Black House Chapter Twenty-two

22THIS clock sequence THERES some(prenominal)thing that isnt quite silence a go to bedly exsanguine rushing he has heard erst earlierhand. In the spend of 1997, whoreson went up mien north to Vacaville with an LAPD skydiving club called the P.F. Flyers. It was a d be, virtuoso of those stupid things you got yourself into as a result of too m either beers too late at night and thence couldnt bring subject yourself break of again. not with any grace. Which was to assert, non without looking wish well a chickenshit. He expected to be shake instead, he was exalted. Yet he had neer d unrivalled it again, and at one time he hit the sacks why he had come too close to remembering, and some sc ar part of him must suck up k in a flashn it. It was the ponderous before you pulled the ripcord that lonely(a) white rushing of the wind up past your ears. Nothing else to hear further the soft, rapid personate of your subject matter and peradventure the click in your ears as you swallowed saliva that was in free fall, comely equal the rest of you. hassock the ripcord, dogshit, he call ups. Time to pull the ripcord, or the landings dismissal to be odiously unredeemed grievous.Now thithers a new sound, low at graduation only quickly swelling to a tooth-rattling bray. Fire alarm, he specifys, and then No, its a symphony of fire alarms. At the selfsame(prenominal) moment, Wendell jet-propelled planes hand is snatched out of his grip. He hears a faint, squawking cry as his fellow sky underwater launchr is swept a focusing, and then theres a smell Honeysuckle No, its her hair and dirt gasps against a weight on his chest and his diaphragm, a feeling that the wind has been knocked out of him. There atomic number 18 work force on him, one on his bring up, the former(a) at the small of his backward. Hair tickling his cheek. The sound of alarms. The sound of sight yelling in confusion. Running footfalls that clack and echo. fat pass port jack jack are you all chastiseAsk a faerie for a date, pop knocked into the middle of next week, he mutters. Why is it so dark? Has he been screenlanded? Is he require for that intellectually honour and financially remunerative job as an ump at milling forge Park? bull A palm smacks his cheek. Hard.No, non blind. His eye are entirely shut. He pops them straight-from-the-shoulder and Judy is bending all over him, her b rareness inches from his. Without thinking, he closes his go forth hand in the hair at the nape of her neck, brings her face down to his, and kisses her. She exhales into his mouth a surprised reverse gasp that inflates his lungs with her electrical energy and then kisses him back. He has never been kissed with such intensity in his whole life. His hand goes to the breast beneath her nightdress, and he feels the frenzied gallop of her heart If she were to run faster, shed catch her feet and fall, manual laborer thinks beneath its firm rise. A t the same moment her hand slips in status his shirt, which has somehow come un scarcelytoned, and tweaks his nipple. Its as hard and hot as the slap. As she does it, her tongue darts into his mouth in one quick plunge, there and gone, desire a bee into a flower. He tightens his grip on the nape of her neck and god knows what would study happened next, nevertheless at that moment something falls over in the corridor with a large-minded crash of internal-combustion engine and somebody screams. The voice is high and almost sexless with panic, but tinkers damn believes its Ethan Evans, the sullen boyish person from the hall. Get back here S die running, g venerablearnit Of course its Ethan only a graduate of championship Hebron Lutheran sunshine school would use goldarnit, even in extremis. jak pulls a expressive style from Judy. She pulls a mode from him. They are on the floor. Judys nightdress is all the way up to her waist, exposing plain white nylon underwear. darns shirt is open, and so are his pants. His berth are excuse on, but on the wrong feet, from the feel of them. Nearby, the glass-topped c souree tree table is over move and the journals that were on it are scattered. Some seem to wipe out been literally blown out of their bindings.More screams from the corridor, plus a some cackles and mad ululations. Ethan Evans continues to yell at stampeding mental patients, and now a cleaning lady is yelling as well Head Nurse Rack, perhaps. The alarms bray on and on.All at once a door bursts open and Wendell Green gallops into the room. Behind him is a closet with clothes scattered e genuinelywhere, the spare items of Dr. Spieglemans military press all ahoo. In one hand Wendells contracting his Panasonic minicorder. In the other he has several gleaming tubular objects. Jack is go awaying to numerate theyre double-A Duracells.Jacks clothes hasten been unbuttoned (or perhaps blown open), but Wendell has fared ofttimes worse. His shirt is in tatters. His belly hangs over a