was taken down by a long-fingered hand which emerged from the sleeve of a fawn sport-jacket. A new sign went up in its place. This one read HELP WANTED.

6.

The car was still doing fifty in a zone posted for twenty-five when it crossed the bridge. It was a unit the high school kids would have regarded with awe and envy: a lime-green Dodge Challenger that had been jacked in the back so the nose pointed toward the road. Through the smoked-gla.s.s windows, one could dimly make out the roll-bar which arched across the roof between the front and back seats. The rear end was covered with stickers: HEARST, FUELLY, FRAM, QUAKER STATE, GOODYEAR WIDE OVALS, RAM CHARGER. The straight-pipes burbled contentedly, fat on the ninety-six-octane fuel which could be purchased only at Oxford Plains Speedway once you got north of Portland.

It slowed a little at the intersection of Main and Laurel, then pulled into one of the slant-parking s.p.a.ces in front of The Clip Joint with a low squeal of tires. There was no one in the shop getting a haircut just then; both Bill Fullerton and Henry Gendron, his number-two barber, were seated in the customers' chairs under the old Brylcreem and Wildroot Creme Oil signs. They had shared the morning paper out between them. As the driver gunned his engine briefly, causing exhaust to crackle and bang through the pipes, both looked up.

"A death-machine if I ever saw one," Henry said.

Bill nodded and plucked at his lower lip with the thumb and index finger of his right hand. "Ayuh."

They both watched expectantly as the engine died and the driver's door opened. A foot encased in a scuffed black engineer boot emerged from the Challenger's dark innards. It was attached to a leg clad in tight, faded denim. A moment later the driver got out and stood in the unseasonably hot daylight, removing his sungla.s.ses and tucking them into the V of his shirt as he looked around in leisurely, contemptuous fashion.

"Uh-oh," Henry said. "Looks like a bad penny just turned up."

Bill Fullerton stared at the apparition with the sports section of the newspaper in his lap and his jaw hanging slightly agape. "Ace Merrill," he said. "As I live and breathe."

"What in the h.e.l.l is he doing here?" Henry asked indignantly. "I thought he was over in Mechanic Falls, f.u.c.kin up their their way of life." way of life."

"Dunno," Bill said, and pulled at his lower lip again. "Lookit im! Gray as a rat and probably twice as mean! How old is he, Henry?"

Henry shrugged. "More'n forty and less'n fifty is all I know. Who cares how old he is, anyway? He still looks like trouble to me."

As if he had overheard him, Ace turned toward the plate-gla.s.s window and raised his hand in a slow, sarcastic wave. The two men jerked and rustled indignantly, like a pair of old maids who have just realized that the insolent wolf-whistle coming from the doorway of the pool-hall is for them.

Ace shoved his hands into the pockets of his Low Riders and strolled away-portrait of a man with all the time in the world and all the cool moves in the known universe.

"You think you oughtta call Sheriff Pangborn?" Henry asked.

Bill Fullerton pulled at his lower lip some more. At last he shook his head. "He'll know Ace is back in town soon enough," he said. "Won't need me to tell him. Or you either."

They sat in silence and watched Ace stroll up Main Street until he had pa.s.sed from their view.

7.

No one would have guessed, watching Ace Merrill strut indolently up Main Street, that he was a man with a desperate problem. It was a problem Buster Keeton could have identified with to some extent; Ace owed some fellows a large chunk of money. Well over eighty thousand dollars, to be specific. But the worst Buster's creditors could do was put him in jail. If Ace didn't have the money soon, say by the first of November, his his creditors were apt to put him in the ground. creditors were apt to put him in the ground.

The boys Ace Merrill had once terrorized-boys like Teddy Duchamp, Chris Chambers, and Vern Tessio-would have recognized him at once in spite of his graying hair. During the years when Ace had worked at the local textile mill (it had been closed for the last five years), that might not have been the case. In those days his vices had been beer and petty theft. He had put on a great deal of weight as a result of the former and had attracted a fair amount of attention from the late Sheriff George Bannerman as a result of the latter. Then Ace discovered cocaine.

