" 6276 116:Roland sat quiet for a moment or two, gazing at the map, almost seeming to commune with it. When Ted offered him a CIGARETTE, the gunslinger took it. Then he began to talk. Twice he drew on the side of a weapons crate with a piece of chalk. Twice more he drew arrows on the map, one pointing to what they were calling north, one to the south. Ted asked a question; Dinky asked another. Behind them, Sheemie and Haylis played with Oy like a couple of children. The bumbler mimicked their laughter with eerie accuracy.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower VII The Dark Tower.txt" 6458 34:"Don't suppose you smell any SMOKE yet, do you?" Eddie asked.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower VII The Dark Tower.txt" 6535 7:"-SMOKE!" he finished, and they looked at each other with alarm, their argument forgotten perhaps only five seconds before it would have come to blows. Tammy's eyes fixed on the sampler hung beside the stove. There were similar ones all over Algul Siento, because most of the buildings which made up the compound were wood. Old wood. WE ALL MUST WORK TOGETHER TO CREATE A FIRE-FREE ENVIRONMENT, it said.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower VII The Dark Tower.txt" 6537 69:Somewhere close by-in the back hallway-one of the still-working SMOKE detectors went off with a loud and frightening bray. Tammy hurried into the pantry to grab the fire-extinguisher in there.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower VII The Dark Tower.txt" 6564 168:The can-toi who fancied himself James Cagney started to enquire if Gaskie had farted, then rethought this humorous riposte. For in fact he did smell something. Was it SMOKE?

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower VII The Dark Tower.txt" 6581 40:Behind him, in the Feveral rec room, a SMOKE detector went off with a loud donkey-bray.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower VII The Dark Tower.txt" 6600 121:Fire? But that's impossible, Pimli thought. For if that's the SMOKE detector I'm hearing in my house and also the SMOKE detector I'm hearing from one of the dorms, then surely-

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower VII The Dark Tower.txt" 6600 67:Fire? But that's impossible, Pimli thought. For if that's the SMOKE detector I'm hearing in my house and also the SMOKE detector I'm hearing from one of the dorms, then surely-

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower VII The Dark Tower.txt" 6602 57:"It must be a false alarm," he told Finli. "Those SMOKE detectors do that when their batteries are-"

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower VII The Dark Tower.txt" 6608 60:Pimli stared with his mouth open. And suddenly yet another SMOKE-and-fire alarm went off, this one in a series of loud, hiccuping whoops. Good God, sweet Jesus, that was one of the Damli House alarms! Surely nothing could be wrong at-

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower VII The Dark Tower.txt" 6625 12:Was that a SMOKE alarm? From Feveral, perhaps?

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower VII The Dark Tower.txt" 6631 24:That was the bray of a SMOKE alarm. Dinky was sure of it. Well . . . almost sure.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower VII The Dark Tower.txt" 6643 104:As if to underscore this, there was a soft bang-and-tinkle as something imploded and the first puff of SMOKE seeped from the ventilator panels. Breakers looked around with wide, dazed eyes, some getting to their feet.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower VII The Dark Tower.txt" 6649 184:He sent a perfect, practiced image of the north stairway, then added Breakers. Breakers walking up the north stairway. Breakers walking through the kitchen. Crackle of fire, smell of SMOKE, but both coming from the guards' sleeping area in the west wing. And would anyone question the truth of this mental broadcast? Would anyone wonder who was beaming it out, or why? Not now. Now they were only scared. Now they were wanting someone to tell them what to do, and Dinky Earnshaw was that someone.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower VII The Dark Tower.txt" 6670 121:Susannah sat astride the SCT in the window of the shed where she'd been concealed, not worrying about being seen now. SMOKE detectors-at least three of them-were yowling. A fire alarm was whooping even more loudly; that one was from Damli House, she was quite sure. As if in answer, a series of loud electronic goose-honks began from the Pleasantville end of the compound. This was joined by a multitude of clanging bells.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower VII The Dark Tower.txt" 6687 120:Finli grabbed the Master's arm. Pimli shook him off and started toward his house again, staring unbelievingly at the SMOKE that was now pouring out of all the windows on the left side.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower VII The Dark Tower.txt" 6695 103:"SMOKE!" Jakli cried, fluttering his dark (and utterly useless) wings. "SMOKE from Damli House, SMOKE from Feveral, too!"

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower VII The Dark Tower.txt" 6695 4:"SMOKE!" Jakli cried, fluttering his dark (and utterly useless) wings. "SMOKE from Damli House, SMOKE from Feveral, too!"

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower VII The Dark Tower.txt" 6695 79:"SMOKE!" Jakli cried, fluttering his dark (and utterly useless) wings. "SMOKE from Damli House, SMOKE from Feveral, too!"

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower VII The Dark Tower.txt" 6708 106:In the south watchtowers, the guards were turned away from them, looking north. Eddie couldn't see any SMOKE yet. Perhaps the guards could from their higher vantage-points.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower VII The Dark Tower.txt" 6710 410:Roland grabbed Jake's shoulder, then pointed at the SOO LINE boxcar. Jake nodded and scrambled beneath it with Oy at his heels. Roland held both hands out to Eddie-Stay where you are!-and then followed. On the other side of the boxcar the boy and the gunslinger stood up, side by side. They would have been clearly visible to the sentries, had the attention of those worthies not been distracted by the SMOKE detectors and fire alarms inside the compound.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower VII The Dark Tower.txt" 6801 123:The patients were already gone, of course; he'd had them out of their beds and down the stairs at the first bray of the SMOKE detector, at the first whiff of SMOKE. A number of orderlies-gutless wonders, and he knew who each of them was, oh yes, and a complete report would be made when the time came-had fled with the sickfolk, but five had stayed, including his personal assistant, Jack London. Gangli was proud of them, although one could not have told it from his hectoring voice as he skated up and down, up and down, in the thickening SMOKE.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower VII The Dark Tower.txt" 6801 161:The patients were already gone, of course; he'd had them out of their beds and down the stairs at the first bray of the SMOKE detector, at the first whiff of SMOKE. A number of orderlies-gutless wonders, and he knew who each of them was, oh yes, and a complete report would be made when the time came-had fled with the sickfolk, but five had stayed, including his personal assistant, Jack London. Gangli was proud of them, although one could not have told it from his hectoring voice as he skated up and down, up and down, in the thickening SMOKE.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower VII The Dark Tower.txt" 6801 548:The patients were already gone, of course; he'd had them out of their beds and down the stairs at the first bray of the SMOKE detector, at the first whiff of SMOKE. A number of orderlies-gutless wonders, and he knew who each of them was, oh yes, and a complete report would be made when the time came-had fled with the sickfolk, but five had stayed, including his personal assistant, Jack London. Gangli was proud of them, although one could not have told it from his hectoring voice as he skated up and down, up and down, in the thickening SMOKE.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower VII The Dark Tower.txt" 6836 294:At the head of the alley, they looked out and saw that Main Street was currently empty, although a tangy electric smell (a subway-station smell, Eddie thought) from the last two fire engines still hung in the air, making the overall stench even worse. In the distance, fire-sirens whooped and SMOKE detectors brayed. Here in Pleasantville, Eddie couldn't help but think of the Main Street in Disneyland: no litter in the gutters, no rude graffiti on the walls, not even any dust on the plate-glass windows. This was where homesick Breakers came when they needed a little whiff of America, he supposed, but didn't any of them want anything better, anything more realistic, than this plastic-fantastic still life? Maybe it looked more inviting with folks on the sidewalks and in the stores, but that was hard to believe. Hard for him to believe, at least. Maybe it was only a city boy's chauvinism.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower VII The Dark Tower.txt" 6902 293:North of the Algul compound, Susannah broke cover, moving in on the triple run of fence. This wasn't in the plan, but the need to keep shooting, to keep knocking them down, was stronger than ever. She simply couldn't help herself, and Roland would have understood. Besides, the billowing SMOKE from Damli House had momentarily obscured everything at this end of the compound. Red beams from the "lazers" stabbed into it-on and off, on and off, like some sort of neon sign-and Susannah reminded herself not to get in the way of them, not unless she wanted a hole two inches across all the way through her.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower VII The Dark Tower.txt" 6904 137:She used bullets from the Coyote to cut her end of the fence-outer run, middle run, inner run-and then vanished into the thickening SMOKE, reloading as she went.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower VII The Dark Tower.txt" 6910 188:"Who the fuck is back there!" Finli roared. "WHO THE FUCK IS DOING THIS?" The follow-up fire engines had halted in front of Damli House and were pouring streams of water into the SMOKE. Finli didn't know if it could help, but probably it couldn't hurt. And at least the damned things hadn't crashed into the building they were supposed to save, like the first one.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower VII The Dark Tower.txt" 6924 90:Before he could finish this admonishment, a figure came plummeting out of the thickening SMOKE. It was Gangli, the compound doctor, his white coat on fire, his roller skates still on his feet.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower VII The Dark Tower.txt" 6928 210:Susannah Dean took up a position at the left rear corner of Damli House, coughing. She saw three of the sons of bitches-Gaskie, Jakli, and Cagney, had she but known it. Before she could draw a bead, eddying SMOKE blotted them out. When it cleared, Jakli and Cag were gone, rounding up armed guards to act as sheepdogs who would at least try to protect their panicked charges, even if they could not immediately stop them. Gaskie was still there, and Susannah took him with a single headshot.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower VII The Dark Tower.txt" 6954 56:Eleven-year-old Daneeka Rostov came out of the rolling SMOKE that now entirely obscured the lower half of Damli House, pulling two red wagons behind her. Daneeka's face was red and swollen; tears were streaming from her eyes; she was bent over almost double with the effort it was taking her to keep pulling Baj, who sat in one Radio Flyer wagon, and Sej, who sat in the other. Both had the huge heads and tiny, wise eyes of hydrocephalic savants, but Sej was equipped with waving stubs of arms while Baj had none. Both were now foaming at the mouth and making hoarse gagging sounds.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower VII The Dark Tower.txt" 6988 449:Finli o' Tego unlimbered his own gun, but before he could fire, Daneeka Rostov was on him, biting and scratching. She weighed almost nothing, but for a moment he was so surprised to be attacked from this unexpected quarter that she almost bowled him over. He curled a strong, furry arm around her neck and threw her aside, but by then Ted and Dinky were almost out of range, cutting to the left side of Warden's House and disappearing into the SMOKE.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower VII The Dark Tower.txt" 6998 122:In his room on the third floor of Corbett Hall, still on his knees at the foot of his glass-covered bed, coughing on the SMOKE that was drifting in through his broken window, Sheemie Ruiz had his revelation . . . or was spoken to by his imagination, take your pick. In either case, he leaped to his feet. His eyes, normally friendly but always puzzled by a world he could not quite understand, were clear and full of joy.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower VII The Dark Tower.txt" 7053 229:And so they did: the gunslinger out of Gilead, the former drug addict out of Brooklyn, the lonely child who had once been known to Mrs. Greta Shaw as 'Bama. Coming south from behind them, rolling through thickening banners of SMOKE on the SCT (diverting from a straight course only once, to swerve around the flattened body of another housekeeper, this one named Tammy), was a fourth: she who had once been instructed in the ways of nonviolent protest by young and earnest men from the N-double A-C-P and who had now embraced, fully and with no regrets, the way of the gun. Susannah picked off three laggard humie guards and one fleeing taheen. The taheen had a rifle slung over one shoulder but never tried for it. Instead he raised his sleek, fur-covered arms-his head was vaguely bearish-and cried for quarter and parole. Mindful of all that had gone on here, not in the least how the pureed brains of children had been fed to the Beam-killers in order to keep them operating at top efficiency, Susannah gave him neither, although neither did she give him cause to suffer or time to fear his fate.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower VII The Dark Tower.txt" 7256 129:"What are you going to do to the place?" Jake asked after the afternoon horn had blown. They were making their way past the SMOKING husk of Damli House (where the robot firemen had posted signs every twenty feet reading OFF-LIMITS PENDING FIRE DEPT. INVESTIGATION), on their way to see Eddie.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower VII The Dark Tower.txt" 7293 232:The first-floor hallway of Corbett was bright with fluorescent lights and smelled strongly of SMOKE from Damli House and Feveral Hall. Dinky Earnshaw was seated in a folding chair to the right of the door marked PROCTOR'S SUITE, SMOKING a CIGARETTE. He looked up as Roland and Jake approached, Oy trotting along in his usual position just behind Jake's heel.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower VII The Dark Tower.txt" 7293 242:The first-floor hallway of Corbett was bright with fluorescent lights and smelled strongly of SMOKE from Damli House and Feveral Hall. Dinky Earnshaw was seated in a folding chair to the right of the door marked PROCTOR'S SUITE, SMOKING a CIGARETTE. He looked up as Roland and Jake approached, Oy trotting along in his usual position just behind Jake's heel.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower VII The Dark Tower.txt" 7293 95:The first-floor hallway of Corbett was bright with fluorescent lights and smelled strongly of SMOKE from Damli House and Feveral Hall. Dinky Earnshaw was seated in a folding chair to the right of the door marked PROCTOR'S SUITE, SMOKING a CIGARETTE. He looked up as Roland and Jake approached, Oy trotting along in his usual position just behind Jake's heel.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower VII The Dark Tower.txt" 7371 51:"Real bad," Jake said. "Do you have another CIGARETTE?"

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower VII The Dark Tower.txt" 7373 190:Dinky raised his eyebrows but gave Jake a SMOKE. The boy tamped it on his thumbnail, as he'd seen the gunslinger do with tailor-made smokes, then accepted a light and inhaled deeply. The SMOKE still burned, but not so harshly as the first time. His head only swam a little and he didn't cough. Pretty soon I'll be a natural, he thought. If I ever make it back to New York, maybe I can go to work for the Network, in my Dad's department. I'm already getting good at The Kill.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower VII The Dark Tower.txt" 7373 43:Dinky raised his eyebrows but gave Jake a SMOKE. The boy tamped it on his thumbnail, as he'd seen the gunslinger do with tailor-made smokes, then accepted a light and inhaled deeply. The SMOKE still burned, but not so harshly as the first time. His head only swam a little and he didn't cough. Pretty soon I'll be a natural, he thought. If I ever make it back to New York, maybe I can go to work for the Network, in my Dad's department. I'm already getting good at The Kill.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower VII The Dark Tower.txt" 7375 15:He lifted the CIGARETTE in front of his eyes, a little white missile with SMOKE issuing from the top instead of the bottom. The word CAMEL was written just below the filter. "I told myself I'd never do this," Jake told Dinky. "Never in life. And here I am with one in my hand." He laughed. It was a bitter laugh, an adult laugh, and the sound of it coming out of his mouth made him shiver.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower VII The Dark Tower.txt" 7375 75:He lifted the CIGARETTE in front of his eyes, a little white missile with SMOKE issuing from the top instead of the bottom. The word CAMEL was written just below the filter. "I told myself I'd never do this," Jake told Dinky. "Never in life. And here I am with one in my hand." He laughed. It was a bitter laugh, an adult laugh, and the sound of it coming out of his mouth made him shiver.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower VII The Dark Tower.txt" 7395 262:"You don't want to know," Jake said. "Believe me." He snuffed his CIGARETTE half-SMOKED ("All your lung cancer's right here, in the last quarter-inch," his father used to say in tones of absolute certainty, pointing to one of his own filterless CIGARETTES like a TV pitchman) and left Corbett Hall. He used the back door, hoping to avoid the cluster of waiting, anxious Breakers, and in that he had succeeded. Now he was in Pleasantville, sitting on the curb like one of the homeless people you saw back in New York, waiting to be called. Waiting for the end.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower VII The Dark Tower.txt" 7395 77:"You don't want to know," Jake said. "Believe me." He snuffed his CIGARETTE half-SMOKED ("All your lung cancer's right here, in the last quarter-inch," his father used to say in tones of absolute certainty, pointing to one of his own filterless CIGARETTES like a TV pitchman) and left Corbett Hall. He used the back door, hoping to avoid the cluster of waiting, anxious Breakers, and in that he had succeeded. Now he was in Pleasantville, sitting on the curb like one of the homeless people you saw back in New York, waiting to be called. Waiting for the end.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower VII The Dark Tower.txt" 7395 92:"You don't want to know," Jake said. "Believe me." He snuffed his CIGARETTE half-SMOKED ("All your lung cancer's right here, in the last quarter-inch," his father used to say in tones of absolute certainty, pointing to one of his own filterless CIGARETTES like a TV pitchman) and left Corbett Hall. He used the back door, hoping to avoid the cluster of waiting, anxious Breakers, and in that he had succeeded. Now he was in Pleasantville, sitting on the curb like one of the homeless people you saw back in New York, waiting to be called. Waiting for the end.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower VII The Dark Tower.txt" 7397 102:He thought about going into the tavern, maybe to draw himself a beer (surely if he was old enough to SMOKE and to kill people from ambush he was old enough to drink a beer), maybe just to see if the jukebox would play without change. He bet that Algul Siento had been what his Dad had claimed America would become in time, a cashless society, and that old Seeberg was rigged so you only had to push the buttons in order to start the music. And he bet that if he looked at the song-strip next to 19, he'd see "Someone Saved My Life Tonight," by Elton John.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower VII The Dark Tower.txt" 7412 67:I won't cry, he promised himself grimly. If I'm old enough to SMOKE and think about drawing myself a beer, I'm old enough to control my stupid eyes. I won't cry.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower VII The Dark Tower.txt" 8300 293:The engine screamed, but the truck began to roll backward, as if so frightened by the job ahead that it would rather finish up in the lake. Then she engaged the clutch and the old International Harvester leaped ahead, charging up the steep incline of the driveway and leaving a trail of blue SMOKE and burnt rubber behind.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower VII The Dark Tower.txt" 8359 1594:Stephen King takes two walks, the short one and the long one. The short one takes him out to the intersection of Warrington's Road and Route 7, then back to his house, Cara Laughs, the same way. That one is three miles. The long walk (which also happens to be the name of a book he once wrote under the Bachman name, back before the world moved on) takes him past the Warrington's intersection, down Route 7 as far as the Slab City Road, then all the way back Route 7 to Berry Hill, bypassing Warrington's Road. This walk returns him to his house by way of the north end of Turtleback Lane, and is four miles. This is the one he means to take today, but when he gets back to the intersection of 7 and Warrington's he stops, playing with the idea of going back the short way. He's always careful about walking on the shoulder of the public road, though traffic is light on Route 7, even in summer; the only time this highway ever gets busy is when the Fryeburg Fair's going on, and that doesn't start until the first week of October. Most of the sightlines are good, anyway. If a bad driver's coming (or a drunk) you can usually spot him half a mile away, which gives you plenty of time to vacate the area. There's only one blind hill, and that's the one directly beyond the Warrington's intersection. Yet that's also an aerobic hill, one that gets the old heart really pumping, and isn't that what he's doing all these stupid walks for? To promote what the TV talking heads call "heart healthiness?" He's quit drinking, he's quit doping, he's almost quit SMOKING, he exercises. What else is there?

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower VII The Dark Tower.txt" 8827 189:"Cheer me up, why don't you," King said. The visible side of his face was very pale, but the flow of blood from the gash on his temple had slowed almost to a stop. "Have you got a CIGARETTE?"

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower VII The Dark Tower.txt" 8831 203:Although not particularly strong in the touch, Roland had enough of it to know this wasn't so. But Smith only had three and didn't want to share them with this man, who could probably afford enough CIGARETTES to fill Smith's entire van with them. Besides, Smith thought-

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower VII The Dark Tower.txt" 8833 62:"Besides, folks who been in a accident ain't supposed to SMOKE," Smith said virtuously.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower VII The Dark Tower.txt" 9032 189:Roland nodded. Yes, there would be low men out there, and after all he and his ka-tet had done to thwart the plans of their master, they'd be twice as eager to have his head. Preferably SMOKING, and on the end of a stick. Also the head of sai Tassenbaum, if they found out about her.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower VII The Dark Tower.txt" 936 211:Roland's revolver spoke a single time. The bullet took the kneeling thing in the center of its forehead, completing the ruin of its ruined face. As it was flung backward, Eddie saw its flesh turn to greenish SMOKE as ephemeral as a hornet's wing. For a moment Eddie could see Chevin of Chayven's floating teeth like a ghostly ring of coral, and then they were gone.

"Novels\Dark Tower\The Dark Tower VII The Dark Tower.txt" 9939 32:The limousine's windows were SMOKED glass, the interior dim and ringed with colored lights. Oy jumped up on one of the seats and watched with interest as the city rolled past. Roland was mildly amazed to see that there was a completely stocked liquor-bar on one side of the long passenger compartment. He thought of having a beer and decided that even such a mild drink would be enough to dim his own lights. Irene had no such worries. She poured herself what looked like whiskey from a small bottle and then held the glass toward him.

"Novels\Dead Zone, The.txt" 1557 36:Dr. Strawns closed the door, lit a CIGARETTE, and dropped the burned match into one of the ashtrays that marched up and down the table. "This is difficult," he said, as if to himself.

"Novels\Dead Zone, The.txt" 1565 68:"He's in a coma." Strawns sat down and dragged deeply on his CIGARETTE. "Mr. Smith has sustained serious head injuries and an undetermined amount of brain damage. You may have heard the phrase 'subdural hematoma' on one or the other of the doctor shows. Mr. Smith has suffered a very grave subdural hematoma, which is localized cranial bleeding. A long operation was necessary to relieve the pressure, and also to remove bone-splinters from his brain."

"Novels\Dead Zone, The.txt" 1577 82:"No one can really answer that now," Strawns said. He began to play with his CIGARETTE, tapping it nervously over the ashtray. Sarah had the feeling he was answering Herb's question literally while completely avoiding the question Herb had really asked. "He's on life support equipment, of course."

"Novels\Dead Zone, The.txt" 1591 48:Dr. Strawns hesitated, puffed nervously on his CIGARETTE. "No, I can't do that," he said finally.

"Novels\Dead Zone, The.txt" 1705 56:He sat on a bench in the town park near the bandstand, SMOKING a Marlboro and humming a song from the Beatles' white album-"you don't know how lucky you are, boy, back in the, back in the, back in the USSR . . ."

"Novels\Dead Zone, The.txt" 1715 117:He crushed his SMOKE under one boot heel and lit another immediately. He glanced at his watch. 3:02 P.M. He sat and SMOKED. Two boys passed through the park, tossing a football back and forth, but they didn't see the killer because the benches were down in a dip. He supposed it was a place where the nasty-fuckers came at night when the weather was warmer. He knew all about the nasty-fuckers and the things they did. His mother had told him, and he had seen them.

"Novels\Dead Zone, The.txt" 1715 16:He crushed his SMOKE under one boot heel and lit another immediately. He glanced at his watch. 3:02 P.M. He sat and SMOKED. Two boys passed through the park, tossing a football back and forth, but they didn't see the killer because the benches were down in a dip. He supposed it was a place where the nasty-fuckers came at night when the weather was warmer. He knew all about the nasty-fuckers and the things they did. His mother had told him, and he had seen them.

"Novels\Dead Zone, The.txt" 1731 47:He glanced at his watch. 3:07. He dropped his CIGARETTE half-SMOKED. Someone was coming.

"Novels\Dead Zone, The.txt" 1731 62:He glanced at his watch. 3:07. He dropped his CIGARETTE half-SMOKED. Someone was coming.

"Novels\Dead Zone, The.txt" 1863 28:He sat SMOKING a Pall Mall CIGARETTE and looking at the man sprawled comfortably in the chair opposite. Greg was looking at this man the way a zoologist might look at an interesting new specimen.

"Novels\Dead Zone, The.txt" 1863 8:He sat SMOKING a Pall Mall CIGARETTE and looking at the man sprawled comfortably in the chair opposite. Greg was looking at this man the way a zoologist might look at an interesting new specimen.

"Novels\Dead Zone, The.txt" 2866 43:For a moment, something did-a memory of SMOKE, black and greasy and smelling like rubber. Cold. Then it was gone. Johnny shook his head.

"Novels\Dead Zone, The.txt" 328 43:"No. Maybe. I don't know." He lit a CIGARETTE. "I don't think I even want to try." She had stared at him, shocked.

"Novels\Dead Zone, The.txt" 3993 23:"Jan says there's SMOKE pouring out of my kitchen window," Eileen said, and all three nurses sighed in unison. Their eyes, wide and somehow accusing, turned to Johnny again. Jury's eyes, he thought dismally.

"Novels\Dead Zone, The.txt" 4001 103:"You go on," Johnny said. "I'm sure it's going to be fine. There's going to be some minor SMOKE and water damage, and that's all. That movie poster from Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, I think you're going to lose that, but that's all."

"Novels\Dead Zone, The.txt" 593 164:They had worked their way back to the main part of the midway. The crowd was thinning. The Tilt-A-Whirl had shut down for the evening. Two workmen with unfiltered CIGARETTES jutting from the corners of their mouths were covering the Wild Mouse with a tarpaulin. The man in the Pitch-Til-U-Win was turning off his lights.

"Novels\Dead Zone, The.txt" 6110 51:Bannerman did. They had found an even dozen fresh CIGARETTE butts near the end of one of the benches, and four more behind the bandstand itself, along with an empty box. Marlboros, unfortunately-the second or third most popular brand in the country. The cellophane on the box had been dusted for prints and had yielded none at all.

"Novels\Dead Zone, The.txt" 6116 160:"Well, you'd guess the killer was wearing gloves even if he wasn't thinking about prints-it was cold out-but you'd think the guy that sold him the CIGARETTES . . ."

"Novels\Dead Zone, The.txt" 6120 37:"No," Johnny said. "I used to SMOKE a few CIGARETTES when I was in college, but I lost the habit after my accident."

"Novels\Dead Zone, The.txt" 6120 49:"No," Johnny said. "I used to SMOKE a few CIGARETTES when I was in college, but I lost the habit after my accident."

"Novels\Dead Zone, The.txt" 6122 20:"A man keeps his CIGARETTES in his breast pocket. Take them out, get a CIGARETTE, put the pack back. If you're wearing gloves and not leaving fresh prints every time you get a butt, what you're doing is polishing that cellophane wrapper. Get it? And you missed one other thing, Johnny. Need me to tell you?"

"Novels\Dead Zone, The.txt" 6122 74:"A man keeps his CIGARETTES in his breast pocket. Take them out, get a CIGARETTE, put the pack back. If you're wearing gloves and not leaving fresh prints every time you get a butt, what you're doing is polishing that cellophane wrapper. Get it? And you missed one other thing, Johnny. Need me to tell you?"

"Novels\Dead Zone, The.txt" 6124 60:Johnny thought it over and then said, "Maybe the pack of CIGARETTES came out of a carton. And those cartons are packed by machine."

"Novels\Dead Zone, The.txt" 6134 220:Bannerman shrugged. "Sure, there's the technical possibility that they weren't. But I've tried to imagine who else would want to sit on a bench in the town common on a cold, cloudy winter morning long enough to SMOKE twelve or sixteen CIGARETTES, and I come up a blank."

"Novels\Dead Zone, The.txt" 6134 244:Bannerman shrugged. "Sure, there's the technical possibility that they weren't. But I've tried to imagine who else would want to sit on a bench in the town common on a cold, cloudy winter morning long enough to SMOKE twelve or sixteen CIGARETTES, and I come up a blank."

"Novels\Dead Zone, The.txt" 6194 8:"The CIGARETTE pack is in Castle Rock?"

"Novels\Dead Zone, The.txt" 6287 244:Johnny undid the clasp and shook an empty Marlboro CIGARETTE box out into his hand. Red and white box. He held it in his left hand and looked at the far wall. Gray wall. Industrial gray wall. Red and white box. Industrial gray box. He put the CIGARETTE package in his other hand, then cupped it in both. He waited for something, anything to come. Nothing did. He held it longer, hoping against hope, ignoring the knowledge that when things came, they came at once.

"Novels\Dead Zone, The.txt" 6287 52:Johnny undid the clasp and shook an empty Marlboro CIGARETTE box out into his hand. Red and white box. He held it in his left hand and looked at the far wall. Gray wall. Industrial gray wall. Red and white box. Industrial gray box. He put the CIGARETTE package in his other hand, then cupped it in both. He waited for something, anything to come. Nothing did. He held it longer, hoping against hope, ignoring the knowledge that when things came, they came at once.

"Novels\Dead Zone, The.txt" 6289 23:At last he handed the CIGARETTE box back. "I'm sorry," he said.

"Novels\Dead Zone, The.txt" 6379 31:"Not yet. Show me where the CIGARETTE butts were."

"Novels\Dead Zone, The.txt" 6399 87:Dark tree branches etched against a gray snow-sky like runes. He (I) am sitting here, SMOKING, waiting, feeling good, feeling like he (I) could jump right over the roof of the world and land lightly on two feet. Humming a song. Something by the Rolling Stones. Can't get that, but very clearly everything is . . . is what?

"Novels\Dead Zone, The.txt" 6893 398:I told them that, but I might as well have been talking in Esperanto or igpay atinlay. All they can see is that your picture was in Newsweek and the New York Times and that the Castle Rock story was on the national network news broadcasts. Too controversial! Five old men in trusses, the kind of men who are more interested in hair length than in textbooks, more involved in finding out who might SMOKE pot on the faculty than in finding out how to get some twentieth-century equipment for the Sci Wing.

"Novels\Dead Zone, The.txt" 6912 213:Johnny stood beside the mailbox with Dave's letter in his hand, looking down at it unbelievingly. It was the last day of 1975, clear and bitingly cold. His breath came out of his nostrils in fine white jets of SMOKE.

"Novels\Dead Zone, The.txt" 8097 386:Bass made an obscene blowing sound. "About five years ago we had a day-long folk-rock concert in Trimbull. Out on Hake Jamieson's land. Town council had their doubts, but they went ahead because the kids have got to have something. We thought we were going to have maybe two hundred local kids in Hake's east pasture listening to music. Instead we got sixteen hundred, all of em SMOKING pot and drinking hard stuff straight out from the neck of the bottle. They made a hell of a mess and the council got mad and said there'd never be another one and they turned around all hurt and wet-eyed and said, 'Whassa matter? No one got hurt, did they?' It was supposed to be okay to make a helluva mess because no one got hurt. I feel the same way about this guy Stillson. I remember once . . ."

"Novels\Dead Zone, The.txt" 8121 24:Lancte crushed out his CIGARETTE. "Yes. I was."

"Novels\Dead Zone, The.txt" 8139 71:"You're wrong about that, Chief," Lancte said, lighting a fresh CIGARETTE. "He was cited in Washington State in 1973 for making an illegal left turn against traffic. He signed the waiver and paid a twenty-five-dollar fine."

"Novels\Dead Zone, The.txt" 8167 83:"Nobody who would talk." Lancte smiled humorlessly and tapped the ash off his CIGARETTE. "He's the people's choice."

"Novels\Dead Zone, The.txt" 8197 85:"Don't know." He looked from Lancte, slim and impeccable, tapping out a fresh CIGARETTE on the blank face of his digital watch, to Bass, a big, tired man with a basset hound's face. "Do either of you think he'll run for a higher office? If he gets this seat in the House of Representatives?"

"Novels\Dead Zone, The.txt" 8381 417:The nightmare was nearly always the same, a naked replay of his handshake with Stillson at the Trimbull rally. The sudden blackness. The feeling of being in a tunnel filled with the glare of the onrushing headlight, a headlight bolted to some black engine of doom. The old man with the humble, frightened eyes administering an unthinkable oath of office. The nuances of feeling, coming and going like tight puffs of SMOKE. And a series of brief images, strung together in a flapping row like the plastic pennants over a used-car dealer's lot. His mind whispered to him that these images were all related, that they told a picture-story of a titanic approaching doom, perhaps even the Armageddon of which Vera Smith had been so endlessly confident.

"Novels\Dead Zone, The.txt" 9064 506:Finding you wasn't much of a trick-I sometimes think if you have enough free cash, you can find anyone in this country, and the cash I got. Maybe I'm risking your resentment stating it as badly as that, but Chuck and Shelley and I owe you too much to tell you less than the truth. Money buys a lot, but it can't buy off the lightning. They found twelve boys still in the men's room opening off the restaurant, the one where the window had been nailed shut. The fire didn't reach there but the SMOKE did, and all twelve of them were suffocated. I haven't been able to get that out of my mind because Chuck could have been one of those boys. So I had you "tracked down," as you put it in your letter. And for the same reason, I can't leave you alone as you requested. At least not until the enclosed check comes back canceled with your endorsement on the back.

"Novels\Dead Zone, The.txt" 9708 292:Johnny looked down into the case and rubbed his eyes. His vision doubled briefly and then things came together again. He was getting an impression from the very wood he was sitting on. A very old impression; if it had been a photograph, it would have been sepia-toned. Men standing here and SMOKING cigars, talking and laughing and waiting for town meeting to begin. Had it been 1920? 1902? There was something ghostly about it that made him feel uneasy. One of them had been talking about the price of whiskey and cleaning his nose with a silver toothpick and

"Novels\Dead Zone, The.txt" 9910 83:The bottleneck at the entryway broke, and now people began to pour out. A puff of SMOKE rose from the barrel of one of the pistols across the way, there was a bang, and the invisible finger that had flicked his collar a few seconds ago now drew a line of fire across the side of Johnny's head. It didn't matter. Nothing mattered except taking Stillson. He brought the rifle down again.

"Novels\Doctor Sleep.txt" 10592 52:She sent an image instead of a thought in words: a SMOKE detector beeping the way they did when they wanted a battery change. She remembered perfectly.

"Novels\Doctor Sleep.txt" 10988 74:"Ping," Dan said. He smiled again, but this one was weary. "Like a SMOKE detector that needs a battery change."

"Novels\Doctor Sleep.txt" 1179 157:Beyond Teenytown was a miniature train with TEENYTOWN RAILWAY painted on passenger cars that were surely too small to hold anyone larger than toddler size. SMOKE was puffing from the stack of a bright red locomotive about the size of a Honda Gold Wing motorcycle. He could hear the rumble of a diesel engine. Printed on the side of the loco, in old-fashioned gold flake letters, was THE HELEN RIVINGTON. Town patroness, Dan supposed. Somewhere in Frazier there was probably a street named after her, too.

"Novels\Doctor Sleep.txt" 11953 35:(burn it Mr. Freeman says he quit SMOKING but he still does I could smell it in the truck he'll have matches)

"Novels\Doctor Sleep.txt" 12064 304:The Saturday noon AA meeting in Frazier was one of the oldest in New Hampshire, dating back to 1946, and had been founded by Fat Bob D., who had known the Program's founder, Bill Wilson, personally. Fat Bob was long in his grave, a victim of lung cancer-in the early days most recovering alkies had SMOKED like chimneys and newbies were routinely told to keep their mouths shut and the ashtrays empty-but the meeting was still well attended. Today it was SRO, because when it was over there would be pizza and a sheet cake. This was the case at most anniversary meetings, and today one of their number was celebrating fifteen years of sobriety. In the early years he had been known as Dan or Dan T., but word of his work at the local hospice had gotten around (the AA magazine was not known as The Grapevine for nothing), and now he was most commonly called Doc. Since his parents had called him that, Dan found the nickname ironic . . . but in a good way. Life was a wheel, its only job was to turn, and it always came back to where it had started.

"Novels\Doctor Sleep.txt" 12262 77:An image filled his head, momentarily blotting out the river: a charred and SMOKING birthday cake. In some circumstances, the image would have been funny. Not in these.

"Novels\Doctor Sleep.txt" 1269 141:Freeman went back to the locomotive and leaned in. The engine, which had been idling lazily, began to rev and send up rhythmic jets of dark SMOKE. There was a hydraulic whine along the whole length of The Helen Rivington. Suddenly the roofs of the passenger wagons and the yellow caboose-nine cars in all-began to rise. To Dan it looked like the tops of nine identical convertibles all going up at the same time. He bent down to look in the windows and saw hard plastic seats running down the center of each car. Six in the passenger wagons and two in the caboose. Fifty in all.

"Novels\Doctor Sleep.txt" 1279 92:"Bet your ass." Billy rummaged in his coat pocket, brought out a battered pack of Duke CIGARETTES-a cut-rate brand Dan knew well, sold in bus stations and convenience stores all over America-and held it out. Dan took one. Billy lit them up.

"Novels\Doctor Sleep.txt" 1281 327:"I better enjoy it while I can," Billy said, looking at his CIGARETTE. "SMOKING'll be banned here before too many more years. Frazier Women's Club's already talkin about it. Bunch of old biddies if you ask me, but you know what they say-the hand that rocks the fuckin cradle rules the fuckin world." He jetted SMOKE from his nostrils. "Not that most of them have rocked a cradle since Nixon was president. Or needed a Tampax, for that matter."

"Novels\Doctor Sleep.txt" 1281 65:"I better enjoy it while I can," Billy said, looking at his CIGARETTE. "SMOKING'll be banned here before too many more years. Frazier Women's Club's already talkin about it. Bunch of old biddies if you ask me, but you know what they say-the hand that rocks the fuckin cradle rules the fuckin world." He jetted SMOKE from his nostrils. "Not that most of them have rocked a cradle since Nixon was president. Or needed a Tampax, for that matter."

"Novels\Doctor Sleep.txt" 1281 79:"I better enjoy it while I can," Billy said, looking at his CIGARETTE. "SMOKING'll be banned here before too many more years. Frazier Women's Club's already talkin about it. Bunch of old biddies if you ask me, but you know what they say-the hand that rocks the fuckin cradle rules the fuckin world." He jetted SMOKE from his nostrils. "Not that most of them have rocked a cradle since Nixon was president. Or needed a Tampax, for that matter."

"Novels\Doctor Sleep.txt" 1283 291:"Might not be the worst thing," Dan said. "Kids copy what they see in their elders." He thought of his father. The only thing Jack Torrance had liked better than a drink, his mother had once said, not long before she died, was a dozen drinks. Of course what Wendy had liked was her CIGARETTES, and they had killed her. Once upon a time Dan had promised himself he'd never get going with that habit, either. He had come to believe that life was a series of ironic ambushes.

"Novels\Doctor Sleep.txt" 1420 347:Back on the common, Billy was waiting with a list of chores. The day before, the two of them had taken the tarps off all the kiddie rides. That afternoon they put them back on, and shuttered the various booths and concessions. The day's final job was backing the Riv into her shed. Then they sat in folding chairs beside the Teenytown station, SMOKING.

"Novels\Doctor Sleep.txt" 1564 374:He went to the bathroom, then whirled and looked back, as if expecting to surprise someone. There was just the bed, with the covers now lying on the floor at the foot. He turned on the light over the sink, splashed his face with cold water, and sat down on the closed lid of the commode, taking long breaths, one after the other. He thought about getting up and grabbing a CIGARETTE from the pack lying beside his book on the room's one small table, but his legs felt rubbery and he wasn't sure they'd hold him. Not yet, anyway. So he sat. He could see the bed and the bed was empty. The whole room was empty. No problem there.

"Novels\Doctor Sleep.txt" 1767 67:This time it was his mother who spoke up. Wendy Torrance, who had SMOKED right to the bitter end. Because if suicide was the only option, you could at least choose your weapon.

"Novels\Doctor Sleep.txt" 1978 307:David Stone dreamed he was chasing his daughter's cries up an endless escalator that was running-slowly but inexorably-in the wrong direction. Worse, the escalator was in a mall, and the mall was on fire. He should have been choking and out of breath long before he reached the top, but there was no SMOKE from the fire, only a hell of flames. Nor was there any sound other than Abra's cries, although he saw people burning like kerosene-soaked torches. When he finally made it to the top, he saw Abby lying on the floor like someone's cast-off garbage. Men and women ran all around her, unheeding, and in spite of the flames, no one tried to use the escalator even though it was going down. They simply sprinted aimlessly in all directions, like ants whose hill has been torn open by a farmer's harrow. One woman in stilettos almost stepped on his daughter, a thing that would almost surely have killed her.

"Novels\Doctor Sleep.txt" 229 74:"Do you like that?" Grampa Andy would pant in his ear. He smelled of CIGARETTES and White Horse scotch. "Coss you do, every boy likes that. But even if you don't, you dassn't tell. If you do, I'll hurt you. I'll burn you."

"Novels\Doctor Sleep.txt" 235 210:"Sometimes I couldn't finish no matter what, and then I didn't get the cake or the puddin. He'd take it and eat it himself. And sometimes when I could finish all my dinner, I'd find he'd smashed a CIGARETTE butt into my piece of cake or my vanilla puddin. He could do that because he always sat next to me. He'd make like it was a big joke. 'Whoops, missed the ashtray,' he'd say. My ma and pa never put a stop to it, although they must have known that even if it was a joke, it wasn't a fair one to play on a child. They just made out like it was a joke, too."

"Novels\Doctor Sleep.txt" 243 385:"I tried that, sure, I wasn't born foolish. He'd just move it back, saying dessert went on the right." Dick paused, looking out at the water, where a long white boat was trundling slowly across the dividing line between the sky and the Gulf of Mexico. "Sometimes when he got me alone he bit me. And once, when I said I'd tell my pa if he didn't leave me alone, he put a CIGARETTE out on my bare foot. He said, 'Tell him that, too, and see what good it does you. Your daddy knows my ways already and he'll never say a word, because he yella and because he wants the money I got in the bank when I die, which I ain't fixing to do soon.' "

"Novels\Doctor Sleep.txt" 2504 164:Was Mrs. Rivington famous for anything besides writing bad novels? Dan had asked Claudette Albertson not long after starting work at the hospice. They were in the SMOKING area at the time, practicing their nasty habit. Claudette, a cheerful African American RN with the shoulders of an NFL left tackle, threw back her head and laughed.

"Novels\Doctor Sleep.txt" 259 249:"It rained that day. Everybody stood around the grave under black umbrellas. I watched his coffin-the biggest and best one in his shop, I have no doubt-go into the ground, and I thought about all the times he'd twisted my balls and all the CIGARETTE butts in my cake and the one he put out on my foot and how he ruled the dinner table like the crazy old king in that Shakespeare play. But most of all I thought about Charlie Manx-who Grampa had no doubt made up out of whole cloth-and how Black Grampa could never call Charlie Manx on the long-distance to come in the night and take me away in his fancy car to live with the other stolen boys and girls.

"Novels\Doctor Sleep.txt" 263 133:Dick reached into his pants pocket and brought out a pack of Marlboros with a book of matches tucked under the cellophane. He put a CIGARETTE in his mouth and then had to chase it with the match because his hand was trembling and his lips were trembling, too. Danny was astounded to see tears standing in Dick's eyes.

"Novels\Doctor Sleep.txt" 267 26:Dick dragged deep on his CIGARETTE and exhaled SMOKE through a smile. "You didn't need to peek inside my head to get that, did you?"

"Novels\Doctor Sleep.txt" 267 48:Dick dragged deep on his CIGARETTE and exhaled SMOKE through a smile. "You didn't need to peek inside my head to get that, did you?"

"Novels\Doctor Sleep.txt" 3103 68:Rose was sitting on the sofa in capri pants and a plain white bra, SMOKING a CIGARETTE and watching the third hour of Today on her big wall-mounted TV. That was the "soft" hour, when they featured celebrity chefs and actors doing PR for their new movies. Her tophat was cocked back on her head. Crow Daddy had known her for more years than the rubes lived, and he still didn't know what magic held it at that gravity-defying angle.

