Umney's Last Case by Stephen King Read Free Book Online

comes on the side when you order a
    Reebok dinner?''
    `Ìt's a Japanese electronics company.''
    I laughed dryly. ``Who're you kidding, mister? The Japs can't even make wind-up toys
    without getting the springs in
    upside down.''
    ``Not now,'' he agreed, `ànd speaking of now, Clyde, when is now? What year is it?''
    ``1938,'' I said, then raised a half-numb hand to my face and rubbed my lips.
    ``Wait a minute--1939.''
    `Ìt might even be 1940. Am I right?''
    I said nothing, but I felt my face heating up.
    ``Don't feel bad, Clyde; you don't know because I don't know. I always left it vague.
    The time-frame I was trying for
    was actually more of a feel . . . call it Chandler American Time, if you like. It
    worked like gangbusters for most of my
    readers, and it made things simpler from a copy-editing standpoint as well, because
    you can never exactly pinpoint the
    passage of time. Haven't you ever noticed how often you say things like `for more
    years than I can remember' or
    `longer ago than I like to think about' or `since Hector was a pup'?''
    ``Nope--can't say that I have.'' But now that he mentioned it, I did notice. And that
    made me think of the L.A. Times. I
    read it every day, but exactly which days were they? You couldn't tell from the paper
    itself, because there was never a
    date on the masthead, only that slogan which reads `Àmerica's Fairest Newspaper in
    America's Fairest City.''
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    ``You say those things because time doesn't really pass in this world. It is . . .''
    He paused, then smiled. It was a terrible
    thing to look at, that smile, full of yearning and strange greed. `Ìt is one of its
    many charms,'' he finished.
    I was scared, but I've always been able to bite the bullet when I felt it really
    needed biting, and this was one of those
    times. ``Tell me what the hell's going on here.''
    `Àll right . . . but you're already beginning to know, Clyde. Aren't you?''
    ``Maybe. I don't know my dad's name or my mom's name or the name of the first girl I
    ever went to bed with because
    you don't know them. Is that it?''
    He nodded, smiling the way a teacher would smile at a pupil who's made a leap of logic
    and come up with the right
    answer against all odds. But his eyes were still full of that terrible sympathy.
    `Ànd when you wrote San Diego on your gadget there and it came into my head at the
    same time . . .''
    He nodded, encouraging me.
    `Ìt isn't just the Fulwider Building you own, is it?'' I swallowed, trying to get rid
    of a large blockage in my throat that
    had no intention of going anywhere. ``You own everything.''
    But Landry was shaking his head. ``Not everything. Just Los Angeles and a few
    surrounding areas. This version of Los
    Angeles, that is, complete with the occasional continuity glitch or made-up
    addition.''
    ``Bull,'' I said, but I whispered the word.
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    ``See the picture on the wall to the left of the door, Clyde?''
    I glanced at it, but hardly had to; it was Washington crossing the Delaware, and it
    had been there since . . . well, since
    Hector was a pup.
    Landry had taken his plastic Buck Rogers steno machine back onto his lap, and was
    bending over it.
    ``Don't do that!'' I shouted, and tried to reach for him. I couldn't do it. My arms
    had no strength, it seemed, and I could
    summon no resolve. I felt lethargic, drained, as if I had lost about three pints of
    blood and was losing more all the time.
    He rattled the keys again. Turned the machine toward me so I could read the words in
    the window. They read: On the
    wall to the left of the door leading out to Candy-Land, Our Revered Leader hangs . . .
    but always slightly askew. That's
    my way of keeping him in perspective.
    I looked back at the picture. George Washington was gone, replaced by a photo of
    Franklin Roosevelt. F.D.R. had a grin
    on his face and his cigarette holder