Read Online Koko by Peter Straub - Free Book Online Page A

stay around New York and play games with Maggie Lah, Conor thought.
    “Well, we’ll see,” Beevers said.
    Conor lobbed his empty beer bottle toward the wastebasket. The bottle fell three feet
     short and slanted off under the dresser. He could not remember switching from vodka
     to beer. Or had he started on beer, then gone to vodka, and switched back to beer
     again? Conor inspected the glasses on the table and tried to pick out his old one.
     The other three were giving him that “cheerleader” look again, and he wished he’d
     made his net shot into the wastebasket. Conor philosophically poured several inches
     of vodka into the nearest glass. He scooped a handful of cubes from the bucket and
     plopped them in. “Give me an S,” he said, raising the glass in a final toast. He drank.
     “Give an I. Give me an N. Give me a … G. Give me an A.”
    Beevers told him to sit down and be quiet, which was fine with Conor. He couldn’t
     remember what came after A anyhow. Someof the vodka slopped onto his pants as he sat down again beside Mike.
    “Now can we go see Jimmy Stewart?” he heard Pumo ask.
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    A little while later someone suggested that he lie down and take a nap on Mike’s bed,
     but Conor refused, no, no, he was fine, he was with his asshole buddies, all he had
     to do was get moving, anybody who could still spell Singapore wasn’t too bent out
     of shape …
    Without any transition he found himself out in the corridor. He was having trouble
     with his feet, and Mikey had a firm grip on his left arm. “What’s my room number?”
     he asked Mikey.
    “You’re staying with Tina.”
    “Good old Tina.”
    They turned a corner and good old Tina and Harry Beevers were right in front of them,
     waiting for the elevator. Beevers was combing his hair in front of a big mirror.
    The next thing Conor knew, he was sitting on the floor of the elevator, but he managed
     to get back on his feet before the doors opened.
    “You’re cute, Harry,” he said to the back of Beevers’ head.
    The elevator door opened and for a long time they moved through long, blank hallways
     crowded with people. Conor kept bumping into guys who were too impatient to listen
     to his apologies. He heard people singing “Homeward Bound,” which was the world’s
     most beautiful song. “Homeward Bound” made him feel like crying.
    Poole was making sure he didn’t fall down. Conor wondered if Mike actually knew what
     a great guy he was, and decided he didn’t—that was what made him so great.
    “I’m really okay,” he said.
    He sat down beside Mike in a darkened hall. A black-haired man with a narrow moustache,
     wearing what looked like a prizefighter’s championship belt under his tuxedo, was
     singing “America the Beautiful” and jumping around onstage in front of a band.
    “We missed Jimmy Stewart,” Mike whispered to him. “This is Wayne Newton.”
    “Wayne Newton?”
Conor asked, then heard that his voicewas too loud. People were laughing at what he had said. Conor felt too embarrassed
     for Mikey to set him straight—Wayne Newton was a fat teenager who sang like a girl.
     This Las Vegas toughie wasn’t Wayne Newton. Conor closed his eyes and the whole dark
     hall instantly began to swing him around with it in great zooming circles. Conor found
     that he was unable to open his eyes. Applause, whistles, shouts of approval filled
     his ears. He heard his own first snore, and less than a second later fell into unconsciousness.
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    “We don’t have as many groupies as musicians,” Harry Beevers said to Poole, “but they’re
     out there. They’re basically earth mothers with a kinky little yen for excitement.
     Is he getting heavy? Put him on your couch and come back down to the bar with us.”
    “I want to get to bed,” Poole said. Conor Linklater, a hundred and sixty pounds of
     dead weight bequeathed to him by Tina Pumo, was draped over his shoulder.
    Beevers breathed alcohol at Poole. “Nam groupies are