"Novels\Doctor Sleep.txt" 3103 78:Rose was sitting on the sofa in capri pants and a plain white bra, SMOKING a CIGARETTE and watching the third hour of Today on her big wall-mounted TV. That was the "soft" hour, when they featured celebrity chefs and actors doing PR for their new movies. Her tophat was cocked back on her head. Crow Daddy had known her for more years than the rubes lived, and he still didn't know what magic held it at that gravity-defying angle.

"Novels\Doctor Sleep.txt" 3107 158:She meant it as a joke, but the wincing frown that tightened his forehead told her it wasn't one. She turned the TV off and made a business of butting her CIGARETTE, not wanting him to see the dismay she felt. Once the True had been over two hundred strong. As of yesterday, they numbered forty-one. If she was right about the meaning of that wince, they were one less today.

"Novels\Doctor Sleep.txt" 3113 346:"No, it was too quick. Heavy Mary was with him. Tommy woke her up, thrashing. She thought it was a bad dream and gave him an elbow . . . only by then there was nothing left to poke but his pajamas. It was probably a heart attack. Tommy had a bad cold. Nut thinks that might have been a contributing factor. And you know the sonofabitch always SMOKED like a chimney."

"Novels\Doctor Sleep.txt" 316 76:The return to the parking lot was even slower, because Dick was winded. "CIGARETTES," he said. "Don't ever start, Danny."

"Novels\Doctor Sleep.txt" 3629 40:"Lovely compliment, but don't blow SMOKE up my dress and I won't blow any up yours."

"Novels\Doctor Sleep.txt" 4036 21:"I'd kill for a CIGARETTE," Billy said wistfully.

"Novels\Doctor Sleep.txt" 4466 199:Abra got up, went to the window, and stared out at her street, at the Lickety-Split convenience store on the corner (which the older kids called the Lickety-Spliff, because of all the dope that got SMOKED behind it, where the Dumpsters were), and the White Mountains poking up at a clear blue late summer sky. She had begun to rub her mouth, an anxiety tic her parents were trying to break her of, but they weren't here, so boo on that. Boo all over that.

"Novels\Doctor Sleep.txt" 4736 322:It was fully dark when he eased the Riv back into its dock at Teenytown Station. He leaned against the side of the first passenger car with his cap (ENGINEER DAN stitched in red above the bill) tipped back on his head, wishing his handful of riders a very good night. Billy was sitting on a bench, the glowing tip of his CIGARETTE intermittently lighting his face. He had to be nearly seventy, but he looked good, had made a complete recovery from his abdominal surgery two years before, and said he had no plans to retire.

"Novels\Doctor Sleep.txt" 4740 107:When the last two or three riders had ambled on their way, probably in search of dinner, Billy butted his CIGARETTE and joined him. "I'll put er in the barn. Unless you want to do that, too."

"Novels\Doctor Sleep.txt" 4761 81:When he came back to himself, he was sprawled on the bench where Billy had been SMOKING. Billy was sitting beside him, looking worried. Hell, looking scared half to death. He had his phone in one hand, with his finger poised over the buttons.

"Novels\Doctor Sleep.txt" 5351 549:At a hundred and two, Eleanor Ouellette was the oldest resident of Rivington House in that fall of 2013, old enough so her last name had never been Americanized. She answered not to Wil-LET but to a much more elegant French pronunciation: Oooh-LAY. Dan sometimes called her Miss Oooh-La-La, which always made her smile. Ron Stimson, one of four docs who made regular day-rounds at the hospice, once told Dan that Eleanor was proof that living was sometimes stronger than dying. "Her liver function is nil, her lungs are shot from eighty years of SMOKING, she has colorectal cancer-moving at a snail's pace, but extremely malignant-and the walls of her heart are as thin as a cat's whisker. Yet she continues."

"Novels\Doctor Sleep.txt" 5359 111:Her voice, hoarse but cadenced, managed to render this image charming rather than vulgar. To Dan, Eleanor's CIGARETTE rasp was the voice of a cabaret singer who had seen and done it all even before the German army goose-stepped down the Champs-Élysées in the spring of 1940. Washed up, maybe, but far from washed out. And while it was true she looked like the death of God in spite of the faint color reflected onto her face by her craftily chosen nightgown, she had looked like the death of God since 2009, the year she had moved into Room 15 of Rivington One. Only Azzie's attendance said that tonight was different.

"Novels\Doctor Sleep.txt" 5945 20:Billy took out his CIGARETTES, looked at the doctor sitting on the bench next to him, and put them back. "If you say so."

"Novels\Doctor Sleep.txt" 778 402:Dan Torrance opened his eyes. Sunlight shot through them and into his aching head, threatening to set his brains on fire. The hangover to end all hangovers. His face was throbbing. His nostrils were clogged shut except for a tiny pinhole in the left one that allowed in a thread of air. Left one? No, it was the right. He could breathe through his mouth, but it was foul with the taste of whiskey and CIGARETTES. His stomach was a ball of lead, full of all the wrong things. Morning-after junkbelly, some old drinking buddy or other had called that woeful sensation.

"Novels\Dolores Claiborne.txt" 1210 256:In 1961 things started out just as they had all those other years, even though her husband had died in that car-crash the year before-she n the kids showed up on Memorial Day and Vera went to work knittin n doin jigsaw puzzles, collectin shells, smokin CIGARETTES, and havin her special Vera Donovan brand of cocktail hour, which started at five and finished around nine-thirty. But it wasn't the same, even I could see that, n I was only the hired help. The kids were drawn-in and quiet, still mournin their Dad, I guess, and not long after the Fourth of July, the three of em had a real wowser of an argument while they were eatin at The Harborside. I remember Jimmy DeWitt, who waited tables there back then, sayin he thought it had somethin to do with the car.

"Novels\Dolores Claiborne.txt" 1580 1040:Although it was only one-fifteen or so when I got to the village and the start of the eclipse still over three hours away, the streets were so empty it was spooky. It made me think of that little town down in the southern part of the state where they say no one lives. Then I looked up at the roof of The Harborside, and that was spookier still. There must've been a hundred people or more up there already, strollin around n checkin the sky like farmers at plantin time. I looked downhill to the dock and seen the Princess there, her gangplank down and the auto deck full of people instead of cars. They was walkin around with drinks in their hands, havin themselves a big open-air cocktail-party. The dock itself was crammed with people, and there musta been five hundred small boats-more'n I'd ever seen out there at one time anyway-on the reach already, anchored and waitin. And it seemed like everyone you saw, whether they was on the hotel roof or the town dock or the Princess, was wearin dark glasses and holdin either a SMOKED-glass eclipse-viewer or a reflector-box. There's never been a day like it on the island before or since, and even if I hadn't had in mind what I did have in mind, I think it woulda felt like a dream to me.

"Novels\Dolores Claiborne.txt" 1790 314:His face was as white as a corpse's in the gloom. Only his eyes was alive, and they were burnin with hate. His hands was held out in front of him, openin and closin. I glanced down for just a second and saw the sun-less'n half by then, just a fat crescent-reflected over n over in the shattered pieces of SMOKED glass layin around his feet. Then I looked back at him again. It wouldn't do to take my eyes off him for long, not with the mood he was in.

"Novels\Dolores Claiborne.txt" 2060 117:"They must have had quite a party when they got back from the ferry," Gail says. "If I had a nickel for every CIGARETTE butt I've dumped this mornin-just a nickel, mindja-I could buy a brand-new Chevrolet. But I'll have the place spick n spiffy by the time Missus Donovan drags her hangover down the front stairs, you can count on that."

"Novels\Dolores Claiborne.txt" 2178 392:I sat down and he ast me if I'd kindly give him permission to SMOKE. I told him the lamp was lit as far's as I was concerned. He chuckled like I'd made a funny . . . but his eyes didn't chuckle. He took a big old black pipe out of his coat pocket, a briar, and stoked it up. His eyes never left me while he was doin it, either. Even after he had it clamped between his teeth and the SMOKE was risin outta the bowl, he never took his eyes off me. They gave me the willies, peerin at me through the SMOKE like they did, and made me think of Battiscan Light again-they say that one shines out almost two mile even on a night when the fog's thick enough to carve with your hands.

"Novels\Dolores Claiborne.txt" 2178 506:I sat down and he ast me if I'd kindly give him permission to SMOKE. I told him the lamp was lit as far's as I was concerned. He chuckled like I'd made a funny . . . but his eyes didn't chuckle. He took a big old black pipe out of his coat pocket, a briar, and stoked it up. His eyes never left me while he was doin it, either. Even after he had it clamped between his teeth and the SMOKE was risin outta the bowl, he never took his eyes off me. They gave me the willies, peerin at me through the SMOKE like they did, and made me think of Battiscan Light again-they say that one shines out almost two mile even on a night when the fog's thick enough to carve with your hands.

"Novels\Dolores Claiborne.txt" 2178 65:I sat down and he ast me if I'd kindly give him permission to SMOKE. I told him the lamp was lit as far's as I was concerned. He chuckled like I'd made a funny . . . but his eyes didn't chuckle. He took a big old black pipe out of his coat pocket, a briar, and stoked it up. His eyes never left me while he was doin it, either. Even after he had it clamped between his teeth and the SMOKE was risin outta the bowl, he never took his eyes off me. They gave me the willies, peerin at me through the SMOKE like they did, and made me think of Battiscan Light again-they say that one shines out almost two mile even on a night when the fog's thick enough to carve with your hands.

"Novels\Dolores Claiborne.txt" 718 588:And, God help me, the first thing I thought of after I decided it wasn't a boy was marijuana . . . and don't you give me that look, Andy, like I don't know what I'm talkin about. It was called reefer or maryjane instead of pot in those days, but it was the same stuff and there was plenty of people from the island willin to move it around if the price of lobsters went down . . . or even if it didn't. A lot of reefer came in through the coastal islands back then, just like it does now, and some of it stayed. There was no cocaine, which was a blessing, but if you wanted to SMOKE pot, you could always find some. Marky Benoit had been arrested by the Coast Guard just that summer-they found four bales of the stuff in the hold of the Maggie's Delight. Prob'ly that's what put the idear in my head, but even now, after all these years, I wonder how I ever managed to make somethin so complicated outta what was really so simple. There was the real problem, sittin right across the table from me every night, usually needin a bath and a shave, and there I was, lookin right back at him-Joe St. George, Little Tall Island's biggest jack of all trades and master of none-and wonderin if my good girl was maybe out behind the high-school woodshop in the afternoons, smokin joy-sticks. And I'm the one who likes to say her mother didn't raise no fools. Gorry!

"Novels\Dolores Claiborne.txt" 902 274:That struck me funny and I started to giggle. Pretty soon Selena was gigglin with me, and the giggles kep gettin louder until we was settin there on that bench, holdin hands and laughin like a couple of loons in matin season. We was so loud that the man who sells snacks n CIGARETTES down below poked his head up for a second or two to make sure we were all right.

"Novels\Duma Key.txt" 11589 34:He's come down to the beach to SMOKE a cigar. He can do this on the back porch or on the veranda, but some strong compulsion has urged him down the rutted road Adie calls Drunkard's Boulevard and then down the steeper, sandy path to the beach. This voice has suggested his cigar will taste better here. He can sit on a fallen log the waves have cast up and watch the after-ashes of the sunset, as orange fades to tangerine and the stars go blue. The Gulf will look pleasant in such light, the voice suggests, even if the Gulf has had the bad taste to mark the beginning of his marriage by swallowing two of his beloved's little sisters.

"Novels\Duma Key.txt" 12464 107:He didn't. Nor a lighter. Jack might not be averse to six beers on a Saturday night, but his lungs were SMOKE-free. Thus there ensued a long, nightmarish space of minutes-Wireman says no more than four, but to me it seemed thirty, thirty at least-during which Jack knelt, felt among the bones, stood, moved a little, knelt again, felt again. My arm was getting tired. My hand was going numb. Blood continued to run from the wounds on my chest, either because they were slow in clotting or because they weren't clotting at all. But my hand was the worst. All feeling was leaving it, and soon I began to believe I was no longer holding the flashlight sleeve at all, because I couldn't see it and I was losing the sense of it against my skin. The feeling of weight in my hand had been swallowed by the tired throb of my muscles. I had to fight the urge to rap the metal sleeve against the side of the cistern to make sure I still had it, even though I knew if I did, I might drop it. I began to think that the cap must be lost in the maze of bones and bone fragments, and Jack would never find it without a light.

"Novels\Duma Key.txt" 12743 47:Pallid arms reached for me. Membranes of sand SMOKED off them in the wind. The moon shone through them. I held up the flashlight. It was short. And its barrel was plastic rather than stainless steel.

"Novels\Duma Key.txt" 1510 273:The woman was seriously old, mid-eighties at least. She was in her wheelchair. An enormous pair of blue Converse Hi-Tops were propped up on the chrome footrests. Although the temperature was in the mid-seventies, she wore a gray two-piece sweatsuit. In one gnarled hand a CIGARETTE smoldered. Clapped on her head was the straw hat I'd seen on my walks, but on my walks I hadn't realized how enormous it was-not just a hat but a battered sombrero. Her resemblance to Marlon Brando at the end of The Godfather-when he's playing with his grandson in the garden-was unmistakable. There was something in her lap that did not quite look like a pistol.

"Novels\Duma Key.txt" 1832 158:There was a pause. I could hear her breathing, the loud, not-quite-emphysemic respiration of a person who has probably spent a great deal of her life with a CIGARETTE in one hand. Then she spoke again.

"Novels\Duma Key.txt" 2070 472:I scrambled into the chair. My hip was snarling, but that pain seemed to be happening far downriver. With my left hand I snatched up the brush I'd cleaned and put it behind my left ear. Cleaned another and put it in the gutter of the easel. Cleaned a third and put that in the gutter, as well. Thought about cleaning a fourth and decided I didn't want to take the time. That fever was on me again, that hunger. It was as sudden and violent as my fits of rage. If the SMOKE detectors had gone off downstairs, announcing the house was on fire, I would have paid no attention. I stripped the cellophane from a brand-new brush, dipped black, and began to paint.

"Novels\Duma Key.txt" 2181 616:Wireman gaped, those green eyes of his so wide I was about to apologize for my faux pas. Then he really began to laugh. It was the kind of balls-to-the-wall bellowing you give out on those rare occasions when something sneaks past all your defenses and gets to the sweet spot of your funnybone. I mean the man was busting a gut, and when he saw I didn't have the slightest idea what had gotten him, he laughed even harder, his not inconsiderable belly heaving. He tried to put his glass back on the little table and missed. The glass plummeted straight down to the sand and stuck there, perfectly upright, like a CIGARETTE-butt in one of those urns of sand you used to see beside the elevators in hotel lobbies. That struck him even funnier, and he pointed at it.

"Novels\Duma Key.txt" 2193 409:Acme Iced Tea Company, I thought, still stuck on those old Road Runner cartoons. Meep-meep! And that, of course, made me think of the crane that had done the damage, the one with the fucked-up beeper that hadn't beeped, and all at once I saw myself as Wile E. Coyote in the cab of my disintegrating pickup truck, eyes bugged in bewilderment, frazzled ears sticking off in two opposite directions and maybe SMOKING a little at the tips.

"Novels\Duma Key.txt" 2195 189:That did it. I laughed until I rolled bonelessly out of my own chair and plopped onto the sand beside Wireman . . . but I also missed the glass, which still stood perfectly upright like a CIGARETTE-butt in an urn of sand. It was impossible for me to laugh any harder, but I did. Tears gushed down my cheeks and the world had begun to dim out as my brain went into oxygen-deprivation mode.

"Novels\Duma Key.txt" 2445 40:"That I'm a Bahama Mama!" said a CIGARETTE-cracked but undeniably cheerful voice.

"Novels\Duma Key.txt" 2710 143:Gently-very gently-Wireman said: "Maybe we ought to go into the other room for Oprah now. I think you ought to sit down. You can have a CIGARETTE when you watch Oprah, and you know you like that."

"Novels\Duma Key.txt" 2766 37:Miss Eastlake-Elizabeth-had her CIGARETTE while Oprah questioned Kirstie Alley on the always fascinating subject of weight-loss. Wireman produced egg salad sandwiches, which were delicious. My eyes kept straying to the framed Dalí sketch, and I kept thinking-of course-Hello, Dalí. When Dr. Phil came on and began berating a couple of fat ladies in the audience who had apparently volunteered to be berated, I told Wireman and Elizabeth that I really ought to be getting back.

"Novels\Duma Key.txt" 3128 54:I burst out laughing. I hadn't even removed the no-SMOKING sign on top of the TV. "I had Jack put in a treadmill upstairs, that's new. You've been here before, I take it?"

"Novels\Duma Key.txt" 369 169:I was three-quarters of the way home when the Fevereau woman went past me in her ridiculous mustard-colored Hummer. As always, she had her cell phone in one hand and a CIGARETTE in the other; as always she was going too fast. I barely noticed, and I certainly didn't see Gandalf dash into the street up ahead, concentrating only on Monica, coming down the other side of the street in Full Girl Scout. I was concentrating on my reconstructed hip. As always near the end of my short strolls, this so-called medical marvel felt packed with roughly ten thousand tiny points of broken glass.

"Novels\Duma Key.txt" 381 98:"Don't touch him, honey, don't touch him," Mrs. Fevereau said. She was still holding her CIGARETTE and she puffed nervously at it.

"Novels\Duma Key.txt" 403 704:She went with her mother, casting one more look back over her shoulder and uttering one more bereft wail before starting up the steps to her house. I knelt beside Gandalf, holding onto the Hummer's fender and going down as I always did, painfully and listing severely to the left, trying to keep my right knee from bending any more than it absolutely had to. Still, I voiced my own little cry of pain, and I wondered if I'd be able to get up again without help. It might not be forthcoming from Mrs. Fevereau; she walked over to the lefthand side of the street with her legs stiff and wide apart, then bent at the waist as if bowing to royalty, and vomited in the gutter. She held the hand with the CIGARETTE in it off to one side as she did it.

"Novels\Duma Key.txt" 4225 524:Silhouetted against that furnace light was a three-masted derelict. The ship's rotted sails hung limp with red fire glaring through the holes and rips. There was no one alive on board. You only had to look to know that. There was a feeling of hollow menace about the thing, as though it had housed some plague that had burned through the crew, leaving only this rotting corpse of wood, hemp, and sailcloth. I remember feeling that if a gull or pelican flew over it, the bird would drop dead on the deck with its feathers SMOKING.

"Novels\Duma Key.txt" 439 96:"I'll help him," Mrs. Fevereau said. She looked a little better, and she had ditched the CIGARETTE. She reached for my right armpit, then hesitated. "Will that hurt you?"

"Novels\Duma Key.txt" 4391 127:"I know you do. We checked into hell on different shifts, you and me. And out again, I suppose, although my heels are still SMOKING. How about yours?"

"Novels\Duma Key.txt" 4657 709:I cried out-in surprise as well as agony-and fell on the floor, knocking both the remote and my sandwich-plate onto the rug, scratching at what wasn't there. Or what I couldn't get at. I heard myself yelling at it to stop, please stop. But of course there was only one way to stop it. I got on my knees and crawled for the stairs, registering the crunch as one knee came down on the remote and broke it, but first changing the station. To CMT: Country Music Television. Alan Jackson was singing about murder on Music Row. Twice going up the stairs I clawed for the banister, that's how there my right hand was. I could actually feel the sweaty palm squeak on the wood before it passed through like SMOKE.

"Novels\Duma Key.txt" 5046 424:"Once this show is scheduled-and it will be-you're going to do what any artist new on the scene would be expected to do: publicity. Interviews, starting with Mary Ire and going on from there to the newspapers and Channel 6. If they want to play up your missing arm, so much the better." He did the framing thing with his hands again. "Edgar Freemantle Bursts Upon the Suncoast Art Scene Like a Phoenix from the SMOKING Ashes of Tragedy!"

"Novels\Duma Key.txt" 5048 4:"SMOKE this, amigo," I said, and gripped my crotch. But I couldn't help smiling.

"Novels\Duma Key.txt" 531 39:away from that foolish woman with her CIGARETTE and cell phone and somehow back into myself, in some kind of crazy closed loop . . . taking him in my arms . . . surely a hallucination, but yes, that was my memory.

"Novels\Duma Key.txt" 5772 114:What finally woke him up was a sharp knocking sound. It was Elizabeth. She was awake and rapping on her tray. "SMOKE!" she cried. "SMOKE! SMOKE!" Some things survived even the fog of Alzheimer's, it seemed. The part of her brain that craved nicotine never decayed. She'd SMOKE until the end.

"Novels\Duma Key.txt" 5772 138:What finally woke him up was a sharp knocking sound. It was Elizabeth. She was awake and rapping on her tray. "SMOKE!" she cried. "SMOKE! SMOKE!" Some things survived even the fog of Alzheimer's, it seemed. The part of her brain that craved nicotine never decayed. She'd SMOKE until the end.

"Novels\Duma Key.txt" 5772 145:What finally woke him up was a sharp knocking sound. It was Elizabeth. She was awake and rapping on her tray. "SMOKE!" she cried. "SMOKE! SMOKE!" Some things survived even the fog of Alzheimer's, it seemed. The part of her brain that craved nicotine never decayed. She'd SMOKE until the end.

"Novels\Duma Key.txt" 5772 284:What finally woke him up was a sharp knocking sound. It was Elizabeth. She was awake and rapping on her tray. "SMOKE!" she cried. "SMOKE! SMOKE!" Some things survived even the fog of Alzheimer's, it seemed. The part of her brain that craved nicotine never decayed. She'd SMOKE until the end.

"Novels\Duma Key.txt" 5776 4:"SMOKE!"

"Novels\Duma Key.txt" 5780 306:But he gave it to her, and Alzheimer's or no Alzheimer's, she handled it like a pro, drawing in a deep drag and jetting it out through her nostrils. Then she settled back in her chair, looking for the moment not like Captain Bligh on the poop deck but FDR on the reviewing stand. All she needed was a CIGARETTE-holder to clamp between her teeth. And, of course, some teeth.

"Novels\Duma Key.txt" 5812 80:"Ah," he said. "Just wondering." And turned to take away Elizabeth's CIGARETTE.

"Novels\Duma Key.txt" 5814 100:She immediately held out her hands like an infant who has been deprived of a toy. "SMOKE! SMOKE! SMOKE!" Wireman butted the CIGARETTE on the heel of his sandal and a moment later she quieted again, the CIGARETTE forgotten now that her nicotine jones was satisfied.

"Novels\Duma Key.txt" 5814 129:She immediately held out her hands like an infant who has been deprived of a toy. "SMOKE! SMOKE! SMOKE!" Wireman butted the CIGARETTE on the heel of his sandal and a moment later she quieted again, the CIGARETTE forgotten now that her nicotine jones was satisfied.

"Novels\Duma Key.txt" 5814 207:She immediately held out her hands like an infant who has been deprived of a toy. "SMOKE! SMOKE! SMOKE!" Wireman butted the CIGARETTE on the heel of his sandal and a moment later she quieted again, the CIGARETTE forgotten now that her nicotine jones was satisfied.

"Novels\Duma Key.txt" 5814 86:She immediately held out her hands like an infant who has been deprived of a toy. "SMOKE! SMOKE! SMOKE!" Wireman butted the CIGARETTE on the heel of his sandal and a moment later she quieted again, the CIGARETTE forgotten now that her nicotine jones was satisfied.

"Novels\Duma Key.txt" 5814 93:She immediately held out her hands like an infant who has been deprived of a toy. "SMOKE! SMOKE! SMOKE!" Wireman butted the CIGARETTE on the heel of his sandal and a moment later she quieted again, the CIGARETTE forgotten now that her nicotine jones was satisfied.

"Novels\Duma Key.txt" 6569 195:Mary wore no make-up, but her lips were coated with clear goo that made them shine. Her hair was tied up in a careless, coming-apart twist that looked simultaneously elegant and slatternly. She SMOKED English Ovals and sipped what looked like straight Scotch from a Waterford tumbler (she offered me a drink and seemed disappointed when I opted for bottled water). She wore tailored cotton slacks. Her face looked old, used, and sexy. Its best days might have been around the time Bonnie and Clyde was playing in theaters, but her eyes were still breathtaking, even with lines at the corners, cracks in the eyelids, and no make-up to enhance them. They were Sophia Loren eyes.

"Novels\Duma Key.txt" 6647 18:Mary lit a fresh CIGARETTE. "Well, both Dave and John were as rich as Croesus-Dave with his land and building speculations, John with his mills-but Davis was a peacock and Eastlake was more of a plain brown wren. Just as well for him, because you know what happens to peacocks, don't you?"

"Novels\Duma Key.txt" 6651 31:She took a drag on her latest CIGARETTE, then pointed the fingers holding it at me as she jetted SMOKE from her nostrils. "That would be correct, sir. In 1925, the Florida Land Bust hit this state like a brick on a soap bubble. Dave Davis had invested pretty much everything he had in what you see out there." She waved at the zig-zaggy streets and pink buildings. "In 1926, Davis was owed four million bucks on various successful ventures and collected something like thirty thousand."

"Novels\Duma Key.txt" 6651 98:She took a drag on her latest CIGARETTE, then pointed the fingers holding it at me as she jetted SMOKE from her nostrils. "That would be correct, sir. In 1925, the Florida Land Bust hit this state like a brick on a soap bubble. Dave Davis had invested pretty much everything he had in what you see out there." She waved at the zig-zaggy streets and pink buildings. "In 1926, Davis was owed four million bucks on various successful ventures and collected something like thirty thousand."

"Novels\Duma Key.txt" 6681 86:She raised her right hand in the Boy Scout salute-the image slightly marred by the CIGARETTE smoldering between her first two fingers. "True blue. In November of '26, there was a memorial service right over there." She pointed toward where the Gulf twinkled between two bright pink art deco buildings. "At least four hundred people attended, many of them, I understand, the sort of women who were partial to ostrich feathers. One of the speakers was John Eastlake. He tossed a wreath of tropical flowers into the water."

"Novels\Duma Key.txt" 6697 90:Mary gave me another look, then turned from the window, got her ashtray, and put out her CIGARETTE. "Alzheimer's? I'd heard rumors."

"Novels\Duma Key.txt" 6987 150:"Not now, but for half an hour or so, starting around five-thirty, she knew that stuff and who I was, too. Listen, muchacho-she lit her own damn CIGARETTE!"

"Novels\Duma Key.txt" 6991 36:"Did she want anything besides a CIGARETTE?"

"Novels\Duma Key.txt" 7095 179:Wireman's hope that Elizabeth was coming around began to seem unjustified. She remained a muttering lump in her wheelchair, every now and then stirring enough to cry out for a CIGARETTE in the cracked voice of an aging parrot. He hired Annmarie Whistler away from Bay Area Private Nursing to come in and help him four days a week. The extra help might have eased Wireman's workload, but it did little to comfort him; he was heartsore.

"Novels\Duma Key.txt" 7101 154:I also took over the Florida end of the travel-and-hospitality arrangements. Wireman was by then too busy trying to get Elizabeth to ingest anything but CIGARETTE SMOKE. I found myself consulting with Pam every two or three days about the guest-list from Minnesota and travel arrangements from other parts of the country. Ilse called twice. I thought she was making an effort to sound cheerful, but I could have been wrong. My attempts to find out how her love-life was progressing were kindly but firmly blocked. Melinda called-to ask for my hat-size, of all things. When I asked why, she wouldn't tell. Fifteen minutes after she hung up, I realized: she and her French ami really were buying me a fucking beret. I burst out laughing.

"Novels\Duma Key.txt" 7101 164:I also took over the Florida end of the travel-and-hospitality arrangements. Wireman was by then too busy trying to get Elizabeth to ingest anything but CIGARETTE SMOKE. I found myself consulting with Pam every two or three days about the guest-list from Minnesota and travel arrangements from other parts of the country. Ilse called twice. I thought she was making an effort to sound cheerful, but I could have been wrong. My attempts to find out how her love-life was progressing were kindly but firmly blocked. Melinda called-to ask for my hat-size, of all things. When I asked why, she wouldn't tell. Fifteen minutes after she hung up, I realized: she and her French ami really were buying me a fucking beret. I burst out laughing.

"Novels\Duma Key.txt" 7775 247:Well, there you were. I remembered the broken arm as having come after church, but that was only a minor misstep in the grand dance of memory. There were more important things. One was that Pam was in a unique position to see through most of the SMOKE and mirrors that critics like to call art-at least in my case she was. In that way, and probably in a great many others, she was still my wife. It seemed that in the end, only time could issue a divorce decree. And that the decree would be partial at best.

"Novels\Duma Key.txt" 7807 216:Pam rolled her eyes, and in that instant I could cheerfully have whacked her one. Instead I folded Ilse into my arm and kissed the top of her head. As I did, Mary Ire's voice rose from the front of the Scoto in a CIGARETTE-hoarsened shout that was full of amazed disbelief. "Libby Eastlake! I don't believe my god-damned eyes!"

"Novels\Duma Key.txt" 7821 561:But it was Elizabeth who stole the show, Elizabeth who elicited the applause, even from the newbies who hadn't the slightest idea who she was. She was wearing a black pantsuit of dull rough cotton, loose but elegant. Her hair was up and held with a gauzy snood that flashed like diamonds beneath the gallery's downlighters. From her neck hung an ivory scrimshaw pendant on a gold chain, and on her feet were not big blue Frankenstein sneakers but elegant pumps of darkest scarlet. Between the second and third fingers of her gnarled left hand was an unlit CIGARETTE in a gold-chased holder.

"Novels\Duma Key.txt" 7833 14:"I thought SMOKING was against the rules in all these public buildings now," Elizabeth said.

"Novels\Duma Key.txt" 7837 250:"BRAVISSIMO!" Mary shouted, laughing and throwing her hands to the ceiling, and at this there was another round of applause. A greater one came when Rosenblatt finally got the ancient match to ignite and held it out to Elizabeth, who placed her CIGARETTE-holder between her lips.

"Novels\Duma Key.txt" 7843 84:"I don't understand why that gives her the right to muck up our lungs with her CIGARETTE SMOKE," Linnie said. The vertical line was returning between her brows.

"Novels\Duma Key.txt" 7843 94:"I don't understand why that gives her the right to muck up our lungs with her CIGARETTE SMOKE," Linnie said. The vertical line was returning between her brows.

"Novels\Duma Key.txt" 7849 214:Alice Aucoin murmured to Dario, and from his pocket, Dario produced an Altoids tin. He dumped the mints into the palm of his hand and gave Alice the tin. Alice gave it to Elizabeth, who thanked her and tapped her CIGARETTE ash into it.

"Novels\Duma Key.txt" 7875 151:Wireman moved to grasp the handles of her chair, but she shook her head. "No-let Edgar push me, Wireman. Let him tour me." She plucked the half-SMOKED CIGARETTE from the holder, those gnarled fingers doing the job with surprising dexterity, and crushed it out on the bottom of the tin. "And the young lady's right-I think we've all had quite enough of this reek."

"Novels\Duma Key.txt" 7875 158:Wireman moved to grasp the handles of her chair, but she shook her head. "No-let Edgar push me, Wireman. Let him tour me." She plucked the half-SMOKED CIGARETTE from the holder, those gnarled fingers doing the job with surprising dexterity, and crushed it out on the bottom of the tin. "And the young lady's right-I think we've all had quite enough of this reek."

"Novels\Duma Key.txt" 7877 206:Melinda had the grace to blush. Elizabeth offered the tin to Rosenblatt, who took it with a smile and a nod. I have wondered since then-I know it's morbid, but yes, I've wondered-if she would have SMOKED more of it if she had known it was to be her last.

"Novels\Duma Key.txt" 7899 74:I was able. My Great Beach Walks were paying dividends. She clutched her CIGARETTE holder-both foolish and somehow magnificent-in one hand, Wireman's handkerchief in the other. Her eyes were damp.

"Novels\Duma Key.txt" 7911 19:The hand with the CIGARETTE holder in it opened. Then it reached out and caressed my hair. The idea occurred to me (and has since recurred) that all my struggle to live and regain a semblance of myself may have been paid back by no more than the touch of that old woman's hand. The eroded smoothness of the palm. The bent strength of those fingers.

"Novels\Duma Key.txt" 811 103:I propped it atop the TV, against the sign reading THE OWNER REQUESTS THAT YOU AND YOUR GUESTS DO NOT SMOKE INDOORS. I looked at it a moment longer, thinking it needed something in the foreground-a smaller boat, maybe, just to lend the one on the horizon some perspective-but I no longer wanted to draw. Besides, adding something might fuck up what little charm the thing had. I tried the telephone instead, thinking if it wasn't working yet I could call Ilse on my cell, but Jack had been on top of that, too.

"Novels\Duma Key.txt" 8909 102:Here was a Daddy bigger than the house beside which he stood-had to be the first Heron's Roost-SMOKING a cigar the size of a rocket. A SMOKE-ring circled the moon overhead.

"Novels\Duma Key.txt" 8909 142:Here was a Daddy bigger than the house beside which he stood-had to be the first Heron's Roost-SMOKING a cigar the size of a rocket. A SMOKE-ring circled the moon overhead.

"Novels\Duma Key.txt" 9079 395:"Because it's not over. For years it was. For years Elizabeth lived here very quietly, first with her father and then on her own. She had her charities, she had her friends, she played tennis, she played bridge-so Mary Ire told me-and most of all, she had the Suncoast art scene. It was the quiet, rewarding life of an elderly woman with lots of money and few bad habits other than her CIGARETTES. Then things started to change. La lotería. You said it yourself, Wireman."

"Novels\End of Watch.txt" 2159 118:The bus comes and Bill gets on. Holly stands by the window watching it go, gnawing at her fingernails, wishing for a CIGARETTE. She has Nicorette gum, plenty of it, but sometimes only a CIGARETTE will do.

"Novels\End of Watch.txt" 2159 187:The bus comes and Bill gets on. Holly stands by the window watching it go, gnawing at her fingernails, wishing for a CIGARETTE. She has Nicorette gum, plenty of it, but sometimes only a CIGARETTE will do.

"Novels\End of Watch.txt" 2683 161:She's standing outside the 7-Eleven near the office, holding a pack of Winstons in one hand and plucking at the cellophane with the other. She hasn't had a CIGARETTE in almost five months, a new record, and she doesn't want to start again now, but what she saw on Bill's computer has torn a hole in the middle of a life she has spent the last five years mending. Bill Hodges is her touchstone, the way she measures her ability to interact with the world. Which is only another way of saying that he is the way she measures her sanity. Trying to imagine her life with him gone is like standing on top of a skyscraper and looking at the sidewalk sixty stories below.

"Novels\End of Watch.txt" 2713 14:"I'm not SMOKING."

"Novels\End of Watch.txt" 2719 99:She hurries to the corner lot where she parks her car. On the way, she drops the unopened pack of CIGARETTES into a litter basket.

"Novels\End of Watch.txt" 3898 623:She goes to her door to wait for him, taking a nip of Scotch to fortify herself. She tucks the flask into the breast pocket of her middle shirt, then reaches into the pocket of the one beneath, where she keeps her breath mints. She doesn't believe Dr. Z would give Shit One if he smelled booze on her breath, but she always used to pop a mint after a nip when she was working at Discount Electronix, and old habits are strong habits. She takes her Marlboros from the pocket of her top shirt and lights one. It will further mask the smell of the booze, and calm her a little more, and if he doesn't like her secondhand SMOKE, tough titty.

"Novels\End of Watch.txt" 4032 125:"Let me worry about that," says Dr. Z. Once again his cheeks wrinkle and pull back. His eyes are red, as if he's been SMOKING the rock. She thinks of asking him what, exactly, they are doing, and what he hopes to accomplish . . . but she already has an idea, and does she want to be sure? Besides, if this is Brady, what harm can it do? He had hundreds of ideas, all of them crackpot.

"Novels\End of Watch.txt" 4386 211:She tweezes her shaking fingers into the breast pocket, still taking those shallow breaths, and pulls out her pack of Marlboro Lights. There's the bullet hole right through the middle of the M. She drops the CIGARETTES into the basin, works at the buttons of the shirt, and lets it fall to the floor. The smell of Scotch is stronger now. The shirt beneath is khaki, with big flap pockets. When she tries to pull the flask from the one on the left, she utters a low mewl of agony-all she can manage without taking a deeper breath-but when she gets it free, the pain in her chest lessens a little. The bullet also went through the flask, and the prongs on the side closest to her skin are bright with blood. She drops the ruined flask on top of the Marlboros, and goes to work on the khaki shirt's buttons. This takes longer, but eventually it also falls to the floor. Beneath it is an American Giant tee, the kind that also has a pocket. She reaches into it and takes out a tin of Altoids. There's a hole in this, too. The tee has no buttons, so she works her pinky finger into the bullet hole in the pocket and pulls. The shirt tears, and at last she's looking at her own skin, freckled with blood.

"Novels\End of Watch.txt" 4392 395:It comes free, not a bug but a slug. She looks at it, then drops it into the sink with the other stuff. In spite of her aching head and the throbbing in her chest, Freddi realizes how absurdly fortunate she has been. It was just a little gun, but at such close range, even a little gun should have done the job. It would have, too, if not for a one-in-a-thousand lucky break. First through the CIGARETTES, then through the flask-which had been the real stopper-then through the Altoids tin, then into her. How close to her heart? An inch? Less?

"Novels\End of Watch.txt" 5403 58:"Dr. Z and his sidekick Z-Boy," she said, lighting a CIGARETTE. "On the path to world domination. My, my. Does that make me Z-Girl?"

"Novels\End of Watch.txt" 5407 52:"Never mind, I get it," she said, chuffing out SMOKE. "Your boss wants an eye-trap. The way to do it is to turn the demo screen itself into a game. Gotta be simple, though. Can't get bogged down in a lot of complex programming." She held up the Zappit, now turned off. "This thing is pretty brainless."

"Novels\End of Watch.txt" 570 381:"He was an architect of suicide," Holly says. She's looking down at the newspaper, her brow furrowed, her face paler than ever. It's hard for Hodges to relive the Hartsfield business (at least he's finally managed to quit going to see the son of a bitch in his room in the Brain Injury Clinic), but it's even harder for Holly. He hopes she won't backslide and start SMOKING again, but it wouldn't surprise him if she did.

"Novels\End of Watch.txt" 5985 154:One lock turns, then another. A chain falls. The door opens, and the tangy smell of pot wafts into the corridor. The woman in the doorway has got a half-SMOKED fatty tweezed between the thumb and forefinger of her left hand. She's thin almost to the point of emaciation, and pale as milk. She's wearing a strappy tee-shirt with BAD BOY BAIL BONDS, BRADENTON FLA on the front. Below this is the motto IN JAIL? WE BAIL!, but that part is hard to read because of the bloodstain.

"Novels\End of Watch.txt" 6003 115:Freddi takes Holly by the wrist and leads her past the suitcases, pausing a moment to hit the joint. She lets the SMOKE out in a series of SMOKE signals as she talks. "The equipment is in the spare room. On your right. Get a good look." And then, returning to her original scripture: "If I hadn't packed so much, I'd be gone now."

"Novels\End of Watch.txt" 6003 140:Freddi takes Holly by the wrist and leads her past the suitcases, pausing a moment to hit the joint. She lets the SMOKE out in a series of SMOKE signals as she talks. "The equipment is in the spare room. On your right. Get a good look." And then, returning to her original scripture: "If I hadn't packed so much, I'd be gone now."

"Novels\End of Watch.txt" 6041 135:"Like what I said it is." Freddi sounds a little stronger now. Her eyes are red, but that's probably from the dope she's been SMOKING. "He shot me."

"Novels\End of Watch.txt" 6395 46:Freddi only looks at him through her veil of SMOKE.

"Novels\End of Watch.txt" 6473 81:Holly gives Hodges a defiant look. "My therapist says an occasional marijuana CIGARETTE is perfectly okay. As long as I don't go overboard, that is. The way some people do." Her eyes glide to Freddi, then back to Hodges. "Besides, these aren't for me. They're for you, Bill. If you need them."

"Novels\End of Watch.txt" 744 110:That was the convincer, because Hodges knew it was the truth. So he stays away. It was kind of like quitting SMOKING: hard at first, easier as time went by. Now whole weeks sometimes pass without thoughts of Brady and Brady's terrible crimes.

"Novels\End of Watch.txt" 7558 168:"My aunt died. She was Olivia Trelawney's mother. That's where I met Bill, at that funeral. I ran out of that one, too. I was sitting behind the funeral parlor, SMOKING a CIGARETTE, feeling terrible, and that's where he found me. Do you understand?" At last she looks up at him. "He found me."

"Novels\End of Watch.txt" 7558 178:"My aunt died. She was Olivia Trelawney's mother. That's where I met Bill, at that funeral. I ran out of that one, too. I was sitting behind the funeral parlor, SMOKING a CIGARETTE, feeling terrible, and that's where he found me. Do you understand?" At last she looks up at him. "He found me."

"Novels\End of Watch.txt" 7622 22:"Jerome? I'm not SMOKING."

"Novels\End of Watch.txt" 954 403:Bill Hodges isn't the only one who took an instant dislike to Becky Helmington's replacement. The nurses and orderlies who work in the Traumatic Brain Injury Clinic call it the Bucket, as in Brain Bucket, and before long Ruth Scapelli has become known as Nurse Ratched. By the end of her third month, she has gotten three nurses transferred for various small infractions, and one orderly fired for SMOKING in a supply closet. She has banned certain colorful uniforms as "too distracting" or "too suggestive."

"Novels\Eyes of the Dragon, The.txt" 1059 186:More excited than ever, Thomas cautiously put his eyes to the holes. He saw clearly enough, although everything had an odd greenish-yellow aspect-it was as if he were looking through SMOKED glass. A sense of perfect, delighted wonder rose in him. He was looking down into his father's sitting room. He saw his father slouched by the fire in his favorite chair-one with high wings which threw shadows across his lined face.

"Novels\Eyes of the Dragon, The.txt" 1321 272:The fresh packet was bewitched, but its magic was not very strong. It would hold the Dragon Sand safely only for a short while. Then it would begin to work on the paper. It would not set it alight, not inside the box; there would not be air enough for that. But it would SMOKE and smolder, and that would be enough. That would be fine.

"Novels\Eyes of the Dragon, The.txt" 1380 304:He belched. It was a long, arid, rattling sound. The convivial crowd in the ballroom fell silent with wonder and apprehension as the King doubled over. The musicians in the corner ceased playing. When Roland straightened up, a gasp ran through those present. The King's cheeks were aflame with color. SMOKING tears ran from his eyes. More SMOKE drifted from his mouth.

"Novels\Eyes of the Dragon, The.txt" 1380 342:He belched. It was a long, arid, rattling sound. The convivial crowd in the ballroom fell silent with wonder and apprehension as the King doubled over. The musicians in the corner ceased playing. When Roland straightened up, a gasp ran through those present. The King's cheeks were aflame with color. SMOKING tears ran from his eyes. More SMOKE drifted from his mouth.

"Novels\Eyes of the Dragon, The.txt" 1386 73:Roland clutched his stomach with one hand and his chest with the other. SMOKE suddenly poured out of his mouth in a gray-white plume. It was as if the King had learned some amazing new way of telling the story of his greatest exploit.

"Novels\Eyes of the Dragon, The.txt" 1388 48:But it was no trick, and there were screams as SMOKE poured not only from his mouth but from his nostrils, ears, and the corners of his eyes. His throat was so red it was nearly purple.

"Novels\Eyes of the Dragon, The.txt" 1487 13:Tendrils of SMOKE were drifting from between the loosely shelved books.

