Doctor Sleep

John asked.
    “Tucked up and ready to go tomorrow morningat seven a.m. John, I feel like drinking.”
    “Oh, nooo!” John cried in a trembling falsetto. “Not booooze !”
    And just like that the urge was gone. Dan laughed. “Okay, I needed that. But if you ever do the Michael Jackson voice again, I will drink.”
    “You should hear me on ‘Billie Jean.’ I’m a karaoke monster. Can I ask you something?”
    “Sure.” Through the windshield, Dan could see the Cowboy Bootpatrons come and go, probably not talking of Michelangelo.
    “Whatever you’ve got, did drinking . . . I don’t know . . . shut it up?”
    “Muffled it. Put a pillow over its face and made it struggle for air.”
    “And now?”
    “Like Superman, I use my powers to promote truth, justice, and the American Way.”
    “Meaning you don’t want to talk about it.”
    “No,” Dan said. “I don’t. But it’s better now. Betterthan I ever thought it could be. When I was a teenager . . .” He trailed off. When he’d been a teenager, every day had been a struggle for sanity. The voices in his head were bad; the pictures were frequently worse. He had promised both his mother and himself that he would neverdrink like his father, but when he finally began, as a freshman in high school, it had been such a huge relief thathe had—at first—only wished he’d started sooner. Morning hangovers were a thousand times better than nightmares all night long. All of which sort of led to a question: How much of his father’s son was he? In how many ways?
    “When you were a teenager, what?” John asked.
    “Nothing. It doesn’t matter. Listen, I better get moving. I’m sitting in a bar parking lot.”
    “Really?” John sounded interested.“Which bar?”
    “Place called the Cowboy Boot. It’s two-buck pitchers until nine o’clock.”
    “Dan.”
    “Yes, John.”
    “I know that place from the old days. If you’re going to flush your life down the toilet, don’t start there. The ladies are skanks with meth-mouth and the men’s room smells like moldy jockstraps. The Boot is strictly for when you hit your bottom.”
    There it was, that phrase again.
    “We all have a bottom,” Dan said. “Don’t we?”
    “Get out of there, Dan.” John sounded dead serious now. “Right this second. No more fucking around. And stay on the phone with me until that big neon cowboy boot on the roof is out of your rearview mirror.”
    Dan started his car, pulled out of the lot, and back onto Route 11.
    “It’s going,” he said. “It’s going . . . annnd . . . it’s gone.” He feltinexpressible relief. He also felt bitter regret—how many two-buck pitchers could he have gotten through before nine o’clock?
    “Not going to pick up a six or a bottle of wine before you get back to Frazier, are you?”
    “No. I’m good.”
    “Then I’ll see you Thursday night. Come early, I’m making the coffee. Folgers, from my special stash.”
    “I’ll be there,” Dan said.
    12
    When he got back to his turretroom and flipped on the light, there was a new message on the blackboard.
    I had a wonderful day!
    Your friend,
    ABRA
    “That’s good, honey,” Dan said. “I’m glad.”
    Buzz . The intercom. He went over and hit TALK.
    “Hey there, Doctor Sleep,” Loretta Ames said. “I thought I saw you come in. I guess it’s still technically your day off, but do you want to pay a house call?”
    “On who? Mr. Cameron orMr. Murray?”
    “Cameron. Azzie’s been visiting with him since just after dinner.”
    Ben Cameron was in Rivington One. Second floor. An eighty-three-year-old retired accountant with congestive heart failure. Hell of a nice guy. Good Scrabble player and an absolute pest at Parcheesi, always setting up blockades that drove his opponents crazy.
    “I’ll be right over,” Dan said. On his way out, he pausedfor a single backward glance at the blackboard. “Goodnight, hon,” he said.
    He didn’t hear from Abra Stone for another two years.
    During those same two years, something slept in the True Knot’s bloodstream. A little parting gift from Bradley Trevor, aka the baseball boy.

PART TWO
    EMPTY DEVILS

CHAPTER SEVEN
    “HAVE YOU SEEN ME?”
    1
    On an August morning in 2013, Concetta Reynolds awoke early in her Boston condo apartment. As always, the first thing she was aware of was that there was no dog curled up in the corner, by the dresser. Betty had been gone for years now, but Chetta still missed her. She put on her