With this thought to cheer me, I went down to the hotel restaurant and ordered a shore dinner, which came with clams and a lobster roughly the size of an outboard motor. I skipped dessert in favor of a beer in the bar. In the detective novels I read, bartenders were often excellent sources of information. Of course, if the one working the Town House stick was like the other people I’d met so far in this grim little burg, I wouldn’t get far.

He wasn’t. The man who left off his glass-polishing duties to serve me was young and stocky, with a cheery full moon of a face below his flattop haircut. “What can I get you, friend?” The f-word sounded good to me, and I returned his smile with enthusiasm. “Miller Lite?” He looked puzzled. “Never heard of that one, but I’ve got High Life.” Of course he hadn’t heard of Miller Lite; it hadn’t been invented yet. “That would be fine.

Guess I forgot I was on the East Coast there for a second.”

“Where you from?” He used a church key to whisk the top off a bottle, and set a frosted glass in front of me.

“Wisconsin, but I’ll be here for awhile.” Although we were alone, I lowered my voice. It seemed to inspire confidence. “Real estate stuff. Got to look around a little.” He nodded respectfully and poured for me before I could. “Good luck to you. God knows there’s plenty for sale in these parts, and most of it going cheap. I’m getting out, myself. End of the month. Heading for a place with a little less edge to it.”

“It doesn’t seem all that welcoming,” I said, “but I thought that was just a Yankee thing.

We’re friendlier in Wisconsin, and just to prove it, I’ll buy you a beer.”

“Never drink alcohol on the job, but I might have a Coke.”

“Go for it.”

“Thanks very much. It’s nice to have a gent on a slow night.” I watched as he made the Coke by pumping syrup into a glass, adding soda water, and then stirring. He took a sip and smacked his lips. “I like em sweet.”

Judging by the belly he was getting, I wasn’t surprised.

“That stuff about Yankees being stand-offy is bullshit, anyway,” he said. “I grew up in Fork Kent, and it’s the friendliest little town you’d ever want to visit. Why, when tourists get off the Boston and Maine up there, we just about kiss em hello. Went to bartending school there, then headed south to seek my fortune. This looked like a good place to start, and the pay’s not bad, but

—” He looked around, saw no one, but still lowered his own voice. “You want the truth, Jackson?

This town stinks.”

“I know what you mean. All those mills.”

“It’s a lot more than that. Look around. What do you see?” I did as he asked. There was a fellow who looked like a salesman in the corner, drinking a whiskey sour, but that was it.

“Not much,” I said.

“That’s the way it is all through the week. The pay’s good because there’s no tips. The beerjoints downtown do a booming business, and we get some folks in on Friday and Saturday nights, but otherwise, that’s just about it. The carriage trade does its drinking at home, I guess.” He lowered his voice further. Soon he’d be whispering. “We had a bad summer here, my friend. Local folks keep it as quiet as they can—even the newspaper doesn’t play it up—but there was some nasty work. Murders. Half a dozen at least. Kids. Found one down in the Barrens just recently. Patrick Hockstetter, his name was. All decayed.”

“The Barrens?”

“It’s this swampy patch that runs right through the center of town. You probably saw it when you flew in.”

I’d been in a car, but I still knew what he was talking about.

The bartender’s eyes widened. “That’s not the real estate you’re interested in, is it?”

“Can’t say,” I told him. “If word got around, I’d be looking for a new job.”

“Understood, understood.” He drank half his Coke, then stifled a belch with the back of his hand. “But I hope it is. They ought to pave that goddam thing over. It’s nothing but stinkwater and mosquitoes. You’d be doing this town a favor. Sweeten it up a little bit.”

“Other kids found down there?” I asked. A serial child-murderer would explain a lot about the gloom I’d been feeling ever since I crossed the town line.

“Not that I know of, but people say that’s where some of the disappeared ones went, because that’s where all the big sewage pumping stations are. I’ve heard people say there are so many sewer pipes under Derry—most of em laid in the Great Depression—that nobody knows where all of em are. And you know how kids are.”

“Adventurous.”

He nodded emphatically. “Right with Eversharp. There’s people who say it was some vag who’s since moved on. Other folks say he was a local who dressed up like a clown to keep from being recognized. The first of the victims—this was last year, before I came—they found him at the intersection of Witcham and Jackson with his arm ripped clean off. Denbrough was his name, George Denbrough. Poor little tyke.” He gave me a meaningful look. “And he was found right next to one of those sewer drains. The ones that dump into the Barrens.”

“Christ.”

“Yeah.”

“I hear you using the past tense about all this stuff.”

I got ready to explain what I meant, but apparently this guy had been listening in English class as well as bartending school. “It seems to’ve stopped, knock on wood.” He rapped his knuckles on the bar. “Maybe whoever was doing it packed up and moved on. Or maybe the sonofabitch killed himself, sometimes they do that. That’d be good. But it wasn’t any homicidal maniac in a clown suit who killed the little Corcoran boy. The clown who did that murder was the kid’s own father, if you can believe it.”

That was close enough to why I was here to feel like fate rather than coincidence. I took a careful sip of my beer. “Is that so?”

“You bet it is. Dorsey Corcoran, that was the kid’s name. Only four years old, and you know what his goddam father did? Beat him to death with a recoilless hammer.” A hammer. He did it with a hammer. I maintained my look of polite interest—at least I hope I did—but I felt gooseflesh go marching up my arms. “That’s awful.”

“Yeah, and not the wor—” He broke off and looked over my shoulder. “Get you another, sir?”

It was the businessman. “Not me,” he said, and handed over a dollar bill. “I’m going to bed, and tomorrow I’m blowing this pop-shop. I hope they remember how to order hardware in Waterville and Augusta, because they sure don’t here. Keep the change, son, buy yourself a DeSoto.” He plodded out with his head down.

“See? That’s a perfect example of what we get at this oasis.” The bartender looked sadly after his departing customer. “One drink, off to bed, and tomorrow it’s seeya later, alligator, after awhile, crocodile. If it keeps up, this burg’s gonna be a ghost town.” He stood up straight and tried to square his shoulders—an impossible task, because they were as round as the rest of him. “But who gives a rip? Come October first, I’m gone. Down the road. Happy trails to you, until we meet again.”