He quit his job at the mill, lost fifty pounds running in high-very high-gear, and graduated to first-degree burglary as a result of this marvellous substance. His financial situation began to yo-yo in the grandiose way only high-margin traders on the stock market and cocaine dealers experience. He might start a month flat broke and end it with fifty or sixty thousand dollars tucked under the roots of the dead apple tree behind his place on Cranberry Bog Road. One day it was a seven-course French dinner at Maurice; the next it might be Kraft macaroni and cheese in the kitchen of his trailer. It all depended on the market and on the supply, because Ace, like most cocaine dealers, was his own best customer. high-gear, and graduated to first-degree burglary as a result of this marvellous substance. His financial situation began to yo-yo in the grandiose way only high-margin traders on the stock market and cocaine dealers experience. He might start a month flat broke and end it with fifty or sixty thousand dollars tucked under the roots of the dead apple tree behind his place on Cranberry Bog Road. One day it was a seven-course French dinner at Maurice; the next it might be Kraft macaroni and cheese in the kitchen of his trailer. It all depended on the market and on the supply, because Ace, like most cocaine dealers, was his own best customer.

A year or so after the new Ace-long, lean, graying, and hooked through the bag-emerged from the suit of blubber he had been growing ever since he and public education parted company, he met some fellows from Connecticut. These fellows traded in firearms as well as blow. Ace saw eye to eye with them at once; like him, the Corson brothers were their own best customers. They offered Ace what amounted to a high-caliber franchise for the central Maine area, and Ace accepted gladly. This was a pure business decision no more than the decision to start dealing c.o.ke had been a pure business decision. If there was anything in the world Ace loved more than cars and c.o.ke, it was guns.

On one of the occasions when he found himself embarra.s.sed for funds, he had gone to see his uncle, who had loaned money to half the people in town and was reputed to be rolling in dough. Ace saw no reason why he should not qualify for such a loan; he was young (well... forty-eight... relatively relatively young), he had prospects, and he was blood. young), he had prospects, and he was blood.

His uncle, however, held a radically different view of things.

"Nope," Reginald Marion "Pop" Merrill told him. "I know where your money comes from-when you have have money, that is. It comes from that white s.h.i.t." money, that is. It comes from that white s.h.i.t."

"Aw, Uncle Reginald-"

"Don't you Uncle Reginald me" me" Pop had replied. "You got a spot of it on y'nose right now. Careless. Folks who use that white s.h.i.t and deal it Pop had replied. "You got a spot of it on y'nose right now. Careless. Folks who use that white s.h.i.t and deal it always always get careless. Careless people end up in the Shank. That's if they're lucky. If they ain't, they wind up fertilizing a patch of swamp about six feet long and three feet deep. I can't collect money if the people who owe it to me are dead or doing time. I wouldn't give you the sweat out of my dirty a.s.shole, is what I mean to say." get careless. Careless people end up in the Shank. That's if they're lucky. If they ain't, they wind up fertilizing a patch of swamp about six feet long and three feet deep. I can't collect money if the people who owe it to me are dead or doing time. I wouldn't give you the sweat out of my dirty a.s.shole, is what I mean to say."

That particular embarra.s.sment had come shortly after Alan Pangborn had a.s.sumed his duties as Sheriff of Castle County. And Alan's first major bust had come when he surprised Ace and two of his friends trying to crack the safe in Henry Beaufort's office at The Mellow Tiger. It was a very good bust, a textbook bust, and Ace had found himself in Shawshank less than four months after his uncle had warned him of the place. The charges of attempted robbery were dropped in a plea-bargain, but Ace still got a pretty good dose of hard time on a nighttime breaking and entering charge.