pair of white boxer shorts, severely pee-stained in front. He is dragging his dark-brown albumen slacks by one foot. They slide across the carpet like a shed snakeskin. And although his socks are on, the leftfield one appears to bring been turned inside out.What did you do? Wendell blares. Oh you Hollywood son of a bitch, WHAT DID YOU DO TO M He stops. His mouth drops open. His eyeball widen. Jack nones that the reporters hair appears to be stand up out like the quills on a porcupine.Wendell, meanwhile, is noting Jack Sawyer and Judy Marshall, encompass on the glass- and paper-littered floor, with their clothes disarranged. They arent quite in flagrante delicious, but if Wendell ever precept two people on the verge, dese are dem. His mind is whirling and fill with impossible memories, his balance is shot, his stomach is chugging like a washing machine that has been overloaded with clothes and suds he desperately needs something to hold on to . He needs news. Even better, he needs s grassdal. And here, be in front of him on the floor, are some(prenominal).RAPE Wendell bellows at the top of his lungs. A mad, relieved grin twists up the corners of his mouth. SAWYER frustrate ME UP AND NOW HES RAPING A MENTAL PATIENT It doesnt look much like misdemeanour to Wendell, in all truth, but who ever shout out CONSENSUAL SEX at the top of his lungs and attracted any attention? shut down that idiot up, Judy says. She yanks down the hem of her nightgown and prepares to stand.Watch out, Jack says. small glass e rattlingwhere.Im okay, she snaps. Then, turning to Wendell with that perfect fearlessness Fred knew so well boot out up I dont know who you are, but quit that bellowing Nobodys being Wendell backs away from Hollywood Sawyer, dragging his pants along with him. Why doesnt soul come? he thinks. Why doesnt someone come before he shoots me, or something? In his frenzy and near hysteria, Wendell has either not registered th e alarms and public outcry or believes them to be going on inside his head, just a teeny much false information to go with his smashed memories of a black gunslinger, a beautiful cleaning lady in a robe, and Wendell Green himself crouching in the dust and eating a half-cooked bird like a caveman.Keep away from me, Sawyer, he says, backing up with his hands held out in front of him. I bear an extremely athirst(p) lawyer. Caveet-emporer, you asshole, lay one finger on me and he and I leave alone strip you of everything you OW OWWendell has stepped on a piece of broken glass, Jack sees belike from one of the prints that formerly decorated the walls and are now decorating the floor. He dribbles one more off-balance lurch backward, this time move on his own trailing slacks, and goes sprawling into the leather recliner where Dr. Spiegleman presumptively sits while quizzing his patients on their luxuriant childhoods.La Rivieres premier muckraker stares at the approaching Nean -derthal with wide, horrified eyes, then throws the minicorder at him. Jack sees that its covered with scratches. He bats it away.RAPE Wendell squeals. HES RAPING unitary OF THE LOONIES HES Jack pops him on the point of the chin, pulling the punch just a little at the last moment, de make lovering it with almost scientific force. Wendell flops back in Dr. Spieglemans recliner, eyes rolling up, feet twitching as if to some tasty beat that only the semiconscious dissolve truly appreciate.The Mad Hungarian couldnt check done better, Jack murmurs. It occurs to him that Wendell ought to treat himself to a complete neurological workup in the not too distant future. His head has put in a hard couple of days.The door to the hall bursts open. Jack move in front of the recliner to hide Wendell, stuffing his shirt into his pants (at some point hes zipped his fly, thank God). A lavatorydy rockfish pokes her fluffy head into Dr. Spieglemans office. Although shes probably eighteen, her pan ic repairs her look approximately twelve.Whos yelling in here? she asks. Whos hurt?Jack has no idea what to say, but Judy manages like a pro. It was a patient, she says. Mr. Lackley, I think. He came in, yelled that we were all going to be raped, and then ran out again.You have to leave at once, the candy striper tells them. Dont listen to that idiot Ethan. And dont use the elevator. We think it was an earthquake.Right away, Jack says crisply, and although he doesnt move, its good enough for the candy striper she heads out. Judy crosses quickly to the door. It closes but wont latch. The set up has been subtly twisted out of true.There was a clock on the wall. Jack looks toward it, but its fallen face-down to the floor. He goes to Judy and takes her by the arms. How long was I over there?Not long, she says, but what an exit you made Ka-pow Did you get anything? Her eyes plead with him.Enough to know I have to go back to French Landing right away, he tells her. Enough to know that I love you that Ill always love