Callahan's Secret (24 page)

“Because even in the times you were down, you were always the merriest of us, Jake.”

And by God, there was a chorus of agreement.

I took a very deep breath, held it until my chest ached, then let it out all at once. “All right,” I said. “I ain’t a guitar player no more, I’ve got to do something with my hands. I’m in.”

Cheers. “We’ll call it ‘Jake’s Place’!” Tony Telasco yelled.

“Hell no,” I yelled back. “We’ll call it ‘Mary’s Place.” More cheers-then suddenly silence, as we all heard sirens approaching from both ends of Route 25A in the distance.

“What do we tell them?” Doc Webster asked.

“We’ll discuss that together on the way-to the highway,” I said. “If this crowd can’t come up with a suitable Tall Tale, no -one can.”

The Doc chuckled. “I believe you’re right.” We all began picking our way across the rough terrain between us and the road.

“Hey, everybody?” Fast Eddie called out soffly.

“Yes, Eddie7” I said.

“I know dere’s a couple hours ta go yet-but Happy New Year.”

Halifax,

Easter 1985

AUTHOR’S FINAL NOTE

Thanks to the generous support of the Canada Council for the Arts and Apple Canada, and the sagacity of my friend Bob Atkinson, this book wis written on an Apple 512K Macintosh computer named Anne (after Jubal Harsbaw’s secrótary), using MacWrite 2.2 and 4.2 software by Randy Wigginton, Ed Ruder, and Don Breuner of Encore Systems.

I’d like to thank editors Ben Bova, Don Pfeil and Stanley Schmidt, who bought the Callahan stories for magazines; editors Jim Frenkel, Ridley Enslow, Jim Baen and Susan Allison, who bought them in book form; agents Kirby McCauley, Eleanor Wood, and Ralph Vicinanza, who sold them in book form; Alfred Bester, who supplied the titles for all three books; and all of you who bought the books.