Bag of Bones by Stephen King Read Free Book Online Page A

him, fine as freckles, just thinking about easing off a little.
    There followed one of those patented Harold Oblowski silences, which were meant to convey that you were being a terrific asshole, but because Harold liked you so much, he was trying to think of the gentlest possible way of telling you so. This is a wonderful trick, but one I saw through about six years ago. Actually, it was Jo who saw through it. “He’s only pretending compassion,” she said. “Actually, he’s like a cop in one of those old film noir movies, keeping his mouth shut so you’ll blunder ahead and end up confessing to everything.”
    This time I kept my mouth shut—just switched the phone from my right ear to my left, and rocked back a little further in my office chair. When I did, my eye fell on the framed photograph over my computer—Sara Laughs, our place on Dark Score Lake. I hadn’t been there in eons, and for a moment I consciously wondered why.
    Then Harold’s voice—cautious, comforting, the voice of a sane man trying to talk a lunatic out of what he hopes will be no more than a passing delusion—was back in my ear. “That might not be a good idea, Mike—not at this stage of your career.”
    â€œThis isn’t a stage,” I said. “I peaked in 1991—since then, my sales haven’t really gone up or down. This is a plateau, Harold.”
    â€œYes,” he said, “and writers who’ve reached that steady state really only have two choices in terms of sales—they can continue as they are, or they can go down.”
    So I go down, I thought of saying . . . but didn’t. I didn’t want Harold to know exactly how deep this went, or how shaky the ground under me was. I didn’t want him to know that I was now having heart palpitations—yes, I mean this literally—almost every time I opened the Word Six program on my computer and looked at the blank screen and flashing cursor.
    â€œYeah,” I said. “Okay. Message received.”
    â€œYou’re sure you’re all right?”
    â€œDoes the book read like I’m wrong, Harold?”
    â€œHell, no—it’s a helluva yarn. Your personal best, I told you. A great read but also fucking serious shit. If Saul Bellow wrote romantic suspense fiction, this iswhat he’d write. But . . . you’re not having any trouble with the next one, are you? I know you’re still missing Jo, hell, we all are—”
    â€œNo,” I said. “No trouble at all.”
    Another of those long silences ensued. I endured it. At last Harold said, “Grisham could afford to take a year off. Clancy could. Thomas Harris, the long silences are a part of his mystique. But where you are, life is even tougher than at the very top, Mike. There are five writers for every one of those spots down on the list, and you know who they are—hell, they’re your neighbors three months a year. Some are going up, the way Patricia Cornwell went up with her last two books, some are going down, and some are staying steady, like you. If Tom Clancy were to go on hiatus for five years and then bring Jack Ryan back, he’d come back strong, no argument. If you go on hiatus for five years, maybe you don’t come back at all. My advice is—”
    â€œMake hay while the sun shines.”
    â€œTook the words right out of my mouth.”
    We talked a little more, then said our goodbyes. I leaned back further in my office chair—not all the way to the tipover point but close—and looked at the photo of our western Maine retreat. Sara Laughs, sort of like the title of that hoary old Hall and Oates ballad. Jo had loved it more, true enough, but only by a little, so why had I been staying away? Bill Dean, the caretaker, took down the storm shutters every spring and put them back up every fall, drained the pipes in the fall and made sure the pump was running in