Doctor Sleep

time. The kind that can’t exactly be explained.
    “You’re tight with Johnny Dalton, aren’t you?” he asked Dan now. “The pediatrician?”
    “Yes. I see him most Thursday nights, in North Conway.”
    “Got his number?”
    “As a matter of fact, I do.” Dan had a whole list of AA contact numbers in the back of the little notebook Casey had givenhim, which he still carried.
    “Call him. Tell him it’s important this yobbo here sees someone right away. Don’t suppose you know what kind of a doctor it is he needs, do you? Sure as hell isn’t a pediatrician at his age.”
    “Casey—” Billy began.
    “Hush,” Casey said, and returned his attention to Dan. “I think you do know, by God. Is it his lungs? That seems the most likely, the way he smokes.”
    Dan decided he had come too far to turn back now. He sighed and said, “No, I think it’s something in his guts.”
    “Except for a little indigestion, my guts are—”
    “ Hush I said.” Then, turning back to Dan: “A gut doctor, then. Tell Johnny D. it’s important.” He paused. “Will he believe you?”
    This was a question Dan was glad to hear. He had helped severalAAs during his time in New Hampshire, andalthough he asked them all not to talk, he knew perfectly well that some had, and still did. He was happy to know John Dalton hadn’t been one of them.
    “I think so.”
    “Okay.” Casey pointed at Billy. “You got the day off, and with pay. Medical leave.”
    “The Riv —”
    “There’s a dozen people in this town that can drive the Riv . I’ll make some calls, then take the first two runs myself.”
    “Your badhip—”
    “Balls to my bad hip. Do me good to get out of this office.”
    “But Casey, I feel f—”
    “I don’t care if you feel good enough to run a footrace all the way to Lake Winnipesaukee. You’re going to see the doctor and that’s the end of it.”
    Billy looked resentfully at Dan. “See the trouble you got me in? I didn’t even get my morning coffee.”
    The flies were gone this morning—except they werestill there. Dan knew that if he concentrated, he could see them again if he wanted to . . . but who in Christ’s name would want to?
    “I know,” Dan said. “There is no gravity, life just sucks. Can I use your phone, Casey?”
    “Be my guest.” Casey stood up. “Guess I’ll toddle on over to the train station and punch a few tickets. You got an engineer’s cap that’ll fit me, Billy?”
    “No.”
    “Mine will,”Dan said.
    9
    For an organization that didn’t advertise its presence, sold no goods, and supported itself with crumpled dollar bills thrown into passed baskets or baseball caps, Alcoholics Anonymous exerted a quietly powerful influence that stretched far beyond the doors of thevarious rented halls and church basements where it did its business. It wasn’t the old boys’ network, Dan thought, butthe old drunks’ network.
    He called John Dalton, and John called an internal medicine specialist named Greg Fellerton. Fellerton wasn’t in the Program, but he owed Johnny D. a favor. Dan didn’t know why, and didn’t care. All that mattered was that later that day, Billy Freeman was on the examining table in Fellerton’s Lewiston office. Said office was a seventy-mile drive from Frazier, and Billybitched the whole way.
    “Are you sure indigestion’s all that’s been bothering you?” Dan asked as they pulled into Fellerton’s little parking area on Pine Street.
    “Yuh,” Billy said. Then he reluctantly added, “It’s been a little worse lately, but nothin that keeps me up at night.”
    Liar, Dan thought, but let it pass. He’d gotten the contrary old sonofabitch here, and that was the hard part.
    Dan was sitting in the waiting room, leafing through a copy of OK! with Prince William and his pretty but skinny new bride on the cover, when he heard a lusty cry of pain from down the hall. Ten minutes later, Fellerton came out and sat down beside Dan. He looked at the cover of OK! and said, “That guy may be heir to the British throne, but he’s still going to be as bald as a nine ball by the timehe’s forty.”
    “You’re probably right.”
    “Of course I’m right. In human affairs, the only real king is genetics. I’m sending your friend up to Central Maine General for a CT scan. I’m pretty sure what it’ll show. If I’m right, I’ll schedule Mr. Freeman to see a vascular surgeon for a little cut-and-splice early tomorrow morning.”
    “What’s wrong