It

The clown's arms tightened, and Hagarty heard ribs splinter.

Ade shrieked.

'Float with us, Don,' the clown said out of its grinning red mouth, and then pointed with one of its white-gloved hands under the bridge.

Balloons floated against the underside of the bridge — not a dozen or a dozen dozens but thousands, red and blue and green and yellow, and printed on the side of each was I ¤ DERRY!

16

'Well now, that surely does sound like a lot of balloons,' Reeves said, and tipped Harold Gardener another wink.

'I know how it sounds,' Hagarty reiterated in the same dreary voice.

'You saw those balloons,' Gardener said.

Don Hagarty slowly held his hands up in front of his face. 'I saw them as clearly as I can see my own fingers at this moment. Thousands of them. You couldn't even see the underside of the bridge — there were too many of them. They were rippling a little, and sort of bouncing up and down. There was a sound. A funny low squealing noise. That was their sides rubbing together. And strings. There was a forest of white strings hanging down. They looked like white strands of spiderweb. The clown took Ade under there. I could see its suit brushing through those strings. Ade was making awful choking sounds. I started after him . . . and the clown looked back. I saw its eyes, and all at once I understood who it was.'

'Who was it, Don?' Harold Gardener asked softly.

'It was Derry,' Don Hagarty said. 'It was this town.'

'And what did you do then?' It was Reeves.

'I ran, you dumb shit,' Hagarty said, and burst into tears.

17

Harold Gardener kept his peace until November 13th, the day before John Garton and Steven Dubay were to go on trial in Derry District Court for the murder of Adrian Mellon. Then he went to see Tom Boutillier. He wanted to talk about the clown. Boutillier didn't — but when he saw Gardener might do something stupid without a little guidance, he did.

There was no clown, Harold. The only clowns out that night were those three kids. You know that as well as I do.'

'We have two witnesses — '

'Oh, that's crap. Unwin decided to bring on the One-Armed Man, as in "We didn't kill the poor little faggot, it was the one-armed man," as soon as he understood he'd really gotten his buns into some hot water this time. Hagarty was hysterical. He stood by and watched those kids murder his best friend. It wouldn't have surprised me if he'd seen flying saucers.'

But Boutillier knew better. Gardener could see it in his eyes, and the Assistant DA's ducking and dodging irritated him.

'Come on,' he said. 'We're talking about independent witnesses here. Don't bullshit me.'

'Oh, you want to talk bullshit? Are you telling me you believe there was a vampire clown under the Main Street Bridge? Because that's my idea of bullshit.'

'No, not exactly, but — '

'Or that Hagarty saw a billion balloons under there, each imprinted with exactly the same thing as what was written on his lover's hat? Because that is also my idea of bullshit.'

'No, but — '

'Then why are you bothering with this?'

'Stop cross-examining me!' Gardener roared. 'They both described it the same and neither knew what the other one was saying!'

Boutillier had been sitting at his desk, playing with a pencil. Now he put the pencil down, got up, and walked over to Harold Gardener. Boutillier was five inches shorter, but Gardener retreated a step before the man's anger.

'Do you want us to lose this case, Harold?'

'No. Of course n — '

'Do you want those running sores to walk free?'

'No!'

'Okay. Good. Since we both agree on the basics, I'll tell you exactly what I think. Yes, there was probably a man under the bridge that night. Maybe he was even wearing a clown suit, although I've dealt with enough witnesses to guess maybe it was just a stewbum or a transient wearing a bunch of cast-off clothes. I think he was probably down there scrounging for dropped change or roadmeat — half a burger someone chucked over the side, or maybe the crumbs from the bottom of a Frito bag. Their eyes did the rest, Harold. Now is that possible?'

'I don't know,' Harold said. He wanted to be convinced, but given the exact tally of the two descriptions . . . no. He didn't think it was possible.

'Here's the bottom line. I don't care if it was Kinko the Klown or a guy in an Uncle Sam suit on stilts or Hubert the Happy Homo. If we introduce this fellow into the case, their la wyer is going to be on it before you can say "Jack Robinson". He's going to say those two little innocent lambs out there with their fresh haircuts and new suits didn't do anything but toss that gay fellow Mellon over the side of the bridge for a joke. He'll point out that Mellon was still alive after he took the fall; they have Hagarty's testimony as well as Unwin's for that.

'His clients didn't commit murder, oh no! It was a psycho in a clown suit. If we introduce this, that's going to happen and you know it.'

'Unwin's going to tell that story anyhow.'

'But Hagarty isn't,' Boutillier said. 'Because he understands. Without Hagarty, who's going to believe Unwin?'

'Well, there's us,' Harold Gardener said with a bitterness that surprised even himself, 'but I guess we're not telling.'

'Oh, give me a break!' Boutillier roared, throwing up his hands. 'They killed him! They didn't just throw him over the side — Garton had a switchblade. Mellon was stabbed seven times, including once in the left lung and twice in the testicles. The wounds match the blade. Four of his ribs were broken — Dubay did that, bear-hugging him. He was bitten, all right. There were bites on his arms, his left cheek, his neck. I think that was Unwin and Garton, although we've only got one clear match, and that one's probably not clear enough to stand up in court. And so all right, there was a big chunk of meat gone from his right armpit, so what? One of them really liked to bite. Probably even got himself a pretty good bone-on while he was doing it. I'm betting Garton, although we'll never prove it. And Mellon's earlobe was gone.'

Boutillier stopped, glaring at Harold.

'If we let in this clown story we'll never bring it home to them. Do you want that?'

'No, I told you.'

'The guy was a fruit, but he wasn't hurting anyone,' Boutillier said. 'So hi-ho-the –dairy-o, along come these three pusholes in their engineer boots and they steal his life. I'm going to put them in the slam, my friend, and if I hear they got their puckery little assholes cored down there at Thomaston, I'm gonna send them cards saying I hope whoever did it had AIDS.'

Very fiery, Gardener thought. And the convictions will also look very good on your record when you run for the top spot in two years.

But he left without saying more, because he also wanted to see them put away.

18

John Webber Garton was convicted of first-degree manslaughter and sentenced to ten to twenty years in Thomaston State Prison.

Steven Bishoff Dubay was convicted of first-degree manslaughter and sentenced to fifteen years in Shawshank State Prison.

Christopher Philip Unwin was tried separately as a juvenile and convicted of second-degree manslaughter. He was sentenced to six months at the South Windham Boys ' Training Facility, sentence suspended.

At the time of this writing, all three sentences are under appeal; Garton and Dubay may be seen on any given day girl– watching or playing Penny Pitch in Bassey Park, not far from where Mellon's torn body was found floating against one of the pilings of the Main Street Bridge.