He got out in the spring of 1989 and moved to Mechanic Falls. He had a job to go to; Oxford Plains Speedway partic.i.p.ated in the state's pre-release program, and John "Ace" Merrill obtained a position as maintenance man and part-time pit mechanic.

A good many of his old friends were still around-not to mention his old customers-and soon Ace was doing business and having nosebleeds again.

He kept the job at the Speedway until his sentence was officially up, and quit the day it was. He'd gotten a phone call from the Flying Corson Brothers in Danbury, Connecticut, and soon he was dealing shooting irons again as well as the Bolivian marching powder.

The ante had gone up while he was in stir, it seemed; instead of pistols, rifles, and repeating shotguns, he now found himself doing a lively business in automatic and semiautomatic weapons. The climax had come in June of this year, when he sold a ground-fired Thunderbolt missile to a seafaring man with a South American accent. The seafaring man stowed the Thunderbolt below, then paid Ace seventeen thousand dollars in fresh hundreds with nonsequential serial numbers.

"What do you use a thing like that for?" Ace had asked with some fascination.

"Anytheeng you want to, senor, senor, the seafaring man had replied unsmilingly. the seafaring man had replied unsmilingly.

Then, in July, everything had crashed. Ace still didn't really understand how it could have happened, except that it probably would have been better if he had stuck with the Flying Corson Brothers for c.o.ke as well as guns. He had taken delivery of two pounds of Colombian flake from a guy in Portland, financing the deal with the help of Mike and Dave Corson. They had kicked in about eighty-five thousand. That particular pile of blow had seemed worth twice the asking price-it had tested high blue. Ace knew that eighty-five big ones was a lot more boost than he was used to handling, but he felt confident and ready to move up. In those days, "No problem!" had been Ace Merrill's main guidepost to living. Things had changed since then. Things had changed a lot.

These changes began when Dave Corson called from Danbury, Connecticut, to ask Ace what he thought he was doing, trying to pa.s.s off baking soda as cocaine. The guy in Portland had apparently managed to stiff Ace, high blue or no high blue, and when Dave Corson began to realize this, he stopped sounding so friendly. In fact, he began to sound positively unfriendly. unfriendly.

Ace could have done a fade. Instead, he gathered all his courage-which was not inconsiderable, even in his middle age-and went to see the Flying Corson Brothers. He gave them his view of what had happened. He did his explaining in the back of a Dodge van with wall-to-wall carpet, a heated mud-bed, and a mirror on the ceiling. He was very convincing. He had to be very convincing, because the van had been parked at the end of a rutted dirt road some miles west of Danbury, a black fellow named Too-Tall Timmy was behind the wheel, and the Flying Corson Brothers, Mike and Dave, were sitting on either side of Ace with H & K recoilless rifles.

As he talked, Ace found himself remembering what his uncle had said before the bust at The Mellow Tiger. Careless people end up in the Shank. That's if they're lucky. If they ain't, they wind up fertilizing a patch of swamp about six feet long and three feet deep. Careless people end up in the Shank. That's if they're lucky. If they ain't, they wind up fertilizing a patch of swamp about six feet long and three feet deep. Well, Pop had been right about the first half; Ace intended to exercise all his persuasiveness to avoid the second half. There were no prerelease programs from the swamp. Well, Pop had been right about the first half; Ace intended to exercise all his persuasiveness to avoid the second half. There were no prerelease programs from the swamp.

He was very persuasive. And at some point he said two magic words: Ducky Morin.

"You bought that c.r.a.p from Ducky?" Ducky?" Mike Corson said, his bloodshot eyes opening wide. "You sure that's who it was?" Mike Corson said, his bloodshot eyes opening wide. "You sure that's who it was?"

"Sure I'm sure," Ace had replied. "Why?"

The Flying Corson Brothers looked at each other and began to laugh. Ace didn't know what they were laughing about, but he was glad they were doing it, just the same. It seemed like a good sign.

