7.

Lenny Partridge's old Chevy Bel-Air pulled into one of the slant parking s.p.a.ces in front of Needful Things shortly before four, and the man of the hour got out. Hugh's fly was still unzipped, and he was still wearing the fox-tail around his neck. He crossed the sidewalk, his bare feet slapping on the hot concrete, and opened the door. The small silver bell overhead jingled.

The only person who saw him go in was Charlie Fortin. He was standing in the doorway of the Western Auto and smoking one of his stinky home-rolled cigarettes. "Old Hugh finally flipped," Charlie said to no one in particular.

Inside, Mr. Gaunt looked at old Hugh with a pleasant, expectant little smile... as if barefooted, bare-chested men wearing moth-eaten fox-tails around their necks showed up in his shop every day. He made a small check-mark on the sheet beside the cash register. The last check-mark.

"I'm in trouble," Hugh said, advancing on Mr. Gaunt. His eyes rolled from side to side in their sockets like pinb.a.l.l.s. "I'm in a real mess this time."

"I know," Mr. Gaunt said in his most soothing voice.

"This seemed like the right place to come. I dunno-I keep dreaming about you. I... I didn't know where else to turn."

"This is is the right place, Hugh." the right place, Hugh."

"He cut my tires," Hugh whispered. "Beaufort, the b.a.s.t.a.r.d who owns The Mellow Tiger. He left a note. 'You know what I'll come after next time Hubert,' it said. I know what that that means. You bet I do." One of Hugh's grubby, large-fingered hands caressed the mangy fur, and an expression of adoration spread across his face. It would have been sappy if it had not been so clearly genuine. "My beautiful, beautiful fox-tail." means. You bet I do." One of Hugh's grubby, large-fingered hands caressed the mangy fur, and an expression of adoration spread across his face. It would have been sappy if it had not been so clearly genuine. "My beautiful, beautiful fox-tail."

"Perhaps you ought to take care of him," Mr. Gaunt suggested thoughtfully, "before he can take care of you. I know that sounds a little... well... extreme... extreme... but when you consider-" but when you consider-"

"Yes! Yes! That's just what I want to do!"

"I think I have just the thing," Mr. Gaunt said. He bent down, and when he straightened up he had an automatic pistol in his left hand. He pushed it across the gla.s.s top of the case. "Fully loaded."

Hugh picked it up. His confusion seemed to blow away like smoke as the gun's solid weight filled his hand. He could smell gun-grease, low and fragrant.

"I... I left my wallet at home," he said.

"Oh, you don't need to worry about that that," Mr. Gaunt told him. "At Needful Things, Hugh, we insure the things we sell." Suddenly his face hardened. His lips peeled back from his teeth and his eyes blazed. "Go get him!" he cried in a low, harsh voice. "Go get the b.a.s.t.a.r.d that wants to destroy what is yours! Go get him, Hugh! Protect yourself! Protect your property!" property!"

Hugh grinned suddenly. "Thanks, Mr. Gaunt. Thanks a lot."

"Don't mention it," Mr. Gaunt said, dropping immediately back into his normal tone of voice, but the small silver bell was already jangling as Hugh went back out, stuffing the automatic into the sagging waistband of his trousers as he walked.

Mr. Gaunt went to the window and watched Hugh get behind the wheel of the tired Chevy and back it into the street. A Budweiser truck rolling slowly down Main Street blared its horn and swerved to avoid him.

"Go get him, Hugh," Mr. Gaunt said in a low voice. Small wisps of smoke began to rise from his ears and his hair; thicker threads emerged from his nostrils and from between the square white tombstones of his teeth. "Get all of them you can. Party down, big fella."

Mr. Gaunt threw back his head and began to laugh.

8.

John LaPointe hurried toward the side door of the Sheriff's Office, the one that gave on the Munic.i.p.al Building parking lot. He was excited. Armed and dangerous. It wasn't often that you got to a.s.sist in arresting an armed and dangerous suspect. Not in a sleepy little town like Castle Rock, anyway. He had forgotten all about his missing wallet (at least for the time being), and Sally Ratcliffe was even further from his mind.

He reached for the door just as someone opened it from the other side. All at once John was facing two hundred and twenty pounds of angry Phys Ed coach.

