Read Online Duma Key by Stephen King - Free Book Online Page B

wasn’t very good. But it was interesting. The scribbled afterglow had a sullen, furnacey quality that was startling. The ship wasn’t the one I’d seen, but mine was interesting in a spooky sort ofway. It was little more than a scarecrow ship, and the overlapping scribbles of yellow and orange had turned it into a ghost-ship, as well, as if that peculiar sunset were shining right through it.
    I propped it atop the TV, against the sign reading THE OWNER REQUESTS THAT YOU AND YOUR GUESTS DO NOT SMOKE INDOORS. I looked at it a moment longer, thinking it needed something in the foreground—a smaller boat, maybe, just to lend the one on the horizon some perspective—but I no longer wanted to draw. Besides, adding something might fuck up what little charm the thing had. I tried the telephone instead, thinking if it wasn’t working yet I could call Ilse on my cell, but Jack had been on top of that, too.
    I thought I’d probably get her machine—college girls are busy girls—but she answered on the first ring. “Daddy?” That startled me so much that at first I couldn’t speak and she said it again. “Dad?”
    â€œYes,” I said. “How did you know?”
    â€œThe callback number’s got a 941 area code. That’s where that Duma place is. I checked.”
    â€œModern technology. I can’t catch up. How are you, kiddo?”
    â€œFine. The question is, how are you ?”
    â€œI’m all right. Better than all right, actually.”
    â€œThe fellow you hired—?”
    â€œHe’s got game. The bed’s made and the fridge is full. I got here and took a five-hour nap.”
    There was a pause, and when she spoke again she sounded more concerned than ever. “You’re not hitting those pain pills too hard, are you? Because Oxycontin’s supposed to be sort of a Trojan horse.Not that I’m telling you anything you didn’t already know.”
    â€œNope, I stick to the prescribed dosage. In fact—” I stopped.
    â€œWhat, Daddy? What?” Now she sounded almost ready to hail a cab and take a plane.
    â€œI was just realizing I skipped the five o’clock Vicodin . . .” I checked my watch. “And the eight o’clock Oxycontin, too. I’ll be damned.”
    â€œHow bad’s the pain?”
    â€œNothing a couple of Tylenol won’t handle. At least until midnight.”
    â€œIt’s probably the change in climate,” she said. “And the nap.”
    I had no doubt those things were part of it, but I didn’t think they were all of it. Maybe it was crazy, but I thought drawing had played a part. In fact, it was something I sort of knew.
    We talked for awhile, and little by little I could hear that concern going out of her voice. What replaced it was unhappiness. She was understanding, I suppose, that this thing was really happening, that her mother and father weren’t just going to wake up one morning and take it back. But she promised to call Pam and e-mail Melinda, let them know I was still in the land of the living.
    â€œDon’t you have e-mail there, Dad?”
    â€œI do, but tonight you’re my e-mail, Cookie.”
    She laughed, sniffed, laughed again. I thought to ask if she was crying, then thought again. Better not to, maybe.
    â€œIlse? I better let you go now, honey. I want to shower off the day.”
    â€œOkay, but . . .” A pause. Then she burst out: “I hate to think of you all the way down there in Floridaby yourself! Maybe falling on your ass in the shower! It’s not right !”
    â€œCookie, I’m fine. Really. The kid—his name’s . . .” Hurricanes, I thought. Weather Channel . “His name’s Jim Cantori.” But that was a case of right church, wrong pew. “Jack, I mean.”
    â€œThat’s not the same, and you know it. Do you want me to come?”
    â€œNot unless you