don’t you get stuffed? O’Donnell yelled at her, flushing.
“Fuck—YOU!” Clarice called back, and cackled.
Johnny slipped quietly out into the gathering storm.
8
He was staying at the Holiday Inn in Portsmouth. When he got back that evening, he told the desk clerk to have his bill ready for checkout in the morning.
In his room, he sat down at the impersonal Holiday Inn writing desk, took out all the stationery, and grasped the Holiday Inn pen. His head was throbbing, but there were letters to be written. His momentary rebellion—if that was what it had been—had passed. His unfinished business with Greg Stillson remained.
I’ve gone crazy, he thought. That’s really it. I’ve gone entirely off my chump. He could see the headlines now. PSYCHO SHOOTS N.H. REP. MADMAN ASSASSINATES STILLSON. HAIL OF BULLETS CUTS DOWN U.S. RE-PPRESENTATIVE IN NEW HAMPSHIRE. And Inside View, of course, would have a field day. SELF-PROCLAIMED “SEER” KILLS STILLSON, 12 NOTED PSYCHIATRISTS TELL WHY SMITH DID IT. With a sidebar by that fellow Dees, maybe, telling how Johnny had threatened to get his shotgun and “shoot me a trespasser.”
Crazy.
The hospital debt was paid, but this would leave a new bill of particulars behind, and his father would have to pay for it. He and his new wife would spend a lot of days in the limelight of his reflected notoriety. They would get the hate mail. Everyone he had known would be interviewed—the Chatsworths, Sam, Sheriff George Bannerman. Sarah? Well, maybe they wouldn’t get as far as Sarah. After all, it wasn’t as though he were planning to shoot the president. At least, not yet. There’s a lotta people afraid to come right out and say it, but I’m not. I’ll say it right out loud. Some day Greg Stillson’s apt to be president.
Johnny rubbed his temples. The headache came in low, slow waves, and none of this was getting his letters written. He drew the first sheet of stationery toward him, picked up the pen, and wrote Dear Dad. Outside, snow struck the window with that dry, sandy sound that means serious business. Finally the pen began to move across the paper, slowly at first, then gaining speed.
Chapter 27
1
Johnny came up wooden steps that had been shoveled clear of snow and salted down. He went through a set of double doors and into a foyer plastered with specimen ballots and notices of a special town meeting to be held here in Jackson on the third of February. There was also a notice of Greg Stillson’s impending visit and a picture of The Man Who himself, hard hat cocked back on his head grinning that hard slantwise “We’re wise to em ain’t we pard?” grin. Set a little to the right of the green door leading into the meeting hall itself was a sign that Johnny hadn’t expected, and he pondered it in silence for several seconds, his breath pluming white from his lips. DRIVER EXAMINATIONS TODAY, this sign read. It was set on a wooden easel. HAVE PAPERS READY.
He opened the door, went into the stuporous glow of heat thrown by a big woodstove, and there sat a cop at a desk. The cop was wearing a ski parka, unzipped. There were papers scattered across his desk, and there was also a gadget for examining visual acuity.
The cop looked up at Johnny, and he felt a sinking sensation in his gut.
“Can I help you, sir?”
Johnny fingered the camera slung around his neck. “Well, I wondered if it would be all right to look around a little bit,” he said. “I’m on assignment from Yankee magazine. We’re doing a spread on town hall architecture in Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont. Taking a lot of pictures, you know.”
“Go right to it,” the cop said. “My wife reads Yankee all the time. Puts me to sleep.”
Johnny smiled. “New England architecture has a tendency toward ... well, starkness.”
“Starkness,” the cop repeated doubtfully, and then let it go. “Next please.”
A young man approached the desk the cop was sitting behind. He handed an examination sheet to the cop, who took it and said, “Look into the viewer, please, and identify the traffic signs and signals which I will show you.”
A young man peered into the viewing machine. The cop put an answer-key over the young man’s exam sheet. Johnny moved down the center aisle of the Jackson town hall and clicked a picture of the rostrum at the front.
“Stop sign,” the young man said from behind him. “The next one’s a yield