"Novels\Eyes of the Dragon, The.txt" 1489 95:Dennis leaped across the room and began pulling books out by double handfuls. He saw that the SMOKE was issuing from cracks at one side of the bookcase's back. Also, that sound was clearer with the books gone. It was some sort of animal, squeaking in pained distress.

"Novels\Eyes of the Dragon, The.txt" 1493 256:Soon enough his fingers happened on the secret spring. Flagg had foreseen this, too-after all, the secret panel wasn't really very secret-enough to amuse a boy, but not much more. The back of the bookcase slid to the right a bit, and a puff of gray SMOKE wafted out. The smell that escaped with the SMOKE was extremely unpleasant-a mixture of cooking meat, frying fur, and smoldering paper.

"Novels\Eyes of the Dragon, The.txt" 1493 306:Soon enough his fingers happened on the secret spring. Flagg had foreseen this, too-after all, the secret panel wasn't really very secret-enough to amuse a boy, but not much more. The back of the bookcase slid to the right a bit, and a puff of gray SMOKE wafted out. The smell that escaped with the SMOKE was extremely unpleasant-a mixture of cooking meat, frying fur, and smoldering paper.

"Novels\Eyes of the Dragon, The.txt" 1501 280:But Flagg's judgment was right. Instead of freezing or going for water, Dennis reached in and beat the flames out with his bare hands. It took less than five seconds, and Dennis was barely singed. The doleful squeaking went on, and the first thing he saw when he had waved the SMOKE aside was a mouse, lying on its side. It was in its death agonies. It was only a mouse, and Dennis had killed dozens of them in the line of duty without the slightest feeling of pity. Yet he felt sorry for this poor little bugger. Something terrible, something he could not even begin to understand, had happened to it and was still happening to it. SMOKE rose from its fur in fine ribbons. When he touched it, he drew his hand back with a hiss-it was like touching the side of a tiny stove, such as the one in Sasha's dollhouse.

"Novels\Eyes of the Dragon, The.txt" 1501 636:But Flagg's judgment was right. Instead of freezing or going for water, Dennis reached in and beat the flames out with his bare hands. It took less than five seconds, and Dennis was barely singed. The doleful squeaking went on, and the first thing he saw when he had waved the SMOKE aside was a mouse, lying on its side. It was in its death agonies. It was only a mouse, and Dennis had killed dozens of them in the line of duty without the slightest feeling of pity. Yet he felt sorry for this poor little bugger. Something terrible, something he could not even begin to understand, had happened to it and was still happening to it. SMOKE rose from its fur in fine ribbons. When he touched it, he drew his hand back with a hiss-it was like touching the side of a tiny stove, such as the one in Sasha's dollhouse.

"Novels\Eyes of the Dragon, The.txt" 1503 6:More SMOKE drifted lazily from an engraved wooden box with its lid slightly ajar. Dennis lifted the lid a little. He saw the tweezers, the packet. A number of brownish spots had flowered on the packet and it smoldered sluggishly, but had not burst into flame . . . nor did it now. The flames had come from Peter's letters, which were, of course, not enchanted at all. It was the mouse that had set these alight with its fearfully hot body. Now there was only the sullenly smoldering packet, and something warned Dennis not to touch it.

"Novels\Eyes of the Dragon, The.txt" 1507 138:Dennis took the ash bucket and a small shovel from beside the stove and went back to the secret panel. He used the shovel to pick up the SMOKING body of the mouse and drop it into the ash bucket. He wet the charred corners of the letters once more, just to be sure. Then he closed the panel, replaced the books, and left Peter's apartments. He took the ash bucket with him, and now he did not feel like Peter's loyal servant but like a thief-his booty was a poor mouse that died even before Dennis got back out the West Gate of the castle.

"Novels\Eyes of the Dragon, The.txt" 1583 258:Brandon looked at the dead mouse for a long time, saying nothing. Dennis watched, scared, as his dad's face grew paler, graver, grayer. The mouse's eyes had burned until they were nothing but charred black cinders. Its brown fur had been crisped black. SMOKE still rose from its tiny ears, and its teeth, visible in its death grimace, were a sooty black, like the teeth in the grate of a stove.

"Novels\Eyes of the Dragon, The.txt" 1683 62:The box was put carefully on Peter's desk, little wisps of SMOKE escaping from it. One of the guards was sent after the man who knew more about poisons than anyone else in the Kingdom.

"Novels\Eyes of the Dragon, The.txt" 1753 145:He put the obsidian on Peter's desk, upended the packet over it, and poured the three grains of sand onto it. In a moment, little tendrils of SMOKE began to rise from the obsidian. All present could see that each grain was slowly sinking into the pockmark it was creating in the world's hardest known stone. The guards murmured uneasily at the sight.

"Novels\Eyes of the Dragon, The.txt" 1767 127:Flagg pointed at the obsidian. The dimples in which the three specks of green sand rested were each now nearly an inch deep-SMOKE rose from each like SMOKE from a tiny campfire. Flagg guessed that each grain had eaten through half the thickness of the stone.

"Novels\Eyes of the Dragon, The.txt" 1767 153:Flagg pointed at the obsidian. The dimples in which the three specks of green sand rested were each now nearly an inch deep-SMOKE rose from each like SMOKE from a tiny campfire. Flagg guessed that each grain had eaten through half the thickness of the stone.

"Novels\Eyes of the Dragon, The.txt" 212 255:But it did not make her forget her old dear dollhouse at home, as ordinary as it seemed when compared with this one, and she did not spend as many rainy afternoons playing with it-rearranging the furniture, lighting the stove and watching the chimneys SMOKE, pretending that there was a high tea going on or that there was to be a great dinner party for the Queen-as she had before, even as an older girl of fifteen and sixteen. One of the reasons was very simple. There was no fun making ready for a pretend party at which the Queen would be in attendance when she was the Queen. And maybe that one reason was really all the reasons. She was a grown-up now, and she discovered that being a grown-up was not quite what she had suspected it would be when she was a child. She had thought then that she would make a conscious decision one day to simply put her toys and games and little make-believes away. Now she discovered that was not what happened at all. Instead, she discovered, interest simply faded. It became less and less and less, until a dust of years drew over the bright pleasures of childhood, and they were forgotten.

"Novels\Eyes of the Dragon, The.txt" 2278 79:His father began to burn. His face turned the dull red of a well-banked fire. SMOKE burst from his eyes, his nose, his mouth. He doubled over in agony and Thomas saw that his father's hair was on fire. That was when he woke up.

"Novels\Eyes of the Dragon, The.txt" 2296 126:In the years ahead, that nightmare sometimes came again-his father accusing his hidden, spying son and then doubling over, SMOKING, his hair on fire. In those years, Thomas discovered two things: guilt and secrets, like murdered bones, never rest easy; but the knowledge of all three can be lived with.

"Novels\Eyes of the Dragon, The.txt" 2395 400:And if he did escape, what then? Was there a way to bring the murder home to the magician? Peter did not know. Flagg was a wily old serpent-he would have left no evidence of what he had done to damn him later on. Could Peter worm a confession out of the magician? He might be able to, always assuming Peter could lay hands on him in the first place-Peter guessed that Flagg might disappear like SMOKE if he heard that Peter had escaped the Needle. Would anyone believe Flagg's confession, even if Peter could get one out of him? Oh yes, he confessed to the murder of Roland, people would say. Peter, the escaped father-killer, had a sword to his throat. In a fix like that, I might confess to anything, even the murder of God!

"Novels\Eyes of the Dragon, The.txt" 262 538:On the night Roland signed the pardon, Flagg went to his gloomy basement laboratory. There he donned a heavy glove and took a deathwatch spider from a cage where he had kept her for twenty years, feeding her newborn baby mice. Each of the mice he fed the spider was poisoned and dying; Flagg did this to increase the potency of the spider's own poison, which was already potent beyond belief. The spider was blood red and as big as a rat. Her bloated body quivered with venom; venom dripped from her stinger in clear drops that burned SMOKING holes in the top of Flagg's worktable.

"Novels\Eyes of the Dragon, The.txt" 3306 149:"Father!" Peter shrieked. His voice was powerful, and below him, the warders-Beson included-quailed, thinking that Peter must be seeing the SMOKING, murdered ghost of King Roland, come to take Peter's soul to hell. They made no more wagers that night, and in fact one of them went to the Church of the Great Gods the very next day and embraced his religion again, and eventually became a priest. This man's name was Curran, and I may tell you of him in another story.

"Novels\Eyes of the Dragon, The.txt" 3342 33:"Nay," Yosef said. He lit a CIGARETTE made of cornshuck, almost burning off the end of his nose, and drew deeply and contentedly. He always liked the young prince's company. "Nay! Oxen aren't stupid-people only think them so because they are large and tame and helpful. Says more about the people than about the oxen, if you ask me, but leave that b'hind, leave that b'hind.

"Novels\Eyes of the Dragon, The.txt" 3358 42:Yosef took another drag at his makeshift CIGARETTE and then tossed it in the dirt. He fixed Peter with a shrewd, friendly glare.

"Novels\Eyes of the Dragon, The.txt" 4033 55:Naomi cast the thin, evil-smelling cigar she had been SMOKING into the fire. "Two more days if the skies keep fair. Four more days if it snows. Maybe never, if it blizzards."

"Novels\Eyes of the Dragon, The.txt" 5848 260:Peter's eyes widened. Ben Staad cried out. For a moment Flagg's clothes held his shape; for a moment the arrow hung in empty air with the pierced heart dangling from it. Then the clothes crumpled and Foe-Hammer clattered to the cobbles. Its steel tip was SMOKING. So it had SMOKED, long ago, when Roland pulled it from the dragon's throat. The heart glowed a dull red for a moment, and forever after its shape was branded into the stones where it fell when the magician disappeared.

"Novels\Eyes of the Dragon, The.txt" 5848 279:Peter's eyes widened. Ben Staad cried out. For a moment Flagg's clothes held his shape; for a moment the arrow hung in empty air with the pierced heart dangling from it. Then the clothes crumpled and Foe-Hammer clattered to the cobbles. Its steel tip was SMOKING. So it had SMOKED, long ago, when Roland pulled it from the dragon's throat. The heart glowed a dull red for a moment, and forever after its shape was branded into the stones where it fell when the magician disappeared.

"Novels\Eyes of the Dragon, The.txt" 61 140:The dragon came crashing and blundering out of the underbrush, its scales glowing a greenish copper color, its soot-caked nostrils venting SMOKE. It had not been a small dragon, either, but a male just before its first molting. Most of the party were thunderstruck, unable to draw an arrow or even to move.

"Novels\Eyes of the Dragon, The.txt" 664 194:The time before that, four hundred years before the time of Roland and his sons, he came as a singer named Browson, who became a close advisor to the King and a Queen. Browson disappeared like SMOKE after drumming up a great and bloody war between Delain and Andua.

"Novels\Eyes of the Dragon, The.txt" 781 320:Not instant death. That was not the way the poison worked. For a day or two-perhaps even three-the person who breathed the poison fumes (or even worse, swallowed the grains of sand) would feel fine-perhaps better than ever before in his life. Then, suddenly, his lungs would grow red-hot, his skin would begin to SMOKE, and his body would shrivel like the body of a mummy. Then he would drop dead, often with his hair on fire. Someone who breathed or swallowed this deadly stuff would burn from the inside out.

"Novels\Eyes of the Dragon, The.txt" 808 644:He took a final great gasp of clean air from the barred window just outside the door to his apartment and reentered his rooms. He went to the envelope, took his dagger from his belt, and delicately slit it open. There was a flat piece of obsidian, which the magician used as a paperweight, on his desk-in those days, obsidian was the hardest rock known. Using the tweezers again, he grasped the packet, turned it upside down, and poured out most of the green sand. He saved back a tiny bit-hardly more than a dozen grains, but this bit of extra was extremely important to his plans. Hard as the obsidian was, the rock immediately began to SMOKE.

"Novels\Eyes of the Dragon, The.txt" 818 252:Flagg went back to his desk. He picked up the flat rock and took his dagger by its handle. Only a few grains of Dragon Sand had touched the blade when he slit through the paper, but already they were working their way in, and evil little streamers of SMOKE rose from the pocks in the Anduan steel. He carried both the stone and the dagger out into the hallway.

"Novels\Finders Keepers.txt" 1560 438:The family in it seemed to have everything, but they didn't; there was never quite enough, and the hero of the story, a young boy named Paul, always heard the house whispering, "There must be more money! There must be more money!" Pete Sau­bers guessed that there were kids who considered that stupid. They were the lucky ones who had never been forced to listen to nightly arkie-barkies about which bills to pay. Or the price of CIGARETTES.

"Novels\Finders Keepers.txt" 1710 153:When asked about the possibility that Rothstein had squirreled away manuscripts as well as cash, Peggy Brennan had given what the interview called "a CIGARETTE-raspy chuckle."

"Novels\Finders Keepers.txt" 1714 83:Lot you knew, Pete thought. He probably divorced you because he got tired of that CIGARETTE-raspy chuckle.

"Novels\Finders Keepers.txt" 2119 248:Instead of giving him a detention, Miss Todd (not exactly fair of face but with a holy-shit body) reached into her bulging book-bag and brought out a paperback with a red cover. Sketched on it in yellow was a boy lounging against a brick wall and SMOKING a CIGARETTE. Above him was the title: The Runner.

"Novels\Finders Keepers.txt" 2119 258:Instead of giving him a detention, Miss Todd (not exactly fair of face but with a holy-shit body) reached into her bulging book-bag and brought out a paperback with a red cover. Sketched on it in yellow was a boy lounging against a brick wall and SMOKING a CIGARETTE. Above him was the title: The Runner.

"Novels\Finders Keepers.txt" 2133 495:Morris slunk from the classroom with his face burning, for once not just put in his place but rammed into it and hammered flat. He had an urge to chuck the paperback down a sewer drain as soon as he got off the bus on the corner of Sycamore and Elm, but held on to it. Not because he was afraid of detention or suspension, though. How could she do anything to him when the book wasn't on the Approved List? He held on to it because of the boy on the cover. The boy looking through a drift of CIGARETTE SMOKE with a kind of weary insolence.

"Novels\Finders Keepers.txt" 2133 505:Morris slunk from the classroom with his face burning, for once not just put in his place but rammed into it and hammered flat. He had an urge to chuck the paperback down a sewer drain as soon as he got off the bus on the corner of Sycamore and Elm, but held on to it. Not because he was afraid of detention or suspension, though. How could she do anything to him when the book wasn't on the Approved List? He held on to it because of the boy on the cover. The boy looking through a drift of CIGARETTE SMOKE with a kind of weary insolence.

"Novels\Finders Keepers.txt" 232 89:But the kitchen door opened and closed before she could finish. He'd gone out back to SMOKE a CIGARETTE. When Pete looked up this time, he saw distress and worry on Tina's face. She was only eight, after all. Pete smiled and dropped her a wink. Tina gave him a doubtful smile in return, then went back to the doings in the deepwater kingdom called Bikini Bottom, where dads did not lose their jobs or raise their voices, and kids did not lose their allowances. Unless they were bad, that was.

"Novels\Finders Keepers.txt" 232 97:But the kitchen door opened and closed before she could finish. He'd gone out back to SMOKE a CIGARETTE. When Pete looked up this time, he saw distress and worry on Tina's face. She was only eight, after all. Pete smiled and dropped her a wink. Tina gave him a doubtful smile in return, then went back to the doings in the deepwater kingdom called Bikini Bottom, where dads did not lose their jobs or raise their voices, and kids did not lose their allowances. Unless they were bad, that was.

"Novels\Finders Keepers.txt" 2412 618:Hodges passes the feeder road to the main terminals and short-term parking and continues on, following the signs that read AIR FREIGHT and SIGNATURE AIR and THOMAS ZANE AVIATION. He turns in at this last. It's an independent fixed-based operator, huddled-almost literally-in the shadow of the much bigger Signature Air FBO next door. There are weeds sprouting from the cracked asphalt of the little parking lot, which is empty except for the front row. That has been reserved for a dozen or so rental cars. In the middle of the economies and mid-sizes, and hulking above them, is a black Lincoln Navigator with SMOKED glass windows. Hodges takes this as a good sign. His man does like to go in style, a common trait among dirtbags. And although his man may wear thousand-dollar suits, he is still very much a dirtbag.

"Novels\Finders Keepers.txt" 2422 227:Little tics aside, this Holly Gibney is very different from the one he first met four years ago, when she came to town for her aunt's funeral, and the changes are all for the better. Although she's sneaking the occasional CIGARETTE again; he has smelled them on her breath.

"Novels\Finders Keepers.txt" 2482 173:After not even one hundred hours as a free man (well, semi-free), Morris came back to the old apartment building where he now lived to find his PO sitting on the stoop and SMOKING a CIGARETTE. The graffiti-decorated cement-and-breezeblock pile, called Bugshit Manor by the people who lived there, was a state-subsidized fish tank stocked with recovering druggies, alcoholics, and parolees like himself. Morris had seen his PO just that noon, and been sent on his way after a few routine questions and a Seeya next week. This was not next week, this was not even the next day, but here he was.

"Novels\Finders Keepers.txt" 2482 183:After not even one hundred hours as a free man (well, semi-free), Morris came back to the old apartment building where he now lived to find his PO sitting on the stoop and SMOKING a CIGARETTE. The graffiti-decorated cement-and-breezeblock pile, called Bugshit Manor by the people who lived there, was a state-subsidized fish tank stocked with recovering druggies, alcoholics, and parolees like himself. Morris had seen his PO just that noon, and been sent on his way after a few routine questions and a Seeya next week. This was not next week, this was not even the next day, but here he was.

"Novels\Finders Keepers.txt" 2512 23:McFarland flipped his CIGARETTE into the gutter, grabbed his knapsack, and stood up. "In that case, I believe we'll forgo the test."

"Novels\Finders Keepers.txt" 2679 54:The Navigator pulls up, chrome twinkling in the sun, SMOKED gangsta glass reflecting the front of the building . . . and Hodges himself. Whoops! He sidles farther to the left. The man in the coverall gets out, tips Hodges a wave, and heads for Hangar A.

"Novels\Finders Keepers.txt" 2964 507:For a moment "James Hawkins" seemed unsure how to do that. Then he tucked his manila envelope more firmly under his arm and began to hurry through the glossy pages of Dispatches from Olympus, passing a note from Faulkner scolding an Oxford, Mississippi, feed company about a misplaced order, a gushy letter from Eudora Welty to Ernest Hemingway, a scrawl about who knew what from Sherwood Anderson, and a grocery list Robert Penn Warren had decorated with a doodle of two dancing penguins, one of them SMOKING a CIGARETTE.

"Novels\Finders Keepers.txt" 2964 517:For a moment "James Hawkins" seemed unsure how to do that. Then he tucked his manila envelope more firmly under his arm and began to hurry through the glossy pages of Dispatches from Olympus, passing a note from Faulkner scolding an Oxford, Mississippi, feed company about a misplaced order, a gushy letter from Eudora Welty to Ernest Hemingway, a scrawl about who knew what from Sherwood Anderson, and a grocery list Robert Penn Warren had decorated with a doodle of two dancing penguins, one of them SMOKING a CIGARETTE.

"Novels\Finders Keepers.txt" 3520 114:Mr. Evans laughs and slides back under the wheel. "I get that." He keys the engine and the Datsun farts blue SMOKE. "But you be sure and lock up tight once you're done, y'hear?"

"Novels\Finders Keepers.txt" 3563 23:"No. Go outside and SMOKE a CIGARETTE."

"Novels\Finders Keepers.txt" 3563 31:"No. Go outside and SMOKE a CIGARETTE."

"Novels\Finders Keepers.txt" 3669 193:"February or March," Tina says. "I remember, because our folks were fighting a lot then. Daddy lost his job, see . . . and his legs were all hurt . . . and Mom used to yell at him about SMOKING, how much his CIGARETTES cost . . ."

"Novels\Finders Keepers.txt" 3669 215:"February or March," Tina says. "I remember, because our folks were fighting a lot then. Daddy lost his job, see . . . and his legs were all hurt . . . and Mom used to yell at him about SMOKING, how much his CIGARETTES cost . . ."

"Novels\Finders Keepers.txt" 4154 151:That was a good guess by an observant man. Morris had been twenty-three. Now he's on the cusp of sixty, and the years between have disappeared like SMOKE in a breeze. He has heard people say sixty is the new forty, but that's bullshit. When you've spent most of your life in prison, sixty is the new seventy-five. Or eighty. Too old to be a wolf, according to McFarland.

"Novels\Finders Keepers.txt" 4191 459:Morris cruises slowly through the Northfield tree streets that were his old stomping grounds-not that he ever did much stomping; usually he had his nose in a book. It's still too early, so he parks on Elm for awhile. There's a dusty old map in the glove compartment, and he pretends to read it. After twenty minutes or so, he drives over to Maple and does the same thing. Then down to the local Zoney's Go-Mart, where he bought snacks as a kid. Also CIGARETTES for his father. That was back in the day when a pack cost forty cents and kids buying smokes for their parents was taken for granted. He gets a Slushie and makes it last. Then he moves onto Palm Street and goes back to pretend map reading. The shadows are lengthening, but oh so slowly.

"Novels\Finders Keepers.txt" 4289 340:The lights of the minor league field four blocks over have been turned off an hour ago. The stadium buses have stopped running, but the bars-in this neighborhood there are a lot of them-are roaring away with live bands and jukebox music, their doors open, men and women in Groundhogs tee-shirts and caps standing out on the sidewalks, SMOKING CIGARETTES and drinking from plastic cups. Morris plods past them without looking, ignoring a couple of friendly yells from inebriated baseball fans, high on beer and a home team win, asking him if he wants a drink. Soon the bars are behind him.

"Novels\Finders Keepers.txt" 4289 348:The lights of the minor league field four blocks over have been turned off an hour ago. The stadium buses have stopped running, but the bars-in this neighborhood there are a lot of them-are roaring away with live bands and jukebox music, their doors open, men and women in Groundhogs tee-shirts and caps standing out on the sidewalks, SMOKING CIGARETTES and drinking from plastic cups. Morris plods past them without looking, ignoring a couple of friendly yells from inebriated baseball fans, high on beer and a home team win, asking him if he wants a drink. Soon the bars are behind him.

"Novels\Finders Keepers.txt" 5015 119:Jerome thinks it over. "If he went down to the basement, there's a door that takes you out to one side, where the SMOKING area used to be, back in the day. I guess he could go across that, then cut through the auditorium and come out on Garner Street."

"Novels\Finders Keepers.txt" 5134 167:"Yes, me too." Holly has no idea who the Black Keys are, although she could name the entire cast of Fargo. (Best line in that one, delivered by Steve Buscemi: "SMOKE a fuckin peace pipe.")

"Novels\Finders Keepers.txt" 5272 68:"Holly." He takes her by the shoulders. Gently. "Go outside. SMOKE a CIGARETTE. Chillax. All will be well in court this morning and with Pete Saubers this afternoon."

"Novels\Finders Keepers.txt" 5272 76:"Holly." He takes her by the shoulders. Gently. "Go outside. SMOKE a CIGARETTE. Chillax. All will be well in court this morning and with Pete Saubers this afternoon."

"Novels\Finders Keepers.txt" 5278 27:"All right. I'll just SMOKE half a CIGARETTE." She heads for the door, rummaging in her bag. "We're going to have such a busy day."

"Novels\Finders Keepers.txt" 5278 40:"All right. I'll just SMOKE half a CIGARETTE." She heads for the door, rummaging in her bag. "We're going to have such a busy day."

"Novels\Finders Keepers.txt" 5671 296:Halfway down Lacemaker Lane, he spots the bookshop's old-fashioned scrolled sign. It's like something you might see outside an English pub, although this one reads Andrew Halliday Rare Editions instead of The Plowman's Rest, or whatever. Looking at it, Pete's last doubts disappear like SMOKE.

"Novels\Finders Keepers.txt" 630 25:LINDA: "You've been SMOKING in the house again. I can smell it."

"Novels\Finders Keepers.txt" 640 59:LINDA: "It's not just the lease, Tommy. The secondary SMOKE is bad for the kids. We've discussed that."

"Novels\Finders Keepers.txt" 644 77:LINDA (now wading into even deeper water): "Also, how much does a pack of CIGARETTES cost these days? Four-fifty? Five dollars?"

"Novels\Finders Keepers.txt" 646 11:TOM: "I SMOKE a pack a week, for Christ's sake!"

"Novels\Finders Keepers.txt" 674 113:TOM: "House? Gone. Motorized wheelchair? Gone. Savings? Almost used up. And now I can't even have a fucking CIGARETTE!"

"Novels\Finders Keepers.txt" 6936 19:"Does Dad still SMOKE?"

"Novels\Finders Keepers.txt" 694 241:A path ran through the winter-barren trees on a meandering diagonal, eventually coming out at the Birch Street Rec, a longtime Northfield youth center whose days were now numbered. Big kids hung out on and around the path in warm weather-SMOKING CIGARETTES, SMOKING dope, drinking beer, probably laying their girlfriends-but not at this time of year. No big kids equaled no hassle.

"Novels\Finders Keepers.txt" 694 249:A path ran through the winter-barren trees on a meandering diagonal, eventually coming out at the Birch Street Rec, a longtime Northfield youth center whose days were now numbered. Big kids hung out on and around the path in warm weather-SMOKING CIGARETTES, SMOKING dope, drinking beer, probably laying their girlfriends-but not at this time of year. No big kids equaled no hassle.

"Novels\Finders Keepers.txt" 694 261:A path ran through the winter-barren trees on a meandering diagonal, eventually coming out at the Birch Street Rec, a longtime Northfield youth center whose days were now numbered. Big kids hung out on and around the path in warm weather-SMOKING CIGARETTES, SMOKING dope, drinking beer, probably laying their girlfriends-but not at this time of year. No big kids equaled no hassle.

"Novels\Finders Keepers.txt" 7041 375:Pete gets up and circles the big brick cube the other way, once more passing the green car with its tattletale license plate. He stops at the front right corner of the abandoned brick box, looking at the going-home traffic on Birch Street. It's like peering through a window and into a different world, one where things are normal. He takes a quick inventory: cell phone, CIGARETTE lighter, can of lighter fluid. The can was in the bottom desk drawer with his father's Zippo. The can is only half full, based on the slosh when he shakes it, but half full will be more than enough.

"Novels\Finders Keepers.txt" 7317 81:Pete lifts his arms, and Jerome seizes his wrists. The basement is filling with SMOKE and Pete begins coughing, almost retching, as he uses his feet to pedal his way up the wall. He slides through the window, turns over, and peers back into the basement.

"Novels\Finders Keepers.txt" 760 149:From downstairs came a muffled groan, followed by the thump of crutches. Pete tracked the sound into the kitchen, where Dad would sit down, light a CIGARETTE, and blow the SMOKE out the back door. This would cause the furnace to run, and what the furnace burned, according to their mother, was not oil but dollar bills.

"Novels\Finders Keepers.txt" 760 173:From downstairs came a muffled groan, followed by the thump of crutches. Pete tracked the sound into the kitchen, where Dad would sit down, light a CIGARETTE, and blow the SMOKE out the back door. This would cause the furnace to run, and what the furnace burned, according to their mother, was not oil but dollar bills.

"Novels\From a Buick 8.txt" 1003 423:Orv Garrett conducted other tours, telling the story of Mister D's reaction over and over again. Sergeant Schoondist, already fascinated by the thing (a fascination that would never completely leave him until Alzheimer's erased his mind), came out as often as he could. Sandy remembered him standing just outside the open Shed B door at one point, foot up on the boards behind him, arms crossed. Ennis was beside him, SMOKING one of those little Tiparillos he liked and talking while Tony nodded. It was after three, and Ennis had changed into jeans and a plain white shirt. After three, and that was the best Sandy could say later on. He wished he could do better, but he couldn't.

"Novels\From a Buick 8.txt" 114 48:Around six o'clock I went out back to have a SMOKE. We have a bench there facing the parking lot. Beyond it is a very pretty western view. Ned Wilcox was sitting on the bench with his acceptance letter from Pitt in one hand and tears rolling down his face. He glanced at me, then looked away, scrubbing his eyes with the palm of his hand.

"Novels\From a Buick 8.txt" 116 327:I sat down beside him, thought about putting my arm around his shoulder, didn't do it. If you have to think about a thing like that, doing it usually feels phony. I guess, anyway. I have never married, and what I know about fathering you could write on the head of a pin with room left over for the Lord's Prayer. I lit a CIGARETTE and SMOKED it awhile. "It's all right, Ned," I said eventually. It was the only thing I could think of, and I had no idea what it meant.

"Novels\From a Buick 8.txt" 116 341:I sat down beside him, thought about putting my arm around his shoulder, didn't do it. If you have to think about a thing like that, doing it usually feels phony. I guess, anyway. I have never married, and what I know about fathering you could write on the head of a pin with room left over for the Lord's Prayer. I lit a CIGARETTE and SMOKED it awhile. "It's all right, Ned," I said eventually. It was the only thing I could think of, and I had no idea what it meant.

"Novels\From a Buick 8.txt" 122 3:I SMOKED and said nothing. On the far side of the parking lot by one of the county roadsalt piles was a cluster of wooden buildings that needed either sprucing up or tearing down. They were the old Motor Pool buildings. Statler County had moved its plows, graders, 'dozers, and asphalt rollers a mile or so down the road ten years before, into a new brick facility that looked like a prison lockdown unit. All that remained here was the one big pile of salt (which we were using ourselves, little by little-once upon a time, that pile had been a mountain) and a few ramshackle wooden buildings. One of them was Shed B. The black-paint letters over the door-one of those wide garage doors that run up on rails-were faded but still legible. Was I thinking about the Buick Roadmaster inside as I sat there next to the crying boy, wanting to put my arm around him and not knowing how? I don't know. I guess I might have been, but I don't think we know all the things we're thinking. Freud might have been full of shit about a lot of things, but not that one. I don't know about a subconscious, but there's a pulse in our heads, all right, same as there's one in our chests, and it carries unformed, no-language thoughts that most times we can't even read, and they are usually the important ones.

"Novels\From a Buick 8.txt" 1366 95:We were walking back to the bench now, most of us lighting up. Ned looked like he could use a CIGARETTE himself. Or something. A big knock of whiskey, maybe. Inside the barracks, things would be going back to normal. Steff Colucci would already be noting an improvement in her radio reception, and soon the DSS dish on the roof would be receiving again-all the scores, all the wars, and six Home Shopping stations. If that wouldn't make you forget about the hole in the ozone layer, by God, nothing would.

"Novels\From a Buick 8.txt" 1380 406:I told Ned about how we'd dragged the tables into a big hollow square without having to be asked, and how Brian Cole and Dicky-Duck Eliot escorted the waitresses out and closed the doors behind them. We served ourselves from the steam tables which had been set up at the front of the room. Later there was beer, the off-duty Troopers pulling their own suds and running their own tabs, and a fug of blue CIGARETTE SMOKE rising to the ceiling. Peter Quinland, who owned the restaurant in those days, loved The Chairman of the Board, and a steady stream of Frank Sinatra songs rained down on us from the overhead speakers as we ate and drank and SMOKED and talked: "Luck Be a Lady," "Summer Wind," "New York, New York," and of course "My Way," maybe the dumbest pop song of the twentieth century. To this day I can't listen to it-or any Sinatra song, really-without thinking of The Country Way and the Buick out in Shed B.

"Novels\From a Buick 8.txt" 1380 416:I told Ned about how we'd dragged the tables into a big hollow square without having to be asked, and how Brian Cole and Dicky-Duck Eliot escorted the waitresses out and closed the doors behind them. We served ourselves from the steam tables which had been set up at the front of the room. Later there was beer, the off-duty Troopers pulling their own suds and running their own tabs, and a fug of blue CIGARETTE SMOKE rising to the ceiling. Peter Quinland, who owned the restaurant in those days, loved The Chairman of the Board, and a steady stream of Frank Sinatra songs rained down on us from the overhead speakers as we ate and drank and SMOKED and talked: "Luck Be a Lady," "Summer Wind," "New York, New York," and of course "My Way," maybe the dumbest pop song of the twentieth century. To this day I can't listen to it-or any Sinatra song, really-without thinking of The Country Way and the Buick out in Shed B.

"Novels\From a Buick 8.txt" 1380 646:I told Ned about how we'd dragged the tables into a big hollow square without having to be asked, and how Brian Cole and Dicky-Duck Eliot escorted the waitresses out and closed the doors behind them. We served ourselves from the steam tables which had been set up at the front of the room. Later there was beer, the off-duty Troopers pulling their own suds and running their own tabs, and a fug of blue CIGARETTE SMOKE rising to the ceiling. Peter Quinland, who owned the restaurant in those days, loved The Chairman of the Board, and a steady stream of Frank Sinatra songs rained down on us from the overhead speakers as we ate and drank and SMOKED and talked: "Luck Be a Lady," "Summer Wind," "New York, New York," and of course "My Way," maybe the dumbest pop song of the twentieth century. To this day I can't listen to it-or any Sinatra song, really-without thinking of The Country Way and the Buick out in Shed B.

"Novels\From a Buick 8.txt" 1384 189:"As for the Buick itself, if anyone asks about it at all, tell them it's an impound," Tony had said. "No more than that. If anyone does say more than that, I'll find out who and SMOKE him out like a cigar." He looked around the room; his men looked back at him, and no one was stupid enough to smile. They'd been around the Sarge long enough to know that when he looked the way he did just then, he was not joking. "Are we clear on this? Everyone got the scoop?"

"Novels\From a Buick 8.txt" 1422 65:"Yes," Shirley said. She'd lit another Parliament and was SMOKING it in quick, nervous little puffs. "Your father dragooned me into one of his experiments once-got me to run the video camera. He put a long scratch down the driver's-side door, right under the chrome swoop, and we just let the camera run, came back together every fifteen minutes. It wasn't anything dramatic, like something in a movie, but it was pretty damned amazing. The scratch got shallower and started to darken around the edges, like it was working to match the paintjob. And finally it was just gone. All sign of it."

"Novels\From a Buick 8.txt" 1494 204:It's winding down: that was the received wisdom concerning the Road-master, the gospel according to Schoondist and Wilcox. Slowing like an unwound clock, wobbling like an exhausted top, beeping like a SMOKE detector that can no longer tell what's hot. Pick your favorite metaphor from the bargain bin. And maybe it was true. Then again, maybe it wasn't. We knew nothing about it, not really. Telling ourselves we did was just a strategy we used so we could continue living next door to it without too many bad dreams.

"Novels\From a Buick 8.txt" 1496 46:I walked back to the bench, lighting another CIGARETTE, and sat down between Shirley and Ned. I said, "Do you want to hear about the first time we saw what we saw tonight?"

"Novels\From a Buick 8.txt" 1545 766:If he had been looking at those first few flashes dead-on, he guessed he would have been blinded-maybe temporarily, maybe for good. Luckily for him, the shed's front roll-up door faced away from the gas-pump. Yet still the glare was enough to dazzle his eyes, and to turn that summer twilight as bright as noonday. And it made Shed B, a solid enough wooden structure, seem as insubstantial as a tent made out of gauze. Light shot through every crack and unoccupied nail-hole; it flashed out from beneath the eaves through a small cavity that might have been gnawed by a squirrel; it blazed at ground-level, where a board had fallen off, in a great brilliant bar. There was a ventilator stack on the roof, and it shot the glare skyward in irregular bursts, like SMOKE-signals made out of pure violet light. The flashes through the rows of windows on the roll-up doors, front and back, turned the rising groundmist into an eerie electric vapor.

"Novels\From a Buick 8.txt" 1555 115:Sandy saw and heard none of that. What he heard was the hum. What he saw were the flashes, turning the groundmist SMOKE into electric dragons. What he saw was the column of stuttery purple light rising from the conical roof-vent, stabbing up into the darkening air.

"Novels\From a Buick 8.txt" 270 139:"Yeah," he said, then shrugged. "There were just some chores I'd been meaning to do. And . . . well . . . when you come out for a SMOKE, there's something I want to ask you about." Pretty excited, by the sound of him.

"Novels\From a Buick 8.txt" 3077 57:The first thing he remembered on the other side of that CIGARETTE-burn in the surface of his memory was Tony saying, "Go on, now, you hear? You guys go on back upstairs. Everything here is under control." And, close to his left ear, Curt was murmuring another version of the same thing, telling Sandy he was all right, totally cool, fi'-by-fi'.

"Novels\From a Buick 8.txt" 3149 542:The specimens and the bat-thing's flayed body eventually wound up in the battered green cabinet, which George Morgan took to calling "the Troop D sideshow." Tony allowed two of the Troopers from upstairs to come down when the pot of water on the stove had reached a boil. The five men donned heavy rubber kitchen gloves and scrubbed down everything they could reach. The unwanted organic leftovers went into a plastic bag, along with the scrub-rags, surgical gloves, dental masks, and shirts. The bag went into the incinerator and the SMOKE went up to the sky, God the Father, ever and ever, amen.

"Novels\From a Buick 8.txt" 3303 124:Soder and Santerre got Buick-watching duty instead, and they didn't mind. Jagoffs never do. They stood beside the hutch, SMOKING, shooting the shit, taking the occasional look in at the Buick (Santerre too young to know what to expect, and he never lasted long in the PSP, anyway), telling jokes and enjoying the day. It was a June day so simple and so simply beautiful that even a jagoff couldn't help but enjoy it. At some point Buck Flanders spelled Randy Santerre; a little later on, Orville Garrett spelled Chris Soder. Huddie came out for the occasional peek. At three o'clock, when Sandy came in to drop his ass in the SC's chair, Curtis Wilcox finally got back and spelled Buck out by Shed B. Far from rebounding, the shed's temperature had rolled off another ten degrees by then, and off-duty Troopers began to clog the lot out back with their personal vehicles. Word had spread. Code D.

"Novels\From a Buick 8.txt" 3517 354:The two of them crossed the parking lot in the red sunset light, their trailing shadows all but infinite, going first to the roll-up door for a little look-see. The Buick sat there as it had ever since old Johnny Parker dragged it in behind his tow-truck (Johnny now retired and getting through his nights with an oxygen tank beside his bed-but still SMOKING). It cast its own shadow on the concrete floor.

"Novels\From a Buick 8.txt" 358 63:"Yes. And that's how it's going to stay." There was a CIGARETTE in my hand that I barely remembered lighting. I dropped it to the macadam and crushed it out. "It's our business."

"Novels\From a Buick 8.txt" 3587 320:They both looked, and uttered almost identical cries of revulsion. The fish was blown out all down its length by then, and deflating-sinking into the black liquor of its own strange blood. White billows rose from its body and the innards which had already spilled from that gaping flayment. The vapor was as thick as SMOKE rising from a pile of smoldering damp mulch. It obscured the Buick from its open trunk forward until Old 54 was nothing but a ghost-car.

"Novels\From a Buick 8.txt" 3661 30:Curt raised his hands to the SMOKE-stained tin ceiling, then dropped them back to the table with a clump. "Gahh! I knew you'd say that! I could strangle you, Dearborn!"

"Novels\From a Buick 8.txt" 384 129:The rain held off. When I went out to join Ned on the bench which faces Shed B across the parking lot, Arky Arkanian was there, SMOKING a CIGARETTE and talking Pirate baseball with the kid. Arky made as if to leave when I showed up, but I told him to stay put. "I'm going to tell Ned about the Buick we keep over there," I said, nodding toward the shed across the way. "If he decides to call for the men in the white coats because the Troop D Sergeant Commanding has lost his shit, you can back me up. After all, you were here."

"Novels\From a Buick 8.txt" 384 139:The rain held off. When I went out to join Ned on the bench which faces Shed B across the parking lot, Arky Arkanian was there, SMOKING a CIGARETTE and talking Pirate baseball with the kid. Arky made as if to leave when I showed up, but I told him to stay put. "I'm going to tell Ned about the Buick we keep over there," I said, nodding toward the shed across the way. "If he decides to call for the men in the white coats because the Troop D Sergeant Commanding has lost his shit, you can back me up. After all, you were here."

"Novels\From a Buick 8.txt" 3849 171:"Hold that bag open, goddammit!" Curt cried in a choked voice. To Sandy he sounded like someone who has just taken a long hit off a primo blunt and wants to hold the SMOKE down as long as possible. "Jesus, it feels nasty! Even through the gloves!"

"Novels\From a Buick 8.txt" 3980 46:"Ah, can't make out the placks, too much SMOKE, but there's white stuff coming out and it's catching fire as it runs down the ditch and across the highway, copy that?" George had started coughing into his mike again.

"Novels\From a Buick 8.txt" 4081 280:"Brian Lippy." I was looking at the truck. Through the back window I could see the passenger, still sitting in the middle, not looking at us. Head dropped. I thought maybe he'd beaten her unconscious. Then one hand went up to her mouth and out of the mouth came a plume of CIGARETTE SMOKE.

"Novels\From a Buick 8.txt" 4081 290:"Brian Lippy." I was looking at the truck. Through the back window I could see the passenger, still sitting in the middle, not looking at us. Head dropped. I thought maybe he'd beaten her unconscious. Then one hand went up to her mouth and out of the mouth came a plume of CIGARETTE SMOKE.

"Novels\From a Buick 8.txt" 4119 812:The woman in the truck was sitting with her left knee pressed against the chrome post of Brian's Hurst shifter. Guys like Brian put them in just so they can stick a Hurst decal in the window, that's what I think. Next to the ones saying Fram and Pennzoil. She looked about twenty years old with long ironed brownette hair, not particularly clean, hanging to her shoulders. Jeans and a white tank top. No bra. Fat red pimples on her shoulders. A tat on one arm that said and one on the other saying BRIAN MY LUV. Nails painted candycane pink but all bitten down and ragged. And yes, there was blood. Blood and snot hanging out of her nose. More blood spattered up her cheeks like little birthmarks. Still more on her split lips and chin and tank top. Head down so the wings of her hair hid some of her face. CIGARETTE going up and down, tick-tock, either a Marlboro or a Winston, in those days before the prices went up and all the fringe people went to the cheap brands, you could count on it. And if it's Marlboro, it's always the hard pack. I have seen so many of them. Sometimes there's a baby and it straightens the guy up, but usually it's just bad luck for the baby.

"Novels\From a Buick 8.txt" 4185 159:I returned to the open door of the pickup. The woman had snubbed her CIGARETTE out in the overflowing ashtray and lit a fresh one. Up and down went the fresh CIGARETTE. Out from between the mostly closed wings of her hair came the plumes of used SMOKE.

"Novels\From a Buick 8.txt" 4185 247:I returned to the open door of the pickup. The woman had snubbed her CIGARETTE out in the overflowing ashtray and lit a fresh one. Up and down went the fresh CIGARETTE. Out from between the mostly closed wings of her hair came the plumes of used SMOKE.

"Novels\From a Buick 8.txt" 4185 70:I returned to the open door of the pickup. The woman had snubbed her CIGARETTE out in the overflowing ashtray and lit a fresh one. Up and down went the fresh CIGARETTE. Out from between the mostly closed wings of her hair came the plumes of used SMOKE.

"Novels\From a Buick 8.txt" 4189 188:She shook her head and began to work with the Kleenex. Bending her head to it rather than raising the tissue to her face, closing the curtains of her hair even farther. The hand with the CIGARETTE in it now resting on the leg of her jeans, the SMOKE rising straight up.

"Novels\From a Buick 8.txt" 4189 245:She shook her head and began to work with the Kleenex. Bending her head to it rather than raising the tissue to her face, closing the curtains of her hair even farther. The hand with the CIGARETTE in it now resting on the leg of her jeans, the SMOKE rising straight up.