"Just the man I wanted to see," Lester Pratt said in his new soft and silky voice. He held up a black leather wallet. "Lose something, you ugly two-timing gambling G.o.dless son of a b.i.t.c.h?"

John didn't have the slightest idea what Lester Pratt was doing here, or how he could have found his lost wallet. He only knew that he was Clut's designated backup and he had to get going right away.

"Whatever it is, I'll talk to you about it later, Lester," John said, and reached for his wallet. When Lester first pulled it back out of his reach and then brought it down hard, smacking him in the center of the face with it, John was more astounded than angry.

"Oh, I don't want to talk," talk," Lester said in his new soft and silky voice. "I wouldn't waste my time." He dropped the wallet, grabbed John by the shoulders, picked him up, and threw him back into the Sheriff's Office. Deputy LaPointe flew six feet through the air and landed on top of Norris Ridgewick's desk. His b.u.t.t skated across it, plowing a path through the heaped paperwork and knocking Norris's IN/OUT basket onto the floor. John followed, landing on his back with a painful thump. Lester said in his new soft and silky voice. "I wouldn't waste my time." He dropped the wallet, grabbed John by the shoulders, picked him up, and threw him back into the Sheriff's Office. Deputy LaPointe flew six feet through the air and landed on top of Norris Ridgewick's desk. His b.u.t.t skated across it, plowing a path through the heaped paperwork and knocking Norris's IN/OUT basket onto the floor. John followed, landing on his back with a painful thump.

Sheila Brigham was staring through the dispatcher's window, her mouth wide open.

John began to pick himself up. He was shaken and dazed, without the slightest clue as to what was going on here.

Lester was walking toward him in a fighting strut. His fists were held up in an old-fashioned John L. Sullivan pose that should have been comic but wasn't. "I'm going to learn you a lesson," Lester said in his new soft and silky voice. "I'm going to teach you what happens to Catholic fellows who steal Baptist fellows' girls. I'm going to teach you all about it, and when I'm done, you'll have it so right you'll never forget it."

Lester Pratt closed in to teaching distance.

9.

Billy Tupper might not have been an intellectual, but he was a sympathetic ear, and a sympathetic ear was the best medicine for Henry Beaufort's rage that afternoon. Henry drank his drink and told Billy what had happened... and as he talked, he felt himself calming down. It occurred to him that if he had gotten the shotgun and just kept rolling, he might have ended this day not behind his bar but behind those of the holding cell in the Sheriff's Office. He loved his T-Bird a lot, but he began to realize he didn't love it enough to go to prison for it. He could replace the tires, and the scratch down the side would eventually buff out. As for Hugh Priest, let the law take care of him.

He finished the drink and stood up.

"You still goin after him, Mr. Beaufort?" Billy asked apprehensively.

"I wouldn't waste my time," Henry said, and Billy breathed a sigh of relief. "I'm going to let Alan Pangborn take care of him. Isn't that what I pay my taxes for, Billy?"

"I guess so." Billy looked out the window and brightened a little more. A rusty old car, a car which had once been white but was now a faded no-color-call it Dirt Road Gray-was coming up the hill toward The Mellow Tiger, spreading a thick blue fog of exhaust behind it. "Look! It's old Lenny! I ain't seen him in a c.o.o.n's age!"

"Well, we still don't open until five," Henry said. He went behind the bar to use the telephone. The box containing the sawed-off shotgun was still on the bar. I think I was planning to use that, he mused. I think I really was. What the h.e.l.l gets into people-some kind of poison?

Billy walked toward the door as Lenny's old car pulled into the parking lot.

10.

"Lester-" John LaPointe began, and that was when a fist almost as large as a Daisy canned ham-but much harder-collided with the center of his face. There was a dirty crunching sound as his nose broke in a burst of horrible pain. John's eyes squeezed shut and brightly colored sparks of light fountained up in the darkness. He went reeling and flailing across the room, waving his arms, fighting a losing battle to stay on his feet. Blood was pouring out of his nose and over his mouth. He struck the bulletin board and knocked it off the wall.

Lester began to walk toward him again, his brow wrinkled into a beetling frown of concentration below his screaming haircut.

