End of Watch (Bill Hodges Trilogy, #3)

by Stephen King

After a few hearty belches and one trombone blast from his nether regions that had his social X-ray of a wife booking for the kitchen, Mr. Galen sat up, said he was feeling much better, and told them that no, he didn’t think he needed to be transported to Kiner Memorial.

They were just nine blocks from City Center, but if Al-Qaeda was shooting the place up with Kalashnikovs, the only thing they had to fire back with was their trusty external defibrillator.

Charlotte Gibney and Henry Sirois had treated her more like a mentally defective child out on a day pass. Holly is a different woman now, but traces of the old Holly still remain. And that’s okay with Hodges. After all, everyone casts a shadow.

The seeds sown in childhood put down deep roots.

“The text alert’s the one on max,” Hodges says. “When I get a call, the phone just has a mini-orgasm against my leg.”

Bill Hodges is her touchstone, the way she measures her ability to interact with the world. Which is only another way of saying that he is the way she measures her sanity.

Norma snorts. “A Coke? Really? Put on your big boy pants, why don’t you?” “When it comes to booze, I spilled more than you’ll ever drink, honeypie,”

Too late always comes too early.

Now he understands why pancreatic is called the stealth cancer, and why it’s almost always deadly. It lurks, building up its troops and sending out secret emissaries to the lungs, the lymph nodes, the bones, and the brain. Then it blitzkriegs, not understanding, in its stupid rapacity, that victory can only bring its own death.