Hallorann laughed derisively. “Mr. Ullman, that's who. That was his bright idea last fall. I put it to him, I said: `What if we all get up here next May, Mr. Ullman, and I serve the traditional opening night dinner'-which just happens to be salmon in a very nice sauce-'and everybody gits sick and the doctor comes and says to you, “Ullman, what have you been doing up here? You've got eighty of the richest folks in America suffering from rat poisoning!” “'
Jack threw his head back and bellowed laughter. “What did Ullman say?”
Hallorann tucked his tongue into his cheek as if feeling for a bit of food in there. “He said: `Get some traps, Hallorann. ' “
This time they all laughed, even Danny, although he was not completely sure what the joke was, except it had something to do with Mr. Ullman, who didn't know everything after all.
The four of them passed through the dining room, empty and silent now, with its fabulous western exposure on the snow-dusted peaks. Each of the white linen tablecloths had been covered with a sheet of tough clear plastic. The rug, now rolled up for the season, stood in one corner like a sentinel on guard duty.
Across the wide room was a double set of batwing doors, and over them an oldfashioned sign lettered in gilt script: The Colorado Lounge.
Following his gaze, Hallorann said, “If you're a drinkin man, I hope you brought your own supplies. That place is picked clean. Employee's party last night, you know. Every maid and bellhop in the place is goin around with a headache today, me included.”
“I don't drink,” Jack said shortly. They went back to the lobby.
It had cleared greatly during the half hour they'd spent in the kitchen. The long main room was beginning to take on the quiet, deserted look that Jack supposed they would become familiar with soon enough. The high-backed chairs were empty. The nuns who had been sitting by the fire were gone, and the fire itself was down to a bed of comfortably glowing coals. Wendy glanced out into the parking lot and saw that all but a dozen cars had disappeared.
She found herself wishing they could get back in the VW and go back to Boulder… or anywhere else.
Jack was looking around for Ullman, but he wasn't in the lobby.
A young maid with her ash-blond hair pinned up on her neck came over. “Your luggage is out on the porch, Dick.”
“Thank you, Sally.” He gave her a peck on the forehead. “You have yourself a good winter. Getting married, I hear.”
He turned to the Torrances as she strolled away, backside twitching pertly. “I've got to hurry along if I'm going to make that plane. I want to wish you all the best. Know you'll have it.”
“Thanks,” Jack said. “You've been very kind.”
“I'll take good care of your kitchen,” Wendy promised again. “Enjoy Florida.”
“I always do,” Hallorann said. He put his hands on his knees and bent down to Danny. “Last chance, guy. Want to come to Florida?”
“I guess not,” Danny said, smiling.
“Okay. Like to give me a hand out to my car with my bags?”
“If my mommy says I can.”
“You can,” Wendy said, “but you'll have to have that jacket buttoned.” She leaned forward to do it but Hallorann was ahead of her, his large brown fingers moving with smooth dexterity.
“I'll send him right back in,” Hallorann said.
“Fine,” Wendy said, and followed them to the door. Jack was still looking around for Ullman. The last of the Overlooks guests were checking out at the desk.
11. The Shining
There were four bags in a pile just outside the door. Three of them were giant, battered old suitcases covered with black imitation alligator hide. The last was an oversized zipper bag with a faded tartan skin.
“Guess you can handle that one, can't you?” Hallorann asked him. He picked up two of the big cases in one hand and hoisted the other under his arm.
“Sure,” Danny said. He got a grip on it with both hands and followed the cook down the porch steps, trying manfully not to grunt and give away how heavy it was.
A sharp and cutting fall wind had come up since they had arrived; it whistled across the parking lot, making Danny wince his eyes down to slits as he carried the zipper bag in front of him, bumping on his knees. A few errant aspen leaves rattled and turned across the now mostly deserted asphalt, making Danny think momentarily of that night last week when he had wakened out of his nightmare and had heard-or thought he heard, at least-Tony telling him not to go.
Hallorann set his bags down by the trunk of a beige Plymouth Fury. “This ain't much car,” he confided to Danny, “just a rental job. My Bessie's on the other end. She's a car. 1950 Cadillac, and does she run sweet? I'll tell the world. I keep her in Florida because she's too old for all this mountain climbing. You need a hand with that?”
“No, sir,” Danny said. He managed to carry it the last ten or twelve steps without grunting and set it down with a large sigh of relief.
“Good boy,” Hallorann said. He produced a large key ring from the pocket of his blue serge jacket and unlocked the trunk. As he lifted the bags in he said: “You shine on, boy. Harder than anyone I ever met in my life. And I'm sixty years old this January.”
“Huh?”
“You got a knack,” Hallorann said, turning to him. “Me, I've always called it shining. That's what my grandmother called it, too. She had it. We used to sit in the kitchen when I was a boy no older than you and have long talks without even openin our mouths.”
“Really?”
