Needful Things (72 page)

Lester Pratt usually left Castle Rock High in the company of several friends; they would all go down to Hemphill's Market for sodas, then head off to someone's house or apartment for a couple of hours to sing hymns or play games or just shoot the bull. Today, however, Lester left school alone with his knapsack on his back (he disdained the traditional teacher's briefcase) and his head down. If Alan had been there to watch Lester walk slowly across the school lawn toward the faculty parking lot, he would have been struck by the man's resemblance to Brian Rusk.

Three times that day Lester had tried to get in touch with Sally, to find out what in the land of Goshen had made her so mad. The last time had been during his period
five lunch-break. He knew she was at the Middle School, but the closest he got to her was a call-back from Mona Lawless who taught sixth- and seventh-grade math and chummed with Sally.

“She can't come to the phone,” Mona told him, displaying all the warmth of a deep-freeze stuffed with Popsicles.

“Why not?” he had asked—almost “whined. “Come on, Mona—give!”

“I don't know.” Mona's tone had progressed from Popsicles in the deep-freeze to the verbal equivalent of liquid nitrogen. “All I know is that she's been staying with Irene Lutjens, she looks like she spent all last night crying, and she says she doesn't want to talk to you.”
And this is all your fault,
Mona's frozen tone said.
I know that because you're a man and all men are dogshit—this is just another specific example illustrating the general case.

“Well I don't have the slightest idea what it's all about!” Lester shouted. “Will you tell her that, at least? Tell her I don't know, why she's mad at me! Tell her whatever it is, it must be a misunderstanding,
because I don't get it!”

There was a long pause. When Mona spoke again, her voice had warmed up a little. Not much, but it was a lot better than liquid nitrogen. “All right, Lester. I'll tell her.”

Now he raised his head, half-hoping Sally might be sitting in the passenger seat of the Mustang, ready to kiss and make up, but the car was empty. The only person close to it was soft-headed Slopey Dodd, goofing around on his skateboard.

Steve Edwards came up behind Lester and clapped him on the shoulder. “Les, boy! Want to come over to my place for a Coke? A bunch of the guys said they'd drop by. We have to talk about this outrageous Catholic harassment. The big meeting's at the church tonight, don't forget, and it would be good if we Y.A.'s could present a united front when it comes to deciding what to do. I mentioned the idea to Don Hemphill and he said yeah, great, go for it.” He looked at Lester as if he expected a pat on the head.

“I can't this afternoon, Steve. Maybe another time.”

“Hey, Les—don't you get it? There may not
be
another time! The Pope's boys aren't fooling around anymore!”

“I can't come over,” Les said. And if you're wise, his face said, you'll stop pushing it.

“Well, but . . . why not?”

Because I have to find out what the heck I did to make my girl so angry, Lester thought. And I
am
going to find out, even if I have to shake it out of her.

Out loud he said, “I've got stuff to do, Steve. Important stuff. Take my word for it.”

“If this is about Sally, Les—”

Lester's eyes flashed dangerously. “You just shut up about Sally.”

Steve, an inoffensive young man who had been set aflame by the strife over Casino Nite, was not yet burning brightly enough to overstep the line Lester Pratt had so clearly drawn. But neither was he quite ready to give up. Without Lester Pratt, a Young Adults' Policy Meeting was a joke, no matter how many from the Y.A. group turned out. Pitching his voice more reasonably, he said: “You know the anonymous card Bill got?”

“Yes,” Lester said. Rev. Rose had found it on the floor of the parsonage front hallway: the already-notorious “Babtist Rat-Fuck” card. The Reverend had passed it around at a hastily called Guys Only Y.A. meeting because, he said, it was impossible to credit unless you saw the vile thing for yourself. It was hard to fully understand, Rev. Rose had added, the depths to which the Catholics would sink-uh in order to stifle righteous opposition to their Satan-inspired night of gambling; perhaps actually seeing this vile spew of filth would help these “fine young men” comprehend what they were up against. “For do we not say that forewarned is-uh forearmed?” Rev. Rose had finished grandly. He then produced the card (it was inside a Baggie, as if those who handled it needed to be guarded from infection) and handed it around.

