Bag of Bones   ::   Кинг Стивен

I had seen them before, but only in old black-and-white crime movies, the ones where Dan Duryea or John Payne is always driving around in a Buick with portholes on the sides, looking grim and smoking a Camel. Glancing over into the corner and seeing a guy who looked like the world’s oldest fighter-pilot was weird enough, but hearing everything you said immediately repeated in a muffled monotone was even weirder. “Thank you, Mr. Noonan. My wife has read all your books and says you are her favorite author. I just wanted to get that on the record.” Durgin chuckled fatly. Why not? He was a fat guy. Most fat people I like—they have expansive natures to go with their expansive waistlines. But there is a subgroup which I think of as the Evil Little Fat Folks. You don’t want to fuck with the ELFFS if you can help it; they will burn your house and rape your dog if you give them half an excuse and a quarter of an opportunity. Few of them stand over five-foot-two (Durgin’s height, I estimated), and many are under five feet. They smile a lot, but their eyes don’t smile. The Evil Little Fat Folks hate the whole world. Mostly they hate folks who can look down the length of their bodies and still see their own feet. This included me, although just barely. “Please thank your wife for me, Mr. Durgin. I’m sure she could recommend one for you to start on.” Durgin chuckled. On his right, Durgin’s assistant—a pretty young woman who looked approximately seventeen minutes out of law school—chuckled. On my left, Romeo Bissonette chuckled. In the corner, the world’s oldest IF- 111 pilot only went on muttering into his Stenomask. “I’ll wait for the big-screen version,” he said. His eyes gave an ugly little gleam, as if he knew a feature film had never been made from one of my books—only a made-for-TV movie of Being Two that pulled ratings roughly equal to the National Sofa Refinishing Championships. I hoped that we’d completed this chubby little fuck’s idea of the pleasantries. “I am Kyra Devore’s guardian aa’/item,” he said. “Do you know what that means, Mr. Noonan?”

“I believe I do.”

“It means,” Durgin rolled on, “that I’ve been appointed by Judge Rancourt to decide—if I can—where Kyra Devore’s best interests lie, should a custody judgment become necessary. Judge Rancourt would not, in such an event, be required to base his decision on my conclusions, but in many cases that is what happens.” He looked at me with his hands folded on a blank legal pad. The pretty assistant, on the other hand, was scribbling madly. Perhaps she didn’t trust the fighter-pilot. Durgin looked as if he expected a round of applause. “Was that a question, Mr.