“Well,” she said, “I suppose it’s a common enough name, isn’t it? Probably there are normal Stephen Kings all over the United States who wish he’d just … I don’t know … give it a rest.” She voiced a nervous little laugh, and Callahan wondered what had set her on edge. Oy, who got less doggy the longer you looked at him? Maybe, but Callahan thought it was more likely something in Jake, something that whispered danger. Perhaps even gunslinger. Certainly there was something in him that set him apart from other boys. Far. Callahan thought of him pulling the Ruger from the docker’s clutch and sticking it under the unfortunate taxi driver’s nose. Tell me that you were driving too fast and almost ran down my friend! he’d screamed, his finger already white on the trigger. Tell me that you don’t want to die here in the street with a hole in your head!

Was that the way an ordinary twelve-year-old reacted to a near-miss accident? Callahan thought not. He thought the desk clerk was right to be nervous. As for himself, Callahan realized he felt a little better about their chances at the Dixie Pig. Not a lot, but a little.

SEVEN

Jake, perhaps sensing something a little off-kilter, flashed the clerk his best getting-along-with-grownups smile, but to Callahan it looked like Oy’s: too many teeth.

“Just a moment,” she said, turning away from him.

Jake gave Callahan a puzzled what’s up-with-her look. Callahan shrugged and spread his hands.

The clerk went to a cabinet behind her, opened it, looked through the contents of a box stored inside, and returned to the desk with an envelope bearing the Plaza-Park’s logo. Jake’s name—and something else—had been written on the front in what looked like half-script and half-printing:

Jake Chambers
This is the Truth

She slid it across the desk to him, careful that their fingers should not touch.

Jake took it and ran his fingers down the length of it. There was a piece of paper inside. Something else, as well. A hard narrow strip. He tore open the envelope and pulled out the paper. Folded inside it was the slim, white plastic rectangle of a hotel MagCard. The note had been written on a cheeky piece of stationery headed CALLING ALL BLOWHARDS. The message itself was only three lines long:

Dad-a-chum, dad-a-chee, not to worry, you’ve got the key.

Dad-a-chud, dad-a-ched, see it, Jake! The key is red!

Jake looked at the MagCard and watched color abruptly swirl into it, turning it the color of blood almost instantly.

Couldn’t be red until the message was read, Jake thought, smiling a little at the idea’s riddle-ish quality. He looked up to see if the clerk had seen the MagCard’s transformation, but she had found something which required her attention at the far end of the desk. And Callahan was checking out a couple of women who’d just come strolling in from the street. He might be a Pere, Jake reflected, but his eye for the ladies still seemed to be in proper working order.