you, in this world or any other.Tyler . . . is he alive? She reverses his grip so she is holding him. Sophie did barely the same thing in Faraway, Jack remembers. Is my son alive?Yes. And Im going to get him for you.His eye happens on Spieglemans desk, which has danced its way into the room and stands with all its knee breeches open. He sees something interesting in one of those drawers and hurries across the carpet, crunching on broken glass and kicking aside one of the prints.In the top drawer to the left of the desks kneehole is a commemorate recorder, considerably tremendousger than Wendell Greens honest Panasonic, and a torn piece of brown wrapping paper. Jack snatches up the paper scratch line. Scrawled across the front in draggling letters hes seen at twain Eds Eats and on his own front porch is thisDeliver to JUDY MARSHall(a) likewise known as SOPHIEThere are what appear to be stamps in the upper corner of the torn sheet. Jack doesnt n eed to examine them well to know that they are really cut from sugar packets, and that they were affixed by a dangerous old dodderer named Charles Burnside. But the Fishermans identity no long-lasting matters much, and Speedy knew it. Neither does his location, because Jack has an idea Chummy Burnside can flip to a new one clean much at leave.But he cant take the real doorway with him. The doorway to the furnace-lands, to Mr. Munshun, to Ty. If Beezer and his pals found that Jack drops the wrapping paper back into the drawer, hits the EJECT button on the tape recorder, and pops out the cassette tape inside. He sticks it in his pocket and heads for the door.Jack.He looks back at her. Beyond them, fire alarms honk and blat, lunatics scream and laugh, cater runs to and fro. Their eyes meet. In the clear blue glister of Judys regard, Jack can almost touch that other world with its sweet smells and strange constellations.Is it marvelous over there? As call into headerful as in my dreams?Its wonderful, he tells her. And you are, too. Hang in there, okay?Halfway down the hallway, Jack comes upon a nasty sight Ethan Evans, the materialisation man who once had Wanda Kinderling as his Sunday school t each(prenominal)er, has laid hold of a disoriented old woman by her fat upper arms and is shaking her back and forth. The old womans frizzy hair flies around her head.Shut up one-year-old Mr. Evans is shouting at her. Shut up, you crazy old cow Youre not going anywhere except back to your dadblame roomSomething roughly his fling makes it obvious that even now, with the world turned upside down, young Mr. Evans is enjoying both his power to command and his Christian duty to brutalize. This is only enough to make Jack angry. What infuriates him is the look of terrified incomprehension on the old womans face. It makes him think of boys he once lived with long ago, in a place called the Sunlight Home.It makes him think of Wolf.Without pausing or so much as breakin g stride (they have entered the endgame phase of the festivities now, and somehow he knows it), Jack drives his fist into young Mr. Evanss temple. That worthy lets go of his plump and squawking victim, charters the wall, then slides down it, his eyes wide and dazed.Either you didnt listen in Sunday school or Kinderlings married woman taught you the wrong lessons, Jack says.You . . . hit . . . me . . . young Mr. Evans whispers. He finishes his slow dive splay-legged on the hallway floor halfway amid the Records Annex and ambulatory Ophthalmology.Abuse another patient this one, the one I was just lecture to, any of them and Ill do a lot more than that, Jack promises young Mr. Evans. Then hes down the stairs, taking them two at a time, not noticing a handful of johnny-clad patients who stare at him with expressions of puzzled, half-fearful wonder. They look at him as if at a spate who passes them in an envelope of light, some wonder as brilliant as it is mysterious.Ten minutes l ater (long subsequentlyward Judy Marshall has walked composedly back to her room without professional help of any kind), the alarms cut off. An amplified voice perhaps even Dr. Spieglemans own mother wouldnt have recognized it as her boys begins to blare from the overhead speakers. At this unexpected roar, patients who had pretty much calmed down begin to shriek and cry all over again. The old woman whose mistreatment so angered Jack Sawyer is crouched below the admissions counter with her hands over her head, muttering something about the Russians and Civil Defense.THE nip IS OVER Spiegleman as authoritatives his cast and crew. THERE IS NO FIRE PLEASE compensate TO THE COMMON ROOMS ON EACH FLOOR THIS IS DR. SPIEGLEMAN, AND I buy out THAT THE touch IS OVERHere comes Wendell Green, weaving his way slowly toward the stairwell, guide his chin boyfriendly with one hand. He sees young Mr. Evans and offers him a constituent hand. For a moment it looks as though Wendell may be pulled over himself, but then young