"What did he look like?" Dave Corson asked.

"He's a tall guy-not as tall as him"-Ace c.o.c.ked a thumb at the driver, who was wearing a pair of Walkman earphones and rocking back and forth to a beat only he could hear-"but tall. He's a Canuck. Talks like dis, him. Got a little gold earring."

"That's ole Daffy Duck," Mike Corson agreed.

"Tell you the truth, I'm amazed n.o.body's whacked the guy yet," Dave Corson said. He looked at his brother, Mike, and they shook their heads at each other in perfectly shared wonder.

"I thought he was okay," Ace said. "Ducky always used used to be okay." to be okay."

"But you took some time off, dintcha?" Mike Corson asked.

"Little vacation at the Crossbar Hotel," Dave Corson said.

"You must have been inside when the Duckman discovered free-base," Mike said. "That was when his act started goin downhill fast."

"Ducky has a little trick he likes to pull these days," Dave said. "Do you know what bait-and-switch is, Ace?"

Ace thought about it. Then he shook his head.

"Yes, you do," Dave said. "Because that's the reason your a.s.s is in a crack. Ducky showed you a lot of Baggies filled with white powder. One was full of good c.o.ke. The rest were full of s.h.i.t. Like you, Ace."

"We tested!" Ace said. "I picked a bag at random, and we tested it!"

Mike and Dave looked at each other with dark drollery.

"They tested," Dave Corson said.

"He picked a bag at random," Mike Corson added.

They rolled their eyes upward and looked at each other in the mirror on the ceiling.

"Well?" Ace said, looking from one to the other. He was glad they knew who Ducky was, he was also also glad they believed he hadn't meant to cheat them, but he was distressed just the same. They were treating him like a chump, and Ace Merrill was n.o.body's chump. glad they believed he hadn't meant to cheat them, but he was distressed just the same. They were treating him like a chump, and Ace Merrill was n.o.body's chump.

"Well what?" what?" Mike Corson asked. "If you didn't think you picked the test bag yourself, the deal wouldn't go down, would it? Ducky is like a magician doing the same raggedy-a.s.s card trick over and over again. 'Pick a card, any card.' You ever hear that one, Ace-Hole?" Mike Corson asked. "If you didn't think you picked the test bag yourself, the deal wouldn't go down, would it? Ducky is like a magician doing the same raggedy-a.s.s card trick over and over again. 'Pick a card, any card.' You ever hear that one, Ace-Hole?"

Guns or no guns, Ace bridled. "Don't you call me that."

"We'll call you anything we want," Dave said. "You owe us eighty-five large, Ace, and what we've got for collateral on that money so far is a s.h.i.tload of Arm & Hammer baking soda worth about a buck-fifty. We'll call you Hubert J. Motherf.u.c.ker if we want to."

He and his brother looked at each other. Wordless communication pa.s.sed between them. Dave got up and tapped Too-Tall Timmy on the shoulder. He gave Too-Tall his gun. Then Dave and Mike left the van and stood close together by a drift of sumac at the edge of some farmer's field, talking earnestly. Ace didn't know what words they were saying, but he knew perfectly well what was going on. They were deciding what to do with him.

He sat on the edge of the mud-bed, sweating like a pig, waiting for them to come back in. Too-Tall Timmy sprawled in the upholstered captain's chair Mike Corson had vacated, holding the H & K on Ace and nodding his head back and forth. Very faintly, Ace could hear the voices of Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell coming from the earphones. Marvin and Tammi, who were both the late great these days, were singing "My Mistake."

Mike and Dave came back in.

"We're going to give you three months to make good," Mike said. Ace felt himself go limp with relief. "Right now we want our money more than we want to rip your skin off. There's something else, too."

"We want to whack Ducky Morin," Dave said. "His s.h.i.t has gone on long enough."

"Guy's giving us all a bad name," Mike said.

