It

Someone did. Eddie Kaspbrak did. But it was not what Teddy Kennedy was really like or how much Redford tipped or even why he had found it necessary to keep what Richie had sometimes called ‘Eddie’s lung-sucker’ in the old days. He asked Mike when Stan Uris had died.
‘The night before last. When I made the calls.’
‘Did it have to do with . . . with why we’re here?’
‘I could beg the question and say that, since he didn’ t leave a note, no one can know for sure,’ Mike answered, ‘but since it happened almost immediately after I called him, I think the assumption is safe enough.’
‘He killed himself, didn’t he?’ Beverly said dully. ‘Oh God — poor Stan.’
The others were looking at Mike, who finished his drink and said: ‘He committed suicide, yes. Apparently went up to the bathroom shortly after I called him, drew a bath, got into it, and cut his wrists.’
Bill looked down the table, which seemed suddenly lined with shocked, pale faces — no bodies, only those faces, like white circles. Like white balloons, moon balloons, tethered here by an old promise that should have long since lapsed.
‘How did you find out?’ Richie asked. ‘Was it carried in the papers up here?’
‘No. For some time now I’ve subscribed to the newspapers of those towns closest to all of you. I have kept tabs over the years.’
‘I Spy.’ Richie’s face was sour. ‘Thanks, Mike.’
‘It was my job,’ Mike said simply.
‘Poor Stan,’ Beverly repeated. She seemed stunned, unable to cope with the news. ‘But he was so brave back then. So . . . determined.’
‘People change,’ Eddie said.
‘ — ‘Do they?’ Bill asked. ‘Stan was — ‘ He moved his hands on the tablecloth, trying to catch the right words. ‘He was an ordered person. The kind of person who has to have his books divided up into fiction and nonfiction on his shelves . . . and then wants to have each section in alphabetical order. I can remember something he said once — I don’t remember where we were or what we were doing, at least not yet, but I think it was toward the end of things. He said he could stand to be scared, but he hated being dirty. That seemed to me the essence of Stan. Maybe it was just too much, when Mike called. He saw his choices as being only two: stay alive and get dirty or die clean. Maybe people really don’t change as much as we think. Maybe they just . . . maybe they just stiffen-up.’
There was a moment of silence and then Richie said, ‘All right, Mike. What’s happenin g i n Derry? Tell us.’
‘I can tell you some,’ Mike said. ‘I can tell you, for instance, what’s happening now — and I can tell you some things about yourselves. But I can’t tell you everything that happened back in the summer of 1958, and I don’t believe I’ll ever have to. Eventually you’ll remember it for yourselves. And I think if I told you too much before your minds were ready to remember, what happened to Stan — ‘
‘Might happen to us?’ Ben asked quietly.
Mike nodded. ‘Yes. That’s exactly what I’m afraid of.’
Bill said: ‘Then tell us what you can, Mike.’
‘All right,’ he said. ‘I will.’
4
The Losers Get the Scoop
‘The murders have started again,’ Mike said flatly.
He looked up and down the table, and then his eyes fixed on Bill’s.
The first of the «new murders» — if you’ll allow me that rather grisly conceit — began on the Main Street Bridge and ended underneath it. The victim was a gay and rather childlike man named Adrian Mellon. He had a bad case of asthma.’
Eddie’s hand stole out and touched the side of his aspirator.
‘It happened last summer on July 21st, the last night of the Canal Days Festival, which was a kind of celebration, a . . . a . . . ‘
‘A Derry ritual,’ Bill said in a low voice. His long fingers were slowly massaging his temples, and it was not hard to guess he was thinking about his brother George . . . George, who had almost certainly opened the way the last time this had happened.
‘A ritual,’ Mike said quietly. ‘Yes.’
He told them the story of what had happened to Adrian Mellon quickly, watching with no pleasure as their eyes got bigger and bigger. He told them what the News had reported and what it had not . . . the latter including the testimony of Don Hagarty and Christopher Unwin about a certain clown which had been under the bridge like the troll in the fabled story of yore, a clown which had looked like a cross between Ronald McDonald and Bozo, according to Hagarty.
‘It was him,’ Ben said in a sick hoarse voice. ‘It was tHat fucker Penny –wise.’
‘There’s one other thing,’ Mike said, looking at Bill. ‘One of the investigating officers — the one who actually pulled Adrian Mellon out of the Canal — was a town cop named Harold Gardener.’
‘Oh Jesus