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The Colorado Kid :: Кинг Стивен
Страница: 44 из 81You know, I thought that was sort of sweet.”
Stephanie leaned forward, eyes shining, totally absorbed. “So what did you do next? How did you proceed?”
Dave opened his mouth to reply, and Vince put a hand on the managing editor’s burly shoulder to stop him before he could. “How do youthink we proceeded, dear?”
“School is in?” she asked.
“’Tis,” he said.
And because she saw by his eyes and the set of his mouth (more by the latter) that he was absolutely in earnest, she thought carefully before replying.
“You…made copies of the ‘sleeping ID’—”
“Ayuh. We did.”
“And then…mmm…you sent it with clippings to—how many Colorado papers?”
He smiled at her, nodded, gave her a thumbsup. “Seventyeight, Ms. McCann, and I don’t know about Dave, but I was amazed at how cheap it had become to send out such a number of duplications, even back in 1981. Why, it couldn’t have come to a hundred bucks total outofpocket expense, even with the postage.”
“And of course we wrote it all off to the business,” said Dave, who doubled as theIslander ’s bookkeeper.
“Every penny. As we had every right to do.”
“How many of them ran it?”
“Every frickin one!” Vince said, and fetched his narrow thigh a vicious slap. “Ayuh! Even the DenverPost and the Rocky MountainNews! Becausethen there was only one peculiar thing about it and abeautiful throughline, don’t you see?”
Stephanie nodded. Simple and beautiful. She did see.
Vince nodded back, absolutely beaming. “Unknown man, maybe from Colorado, found on an island beach in Maine, two thousand miles away! No mention of the steak stuck halfway down his gullet, no mention of the coat that might have gotten off JimmyJesusknowswhere (or might not have been there at all), no mention of the Russian coin in his pocket! Just the Colorado Kid, your basic Unexplained Mystery, and so, sure, theyall ran it, even the free ones that are mostly coupons.”
“And two days after the Boulder newspaper ran it near the end of October 1981,” Dave said, “I got a call from a woman named Arla Cogan. She lived in Nederland, a little way up in the mountains from Boulder, and her husband had disappeared in April of the previous year, leaving her and a son who had been six months old at the time of his disappearance. She said his name was James, and although she had no idea what he could possibly have been doing on an island off the coast of Maine, the photograph in theCamera looked a great deal like her husband. A great deal, indeed.
Stephanie leaned forward, eyes shining, totally absorbed. “So what did you do next? How did you proceed?”
Dave opened his mouth to reply, and Vince put a hand on the managing editor’s burly shoulder to stop him before he could. “How do youthink we proceeded, dear?”
“School is in?” she asked.
“’Tis,” he said.
And because she saw by his eyes and the set of his mouth (more by the latter) that he was absolutely in earnest, she thought carefully before replying.
“You…made copies of the ‘sleeping ID’—”
“Ayuh. We did.”
“And then…mmm…you sent it with clippings to—how many Colorado papers?”
He smiled at her, nodded, gave her a thumbsup. “Seventyeight, Ms. McCann, and I don’t know about Dave, but I was amazed at how cheap it had become to send out such a number of duplications, even back in 1981. Why, it couldn’t have come to a hundred bucks total outofpocket expense, even with the postage.”
“And of course we wrote it all off to the business,” said Dave, who doubled as theIslander ’s bookkeeper.
“Every penny. As we had every right to do.”
“How many of them ran it?”
“Every frickin one!” Vince said, and fetched his narrow thigh a vicious slap. “Ayuh! Even the DenverPost and the Rocky MountainNews! Becausethen there was only one peculiar thing about it and abeautiful throughline, don’t you see?”
Stephanie nodded. Simple and beautiful. She did see.
Vince nodded back, absolutely beaming. “Unknown man, maybe from Colorado, found on an island beach in Maine, two thousand miles away! No mention of the steak stuck halfway down his gullet, no mention of the coat that might have gotten off JimmyJesusknowswhere (or might not have been there at all), no mention of the Russian coin in his pocket! Just the Colorado Kid, your basic Unexplained Mystery, and so, sure, theyall ran it, even the free ones that are mostly coupons.”
“And two days after the Boulder newspaper ran it near the end of October 1981,” Dave said, “I got a call from a woman named Arla Cogan. She lived in Nederland, a little way up in the mountains from Boulder, and her husband had disappeared in April of the previous year, leaving her and a son who had been six months old at the time of his disappearance. She said his name was James, and although she had no idea what he could possibly have been doing on an island off the coast of Maine, the photograph in theCamera looked a great deal like her husband. A great deal, indeed.