It

desk. He swayed for a moment on his good leg and then he fell down again. The phone swung before him at the end of its cord like a mesmerist’s amulet. It was becoming very hard to hold onto the belt now.
‘Hello dere Amos!’ Pennywise cried brightly from the swinging telephone handset. ‘Dis here’s de Kingfish! I is de Kingish in Derry anyhow, and dat’s de troof. Wouldn’t you say so, boy?’
‘If there’s anyone there,’ Mike croaked, ‘a real voice behind the one I am hearing, please help me. My name is Michael Hanlon and I’m at the Derry Public Library. I am bleeding to death. If you’re there, I can’t hear you. I’m not being allowed to hear you. If you’re there, please hurry.’
He lay on his side, drawing his legs up until he was in a fetal position. He took two turns around his right hand with the belt and concentrated on holding it as the world drifted away in those cottony, balloon-like clouds of gray.
‘Hello dere, howyadoon?’ Pennywise screamed from the dangling, swinging phone. ‘Howyadoon, you dirty coon? Hello
4
Kansas Street / 12:20 P.M.
. . . there,’ Henry Bowers said. ‘Howyadoon, you little cunt?’
Beverly reacted instantly, turning to run. It was a quicker reaction than any of them had expected, and she might actually have gotten a running start . . . but for her hair. Henry snatched at it, caught part of its long flow, and pulled her back. He grinned into her face. His breath was thick and warm and stinking.
‘Howyadoon?’ Henry Bowers asked her. ‘Where ya goin? Back to play with your asshole friends some more? I think I’ll cut off your nose and make you eat it. You like that?’
She struggled to get free. Henry laughed and shook her head back and forth by the hair. The knife flashed dangerously in the hazy August sunshine.
Abruptly a car-horn honked — a long blast.
‘Here! Here! What are you boys doing? Let that girl go!’
It was an old lady behind the wheel of a well-preserved 1950 Ford. She had pulled up to the curb and was leaning across the blanket-covered seat to peer out the passenger-side window. At the sight of her angry, honest face, the blank, dazed look left Victor Criss’s eyes for the first time and he looked nervously at Henry. ‘What — ‘
‘Please!’ Bev cried shrilly. ‘He’s got a knife! A knife!’
The old lady’s anger now became concern, surprise, and fear as well. ‘What are you boys doing? Let her alone! ‘
Across the street — B e v s a w t h i s q u i t e c l e a r l y — Herbert Ross got out of th e l a w n – chair on his porch, approached the porch rail, and looked over. His face was as blank as Belch Huggins’s. He folded his paper, turned, and went quietly into the house.
‘Let her be! ‘ the old lady cried shrilly.
Henry bared his teeth and suddenly ran at her car, dragging Beverly after him by the hair. She stumbled, went to one knee, was dragged. The pain in her scalp was excruciating, monstrous. She felt some of her hair rip out.
The old lady screamed and cranked the passenger side window frantically. Henry, still roaring, stabbed down, and the switchblade skated across glass. The woman’s foot came off the old Ford’s clutch-pedal and it went down Kansas Street in three big jerks, bouncing up over the curb, where it stalled. Henry went after it, still pulling Beverly along. Victor licked his lips and looked around. Belch pushed the New York Yankees baseball cap he was wearing up on his forehead and then dug at his ear in a puzzled gesture.
Bev saw the old woman’s white, frightened face for one moment, and then saw her pawing at the door-locks, first on the passenger side, then on her own. The Ford’s engine ground and caught. Henry lifted one booted foot and kicked out a taillight.
‘Get outta here, you dried-up old bitch!’
The tires screamed as the old lady pulled back out in the street. An oncoming pickup truck swerved to avoid her; its horn blasted. Henry turned back toward Bev, beginning to smile again, and she hiked one sneakered foot directly into his balls.
The smile on Henry’s face turned into a grimace of agony. The switchknife dropped from his hand and clattered onto the sidewalk. His other hand left its nesting-place in the tangle of her hair (pulling once more, terribly, as it went) and then he sank to his knees, trying to scream, holding his crotch. She could see strands of her own coppery hair on one hand, and in that instant all of her terror turned to bright hate. She drew in a great, hitching breath and hocked a remarkably large looey onto the top of his head.
Then she turned and ran.
Belch lumbered three steps after her and then stopped. He and Victor went to Henry, who threw them aside and then staggered to his feet, both hands still