In the dispatcher's office, Sheila got on the radio and began yelling for Alan.

11.

Frank Jewett was on the verge of leaving the home of his good old "friend" George T. Nelson when he had a sudden cautionary thought. This thought was that, when George T. Nelson arrived home to find his bedroom trashed, his c.o.ke flushed, and the likeness of his mother bes.h.i.tted, he might come looking for his old party-buddy. Frank decided it would be nuts to leave without finishing what he had started... and if finishing what he had started meant blowing the blackmailing b.a.s.t.a.r.d's oysters off, so be it. There was a gun cabinet downstairs, and the idea of doing the job with one of George T. Nelson's own guns felt like poetic justice to Frank. If he was unable to unlock the gun cabinet, or force the door, he would help himself to one of his old party-buddy's steak-knives and do the job with that. that. He would stand behind the front door, and when George T. Nelson came in, Frank would either blow his motherf.u.c.king oysters off or grab him by the hair and cut his motherf.u.c.king throat. The gun would probably be the safer of the two options, but the more Frank thought of the hot blood jetting from George T. Nelson's slit neck and splashing all over his hands, the more fitting it seemed. He would stand behind the front door, and when George T. Nelson came in, Frank would either blow his motherf.u.c.king oysters off or grab him by the hair and cut his motherf.u.c.king throat. The gun would probably be the safer of the two options, but the more Frank thought of the hot blood jetting from George T. Nelson's slit neck and splashing all over his hands, the more fitting it seemed. Et tu, Et tu, Georgie. Georgie. Et tu, Et tu, you blackmailing f.u.c.k. you blackmailing f.u.c.k.

Frank's reflections were disturbed at this point by George T. Nelson's parakeet, Tammy Faye, who had picked the most inauspicious moment of its small avian life to burst into song. As Frank listened, a peculiar and terribly unpleasant smile began to surface on his face. How did I miss that G.o.ddam bird the first time? How did I miss that G.o.ddam bird the first time? he asked himself as he strode into the kitchen. he asked himself as he strode into the kitchen.

He found the drawer with the sharp knives in it after a little exploration and spent the next fifteen minutes poking it through the bars of Tammy Faye's cage, forcing the small bird into a fluttery, feather-shedding panic before growing bored with the game and skewering it. Then he went downstairs to see what he could do with the gun cabinet. The lock turned out to be easy, and as Frank climbed the stairs to the first floor again, he burst into an unseasonal but nonetheless cheery song: Ohh... you better not fight, you better not cry,You better not pout, I'm telling you why,Santa Claus is coming to town!He sees you when you're sleeping!He knows when you're awake!He knows if you've been bad or good,So you better be good for goodness' sake!

Frank, who had never failed to watch Lawrence Welk every Sat.u.r.day night with his own beloved mother, sang the last line in a low Larry Hooper ba.s.so. Gosh, he felt good! How could he have ever believed, only an hour or so earlier, that his life was at an end? This wasn't the end; it was the beginning! Out with the old-especially dear old "friends" like George T. Nelson-and in with the new!

Frank settled in behind the door. He was pretty well loaded for bear; there was a Winchester shotgun leaning against the wall, a Llama .32 automatic stuffed into his belt, and a Sheffington steak-knife in his hand. From where he stood he could see the heap of yellow feathers that had been Tammy Faye. A small grin twitched Frank's Mr. Weatherbee mouth and his eyes-utterly mad eyes now-rolled ceaselessly back and forth behind his round rimless Mr. Weatherbee spectacles.

"You better be good for goodness' sake!" he admonished under his breath. He sang this line several times as he stood there, and several more times after he had made himself more comfortable, sitting behind the door with his legs crossed, his back propped against the wall, and his weapons in his lap.

He began to feel alarmed at how sleepy he was becoming. It seemed nuts to be on the verge of dozing off when he was waiting to cut a man's throat, but that didn't change the fact. He thought he had read someplace (perhaps in one of his cla.s.ses at the University of Maine at Farmington, a cow college from which he had graduated with absolutely no honors at all) that a severe shock to the nervous system sometimes had that very effect... and he'd suffered a severe shock, all right. It was a wonder his heart hadn't blown like an old tire when he saw those magazines scattered all over his office.