"Novels\From a Buick 8.txt" 4193 46:She shook her head again. Not looking at me. SMOKING and not looking at me.

"Novels\From a Buick 8.txt" 42 259:And by the good goddam, there he was a week later, sitting at PCO Pasternak's desk in the dispatch cubicle, at first only while she ran to the bathroom but then for longer and longer periods while she went across the room for coffee or even out back for a SMOKE.

"Novels\From a Buick 8.txt" 433 673:He twirled the crank on the side of the hi-test pump to turn back the numbers, stuck the nozzle in the hole, and set the automatic feed. The bell inside the pump started to bing and while it did, Brad walked up the driver's side of the Buick, completing the circuit. He looked through the leftside windows as he went, and the car's interior struck him as singularly stark for what had been almost a luxury car back in the fifties. The seat upholstery was wren-brown, and so was the fabric lining the inside of the roof. The back seat was empty, the front seat was empty, and there was nothing on the floor-not so much as a gum-wrapper, let alone a map or a crumpled CIGARETTE pack. The steering wheel looked like inlaid wood. Bradley wondered if that was the way they had come on this model, or if it was some kind of special option. Looked ritzy. And why was it so big? If it had had spokes sticking out of it, you would have thought it belonged on a millionaire's yacht. You'd have to spread your arms almost as wide as your chest just to grip it. Had to be some sort of custom job, and Brad didn't think it would be comfortable to handle on a long drive. Not a bit comfortable.

"Novels\From a Buick 8.txt" 4432 348:Standing in front of it, barking and snarling and spraying curds of foam from his muzzle, was our dog. He made as if to lunge forward and the thing shrieked at him from the black hole. The gray hose twitched like a boneless arm or a frog's leg when you shoot electricity into it. Drops of something flew from the end and hit the shed's floor. SMOKE began to rise from those spots at once, and I could see them eating into the concrete.

"Novels\From a Buick 8.txt" 4449 212:Mister Dillon lunged again. The thing in the corner shrieked a third time and drew back. More liquid splattered from its trunk or arm or penis or whatever it was. A couple of drops struck D and his fur began to SMOKE at once. He gave a series of hurt, yipping cries. Then, instead of backing off, he leaped at it.

"Novels\From a Buick 8.txt" 4457 334:Huddie had drawn his gun. He had a momentarily clear shot at the pink threads and the yellow knob under them, but then the thing whirled around, still wailing out of that black hole, and it fell on top of Mister D. The gray thing growing from its chest wrapped itself around D's throat and D began to yip and howl with pain. I saw SMOKE starting to rise up from where the thing had him, and a moment later I could smell burning fur as well as rotting vegetables and seawater. The intruder was sprawled on top of our dog, squealing and thrashing, its legs (if they were legs) thumping against the roll-up door and leaving smudges that looked like nicotine stains. And Mister Dillon let out howl after long, agonized howl.

"Novels\From a Buick 8.txt" 4478 473:I got to it and I swung the pickaxe and the pointed end of it went into the middle of it. The thing screamed and threw itself backward against the roll-up door. Mister Dillon got loose and backed away, creeping with his belly low to the floor. He was barking with anger and howling with pain, the sounds mixed together. There was a charred trench in his fur behind his collar. Half his muzzle had been singed black, as if he'd stuck it in a campfire. Little tendrils of SMOKE were rising from it.

"Novels\From a Buick 8.txt" 4601 435:I reached into the trunk and picked the gizmo up. Had a good laugh over it, too. I felt like I was in a dream, or tripping on some chemical. And all the time I knew it was closing in on me, getting ready to take me. I didn't know if it got Ennis the same way, but probably, yeah. I was standing in front of that open trunk, no rope on me and no one to pull me back, and something was getting ready to pull me in, to breathe me like CIGARETTE SMOKE. And I didn't give Shit One. All I cared about was what I'd found in the trunk.

"Novels\From a Buick 8.txt" 4601 445:I reached into the trunk and picked the gizmo up. Had a good laugh over it, too. I felt like I was in a dream, or tripping on some chemical. And all the time I knew it was closing in on me, getting ready to take me. I didn't know if it got Ennis the same way, but probably, yeah. I was standing in front of that open trunk, no rope on me and no one to pull me back, and something was getting ready to pull me in, to breathe me like CIGARETTE SMOKE. And I didn't give Shit One. All I cared about was what I'd found in the trunk.

"Novels\From a Buick 8.txt" 4603 257:It might have been some sort of communication device-that's what it looked like-but it might have been something else entirely: where the monster kept its prescription drugs, some sort of musical instrument, maybe even a weapon. It was the size of a CIGARETTE-pack but a lot heavier. Heavier than a transistor radio or a Walkman, too. There were no dials or knobs or levers on it. The stuff it was made of didn't look or feel like either metal or plastic. It had a fine-grained texture, not exactly unpleasant but organic, like cured cowhide. I touched the rod sticking out of it and it retracted into a hole on top. I touched the hole and the rod came back out. Touched the rod again and this time nothing happened. Not then, not ever. Although ever for what we called "the radio" wasn't very long; after a week or so, the surface of it began to pit and corrode. It was in an evidence bag with a Ziploc top, but that didn't matter. A month later the "radio" looked like something that's been left out in the wind and rain for about eighty years. And by the following spring it was nothing but a bunch of gray fragments lying at the bottom of a Baggie. The antenna, if that's what it was, never moved again. Not so much as a silly millimeter.

"Novels\From a Buick 8.txt" 4676 212:Before either of us could take a step toward the barracks, Mister Dillon came out through the hole he'd already put in the screen door. He was staggering from side to side like a drunk, and his head was down. SMOKE was rising from his fur. More seemed to be coming out of his head, although at first I couldn't see where it was coming from; everywhere was my first impression. He got his forepaws on the first of the three steps going down from the back stoop to the parking lot, then lost his balance and fell on his side. When he did, he twisted his head in a series of jerks. It was the way people move in those oldtime silent movies. I saw SMOKE coming out of his nostrils in twin streams. It made me think of the woman sitting there in Lippy's bigfoot truck, the SMOKE from her CIGARETTE rising in a ribbon that seemed to disappear before it got to the roof. More SMOKE was coming from his eyes, which had gone a strange, knitted white. He vomited out a spew of smoky blood, half-dissolved tissue, and triangular white things. After a moment or two I realized they were his teeth.

"Novels\From a Buick 8.txt" 4676 649:Before either of us could take a step toward the barracks, Mister Dillon came out through the hole he'd already put in the screen door. He was staggering from side to side like a drunk, and his head was down. SMOKE was rising from his fur. More seemed to be coming out of his head, although at first I couldn't see where it was coming from; everywhere was my first impression. He got his forepaws on the first of the three steps going down from the back stoop to the parking lot, then lost his balance and fell on his side. When he did, he twisted his head in a series of jerks. It was the way people move in those oldtime silent movies. I saw SMOKE coming out of his nostrils in twin streams. It made me think of the woman sitting there in Lippy's bigfoot truck, the SMOKE from her CIGARETTE rising in a ribbon that seemed to disappear before it got to the roof. More SMOKE was coming from his eyes, which had gone a strange, knitted white. He vomited out a spew of smoky blood, half-dissolved tissue, and triangular white things. After a moment or two I realized they were his teeth.

"Novels\From a Buick 8.txt" 4676 775:Before either of us could take a step toward the barracks, Mister Dillon came out through the hole he'd already put in the screen door. He was staggering from side to side like a drunk, and his head was down. SMOKE was rising from his fur. More seemed to be coming out of his head, although at first I couldn't see where it was coming from; everywhere was my first impression. He got his forepaws on the first of the three steps going down from the back stoop to the parking lot, then lost his balance and fell on his side. When he did, he twisted his head in a series of jerks. It was the way people move in those oldtime silent movies. I saw SMOKE coming out of his nostrils in twin streams. It made me think of the woman sitting there in Lippy's bigfoot truck, the SMOKE from her CIGARETTE rising in a ribbon that seemed to disappear before it got to the roof. More SMOKE was coming from his eyes, which had gone a strange, knitted white. He vomited out a spew of smoky blood, half-dissolved tissue, and triangular white things. After a moment or two I realized they were his teeth.

"Novels\From a Buick 8.txt" 4676 790:Before either of us could take a step toward the barracks, Mister Dillon came out through the hole he'd already put in the screen door. He was staggering from side to side like a drunk, and his head was down. SMOKE was rising from his fur. More seemed to be coming out of his head, although at first I couldn't see where it was coming from; everywhere was my first impression. He got his forepaws on the first of the three steps going down from the back stoop to the parking lot, then lost his balance and fell on his side. When he did, he twisted his head in a series of jerks. It was the way people move in those oldtime silent movies. I saw SMOKE coming out of his nostrils in twin streams. It made me think of the woman sitting there in Lippy's bigfoot truck, the SMOKE from her CIGARETTE rising in a ribbon that seemed to disappear before it got to the roof. More SMOKE was coming from his eyes, which had gone a strange, knitted white. He vomited out a spew of smoky blood, half-dissolved tissue, and triangular white things. After a moment or two I realized they were his teeth.

"Novels\From a Buick 8.txt" 4676 876:Before either of us could take a step toward the barracks, Mister Dillon came out through the hole he'd already put in the screen door. He was staggering from side to side like a drunk, and his head was down. SMOKE was rising from his fur. More seemed to be coming out of his head, although at first I couldn't see where it was coming from; everywhere was my first impression. He got his forepaws on the first of the three steps going down from the back stoop to the parking lot, then lost his balance and fell on his side. When he did, he twisted his head in a series of jerks. It was the way people move in those oldtime silent movies. I saw SMOKE coming out of his nostrils in twin streams. It made me think of the woman sitting there in Lippy's bigfoot truck, the SMOKE from her CIGARETTE rising in a ribbon that seemed to disappear before it got to the roof. More SMOKE was coming from his eyes, which had gone a strange, knitted white. He vomited out a spew of smoky blood, half-dissolved tissue, and triangular white things. After a moment or two I realized they were his teeth.

"Novels\From a Buick 8.txt" 4685 245:There was a great confused clatter of radio traffic, but none of it was directed to base. Why would it be, when all the action was either out at Poteenville Grammar School or headed that way? George Stankowski had gotten the kids away from the SMOKE, at least, I got that. Poteenville Volunteer One, aided by pumpers from Statler County, were controlling the grassfires around the school. Those fires had indeed been touched off by burning diesel and not some flammable chemical. It was chlorine liquid in the tanker, that was now confirmed. Not good, but nowhere near as bad as it might have been.

"Novels\From a Buick 8.txt" 4705 133:He came to me, but very slowly, whining and shivering with every step. When he got close I saw a terrible thing: little tendrils of SMOKE were coming from the birdshot-spatter of holes on his muzzle. More was coming from the burned patches on his fur, and from the corners of his eyes, as well. I could see his eyes starting to lighten, as if a mist was covering them from the inside.

"Novels\From a Buick 8.txt" 4711 131:He was halfway across the duty room. He turned once to look back at me-toward the sound of my voice-and I saw . . . oh, I saw SMOKE coming out of his mouth and nose, out of his ears, too. The sides of his mouth drew back and for a second it seemed like he was trying to grin at me, the way dogs will do when they're happy. Then he vomited. Most of what came out wasn't food but his own insides. And they were SMOKING.

"Novels\From a Buick 8.txt" 4711 418:He was halfway across the duty room. He turned once to look back at me-toward the sound of my voice-and I saw . . . oh, I saw SMOKE coming out of his mouth and nose, out of his ears, too. The sides of his mouth drew back and for a second it seemed like he was trying to grin at me, the way dogs will do when they're happy. Then he vomited. Most of what came out wasn't food but his own insides. And they were SMOKING.

"Novels\From a Buick 8.txt" 4726 137:"What's wrong with him, George?" I shouted. Mister Dillon had managed to get on his feet again. He was turning slowly around, the SMOKE rising from his fur and coming out of his mouth in gray billows. "What's happening to him?"

"Novels\From a Buick 8.txt" 4746 296:But George was already walking toward the dying ruin that had been our barracks dog, taking his gun out of his holster as he went. D, meanwhile, was still paddling mindlessly along toward a spot of nothing much between Curt's Bel Air and Dicky-Duck's Toyota, moving in a cloud of thickening SMOKE. How long, I wondered, before the fire inside broke through and he went up in flames like one of those suicidal Buddhist monks you used to see on television during the Vietnam War?

"Novels\From a Buick 8.txt" 4776 268:In the end there was no more melodrama, just a Trooper in a gray uniform with the shadow of his big hat shielding his eyes bending and reaching out like you might reach out your hand to a crying child to comfort him. He touched the muzzle of his Ruger to the dog's SMOKING ear and pulled the trigger. There was a loud Pow! and D fell dead on his side. The SMOKE was still coming out of his fur in little ribbons.

"Novels\From a Buick 8.txt" 4776 359:In the end there was no more melodrama, just a Trooper in a gray uniform with the shadow of his big hat shielding his eyes bending and reaching out like you might reach out your hand to a crying child to comfort him. He touched the muzzle of his Ruger to the dog's SMOKING ear and pulled the trigger. There was a loud Pow! and D fell dead on his side. The SMOKE was still coming out of his fur in little ribbons.

"Novels\From a Buick 8.txt" 4778 1017:George holstered his weapon and stood back. Then he put his hands over his face and cried something out. I don't know what it was. It was too muffled to tell. Huddie and I walked to where he was. Shirley did, too. We put our arms around him, all of us. We were standing in the middle of the parking lot with Unit 6 behind us and Shed B to our right and our nice barracks dog who never made any trouble for anybody lying dead in front of us. We could smell him cooking, and without a word we all moved farther to our right, upwind, shuffling rather than walking because we weren't quite ready to lose hold of one another. We didn't talk. We waited to see if he'd actually catch on fire like we thought he might, but it seemed that the fire didn't want him or maybe couldn't use him now that he was dead. He swelled some, and there was a gruesome little sound from inside him, almost like the one you get when you pop a paper lunchsack. It might have been one of his lungs. Anyway, once that happened, the SMOKE started to thin.

"Novels\From a Buick 8.txt" 4796 268:She walked stiff-legged around the corner of the barracks with the back of her hand pressed against her mouth. She held on until she was out of sight-nothing showing but her shadow-and then there came three big wet whooping sounds. The three of us stood over the SMOKING corpse of the dog without saying anything, and after a few minutes she came back, dead white and wiping her mouth with a Kleenex. And picked up right where she'd left off. It was as if she'd paused just long enough to clear her throat or swat a fly. "I'd say that was a pretty low score. The question is, what's the score here?"

"Novels\From a Buick 8.txt" 4905 66:"I gotta get it in gear, too," Phil said. He disposed of his CIGARETTE butt, got on his feet, hitched up his belt. "Kiddo, leave it at this: your Dad was an excellent officer and a credit to Troop D, Statler Barracks."

"Novels\From a Buick 8.txt" 4939 62:"Because it doesn't work." She looked into her pack of CIGARETTES, and whatever she saw there must have satisfied her because she nodded, put them into her purse, and stood up. "I'm going home. I have two cats that should have been fed three hours ago."

"Novels\From a Buick 8.txt" 4963 332:He and Shirley left. Ned and I sat on the bench and watched them go. We raised our hands as they drove past in their cars-Huddie's big old New Yorker, Shirley in her little Subaru with the bumper sticker reading MY KARMA RAN OVER MY DOGMA. When their taillights had disappeared around the corner of the barracks, I took out my CIGARETTES and had my own peek into the pack. One left. I'd SMOKE it and then quit. I'd been telling myself this charming fable for at least ten years.

"Novels\From a Buick 8.txt" 4963 394:He and Shirley left. Ned and I sat on the bench and watched them go. We raised our hands as they drove past in their cars-Huddie's big old New Yorker, Shirley in her little Subaru with the bumper sticker reading MY KARMA RAN OVER MY DOGMA. When their taillights had disappeared around the corner of the barracks, I took out my CIGARETTES and had my own peek into the pack. One left. I'd SMOKE it and then quit. I'd been telling myself this charming fable for at least ten years.

"Novels\From a Buick 8.txt" 5001 16:I put the last CIGARETTE in my mouth and lit it.

"Novels\From a Buick 8.txt" 5033 267:A reasonable enough answer, I suppose-a kid's answer, certainly, they say it a dozen times a day-but I hated it just the same. He'd quit off the football team, but it seemed he hadn't forgotten all he'd learned there about bobbing and weaving. I drew in SMOKE that tasted like hot hay, then blew it back out. "You don't."

"Novels\From a Buick 8.txt" 5063 443:"You weren't," I said. He had been a pisshead about some of it, but I didn't think he'd been able to help it. And at his age I likely would have been pissier by far. I watched him walk toward the restored Bel Air his father had left behind, a car of roughly the same vintage as the one in our shed but a good deal less lively. Halfway across the parking lot he paused, looking at Shed B, and I paused with the smoldering stub of my CIGARETTE poised before my lips, watching to see what he'd do.

"Novels\From a Buick 8.txt" 5131 135:On this subject you can't get far enough off the record. More words of wisdom from Tony Schoondist, spoken while the blue clouds of CIGARETTE SMOKE rose to the ceiling. Back then everybody SMOKED, except maybe for Curt, and look what happened to him. Sinatra sang "One for My Baby" from the overhead speakers, and from the steam tables had come the sweet smell of barbecued pork. The old Sarge had been a believer in that off-the-record stuff, at least as regarded the Buick, until his mind had taken French leave, first just infantry squads of brain-cells stealing away in the night, then platoons, then whole regiments in broad daylight. What's not on the record can't hurt you, he'd told me once-this was around the time when it became clear it would be me who'd step into Tony's shoes and sit in Tony's office, ooh grampa, what a big chair you have. Only I'd gone on the record tonight, hadn't I? Yeah, whole hog. Opened my mouth and spilled the whole tale. With a little help from my friends, as the song says. We'd spilled it to a boy who was still lost in the fun-house of grief. Who was agog with quite natural curiosity in spite of that grief. A lost boy? Perhaps. On TV, such tales as Ned's end happily, but I can tell you that life in Statler, Pennsylvania, bears Christing little resemblance to The Hallmark Hall of Fame. I'd told myself I knew the risks, but now I found myself wondering if that was really true. Because we never go forward believing we will fail, do we? No. We do it because we think we're going to save the goddam day and six times out of ten we step on the business end of a rake hidden in the high grass and up comes the handle and whammo, right between the eyes.

"Novels\From a Buick 8.txt" 5131 145:On this subject you can't get far enough off the record. More words of wisdom from Tony Schoondist, spoken while the blue clouds of CIGARETTE SMOKE rose to the ceiling. Back then everybody SMOKED, except maybe for Curt, and look what happened to him. Sinatra sang "One for My Baby" from the overhead speakers, and from the steam tables had come the sweet smell of barbecued pork. The old Sarge had been a believer in that off-the-record stuff, at least as regarded the Buick, until his mind had taken French leave, first just infantry squads of brain-cells stealing away in the night, then platoons, then whole regiments in broad daylight. What's not on the record can't hurt you, he'd told me once-this was around the time when it became clear it would be me who'd step into Tony's shoes and sit in Tony's office, ooh grampa, what a big chair you have. Only I'd gone on the record tonight, hadn't I? Yeah, whole hog. Opened my mouth and spilled the whole tale. With a little help from my friends, as the song says. We'd spilled it to a boy who was still lost in the fun-house of grief. Who was agog with quite natural curiosity in spite of that grief. A lost boy? Perhaps. On TV, such tales as Ned's end happily, but I can tell you that life in Statler, Pennsylvania, bears Christing little resemblance to The Hallmark Hall of Fame. I'd told myself I knew the risks, but now I found myself wondering if that was really true. Because we never go forward believing we will fail, do we? No. We do it because we think we're going to save the goddam day and six times out of ten we step on the business end of a rake hidden in the high grass and up comes the handle and whammo, right between the eyes.

"Novels\From a Buick 8.txt" 5131 192:On this subject you can't get far enough off the record. More words of wisdom from Tony Schoondist, spoken while the blue clouds of CIGARETTE SMOKE rose to the ceiling. Back then everybody SMOKED, except maybe for Curt, and look what happened to him. Sinatra sang "One for My Baby" from the overhead speakers, and from the steam tables had come the sweet smell of barbecued pork. The old Sarge had been a believer in that off-the-record stuff, at least as regarded the Buick, until his mind had taken French leave, first just infantry squads of brain-cells stealing away in the night, then platoons, then whole regiments in broad daylight. What's not on the record can't hurt you, he'd told me once-this was around the time when it became clear it would be me who'd step into Tony's shoes and sit in Tony's office, ooh grampa, what a big chair you have. Only I'd gone on the record tonight, hadn't I? Yeah, whole hog. Opened my mouth and spilled the whole tale. With a little help from my friends, as the song says. We'd spilled it to a boy who was still lost in the fun-house of grief. Who was agog with quite natural curiosity in spite of that grief. A lost boy? Perhaps. On TV, such tales as Ned's end happily, but I can tell you that life in Statler, Pennsylvania, bears Christing little resemblance to The Hallmark Hall of Fame. I'd told myself I knew the risks, but now I found myself wondering if that was really true. Because we never go forward believing we will fail, do we? No. We do it because we think we're going to save the goddam day and six times out of ten we step on the business end of a rake hidden in the high grass and up comes the handle and whammo, right between the eyes.

"Novels\From a Buick 8.txt" 5195 239:I drove up the driveway too fast, just as Eddie and George had done a dozen or so years before, wanting to be rid of their unpleasant prisoner so they could go over to Poteenville, where it must have seemed half the world was going up in SMOKE. The names of old songs-"I Met Him on a Sunday," "Ballroom Blitz," "Sugar Sugar"-jigged senselessly up and down in my head. Foolish, but better than asking myself what I'd do if the Bel Air was back but empty; what I'd do if Ned Wilcox was gone off the face of the earth.

"Novels\From a Buick 8.txt" 5231 198:On the smokers' bench, this had been. I had been SMOKING and Curt had just been sitting. The smokers' bench had assumed odd importance in the six years since the barracks itself was declared a SMOKE-free zone. It's where we went to compare notes on the cases we were rolling, to work out scheduling conflicts, to mull over retirement plans and insurance plans and the GDR. It was on the smokers' bench that Carl Brundage told me his wife was leaving him and taking the kids. His voice hadn't quavered but tears had gone rolling down his cheeks as he talked. Tony had been sitting on the bench with me on one side and Curt on the other ("Christ and the two thieves," he'd said with a sardonic smile) when he told us he was putting me up for the SC post his own retirement would leave vacant. If I wanted it, that was. The little gleam in his eyes saying he knew goddam well I wanted it. Curtis and I had both nodded, not saying much. And it was on the smokers' bench that Curt and I had our final discussion about the Buick 8. How soon before his death had that been? I realized with a nasty chill that it might well have been on the very day. Certainly that would explain why the vividness of the memory seemed so terrible to me.

"Novels\From a Buick 8.txt" 5231 52:On the smokers' bench, this had been. I had been SMOKING and Curt had just been sitting. The smokers' bench had assumed odd importance in the six years since the barracks itself was declared a SMOKE-free zone. It's where we went to compare notes on the cases we were rolling, to work out scheduling conflicts, to mull over retirement plans and insurance plans and the GDR. It was on the smokers' bench that Carl Brundage told me his wife was leaving him and taking the kids. His voice hadn't quavered but tears had gone rolling down his cheeks as he talked. Tony had been sitting on the bench with me on one side and Curt on the other ("Christ and the two thieves," he'd said with a sardonic smile) when he told us he was putting me up for the SC post his own retirement would leave vacant. If I wanted it, that was. The little gleam in his eyes saying he knew goddam well I wanted it. Curtis and I had both nodded, not saying much. And it was on the smokers' bench that Curt and I had our final discussion about the Buick 8. How soon before his death had that been? I realized with a nasty chill that it might well have been on the very day. Certainly that would explain why the vividness of the memory seemed so terrible to me.

"Novels\From a Buick 8.txt" 528 9:I lit a CIGARETTE and started talking again.

"Novels\From a Buick 8.txt" 5464 323:Two men sitting on the smokers' bench by the light of a summer sun and one will soon be dead-when it comes to our human lives there's a noose at the end of every chain and Curtis Wilcox has nearly reached his. Lunch will be his last meal and neither of them know it. This condemned man watches the other man light a CIGARETTE and wishes he could have one himself but he's quit the habit. The cost of them is bad, Michelle was always ragging on him about that, but mostly it's wanting to see his children grow up. He wants to see their graduations, he wants to see the color of their children's hair. He has retirement plans as well, he and Michelle have talked them over a lot, the Winnebago that will take them out west where they may finally settle, but he will be retiring sooner than that, and alone. As for SMOKING, he never had to give up the pleasure at all but a man can't know that. Meanwhile the summer sun is pleasant. Later on the day will be hot, a hot day to die on, but now it's pleasant, and the thing across the way is quiet. It is quiet now for longer and longer stretches. The lightquakes, when they come, are milder. It is winding down, that's what the condemned State Trooper thinks. But Curtis can still sometimes feel its heartbeat and its quiet call and knows it will bear watching. This is his job; he has repudiated any chance of promotion in order to do it. It was his partner the Buick 8 got but in a way, he realizes, it got all of Curtis Wilcox it ever had to. He never locked himself in its trunk, as Huddie Royer once almost did in 1988, and it never ate him alive as it probably ate Brian Lippy, but it got him just the same. It's always close to his thoughts. He hears its whisper the way a fisherman sleeping in his house hears the whisper of the sea even in his sleep. And a whisper is a voice, and a thing with a voice can-

"Novels\From a Buick 8.txt" 5464 825:Two men sitting on the smokers' bench by the light of a summer sun and one will soon be dead-when it comes to our human lives there's a noose at the end of every chain and Curtis Wilcox has nearly reached his. Lunch will be his last meal and neither of them know it. This condemned man watches the other man light a CIGARETTE and wishes he could have one himself but he's quit the habit. The cost of them is bad, Michelle was always ragging on him about that, but mostly it's wanting to see his children grow up. He wants to see their graduations, he wants to see the color of their children's hair. He has retirement plans as well, he and Michelle have talked them over a lot, the Winnebago that will take them out west where they may finally settle, but he will be retiring sooner than that, and alone. As for SMOKING, he never had to give up the pleasure at all but a man can't know that. Meanwhile the summer sun is pleasant. Later on the day will be hot, a hot day to die on, but now it's pleasant, and the thing across the way is quiet. It is quiet now for longer and longer stretches. The lightquakes, when they come, are milder. It is winding down, that's what the condemned State Trooper thinks. But Curtis can still sometimes feel its heartbeat and its quiet call and knows it will bear watching. This is his job; he has repudiated any chance of promotion in order to do it. It was his partner the Buick 8 got but in a way, he realizes, it got all of Curtis Wilcox it ever had to. He never locked himself in its trunk, as Huddie Royer once almost did in 1988, and it never ate him alive as it probably ate Brian Lippy, but it got him just the same. It's always close to his thoughts. He hears its whisper the way a fisherman sleeping in his house hears the whisper of the sea even in his sleep. And a whisper is a voice, and a thing with a voice can-

"Novels\From a Buick 8.txt" 5472 128:"Still, it saved its biggest horror show for a time when this place was almost completely deserted," says the man who quit CIGARETTES so he could watch his children grow up and bear him grandchildren. "As if it knew. As if it could think. And watch. And wait."

"Novels\From a Buick 8.txt" 5625 129:Steff came out after they were gone and offered me a cup of coffee. I told her thanks, but I'd pass. I asked her if she had a CIGARETTE. She gave me a prim look-almost shocked-and reminded me she didn't SMOKE. As though that was her toll-booth, one with the sign reading ALL BUICK ROADMASTERS MUST DETOUR BEYOND THIS POINT. Man, if we lived in that world. If only.

"Novels\From a Buick 8.txt" 5625 212:Steff came out after they were gone and offered me a cup of coffee. I told her thanks, but I'd pass. I asked her if she had a CIGARETTE. She gave me a prim look-almost shocked-and reminded me she didn't SMOKE. As though that was her toll-booth, one with the sign reading ALL BUICK ROADMASTERS MUST DETOUR BEYOND THIS POINT. Man, if we lived in that world. If only.

"Novels\From a Buick 8.txt" 5631 283:She went inside. I sat by myself on the smokers' bench. There were CIGARETTES in my car, at least half a pack in the glovebox, but getting up seemed like too much work, at least for the moment. When I did get up, I reckoned it would be best just to stay in motion. I could have a SMOKE on the way home, and a TV dinner when I got in-The Country Way would be closed by now, and I doubted that Cynthia Garris would be very happy to see my face in the place again soon, anyway. I'd given her a pretty good scare earlier, her fright nothing to mine when the penny finally dropped and I realized what Ned was almost certainly planning to do. And my fear then was only a shadow of the terror I'd felt as I looked into that rising purple glare with the boy hanging blind in my arms and that steady beat-beat-beat in my ears, a sound like approaching footfalls. I had been looking both down, as if into a well, and on an uptilted plane . . . as if my vision had been split by some prismatic device. It had been like looking through a periscope lined with lightning. What I saw was very vivid-I'll never forget it-and fabulously strange. Yellow grass, brownish at the tips, covered a rocky slope that rose before me and then broke off at the edge of a drop. Green-backed beetles bustled in the grass, and off to one side there grew a clump of those waxy lilies. I hadn't been able to see the bottom of the drop, but I could see the sky. It was a terrible engorged purple, packed with clouds and ripe with lightnings. A prehistoric sky. In it, circling in ragged flocks, were flying things. Birds, maybe. Or bats like the one Curt had tried to dissect. They were too far away for me to be sure. And all this happened very quickly, remember. I think there was an ocean at the foot of that drop but don't know why I think it-perhaps only because of the fish that came bursting out of the Buick's trunk that time. Or the smell of salt. Around the Roadmaster there was always that vague, teary smell of salt.

"Novels\From a Buick 8.txt" 5631 70:She went inside. I sat by myself on the smokers' bench. There were CIGARETTES in my car, at least half a pack in the glovebox, but getting up seemed like too much work, at least for the moment. When I did get up, I reckoned it would be best just to stay in motion. I could have a SMOKE on the way home, and a TV dinner when I got in-The Country Way would be closed by now, and I doubted that Cynthia Garris would be very happy to see my face in the place again soon, anyway. I'd given her a pretty good scare earlier, her fright nothing to mine when the penny finally dropped and I realized what Ned was almost certainly planning to do. And my fear then was only a shadow of the terror I'd felt as I looked into that rising purple glare with the boy hanging blind in my arms and that steady beat-beat-beat in my ears, a sound like approaching footfalls. I had been looking both down, as if into a well, and on an uptilted plane . . . as if my vision had been split by some prismatic device. It had been like looking through a periscope lined with lightning. What I saw was very vivid-I'll never forget it-and fabulously strange. Yellow grass, brownish at the tips, covered a rocky slope that rose before me and then broke off at the edge of a drop. Green-backed beetles bustled in the grass, and off to one side there grew a clump of those waxy lilies. I hadn't been able to see the bottom of the drop, but I could see the sky. It was a terrible engorged purple, packed with clouds and ripe with lightnings. A prehistoric sky. In it, circling in ragged flocks, were flying things. Birds, maybe. Or bats like the one Curt had tried to dissect. They were too far away for me to be sure. And all this happened very quickly, remember. I think there was an ocean at the foot of that drop but don't know why I think it-perhaps only because of the fish that came bursting out of the Buick's trunk that time. Or the smell of salt. Around the Roadmaster there was always that vague, teary smell of salt.

"Novels\From a Buick 8.txt" 5704 19:So we had a final CIGARETTE out on the smokers' bench, idly watching the young Trooper who was looking in at the Buick. He stood in that same legs-apart, goddam-the-Democrats, didya-hear-the-one-about-the-traveling-salesman pose that we all assumed when we looked into Shed B. The century had changed, but everything else was more or less the same.

"Novels\From a Buick 8.txt" 5738 33:Shirley laughed and put out her CIGARETTE. "She raised more when she found out he was planning to sell his Dad's Bel Air to Eddie Jacubois-at least that's what Ned told me. I mean, c'mon, Sandy, she had to know it was coming. Had to. She was married to one, for God's sake. And she probably knew this was where he belonged. Eddie, though, where did he belong? Why couldn't he just stop drinking? Once and for all?"

"Novels\Gerald's Game.txt" 1007 296:"What do you say, Ruth?" she asked in a low voice, and her gaze shifted to the batik butterfly across the room. For just a moment there was another image-a little girl, somebody's sweet little Punkin, smelling the sweet aroma of aftershave and looking up into the sky through a piece of SMOKED glass-and then it was mercifully gone.

"Novels\Gerald's Game.txt" 1216 46:(except you can Jessie you dreamed about the SMOKED glass; you dreamed about how the sun went out; you dreamed about the flat and tearful smell that was like minerals in well-water; you dreamed about his hands)

"Novels\Gerald's Game.txt" 1312 220:Jessie waited for a moment, but there was nothing else. Ruth was gone, at least for the time being. She opened her eyes again, then slowly bent her head forward, the rolled-up card jutting out of her mouth like FDR's CIGARETTE holder.

"Novels\Gerald's Game.txt" 1419 575:When it comes to moving him-to changing his mind-his younger daughter has more luck than the rest of them put together. Jessie often finds a way into her father's mind by means of some loophole or secret passage denied to the rest of the family. Sally believes-with some justification-that their middle child has always been Tom's favorite and Tom has fooled himself into believing none of the others know. Maddy and Will see it in simpler terms: they believe that Jessie sucks up to their father and that he in turn spoils her rotten. "If Daddy caught Jessie SMOKING," Will told his older sister the year before, after Maddy had been grounded for that very offense, "he'd probably buy her a lighter." Maddy laughed, agreed, and hugged her brother. Neither they nor their mother has the slightest idea of the secret which lies between Tom Mahout and his younger daughter like a heap of rotting meat.

"Novels\Gerald's Game.txt" 1467 30:Ruth takes a big drag on her CIGARETTE, then grinds it into the grass with one of Tammy Hough's cork-soled sandals. Jeepers-creepers, tootsie-he's going to goose you, not stick a cattle-prod up your ass. You know that as well as I do; you've been through all this before. So what's the big deal?

"Novels\Gerald's Game.txt" 1749 233:Suddenly she felt someone-most likely the Goodwife, and boy, had she ever underestimated the intestinal fortitude of that lady-running for the switches which governed the circuit-breakers in her head. Goody had seen tendrils of SMOKE starting to seep out through the cracks in the closed doors of those panels, had understood what they meant, and was making a final, desperate effort to shut down the machinery before the motors overheated and the bearings froze.

"Novels\Gerald's Game.txt" 1923 88:She laughed through her tears. There was a dry hiss as she scratched a match and lit a CIGARETTE.

"Novels\Gerald's Game.txt" 1943 123:Then the sound of her heels, tapping rapidly away, and a moment later the snick of her father's Zippo as he lit his own CIGARETTE.

"Novels\Gerald's Game.txt" 1990 151:Several squares of glass-panes cut carefully out of the crumbling putty in an old shed window-were piled up beside him. He was holding one in the SMOKE rising from the fire, using the barbecue tongs to turn the glass square this way and that like some sort of weird camp delicacy. Jessie burst out laughing-it was mostly the oven-mitt that struck her funny-and he turned around, also grinning. The thought that the angle made it possible for him to look up her dress crossed her mind, but only fleetingly. He was her father, after all, not some cute boy like Duane Corson from down at the marina.

"Novels\Gerald's Game.txt" 2010 672:She looked back at him, a small, compact man with fine beads of sweat standing out on his forehead, a man with as little body hair as the man she would later marry, but without either Gerald's thick glasses or his paunch, and for a moment the fact that this man was her father seemed the least important thing about him. She was struck again by how handsome he was, and how young he looked. As she watched, a bead of sweat rolled slowly down his stomach, tracked just east of his navel, and made a small dark spot on the elastic waistband of his Yale shorts. She looked back at his face and was suddenly, exquisitely aware of his eyes on her. Even narrowed against the SMOKE as they were now, those eyes were absolutely gorgeous, the brilliant gray of daybreak on winter water. Jessie found she had to swallow before she could answer; her throat was dry. Possibly it was the acrid SMOKE from his sod fire. Or possibly not.

"Novels\Gerald's Game.txt" 2010 884:She looked back at him, a small, compact man with fine beads of sweat standing out on his forehead, a man with as little body hair as the man she would later marry, but without either Gerald's thick glasses or his paunch, and for a moment the fact that this man was her father seemed the least important thing about him. She was struck again by how handsome he was, and how young he looked. As she watched, a bead of sweat rolled slowly down his stomach, tracked just east of his navel, and made a small dark spot on the elastic waistband of his Yale shorts. She looked back at his face and was suddenly, exquisitely aware of his eyes on her. Even narrowed against the SMOKE as they were now, those eyes were absolutely gorgeous, the brilliant gray of daybreak on winter water. Jessie found she had to swallow before she could answer; her throat was dry. Possibly it was the acrid SMOKE from his sod fire. Or possibly not.

"Novels\Gerald's Game.txt" 2030 596:The Eclipse Burgers, garnished with sautéed mushrooms and mild red onion, were nothing short of fabulous. They certainly eclipse the last batch your mother made, her father told her, and Jessie giggled wildly. They ate on the deck outside Tom Mahout's den, balancing metal trays on their laps. A round deck-table, littered with condiments, paper plates, and eclipse-watching paraphernalia, stood between them. The observation gear included Polaroid sunglasses, two home-made cardboard reflector-boxes of the sort which the rest of the family had taken with them to Mount Washington, panes of SMOKED glass, and a stack of hotpads from the drawer beside the kitchen stove. The panes of SMOKED glass weren't hot anymore, Tom told his daughter, but he wasn't terribly competent with the glass-cutter, and he was afraid there still might be nicks and jagged spots along the edges of some of the panes.

"Novels\Gerald's Game.txt" 2030 688:The Eclipse Burgers, garnished with sautéed mushrooms and mild red onion, were nothing short of fabulous. They certainly eclipse the last batch your mother made, her father told her, and Jessie giggled wildly. They ate on the deck outside Tom Mahout's den, balancing metal trays on their laps. A round deck-table, littered with condiments, paper plates, and eclipse-watching paraphernalia, stood between them. The observation gear included Polaroid sunglasses, two home-made cardboard reflector-boxes of the sort which the rest of the family had taken with them to Mount Washington, panes of SMOKED glass, and a stack of hotpads from the drawer beside the kitchen stove. The panes of SMOKED glass weren't hot anymore, Tom told his daughter, but he wasn't terribly competent with the glass-cutter, and he was afraid there still might be nicks and jagged spots along the edges of some of the panes.

"Novels\Gerald's Game.txt" 2066 24:Can I look through the SMOKED glass yet, Dad?

"Novels\Gerald's Game.txt" 2118 539:Tom Mahout gave her one of the oven potholders, then three panes of SMOKED glass in a stack. He was breathing fast, and Jessie suddenly felt sorry for him. The eclipse had probably given him the creeps, too, but of course he was an adult and wasn't supposed to let on. In a lot of ways adults were sad creatures. She thought about turning around to comfort him, then decided that would probably make him feel even worse. Make him feel stupid. Jessie could sympathize. She hated to feel stupid worse than anything. Instead, she held the SMOKED panes of glass up in front of her, then slowly raised her head from her reflector-box to look through them.

"Novels\Gerald's Game.txt" 2118 69:Tom Mahout gave her one of the oven potholders, then three panes of SMOKED glass in a stack. He was breathing fast, and Jessie suddenly felt sorry for him. The eclipse had probably given him the creeps, too, but of course he was an adult and wasn't supposed to let on. In a lot of ways adults were sad creatures. She thought about turning around to comfort him, then decided that would probably make him feel even worse. Make him feel stupid. Jessie could sympathize. She hated to feel stupid worse than anything. Instead, she held the SMOKED panes of glass up in front of her, then slowly raised her head from her reflector-box to look through them.

"Novels\Gerald's Game.txt" 2198 123:This is what you get for not sticking up for me, she thought, looking at the dark circle in the sky through the layers of SMOKED glass, and then: I guess this is what we both get. Her vision suddenly blurred, and the pleasure was gone. Only the mounting sense of alarm was left. Oh jeez, she thought. It's my retinas . . . it must be my retinas starting to burn.

"Novels\Gerald's Game.txt" 2240 22:He took the stack of SMOKED glass panes gently from her hand. At the same time he kissed her neck, even more gently. Jessie stared out at the weird darkness cloaking the lake as he did it. She was faintly aware that the owl was still calling, and that the crickets had been fooled into beginning their evensongs two or three hours early. An afterimage floated in front of her eyes like a round black tattoo surrounded by an irregular halo of green fire and she thought: If I looked at it too long, if I burned my retinas, I'll probably have to look at that for the rest of my life, like what you see after someone shoots off a flashbulb in your eyes.

"Novels\Gerald's Game.txt" 225 879:Good advice, and she supposed she would have followed it if not for the new presence inside her. This unnamed newcomer clearly thought that Jessie's usual source of advice-the voice she had over the years come to think of as Goodwife Burlingame-was a wimp of the highest order. Jessie still might have let things run their course, but two things happened simultaneously. The first was her realization that, although her wrists were cuffed to the bedposts, her feet and legs were free. At the same moment she realized this, the runner of drool fell off Gerald's chin. It dangled for a moment, elongating, and then fell on her midriff, just above the navel. Something about this sensation was familiar, and she was swept by a horribly intense sensation of déjà vu. The room seemed to darken around her, as if the windows and the skylight had been replaced with panes of SMOKED glass.

"Novels\Gerald's Game.txt" 2294 113:He had shaken his head. Nope, he'd said cheerfully, but that doesn't mean it isn't there. It just means I SMOKE too damn much. My guess is that it's the smell of the aquifer, Punkin. Trace minerals, that's all. A little smelly, and it means your mother has to spend a fortune on fabric softener, but it won't hurt you. Swear to God.

"Novels\Gerald's Game.txt" 2371 171:There was a slow, somnolent buzzing sound somewhere close by. Her first thought was alarm clock. Her second, after two or three minutes of dozing with her eyes open, was SMOKE detector. That idea caused a brief, groundless burst of hope which brought her a little closer to real waking. She realized that what she was hearing didn't really sound very much like a SMOKE detector at all. It sounded like . . . well . . . like . . .

"Novels\Gerald's Game.txt" 2371 366:There was a slow, somnolent buzzing sound somewhere close by. Her first thought was alarm clock. Her second, after two or three minutes of dozing with her eyes open, was SMOKE detector. That idea caused a brief, groundless burst of hope which brought her a little closer to real waking. She realized that what she was hearing didn't really sound very much like a SMOKE detector at all. It sounded like . . . well . . . like . . .

"Novels\Gerald's Game.txt" 2502 789:Jessie expected a flood of negative emotions at this sorry realization; she had, after all, been played for a sucker by the man whose primary jobs had been to love and protect her. No such flood came. Perhaps this was partly because she was still flying on endorphins, but she had an idea it had more to do with relief: no matter how rotten that business had been, she had finally been able to get outside it. Her chief emotions were amazement that she had held onto the secret for as long as she had, and a kind of uneasy perplexity. How many of the choices she had made since that day had been directly or indirectly influenced by what had happened during the final minute or so she had spent on her Daddy's lap, looking at a vast round mole in the sky through two or three pieces of SMOKED glass? And was her current situation a result of what had happened during the eclipse?

