snuffed his cigarette half-smoked ("All your lung cancer's right here, in die 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.
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.
He got to his feet, and that was when the call came. Nor was he the only one who heard it; Oy let go a short, hurt-sounding yip. Roland might have been standing right next to them.
To me, Jake, and hurry. He's going.
SEVEN
Jake hurried back down one of the alleys, skirted the stillsmoldering Warden's House (Tassa the houseboy, who had either ignored Roland's order to leave or hadn't been informed of it, was sitting silently on the stoop in a kilt and a sweatshirt, his head in his hands), and began to trot up the Mall, sparing a quick and troubled glance at the long line of dead bodies. The little seance-circle he'd seen earlier was gone.
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.
Knowing he almost certainly would.
EIGHT
Sheemie and Ted had joined Dinky outside the proctor's suite.
Dinky had given up his seat to Sheemie. Ted looked tired, but Sheemie looked like shit on a cracker to Jake: eyes bloodshot again, a crust of dried blood around his nose and one ear, cheeks leaden. He had taken off one of his slippers and was massaging his foot as though it pained him. Yet he was clearly happy. Maybe even exalted.
"Beam says all may yet be well, youngjake," Sheemie said.
"Beam says not too late. Beam says thankya."
"That's good," Jake said, reaching for the doorknob. He barely heard what Sheemie was saying. He was concentrating
(won't cry and make it harder for her)
on controlling his emotions once he was inside. Then Sheemie said something that brought him back in a hurry.
"Not too late in the Real World, either," Sheemie said. "We know. We peeked. Saw the moving sign. Didn't we, Ted?"
"Indeed we did." Ted was holding a can of Nozz-A-La in his lap. Now he raised it and took a sip. "When you get in there,
Jake, tell Roland that if it's June 19th of '99 you're interested in, you're still okay. But the margin's commencing to get a little thin."
"I'll tell him," Jake said.
"And remind him that time sometimes slips over there.
Slips like an old transmission. That's apt to continue for quite awhile, regardless of the Beam's recovery. And once the 19th is gone..."
"It can never come again," Jake said. "Not there. We know."
He opened the door and slipped into the darkness of the proctor's suite.
NINE
A single circle of stringent yellow light, thrown by the lamp on the bedtable, lay upon Eddie Dean's face. It cast the shadow of his nose on his left cheek and turned his closed eyes into dark sockets. Susannah was kneeling on the floor beside him, holding both of his hands in both of hers and looking down at him. Her shadow ran long upon the wall. Roland sat on the other side of the bed, in deep shadow. The dying man's long, muttered monologue had ceased, and his respiration had lost all semblance of regularity. He would snatch a deep breath, hold it, then let it out in a lengthy, whistling whoosh. His chest would lie still so long that Susannah would look up into his face, her eyes shining with anxiety until the next long, tearing breath had begun.
Jake sat down on the bed next to Roland, looked at