Frank decided it would be unwise to take chances. He moved George T. Nelson's long, oatmeal-colored sofa away from the wall a little bit, crawled behind it, and lay down on his back with the shotgun by his left hand. His right hand, still curled around the handle of the steak-knife, lay on his chest. There. Much better. George T. Nelson's deep-pile carpeting was actually quite comfortable.

"You better be good for goodness' sake," Frank sang under his breath. He was still singing in a low, snory voice ten minutes later, when he finally dozed off.

12.

"Unit One!" Sheila screamed from the radio slung under the dash as Alan crossed the Tin Bridge on his way back into town. "Come in, Unit One! Come in right now!" right now!"

Alan felt a sickening lift-drop in his stomach. Clut had run into a hornet's nest up at Hugh Priest's house on Castle Hill Road-he was sure of it. Why in Christ's name hadn't he told Clut to rendezvous with John before bracing Hugh?

You know why-because not all your attention was on your job when you were giving orders. If something's happened to Clut because of that, you'll have to face it and own the part of it that's yours. But that comes later. Your job right now is to do do your job. So do it, Alan-forget about Polly and do your d.a.m.ned job. your job. So do it, Alan-forget about Polly and do your d.a.m.ned job.

He s.n.a.t.c.hed the microphone off its p.r.o.ngs. "Unit One, come back?"

"Someone's beating John up!" she screamed. "Come quick, Alan, he's hurting him bad!" bad!"

This information was so completely at odds with what Alan had expected that he was utterly flummoxed for a moment.

"What? Who? Who? There?" There?"

"Hurry up, he's killing him!"

All at once it clicked home. It was Hugh Priest, of course. For some reason Hugh had come to the Sheriff's Office, had arrived before John could get rolling for Castle Hill, and had started swinging. It was John LaPointe, not Andy Clutterbuck, who was in danger.

Alan grabbed the dash-flash, turned it on, and stuck it on the roof. When he reached the town side of the bridge he offered the old station wagon a silent apology and floored the accelerator.

13.

Clut began to suspect Hugh wasn't home when he saw that all the tires on the man's car were not just flat but cut to pieces. He was about to approach the house anyway when he finally heard thin cries for help.

He stood where he was for a moment, undecided, then hurried back down the driveway. This time he saw Lenny lying on the side of the road and ran, holster flapping, to where the old man lay.

"Help me!" Lenny wheezed as Clut knelt by him. "Hugh Priest's gone crazy, tarnal fool's busted me right to Christ up!"

"Where you hurt, Lenny?" Clut asked. He touched the old man's shoulder. Lenny let out a shriek. It was as good an answer as any. Clut stood up, unsure of exactly what to do next. Too many things had gotten crammed up in his mind. All he knew for sure was that he desperately did not want to f.u.c.k this up.

"Don't move," he said at last. "I'm going to go call Medical a.s.sistance."

"I ain't got no plans to get up and do the tango, y'G.o.ddam fool," Lenny said. He was crying and snarling with pain. He looked like an old bloodhound with a broken leg.

"Right," Clut said. He started to run back to his cruiser, then returned to Lenny again. "He took your car, right?"

"No!" Lenny gasped, holding his hands against his broken ribs. "He busted me up and then flew off on a magic f.u.c.kin carpet. Sure, he took my car! Why do you think I'm layin here? Get a f.u.c.kin tan?"

"Right," Clut repeated, and sprinted back down the road. Dimes and quarters bounced out of his pockets and spun across the macadam in bright little arcs.

He leaned in the window of his car so fast he almost knocked himself out on the door-ledge. He snagged the mike. He had to get Sheila to send help for the old man, but that wasn't the most important thing. Both Alan and the State Police had to know that Hugh Priest was now driving Lenny Partridge's old Chevrolet Bel-Air. Clut wasn't sure what year it was, but n.o.body could miss that dust-colored oil-burner.

But he could not raise Sheila in dispatch. He tried three times and there was no answer. No answer at all.

Now he could hear Lenny starting to scream again, and Clut went into Hugh's house to call Rescue Services in Norway on the telephone.

One h.e.l.l of a fine time for Sheila to have to be on the john, he thought.

14.