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All You Love Will Be Carried Away
By Steven King
(part 1 of 7)
It was a Motel 6 on I-80 just west of Lincoln, Nebraska. The
snow that began at mid_afternoon had faded the sign's
virulent yellow to a kinder pastel shade as the light ran
out of the January dusk. The wind was closing in on that
quality of empty amplification one encounters only in the
country's flat midsection, usually in wintertime. That
meant nothing but discomfort now, but if big snow came
tonight__the weather forecasters couldn't seem to make up
their minds__then the interstate would be shut down by
morning. That was nothing to Alfie Zimmer.
He got his key from a man in a red vest and drove down to
the end of the long cinder_block building. He had been
selling in the Midwest for twenty years and had formulated
four basic rules about securing his night's rest. First,
always reserve ahead. Second, reserve at a franchise motel
if possible_your Holiday Inn, your Ramada Inn, your Comfort
Inn, your Motel 6. Third, always ask for a room on the end.
That way, the worst you could have was one set of noisy
neighbors. Last, ask for a room that begins with a one.
Alfie was forty-four, too old to be fucking truck_stop
whores, eating chicken_fried steak, or hauling his luggage
upstairs. These days, the rooms on the first floor were
usually reserved for non_smokers. Alfie rented them and
smoked anyway.
Someone had taken the space in front of Room 190. All
the spaces along the building were taken. Alfie wasn't
surprised. You could make a reservation, guarantee it, but
if you arrived late (late on a day like this was after 4
P.M.), you had to park and walk. The cars belonging to the
early birds were nestled up to the gray cinder block and the
bright_yellow doors in a long line, their windows already
covered with a scrim of light snow.
Alfie drove around the corner and parked with the nose of
his Chevrolet pointed at the white expanse of some farmer's
field, swimming deep into the gray of day's end. At the
farthest limit of vision he could see the spark lights of a
farm. In there, they would be hunkered down. Out here, the
wind blew hard enough to rock the car. Snow skated past,
obliterating the farm lights for a few moments.
Alfie was a big man with a florid face and a smoker's noisy
respiration. He was wearing a topcoat, because when you were
selling that was what people liked to see. Not a jacket.
Storekeepers sold to people wearing jackets and John Deere
caps, they didn't buy from them. The room key lay on the
seat beside him. It was attached to a diamond of green
plastic. The key was a real key, not a MagCard. On the radio
Clint Black was singing "Nothin' but the Tail Lights." It
was a country song. Lincoln had an FM rocker now, but
rock_and_roll music didn't seem right to Alfie. Not out
here, where if you switched over to AM you could still hear
old men calling down hellfire.
He shut off the engine, put the key to 190 in his pocket,
and checked to make sure he still had his notebook in there,
too. His old pal."Save Russian Jews," he said, reminding
himself. "Collect valuable prizes."
He got out of the car and a gust of wind hit him hard,
rocking him back on his heels, flapping his pants around his
legs, making him laugh a smoker's surprised rattlebox laugh.
His samples were in the trunk, but he wouldn't need them
tonight. No, not tonight, not at all. He took his suitcase
and his briefcase out of the back seat, shut the door, then
pushed the black button on his key fob. That one locked all
the doors. The red one set off an alarm, what you were
supposed to use if you were going to get mugged. Alfie had
never been mugged. He guessed that few salesmen of gourmet
foods were, especially in this part of the country. There
was a market for gourmet foods in Nebraska, Iowa, Oklahoma,
and Kansas; even in the Dakotas, although many might not
believe it. Alfie had done quite well, especially over the
last two years as he got to know the market's deeper
creases-_but it was never going to equal the market for,
let's say, fertilizer. Which he could smell even now on the
winter wind that was freezing his cheeks and turning them an
even darker shade of red.
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