As Lester finished reading it, he had been more than ready to ring a few sets of Catholic chimes, but now the entire affair seemed distant and somehow childish. Who really cared if the Catholics gambled for play money and gave away a few new tires and kitchen appliances? When
it came down to a choice between the Catholics and Sally Ratcliffe, Lester knew which one he had to worry about.

“—a meeting to try and work out the next step!” Steve was continuing. He was starting to get hot again. “We have to seize the initiative here, Les . . . we
have
to!” Reverend Bill says he's worried that these so called Concerned Catholic Men are through talking. Their next step may be—”

“Look, Steve, do whatever you want,
but leave me out of it!”

Steve stopped and stared at him, clearly shocked and just as clearly expecting Lester, normally the most eventempered of fellows, to come to his senses, and apologize. When he realized no apology was forthcoming, he started to walk back toward the school, putting distance between himself and Lester. “Boy, you're in a rotten mood,” he said.

“That's right!” Lester called back truculently. He rolled his big hands into fists and planted them on his hips.

But Lester was more than just angry; he hurt, damn it, he hurt all over, and what hurt the worst was his
mind,
and he wanted to strike out at someone. Not poor old Steve Edwards; it was just that allowing himself to get pissed at Steve seemed to have turned on a switch inside him. That switch had sent electricity flowing to a lot of mental appliances which were usually dark and silent. For the first time since he'd fallen in love with Sally, Lester—normally the most placid of men—felt angry at her, too. What right had she to tell him to go to hell? What right did she have to call him a bastard?

She was mad about something, was she? All right, she was mad Maybe he had even give a her something to be mad about. He hadn't the slightest idea what that something might be, but say (just for the sake of argument) that he had. Did that give her the right to fly off the handle at him without even doing him the courtesy of asking for an explanation first? Did it give her the right to stay with Irene Lutjens so he couldn't crash his way into wherever she was, or to refuse all his telephone calls, or to employ Mona Lawless as a go-between?

I'm going to find her, Lester thought, and I'm going to find out what's eating her. Then, once it's out, we can
make up. And after we do, I'm going to give her the same lecture I give my freshmen when basketball practice starts—about how trust is the key to teamwork.

He stripped off his pack, chucked it into the back seat, and climbed into his car. As he did, he saw something sticking out from under the passenger seat. Something black. It looked like a wallet.

Lester seized it eagerly, thinking at first that it must be Sally's. If she had left it in his car at some point during the long holiday weekend, she must have missed it by now. She'd be anxious. And if he could relieve her anxiety about her lost wallet, the rest of their conversation might become a little easier.

But it wasn't Sally's; he saw that as soon as he got a close look at the item which had been under the passenger seat. It was black leather. Sally's was scuffed blue suede, and much smaller.

Curiously, he opened it. The first thing he saw struck him like a hard blow to the solar plexus. It was John LaPointe's Sheriff's Department ID.

What in the name of God had John LaPointe been doing in
his
car?

Sally had it all weekend, his mind whispered. So just what the hell do you
think
he was doing in your car?

“No,” he said. “Uh-uh, no
way
—she wouldn't. She wouldn't see
him.
No way in hell.”

But she
had
seen him. She and Deputy John LaPointe had gone out together for over a year, in spite of the developing bad feelings between Castle Rock's Catholics and Baptists. They had broken up before the current hooraw over Casino Nite, but—

Lester got out of the car again and flipped through the wallet's see-through pockets. His sense of incredulity grew. Here was LaPointe's driver's license—in the picture on it, he was wearing the little moustache he'd cultivated when he'd been going out with Sally. Lester knew what some fellows called moustaches like that: pussy-ticklers. Here was John LaPointe's fishing license. Here was a picture of John LaPointe's mother and father. Here was his hunting license. And here . . .
here . . .

Lester stared fixedly at the snapshot he'd come upon. It was a snapshot of John and Sally. A snap of a fellow
and his best girl. They were standing in front of what looked like a carnival shooting-gallery. They were looking at each other and langhing. Sally was holding a big stuffed teddy bear. LaPointe had probably just won it for her.

