Free Cell: A Novel by Stephen King Page A

locking up and leaving under these circumstances,” Tom said. He spoke in the gentle fashion Clay was so much coming to like.
    “I shall stay at my post,” he said again. “Mr. Donnelly, the day manager, went out to make the afternoon deposit at the bank and left me in charge. If he comes back, perhaps then…”
    “Please, Mr. Ricardi,” Alice said. “Staying here is no good.”
    But Mr. Ricardi, who had once more crossed his arms over his thin chest, only shook his head.
     
    15
    They moved one of the Queen Anne chairs aside, and Mr. Ricardi unlocked the front doors for them. Clay looked out. He could see no people moving in either direction, but it was hard to tell for sure because the air was now full of fine dark ash. It danced in the breeze like black snow.
    “Come on,” he said. They were only going next door to start with, to the Metropolitan Cafe.
    “I’m going to relock the door and put the chair back in place,” Mr. Ricardi said, “but I’ll be listening. If you run into trouble—if there are more of those… people … hiding in the Metropolitan, for instance—and you have to retreat, just remember to shout, ‘Mr. Ricardi, Mr. Ricardi, we need you!’ That way I’ll know it’s safe to open the door. Is that understood?”
    “Yes,” Clay said. He squeezed Mr. Ricardi’s thin shoulder. The desk clerk flinched, then stood firm (although he showed no particular sign of pleasure at being so saluted). “You’re all right. I didn’t think you were, but I was wrong.”
    “I hope I do my best,” the bald man said stiffly. “Just remember—”
    “We’ll remember,” Tom said. “And we’ll be over there maybe ten minutes. If anything goes wrong over here, you give a shout.”
    “All right.” But Clay didn’t think he would. He didn’t know why he thought that, it made no sense to think a man wouldn’t give a shout to save himself if he was in trouble, but Clay did think it.
    Alice said, “Please change your mind, Mr. Ricardi. It’s not safe in Boston, you must know that by now.”
    Mr. Ricardi only looked away. And Clay thought, not without wonder, This is how a man looks when he’s deciding that the risk of death is better than the risk of change.
    “Come on,” Clay said. “Let’s make some sandwiches while we’ve still got electricity to see by.”
    “Some bottled water wouldn’t hurt, either,” Tom said.
     
    16
    The electricity failed just as they were wrapping the last of their sandwiches in the Metropolitan Cafe’s tidy, white-tiled little kitchen. By then Clay had tried three more times to get through to Maine: once to his old house, once to Kent Pond Elementary, where Sharon taught, and once to Joshua Chamberlain Middle School, which Johnny now attended. In no case did he get further than Maine’s 207 area code.
    When the lights in the Metropolitan went out, Alice screamed in what at first seemed to Clay like total darkness. Then the emergency lights came on. Alice was not much comforted. She was clinging to Tom with one arm. In the other she was brandishing the bread-knife she’d used to cut the sandwiches with. Her eyes were wide and somehow flat.
    “Alice, put that knife down,” Clay said, a little more harshly than he’d intended. “Before you cut one of us with it.”
    “Or yourself,” Tom said in that mild and soothing voice of his. His spectacles glinted in the glare of the emergency lights.
    She put it down, then promptly picked it up again. “I want it,” she said. “I want to take it with me. You have one, Clay. I want one.”
    “All right,” he said, “but you don’t have a belt. We’ll make you one from a tablecloth. For now, just be careful.”
    Half the sandwiches were roast beef and cheese, half ham and cheese. Alice had wrapped them in Saran Wrap. Under the cash register Clay found a stack of sacks with DOGGY BAG written on one side and people bag written on the other. He and Tom tumbled the sandwiches into a pair of these. Into a third