Mr. Evans gets his buttocks against the wall and manages to gain his feet.THE EMERGENCY IS OVER I REPEAT, THE EMERGENCY IS OVER NURSES, ORDERLIES, AND DOCTORS, PLEASE ESCORT ALL PATIENTS TO THE COMMON ROOMS ON EACH FLOORYoung Mr. Evans eyes the purple conquer rising on Wendells chin.Wendell eyes the purple bruise rising on the temple of young Mr. Evans.Sawyer? young Mr. Evans asks.Sawyer, Wendell confirms. bull sucker punched me, young Mr. Evans confides.Son of a bitch came up arse me, Wendell says. The Marshall woman. He had her down. He lowers his voice. He was getting ready to rape her.Young Mr. Evanss whole manner says he is sorrowful but not surprised.Something ought to be done, Wendell says.You got that right.People ought to be told. Gradually, the old fire returns to Wendells eyes. People will be told. By him Because that is what he does, by God He tells peopleYeah, young Mr. Evans says. He doesnt care as much as Wendell does he lacks We ndells burning commitment but theres one person he will tell. One person who deserves to be comforted in her lonely hours, who has been left on her own Mount of Olives. One person who will drunkenness up the knowledge of Jack Sawyers evil like the very irrigate of life.This kind of behavior cannot just be swept under the rug, Wendell says.No way, young Mr. Evans agrees. No way, Jos?.Jack has barely cleared the gates of French County Lutheran when his cell phone tweets. He thinks of pulling over to take the call, hears the sound of approaching fire engines, and decides for once to risk driving and lecture at the same time. He wants to be out of the area before the local fire brigade shows up and slows him down.He flips the little Nokia open. Sawyer.Where the nates are you? Beezer St. Pierre bellows. Man, I been hittin redial so hard I damn near punched it off the phoneIve been . . . But theres no way he can finish that, not and stay within shouting length of the truth, that is. Or maybe there is. I guess I got into one of those cold zones where the cell phone just doesnt pick up never mind the science lesson, chum. Get your ass over here right now. The actual address is 1 Nailhouse Row its County Road Double-O just southwestward of Chase. Its the babyshit brown two-story on the corner.I can knock it, Jack says, and steps down a little harder on the Rams gas pedal. Im on my way now.Whats your twenty, man?Still Arden, but Im rolling. I can be there in maybe half an hour.Fuck There is an alarming crash-rattle in Jacks ear as somewhere on Nailhouse Row Beezer slams his fist against something. credibly the nearest wall. The fucks wrong with you, man? fawn is goin down, I mean fast. Were doin our best those of us whore still here but he is goin down. Beezer is panting, and Jack thinks hes arduous not to cry. The thought of Armand St. Pierre in that particular state is alarming. Jack looks at the Rams speedometer, sees its touching seventy, and eases o ff a tad. He wont help anybody by getting himself greased in a driveway wreck between Arden and Centralia.What do you mean ?those of us who are still here?Never mind, just get your butt down here, if you want to talk to Mouse. And he sure wants to talk to you, because he keeps sayin your name. Beezer lowers his voice. When he aint just ravin his ass off, that is. Docs doing his best me and arrest Girl, too but were shovelin shit against the tide here.Tell him to hold on, Jack says.Fuck that, man tell him yourself.Theres a rattling sound in Jacks ear, the faint murmuring of voices. Then another voice, one which hardly sounds human, speaks in his ear. Got to hurry . . . got to get over here, man. Thing . . . bit me. I can feel it in there. Like acid.Hold on, Mouse, Jack says. His fingers are dead white on the telephone. He wonders that the case doesnt exactly crack in his grip. Ill be there fast as I can.Better be. Others . . . already forgot. Not me. Mouse chuckles. The sound i s ghastly beyond belief, a huff straight out of an open grave. I got . . . the memory serum, you know? Its eatin me up . . . eatin me alive . . . but I got it.Theres the rustling sound of the phone ever-changing hands again, then a new voice. A womans. Jack assumes its yield Girl.You got them moving, she says. You brought it to this. Dont let it be for nothing.There is a click in his ear. Jack tosses the cell phone onto the commode and decides that maybe seventy isnt too fast, after all.A few minutes later (they seem like very long minutes to Jack), hes squinting against the glare of the sun on tamarack Creek. From here he can almost see his house, and heat contents. total heat.Jack thumps the side of his thumb lightly against his breast pocket and hears the rattle of the cassette tape he took from the machine in Spiegle-mans office. Theres not much reason to turn it over to Henry now given what Potter told him last night and what Mouse is holding on to tell him today, this tape and the 911 tape have