"Novels\Gerald's Game.txt" 2876 132:Bill will call the police and they'll show up with the forensics unit and the County Coroner. They'll all stand around the bed SMOKING cigars (Doug Rowe, undoubtedly wearing his awful white trenchcoat, will be standing outside with his film-crew, of course), and when the coroner pulls off the blanket, they'll wince. Yes-I think even the most hardened of them are going to wince a little, and some of them may actually leave the room. Their buddies will razz them about it later. And the ones who stay will nod and tell each other that the person on the bed died hard. "You only have to look at her to see that," they'll say. But they won't know the half of it. They won't know that the real reason your eyes are staring and your mouth is frozen in a scream is because of what you saw at the end. What you saw coming out of the dark. Your father may have been your first lover, Jessie, but your last is going to be the stranger with the long white face and the travelling bag made out of human skin.

"Novels\Gerald's Game.txt" 2971 89:He had arrived in record time (he must have left all three miles of the 295 city bypass SMOKING behind him, she thought), and what Jessie remembered best about that day was how he had gone bustling about the bedroom, cheeks flushed and eyes sparkling. Sex wasn't the first thing that came to her mind when she thought of Gerald (in a word-association test, security would probably have popped out first), but that day the two things had been all but interchangeable. Certainly sex had been the only thing on his mind; Jessie believed his usually polite attorney's pecker would have ripped the fly out of his natty pinstripe trousers if he'd been any slower getting them off.

"Novels\Gerald's Game.txt" 3219 30:Closer still. Those eyes-a SMOKE color that tried to be blue and didn't quite make it-now seemed to peer right through her skin and into the heart of her.

"Novels\Gerald's Game.txt" 3324 24:Can I look through the SMOKED glass yet, Dad?

"Novels\Gerald's Game.txt" 3350 29:He gives her three panes of SMOKED glass in a stack, but first he gives her a potholder. He gives it to her because he made the viewers from panes of glass cut from an old shed window, and he is less than confident of his abilities with the glass-cutter. And as she looks down at the potholder in this experience which is both dream and memory, her mind suddenly leaps even further back, as nimbly as an acrobat turning a flip, and she hears him say The last thing I need . . .

"Novels\Gerald's Game.txt" 3727 97:I can't do that, either, she responded. She felt more than tired; she felt as if she had just SMOKED a whole bong of absolutely primo Cambodian Red by herself. All she wanted to do was stand here and watch the motes of diamond-dust spin their slow circles in the sunbeams coming in through the west window. And maybe get one more drink of that dark-green, mossy-tasting water.

"Novels\Gerald's Game.txt" 3878 132:Slowly, very slowly, she turned her head toward the study, where her husband would never again work on legal briefs while he chain-SMOKED Marlboros and sang old Beach Boys hits under his breath. The house was groaning around her like an old ship plowing through a moderately heavy sea, creaking in its various joints as the wind shouldered against it with cold air. Now she could hear a clapping shutter as well as the banging door, but these sounds were somewhere else, in some other world where wives were not handcuffed and husbands did not refuse to listen and night-creatures did not stalk. She could hear the muscles and tendons in her neck creaking like old bedsprings as she turned her head. Her eyes throbbed in their sockets like chunks of hot charcoal.

"Novels\Gerald's Game.txt" 394 431:But maybe it's what you deserve-the hectoring, feverish voice of Goody Burlingame suddenly spoke up. Maybe it is. Because you did kill him, Jessie. You can't kid yourself about that, because I won't let you. I'm sure he wasn't in very good shape, and I'm sure it would have happened sooner or later, anyway-a heart attack at the office, or maybe in the turnpike passing lane on his way home some night, him with a CIGARETTE in his hand, trying to light it, and a big ten-wheeler behind him, honking for him to get the hell back over into the right-hand lane and make some room. But you couldn't wait for sooner or later, could you? Oh no, not you, not Tom Mahout's good little girl Jessie. You couldn't just lie there and let him shoot his squirt, could you? Cosmo Girl Jessie Burlingame says "No man chains me down." You had to kick him in the guts and the nuts, didn't you? And you had to do it while his thermostat was already well over the red line. Let's cut to the chase, dear: you murdered him. So maybe you deserve to be right here, handcuffed to this bed. Maybe-

"Novels\Gerald's Game.txt" 4053 71:"Only that and nothing more," Jessie murmured. She took a pack of CIGARETTES out of her shirt pocket and lit one. God, how that phrase brought it all back-the only other thing with the power to do it so quickly and completely, she had discovered, was that awful song by Marvin Gaye. She'd heard it once on the radio when she'd been driving back from one of the seemingly endless doctor's appointments which had made up her life this winter, Marvin wailing "Everybody knows . . . especially you girls . . ." in that soft, insinuating voice of his. She had turned the radio off at once, but she'd still been shaking too badly to drive. She had parked and waited for the worst of the shakes to pass. Eventually they had, but on the nights when she didn't wake up muttering that phrase from "The Raven" over and over into her sweat-soaked pillow, she heard herself chanting, "Witness, witness." As far as Jessie was concerned, it was six of one and half a million of the other.

"Novels\Gerald's Game.txt" 4055 25:She dragged deep on her CIGARETTE, puffed out three perfect rings, and watched them rise slowly above the humming Mac.

"Novels\Gerald's Game.txt" 4071 298:But remembering a thing and reliving a thing did not confer an obligation to tell about a thing, even when the memories made you sweat and the nightmares made you scream. She had lost ten pounds since October (well, that was shading the truth a bit; it was actually more like seventeen), taken up SMOKING again (a pack and a half a day, plus a joint roughly the size of an El Producto before bedtime), her complexion had gone to hell, and all at once her hair was going gray all over her head, not just at the temples. That last was something she could fix-hadn't she been doing so for five years or more?-but so far she simply hadn't been able to summon up enough energy to dial Oh Pretty Woman in Westbrook and make an appointment. Besides, who did she have to look good for? Was she planning to maybe hit a few singles bars, check out the local talent?

"Novels\Gerald's Game.txt" 4198 229:Jessie paused long enough to dump the overflowing ashtray and light a fresh CIGARETTE. She did this slowly and deliberately. Her hands had picked up a small but discernible shake, and she didn't want to burn herself. When the CIGARETTE was going, she took a deep drag, exhaled, stuck it in the ashtray, and returned to the Mac.

"Novels\Gerald's Game.txt" 4198 77:Jessie paused long enough to dump the overflowing ashtray and light a fresh CIGARETTE. She did this slowly and deliberately. Her hands had picked up a small but discernible shake, and she didn't want to burn herself. When the CIGARETTE was going, she took a deep drag, exhaled, stuck it in the ashtray, and returned to the Mac.

"Novels\Gerald's Game.txt" 4216 24:Jessie snuffed out her CIGARETTE, then looked down at the top newsprint photograph. The narrow, freakish face of Raymond Andrew Joubert gazed raptly back . . . just as he had gazed at her from the corner of the bedroom on the first night, and from her recently deceased husband's study on the second. Almost five minutes passed in this silent contemplation. Then, with the air of one who starts awake from a brief doze, Jessie lit a fresh CIGARETTE and turned back to her letter. The copy-minder now announced she was on page seven. She stretched, listened to the minute crackling sounds from her spine, then began to touch the keys again. The cursor resumed its dance.

"Novels\Gerald's Game.txt" 4216 442:Jessie snuffed out her CIGARETTE, then looked down at the top newsprint photograph. The narrow, freakish face of Raymond Andrew Joubert gazed raptly back . . . just as he had gazed at her from the corner of the bedroom on the first night, and from her recently deceased husband's study on the second. Almost five minutes passed in this silent contemplation. Then, with the air of one who starts awake from a brief doze, Jessie lit a fresh CIGARETTE and turned back to her letter. The copy-minder now announced she was on page seven. She stretched, listened to the minute crackling sounds from her spine, then began to touch the keys again. The cursor resumed its dance.

"Novels\Gerald's Game.txt" 4230 127:Jessie paused here, tapping her left forefinger against her teeth and thinking carefully. She took a deep drag on her current CIGARETTE, then went on.

"Novels\Gerald's Game.txt" 4276 303:That leads to another question, of course-did I cause the heart attack by kicking him? None of the medical books I've looked at answer that question conclusively, but let's get real: I probably helped him along. Still, I refuse to take the whole rap. He was overweight, he drank too much, and he SMOKED like a chimney. The heart attack was coming; if it hadn't been that day, it would have been the next week or the next month. The devil only plays his fiddle for you so long, Ruth. I believe that. If you don't, I cordially invite you to fold it small and stuff it where the sun doesn't shine. I happen to think I've earned the right to believe what I want to believe, at least in this matter. Especially in this matter.

"Novels\Gerald's Game.txt" 4300 152:"Insurance companies will insure anyone who's willing to pay enough freight," he said, "and Gerald's insurance agents didn't see him chain-SMOKING and belting back the booze. You did. All protests aside, you must have known he was a heart attack looking for a place to happen. The cops know it, too. So they say, 'Suppose she invited a friend down to the lake house and didn't tell her husband? And suppose this friend just happened to jump out of the closet and yell Booga-Booga at exactly the right time for her and exactly the wrong one for her old man?' If the cops had any evidence that something like that might have happened, you'd be in deep shit, Jessie. Because under certain select circumstances, a hearty cry of Booga-Booga can be seen as an act of first-degree murder. The fact that you spent going on two days in handcuffs and had to half-skin yourself to get free militates strongly against the idea of an accomplice, but in another way, the very fact of the handcuffs makes an accomplice seem plausible to . . . well, to a certain type of police mind, let us say."

"Novels\Gerald's Game.txt" 4334 46:Jessie sat back in her chair and lit another CIGARETTE, absently aware that the tip of her tongue was stinging from tobacco overload, that her head ached, and that her kidneys were protesting this marathon session in front of the Mac. Protesting vigorously. The house was deathly silent-the sort of silence that could only mean that tough little Megan Landis had taken herself off to the supermarket and the dry-cleaner's. Jessie was amazed that Meggie had left without making at least one more effort to separate her from the computer screen. Then she guessed the housekeeper had known it would be a wasted effort. Best to let her get it out of her system, whatever it is, Meggie would have thought. And it was only a job to her, after all. This last thought sent a little pang through Jessie's heart.

"Novels\Gerald's Game.txt" 4336 38:A board creaked upstairs. Jessie's CIGARETTE stopped an inch shy of her lips. He's back! Goody shrieked. Oh, Jessie, he's back!

"Novels\Gerald's Game.txt" 4358 20:She dragged at her CIGARETTE, then snuffed it out half-SMOKED. She riffled through the clippings a final time and looked out the window at the slope of Eastern Prom. The snow had long since stopped and the sun was shining brightly, although it wouldn't be for much longer; February days in Maine are thankless, miserly things.

"Novels\Gerald's Game.txt" 4358 56:She dragged at her CIGARETTE, then snuffed it out half-SMOKED. She riffled through the clippings a final time and looked out the window at the slope of Eastern Prom. The snow had long since stopped and the sun was shining brightly, although it wouldn't be for much longer; February days in Maine are thankless, miserly things.

"Novels\Gerald's Game.txt" 4362 185:There was no answer, but Jessie didn't need one. She leaned forward in her chair and set the cursor in motion once more. She didn't stop again for a long time, not even to light a CIGARETTE.

"Novels\Gerald's Game.txt" 4603 24:Jessie reached for her CIGARETTES, but succeeded only in knocking them all over the floor. She turned to the keyboard and the VDT again, without making any attempt to pick them up.

"Novels\Gerald's Game.txt" 812 78:Jessie closed her fingers over its rounded edge, feeling two notches in it-CIGARETTE parking-spaces. She gripped the ashtray, drew her hand back as far as she could, then brought it forward again. Her luck was in and she snapped her wrist down at the instant the handcuff chain snubbed tight, like a big-league pitcher breaking off a curve. All of this was an act of pure impulse, the missile sought for, found, and thrown before she had time to ensure the failure of the shot by reflecting on how unlikely it was that a woman who had gotten a D in the archery mode of her two-year college phys ed requirement could possibly hit a dog with an ashtray, especially when the dog was fifteen feet away and the hand she was throwing with happened to be handcuffed to a bedpost.

"Novels\Gerald's Game.txt" 947 1039:The blast had ended with that first meeting of the women's consciousness group. In there, Jessie had discovered a ghastly gray world which seemed simultaneously to preview the adult future that lay ahead for her in the eighties and to whisper of gloomy childhood secrets that had been buried alive in the sixties . . . but did not lie quiet there. There had been twenty women in the living room of the cottage attached to the Neuworth Interdenominational Chapel, some perched on the old sofa, others peering out of the shadows thrown by the wings of the vast and lumpy parsonage chairs, most sitting cross-legged on the floor in a rough circle-twenty women between the ages of eighteen and fortysomething. They had joined hands and shared a moment of silence at the beginning of the session. When that was over, Jessie had been assaulted by ghastly stories of rape, of incest, of physical torture. If she lived to be a hundred she would never forget the calm, pretty blonde girl who had pulled up her sweater to show the old scars of CIGARETTE burns on the undersides of her breasts.

"Novels\Gerald's Game.txt" 949 265:That was when the carnival ended for Jessie Mahout. Ended? No, that wasn't right. It was as if she had been afforded a momentary glimpse behind the carnival; had been allowed to see the gray and empty fields of autumn that were the real truth: nothing but empty CIGARETTE wrappers and used condoms and a few cheap broken prizes caught in the tall grass, waiting to either blow away or be covered by the winter snows. She saw that silent stupid sterile world waiting beyond the thin layer of patched canvas which was all that separated it from the razzle-dazzle brightness of the midway, the patter of the hucksters, and the glimmer-glamour of the rides, and it terrified her. To think that only this lay ahead for her, only this and nothing more, was awful; to think that it lay behind her as well, imperfectly hidden by the patched and tawdry canvas of her own doctored memories, was insupportable.

"Novels\Gerald's Game.txt" 955 100:"Why wouldn't they believe you?" she'd demanded. "Jesus, Liv-they burned you with live CIGARETTES! I mean, you had the burns as evidence! Why wouldn't they believe you? Didn't they love you?"

"Novels\Gerald's Game.txt" 997 224:As if this idea had been an invitation, her mind's eye suddenly saw a vision of heartbreaking clarity: a pane of glass held in a pair of barbecue tongs. A hand wearing an oven-mitt was turning it this way and that in the SMOKE of a small sod fire.

"Novels\Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon, The.txt" 1303 159:"I come from the thing in the woods," the blackrobe said in a buzzing, inhuman voice. He sounded to Trisha like that guy on the radio who told you not to SMOKE, the one who had lost his vocal cords in a cancer operation and had to talk through a gadget he held to his throat. "I come from the God of the Lost. It has been watching you. It has been waiting for you. It is your miracle, and you are its."

"Novels\Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon, The.txt" 255 616:"I'm okay," she said, still low and fast. She licked her upper lip and tasted damp salt. "I'm okay, I'm okay." She repeated it over and over, but it was still three minutes before she could persuade her arms to loosen their death-clutch on the ash tree a second time. When she finally managed it, Trisha stepped back, away from the drop. She reset her cap (turning it around so the bill pointed backward without even thinking about it) and looked out across the valley. She saw the sky, now sagging with rainclouds, and she saw roughly six trillion trees, but she saw no sign of human life-not even SMOKE from a single campfire.

"Novels\Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon, The.txt" 290 101:You saw what's out there, she thought, a big valley with nothing in it except trees. No roads, no SMOKE. You have to play it smart. You have to conserve your supplies. Mom would tell you the same thing and so would Dad.

"Novels\Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon, The.txt" 314 671:She swatted the mosquitoes away, then got up. What now? Did she know anything at all about being lost in the woods? Well, that the sun rose in the east and went down in the west; that was about all. Once someone had told her that moss grew on the north or south side of a tree, but she couldn't remember which. Maybe the best thing would be just to sit here, try to make some sort of shelter (more against the bugs than the rain, there were mosquitoes inside the hood of her poncho again and they were driving her crazy), and wait for someone to come. If she had matches, maybe she could make a fire-the rain would keep it from spreading-and someone would see the SMOKE. Of course, if pigs had wings, bacon would fly. Her father said that.

"Novels\Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon, The.txt" 93 230:It was a shame, too, because they were missing stuff that was actually pretty neat. The sweet, resiny smell of the pines, for instance, and the way the clouds seemed so close-less like clouds than like draggles of whitish-gray SMOKE. She guessed you'd have to be an adult to call something as boring as walking one of your hobbies, but this really wasn't bad. She didn't know if the entire Appalachian Trail was as well-maintained as this-probably not-but if it was, she guessed she could understand why people with nothing better to do decided to walk all umpty-thousand miles of it. Trisha thought it was like walking on a broad, winding avenue through the woods. It wasn't paved, of course, and it ran steadily uphill, but it was easy enough walking. There was even a little hut with a pump inside it and a sign which read: WATER TESTS OK FOR DRINKING. PLEASE FILL PRIMER JUG FOR NEXT PERSON.

"Novels\Green Mile, The.txt" 1044 348:Harry and Dean came up with the stretcher. It was actually Percy's job to take one end, but he didn't know and no one had bothered to tell him. The Chief, still wearing the black silk hood, was loaded onto it by Brutal and me, and we whisked him through the door which led to the tunnel as fast as we could manage it without actually running. SMOKE-too much of it-was rising from the hole in the top of the mask, and there was a horrible stench.

"Novels\Green Mile, The.txt" 1050 269:"Never mind that thing," I told Brutal. I didn't want to have to clean a load of chemical slime off the dead man's face before putting him in the back of the meatwagon. I slapped at The Chief's head (Percy staring at me, wide-eyed, the whole time) until the SMOKE quit rising. Then we carried the body down the twelve wooden steps to the tunnel. Here it was as chilly and dank as a dungeon, with the hollow plinkplink sound of dripping water. Hanging lights with crude tin shades-they were made in the prison machine-shop-showed a brick tube that ran thirty feet under the highway. The top was curved and wet. It made me feel like a character in an Edgar Allan Poe story every time I used it.

"Novels\Green Mile, The.txt" 1260 356:TOOT-TOOT FELT that four cents was far too little for a prime Corona cigar box, and in that he was probably right-cigar boxes were highly prized objects in prison. A thousand different small items could be stored in them, the smell was pleasant, and there was something about them that reminded our customers of what it was like to be free men. Because CIGARETTES were permitted in prison but cigars were not, I imagine.

"Novels\Green Mile, The.txt" 2227 100:Bill Dodge was standing in the door to the exercise yard, drinking coffee and SMOKING him a little SMOKE. He looked around at me and said, "Well, lookit here. Paul Edgecombe, big as life and twice as ugly."

"Novels\Green Mile, The.txt" 2227 79:Bill Dodge was standing in the door to the exercise yard, drinking coffee and SMOKING him a little SMOKE. He looked around at me and said, "Well, lookit here. Paul Edgecombe, big as life and twice as ugly."

"Novels\Green Mile, The.txt" 2816 256:The humming lost its steadiness and began to waver. It was joined by a crackling sound, like cellophane being crinkled. I could smell something horrible that I didn't identify as a mixture of burning hair and organic sponge until I saw blue tendrils of SMOKE curling out from beneath the edges of the cap. More SMOKE was streaming out of the hole in the top of the cap that the wire came in through; it looked like SMOKE coming out of the hole in an Indian's teepee.

"Novels\Green Mile, The.txt" 2816 314:The humming lost its steadiness and began to waver. It was joined by a crackling sound, like cellophane being crinkled. I could smell something horrible that I didn't identify as a mixture of burning hair and organic sponge until I saw blue tendrils of SMOKE curling out from beneath the edges of the cap. More SMOKE was streaming out of the hole in the top of the cap that the wire came in through; it looked like SMOKE coming out of the hole in an Indian's teepee.

"Novels\Green Mile, The.txt" 2816 418:The humming lost its steadiness and began to waver. It was joined by a crackling sound, like cellophane being crinkled. I could smell something horrible that I didn't identify as a mixture of burning hair and organic sponge until I saw blue tendrils of SMOKE curling out from beneath the edges of the cap. More SMOKE was streaming out of the hole in the top of the cap that the wire came in through; it looked like SMOKE coming out of the hole in an Indian's teepee.

"Novels\Green Mile, The.txt" 2820 156:I looked at Dean Stanton; he stared wildly back. There was a muffled pop from under the cap, like a pine knot exploding in a hot fire, and now I could see SMOKE coming through the mask, as well, seeping out in little curls.

"Novels\Green Mile, The.txt" 2824 255:At first, when Del began to scream, the witnesses didn't hear him. The rain on the tin roof had swelled to a roar, and the thunder was damned near continuous. But those of us on the platform heard him, all right-choked howls of pain from beneath the SMOKING mask, sounds an animal caught and mangled in a hay-baler might make.

"Novels\Green Mile, The.txt" 283 368:On the other side of the alders there was more open ground stretching back to the woods on the right. On the left was the long, gentle slope of the riverbank. They all stopped where they were, thunderstruck. I think they would have given a good deal to unsee what was before them, and none of them would ever forget it-it was the sort of nightmare, bald and almost SMOKING in the sun, that lies beyond the drapes and furnishings of good and ordinary lives-church suppers, walks along country lanes, honest work, love-kisses in bed. There is a skull in every man, and I tell you there is a skull in the lives of all men. They saw it that day, those men-they saw what sometimes grins behind the smile.

"Novels\Green Mile, The.txt" 2848 337:The mask had peeled away from Delacroix's face enough to reveal features that had gone blacker than John Coffey's. His eyes, now nothing but misshapen globs of white, filmy jelly, had been blown out of their sockets and lay on his cheeks. His eyelashes were gone, and as I looked, the lids themselves caught fire and began to burn. SMOKE puffed from the open V of his shirt. And still the humming of the electricity went on and on, filling my head, vibrating in there. I think it's the sound mad people must hear, that or something like it.

"Novels\Green Mile, The.txt" 2856 206:But it was at least two minutes before it was over, the longest two minutes of my whole life, and through most of it I think Delacroix was conscious. He screamed and jittered and rocked from side to side. SMOKE poured from his nostrils and from a mouth that had gone the purple-black of ripe plums. SMOKE drifted up from his tongue the way SMOKE rises from a hot griddle. All the buttons on his shirt either burst or melted. His undershirt did not quite catch fire, but it charred and SMOKE poured through it and we could smell his chest-hair roasting. Behind us, people were heading for the door like cattle in a stampede. They couldn't get out through it, of course-we were in a damn prison, after all-so they simply clustered around it while Delacroix fried (Now I'm fryin, Old Toot had said when we were rehearsing for Arlen Bitterbuck, I'm a done tom turkey) and the thunder rolled and the rain ran down out of the sky in a perfect fury.

"Novels\Green Mile, The.txt" 2856 300:But it was at least two minutes before it was over, the longest two minutes of my whole life, and through most of it I think Delacroix was conscious. He screamed and jittered and rocked from side to side. SMOKE poured from his nostrils and from a mouth that had gone the purple-black of ripe plums. SMOKE drifted up from his tongue the way SMOKE rises from a hot griddle. All the buttons on his shirt either burst or melted. His undershirt did not quite catch fire, but it charred and SMOKE poured through it and we could smell his chest-hair roasting. Behind us, people were heading for the door like cattle in a stampede. They couldn't get out through it, of course-we were in a damn prison, after all-so they simply clustered around it while Delacroix fried (Now I'm fryin, Old Toot had said when we were rehearsing for Arlen Bitterbuck, I'm a done tom turkey) and the thunder rolled and the rain ran down out of the sky in a perfect fury.

"Novels\Green Mile, The.txt" 2856 341:But it was at least two minutes before it was over, the longest two minutes of my whole life, and through most of it I think Delacroix was conscious. He screamed and jittered and rocked from side to side. SMOKE poured from his nostrils and from a mouth that had gone the purple-black of ripe plums. SMOKE drifted up from his tongue the way SMOKE rises from a hot griddle. All the buttons on his shirt either burst or melted. His undershirt did not quite catch fire, but it charred and SMOKE poured through it and we could smell his chest-hair roasting. Behind us, people were heading for the door like cattle in a stampede. They couldn't get out through it, of course-we were in a damn prison, after all-so they simply clustered around it while Delacroix fried (Now I'm fryin, Old Toot had said when we were rehearsing for Arlen Bitterbuck, I'm a done tom turkey) and the thunder rolled and the rain ran down out of the sky in a perfect fury.

"Novels\Green Mile, The.txt" 2856 486:But it was at least two minutes before it was over, the longest two minutes of my whole life, and through most of it I think Delacroix was conscious. He screamed and jittered and rocked from side to side. SMOKE poured from his nostrils and from a mouth that had gone the purple-black of ripe plums. SMOKE drifted up from his tongue the way SMOKE rises from a hot griddle. All the buttons on his shirt either burst or melted. His undershirt did not quite catch fire, but it charred and SMOKE poured through it and we could smell his chest-hair roasting. Behind us, people were heading for the door like cattle in a stampede. They couldn't get out through it, of course-we were in a damn prison, after all-so they simply clustered around it while Delacroix fried (Now I'm fryin, Old Toot had said when we were rehearsing for Arlen Bitterbuck, I'm a done tom turkey) and the thunder rolled and the rain ran down out of the sky in a perfect fury.

"Novels\Green Mile, The.txt" 2870 115:"Kill it!" I called to Jack when thirty seconds had gone by with nothing but electric jitters coming from the SMOKING, man-shaped lump of charcoal lolling in the electric chair. The hum died immediately, and I nodded to Brutal.

"Novels\Green Mile, The.txt" 2898 197:Too late now, friend, I thought. "Get that man out of here," I said to Dean or Brutal or whoever might be listening-I said it when I was sure I could speak without puking into Delacroix's SMOKING lap. "Get them all back by the door."

"Novels\Green Mile, The.txt" 2959 203:"Sure you are," Dean said, joining us. We formed a rough semicircle around Percy at the foot of the stairs, and even a retreat up the tunnel was blocked; the gurney was behind him, with its load of SMOKING flesh hidden under an old sheet. "You just burned Delacroix alive. If that ain't incompetent, what is?"

"Novels\Green Mile, The.txt" 336 364:I THINK YOU KNOW I didn't find all that out during one hot October afternoon in the soon-to-be-defunct prison library, from one set of old newspapers stacked in a pair of Pomona orange crates, but I learned enough to make it hard for me to sleep that night. When my wife got up at two in the morning and found me sitting in the kitchen, drinking buttermilk and SMOKING home-rolled Bugler, she asked me what was wrong and I lied to her for one of the few times in the long course of our marriage. I said I'd had another run-in with Percy Wetmore. I had, of course, but that wasn't the reason she'd found me sitting up late. I was usually able to leave Percy at the office.

"Novels\Green Mile, The.txt" 3376 424:In any case, I wrote all day yesterday, the words simply flooding out of me, the sunroom of this glorified old folks' home gone, replaced by the storage room at the end of the Green Mile where so many of my problem children took their last sit-me-downs, and the bottom of the stairs which led to the tunnel under the road. That was where Dean and Harry and Brutal and I confronted Percy Wetmore over Eduard Delacroix's SMOKING body and made Percy renew his promise to put in for transfer to the Briar Ridge state mental facility.

"Novels\Green Mile, The.txt" 3434 142:"Mr. Howland," Elaine said, smiling more widely than ever, "is one of only five residents left at Georgia Pines who have permission to SMOKE. That's because he was a resident before the rules changed."

"Novels\Green Mile, The.txt" 3438 101:She reached into the pocket of her blue-and-white-striped dress and pulled two items partway out: a CIGARETTE and a book of matches. "Thief of green, thief of red," she sang in a lilting, funny voice. "Little Ellie's going to wet the bed."

"Novels\Green Mile, The.txt" 3442 58:"Walk an old girl downstairs," she said, putting the CIGARETTE and matches back into her pocket and taking my arm in one of her gnarled hands. We began to walk back down the hall. As we did, I decided to give up and put myself in her hands. She was old and brittle, but not stupid.

"Novels\Green Mile, The.txt" 3448 163:"I haven't had a CIGARETTE in over fifteen years," she said, "but I feel like one this morning. I don't know how many puffs it'll take to set off the SMOKE detector in there, but I intend to find out."

"Novels\Green Mile, The.txt" 3448 22:"I haven't had a CIGARETTE in over fifteen years," she said, "but I feel like one this morning. I don't know how many puffs it'll take to set off the SMOKE detector in there, but I intend to find out."

"Novels\Green Mile, The.txt" 3456 156:"No, because he's in the TV room, watching Good Morning America with about two dozen other folks. And I'm going to make myself scarce as soon as the SMOKE detector turns on the west-wing fire alarm."

"Novels\Green Mile, The.txt" 3462 304:I watched her walk away, moving slowly and stiffly (but she will only use a cane on wet days, and only then if the pain is terrible; it's one of her vanities), and waited. Five minutes went by, then ten, and just as I was deciding she had either lost her courage or discovered that the battery of the SMOKE detector in the toilet was dead, the fire alarm went off in the west wing with a loud, buzzing burr.

"Novels\Green Mile, The.txt" 3882 330:Percy quit yelling for help and just stood there, trembling and looking down at the cover of the crude cartoon book, which showed Popeye and Olive doing it in a creative way I had heard of but never tried. "Oooh, Popeye!" read the balloon over Olive's head. "Uck-uck-uckuck!" read the one over Popeye's. He was still SMOKING his pipe.

"Novels\Green Mile, The.txt" 4148 246:A light closer to the front of the house went on (the kitchen), then the living-room overhead, then the one in the front hall, then the one over the stoop. I watched these forward-marching lights the way a man standing against a cement wall and SMOKING his last CIGARETTE might watch the lockstep approach of the firing squad. Yet I did not entirely acknowledge to myself even then that it was too late until the uneven chop of the Farmall's engine faded into silence, and the doors creaked, and the gravel crunched as Harry and Brutal got out.

"Novels\Green Mile, The.txt" 4148 263:A light closer to the front of the house went on (the kitchen), then the living-room overhead, then the one in the front hall, then the one over the stoop. I watched these forward-marching lights the way a man standing against a cement wall and SMOKING his last CIGARETTE might watch the lockstep approach of the firing squad. Yet I did not entirely acknowledge to myself even then that it was too late until the uneven chop of the Farmall's engine faded into silence, and the doors creaked, and the gravel crunched as Harry and Brutal got out.

"Novels\Green Mile, The.txt" 4271 33:I smelled something hot and saw SMOKE rising from the bottom of the white counterpane which covered her. A portion was turning black, down by the jittering lump that was her right foot. Feeling like a man in a dream, I shook free of Moores's hand and stepped to the night-table. There was a glass of water there, surrounded by three or four bottles of pills which had fallen over during the shake. I picked up the water and dumped it on the place that was SMOKING. There was a hiss.

"Novels\Green Mile, The.txt" 4271 459:I smelled something hot and saw SMOKE rising from the bottom of the white counterpane which covered her. A portion was turning black, down by the jittering lump that was her right foot. Feeling like a man in a dream, I shook free of Moores's hand and stepped to the night-table. There was a glass of water there, surrounded by three or four bottles of pills which had fallen over during the shake. I picked up the water and dumped it on the place that was SMOKING. There was a hiss.

"Novels\Green Mile, The.txt" 4501 133:I walked down to the toilet at the end of the second-floor hall. As I stood inside there, urinating, I happened to glance up at the SMOKE detector on the ceiling. That made me think of Elaine, and how she had distracted Dolan so I could go for my walk and do my little chore the day before. I finished peeing with a grin on my face.

"Novels\Green Mile, The.txt" 4539 206:He took a step toward her, looking both unsure of himself and absolutely furious. I thought it a dangerous combination, but Elaine didn't flinch as he approached. "I bet I know who set off that goddam SMOKE alarm," Dolan said. "Might could have been a certain old bitch with claws for hands. Now get out of here. Me and Paulie haven't finished our little talk, yet."

"Novels\Green Mile, The.txt" 4640 243:Once again we were foothills surrounding a mountain, but now it was a mountain that had suffered a few million years' worth of erosion, one that was blunted and sad. John Coffey moved slowly, breathing through his mouth like an old man who SMOKED too much, but at least he moved.

"Novels\Green Mile, The.txt" 5018 122:We had our conference on Rob McGee's front porch. Both of us were bundled up and chilly, but Mrs. McGee didn't allow SMOKING anywhere in her house. She was a woman ahead of her time. McGee talked awhile. He did it like a man who doesn't in the least enjoy what he's hearing out of his own mouth.

"Novels\Green Mile, The.txt" 5020 148:"It proves nothing, you know that, don't you?" he asked when he was pretty well done. His tone was belligerent, and he poked his home-rolled CIGARETTE at me in an aggressive way as he spoke, but his face was sick. Not all proof is what you see and hear in a court of law, and we both knew it. I have an idea that was the only time in his life when Deputy McGee wished he was as country-dumb as his boss.

"Novels\Green Mile, The.txt" 5030 14:I pitched my CIGARETTE over the porch rail and into the street. Then I stood up. It was going to be a long, cold ride back home, and the sooner I got going the sooner the trip would be done. "That I wish I did know, Deputy McGee," I said, "but I don't. The only thing I know tonight for a fact is that second piece of pie was a mistake."

"Novels\Green Mile, The.txt" 504 209:"Either one smart mouse or hungry as hell," a new voice said. It was Bitterbuck. He had awakened and now stood at the bars of his cell, naked except for a pair of saggy-seated boxer shorts. A home-rolled CIGARETTE poked out from between the second and third knuckles of his right hand, and his iron-gray hair lay over his shoulders-once probably muscular but now beginning to soften-in a pair of braids.

"Novels\Green Mile, The.txt" 5159 224:"No . . . of course not, but . . ." She saw how thin the ice was in that direction and skated in another one. "Lie, then," she said. She looked defiantly at Brutal, then turned that look on me. It was hot enough to SMOKE a hole in newspaper, you'd have said.

"Novels\Green Mile, The.txt" 5226 70:THAT WAS MY NIGHT OFF. I sat in the living room of our little house, SMOKING CIGARETTES, listening to the radio, and watching the dark come up out of the ground to swallow the sky. Television is all right, I've nothing against it, but I don't like how it turns you away from the rest of the world and toward nothing but its own glassy self. In that one way, at least, radio was better.

"Novels\Green Mile, The.txt" 5226 78:THAT WAS MY NIGHT OFF. I sat in the living room of our little house, SMOKING CIGARETTES, listening to the radio, and watching the dark come up out of the ground to swallow the sky. Television is all right, I've nothing against it, but I don't like how it turns you away from the rest of the world and toward nothing but its own glassy self. In that one way, at least, radio was better.

"Novels\Green Mile, The.txt" 5552 245:John surged forward against the chest-strap. For a moment his eyes met mine. They were aware; I was the last thing he saw as we tilted him off the edge of the world. Then he fell against the seatback, the cap coming askew on his head a little, SMOKE-a sort of charry mist-drifting out from beneath it. But on the whole, you know, it was quick. I doubt if it was painless, the way the chair's supporters always claim (it's not an idea even the most rabid of them ever seems to want to investigate personally), but it was quick. The hands were limp again, the formerly bluish-white moons at the base of the fingernails now a deep eggplant hue, a tendril of SMOKE rising off cheeks still wet with salt water from the sponge . . . and his tears.

"Novels\Green Mile, The.txt" 5552 664:John surged forward against the chest-strap. For a moment his eyes met mine. They were aware; I was the last thing he saw as we tilted him off the edge of the world. Then he fell against the seatback, the cap coming askew on his head a little, SMOKE-a sort of charry mist-drifting out from beneath it. But on the whole, you know, it was quick. I doubt if it was painless, the way the chair's supporters always claim (it's not an idea even the most rabid of them ever seems to want to investigate personally), but it was quick. The hands were limp again, the formerly bluish-white moons at the base of the fingernails now a deep eggplant hue, a tendril of SMOKE rising off cheeks still wet with salt water from the sponge . . . and his tears.

"Novels\Gwendy's Button Box.txt" 1141 263:"I just can't decide whether to go strapless and dressy or long and flowy and summery." She tosses the catalog on the floor and gets up. "Here, I'll let you choose." She walks to the closet, opens the door...and smells him before she sees him: beer, CIGARETTES, and sweat-funk.

"Novels\Gwendy's Button Box.txt" 505 344:Gwendy has considered a number of possible targets for the red button. She hates that word-target-but it fits, and she can't think of anything better. Among her initial options: the Castle Rock dump, a stretch of trashy, pulped-over woods beyond the railroad tracks, and the old abandoned Phillips 66 gas station where kids hang out and SMOKE dope.

"Novels\Lisey's Story.txt" 1255 318:"But the little idiot from Lisbon Falls went ahead and married him anyway," she said, laughing, then took her foot off the gas. Here was Patel's Market on the left-Texaco self-serve pumps on clean black asphalt under blinding white lights-and she felt an amazingly strong urge to pull in and grab a pack of CIGARETTES. Good old Salem Lights. And while she was there, she could get some of those Nissen doughnuts Manda liked, the squash ones, and maybe some HoHos for herself.

"Novels\Lisey's Story.txt" 1282 115:"Come on, Darl," Lisa said soothingly, and here was a revelation: she didn't really want CIGARETTES at all. CIGARETTES were yesterday's bad habit. CIGARETTES were as dead as her late husband, collapsed at a reading two years ago and died shortly thereafter in a Kentucky hospital, bool, the end. What she wanted to be holding wasn't a Salem Light but the handle of that silver spade.

"Novels\Lisey's Story.txt" 1282 156:"Come on, Darl," Lisa said soothingly, and here was a revelation: she didn't really want CIGARETTES at all. CIGARETTES were yesterday's bad habit. CIGARETTES were as dead as her late husband, collapsed at a reading two years ago and died shortly thereafter in a Kentucky hospital, bool, the end. What she wanted to be holding wasn't a Salem Light but the handle of that silver spade.

"Novels\Lisey's Story.txt" 1282 96:"Come on, Darl," Lisa said soothingly, and here was a revelation: she didn't really want CIGARETTES at all. CIGARETTES were yesterday's bad habit. CIGARETTES were as dead as her late husband, collapsed at a reading two years ago and died shortly thereafter in a Kentucky hospital, bool, the end. What she wanted to be holding wasn't a Salem Light but the handle of that silver spade.

"Novels\Lisey's Story.txt" 1470 20:He'd snuffed his CIGARETTE and put the ashtray on the table next to the bed. He had taken her face in his hands, covering her ears and shutting out the whole world for a minute with the palms of his hands. He kissed her lips. Then he took his hands away so she could hear him. Scott Landon always wanted to be heard.

"Novels\Lisey's Story.txt" 1764 2758:She had turned off the TV, gone into the kitchen with her glass of wine, and poured it down the sink. She no longer wanted it. It now tasted sour in her mouth as well as harsh. You're turning it sour, she thought. That's how pissed-off you are. She didn't doubt it. There's an old radio placed precariously on the window-ledge over the sink, an old Philco with a cracked case. It had been Dandy's; he kept it out in the barn and listened to it while he was a-choring. It's the only thing of his Lisey still has, and she keeps it in the window because it's the only place where it will pick up local stations. Jodotha gave it to him one Christmas, and it was secondhand even then, but when it was unwrapped and he saw what it was, he grinned until it seemed his face would crack and how he thanked her! Over and over! It was ever Jodi who was his favorite, and it was Jodi who sat at the dinner-table one Sunday and announced to her parents-hell, announced to all of them-that she was pregnant and the boy who'd gotten her that way had run off to enlist in the Navy. She wanted to know if maybe Aunt Cynthia over in Wolfeboro, New Hampshire, could take her in until the baby was put out for adoption-that was how Jodi said it, as though it were an old china cabinet at a yard sale. Her news had been greeted by an unaccustomed silence at the dinner-table. For one of the few times in Lisey's memory-maybe for the only time in Lisey's memory-the constant chattering conversation of knives and forks against plates as seven hungry Debushers raced the roast to the bone had stopped. At last Good Ma had asked, Have you talked to God about this, Jodotha? And Jodi-right back atcha, Good Ma: It was Don Cloutier got me in the family way, not God. That was when Dad left the table and his favorite daughter behind without a word or backward look. A few moments later Lisey had heard the sound of his radio coming from the barn, very faint. Three weeks later he'd had the first of his strokes. Now Jodi's gone (although not yet to Miami, that is years in the future) and it's Lisey who bears the brunt of Darla's outraged calls, little Lisey, and why? Because Canty is on Darla's side and calling Jodi does neither of them any good. Jodi is different from the other Debusher girls. Darla calls her cold, Canty calls her selfish, and they both call her uncaring, but Lisey thinks it's something else-something better and finer. Of the five girls, Jodi is the one true survivor, completely immune to the fumes of guilt rising from the old family teepee. Once Granny D generated those fumes, then their mother, but Darla and Canty stand ready to take over, already understanding that if you call that poisonous, addictive SMOKE "duty," nobody tells you to put the fire out. As for Lisey, she only wishes she were more like Jodi, that when Darla calls she could laugh and say Blow it out your ass, Darla-darlin; you made your bed, so go on and sleep in it.

"Novels\Lisey's Story.txt" 1952 47:Scott jerks his chin at his breast pocket. "CIGARETTE me, babyluv."

"Novels\Lisey's Story.txt" 1954 18:"Should you be SMOKING with your hand all-"

"Novels\Lisey's Story.txt" 1958 112:So she takes his CIGARETTES out of his breast pocket and puts one in his mouth and lights it for him. Fragrant SMOKE (she will always love that smell) rises in a blue stack toward the kitchen's sagging, water-stained ceiling. She wants to ask him more about bools, blood-bools in particular. She is starting to get a picture.

"Novels\Lisey's Story.txt" 1958 18:So she takes his CIGARETTES out of his breast pocket and puts one in his mouth and lights it for him. Fragrant SMOKE (she will always love that smell) rises in a blue stack toward the kitchen's sagging, water-stained ceiling. She wants to ask him more about bools, blood-bools in particular. She is starting to get a picture.

"Novels\Lisey's Story.txt" 1962 107:"Nope." He's got the CIGARETTE in the corner of his mouth and one eye's squinted shut against the SMOKE. "Mumma died havin me. Daddy always said I killed her by bein a sleepyhead and gettin too big." He laughs at this as though it's the funniest joke in the world, but it's also a nervous laugh, a kid's laugh at a dirty joke he doesn't quite understand.

"Novels\Lisey's Story.txt" 1962 28:"Nope." He's got the CIGARETTE in the corner of his mouth and one eye's squinted shut against the SMOKE. "Mumma died havin me. Daddy always said I killed her by bein a sleepyhead and gettin too big." He laughs at this as though it's the funniest joke in the world, but it's also a nervous laugh, a kid's laugh at a dirty joke he doesn't quite understand.

"Novels\Lisey's Story.txt" 1970 236:"But Daddy said it wasn't my fault I stayed asleep when it was time to come out. He said she should have slap me awake and she didn't so I growed too big and she got kilt for it, bool the end." He laughs. The ash falls off his CIGARETTE onto the counter. He doesn't seem to notice. He looks at his hand in the murky tea but says no more.

"Novels\Lisey's Story.txt" 1976 17:"Mmmm?" The CIGARETTE is already three quarters of the way down to what looks like a filter but is, on a Herbert Tareyton, only a kind of mouthpiece.

"Novels\Lisey's Story.txt" 1980 233:"Blood-bools, sure. For when we didn't dare or to let out the badgunky. Paul made good bools. Fun bools. Like treasure hunts. Follow the clues. 'Bool! The End!' and get a prize. Like candy or an RC." The ash falls off his CIGARETTE again. Scott's eyes are on the bloody tea in the basin. "But Daddy gives a kiss." He looks at her and she suddenly understands he knows everything she has been too timid to ask and is answering as well as he can. As well as he dares. "That's Daddy's prize. A kiss when the hurting stops."

