The Colorado Kid   ::   Кинг Стивен

“Closed? In the middle of the day?” Stephanie asked, with the slightest touch of unease in her mind, if not in her voice.

“If someone comes by with news, they’ll knock,” Vince said, reasonably enough. “If it’s big news, they’ll hammer.”

“And if downtown catches afire, we’ll hear the whistle,” Dave put in. “Come on out on the deck, Steffi. August sun’s not to be missed—it doesn’t last long.”

She looked at Dave, then at Vince Teague, who was as mentally quick at ninety as he’d been at fortyfive. She was convinced of it. “School’s in?” she asked.

“That’s right,” Vince said, and although he was still smiling, she sensed he was serious. “And do you know what’s nice for old guys like us?”

“You only have to teach people who want to learn.”

“Ayuh. Doyou want to learn, Steffi?”

“Yes.” She spoke with no hesitation in spite of that odd inner unease.

“Then come out and sit,” he said. “Come out and sit a little.”

So she did.



4

The sun was warm, the air was cool, the breeze was sweet with salt and rich with the sound of bells and horns and lapping water. These were sounds she had come to love in only a space of weeks. The two men sat on either side of her, and although she didn’t know it, both had more or less the same thought: Age flanks beauty. And there was nothing wrong with the thought, because both of them understood their intentions were perfectly solid. They understood how good she could be at the job, and how much she wanted to learn; all that pretty greed made youwant to teach.

“So,” Vince said when they were settled, “think about those stories we told Hanratty at lunch, Steffi—theLisa Cabot, the Coast Lights, the Wandering Mormons, the Tashmore church poisonings that were never solved—and tell me what they have in common.”

“They’reall unsolved.”

“Try doin a little better, dearheart,” Dave said. “You disappoint me.”

She glanced at him and saw he wasn’t kidding. Well, thatwas pretty obvious, considering why Hanratty had blown them to lunch in the first place: theGlobe ’s eightinstallment series (maybe even ten installments, Hanratty had said, if he could find enough peculiar stories), which the editorial staff hoped to run between September and Halloween. “They’ve all been done to death?”

“That’s a little better,” Vince said, “but you’re still not breaking any new ground.