been rendered more or less redundant. Besides, hes got to hurry to Nailhouse Row. Theres a train getting ready to leave the station, and Mouse Baumann is very likely going to be on it.And yet . . .Im worried about him, Jack says softly. Even a blind man could see Im worried about Henry.The brilliant summer sun, now sliding down the afternoon side of the sky, reflects off the creek and sends shimmers of light dancing across his face. Each time this light crosses his eyes, they seem to burn.Henry isnt the only one Jacks worried about, either. Hes got a bad feeling about all of his new French Landing friends and acquaintances, from Dale Gilbertson and Fred Marshall right down to such bit players as old Steamy McKay, an elderly gent who makes his living shining shoes outside the public library, and Ardis Walker, who runs the ramshackle hinge upon shop down by the river. In his imagination, all these people now seem made of glass. If the Fisherman decides to sing high C, theyll vibrate and then shatter to powder. Only its not really the Fisherman hes worried about anymore.This is a case, he reminds himself. Even with all the Territories weirdness thrown in, its still a case, and its not the first one youve ever been on where everything all at once started to seem too big. Where all the shadows seemed to be too long.True enough, but usually that funhouse sense of false perspective fades away once he starts to get a handle on things. This time its worse, and worse by far. He knows why, too. The Fishermans long shadow is a thing called Mr. Munshun, an immortal talent scout from some other plane of existence. Nor is even that the end, because Mr. Munshun also casts a shadow. A red one.Abbalah, Jack mutters. Abbalah-doon and Mr. Munshun and the Crow Gorg, just three old pals walking together on nights Plutonian shore. For some reason this makes him think of the Walrus and the Carpenter from Alice. What was it they took for a walk in the moonligh t? staff of life? Mussels? Jacks damned if he can remember, although one line surfaces and resonates in his mind, talk in his mothers voice The time has come, the Walrus utter, to talk of many things.The abbalah is presumably hanging out in his court (the part of him that isnt imprisoned in Speedys Dark Tower, that is), but the Fisherman and Mr. Munshun could be anywhere. Do they know Jack Sawyer has been meddling? Of course they do. By today, that is common knowledge. Might they emphasize to slow him down by doing something nasty to one of his friends? A real blind sportscaster-headbanger-bebopper, for instance?Yes indeed. And now, perhaps because hes been sensitized to it, he can once more feel that nasty pulse coming out of the south landscape, the one he sensed when he flipped over for the first time in his adult life. When the road curves southeast, he almost loses it. Then, when the Ram points its prod southwest again, the poisonous throb regains strength, beating into h is head like the invasion of a migraine headache.Thats Black House you feel, only its not a house, not really. Its a worm-hole in the apple of existence, leading all the way down into the furnace-lands. Its a door. perchance it was only standing ajar before today, before Beezer and his pals turned up there, but now its wide open and letting in one hell of a draft. Ty needs to be brought back, yes . . . but that door needs to be shut, as well. Before God knows what awful things come snarling through.Jack abruptly swings the Ram onto Tamarack Road. The tires scream. His seat belt locks, and for a moment he thinks the truck may overturn. It stays up, though, and he goes flying toward Norway Valley Road. Mouse will just have to hang on a little bit longer hes not going to leave Henry way out here on his own. His pal doesnt know it, but hes going on a little field trip to Nailhouse Row. Until this situation stabilizes, it seems to Jack that the buddy system is very much in order.Whic h would have been all well and good if Henry had been at home, but hes not. Elvena Morton, dust mop in hand, comes in repartee to Jacks repeated jabbing at the doorbell.Hes been over at KDCU, doing commercials, Elvena says. Dropped him off myself. I dont know why he doesnt just do them in his studio apartment here, something about the sound effects, I think he might have said. Im surprised he didnt tell you that.The bitch of it is, Henry did. Cousin Buddys knit Crib. The old ball and chain. Beautiful downtown La Riviere. All that. He even told Jack that Elvena Morton was going to drive him. A few things have happened to Jack since that conversation hes reencountered his old childhood friend, hes fallen in love with Judy Marshalls Twinner, and just by the way hes been filled in on your fundamental Secret of All Existence but none of that keeps him from turning his left hand into a fist and then slamming himself directly between the eyes with it. Given how fast things are now mov