"Novels\Lisey's Story.txt" 2062 153:"Yes, but . . . CIGARETTE me, babyluv." His CIGARETTES are on the floor, in the turtle ashtray she keeps for him. She hands him the ashtray, puts a CIGARETTE in his mouth, and lights it for him. He resumes. "But you also care about whether or not I brush my teeth-"

"Novels\Lisey's Story.txt" 2062 19:"Yes, but . . . CIGARETTE me, babyluv." His CIGARETTES are on the floor, in the turtle ashtray she keeps for him. She hands him the ashtray, puts a CIGARETTE in his mouth, and lights it for him. He resumes. "But you also care about whether or not I brush my teeth-"

"Novels\Lisey's Story.txt" 2062 49:"Yes, but . . . CIGARETTE me, babyluv." His CIGARETTES are on the floor, in the turtle ashtray she keeps for him. She hands him the ashtray, puts a CIGARETTE in his mouth, and lights it for him. He resumes. "But you also care about whether or not I brush my teeth-"

"Novels\Lisey's Story.txt" 2074 18:He stubs out the CIGARETTE a quarter SMOKED. "It means that when you look at me you see me top to bottom and side to side and to you everything weighs the same."

"Novels\Lisey's Story.txt" 2074 38:He stubs out the CIGARETTE a quarter SMOKED. "It means that when you look at me you see me top to bottom and side to side and to you everything weighs the same."

"Novels\Lisey's Story.txt" 2096 190:She supposes she does. And she's too moved by it to agree in the dead of night to something she might regret in the morning. "We'll talk about it tomorrow," she says. She takes his SMOKING gear and puts it on the floor again. "Ask me then, if you still want to."

"Novels\Lisey's Story.txt" 2712 38:a tree, a special tree, and he lit a CIGARETTE and said there was something he had to tell her, something hard, and if it changed her mind about marrying him he'd be sorry . . . hell, he'd be broken-smucking-hearted, but-

"Novels\Lisey's Story.txt" 2759 286:Mr. Patel had been keeping store-first as an employee in his father's New Jersey market, then as owner of his own-for nearly forty years, and he knew better than to comment on apparent teetotalers who suddenly began buying booze or apparent non-smokers who suddenly began buying CIGARETTES. He simply found this lady's particular poison in his well-stocked racks of the stuff, put it on the counter, and commented on the beauty of the day. He affected not to notice Mrs. Landon's expression of near shock at the price of her poison. It only showed how long her pause had been between cessation and resumption. At least this one could afford her poison; Mr. Patel had customers who took food out of their children's mouths to buy this stuff.

"Novels\Lisey's Story.txt" 276 183:She had turned her head back the other way. And outside the motel room the dogs-every smucking dog in Nashville, it sounded like-had barked as the sun went down in orange August SMOKE, making a hole for the night. As a child she had been told by her mother there was nothing to fear in the dark, and she had believed it to be true. She had been downright gleeful in the dark, even when it was lit by lightning and ripped by thunder. While her years-older sister Manda cowered under her covers, little Lisey sat atop her own bed, sucking her thumb and demanding that someone bring the flashlight and read her a story. She had told this to Scott once and he had taken her hands and said, "You be my light, then. Be my light, Lisey." And she had tried, but-

"Novels\Lisey's Story.txt" 2774 243:She tore the top off one of her new packs and slipped a Salem Light between her lips for the first time in . . . when was the last time she'd slipped? Five years ago? Seven? When the BMW's lighter popped, she applied it to the tip of her CIGARETTE and took a cautious drag of mentholated SMOKE. She coughed it back out at once, eyes watering. She tried another drag. That one went a little better, but now her head was starting to swim. A third drag. Not coughing at all now, just feeling like she was going to faint. If she fell forward against the steering wheel, the horn would start blaring and Mr. Patel would rush out to see what was wrong. Maybe he'd be in time to keep her from burning her stupid self up-was that kind of death immolation or defenestration? Scott would have known, just as he'd known who had done the black version of "ShBoom"-The Chords-and who'd owned the pool hall in The Last Picture Show-Sam the Lion.

"Novels\Lisey's Story.txt" 2774 293:She tore the top off one of her new packs and slipped a Salem Light between her lips for the first time in . . . when was the last time she'd slipped? Five years ago? Seven? When the BMW's lighter popped, she applied it to the tip of her CIGARETTE and took a cautious drag of mentholated SMOKE. She coughed it back out at once, eyes watering. She tried another drag. That one went a little better, but now her head was starting to swim. A third drag. Not coughing at all now, just feeling like she was going to faint. If she fell forward against the steering wheel, the horn would start blaring and Mr. Patel would rush out to see what was wrong. Maybe he'd be in time to keep her from burning her stupid self up-was that kind of death immolation or defenestration? Scott would have known, just as he'd known who had done the black version of "ShBoom"-The Chords-and who'd owned the pool hall in The Last Picture Show-Sam the Lion.

"Novels\Lisey's Story.txt" 2778 16:She butted the CIGARETTE in the previously immaculate ashtray. She couldn't remember the name of the motel in Nashville, either, the one she'd gone back to when she'd finally left the hospital ("Yea, you returneth like a drunkard to his wine and a dog to its spew," she heard the Scott in her head intone), only that the desk clerk had given her one of the crappy rooms in back with nothing to look at but a high board fence. It seemed to her that every dog in Nashville had been behind it, barking and barking and barking. Those dogs made the long-ago Pluto seem like a piker. She had lain in one of the twin beds knowing she'd never get to sleep, that every time she got close she'd see Blondie swiveling the muzzle of his cunting little gun toward Scott's heart, would hear Blondie saying I got to end all this ding-dong for the freesias, and snap wide-awake again. But eventually she had gone to sleep, had gotten just enough to stagger through the next day on-three hours, maybe four-and how had she managed that remarkable feat? With the help of the silver spade, that was how. She'd laid it on the floor next to the bed where she could reach down and touch it any old time she began to think she had been too late and too slow. Or that Scott would take a turn for the worse in the night. And that was something else she hadn't thought of in all the years since. Lisey reached back and touched the spade now. She lit another Salem Light with her free hand and made herself remember going in to see him the next morning, climbing up to the third-floor ICU wing in the already sweltering heat because there was a sign in front of the only two patient elevators on that side of the hospital reading OUT OF SERVICE. She thought about what had happened as she approached his room. It was silly, really, just one of those

"Novels\Lisey's Story.txt" 2863 682:Lisey stirred like a woman awaking from a doze, looked out the driver's-side window of her BMW, and saw the shadow of her car had grown noticeably longer on Mr. Patel's clean black pavement. There was not one butt in her ashtray, or two, but three. She looked out through the windshield and saw a face looking back at her from one of the small windows at the rear of the Market, in what had to be the storage area. It was gone before she could tell if it was Mr. Patel's wife or one of his two teenage daughters, but she had time to mark the expression: curiosity or concern. Either way it was time to move on. Lisey backed out of her space, glad she had at least butted her CIGARETTES in her own ashtray instead of tossing them out onto that weirdly clean asphalt, and once again turned for home.

"Novels\Lisey's Story.txt" 2893 61:Lisey opened the glove compartment and her unopened pack of CIGARETTES fell out. She rummaged until she came up with the little disposable flashlight that she had transferred from the glove compartment of her last car, a Lexus she had driven for four years. It had been a fine car, that Lexus. She had only traded it because she associated it with Scott, who called it Lisey's Sexy Lexus. It was surprising how much small things could hurt when someone close to you died; talk about the princess and the smucking pea. Now she only hoped there was some juice left in the flashlight.

"Novels\Lisey's Story.txt" 2911 466:Lisey felt no fear now, and her momentary lapse into amusement had been replaced by hard clean rage. She left the BMW parked in front of the locked barn doors and strode stilt-legged to the house, wondering if she would find her new friend's missive at the kitchen door or the one in front. She never doubted there would be a missive, and she was right. It was in the back, a white business-length envelope sticking out from between the screen door and the jamb. CIGARETTE clamped between her front teeth, Lisey tore the envelope open and unfolded a single sheet of paper. The message was typewritten.

"Novels\Lisey's Story.txt" 2923 270:Lisey looked at the Z which was "Zack McCool"'s final bit of communication to her and thought of Zorro, galloping through the night with his cape billowing out behind him. Her eyes were watering. She thought for a moment that she was crying, then realized it was SMOKE. The CIGARETTE between her teeth had burned down to the filter. She spat it to the brickwork of the walk and ground it grimly beneath her heel. She looked up at the high board fence that went all the way around their backyard . . . though solely for the sake of symmetry, as their only neighbors were on the south side, to Lisey's left as she stood by her kitchen door with "Zack McCool"'s infuriating, poorly typed missive-his smucking ultimatum-in her hand. It was the Galloways on the other side of the board fence, and the Galloways had half a dozen cats-what were called "barncats" in this neck of the woods. They sometimes foraged in the Landons' yard, especially when no one was home. Lisey had no doubt it was a Galloway barncat in her mailbox, just as she had no doubt it had been Zack in the PT Cruiser that had passed her not long after she finished locking up and left Amanda's house. Mr. PT Cruiser had been heading east, coming almost directly out of the lowering sun, so she hadn't been able to get a good look at him. The bastard had even had the balls to tip her a wave. Howdy, there, Missus, left you a little something in your mailbox! And she had waved back, because that was what you did out here in Sticksville.

"Novels\Lisey's Story.txt" 2923 281:Lisey looked at the Z which was "Zack McCool"'s final bit of communication to her and thought of Zorro, galloping through the night with his cape billowing out behind him. Her eyes were watering. She thought for a moment that she was crying, then realized it was SMOKE. The CIGARETTE between her teeth had burned down to the filter. She spat it to the brickwork of the walk and ground it grimly beneath her heel. She looked up at the high board fence that went all the way around their backyard . . . though solely for the sake of symmetry, as their only neighbors were on the south side, to Lisey's left as she stood by her kitchen door with "Zack McCool"'s infuriating, poorly typed missive-his smucking ultimatum-in her hand. It was the Galloways on the other side of the board fence, and the Galloways had half a dozen cats-what were called "barncats" in this neck of the woods. They sometimes foraged in the Landons' yard, especially when no one was home. Lisey had no doubt it was a Galloway barncat in her mailbox, just as she had no doubt it had been Zack in the PT Cruiser that had passed her not long after she finished locking up and left Amanda's house. Mr. PT Cruiser had been heading east, coming almost directly out of the lowering sun, so she hadn't been able to get a good look at him. The bastard had even had the balls to tip her a wave. Howdy, there, Missus, left you a little something in your mailbox! And she had waved back, because that was what you did out here in Sticksville.

"Novels\Lisey's Story.txt" 2946 125:Lisey bent and peered into the mailbox. The cat had come about halfway and was easy enough to see now. It was a nondescript SMOKE color, a Galloway barncat for sure. She clicked the tongs together twice-for luck-and was about to reach in again when she heard a car approaching from the east. She turned with a sinking in her belly. She didn't just think it was Zack returning in his sporty little PT Cruiser; she knew it. He'd pull over and lean out and ask her if she wanted a little hep with that. He'd call it hep. Missus, he'd say, do you want a little hep with that. But it was some kind of SUV, and a woman behind the wheel.

"Novels\Lisey's Story.txt" 2990 162:"My late husband's papers," Lisey said, spinning her opened pack of Salem Lights on the coffee table in front of her. She realized that she once again had CIGARETTES and no fire. Perhaps it was a warning that she should give the habit up again, after all, before it could settle its little yellow hooks back into her brain stem. She thought of adding I'm sure he'll want to talk to me and didn't bother. His wife would know that.

"Novels\Lisey's Story.txt" 2996 62:So she sat there, mind a careful blank, spinning her pack of CIGARETTES. Around and around it went.

"Novels\Lisey's Story.txt" 3014 261:"Tonight he left a dead cat in my mailbox and a letter stuck in my door, and the letter had a telephone number on it, this number, so don't tell me you don't know what I'm talking about when I know you do!" On the last word, Lisey batted the pack of CIGARETTES with the side of her hand. Batted it like a badminton birdie. It flew all the way across the room, shedding Salem Lights as it went. She was breathing hard and fast, but with her mouth wide open. She didn't want Woodbody to hear her doing it and mistake her rage for fear.

"Novels\Lisey's Story.txt" 3026 144:There was a click, then silence. Lisey wished she had used the cordless phone in the kitchen; she wanted to pace around, maybe snag one of her CIGARETTES and light it off a stove-burner. But maybe this was better. This way she couldn't blow off any of her rage. This way she had to stay strapped so tight it hurt.

"Novels\Lisey's Story.txt" 3095 429:There was no need to use one of the stove-burners, after all. There were long decorative matches for lighting the fireplace in a brass cuspidor next to the fire-tools. She picked a Salem Light up off the floor and scraped one of the long matches alight on a hearthstone. She took one of the ceramic vases for a temporary ashtray, laying aside the flowers that had been in it and reflecting (not for the first time, either) that SMOKING was one of the world's nastier habits. Then she went back to the sofa, sat down, and picked up the phone. "Tell me what happened."

"Novels\Lisey's Story.txt" 313 300:Lisey bent down until her nose was almost touching the yellowed photo from the Nashville American. There was a magnifying glass in the wide center drawer of Scott's main desk. She had seen it on many occasions, its place preserved between the world's oldest unopened package of Herbert Tareyton CIGARETTES and the world's oldest book of unredeemed S&H Green Stamps. She could have gotten it but didn't bother. Didn't need any magnification to confirm what she was seeing: half a brown loafer. Half a cordovan loafer, actually, with a slightly built-up heel. She remembered those loafers very well. How comfortable they'd been. And she'd certainly moved in them that day, hadn't she? She hadn't seen the happy cop, or the dazed young man (Tony, she was sure, of Toneh heah well be rahtin it up fame), nor had she noticed Dashmiel, the southern-fried chickenshit, once the cheese hit the grater. All of them had ceased to matter to her, the whole smucking bunch of them. By then she had only one thing on her mind, and that had been Scott. He was surely no more than ten feet away, but she had known that if she didn't get to him at once, the crowd around him would keep her out . . . and if she were kept out, the crowd might kill him. Kill him with its dangerous love and voracious concern. And what the smuck, Violet, he might have been dying, anyway. If he was, she'd meant to be there when he stepped out. When he Went, as the folks of her mother and father's generation would have said.

"Novels\Lisey's Story.txt" 3188 136:She paused with her fingers curled around the handle of the BMW's rear door. She stood that way for maybe five seconds, then let her CIGARETTE drop from her free hand and stamped out the butt. There was someone standing in the deep angle where the barn and the toolshed met. Standing there very tall and still.

"Novels\Lisey's Story.txt" 3240 86:"We have a wooden box-thingy attached to the house," Lisey said. She picked up a CIGARETTE, considered it, put it back down again. "My husband had a word for it-my husband had a word for just about everything-but I can't remember for the life of me what it was. Anyway, it keeps the raccoons out of the swill. I put the cat's body in a garbage bag and put the bag in the orlop." Now that she wasn't struggling to find it, Scott's word came effortlessly to mind.

"Novels\Lisey's Story.txt" 3287 31:Ashtrays on stands from their SMOKING days . . .

"Novels\Lisey's Story.txt" 3420 234:Lisey, who rarely used the little cell phone at all, led Deputy Alston to her BMW. The gadget turned out to be only half-charged, but the cord was in the console compartment between the seats. Deputy Alston reached out to unplug the CIGARETTE lighter, saw the light scattering of ashes around it, and paused.

"Novels\Lisey's Story.txt" 3424 88:"Probably wise, ma'am," Deputy Alston said, unsmiling. He removed the Beemer's CIGARETTE lighter and plugged in the phone. Lisey had had no idea you could do that; when she thought of it at all, she'd always recharged the little Motorola phone in the kitchen. Two years, and she still hadn't quite gotten used to the idea that there was no man around to read the instructions and puzzle out the meanings of Fig 1 and Fig 2.

"Novels\Lisey's Story.txt" 3471 1252:The house on the Bergenstrasse Ring Road is drafty in the fall, cold in the winter, and leaky when the damp and hungover excuse for a spring finally comes. Both showers are balky. The downstairs toilet is a chuckling horror. The landlord makes promises, then stops taking Scott's calls. Finally Scott hires a firm of German lawyers at a paralyzing expense-mostly, he tells Lisey, because he cannot stand to let the sonofabitching landlord get away with it, cannot stand to let him win. The sonofabitching landlord, who sometimes winks at Lisey in a knowing way when Scott isn't looking (she has never dared to tell Scott, who has no sense of humor when it comes to the sonofabitching landlord), does not win. Under threat of legal action, he makes some repairs: the roof stops leaking and the downstairs toilet stops its horrible midnight laughter. He actually replaces the furnace. A blue-eyed miracle. Then he shows up one night, drunk, and screams at Scott in a mixture of German and English, calling Scott the American Communist boiling-potter, a phrase her husband treasures to the end of his days. Scott, far from sober himself (in Germany Scott and sober rarely even exchange postcards), at one point offers the sonofabitching landlord a CIGARETTE and tells him Goinzee on! Goinzee on, mein Führer, bitte, bitte! That year Scott is drinking, Scott is joking, and Scott is siccing lawyers on sonofabitching landlords, but Scott isn't writing. Not writing because he's always drunk or always drunk because he's not writing? Lisey doesn't know. It's sixenze of one, half a dozenze of the other. By May, when his teaching gig finally, mercifully ends, she no longer cares. By May she only wants to be someplace where conversation in the supermarket or the shops along the high street doesn't sound to her like the manimals in that movie The Island of Dr. Moreau. She knows that's not fair, but she also knows she hasn't been able to make a single friend in Bremen, not even among the faculty wives who speak English, and her husband is gone too much at the University. She spends too much time in the drafty house, wrapped in a shawl but still usually cold, almost always lonely and miserable, watching television programs she doesn't understand and listening to trucks rumble around the rotary up the hill. The big ones, the Peugeots, make the floors shake. The fact that Scott is also miserable, that his classes are going badly and his lectures are near-disasters, doesn't help at all. Why in God's name would it? Whoever said misery loves company was full of shite. Whatever can go wrong will go wrong, however . . . that guy was onto something.

"Novels\Lisey's Story.txt" 3769 944:Despite his profession of hunger, Scott eats only half his sandwich and a few bites of salad. The raisin pie he doesn't touch at all, but he drinks more than his share of the wine. Lisey eats with better appetite, but not quite as heartily as she thought she would. There's a worm of unease gnawing at her. Whatever has been on Scott's mind, the telling will be hard for him and maybe even harder for her. What makes her most uneasy is that she can't think what it might be. Some kind of trouble with the law back in the rural western Pennsylvania town where he grew up? Did he perhaps father a child? Was there maybe even some kind of teenage marriage, a quickie job that ended in a divorce or an annulment two months later? Is it Paul, the brother who died? Whatever it is, it's coming now. Sure as rain follows thunder, Good Ma would have said. He looks at his slice of pie, seems to think about taking a bite, then pulls out his CIGARETTES instead.

"Novels\Lisey's Story.txt" 3779 17:He draws on his CIGARETTE and jets SMOKE from his nostrils. It rises in a blue-gray fume. He turns back to her. His face is very pale, his eyes enormous. Like jewels, she thinks, fascinated. For the first and only time she sees him not as handsome (which he is not, although in the right light he can be striking) but as beautiful, the way some women are beautiful. This fascinates her, and for some reason horrifies her.

"Novels\Lisey's Story.txt" 3779 36:He draws on his CIGARETTE and jets SMOKE from his nostrils. It rises in a blue-gray fume. He turns back to her. His face is very pale, his eyes enormous. Like jewels, she thinks, fascinated. For the first and only time she sees him not as handsome (which he is not, although in the right light he can be striking) but as beautiful, the way some women are beautiful. This fascinates her, and for some reason horrifies her.

"Novels\Lisey's Story.txt" 3781 615:"I love you too much to lie to you, Lisey. I love you with all that passes for my heart. I suspect that kind of all-out love becomes a burden to a woman in time, but it's the only kind I have to give. I think we're going to be quite a wealthy couple in terms of money, but I'll almost certainly be an emotional pauper all my life. I've got the money coming, but as for the rest I've got just enough for you, and I won't ever dirty it or dilute it with lies. Not with the words I say, not with the ones I hold back." He sighs-a long, shuddering sound-and places the heel of the hand holding the CIGARETTE against the center of his brow, as if his head hurts. Then he takes it away and looks at her again. "No kids, Lisey. We can't. I can't."

"Novels\Lisey's Story.txt" 3807 47:"I suppose. Sure. In a way." He stubs his CIGARETTE in the grass. He takes a long time, and doesn't look at her while he does it. "It's complicated. You have to remember how terrible I felt that night, a lot of things had been piling up-"

"Novels\Lisey's Story.txt" 3827 288:Scott, meanwhile, has lit another Herbert Tareyton with hands that are shaking just the smallest bit. "I'll tell you a story," he says. "Just one story, and let it stand for all the stories of a certain man's childhood. Because stories are what I do." He looks at the rising CIGARETTE SMOKE. "I net them from the pool. I've told you about the pool, right?"

"Novels\Lisey's Story.txt" 3827 298:Scott, meanwhile, has lit another Herbert Tareyton with hands that are shaking just the smallest bit. "I'll tell you a story," he says. "Just one story, and let it stand for all the stories of a certain man's childhood. Because stories are what I do." He looks at the rising CIGARETTE SMOKE. "I net them from the pool. I've told you about the pool, right?"

"Novels\Lisey's Story.txt" 4481 26:Scott lying next to her, SMOKING, watching the SMOKE from his CIGARETTE go up and up, to that place where it disappeared. The way the stripes on a barber-pole disappear. The way Scott himself sometimes disappeared.

"Novels\Lisey's Story.txt" 4481 48:Scott lying next to her, SMOKING, watching the SMOKE from his CIGARETTE go up and up, to that place where it disappeared. The way the stripes on a barber-pole disappear. The way Scott himself sometimes disappeared.

"Novels\Lisey's Story.txt" 4481 63:Scott lying next to her, SMOKING, watching the SMOKE from his CIGARETTE go up and up, to that place where it disappeared. The way the stripes on a barber-pole disappear. The way Scott himself sometimes disappeared.

"Novels\Lisey's Story.txt" 4491 35:A long pause while he watched the SMOKE rise and stack and disappear, leaving only its trail of sweetish-bitter fragrance behind. At last, flat: Daddy cut deep.

"Novels\Lisey's Story.txt" 4760 502:The floor is cold even through the flannel of her nightgown and the flannel of her longjohns and the silk panties beneath the longies. This room, like all of them upstairs, has baseboard heat that she can feel if she stretches out the hand that isn't holding Scott's, but it's small comfort. The endlessly laboring furnace sends it up, the baseboard heaters send it out, it creeps about six inches across the floorboards . . . and then, poof! Gone. Like the stripes on the barber's pole. Like CIGARETTE SMOKE when it rises. Like husbands, sometimes.

"Novels\Lisey's Story.txt" 4760 512:The floor is cold even through the flannel of her nightgown and the flannel of her longjohns and the silk panties beneath the longies. This room, like all of them upstairs, has baseboard heat that she can feel if she stretches out the hand that isn't holding Scott's, but it's small comfort. The endlessly laboring furnace sends it up, the baseboard heaters send it out, it creeps about six inches across the floorboards . . . and then, poof! Gone. Like the stripes on the barber's pole. Like CIGARETTE SMOKE when it rises. Like husbands, sometimes.

"Novels\Lisey's Story.txt" 4795 127:He's lying in bed next to her, the sheet pulled up to his hips, so she can see the beginning curl of his pubic hair. He's SMOKING what he calls the always fabulous post-coital CIGARETTE, and the only light in the room is cast down on them by the lamp on his side of the bed. In the rose-dusty glow of that lamp the SMOKE rises and disappears into the dark, making her wonder briefly

"Novels\Lisey's Story.txt" 4795 181:He's lying in bed next to her, the sheet pulled up to his hips, so she can see the beginning curl of his pubic hair. He's SMOKING what he calls the always fabulous post-coital CIGARETTE, and the only light in the room is cast down on them by the lamp on his side of the bed. In the rose-dusty glow of that lamp the SMOKE rises and disappears into the dark, making her wonder briefly

"Novels\Lisey's Story.txt" 4795 320:He's lying in bed next to her, the sheet pulled up to his hips, so she can see the beginning curl of his pubic hair. He's SMOKING what he calls the always fabulous post-coital CIGARETTE, and the only light in the room is cast down on them by the lamp on his side of the bed. In the rose-dusty glow of that lamp the SMOKE rises and disappears into the dark, making her wonder briefly

"Novels\Lisey's Story.txt" 4809 316:creeping into his voice. "Me n Paul, we 'us home-schooled. Daddy called public school the Donkey Corral." On the night-table beside the lamp is an ashtray sitting on top of his copy of Slaughterhouse-Five (Scott takes a book with him everywhere he goes, there are absolutely no exceptions), and he flicks his CIGARETTE into it. Outside, the wind gusts and the old inn creaks.

"Novels\Lisey's Story.txt" 4813 66:She trails off. There's a very long pause while he watches the SMOKE from his CIGARETTE rise out of the lamp's beam and disappear. When he speaks again, his voice is dry and flat and certain. "Daddy cut deep."

"Novels\Lisey's Story.txt" 4813 81:She trails off. There's a very long pause while he watches the SMOKE from his CIGARETTE rise out of the lamp's beam and disappear. When he speaks again, his voice is dry and flat and certain. "Daddy cut deep."

"Novels\Lisey's Story.txt" 4827 26:"No." He crushes his CIGARETTE out in the ashtray sitting on top of the book.

"Novels\Lisey's Story.txt" 4843 189:"But it wasn't murder. They would have called it that if he'd ever been tried for it in court, but I was there and I know it wasn't." He pauses. She thinks he'll light a fresh CIGARETTE, but he doesn't. Outside the wind gusts and the old building groans. For a moment the furniture brightens, just a little, and then the gloom returns. "Daddy could have murdered him, sure. Lots of times. I know that. There were times he would have, if I hadn't been there to help, but in the end that isn't how it was. You know what euthanasia means, Lisey?"

"Novels\Lisey's Story.txt" 5399 27:Now he does light another CIGARETTE, and in the matchglow his face is honestly curious. "What did you see, Lisey? Do you remember?"

"Novels\Lisey's Story.txt" 552 410:"I got to end all this ding-dong," says Gerd Allen Cole with perfect fretful clarity. "I got to end all this ding-dong for the freesias." And Lisey is suddenly sure that once Scott is dead, once the damage is done, Blondie will either kill himself or pretend to try. For the time being, however, he has this business to finish. The business of the writer. Blondie turns his wrist slightly so that the SMOKING barrel of the Lady-smith .22 points at the left side of Scott's chest; in Lisey-time the move is smooth and slow. He has done the lung; now he'll do the heart. Lisey knows she can't allow that to happen. If her husband is to have any chance at all, this lethal goofball mustn't be allowed to put any more lead into him.

"Novels\Lisey's Story.txt" 5527 21:He crushed his half-SMOKED CIGARETTE in the ashtray and took her lightly by her upper arms, his eyes dancing with excitement and good humor-how well she remembers the feel of his fingers on her flesh that night. "You've got a yard of guts, little Lisey-I'll tell the world that. Hold on and let's see what happens."

"Novels\Lisey's Story.txt" 5527 28:He crushed his half-SMOKED CIGARETTE in the ashtray and took her lightly by her upper arms, his eyes dancing with excitement and good humor-how well she remembers the feel of his fingers on her flesh that night. "You've got a yard of guts, little Lisey-I'll tell the world that. Hold on and let's see what happens."

"Novels\Lisey's Story.txt" 5898 213:Yes, Scott would know. She thought of him in all the motel rooms, bent over a portable typewriter (SCOTT AND LISEY, THE EARLY YEARS!) and then later, with his face lit by the glow of his laptop. Sometimes with a CIGARETTE smoldering in an ashtray beside him, sometimes with a drink, always with the curl of hair falling forgotten across his forehead. She thought of him lying on top of her in this bed, of chasing her full-tilt through that awful house in Bremen (SCOTT AND LISEY IN GERMANY!), both of them naked and laughing, horny but not really happy, while trucks and cars rumbled around and around the traffic-circle up the street. She thought of his arms around her, all the times his arms had been around her, and the smell of him, and the sandpaper rasp his cheek made against hers, and she thought she would sell her soul, yes, her immortal smucking soul, for no more than the sound of him down the hall slamming the door and then yelling Hey, Lisey, I'm home-everything the same?

"Novels\Lisey's Story.txt" 6234 756:For a moment she feels Boo'ya Moon shimmer, but then the music in her mind-music that was for a moment so clear and happy-fades. Lisey opens her eyes. She's desperate to see home, but the big gray rock and the path leading away through the sweetheart trees are both still there. Those strange stars still blaze down, only now the laughers are silent and the harsh whispering of the bushes has stilled and even Chuckie G.'s bell has quit its fitful tinkling because the long boy has stopped to listen and the whole world seems to hold its breath and listen with it. It's over there, not fifty feet away on their left; Lisey can now actually smell it. It smells like old farts in turnpike rest area bathrooms, or the poison whiff of bourbon and CIGARETTE SMOKE you sometimes get when you turn the key and walk into a cheap motel room, or Good Ma's pissy diapers when she was old and raving senile; it's stopped behind the nearest rank of sweetheart trees, has paused in its tunnelish run through the woods, and dear God they aren't going, they aren't going back, they are for some reason stuck here.

"Novels\Lisey's Story.txt" 6234 766:For a moment she feels Boo'ya Moon shimmer, but then the music in her mind-music that was for a moment so clear and happy-fades. Lisey opens her eyes. She's desperate to see home, but the big gray rock and the path leading away through the sweetheart trees are both still there. Those strange stars still blaze down, only now the laughers are silent and the harsh whispering of the bushes has stilled and even Chuckie G.'s bell has quit its fitful tinkling because the long boy has stopped to listen and the whole world seems to hold its breath and listen with it. It's over there, not fifty feet away on their left; Lisey can now actually smell it. It smells like old farts in turnpike rest area bathrooms, or the poison whiff of bourbon and CIGARETTE SMOKE you sometimes get when you turn the key and walk into a cheap motel room, or Good Ma's pissy diapers when she was old and raving senile; it's stopped behind the nearest rank of sweetheart trees, has paused in its tunnelish run through the woods, and dear God they aren't going, they aren't going back, they are for some reason stuck here.

"Novels\Lisey's Story.txt" 6402 158:It was noon. She went downstairs, glanced into the living room, and saw the remaining pack of CIGARETTES sitting on the coffee table. She had no craving for CIGARETTES now. She got a fresh jar of Skippy out of the pantry instead (steeling herself for Jim Dooley lurking in the corner or behind the pantry door) and the strawberry jam out of the fridge. She made herself a PB&J on white and took two delicious, gummy bites before calling Professor Woodbody. The Castle County Sheriff's Department had taken "Zack McCool"'s threatening letter, but Lisey's memory for numbers had always been good, and this one was a cinch: Pittsburgh area code at one end, eighty-one and eighty-eight at the other. She was as willing to talk to the Queen of the Incunks as the King. An answering machine, however, would be inconvenient. She could leave her message, but would have no way of being sure it would reach the right ear in time to do any good.

"Novels\Lisey's Story.txt" 6402 95:It was noon. She went downstairs, glanced into the living room, and saw the remaining pack of CIGARETTES sitting on the coffee table. She had no craving for CIGARETTES now. She got a fresh jar of Skippy out of the pantry instead (steeling herself for Jim Dooley lurking in the corner or behind the pantry door) and the strawberry jam out of the fridge. She made herself a PB&J on white and took two delicious, gummy bites before calling Professor Woodbody. The Castle County Sheriff's Department had taken "Zack McCool"'s threatening letter, but Lisey's memory for numbers had always been good, and this one was a cinch: Pittsburgh area code at one end, eighty-one and eighty-eight at the other. She was as willing to talk to the Queen of the Incunks as the King. An answering machine, however, would be inconvenient. She could leave her message, but would have no way of being sure it would reach the right ear in time to do any good.

"Novels\Lisey's Story.txt" 6525 80:And her mouth had the most wonderfully sweet taste. If she ever wanted another CIGARETTE, she would be surprised. Maybe she could hawk that on high-channel cable, too.

"Novels\Lisey's Story.txt" 7762 143:"That's all right," she says, struggling not to puff and pant. "He did have a cough, as I told you, but it was very light. He used to SMOKE, but he hasn't in years." She thinks. "I guess it might have been a little heavier in the last couple of days, and he woke me once in the night-"

"Novels\Lisey's Story.txt" 829 1080:She was hungry after her swim-famished, actually-and although it was not quite five o'clock, she decided on a big skillet meal. What Darla, second-oldest of the Debusher girls, would have called comfort-food, and what Scott-with great relish-would have called eatin nasty. There was a pound of ground beef in the fridge and, lurking on a back shelf in the pantry, a wonderfully nasty selection: the Cheeseburger Pie version of Hamburger Helper. Lisey threw it together in a skillet with the ground beef. While it was simmering, she mixed herself a pitcher of lime Kool-Aid with double sugar. By five-twenty, the smells from the skillet had filled the kitchen, and all thoughts of Gerd Allen Cole had left her head, at least for the time being. She could think of nothing but food. She had two large helpings of the Hamburger Helper casserole, and two big glasses of Kool-Aid. When the second helping and the second glass were gone (all except for the white dregs of sugar in the bottom of the glass), she burped resoundingly and said: "I wish I had a goddam smucking CIGARETTE."

"Novels\Lisey's Story.txt" 831 393:It was true; she had rarely wanted one so badly. A Salem Light. Scott had been a smoker when they had met at the University of Maine, where he had been both a grad student and what he called The World's Youngest Writer in Residence. She was a part-time student (that didn't last long) and a full-time waitress at Pat's Café downtown, slinging pizzas and burgers. She'd picked up the SMOKING habit from Scott, who'd been strictly a Herbert Tareyton man. They'd given up the butts together, rallying each other along. That had been in '87, the year before Gerd Allen Cole had resoundingly demonstrated that CIGARETTES weren't the only problem a person could have with his lungs. In the years since, Lisey went for days without thinking of them, then would fall into horrible pits of craving. Yet in a way, thinking about CIGARETTES was an improvement. It beat thinking about

"Novels\Lisey's Story.txt" 831 621:It was true; she had rarely wanted one so badly. A Salem Light. Scott had been a smoker when they had met at the University of Maine, where he had been both a grad student and what he called The World's Youngest Writer in Residence. She was a part-time student (that didn't last long) and a full-time waitress at Pat's Café downtown, slinging pizzas and burgers. She'd picked up the SMOKING habit from Scott, who'd been strictly a Herbert Tareyton man. They'd given up the butts together, rallying each other along. That had been in '87, the year before Gerd Allen Cole had resoundingly demonstrated that CIGARETTES weren't the only problem a person could have with his lungs. In the years since, Lisey went for days without thinking of them, then would fall into horrible pits of craving. Yet in a way, thinking about CIGARETTES was an improvement. It beat thinking about

"Novels\Lisey's Story.txt" 831 837:It was true; she had rarely wanted one so badly. A Salem Light. Scott had been a smoker when they had met at the University of Maine, where he had been both a grad student and what he called The World's Youngest Writer in Residence. She was a part-time student (that didn't last long) and a full-time waitress at Pat's Café downtown, slinging pizzas and burgers. She'd picked up the SMOKING habit from Scott, who'd been strictly a Herbert Tareyton man. They'd given up the butts together, rallying each other along. That had been in '87, the year before Gerd Allen Cole had resoundingly demonstrated that CIGARETTES weren't the only problem a person could have with his lungs. In the years since, Lisey went for days without thinking of them, then would fall into horrible pits of craving. Yet in a way, thinking about CIGARETTES was an improvement. It beat thinking about

"Novels\Lisey's Story.txt" 841 14:(so that the SMOKING barrel of the Ladysmith points at the left side of Scott's chest)

"Novels\Lisey's Story.txt" 857 3:a CIGARETTE. And even more than a ciggy, she wanted all these old memories to go aw-

"Novels\Lisey's Story.txt" 8760 516:Lisey went back to her sandwich with a smile on her face and didn't think about Amanda, or the good ship Hollyhocks, or Boo'ya Moon, for the rest of the day. That night, however, she awoke to the sound of distant thunder and a sense that something vast was-not hunting her, exactly (it wouldn't bother), but musing on her. The idea that she should be in such a thing's unknowable mind made her feel like crying and like screaming. At the same time. It also made her want to sit up watching movies on TCM, SMOKING CIGARETTES and drinking high-tension coffee. Or beer. Beer might be better. Beer might call back sleep. Instead of getting up, she turned off the bedside lamp and lay still. I'll never go back to sleep, she thought. I'll just lie here like this until it gets light in the east. Then I can get up and make the coffee I want now.

"Novels\Lisey's Story.txt" 8760 524:Lisey went back to her sandwich with a smile on her face and didn't think about Amanda, or the good ship Hollyhocks, or Boo'ya Moon, for the rest of the day. That night, however, she awoke to the sound of distant thunder and a sense that something vast was-not hunting her, exactly (it wouldn't bother), but musing on her. The idea that she should be in such a thing's unknowable mind made her feel like crying and like screaming. At the same time. It also made her want to sit up watching movies on TCM, SMOKING CIGARETTES and drinking high-tension coffee. Or beer. Beer might be better. Beer might call back sleep. Instead of getting up, she turned off the bedside lamp and lay still. I'll never go back to sleep, she thought. I'll just lie here like this until it gets light in the east. Then I can get up and make the coffee I want now.

"Novels\Mr. Mercedes.txt" 2095 166:The sexual abuse went on until my stepfather died of a heart attack when I was 12. My mother said if I ever told, I would be blamed. She said if I showed the healed CIGARETTE burns on my arms and legs and privates, she would tell people I did it myself. I was just a kid and I thought she was telling the truth. She also told me that if people did believe me, she would have to go to jail and I would be put in an orphan home (which was probably true).

"Novels\Mr. Mercedes.txt" 3799 191:She sips tea. "Well, let's think about that, shall we? In one of the old detective movies Ollie and I used to watch on TV when we were kids, I'd be the greedy vixen, maybe a nightclub CIGARETTE girl, who tries to charm the crusty and cynical private detective with her fair white body. Only I'm not the greedy type-nor do I have to be, considering the fact that I recently inherited several million dollars-and my fair white body has started to sag in several vital places. As you may have noticed."

"Novels\Mr. Mercedes.txt" 4006 137:Usually he checks on her first thing, but he smells SMOKE and hustles to the kitchen, where a blue haze hangs in the air. Thank God the SMOKE detector in here is dead (he keeps meaning to replace it and keeps forgetting, too many other fish to fry). Thanks are also due for the powerful stove fan, which has sucked up just enough SMOKE to keep the rest of the detectors from going off, although they soon will if he can't air the place out. The oven is set at three-fifty. He turns it off. He opens the windows over the sink, then the back door. There's a floor fan in the utility closet where they keep the cleaning supplies. He sets it up facing the runaway stove, and turns it on at the highest setting.

"Novels\Mr. Mercedes.txt" 4006 331:Usually he checks on her first thing, but he smells SMOKE and hustles to the kitchen, where a blue haze hangs in the air. Thank God the SMOKE detector in here is dead (he keeps meaning to replace it and keeps forgetting, too many other fish to fry). Thanks are also due for the powerful stove fan, which has sucked up just enough SMOKE to keep the rest of the detectors from going off, although they soon will if he can't air the place out. The oven is set at three-fifty. He turns it off. He opens the windows over the sink, then the back door. There's a floor fan in the utility closet where they keep the cleaning supplies. He sets it up facing the runaway stove, and turns it on at the highest setting.

"Novels\Mr. Mercedes.txt" 4006 53:Usually he checks on her first thing, but he smells SMOKE and hustles to the kitchen, where a blue haze hangs in the air. Thank God the SMOKE detector in here is dead (he keeps meaning to replace it and keeps forgetting, too many other fish to fry). Thanks are also due for the powerful stove fan, which has sucked up just enough SMOKE to keep the rest of the detectors from going off, although they soon will if he can't air the place out. The oven is set at three-fifty. He turns it off. He opens the windows over the sink, then the back door. There's a floor fan in the utility closet where they keep the cleaning supplies. He sets it up facing the runaway stove, and turns it on at the highest setting.

"Novels\Mr. Mercedes.txt" 4012 90:After five minutes of airing-out, he risks opening the oven. As he regards the black and SMOKING lump within, any faint hunger pangs he might have felt when he got home pass away. Washing will not clean that pan; an hour of scouring and a whole box of Brillo pads will not clean that pan; an industrial laser probably wouldn't clean that pan. That pan is a gone goose. It's only luck that he didn't get home to find the fucking fire department here and his mother offering them vodka collinses.

"Novels\Mr. Mercedes.txt" 4179 123:Tones is down front, trying to sell an old lady an HDTV that's already an antique. Freddi Linklatter is out back, chain-SMOKING Marlboro Reds and probably rehearsing her latest gay rights rant. Brady is sitting at one of the computers in the back row, an ancient Vizio that he's rigged to leave no keystroke tracks, let alone a history. He's staring at Hodges's latest message. One eye, his left, has picked up a rapid, irregular tic.

"Novels\Mr. Mercedes.txt" 5434 151:She sees his shadow on the pavement, gives a jerk, and hides something behind her hand. He comes closer, and the hidden object turns out to be a half-SMOKED CIGARETTE. She gives him a narrow, worried look. Hodges thinks it's the look of a dog that's been beaten too many times with a newspaper for piddling under the kitchen table.

"Novels\Mr. Mercedes.txt" 5434 158:She sees his shadow on the pavement, gives a jerk, and hides something behind her hand. He comes closer, and the hidden object turns out to be a half-SMOKED CIGARETTE. She gives him a narrow, worried look. Hodges thinks it's the look of a dog that's been beaten too many times with a newspaper for piddling under the kitchen table.

"Novels\Mr. Mercedes.txt" 5446 146:He's embarrassed, not by the question but by the perverse fact that it makes him feel like laughing. He sort of wishes he'd just left her to SMOKE her illicit CIGARETTE. "Well," he says, "we're good friends. Maybe we should leave it at that."

"Novels\Mr. Mercedes.txt" 5446 164:He's embarrassed, not by the question but by the perverse fact that it makes him feel like laughing. He sort of wishes he'd just left her to SMOKE her illicit CIGARETTE. "Well," he says, "we're good friends. Maybe we should leave it at that."

"Novels\Mr. Mercedes.txt" 5448 23:She shrugs and shoots SMOKE from her nostrils. "It's all right with me. I think a woman should have lovers if she wants them. I don't, myself. Men don't interest me. Not that I'm a lesbian. Don't get that idea. I write poetry."

"Novels\Mr. Mercedes.txt" 5464 15:She kills her CIGARETTE on the side of the step, not rubbing it but plunging it out, stabbing it until the sparks fly and the filter splits. Her face is as pale as milk glass, she's started to quiver (her knees are almost literally knocking), and if she doesn't stop chewing her lower lip, it's going to split open.

"Novels\Mr. Mercedes.txt" 5496 140:"I'll get you some water," Hodges says, and stands up. At the corner of the building, he looks back. She's trying to light another CIGARETTE, but it's hard going because the shakes are back. She's holding her disposable Bic in both hands, like a shooter on the police gun range.