Hallorann smiled at Danny's openmouthed, almost hungry expression and said, “Come on up and sit in the car with me for a few minutes. Want to talk to you.” He slammed the trunk.
In the lobby of the Overlook, Wendy Torrance saw her son get into the passenger side of Hallorann's car as the big black cook slid in behind the wheel. A sharp pang of fear struck her and she opened her mouth to tell Jack that Hallorann had not been lying about taking their son to Florida-there was a kidnaping afoot. But they were only sitting there. She could barely see the small silhouette of her son's head, turned attentively toward Hallorann's big one. Even at this distance that small head had a set to it that she recognizedit was the way her son looked when there was something on the TV that particularly fascinated him, or when he and his father were playing old maid or idiot cribbage. Jack, who was still looking around for Ullman, hadn't noticed. Wendy kept silent, watching Hallorann's car nervously, wondering what they could possibly be talking about that would make Danny cock -his head that way.
In the car Hallorann was saying: “Get you kinda lonely, thinkin you were the only one?”
Danny, who had been frightened as well as lonely sometimes, nodded. “Am I the only one you ever met?” he asked.
Hallorann laughed and shook his head. “No, child, no. But you shine the hardest.”
“Are there lots, then?”
“No,” Hallorann said, “but you do run across them. A lot of folks, they got a little bit of shine to them. They don't oven know it. But they always seem to show up with flowers when their wives are feelin blue with the monthlies, they do good on school tests they don't even study for, they got a good idea how people are feelin as soon as they walk into a room. I come across fifty or sixty like that. But maybe only a dozen, countin my gram, that knew they was shinin.”
“Wow,” Danny said, and thought about it. Then: “Do you know Mrs. Brant?”
“Her?” Hallorann asked scornfully. “She don't shine. Just sends her supper back two-three times every night.”
“I know she doesn't,” Danny said earnestly. “But do you know the man in the gray uniform that gets the cars?”
“Mike? Sure, I know Mike. What about him?”
“Mr. Hallorann, why would she want his pants?”
“What are you talking about, boy?”
“Well, when she was watching him, she was thinking she would sure like to get into his pants and I just wondered why-”
But he got no further. Hallorann had thrown his head back, and rich, dark laughter issued from his chest, rolling around in the car like cannonfire. The seat shook with the force of it. Danny smiled, puzzled, and at last the storm subsided by fits and starts. Hallorann produced a large silk handkerchief from his breast pocket like a white flag of surrender and wiped his streaming eyes.
“Boy,” he said, still snorting a little, “you are gonna know everything there is to know about the human condition before you make ten. I dunno if to envy you or not.”
“But Mrs. Brant-”
“You never mind her,” he said. “And don't go askin your mom, either. You'd only upset her, dig what I'm sayin?”
“Yes, sir,” Danny said. He dug it perfectly well. He had upset his mother that way in the past.
“That Mrs. Brant is just a dirty old woman with an itch, that's all you have to know.” He looked at Danny speculatively. “How hard can you hit, doc?”
“Huh?”
“Give me a blast. Think at me. I want to know if you got as much as I think you do.”
“What do you want me to think?”
“Anything. Just think it hard.”
“Okay,” Danny said. He considered it for a moment, then gathered his concentration and flung it out at Hallorann. He had never done anything precisely like this before, and at the last instant some instinctive part of him rose up and blunted some of the thought's raw force-he didn't want to hurt Mr. Hallorann. Still the thought arrowed out of him with a force he never would have believed. It went like a Nolan Ryan fastball with a little extra on it.
(Gee I hope I don't hurt him)
And the thought was:
(!!! HI, DICK!!!)
Hallorann winced and jerked bac kward on the seat. His teeth came together with a hard click, drawing blood from his lower lip in a thin trickle. His hands flew up involuntarily from his lap to the level of his chest and then settled back again. For a moment his eyelids fluttered limply, with no conscious control, and Danny was frightened.
“Mr. Hallorann? Dick? Are you okay?”
“I don't know,” Hallorann said, and laughed weakly. “I honest to God don't. My God, boy, you're a pistol.”
“I'm sorry,” Danny said, more alarmed. “Should I get my daddy? I'll run and get him.”
“No, here I come. I'm okay, Danny. You just sit right there. I feel a little scrambled, that's all.”
“I didn't go as hard as I could,” Danny confessed. “I was scared to, at the last minute.”
“Probably my good luck you did… my brains would be leakin out my ears.” He saw the alarm on Danny's face and smiled. “No harm done. What did it feel like to you?”
“Like I was Nolan Ryan throwing a fastball,” he replied promptly.
“You like baseball, do you?” Hallorann was rubbing his temples gingerly.
“Daddy and me like the Angels,” Danny said. “The Red Sox in the American League East and the Angels in the West. We saw the Red Sox against Cincinnati in the World Series. I was a lot littler then. And Daddy was…” Danny's face went dark and troubled.