"We think you can find him," Dave said. "We think he'll figure once an Ace-Hole, always an Ace-Hole."

"You got any comment on that, Ace-Hole?" Mike asked him.

Ace had no comment on that. He was happy just knowing that he would be seeing another weekend.

"November first is the deadline," Dave said. "You bring us our money by November first and then we all go after Ducky. If you don't, we're going to see how many pieces of you we can cut off before you finally give up and die."

8.

When the balloon went up, Ace had been holding about a dozen a.s.sorted heavy-caliber weapons of both the automatic and semiautomatic varieties. He spent most of his grace period trying to turn these weapons into cash. Once he did that, he could turn cash back into c.o.ke. You couldn't have a better a.s.set than cocaine when you needed to turn some big bucks in a hurry.

But the market for guns was temporarily in the horse lat.i.tudes. He sold half his stock-none of the big guns-and that was it. During the second week in September he had met a promising prospect at the Piece of Work Pub in Lewiston. The prospect had hinted in every way it was possible to hint that he would like to buy at least six and perhaps as many as ten automatic weapons, if the name of a reliable ammunition dealer went with the shooting irons. Ace could do that; the Flying Corson Brothers were the most reliable ammo dealers he knew.

Ace went into the grimy bathroom to do a couple of lines before hammering the deal home. He was suffused with the happy, relieved glow which has bedeviled a number of American Presidents; he believed he saw light at the end of the tunnel.

He laid the small mirror he carried in his shirt pocket on the toilet tank and was spooning c.o.ke onto it when a voice spoke from the urinal nearest the stall Ace was in. Ace never found out who the voice belonged to; he only knew that its owner might well have saved him fifteen years in a Federal penitentiary.

"Man you be talking to wearin a wire," the voice from the urinal said, and when Ace left the bathroom he went out the back door.

9.

Following that near miss (it never occurred to him that his unseen informant might just have been amusing himself), an odd kind of paralysis settled over Ace. He became afraid to do anything but buy a little c.o.ke now and then for his own personal use. He had never experienced such a sensation of dead stop before. He hated it, but didn't know what to do about it. The first thing he did every day was look at the calendar. November seemed to be rushing toward him.

Then, this morning, he had awakened before dawn with a thought blazing in his mind like strange blue light: he had to go home. He had to go back to Castle Rock. That was where the answer was. Going home felt right... but even if it turned out to be wrong, the change of scenery might break the strange vapor-lock in his head.

In Mechanic Falls he was just John Merrill, an ex-con who lived in a shack with plastic on the windows and cardboard on the door. In Castle Rock he had always been Ace Merrill, the ogre who strode through the nightmares of a whole generation of little kids. In Mechanic Falls he was poor-white back-road trash, a guy who had a custom Dodge but no garage to put it in. In Castle Rock he had been, at least for a little while, something like a king.

So he had come back, and here he was, and what now?

Ace didn't know. The town looked smaller, grimier, and emptier than he remembered. He supposed Pangborn was around someplace, and pretty soon old Bill Fullerton would get him on the honker and tell him who was back in town. Then Pangborn would find him and ask him what he thought he was doing here. He would ask if Ace had a job. He didn't, and he couldn't even claim he had come back to visit his unc, because Pop had been in his junkshop when the place burned down. Okay then, Ace, Pangborn would say, why don't you just jump back into your street machine and cruise on out of here?

And what was he going to say to that?

Ace didn't know-he only knew that the flash of dark-blue light with which he had awakened was still glimmering somewhere inside him.

The lot where the Emporium Galorium had stood was still vacant, he saw. Nothing there but weeds, a few charred board-ends, and some road-litter. Broken gla.s.s twinkled back the sun in eye-watering shards of hot light. There was nothing there to look at, but Ace wanted to look, anyway. He started across the street. He had almost reached the far side when the green awning two storefronts up caught his eye.

NEEDFUL THINGS,.