فصل 09 - بخش 08

9

Jack dreamed he was driving a deserted two-lane highway with nothing but empty on both sides and a thousand miles of blue sky above. He was at the wheel of a big truck, maybe a tanker, because he could smell gasoline. Sitting beside him was a man with short black hair and a goatee. Tattoos covered his arms. Hoskins knew him, because Jack visited Gentlemen, Please frequently (although rarely in his official capacity), and had had many pleasant conversations with Claude Bolton, who had a record but was not a bad fellow at all since he’d cleaned up his act. Except this version of Claude was a very bad fellow. It was this Claude who had pulled back the shower curtain enough for Hoskins to be able to read the word on his fingers: CANT.

The truck passed a sign reading MARYSVILLE, POP. 1280.

‘That cancer’s spreading fast,’ Claude said, and yes, it was the voice that had come from behind the shower curtain. ‘Look at your hands, Jack.’

He looked down. His hands on the wheel had turned black. As he stared at them, they fell off. The tanker truck ran off the road, tilted, started to go over. Jack understood that it was going to explode, and he hauled himself out of the dream before that could happen, gasping for breath and staring up at the ceiling.

‘Jesus,’ he whispered, checking to make sure his hands were still there. They were, and so was his watch. He had been asleep less than an hour. ‘Jesus Chri—’

Someone moved on his left. For a moment he wondered if he had brought the pretty bartender with the long legs home with him, but no, he’d been alone. A fine young woman like that wouldn’t want to have anything to do with him, anyway. To her he would just be an overweight, fortysomething drunk who was losing his h—

He looked around. The woman in bed with him was his mother. He only knew it was her because of the tortoiseshell clip dangling from the few remaining strings of her hair. She had been wearing that clip at her funeral. Her face had been made up by the mortician, kind of waxy and doll-like, but on the whole not too bad. This face was mostly gone, the flesh putrefying off the bone. Her nightgown clung to her because it was drenched with pus. There was the stench of rotting meat. He tried to scream, couldn’t.

‘This cancer is waiting for you, Jack,’ she said. He could see her teeth clacking, because her lips were gone. ‘It’s eating into you. He can take it back now, but soon it will be too late even for him. Will you do what he wants?’

‘Yes,’ Hoskins whispered. ‘Yes, anything.’

‘Then listen.’

Jack Hoskins listened.