"Novels\Mr. Mercedes.txt" 5844 127:Holly Gibney, also known as Holly the Mumbler, may have mental problems, but neither the psychotropic drugs she takes nor the CIGARETTES she smokes on the sneak have slowed her down physically. Uncle Henry slams on the brakes and she bolts from the rental Chevy while the explosion is still reverberating.

"Novels\Mr. Mercedes.txt" 5980 58:"Big explosion somewheres downtown. There was a lot of SMOKE, but it's gone now."

"Novels\Mr. Mercedes.txt" 6067 105:"I don't see how it can," he says mildly. "I know how it looks, but sometimes a cigar is just a SMOKE and a coincidence is just a coincidence."

"Novels\Mr. Mercedes.txt" 686 89:The following morning, Freddi Linklatter is sitting on the edge of the loading dock and SMOKING a Marlboro. Her Discount Electronix jacket is folded neatly beside her with her DE gimme cap placed on top of it. She's talking about some Jesus-jumper who gave her hassle. People are always giving her hassle, and she tells Brady all about it on break. She gives him chapter and verse, because Brady is a good listener.

"Novels\Mr. Mercedes.txt" 6958 365:It's nearly eleven A.M. when Hodges and Jerome arrive at Birch Hill Mall. There's plenty of parking, and Jerome pulls his Wrangler into a spot directly in front of Discount Electronix, where all the windows are sporting big SALE signs. A teenage girl is sitting on the curb in front of the store, knees together and feet apart, bent studiously over an iPad. A CIGARETTE smolders between the fingers of her left hand. It's only as they approach that Hodges sees there's gray in the teenager's hair. His heart sinks.

"Novels\Mr. Mercedes.txt" 7070 455:Hodges doesn't want any of them, but he sees two of the three he does want. Anthony Frobisher, he of the John Lennon specs, is talking to a customer who has a shopping basket full of discounted DVDs in one hand and a clutch of coupons in the other. Frobisher's tie suggests that he might be the store manager as well as a Cyber Patrolman. The narrow-faced girl with the dirty-blond hair is at the back of the store, seated at a computer. There's a CIGARETTE parked behind one ear.

"Novels\Mr. Mercedes.txt" 740 49:"Lay it on us," Freddi says, and mashes her CIGARETTE out. Across the loading zone behind the big-box store, which anchors the south end of the Birch Hill Mall, are the employees' cars (mostly old beaters) and three VW Beetles painted bright green. These are always kept spotless, and late-spring sun twinkles on their windshields. On the sides, in blue, is COMPUTER PROBLEMS? CALL THE DISCOUNT ELECTRONIX CYBER PATROL!

"Novels\Mr. Mercedes.txt" 744 52:"Record stores?" Freddi asks, lighting another CIGARETTE. "What are record stores?"

"Novels\Mr. Mercedes.txt" 7677 92:"Hey, Hol, come on." Jerome tries to take her hand. She won't let him. She takes her CIGARETTES from her pocket instead.

"Novels\Mr. Mercedes.txt" 7687 56:"Not yet," she says. "In five minutes. I want to SMOKE a CIGARETTE. I'll go out on the stoop."

"Novels\Mr. Mercedes.txt" 7687 64:"Not yet," she says. "In five minutes. I want to SMOKE a CIGARETTE. I'll go out on the stoop."

"Novels\Mr. Mercedes.txt" 7733 241:Holly brushes a clump of mouse-brown hair out of her eyes so he can see her annoyance clearly. "Find something to do, Jerome, okay? I don't want you looking over my shoulder. I hate that." She shifts her attention to Hodges. "Can I SMOKE in here? I hope I can. It helps me think. CIGARETTES help me think."

"Novels\Mr. Mercedes.txt" 7733 289:Holly brushes a clump of mouse-brown hair out of her eyes so he can see her annoyance clearly. "Find something to do, Jerome, okay? I don't want you looking over my shoulder. I hate that." She shifts her attention to Hodges. "Can I SMOKE in here? I hope I can. It helps me think. CIGARETTES help me think."

"Novels\Mr. Mercedes.txt" 7735 30:Hodges gets her a saucer. "SMOKING lamp's lit. Jerome and I will be in my study. Give a holler if you find something."

"Novels\Mr. Mercedes.txt" 7778 34:From the kitchen comes a waft of CIGARETTE SMOKE and another hearty cry of shit.

"Novels\Mr. Mercedes.txt" 7778 44:From the kitchen comes a waft of CIGARETTE SMOKE and another hearty cry of shit.

"Novels\Mr. Mercedes.txt" 780 234:"Tuck your shirt in. Put on your cap so your customer doesn't have to be disgusted by that weird haircut. Don't drive too fast. Get another ticket and life as you know it on the Cyber Patrol is over. Also, pick up your fucking CIGARETTE butts before you go."

"Novels\Mr. Mercedes.txt" 784 242:"DVD stickers for you, an old lady with a CPU probably full of graham cracker crumbs for me," Freddi says, jumping down and putting her hat on. She gives the bill a gangsta twist and starts across to the VWs without even glancing at her CIGARETTE butts. She does pause long enough to look back at Brady, hands on her nonexistent boy hips. "This is not the life I pictured for myself when I was in the fifth grade."

"Novels\Mr. Mercedes.txt" 7864 278:Jerome gets busy. Hodges walks out to the kitchen to check on how Holly's doing. What he sees stops him cold. Lying next to the borrowed laptop is a red wallet. Deborah Hartsfield's ID, credit cards, and receipts are scattered across the table. Holly, already on her third CIGARETTE, is holding up a MasterCard and studying it through a haze of blue SMOKE. She gives him a look that's both frightened and defiant.

"Novels\Mr. Mercedes.txt" 7864 355:Jerome gets busy. Hodges walks out to the kitchen to check on how Holly's doing. What he sees stops him cold. Lying next to the borrowed laptop is a red wallet. Deborah Hartsfield's ID, credit cards, and receipts are scattered across the table. Holly, already on her third CIGARETTE, is holding up a MasterCard and studying it through a haze of blue SMOKE. She gives him a look that's both frightened and defiant.

"Novels\Mr. Mercedes.txt" 7878 206:"I have my own credit card, and I have money. I even have a checking account. I buy video games and apps for my iPad. I buy clothes. Also earrings, which I like. I have fifty-six pairs. And I buy my own CIGARETTES, although they're very expensive now. It might interest you to know that in New York City, a pack of CIGARETTES now costs eleven dollars. I try not to be a burden because I can't work and she says I'm not but I know I am-"

"Novels\Mr. Mercedes.txt" 7878 320:"I have my own credit card, and I have money. I even have a checking account. I buy video games and apps for my iPad. I buy clothes. Also earrings, which I like. I have fifty-six pairs. And I buy my own CIGARETTES, although they're very expensive now. It might interest you to know that in New York City, a pack of CIGARETTES now costs eleven dollars. I try not to be a burden because I can't work and she says I'm not but I know I am-"

"Novels\Mr. Mercedes.txt" 7890 92:"A couple. Leave me alone." As he leaves the room, she calls: "I'm sorry about the SMOKE, but it really does help me think."

"Novels\Mr. Mercedes.txt" 7934 246:Hodges turns to see how Holly is taking this, but Holly has left the room. She's back in the kitchen, sitting in front of Deborah Hartsfield's laptop and staring at the password screen. Her shoulders are slumped. In the saucer beside her, a CIGARETTE has smoldered down to the filter, leaving a neat roll of ash.

"Novels\Mr. Mercedes.txt" 7958 30:Holly sighs. "I'm out of CIGARETTES, too."

"Novels\Mr. Mercedes.txt" 7971 125:Hodges and Jerome drive down to the little shopping center at the intersection of Harper and Hanover to buy Holly a pack of CIGARETTES and give her the privacy she clearly wants.

"Novels\Mr. Mercedes.txt" 7987 61:"Now we go back, give Holly her coffin nails, and let her SMOKE one. Then we pack up the stuff she filched from the Hartsfield house. I drive you two back to the Birch Hill Mall. You return Holly to Sugar Heights in your Wrangler, then go home yourself."

"Novels\Mr. Mercedes.txt" 7993 57:"If I do that, it all comes out." Still tossing the CIGARETTES back and forth. "Everything we've been doing today."

"Novels\Mr. Mercedes.txt" 8018 112:Hodges is afraid she'll protest his plan to return her home, but Holly only sits up, opens the fresh pack of CIGARETTES, and slowly removes one. She's not crying, but she looks tired and dispirited.

"Novels\Mr. Mercedes.txt" 8328 60:"Sounds like a plan," Holly says. "Mr. Hodges, can I SMOKE in here?"

"Novels\Mr. Mercedes.txt" 8778 116:Ahead is a wide concrete ramp leading down to the loading area. Half a dozen roadies are sitting on amp crates and SMOKING, their work over for the time being. There's an open door leading to the rear of the auditorium, and through it Hodges can hear music coalescing around the bass progression. There's another sound, as well: thousands of happily screaming girls, all of them sitting on ground zero.

"Novels\Mr. Mercedes.txt" 9376 79:"Dr. Leibowitz says habits are hard to break. It's hard for me to give up SMOKING, and it's hard for Mom to get used to living alone. Also to realize I don't have to be that fourteen-year-old-girl curled up in the bathtub for the rest of my life."

"Novels\Needful Things.txt" 10471 356:"I'm sure he said all kinds of things, but he never believed you. The woman you hired to baby sit was a drug addict, wasn't she? That wasn't your fault, but of course the things which led to that situation were all a matter of personal choice, Polly, weren't they? Your choice. The young woman you hired to watch Kelton passed out and dropped a CIGARETTE-or maybe it was a joint-into a waste-basket. Hers was the finger that pulled the trigger, you might say, but the gun was loaded because of your pride, your inability to bend your neck before your parents and the other good people of Castle Rock."

"Novels\Needful Things.txt" 10733 984:Polly saw the one letter and a ball of dread began to grow deep in her stomach. To Patricia Chalmers of Castle Rock, from the San Francisco Department of Child Welfare . . . from 666 Geary. She remembered 666 Geary so very well from her trips down there. Three trips in all. Three interviews with three Aid to Dependent Children bureaucrats, two of whom had been men-men who had looked at her the way you looked at a candy-wrapper that's gotten stuck on one of your best shoes. The third bureaucrat had been an extremely large black woman, a woman who had known how to listen and how to laugh, and it was from this woman that Polly had finally gotten an approval. But she remembered 666 Geary, second floor, so very, very well. She remembered the way the light from the big window at the end of the hall had laid a long, milky stain on the linoleum; she remembered the echoey sound of typewriters from offices where the doors always stood open; she remembered the cluster of men SMOKING CIGARETTES by the sand-filled urn at the far end of the hall, and how they had looked at her. Most of all she remembered how it had felt to be dressed in her one good outfit-a dark polyester pants suit, a white silk blouse, L'Eggs Nearly Nude pantyhose, her low heels-and how terrified and lonely she had felt, for the dim second-floor corridor of 666 Geary seemed to be a place with neither heart nor soul. Her ADC application had finally been approved there, but it was the turndowns she remembered, of course-the eyes of the men, how they had crawled across her breasts (they were better dressed than Norville down at the diner, but otherwise, she thought, not really much different); the mouths of the men, how they had pursed in decorous disapproval as they considered the problem of Kelton Chalmers, the bastard offspring of this little trollop, this Janey-come-lately who didn't look like a hippie now, oh no, but who would undoubtedly take off her silk blouse and nice pants suit as soon as she got out of here, not to mention her brassiere, and put on a pair of tight bellbottom jeans and a tie-dyed blouse that would showcase her nipples. Their eyes said all that and more, and although the response of the Department had come in the mail, Polly had known immediately that she would be turned down. She had wept as she left the building on each of those first two occasions, and it seemed to her now that she could remember the acid-trickle of each tear as it slid down her cheek. That, and the way the people on the street had looked at her. No caring in their eyes; just a certain dull curiosity.

"Novels\Needful Things.txt" 10733 992:Polly saw the one letter and a ball of dread began to grow deep in her stomach. To Patricia Chalmers of Castle Rock, from the San Francisco Department of Child Welfare . . . from 666 Geary. She remembered 666 Geary so very well from her trips down there. Three trips in all. Three interviews with three Aid to Dependent Children bureaucrats, two of whom had been men-men who had looked at her the way you looked at a candy-wrapper that's gotten stuck on one of your best shoes. The third bureaucrat had been an extremely large black woman, a woman who had known how to listen and how to laugh, and it was from this woman that Polly had finally gotten an approval. But she remembered 666 Geary, second floor, so very, very well. She remembered the way the light from the big window at the end of the hall had laid a long, milky stain on the linoleum; she remembered the echoey sound of typewriters from offices where the doors always stood open; she remembered the cluster of men SMOKING CIGARETTES by the sand-filled urn at the far end of the hall, and how they had looked at her. Most of all she remembered how it had felt to be dressed in her one good outfit-a dark polyester pants suit, a white silk blouse, L'Eggs Nearly Nude pantyhose, her low heels-and how terrified and lonely she had felt, for the dim second-floor corridor of 666 Geary seemed to be a place with neither heart nor soul. Her ADC application had finally been approved there, but it was the turndowns she remembered, of course-the eyes of the men, how they had crawled across her breasts (they were better dressed than Norville down at the diner, but otherwise, she thought, not really much different); the mouths of the men, how they had pursed in decorous disapproval as they considered the problem of Kelton Chalmers, the bastard offspring of this little trollop, this Janey-come-lately who didn't look like a hippie now, oh no, but who would undoubtedly take off her silk blouse and nice pants suit as soon as she got out of here, not to mention her brassiere, and put on a pair of tight bellbottom jeans and a tie-dyed blouse that would showcase her nipples. Their eyes said all that and more, and although the response of the Department had come in the mail, Polly had known immediately that she would be turned down. She had wept as she left the building on each of those first two occasions, and it seemed to her now that she could remember the acid-trickle of each tear as it slid down her cheek. That, and the way the people on the street had looked at her. No caring in their eyes; just a certain dull curiosity.

"Novels\Needful Things.txt" 10939 283:Sheila had a hard time connecting Alan with Henry Payton-once she was positive she'd lost Henry, who sounded really excited, and would have to call him back-and she had no more than accomplished this technological feat when Alan's personal line lit up. Sheila put aside the CIGARETTE she'd been about to light and answered it. "Castle County Sheriff's Office, Sheriff Pangborn's line."

"Novels\Needful Things.txt" 10977 62:"Welcome." She pushed the hold button and then found her CIGARETTE. She lit it and dragged deeply, looking at the small flickering light with a frown.

"Novels\Needful Things.txt" 11180 762:Lenny Partridge, Castle Rock's oldest resident and holder of the Boston Post Cane which Aunt Evvie Chalmers had once possessed, also drove one of Castle Rock's oldest cars. It was a 1966 Chevrolet Bel-Air which had once been white. It was now a generic smudged no-color-call it Dirt Road Gray. It wasn't in very good shape. The glass in the back window had been replaced by a flapping sheet of all-weather plastic some years ago, the rocker panels had rusted out so badly that Lenny could view the road through a complicated lacework of rust as he drove along, and the exhaust pipe hung down like the rotted arm of a man who had died in a dry climate. Also, the oil-seals were gone. When Lenny drove the Bel-Air, he spread great clouds of fragrant blue SMOKE out behind him, and the fields he passed on his daily trip into town looked as if a homicidal aviator had just dusted them with paraquat. The Chevy gobbled three (sometimes four) quarts of oil a day. This gaudy consumption did not bother Lenny in the least; he bought recycled Diamond motor oil from Sonny Jackett in the five-gallon economy size, and he always made sure that Sonny deducted ten per cent . . . his Golden Ager discount. And because he hadn't driven the Bel-Air at a speed greater than thirty-five miles an hour in the last ten years, it would probably hold together longer than Lenny himself.

"Novels\Needful Things.txt" 1122 82:"Nah, just the usual. You know, Alan, your eyes are red as hell. Have you been SMOKING that wacky tobaccy again?"

"Novels\Needful Things.txt" 11320 103:The only person who saw him go in was Charlie Fortin. He was standing in the doorway Western Auto and SMOKING one of his stinky home-rolled CIGARETTES. "Old Hugh finally flipped," Charlie said to no one in particular.

"Novels\Needful Things.txt" 11320 141:The only person who saw him go in was Charlie Fortin. He was standing in the doorway Western Auto and SMOKING one of his stinky home-rolled CIGARETTES. "Old Hugh finally flipped," Charlie said to no one in particular.

"Novels\Needful Things.txt" 11340 59:Hugh picked it up. His confusion seemed to blow away like SMOKE as the gun's solid weight filled his hand. He could smell gun-grease, low and fragrant.

"Novels\Needful Things.txt" 11352 71:"Go get him, Hugh," Mr. Gaunt said in a low voice. Small wisps of SMOKE began to rise from his ears and his hair; thicker threads emerged from his nostrils and from between the square white tombstones of his teeth. "Get all of them you can. Party down, big fella."

"Novels\Needful Things.txt" 11533 177:A shadow fell over his feet, which were almost out the door, and then the shadow's owner appeared. He was wearing a foxtail around his neck and holding a pistol in one hand. SMOKE drifted from its barrel. Tiny jewels of perspiration nestled in the sparse mat of hair between his nipples. The skin under his eyes was puffy and brown. He stepped over Billy Tupper and into the dimness of The Mellow Tiger.

"Novels\Needful Things.txt" 11667 124:Henry and Hugh fired at the same time. The crack of the automatic pistol was lost in the shotgun's blurred, primal roar. SMOKE and fire leaped from the truncated barrel. Hugh was lifted off his feet and driven across the room, bare heels dragging, his chest a disintegrating swamp of red muck. The gun flew out of his hand. The ends of the fox-tail were burning.

"Novels\Needful Things.txt" 12237 288:One of them had come out of the ground behind the old Treblehorn place, the other from the cellar-hole of the old Masters farm, which had burned flat when Ace was only ten years old. The first can had contained only four books of S & H Green Stamps and several banded packets of Raleigh CIGARETTE coupons. The second had contained a few sheafs of mixed trading stamps and six rolls of pennies. Except they didn't look like regular pennies.

"Novels\Needful Things.txt" 12872 89:"Jesus Christ, Clut-take him over to Ray Van Allen, fast. He's sixty-two and been SMOKING Camels all his damn life."

"Novels\Needful Things.txt" 12902 37:"He's sitting behind your desk, SMOKING a CIGARETTE and looking at this month's Rural Law Enforcement."

"Novels\Needful Things.txt" 12902 47:"He's sitting behind your desk, SMOKING a CIGARETTE and looking at this month's Rural Law Enforcement."

"Novels\Needful Things.txt" 13390 120:He unscrewed the top of the bottle and grimaced-the stuff inside smelled like a melting tractor battery. Tendrils of SMOKE rose from the mouth of the bottle. Got to be careful with this stuff, Buster thought. Got to be real careful.

"Novels\Needful Things.txt" 13392 268:He put the empty cuff under his right thigh and pulled the chain taut. Then he poured some of the bottle's contents on the chain just below the cuff on his wrist, being careful not to drip any of the dark, viscous liquid on his skin. The steel immediately began to SMOKE and bubble. A few drops struck the rubber floormat and it also began to bubble. SMOKE and a horrid frying smell rose from it. After a few moments Buster pulled the empty cuff out from under his thigh, hooked his fingers through it, and yanked briskly. The chain parted like paper and he threw it on the floor. He was still wearing a bracelet, but he could live with that; the chain and the swinging empty cuff had been the real pain in the keister. He slotted the key in the ignition, started the engine, and drove away.

"Novels\Needful Things.txt" 13392 354:He put the empty cuff under his right thigh and pulled the chain taut. Then he poured some of the bottle's contents on the chain just below the cuff on his wrist, being careful not to drip any of the dark, viscous liquid on his skin. The steel immediately began to SMOKE and bubble. A few drops struck the rubber floormat and it also began to bubble. SMOKE and a horrid frying smell rose from it. After a few moments Buster pulled the empty cuff out from under his thigh, hooked his fingers through it, and yanked briskly. The chain parted like paper and he threw it on the floor. He was still wearing a bracelet, but he could live with that; the chain and the swinging empty cuff had been the real pain in the keister. He slotted the key in the ignition, started the engine, and drove away.

"Novels\Needful Things.txt" 13495 72:Henry Payton, who had come to Castle Rock to pull Sheriff Pangborn's SMOKING irons out of the fire, stood in the doorway of the Sunoco station's office with his mouth open. They had two more men down. One was white and one was black, but both were dead.

"Novels\Needful Things.txt" 13522 64:Lenore Potter stood over the body of Stephanie Bonsaint with a SMOKING automatic pistol in her hand. The body lay in the flowerbed behind the house, the only one the evil, vindictive bitch hadn't torn up on her previous two trips.

"Novels\Needful Things.txt" 13622 393:He held the bouquet up so Sean could see it clearly, then curved his right hand slightly and drew it downward. He made this pass much more slowly than usual in deference to the sad state of the MacGuffin, and found himself surprised and impressed with the result. Instead of snapping out of sight as they usually did, the Folding Flowers seemed to disappear into his loosely curled fist like SMOKE. He felt the loosened, overstressed spring try to buckle and jam, but in the end it decided to cooperate one last time.

"Novels\Needful Things.txt" 13933 474:Leland Gaunt was upon him before Ace even saw him move. Those long, ugly hands seized him by the front of the shirt and lifted him into the air as if he were made of feathers. A startled cry fell out of his mouth. The hands which held him were like iron. Mr. Gaunt lifted him high, and Ace suddenly found himself looking down into that blazing, hellish face with only the haziest idea of how he had gotten there. Even in the extremity of his sudden terror, he noticed that SMOKE-or perhaps it was steam-was coming out of Mr. Gaunt's ears and nostrils. He looked like a human dragon.

"Novels\Needful Things.txt" 14046 179:He explained to his flock that the Catholics had perfected the science of torture during the Inquisition; that the Inquisitors had burned the true faithful at what he called The SMOKING-uh Stake right up until the end of the nineteenth century, when heroic Protestants (Baptists, mostly) had made them stop; that forty different Popes through history had known their own mothers and sisters, and even their illegitimate daughters, in-uh unholy sexual congress-uh; that the Vatican was built on the gold of Protestant martyrs and plundered nations.

"Novels\Needful Things.txt" 14192 131:Babs Miller skulked along the side of the Daughters of Isabella Hall, freezing in place each time a blue-white flash of lightning SMOKED across the sky. She had a crowbar in one hand and one of Mr. Gaunt's automatic pistols in the other. The music box she had bought at Needful Things was tucked into one pocket of the man's overcoat she wore, and if anyone tried to steal it, that person was going to eat an ounce or so of lead.

"Novels\Needful Things.txt" 14371 274:Father Brigham, meanwhile, had disengaged himself from Betsy and leaped to the door of the Daughters of Isabella Hall. He booted the crowbar aside-the door had splintered all around it in a circle-and yanked it open. Three dazed, retching women and a cloud of stinking SMOKE came out.

"Novels\Needful Things.txt" 14695 483:The good feeling was suddenly gone. Dread replaced it. Polly looked into the glass cases and saw bottles of dark fluid marked DR. GAUNT'S ELECTRIC TONIC. There were badly made wind-up toys that would cough up their cogs and spit out their springs the second time they were wound. There were crude sex-toys. There were small bottles of what looked like cocaine; these were labelled DR. GAUNT'S KICKAPOO POTENCY POWDER. Cheap novelties abounded: plastic dog-puke, itching powder, CIGARETTE loads, joy buzzers. There was a pair of those X-ray glasses that were supposed to allow you to look through closed doors and ladies' dresses but actually did nothing except put raccoon rings around your eyes. There were plastic flowers and marked playing cards and bottles of cheap perfume labelled DR. GAUNT'S LOVE POTION #9, TURNS LASSITUDE INTO LUST. The cases were a catalogue of the timeless, the tasteless, and the useless.

"Novels\Needful Things.txt" 14836 291:Its body was a bristly blackish-brown. Tiny hairs stood out on its legs. Eyes as dull as fake rubies stared at her . . . and she saw that two fangs stuck out of its mouth like curved vampire teeth. They were dripping some clear liquid. Where the droplets struck the tiles, they left small, SMOKING craters.

"Novels\Needful Things.txt" 15351 115:The second car was a lime-green Dodge Challenger, jacked in the back so the nose pointed at the road. Through the SMOKED-glass windows, one could dimly make out the roll-bar arching across the roof inside. The rear end was covered with stickers: HEARST, FUELLY, FRAM, QUAKER STATE . . . Although the tape was silent, Alan could almost hear the blast and crackle of exhaust through the straight-pipes.

"Novels\Needful Things.txt" 15683 50:They stared at each other unbelievingly over the SMOKING guns.

"Novels\Needful Things.txt" 15778 335:Of all of them, only Alan saw the door of Needful Things open stealthily, and he would not have seen it if he had not directed his gaze so stringently away from the cruiser which was creeping up the street. Only Alan saw-ghostly, at the very edge of vision-the tall figure that came out, a figure dressed not in a sport-coat or a SMOKING jacket but in a black broadcloth coat.

"Novels\Needful Things.txt" 15960 72:The three headlights blazed on. The Tucker backed out into the street, SMOKING the macadam beneath its tires to boiling goo. It screamed around in a reverse turn to the right, and although it did not touch Alan's car, the station wagon flew backward several feet just the same, as if repelled by some powerful magnet. The front end of the Talisman had begun to glow with a foggy white radiance, and beneath this glow it seemed to be changing and reforming itself.

"Novels\Needful Things.txt" 15968 473:It picked up speed as it went downhill, and the changes picked up speed, as well. The car melted, rearranged itself. The roof peeled backward, the shiny hubcaps grew spokes, the tires grew simultaneously higher and thinner. A form began to extrude itself from the remains of the Tucker's grille. It was a black horse with eyes as red as Mr. Gaunt's, a horse encased in a milky shroud of brightness, a horse whose hooves struck up fire from the pavement and left deep, SMOKING tracks impressed in the center of the street.

"Novels\Needful Things.txt" 15982 108:Then a raft of SMOKE from the burning hulk of the Municipal Building blew across Main Street, and when the SMOKE cleared, Leland Gaunt and his hellwagon were gone.

"Novels\Needful Things.txt" 15982 16:Then a raft of SMOKE from the burning hulk of the Municipal Building blew across Main Street, and when the SMOKE cleared, Leland Gaunt and his hellwagon were gone.

"Novels\Needful Things.txt" 19 118:Hot damn! Just look at this thing, will you? DICE AND THE DEVIL printed right up at the top. In big red letters with SMOKE comin off em, like these things was mailed special delivery from Tophet! Ha! Someone who didn't know what a sleepy little place this town is would think we're really goin to the dogs, I guess. But you know how things sometimes get blown out of proportion in a town this size. And the Reverend Willie's got a bee under his blanket for sure this time. No question about it. Churches in small towns . . . well, I guess I don't have to tell you how that is. They get along with each other-sort of-but they ain't never really happy with each other. Everything will go along peaceful for a while, and then a squabble will break out.

"Novels\Needful Things.txt" 2104 54:"Uh-huh," Alan said. He suddenly wished he had a CIGARETTE, something like a Lucky or a Pall Mall that was absolutely stuffed with tar and nicotine. "What can I render unto you this afternoon, R . . . Reverend Rose?" He was horrified to realize he had just come extremely close to calling the man Reverend Willie.

"Novels\Needful Things.txt" 2233 386:Yes. That seemed like a very good-a very sane- idea. He actually began to turn around . . . and then a picture came to him, one which was a great deal more powerful than the voice. He saw a long black car-a Cadillac or maybe a Lincoln Mark IV-pulling up in front of his house. The driver's door opened and Mr. Leland Gaunt stepped out. Only Mr. Gaunt was no longer wearing a SMOKING jacket like the one Sherlock Holmes wore in some of the stories. The Mr. Gaunt who now strode across the landscape of Brian's imagination wore a formidable black suit-the suit of a funeral director-and his face was no longer friendly. His dark-blue eyes were even darker in anger, and his lips had pulled back from his crooked teeth . . . but not in a smile. His long, thin legs went scissoring up the walk to the Rusk front door, and the shadow-man attached to his heels looked like a hangman in a horror movie. When he got to the door he would not pause to ring the bell, oh no. He would simply barge in. If Brian's Ma tried to get in his way he would push her aside. If Brian's Pa tried to get in his way he would knock him down. And if Brian's little brother, Sean, tried to get in his way he would heave him the length of the house, like a quarterback throwing a Hail Mary. He would stride upstairs, bellowing Brian's name, and the roses on the wallpaper would wilt when that hangman's shadow passed over them.

"Novels\Needful Things.txt" 2547 28:"She looks like she just SMOKED some very good Panamanian Red," Polly said. "I envy her."

"Novels\Needful Things.txt" 2790 159:His place had two rooms: the one where he slept and the one where he did everything else. A chipped Formica table, covered with aluminum frozen dinner trays (CIGARETTE butts had been crushed in congealing gravy in most of them) stood in the center of this latter room. He went to the open closet, stood on tiptoe, and felt along the top shelf. For a moment he thought the fox-tail was gone, that somebody had come in and stolen it, and panic ignited a ball of heat in his belly. Then his hand encountered that silky softness, and he let out his breath in a long sigh.

"Novels\Needful Things.txt" 2824 111:He filled the jelly-glass again, sat down in one of the kitchen chairs with its tubular steel legs, and lit a CIGARETTE. And as he sat there, drinking and tapping curls of ash into one of the frozen dinner trays, he forgot about the foxtail and started thinking about Nettie Cobb. Crazy Nettie. He was going to play a trick on Crazy Nettie. Maybe next week, maybe the week after that . . . but this week seemed most likely. Mr. Gaunt had told him he was a man who didn't like to waste time, and Hugh was willing to take his word for it.

"Novels\Needful Things.txt" 2830 14:He drank, he SMOKED, and when he finally passed out on the filthy sheets of the narrow bed in the other room at quarter of ten, he did it with a smile on his face.

"Novels\Needful Things.txt" 361 165:"Then start looking!" Mr. Gaunt said, gesturing toward the cases. Brian noticed that he was wearing a long red-velvet jacket. He thought it might actually be a SMOKING jacket, like in the Sherlock Holmes stories he had read. It was neat. "Be my guest, Brian!"

"Novels\Needful Things.txt" 4349 449:Keeton was seated in the plush high-backed chair where Nettie Cobb, Cyndi Rose Martin, Eddie Warburton, Everett Frankel, Myra Evans, and a good many other townsfolk had sat before him that week. He was drinking a cup of good Jamaican coffee. Gaunt, who seemed like one hell of a nice fellow for a flatlander, had insisted that he have one. Now Gaunt was leaning into his show window and carefully removing the box. He was dressed in a wine-colored SMOKING jacket, just as natty as you please, and not a hair out of place. He had told Keeton that he often opened at odd hours, because he was afflicted with insomnia.

"Novels\Needful Things.txt" 4582 130:He pushed the END button without waiting for a response, collapsed the antenna, and dropped the telephone into the pocket of his SMOKING jacket. The shade was drawn over his door again. Mr. Gaunt reached between shade and glass to remove the sign which read

"Novels\Needful Things.txt" 4638 265:He rolled his hand into a fist around Alan's business card, first bending and then crumpling it. When it was completely hidden, a lick of blue fire squirted out from between his second and third fingers. He opened his hand again, and although little tendrils of SMOKE drifted up from the palm, there was no sign of the card-not even a smear of ash.

"Novels\Needful Things.txt" 4795 397:When the short service was over, Aunt Evvie had called her aside. Polly's last surviving relative stood by the Hay & Peabody funeral hack, a thin stick of a woman dressed in a man's black overcoat and strangely jolly red galoshes, a Herbert Tareyton tucked into the corner of her mouth. She flicked a wooden match alight with one thumbnail as Polly approached, and set fire to the tip of her CIGARETTE. She inhaled deeply and then hacked the SMOKE back out into the cold spring air. Her cane (a simple ash stick; it would be three years yet before she would be awarded the Boston Post Cane as the town's oldest citizen) was planted between her feet.

"Novels\Needful Things.txt" 4795 447:When the short service was over, Aunt Evvie had called her aside. Polly's last surviving relative stood by the Hay & Peabody funeral hack, a thin stick of a woman dressed in a man's black overcoat and strangely jolly red galoshes, a Herbert Tareyton tucked into the corner of her mouth. She flicked a wooden match alight with one thumbnail as Polly approached, and set fire to the tip of her CIGARETTE. She inhaled deeply and then hacked the SMOKE back out into the cold spring air. Her cane (a simple ash stick; it would be three years yet before she would be awarded the Boston Post Cane as the town's oldest citizen) was planted between her feet.

"Novels\Needful Things.txt" 4797 195:Now, sitting in a Boston rocker that the old lady undoubtedly would have approved of, Polly calculated that Aunt Evvie must have been eighty-eight that spring-eighty-eight years old and still SMOKING like a chimney-although she had not looked much different to Polly than she had when Polly was a little girl, hoping for a penny sweet from the apparently endless supply Aunt Evvie kept in the pocket of her apron. Many things in Castle Rock had changed in the years she had been gone, but Aunt Evvie was not one of them.

"Novels\Needful Things.txt" 4799 55:"Well, that's over," Aunt Evvie had said in her CIGARETTE-raspy voice. "They're in the ground, Polly. Mother and father both."

"Novels\Needful Things.txt" 4803 303:And need not have worried. Evelyn Chalmers had never been a woman who believed in comforting the grief-stricken; might in fact have believed, Polly sometimes thought later, that the very idea of comfort was an illusion. In any case, she only stood there with her cane planted between her red galoshes, SMOKING and waiting for Polly's tears to give way to sniffles as she brought herself under control.

"Novels\Needful Things.txt" 4809 127:"A goodish name," Aunt Evvie said. She drew on her CIGARETTE and then exhaled slowly from her mouth so she could draw the SMOKE back up her nose-what Lorraine Chalmers had called a "double-pump," wrinkling her nose in distaste as she said it. "I knew it the first time you come over to see me after you got home. Saw it in your eyes."

"Novels\Needful Things.txt" 4809 56:"A goodish name," Aunt Evvie said. She drew on her CIGARETTE and then exhaled slowly from her mouth so she could draw the SMOKE back up her nose-what Lorraine Chalmers had called a "double-pump," wrinkling her nose in distaste as she said it. "I knew it the first time you come over to see me after you got home. Saw it in your eyes."

"Novels\Needful Things.txt" 4817 74:"Baby Kelton's dead . . . but you're not." Aunt Evvie tossed her CIGARETTE away and used one bony forefinger to tap against Polly's chest for emphasis. "You're not. So what are you going to do about it?"

"Novels\Needful Things.txt" 516 127:Mr. Gaunt came back through the curtain. His hair was a trifle disarrayed, and there was a smudge of dust on one lapel of his SMOKING jacket. In his hands he held a box which had once contained a pair of Air Jordan sneakers. He set it on the counter and took off the top. Brian stood by his left arm, looking in. The box was full of baseball cards, each inserted in its own plastic envelope, just like the ones Brian sometimes bought at The Baseball Card Shop in North Conway, New Hampshire.

"Novels\Needful Things.txt" 522 389:Brian watched the cards flash by, speechless with astonishment. The guy who ran The Baseball Card Shop had what his dad called "a pretty country-fair" selection of old cards, but the contents of the whole store couldn't hold a candle to the treasures tucked away in this one sneaker box. There were chewing-tobacco cards with pictures of Ty Cobb and Pie Traynor on them. There were CIGARETTE cards with pictures of Babe Ruth and Dom DiMaggio and Big George Keller and even Hiram Dissen, the one-armed pitcher who had chucked for the White Sox during the forties. LUCKY STRIKE HAS GONE TO WAR! many of the CIGARETTE cards proclaimed. And there, just glimpsed, a broad, solemn face above a Pittsburgh uniform shirt-

"Novels\Needful Things.txt" 522 612:Brian watched the cards flash by, speechless with astonishment. The guy who ran The Baseball Card Shop had what his dad called "a pretty country-fair" selection of old cards, but the contents of the whole store couldn't hold a candle to the treasures tucked away in this one sneaker box. There were chewing-tobacco cards with pictures of Ty Cobb and Pie Traynor on them. There were CIGARETTE cards with pictures of Babe Ruth and Dom DiMaggio and Big George Keller and even Hiram Dissen, the one-armed pitcher who had chucked for the White Sox during the forties. LUCKY STRIKE HAS GONE TO WAR! many of the CIGARETTE cards proclaimed. And there, just glimpsed, a broad, solemn face above a Pittsburgh uniform shirt-

"Novels\Needful Things.txt" 5222 51:The truck started with a roar and a belch of blue SMOKE. Hugh's foot slipped off the clutch. The truck took two large, snapping jerks away from the curb and stalled. Breathing harshly through his mouth, Hugh got it started again and drove away fast.

"Novels\Needful Things.txt" 5856 157:The living room was a shambles. The TV-their beautiful big-screen TV on which they still owed eleven payments-was shattered. The innards were black and SMOKING. The picture-tube lay in a thousand shiny fragments on the carpet. Across the room, a huge hole had been knocked in one of the living-room walls. A large package, shaped like a loaf, lay below this hole. Another lay in the doorway to the kitchen.

"Novels\Needful Things.txt" 6333 39:"I'm not surprised. Do you have a CIGARETTE?"

"Novels\Needful Things.txt" 6335 102:The janitor took a pack of Luckies from his breast pocket and shook one out for Alan. "You can't SMOKE it in here, though," he said. He nodded his head toward the morgue door. "Doc Ryan throws a fit."

"Novels\Needful Things.txt" 6341 70:Alan started down the corridor. "I carry a lighter. Thanks for the SMOKE."

"Novels\Needful Things.txt" 6353 655:The door the janitor had pointed out was the sort equipped with a panic-bar. Alan looked around for something he could use to prop it open and saw nothing. He pulled the green-gown off, wadded it up, and opened the door. Night air washed in, chilly but incredibly refreshing after the stale alcohol smell of the morgue and adjoining autopsy room. Alan placed the wadded-up gown against the door-jamb and stepped out. He carefully let the door swing back, saw that the gown would keep the latch from engaging, and forgot about it. He leaned against the cinderblock wall next to the pencil-line of light escaping through the slightly ajar door and lit his CIGARETTE.

"Novels\Needful Things.txt" 6363 144:Alan dragged deeply on the CIGARETTE. It tasted absolutely grand, swimmy head or no swimmy head, and he felt he could understand perfectly why SMOKING was now off-limits in the public areas of every hospital in America. John Calvin had been dead right: nothing that made you feel this way could possibly be good for you. In the meantime, though, hit me wid dat nicotine, boss-it feel so fine.

"Novels\Needful Things.txt" 6363 28:Alan dragged deeply on the CIGARETTE. It tasted absolutely grand, swimmy head or no swimmy head, and he felt he could understand perfectly why SMOKING was now off-limits in the public areas of every hospital in America. John Calvin had been dead right: nothing that made you feel this way could possibly be good for you. In the meantime, though, hit me wid dat nicotine, boss-it feel so fine.

"Novels\Needful Things.txt" 6373 59:"No, I saw an autopsy once when I was in North Wyndham. SMOKE-inhalation case. But these . . . Jesus, Alan."

"Novels\Needful Things.txt" 6375 34:"Yeah," he said, and exhaled SMOKE. "Jesus."

"Novels\Needful Things.txt" 6377 20:"You got another CIGARETTE?"

"Novels\Needful Things.txt" 6379 123:"No-sorry. I bummed this one from the janitor." He looked at the Deputy with mild curiosity. "I didn't know you SMOKED, Norris."

"Novels\Needful Things.txt" 6497 106:Hey, come on! Didn't you just lay it out for Norris, A to Z, in the length of time it takes to SMOKE a CIGARETTE?

"Novels\Needful Things.txt" 6497 98:Hey, come on! Didn't you just lay it out for Norris, A to Z, in the length of time it takes to SMOKE a CIGARETTE?

"Novels\Needful Things.txt" 6501 66:Alan didn't know. And because he didn't know, he flipped the CIGARETTE away and began to go over the whole thing again.

"Novels\Needful Things.txt" 7247 384:Once he was in his Plymouth, he unlocked the glove compartment and took it out. It was a meerschaum, with a bowl both deep and wide. It had been carved by a master craftsman, that pipe; birds and flowers and vines circled the bowl in a pattern that actually seemed to change when one looked at it from different angles. He had left the pipe in the glove compartment not just because SMOKING was forbidden in the doctor's office but because he didn't like the idea of other people (especially a snoop like Nancy Ramage) seeing it. First they would want to know where he had gotten it. Then they would want to know how much he had paid for it.

"Novels\Needful Things.txt" 7406 278:The car was still doing fifty in a zone posted for twenty-five when it crossed the bridge. It was a unit the high school kids would have regarded with awe and envy: a lime-green Dodge Challenger that had been jacked in the back so the nose pointed toward the road. Through the SMOKED-glass windows, one could dimly make out the roll-bar which arched across the roof between the front and back seats. The rear end was covered with stickers: HEARST, FUELLY, FRAM, QUAKER STATE, GOODYEAR WIDE OVALS, RAM CHARGER. The straight-pipes burbled contentedly, fat on the ninety-six-octane fuel which could be purchased only at Oxford Plains Speedway once you got north of Portland.

"Novels\Needful Things.txt" 8306 151:"He wouldn't mind if I opened it," Sally said aloud, and tore off the end of the envelope in a neat strip which she put in the ashtray where no CIGARETTE had ever been parked. "We'll have a good laugh about it tonight."

"Novels\Needful Things.txt" 8412 200:She jammed the key into the ignition. The Mustang awoke with a roar that sounded as angry as she felt. She dropped the gearshift into drive and tore out of the faculty parking lot in a cloud of blue SMOKE and a wailing shriek of burned rubber.

"Novels\Outsider, The.txt" 10157 183:Ralph had been hoping for just that, but it had been a thin hope. As it happened, however, he had another card in his hand. "Hoskins also blew up the vehicle we came in. There's SMOKE. Plenty of it."

"Novels\Outsider, The.txt" 10165 119:The outsider recoiled as if she had struck him. For a moment he seemed to forget all about the burning SUV sending up SMOKE signals from the abandoned parking lot. "That's offensive, ridiculous, and untrue. I eat to live, that's all. Your kind does the same thing when you slaughter pigs and cows. That's all you are to me-cattle."

"Novels\Outsider, The.txt" 10366 220:Once they were in the parking lot, Ralph got out. He met Holly coming around the hood of the truck, and this time it was she who hugged him. It was brief but strong. The rental SUV had mostly burned itself out, and the SMOKE was thinning.

"Novels\Outsider, The.txt" 10386 111:As Yune ticked them off, they heard faint sirens coming from the direction of Tippit. Someone had noticed the SMOKE after all, it seemed, but the person who saw it hadn't bothered to come and investigate himself. Which was probably good. "DA Bill Samuels. Then your wife. Chief Geller after that. Finishing up with Captain Horace Kinney of the Texas Highway Patrol. All the numbers are in your contacts. The Boltons we talk to in person."

"Novels\Outsider, The.txt" 10890 30:"You know she's probably SMOKING it up right now in some bumblefuck's crash pad, don't you?"