ing, making this needless detour strikes him as an almost unforgivable lapse.Mrs. Morton is regarding him with wide-eyed alarm.Are you going to be picking him up, Mrs. Morton?No, hes going for a drink with someone from ESPN. Henry said the fellow would bring him back afterward. She lowers her voice to the timbre of confidentiality at which secrets are somehow best communicated. Henry didnt come right out and say so, but I think there may be big things ahead for George Rathbun. Ver-ry big things.Badger Barrage going national? Jack wouldnt be entirely surprised, but he has no time to be delighted for Henry now. He hands Mrs. Morton the cassette tape, mostly so he wont feel this was an entirely wasted trip. Leave this for him where . . .He stops. Mrs. Morton is looking at him with knowing amusement. Where hell be sure to see it is what Jack almost said. another(prenominal) mental miscue. Big-city detective, indeed.Ill leave it by the soundboard in his studio, she says. Hell find it th ere. Jack, maybe its none of my business, but you dont look all right. Youre very pale, and Id swear youve bewildered ten pounds since last week. Also . . . She looks a bit embarrassed. Your shoes are on the wrong feet.So they are. He makes the necessary change, standing first on one foot and then the other. Its been a tough 48 hours, but Im hanging in there, Mrs. M.Its the Fisherman business, isnt it?He nods. And I have to go. The fat, as they say, is in the fire. He turns, reconsiders, turns back. Leave him a message on the kitchen tape recorder, would you? Tell him to call me on my cell. Just as presently as he gets in. Then, one thought leading to another, he points to the unnoted cassette tape in her hand. Dont play that, all right?Mrs. Morton looks shocked. Id never do such a thing It would be like opening someone elses mailJack nods and gives her a scrap of a smile. Good.Is it . . . him on the tape? Is it the Fisherman?Yes, Jack says. Its him. And there are worse things w aiting, he thinks but doesnt say. Worse things by far.He hurries back to his truck, not quite running. cardinal minutes later Jack parks in front of the babyshit brown two-story at 1 Nailhouse Row. Nailhouse Row and the dirty snarl of streets around it strike him as unnaturally silent under the sun of this hot summer afternoon. A mongrel dog (it is, in fact, the old fellow we saw in the doorway of the Nelson Hotel just last night) goes limping across the intersection point of Ames and County Road Oo, but thats about the extent of the traffic. Jack has an unpleasant vision of the Walrus and the Carpenter toddling along the east bank of the Mississippi with the tranquillize residents of Nailhouse Row following along behind them. Toddling along toward the fire. And the cooking pot.He takes two or three deep breaths, trying to steady himself. Not far out of town close to the road leading to Eds Eats, in fact that nasty buzzing in his head peaked, turning into something like a dark scream. For a few moments there it was so starchy Jack wondered if he was perhaps going to drive right off the road, and he slowed the Ram to forty. Then, blessedly, it began to move around toward the back of his head and fade. He didnt see the NO TRESPASSING sign that marks the overgrown road leading to Black House, didnt even look for it, but he knew it was there. The question is whether or not hell be able to approach it when the time comes without simply exploding.Come on, he tells himself. No time for this shit.He gets out of the truck and starts up the cracked cement walk. Theres a fading hopscotch diagram there, and Jack swerves to avoid it without even thinking, knowing its one of the few remaining artifacts which examine that a little person named Amy St. Pierre once briefly trod the boards of existence. The porch steps are dry and splintery. Hes vilely thirsty and thinks, Man, Id kill for a glass of water, or a nice cold The door flies open, elasticity against the side of the house like a pistol shot in the sunny silence, and Beezer comes running out.Christ almighty, I didnt think you were ever gonna get hereLooking into Beezers alarmed, agonized eyes, Jack realizes that he will never tell this guy that he might be able to find Black House without Mouses help, that thanks to his time in the Territories he has a kind of range finder in his head. No, not even if they live the rest of their lives as close friends, the kind who usually tell each other everything. The Beez has suffered like Job, and he doesnt need to find out that his friends worrying may have been in vain.Is he still alive, Beezer?By an inch. Maybe an inch and a quarter. Its just me and Doc and Bear Girl now. young carnivore and Kaiser Bill got scared, ran off like a couple of whipped dogs. March your boots in here, sunshine. Not that Beezer gives Jack any choice he grabs him by the shoulder and hauls him into the little two-story on Nailhouse Row like luggage.