Shuteye for the Timebroker Read Online Free PDF Page A

scorch the town. Cries and bellows shook the winter air, balls of sulfurous gas rolled through the streets, and all of the town’s cats lost their tails. People cowered beneath their beds. The earth shook like a carpet the gods had decided to beat. A rain of golf balls— Titleists—fell and bounced down the hilly streets, as if Mr. Moose had finally decided to kill Captain Kangaroo.
    Then, as suddenly as it had begun, the battle stopped. All night, though, people huddled in their houses, waiting for it to resume.
    In the morning, the sleepless Clayton was sure Captain Jill had overstepped herself and gone to her long-delayed final rest. Hoping to learn more about the outcome of the battle, he went to Emmett’s Roadhouse for breakfast.
    Walking through town, Clayton marveled at the patches of melted snow where Goodnight’s bolts had landed, churning the frozen earth as if it were chocolate pudding. The tails of cats lay here and there like the popular car-antenna squirrel-tails of Gran’pa Jerothmul’s youth. A smell of sulfur still hung in the frigid air. One house—he wasn’t sure whose—had burned to the ground, the volunteer firemen apparently having been too scared to come out and fight the fire.
    Inside Emmett’s Roadhouse—-with its wooden booths and long counter bearing pie cases, ketchup bottles, and sugar shakers—Clayton found a goodly number of Blackwooders gathered. Most of the town’s inhabitants were not much given to the drinking of alcohol, and especially not this early. But today was different. The whole town had narrowly escaped destruction. Everyone knew that if Goodnight had so wished, he could have leveled the village. So Barry Emmett had opened the bar, and many men and women sat clutching drinks and muttering, their ham and eggs growing cold.
    Clayton sat down with Ed Stout, the friendly if unsmiling handyman, and his perpetually silent son, Jack, who had never in his life uttered a sound, even when the doctor first slapped him.
    The elder Stout nodded and said, “Clay. Have a beer.”
    Not averse to the suggestion, Clayton ordered a ’Gansett. When it came, he sipped thoughtfully, and then asked, “What should we do about Goodnight?”
    Stout looked long and level at Clayton before replying. “Leave him be. That’s what best. He don’t need our help none. After last night, either him or that ornery bitch is done for. Maybe both.”
    Jack inclined his head sagaciously in agreement, making Clayton feel as if he had witnessed Buddha blessing a petitioner. (What went on in that guy’s mind? Clayton wondered. Silence was so suggestive.)
    As Clayton raised his beer mug to his lips, he heard the door open behind him. He turned—
    —and spit out his beer.
    The cadaverous form of Welcome Goodnight filled the doorframe. His normally impeccable, if fusty, black suit hung in sword-slashed tatters on his rachitic frame. From behind his eye patch came an even more malevolent glittering than usual. His lined face wore a look of somber defeat.
    Silence filled the restaurant like clammy Jell-O as Goodnight strode to the bar, behind which bearded Barry Emmett cringed.
    “My brand,” croaked Goodnight.
    Although the wizard seldom deigned to drink with the hoi polloi, a bottle of his private label—Old Newt—was always kept ready for just such rare occasions as this.
    The neck of the bottle clattering against the shot glass, Emmett poured with shaky hands.
    Goodnight grabbed the glass and hoisted it to his dry, withered lips—
    From beneath the roadhouse came a hearty female laugh, followed by the first verses of “Do You Believe in Magic?” by the Lovin’ Spoonful.
    Goodnight roared and hurled his glass at the wall. The spilled liquor sizzled when it hit the wood. Raising his arms, Goodnight began to gesture.
    “Down!” someone shouted.
    The patrons hurled themselves to the floor and covered their heads. An immense explosion rocked the building.
    Clayton was among the first to recover his