"Novels\Outsider, The.txt" 2051 459:Ollie went back and forth from the living room to the kitchen, carrying glasses and piles of dishes, loading them into the dishwasher with an efficiency Fred never would have expected. When the dishwasher was full, Ollie set it going and rinsed more dishes, stacking them in the sink for the next load. Fred brought in the dishes that had been left in the den, and found yet more on the picnic table in the backyard, where some of their visitors had gone to SMOKE. Fifty or sixty people must have washed through the house before it was finally over, everyone in the neighborhood, plus well-wishers from other parts of town, not to mention Father Brixton and his various hangers-on (his groupies, Fred thought) from St. Anthony's. On and on they had come, a stream of mourners and gawkers.

"Novels\Outsider, The.txt" 2209 1063:He had no doubt that Howie Gold would get him out of this; even now, in the darkest ditch of the night, with his mind still trying to get a grip on the way his whole life had changed in a matter of minutes, he didn't doubt it. But he also knew that not all of the shit would wash off. He would be released with an apology-if not tomorrow, then at the arraignment, if not at the arraignment, then at the next step, which would probably be a grand jury hearing in Cap City-but he knew what he would see in the eyes of his students the next time he stepped in front of a class, and his career as a youth sports coach was probably finished. The various governing bodies would find some excuse if he wouldn't do what they'd see as the honorable thing and step down himself. Because he was never going to be completely innocent again, not in the eyes of his neighbors on the West Side, or in those of Flint City as a whole. He would always be the man who was arrested for the murder of Frank Peterson. He would always be the man of whom people would say, No SMOKE without fire.

"Novels\Outsider, The.txt" 3990 286:In the movie, Montresor had been undone by a black cat he had inadvertently entombed with his victim. Its yowling had alerted visitors to the wine cellar. The cat, Ralph supposed, was just another metaphor: the voice of the killer's own conscience. Only sometimes a cigar was just a SMOKE and a cat was just a cat. There was no reason to keep remembering Terry's dying eyes, or Terry's dying declaration. As Samuels had said, his wife had been kneeling there beside him when he went, holding his hand.

"Novels\Outsider, The.txt" 4047 1029:Another thing he was almost sure of was how this scrap had happened to be lying on the van's floor. Someone had put menus under the windshield wipers of all the vehicles in the area where the van had been parked. The driver-maybe the kid who'd stolen it in New York, maybe whoever had stolen it after the kid dumped it-had torn it off rather than just lifting the wiper, leaving that triangular corner. The driver hadn't noticed then, but once he was rolling, he would have. Maybe he'd reached around and pulled it free, dropping it on the floor instead of just letting it fly away. Possibly because he wasn't a litterbug by nature, just a thief. Possibly because there'd been a cop car behind him, and he hadn't wanted to do anything, not even a little thing, that might attract attention. It was even possible that he'd tried to throw it out the window, and a vagary of wind had blown it right back into the cab. Ralph had investigated road accidents, one of them quite nasty, where that had happened with CIGARETTE butts.

"Novels\Outsider, The.txt" 423 137:June Morris: Well, it would be white if it was washed, I guess, but it was pretty dirty. Also, it made a lot of noise and all this blue SMOKE. Phew.

"Novels\Outsider, The.txt" 4259 171:This time when she got up, Marcy went to the utensil drawer and pulled it all the way out. She thought there would be nothing there, but her hand found a pack of Winston CIGARETTES. There were three left inside. No, make that four-one was hiding all the way in back. She hadn't SMOKED since her younger daughter's fifth birthday, when she'd had a coughing fit while mixing the batter for Gracie's cake, and had vowed there and then to quit forever. Yet instead of throwing these last soldiers of cancer out, she had tossed them in back of the utensil drawer, as if some dark and prescient part of her had known she would eventually need them again.

"Novels\Outsider, The.txt" 4259 283:This time when she got up, Marcy went to the utensil drawer and pulled it all the way out. She thought there would be nothing there, but her hand found a pack of Winston CIGARETTES. There were three left inside. No, make that four-one was hiding all the way in back. She hadn't SMOKED since her younger daughter's fifth birthday, when she'd had a coughing fit while mixing the batter for Gracie's cake, and had vowed there and then to quit forever. Yet instead of throwing these last soldiers of cancer out, she had tossed them in back of the utensil drawer, as if some dark and prescient part of her had known she would eventually need them again.

"Novels\Outsider, The.txt" 4269 298:At least the reporters had gone away after the funeral, rushing back to Cap City to cover some fresh political scandal, and she wouldn't have to risk the back porch, where one of the girls might look out the window and see her renewing her old vice. Or in the garage, where they might smell the SMOKE if they came out for a fresh bundle of LPs.

"Novels\Outsider, The.txt" 4280 317:The horror with which she stared at him-as if he were some kind of monster, maybe a zombie from that TV show-struck Ralph like a blow to the chest. He had time to see the disarray of her hair, a splotch of something on the lapel of her robe (which was too big for her; maybe it was Terry's), the slightly bent CIGARETTE between her fingers. And something else. She had always been a fine-looking woman, but she was losing her looks already. He would have called that impossible.

"Novels\Outsider, The.txt" 4300 128:She held up the CIGARETTE and uttered a terrible toneless laugh. "I thought, now that the little lice are gone, I can have a SMOKE on my doorstep. And look, here's the big louse, the louse of louses. Last warning, Mr. Louse who got my husband killed. Get . . . the fuck . . . off my doorstep."

"Novels\Outsider, The.txt" 4300 17:She held up the CIGARETTE and uttered a terrible toneless laugh. "I thought, now that the little lice are gone, I can have a SMOKE on my doorstep. And look, here's the big louse, the louse of louses. Last warning, Mr. Louse who got my husband killed. Get . . . the fuck . . . off my doorstep."

"Novels\Outsider, The.txt" 4321 318:Marcy stood trembling on her side of the door. She felt her knees go loose, and managed to make it to the bench near the door where people sat when they took off boots or muddy shoes. Upstairs, the Beatle who had been murdered was singing about all the things he was going to do when he got home. Marcy looked at the CIGARETTE between her fingers as if unsure how it had gotten there, then snapped it in two and slipped the pieces into the pocket of the robe she was wearing (it was indeed Terry's). At least he saved me from starting up that shit again, she thought. Maybe I should write him a thank-you note.

"Novels\Outsider, The.txt" 4659 225:"Insurance. Peter Maitland had very good insurance. Dolores insisted. Peter was a heavy smoker all his life, and she probably thought she'd inherit a bundle when he went. But she went first. Probably from his secondhand SMOKE."

"Novels\Outsider, The.txt" 4663 130:"No, he's still alive." Then, in a deliberate echo of her husband: "If you want to call that living. He's even stopped SMOKING. It's not allowed in the HMU."

"Novels\Outsider, The.txt" 5187 56:That night he sat at the picnic table in the backyard, SMOKING a Tiparillo and looking up at the sky. There were no stars, but he could still make out the moon behind the clouds that were moving in. The truth was often like that, he thought-a bleary circle of light behind clouds. Sometimes it broke through; sometimes the clouds thickened, and the light disappeared completely.

"Novels\Outsider, The.txt" 5193 77:Jeannie called to him. "Come inside, Ralph. It's going to rain. You can SMOKE that smelly thing in the kitchen, if you have to have it."

"Novels\Outsider, The.txt" 527 122:Scowcroft: Yeah, me and Riley Franklin. I ran into him there, and we ate together. Out back, that's where people go to SMOKE. Down the hall between the restrooms and out the back door. There's an ash bucket and everything. So we ate-I had the ribs, he had the mac and cheese-and we ordered dessert, and went out back to have a SMOKE before it came. While we were standing there, shooting the shit, this dirty white van pulled in. Had a New York plate on it, I remember that. It parked beside a little Subaru wagon-I think it was a Subaru-and that guy got out. Moreland, or whatever his name is.

"Novels\Outsider, The.txt" 527 336:Scowcroft: Yeah, me and Riley Franklin. I ran into him there, and we ate together. Out back, that's where people go to SMOKE. Down the hall between the restrooms and out the back door. There's an ash bucket and everything. So we ate-I had the ribs, he had the mac and cheese-and we ordered dessert, and went out back to have a SMOKE before it came. While we were standing there, shooting the shit, this dirty white van pulled in. Had a New York plate on it, I remember that. It parked beside a little Subaru wagon-I think it was a Subaru-and that guy got out. Moreland, or whatever his name is.

"Novels\Outsider, The.txt" 5579 594:"It's Holly Gibney again, and I am still trying to do my best. If you're there, please bless Pete while he's fishing, because only an idiot goes out in a boat when he doesn't know how to swim. Please bless the Robinsons over there in Ireland, and if Jerome really is thinking about kissing the Blarney Stone, I wish you'd make him think better of it. I am drinking Boost to try and put on a little weight, because Dr. Stonefield says I'm too thin. I don't like it, but each can has two hundred and forty calories, according to the label. I'm taking my Lexapro, and I'm not SMOKING. Tomorrow I'm going to Dayton. Please help me to stay safe in my car, obey all traffic rules, and help me to do the best I can with the facts at hand. Which are interesting." She considered. "I still miss Bill. I guess that's all for tonight."

"Novels\Outsider, The.txt" 5791 932:She arrived at two thirty, this time driving around to the left side of the building, where signs announced EMPLOYEE PARKING and KEEP AMBULANCE BAY CLEAR. She chose a space at the far end of the lot, backing in so she could watch the building. By two forty-five, cars began to drift in as those working the three-to-eleven shift arrived. Around three, the day shift employees-mostly orderlies, some nurses, a couple of guys in suits, which probably made them doctors-began to leave. One of the suits drove away in a Cadillac, the other in a Porsche. They were doctors, all right. She evaluated the others carefully, and settled on a target. She was a middle-aged nurse wearing a tunic covered with dancing teddy bears. Her car was an old Honda Civic with rust on the sides, a cracked taillight that had been mended with duct tape, and a fading I'M WITH HILLARY sticker on the bumper. Before getting in, she paused to light a CIGARETTE. The car was old and CIGARETTES were expensive. Better and better.

"Novels\Outsider, The.txt" 5791 963:She arrived at two thirty, this time driving around to the left side of the building, where signs announced EMPLOYEE PARKING and KEEP AMBULANCE BAY CLEAR. She chose a space at the far end of the lot, backing in so she could watch the building. By two forty-five, cars began to drift in as those working the three-to-eleven shift arrived. Around three, the day shift employees-mostly orderlies, some nurses, a couple of guys in suits, which probably made them doctors-began to leave. One of the suits drove away in a Cadillac, the other in a Porsche. They were doctors, all right. She evaluated the others carefully, and settled on a target. She was a middle-aged nurse wearing a tunic covered with dancing teddy bears. Her car was an old Honda Civic with rust on the sides, a cracked taillight that had been mended with duct tape, and a fading I'M WITH HILLARY sticker on the bumper. Before getting in, she paused to light a CIGARETTE. The car was old and CIGARETTES were expensive. Better and better.

"Novels\Outsider, The.txt" 5830 31:The house smelled strongly of CIGARETTES, which made Holly really crave one for the first time in ages. Wilson plunked down in an easy chair, which, like her taillight, was mended with duct tape. Beside it was a standing ashtray of a type Holly hadn't seen since her grandfather died (of emphysema). Wilson plucked a pack of CIGARETTES from the pocket of her nylon pants and flicked her Bic. She did not offer the pack to Holly, which was no surprise, given the price of smokes these days, but for which Holly was grateful, anyway. She might have taken one.

"Novels\Outsider, The.txt" 5830 328:The house smelled strongly of CIGARETTES, which made Holly really crave one for the first time in ages. Wilson plunked down in an easy chair, which, like her taillight, was mended with duct tape. Beside it was a standing ashtray of a type Holly hadn't seen since her grandfather died (of emphysema). Wilson plucked a pack of CIGARETTES from the pocket of her nylon pants and flicked her Bic. She did not offer the pack to Holly, which was no surprise, given the price of smokes these days, but for which Holly was grateful, anyway. She might have taken one.

"Novels\Outsider, The.txt" 5834 211:Holly, who had not neglected to stop at an ATM on her second trip to the Memory Unit, took her wallet from her purse and counted out the correct amount. Wilson re-counted it, then put it in her pocket with her CIGARETTES.

"Novels\Outsider, The.txt" 5858 111:"Well, yeah, but nothing gross, just a joyride in a stolen car when he was seventeen." She frowned at her CIGARETTE. "Paper wasn't supposed to have that, you know, he was a juvenile and those records are supposed to be sealed. If they weren't, he probably wouldn't have gotten the job at Heisman, even with all his army training and his five years working at Walter Reed. Maybe, but probably not."

"Novels\Outsider, The.txt" 5874 111:Wilson brought back a couple of Bud Lights. She offered Holly a glass no more than she had offered one of her CIGARETTES.

"Novels\Outsider, The.txt" 5880 108:"If you say so. I just know it was in the spring, because of my allergies." So saying, she lit a fresh CIGARETTE. "Said he was going up to Regis, said he and his mom were going to have a service for his dad, who died a year ago. 'A memory service,' he called it. And maybe he did go, but he came back to kill those girls from Trotwood. No question about it, because people saw him and there was surveillance video from a gas station that showed him filling up."

"Novels\Outsider, The.txt" 6713 172:It was five that afternoon when a Texas Highway Patrol car drove up Rural Star Route 2 and turned into the driveway at Box 397. Lovie Bolton was on her front porch with a CIGARETTE in her hand and her oxygen tank in its rubber-wheeled carrier beside her rocking chair.

"Novels\Outsider, The.txt" 6727 103:"Sipe, ma'am. Corporal Owen Sipe. I'm pleased to meet you." He shook the hand not holding the CIGARETTE, minding the old lady's swollen joints.

"Novels\Outsider, The.txt" 6741 135:"These days he don't drink nor drug," Lovie said from her rocker. "He don't even use this shit." She cast the stub of her CIGARETTE into the dirt. "He's a good boy."

"Novels\Outsider, The.txt" 6775 61:"I don't trust roadside cafés," she said, taking her CIGARETTES from the pocket of her housedress and clamping one between her dentures. "Got ptomaine in one over Abilene way back in '74, and like to die. My boy takes over the cookin when he's here. He ain't no Emeril, but he ain't bad. Knows his way around a skillet. Don't burn the bacon." She dropped him a wink as she lit up, Sipe smiling and hoping there was a tight seal on her tank and she wasn't going to blow them both to hell.

"Novels\Outsider, The.txt" 6987 119:She finished aloud, but in a whisper. "Please God, help me not to frack up." She paused, then added, "I'm not SMOKING."

"Novels\Outsider, The.txt" 8014 133:Holly paused, looking down at her hands. The nails were unpolished, but quite neat; she had quit chewing them, just as she had quit SMOKING. Broken herself of the habit. She sometimes thought that her pilgrimage to something at least approximating mental stability (if not genuine mental health) had been marked by the ritual casting off of bad habits. It had been hard to let them go. They were friends.

"Novels\Outsider, The.txt" 8300 40:The room smelled of used booze and old CIGARETTE SMOKE. The coverlet was threadbare, and the case of the pillow on the swaybacked bed was yellow with age, sweat, or both. He sat down in the room's only chair and ran quickly and without much interest through the text messages and voicemails on his phone (these latter had ceased around 4 AM, when the mailbox reached its capacity). All from the station, many from Chief Geller himself. There had been a double murder on the West Side. With both Ralph Anderson and Betsy Riggins out of service, he was the only detective on duty, where was he, he was needed on the scene immediately, blah-blah-blah.

"Novels\Outsider, The.txt" 8300 50:The room smelled of used booze and old CIGARETTE SMOKE. The coverlet was threadbare, and the case of the pillow on the swaybacked bed was yellow with age, sweat, or both. He sat down in the room's only chair and ran quickly and without much interest through the text messages and voicemails on his phone (these latter had ceased around 4 AM, when the mailbox reached its capacity). All from the station, many from Chief Geller himself. There had been a double murder on the West Side. With both Ralph Anderson and Betsy Riggins out of service, he was the only detective on duty, where was he, he was needed on the scene immediately, blah-blah-blah.

"Novels\Outsider, The.txt" 8355 26:"I feel that way about CIGARETTES," Holly said.

"Novels\Outsider, The.txt" 8357 223:Bolton grinned, and Ralph thought how odd it was that the least socially adept person in their little party was the one who had put Bolton at ease. Not that Bolton had seemed really worried; more on watch. "Yes ma'am, CIGARETTES is a hard one. How you doing with it?"

"Novels\Outsider, The.txt" 8537 41:"Sí, mi amigo." Lovie took out her CIGARETTES and lit one. She chuffed out SMOKE, coughed, and went on. "In the story, there were three sisters. The youngest one cooked and cleaned and did all the other chores. The two older girls were lazy and made fun of her. El Cucuy came. The house was locked, but he looked like their papi, so they let him in. He took the bad sisters to teach them a lesson. He left the good one who worked so hard for the daddy who was raising the girls on his own. Do you remember?"

"Novels\Outsider, The.txt" 8537 81:"Sí, mi amigo." Lovie took out her CIGARETTES and lit one. She chuffed out SMOKE, coughed, and went on. "In the story, there were three sisters. The youngest one cooked and cleaned and did all the other chores. The two older girls were lazy and made fun of her. El Cucuy came. The house was locked, but he looked like their papi, so they let him in. He took the bad sisters to teach them a lesson. He left the good one who worked so hard for the daddy who was raising the girls on his own. Do you remember?"

"Novels\Outsider, The.txt" 8611 44:"That's it," she agreed, butting her CIGARETTE in a tin ashtray heaped with dead soldiers. "Because if Miss Holly here is right, what you know, he knows. Maybe that don't matter, maybe all the cats are out of the bag, but maybe it does. So you be a good son and go get those dinners."

"Novels\Outsider, The.txt" 8746 98:She looked doubtfully at Howie, but when Holly nodded and smiled, Lovie smiled back, lit another CIGARETTE, and went on.

"Novels\Outsider, The.txt" 8750 28:She coughed, looked at her CIGARETTE with distaste, and buried it with the others in the overfilled ashtray, where it smoldered balefully.

"Novels\Outsider, The.txt" 9381 222:They drove to the Bolton place, where they found Yune and Claude sitting on the front porch steps and drinking coffee. Lovie was in her little side garden, weeding from her wheelchair with her oxygen bottle in her lap, a CIGARETTE in her mouth, and a big straw sunhat clapped on her head.

"Novels\Outsider, The.txt" 9723 151:He peered through the scope just in time to glimpse Anderson disappearing behind one of those big boulders. He had lost them. Nor was that all. Black SMOKE was rising from the burning SUV, and now that it was full day, there was no wind to disperse it. What if someone saw that and called whatever excuse for a volunteer fire department they had in this poor-ass town?

"Novels\Outsider, The.txt" 9876 37:She pointed to the sky, where black SMOKE from the burning SUV was rising. "Someone will see that, and they'll come. And if something happens to us, Yune's the only one who will know why."

"Novels\Pet Sematary.txt" 147 239:He turned and saw an old man of perhaps seventy-a hale and healthy seventy-standing there on the grass. He wore a biballs over a blue chambray shirt that showed his thickly folded and wrinkled neck. His face was sunburned, and he was SMOKING an unfiltered CIGARETTE. As Louis looked at him, the old man pinched the CIGARETTE out between his thumb and forefinger and pocketed it neatly. He held out his hands and smiled crookedly . . . a smile Louis liked at once-and he was not a man who "took" to people.

"Novels\Pet Sematary.txt" 147 261:He turned and saw an old man of perhaps seventy-a hale and healthy seventy-standing there on the grass. He wore a biballs over a blue chambray shirt that showed his thickly folded and wrinkled neck. His face was sunburned, and he was SMOKING an unfiltered CIGARETTE. As Louis looked at him, the old man pinched the CIGARETTE out between his thumb and forefinger and pocketed it neatly. He held out his hands and smiled crookedly . . . a smile Louis liked at once-and he was not a man who "took" to people.

"Novels\Pet Sematary.txt" 147 320:He turned and saw an old man of perhaps seventy-a hale and healthy seventy-standing there on the grass. He wore a biballs over a blue chambray shirt that showed his thickly folded and wrinkled neck. His face was sunburned, and he was SMOKING an unfiltered CIGARETTE. As Louis looked at him, the old man pinched the CIGARETTE out between his thumb and forefinger and pocketed it neatly. He held out his hands and smiled crookedly . . . a smile Louis liked at once-and he was not a man who "took" to people.

"Novels\Pet Sematary.txt" 1509 110:Now fear came, entering softly, sifting through the hollow places of his body and filling them up with dirty SMOKE. He didn't want to go up there. He halted.

"Novels\Pet Sematary.txt" 1925 35:Jud agreed that she was and lit a CIGARETTE. "Where's Gage, Louis? Thought you'd have him dressed up too."

"Novels\Pet Sematary.txt" 1963 32:Jud nodded and pinched out his CIGARETTE over an ashtray. "Yeah. It's come down harder on her every fall and winter, but this is the worst it's ever been."

"Novels\Pet Sematary.txt" 223 46:"No, actually I don't." Crandall lit a CIGARETTE-pop! went the match, flaring brightly in the first early evening shadows. "My dad built that house across the way. Brought his wife there, and she was taken with child there, and that child was me, born in the very year 1900."

"Novels\Pet Sematary.txt" 2258 876:Louis Creed had not been at the optimum time of life to deal with such an outrage, but such melodramatic proposals (or bribes, to call a spade a spade) are rarely made to those who are at an optimum time-which might be around the age of eighty-five. He was tired, for one thing. He was spending eighteen hours a week in classes, another twenty hitting the books, another fifteen waiting tables in a deep-dish pizza joint down the block from the Whitehall Hotel. He was also nervous. Mr. Goldman's oddly jovial manner that evening had contrasted completely with his previous cold behavior, and Louis thought that when Goldman invited him into the study for a cigar, a look had passed from him to his wife. Later-much later, when time had lent a little perspective-Louis would reflect that horses must feel much the same free-floating anxiety when they smell the first SMOKE of a prairie fire. He began expecting Goldman to reveal at any moment that he knew Louis had been sleeping with his daughter.

"Novels\Pet Sematary.txt" 2260 116:When Goldman instead made his incredible offer-even going so far as to take his checkbook from the pocket of his SMOKING jacket like a rake in a Noël Coward farce-Louis had blown up. He accused Goldman of trying to keep his daughter like an exhibit in a museum, of having no regard for anyone but himself, and of being an overbearing, thoughtless bastard. It would be a long time before he would admit to himself that part of his rage had been relief.

"Novels\Pet Sematary.txt" 2270 635:The children had melted his in-laws a good deal, as children often do. Louis suspected that he himself could have completed the rapprochement simply by pretending he had forgotten that evening in Goldman's study. It wouldn't even matter that Goldman knew he was pretending. But the fact was (and he at least had the guts to be up front about it with himself) that he did not quite want to make the rapprochement. Ten years was a long time, but it was not quite long enough to take away the slimy taste that had come into his mouth when, in Goldman's study over glasses of brandy, the old man had opened one side of that idiotic SMOKING jacket and removed the checkbook residing within. Yes, he had felt relief that the nights-five of them in all-that he and Rachel had spent in his narrow, sagging apartment bed had not been discovered, but that surprised disgust had been quite its own thing, and the years between then and now had not changed it.

"Novels\Pet Sematary.txt" 2651 66:"Go on and bury your animal," he said. "I'm gonna have a SMOKE. I'd help you, but you got to do it yourself. Each buries his own. That's the way it was done then."

"Novels\Pet Sematary.txt" 299 415:Louis came back later feeling small. No one asked him to examine Norma Crandall; when he crossed the street (rud, he reminded himself, smiling), the lady had already retired for the night. Jud was a vague silhouette behind the screens of the enclosed porch. There was the comfortable squeak of a rocker on old linoleum. Louis knocked on the screen door, which rattled companionably against its frame. Crandall's CIGARETTE glowed like a large, peaceable firefly in the summer darkness. From a radio, low, came the voice of a Red Sox game, and all of it gave Louis Creed the oddest feeling of coming home.

"Novels\Pet Sematary.txt" 3041 11:Jud lit a CIGARETTE with a wooden kitchen match, shook it out, and tossed the stub into a tin ashtray with a barely readable Jim Beam advertisement painted on its bottom.

"Novels\Pet Sematary.txt" 3049 131:At a quarter to ten she said goodnight, and now he sat here with Jud, who had ceased speaking and seemed only to be following his CIGARETTE SMOKE up and up, like a kid watching a barber pole to see where the stripes go.

"Novels\Pet Sematary.txt" 3049 141:At a quarter to ten she said goodnight, and now he sat here with Jud, who had ceased speaking and seemed only to be following his CIGARETTE SMOKE up and up, like a kid watching a barber pole to see where the stripes go.

"Novels\Pet Sematary.txt" 3091 37:Jud looked at Louis and lit another CIGARETTE.

"Novels\Pet Sematary.txt" 3111 73:"I do, and you know where they're kept," Jud said and lit a fresh SMOKE. He waited until Louis was seated again. "No, I wouldn't have dared to try the stairs. They went past my parents' bedroom. I went down the ivy trellis, hand over hand, just as quick as I could. I was some scared, I can tell you, but I think I was more scared of my dad just then than I was of going up to the Pet Sematary with Stanny B."

"Novels\Pet Sematary.txt" 3113 20:He crushed out his SMOKE.

"Novels\Pet Sematary.txt" 3159 37:"Yes," Jud said. He lit a fresh CIGARETTE. His hands were shaking the smallest bit. "And my mother seen me there, still in my underwear, and she screamed at me, 'Feed your dog, Jud! Your dog needs to be fed, get him out of here before he messes the curtains!'

"Novels\Pet Sematary.txt" 371 64:"It's not as odd as it prob'ly sounds," Crandall said, SMOKING and rocking. "It's the road. It uses up a lot of animals, that road does. Dogs and cats, mostly, but that ain't all. One of those big Orinco trucks run down the pet raccoon the Ryder children used to keep. That was back-Christ, must have been in '73, maybe earlier. Before the state made keeping a coon or even a denatured skunk illegal, anyway."

"Novels\Pet Sematary.txt" 3883 283:Jud took hold as well as could have been expected, considering the fact that the lady had been sharing bed and board with him for almost sixty years. Louis found the old man-and on this day he looked very much like an old man of eighty-three-sitting alone at the kitchen table, SMOKING a Chesterfield, drinking a bottle of beer, and staring blankly into the living room.

"Novels\Pet Sematary.txt" 393 56:"I'd get him fixed," Crandall said, crushing his SMOKE between his thumb and forefinger. "A fixed cat don't tend to wander as much. But if it's all the time crossing back and forth, its luck will run out, and it'll end up there with the Ryder kids' coon and little Timmy Dessler's cocker spaniel and Missus Bradleigh's parakeet. Not that the parakeet got run over in the road, you understand. It just went feet up one day."

"Novels\Pet Sematary.txt" 4230 65:Sure-she just wants to make sure I don't go up in a puff of SMOKE, Louis thought and almost smiled. But then that thought called up another one: Oz the Gweat and Tewwible. And the smile died.

"Novels\Pet Sematary.txt" 4244 41:"Goodbye, Norma," he said and lit a CIGARETTE. "I'll see you in a while, old girl."

"Novels\Pet Sematary.txt" 427 279:Just before sleep, Louis hiked himself up on one elbow and looked out the window. Their room was at the front of the house, and he could look across the road at the Crandall place. It was too dark to see shapes-on a moonlit night it would not have been-but he could see the CIGARETTE ember over there. Still up, he thought. He'll maybe be up for a long time. The old sleep poorly. Perhaps they stand watch.

"Novels\Pet Sematary.txt" 4595 60:Outside the East Room was a small foyer where people could SMOKE and sit in overstuffed easy chairs. The chairs looked as if they might have come directly from a distress sale at some old English men's club that had gone broke. Beside the door leading into the viewing room was a small easel, black metal chased with gold, and on this easel was a small sign which said simply GAGE WILLIAM CREED. If you went across this spacious white building that looked misleadingly like a comfortable old house, you came to an identical foyer, this one outside the West Room, where the sign on the easel read ALBERTA BURNHAM NEDEAU. At the back of the house was the Riverfront Room. The easel to the left of the door between the foyer and this room was blank; it was not in use on this Tuesday morning. Downstairs was the coffin showroom, each model lit by a baby spotlight mounted on the ceiling. If you looked up-Louis had, and the funeral director had frowned severely at him-it looked as if there were a lot of strange animals roosting up there.

"Novels\Pet Sematary.txt" 4994 337:What do you want to buy next, Louis, when the wind blows hard at night and the moon lays a white path through the woods to that place? Want to climb those stairs again? When they're watching a horror movie, everyone in the audience knows the hero or the heroine is stupid to go up those stairs, but in real life they always do-they SMOKE, they don't wear seat belts, they move their family in beside a busy highway where the big rigs drone back and forth all day and all night. So, Louis, what do you say? Want to climb the stairs? Would you like to keep your dead son or go for what's behind Door Number One, Door Number Two, or Door Number Three?

"Novels\Pet Sematary.txt" 5049 104:"Oh, they were regular bears for recording deeds, were our grandfathers," Jud said, lighting a new CIGARETTE from the butt of the old one. "The original grant on your land goes like this." Jud closed his eyes and quoted, " 'From the great old maple which stands atop Quinceberry Ridge to the verge of Orrington Stream; thus runneth the tract from north until south.' " Jud grinned without much humor. "But the great old maple fell down in 1882, let's say, and was rotted to moss by the year 1900, and Orrington Stream silted up and turned to marsh in the ten years between the end of the Great War and the crash of the stock market. A nice mess it made! It ended up not mattering to old Anson, anyways. He was struck and killed by lightning in 1921, right up around where that burying ground is."

"Novels\Pet Sematary.txt" 5160 114:Jud paused to light a CIGARETTE, then shook the match out, and looked at Louis through the haze of drifting blue SMOKE. And although the story was, of course, utterly mad, there was no lie in Jud's eyes.

"Novels\Pet Sematary.txt" 5160 23:Jud paused to light a CIGARETTE, then shook the match out, and looked at Louis through the haze of drifting blue SMOKE. And although the story was, of course, utterly mad, there was no lie in Jud's eyes.

"Novels\Pet Sematary.txt" 5204 93:" 'Be damned if I know,' Bill says, 'and be damned if I care.' He goes to get a CIGARETTE and spills them all over the back porch, then breaks two or three trying to pick them up.

"Novels\Pet Sematary.txt" 5329 748:He was an honors student in high school and a member of the swimming team at John Bapst, the parochial school he had insisted on attending because of its swimming facilities. Rachel was upset, but Louis was not particularly surprised when, at seventeen, Gage announced his intention to convert to Catholicism. Rachel believed that all of it was because of the girl Gage was going out with, she saw marriage in his immediate future ("if that little slut with the St. Christopher's medal isn't balling him, I'll eat your shorts, Louis," she said), the wreckage of his college plans and his Olympic hopes, and nine or ten little Catholics running around by the time Gage was forty. By then he would be (according to Rachel, anyway) a cigar-SMOKING truck driver with a beer belly, Our-Fathering and Hail-Marying his way into pre-cardiac oblivion.

"Novels\Pet Sematary.txt" 5368 917:Gage's small white coffin, its latch presumably repaired, sat on a pair of chromed runners over the grave liner. The verges of the grave had been carpeted with Astroturf so violently green it hurt Louis's eyes. Several baskets of flowers had been set on top of this artificial and strangely gay surface. Louis's eyes looked over the funeral director's shoulder. Here was a low hill, covered with graves, family plots, one Romanesque monument with the name PHIPPS engraved on it. Just above the sloping roof of PHIPPS, he could see a sliver of yellow. Louis looked at this, pondering it. He continued to look at it even after the funeral director said, "Let us bow our heads for a moment of silent prayer." It took Louis a few minutes, but he got it. It was a payloader. A payloader parked over the hill where the mourners wouldn't have to look at it. And, when the funeral was over, Oz would crush his CIGARETTE on the heel of his tewwible workboot, put it in whatever container he carried around with him (in a cemetery sextons caught depositing their butts on the ground were almost always summarily fired-it looked bad; too many of the clientele had died of lung cancer), jump in the payloader, fire that sucker up, and cut his son off from the sun forever . . . or at least until the day of the Resurrection.

"Novels\Pet Sematary.txt" 555 83:"They used to call it Prospect Hill back in the old days," Jud said. He put a CIGARETTE in the corner of his mouth but did not light it. "There's a few that still do, but now that younger people have moved into town, it's mostly been forgot. I don't think there's very many people that even come up here. It don't look like you could see much because the hill's not very high. But you can see-" He gestured with one hand and fell silent.

"Novels\Pet Sematary.txt" 5697 246:Yes, the old man was really crying. Why did he have to be crying? It made it harder for Louis to hold on to his clean, pure hate. More difficult, but not impossible. He deliberately called up the image of Goldman reaching into the pocket of his SMOKING jacket for his overflowing checkbook . . . but he suddenly saw Zelda Goldman in the background, an unquiet ghost in a stinking bed, her cheesy face full of spite and agony, her hands pulled into claws. The Goldman ghost. Oz the Gweat and Tewwible.

"Novels\Pet Sematary.txt" 5815 99:"Light this thing," Rachel had said, weeping and laughing at the same time. "I'm going to SMOKE it till I puke."

"Novels\Pet Sematary.txt" 6271 245:Jud left again and crossed the road to his own house. He pulled a six-pack of beer out of the kitchen fridge and took it into the living room. He sat down in front of the bay window that looked out on the Creed house, cracked a beer, and lit a CIGARETTE. The afternoon drew down around him, and as it did so often these last few years, he would find his mind turning back and back in a widening gyre. If he had known the run of Rachel Creed's earlier thoughts he could have told her that what her psych teacher had told her was maybe the truth, but when you got older that dimming function of the memory broke down little by little, the same way that everything else in your body broke down, and you found yourself recalling places and faces and events with an eerie surety. Sepia-toned memories grew bright again, the colors trueing up, the voices losing that tinny echo of time and regaining their original resonance. It wasn't informational breakdowns at all, Jud could have told him. The name for it was senility.

"Novels\Pet Sematary.txt" 6275 19:He drank beer and SMOKED. Daylight faded. He did not put on the light. Gradually the tip of his CIGARETTE became a small red pip in the darkness. He sat and drank beer and watched Louis Creed's driveway. He believed that when Louis came home from wherever he was, he would go over and have a little talk with him. Make sure Louis wasn't planning to do anything he shouldn't.

"Novels\Pet Sematary.txt" 6275 97:He drank beer and SMOKED. Daylight faded. He did not put on the light. Gradually the tip of his CIGARETTE became a small red pip in the darkness. He sat and drank beer and watched Louis Creed's driveway. He believed that when Louis came home from wherever he was, he would go over and have a little talk with him. Make sure Louis wasn't planning to do anything he shouldn't.

"Novels\Pet Sematary.txt" 6281 43:Ignoring it as best he could, Jud sat and SMOKED and drank beer. And waited.

"Novels\Pet Sematary.txt" 6304 48:In Ludlow, Jud Crandall sat by his bay window, SMOKING and drinking beer, motionless, examining the mental scrapbook of his own past and waiting for Louis to come home. Sooner or later Louis would come home, just like Lassie in that old movie. There were other ways up to the Pet Sematary and the place beyond, but Louis didn't know them. If he intended to do it, he would begin from his own dooryard.

"Novels\Pet Sematary.txt" 635 188:Ellie ran from one monument to the next, exclaiming over each. Louis followed her while Rachel kept an eye on the baby. Jud sat down cross-legged, his back against a protruding rock, and SMOKED.

"Novels\Pet Sematary.txt" 6637 272:She walked away, not listening to the rest. She was halfway back to the security checkpoint when waves of faintness rode over her. She stumbled into another gate area and sat down until the darkness had passed. Then she slipped her shoes back on, picking a squashed Lark CIGARETTE butt off the tattered sole of one stocking first. My feet are dirty and I don't give a fuck, she thought disconsolately.

"Novels\Pet Sematary.txt" 6919 16:He lit a fresh CIGARETTE, drew deep, and coughed an old man's rasping cough. He put the CIGARETTE on the groove of the ashtray and rubbed his eyes with both hands. Outside a ten-wheeler blasted by, running lights glaring, cutting through the windy, uneasy night.

"Novels\Pet Sematary.txt" 6919 91:He lit a fresh CIGARETTE, drew deep, and coughed an old man's rasping cough. He put the CIGARETTE on the groove of the ashtray and rubbed his eyes with both hands. Outside a ten-wheeler blasted by, running lights glaring, cutting through the windy, uneasy night.

"Novels\Pet Sematary.txt" 6937 21:In the ashtray, the CIGARETTE ash on the end of the CIGARETTE grew longer. At last it tipped forward into the ashtray and burned out, its shape recalled in the neat roll of ash like a rune.

"Novels\Pet Sematary.txt" 6937 53:In the ashtray, the CIGARETTE ash on the end of the CIGARETTE grew longer. At last it tipped forward into the ashtray and burned out, its shape recalled in the neat roll of ash like a rune.

"Novels\Pet Sematary.txt" 7252 1891:He and his son were on patrol. He and his son were the sentries in this magic land, and they cruised endlessly in their white van with the red dashboard flasher neatly and sensibly covered. They were not looking for trouble, not they, but they were ready for it should it show its face. That it was lurking even here, in a place dedicated to such innocent pleasures, could not be denied; some grinning man buying film along Main Street could clutch his chest as the heart attack struck, a pregnant woman might suddenly feel the labor pains start as she walked down the steps from the Sky Chariot, a teenage girl as pretty as a Norman Rockwell cover might suddenly collapse in a flopping epileptic fit, loafers rattling out a jagged backbeat on the cement as the signals in her brain suddenly jammed up. There were sunstroke and heatstroke and brainstroke, and perhaps at the end of some sultry Orlando summer afternoon there might even be a stroke of lightning; there was, even, Oz the Gweat and Tewwible himself here-he might be glimpsed walking around near the monorail's point of egress into the Magic Kingdom or peering down from one of the flying Dumbos with his flat and stupid gaze-down here Louis and Gage had come to know him as just another amusement park figure like Goofy or Mickey or Tigger or the estimable Mr. D. Duck. He was the one, however, with whom no one wanted his or her picture taken, the one to whom no one wanted to introduce his son or daughter. Louis and Gage knew him; they had met him and faced him down in New England, some time ago. He was waiting to choke you on a marble, to smother you with a dry-cleaning bag, to sizzle you into eternity with a fast and lethal boggie of electricity-Available at Your Nearest Switchplate or Vacant Light Socket Right Now. There was death in a quarter bag of peanuts, an aspirated piece of steak, the next pack of CIGARETTES. He was around all the time, he monitored all the checkpoints between the mortal and the eternal. Dirty needles, poison beetles, downed live wires, forest fires. Whirling roller skates that shot nurdy little kids into busy intersections. When you got into the bathtub to take a shower, Oz got right in there too-Shower with a Friend. When you got on an airplane, Oz took your boarding pass. He was in the water you drank, the food you ate. Who's out there? you howled into the dark when you were frightened and all alone, and it was his answer that came back: Don't be afraid, it's just me. Hi, howaya? You got cancer of the bowel, what a bummer, so solly, Cholly! Septicemia! Leukemia! Atherosclerosis! Coronary thrombosis! Encephalitis! Osteomyelitis! Hey-ho, let's go! Junkie in a doorway with a knife. Phone call in the middle of the night. Blood cooking in battery acid on some exit ramp in North Carolina. Big handfuls of pills, munch em up. That peculiar blue cast of the fingernails following asphyxiation-in its final grim struggle to survive the brain takes all the oxygen that is left, even that in those living cells under the nails. Hi, folks, my name's Oz the Gweat and Tewwible, but you can call me Oz if you want-hell, we're old friends by now. Just stopped by to whop you with a little congestive heart failure or a cranial blood clot or something; can't stay, got to see a woman about a breach birth, then I've got a little SMOKE-inhalation job to do in Omaha.

"Novels\Pet Sematary.txt" 7252 3366:He and his son were on patrol. He and his son were the sentries in this magic land, and they cruised endlessly in their white van with the red dashboard flasher neatly and sensibly covered. They were not looking for trouble, not they, but they were ready for it should it show its face. That it was lurking even here, in a place dedicated to such innocent pleasures, could not be denied; some grinning man buying film along Main Street could clutch his chest as the heart attack struck, a pregnant woman might suddenly feel the labor pains start as she walked down the steps from the Sky Chariot, a teenage girl as pretty as a Norman Rockwell cover might suddenly collapse in a flopping epileptic fit, loafers rattling out a jagged backbeat on the cement as the signals in her brain suddenly jammed up. There were sunstroke and heatstroke and brainstroke, and perhaps at the end of some sultry Orlando summer afternoon there might even be a stroke of lightning; there was, even, Oz the Gweat and Tewwible himself here-he might be glimpsed walking around near the monorail's point of egress into the Magic Kingdom or peering down from one of the flying Dumbos with his flat and stupid gaze-down here Louis and Gage had come to know him as just another amusement park figure like Goofy or Mickey or Tigger or the estimable Mr. D. Duck. He was the one, however, with whom no one wanted his or her picture taken, the one to whom no one wanted to introduce his son or daughter. Louis and Gage knew him; they had met him and faced him down in New England, some time ago. He was waiting to choke you on a marble, to smother you with a dry-cleaning bag, to sizzle you into eternity with a fast and lethal boggie of electricity-Available at Your Nearest Switchplate or Vacant Light Socket Right Now. There was death in a quarter bag of peanuts, an aspirated piece of steak, the next pack of CIGARETTES. He was around all the time, he monitored all the checkpoints between the mortal and the eternal. Dirty needles, poison beetles, downed live wires, forest fires. Whirling roller skates that shot nurdy little kids into busy intersections. When you got into the bathtub to take a shower, Oz got right in there too-Shower with a Friend. When you got on an airplane, Oz took your boarding pass. He was in the water you drank, the food you ate. Who's out there? you howled into the dark when you were frightened and all alone, and it was his answer that came back: Don't be afraid, it's just me. Hi, howaya? You got cancer of the bowel, what a bummer, so solly, Cholly! Septicemia! Leukemia! Atherosclerosis! Coronary thrombosis! Encephalitis! Osteomyelitis! Hey-ho, let's go! Junkie in a doorway with a knife. Phone call in the middle of the night. Blood cooking in battery acid on some exit ramp in North Carolina. Big handfuls of pills, munch em up. That peculiar blue cast of the fingernails following asphyxiation-in its final grim struggle to survive the brain takes all the oxygen that is left, even that in those living cells under the nails. Hi, folks, my name's Oz the Gweat and Tewwible, but you can call me Oz if you want-hell, we're old friends by now. Just stopped by to whop you with a little congestive heart failure or a cranial blood clot or something; can't stay, got to see a woman about a breach birth, then I've got a little SMOKE-inhalation job to do in Omaha.

"Novels\Pet Sematary.txt" 7339 88:"Gage?" Jud gained his feet at last. From one corner of his eye he saw the roll of CIGARETTE ash in the Jim Beam ashtray. "Gage, is that y-"

"Novels\Pet Sematary.txt" 7734 257:Louis went into the living room. There was the smell of CIGARETTES, stale and long since burned out. He saw Jud's chair by the window. It was pushed askew, as if he had gotten up suddenly. There was an ashtray on the windowsill, and in it a neat roll of CIGARETTE ash.

"Novels\Pet Sematary.txt" 7734 57:Louis went into the living room. There was the smell of CIGARETTES, stale and long since burned out. He saw Jud's chair by the window. It was pushed askew, as if he had gotten up suddenly. There was an ashtray on the windowsill, and in it a neat roll of CIGARETTE ash.