Lester stared, at the picture. A vein had risen in the center of his forehead, quite a prominent one, and it pulsed steadily.

What had she called him? A cheating bastard?

“Well, look who's talking,” Lester Pratt, whispered.

Rage began to build up in him. It happened very quickly. And when someone touched him on the shoulder he swung around, dropping the wallet and doubling up his fists. He came very close to punching inoffensive, stuttering Slopey Dodd into the middle of next week.

“Cuh-Coach P-Pratt?” Slopey asked. His eyes were big and round, but he didn't look frightened. Interested, but not frightened. “Are yuh-yuh-you o-k-k-kay?”

“I'm fine,” Lester said thickly, “Go home, Slopey. You don't have any business with that skateboard in the faculty parking lot.

He bent down to pick up the dropped wallet, but Slopey was two feet closer to the ground and beat him to it. He looked curiously at LaPointe's driver's-license photo before handing the wallet back to Coach Pratt. “Yep,” Slopey said. “That's the same guh-guh-guy, all r-right.”

He hopped onto his board and prepared to ride away. Lester grabbed him by the shirt before he could do so. The board squirted out from under Slopey's foot, rolled away on its own, hit a pothole and turned over. Slopey's AC/DC shirt—
FOR THOSE ABOUT TO ROCK, WE SALUTE YOU
, it said—tore at the neck, but Slopey didn't seem to mind; didn't even seem to be much surprised by Lester's actions, let alone frightened. Lester didn't notice. Lester was beyond noticing nuances. He was one of those large and normally placid men who own a short, nasty temper beneath that placidity, a damaging emotional tornado-in-waiting. Some men go through their entire lives without ever discovering that ugly storm-center. Lester however, had discovered his (or rather it had discovered him) and he was now completely in its grip.

Holding a swatch of Slopey's tee-shirt in a fist which was nearly the size of a Daisy canned ham, he bent his
sweating face down to Slopey's. The vein in the center of his forehead was pulsing faster than ever.

“What do you mean, ‘that's the same guy, all right'?”

“He's the same g-g-guy who muh-met M-Miss Ruh-Ruh-Ratcliffe after school last Fuh-Friday.”

“He met her
after school?”
Lester asked hoarsely. He gave Slopey a shake brisk enough to rattle the boy's teeth in his head. “Are you sure of that?”

“Yeah,” Slopey said. “They w-went off in your cuh-cuh-har. Coach P-Pratt. The guh-guy was d-d-driving.”

“Driving? He was driving my car?
John LaPointe was driving my car with Sally in it?”

“Well, that g-g-guy,” Slopey said, pointing at the driver's-license photograph again. “B-But before they g-g-got ih-in, he g-gave her a kuh-kuh-kiss.”

“Did
he,” Lester said. His face had become very still. “
Did
he, now.”

“Oh, shuh-shuh-
shore
,” Slopey said. A wide (and rather salacious) grin lit his face.

In a soft, silky tone utterly unlike his usual rough hey-guys-let's-go-get-em voice, Lester asked: “And did she kiss him back? What do you think, Slopey?”

Slopey rolled his eyes happily.
“I'll
suh-say she d-d-did! They were r-really suh-suh-huckin face, C-Coach Puh-Pratt!”

“Sucking face,” Lester mused in his new soft and silky voice.

“Yep.”

“Really
sucking face,” Lester marvelled in his new soft and silky voice.

“You b-b-bet.”

Lester let go of the Slopester (as his few friends called him) and straightened up. The vein in the center of his forehead was pulsing and pumping away. He had begun to grin. It was an unpleasant grin, exposing what seemed like a great many more white, square teeth than a normal man should have. His blue eyes had become small, squinty triangles. His crewcut screamed off his head in all directions.

“Cuh-Cuh-Coach Pratt?” Slopey asked. “Is something ruh-ruh-hong?”

“Nope,” Lester Pratt said in his new soft and silky
voice. His grin never wavered. “Nothing I can't put right.” In his mind, his hands were already locked around the neck of that lying, Pope-loving, teddy-bear-winning, girl-stealing, shit-eating French frog of a John LaPointe. The asshole that walked like a man. The asshole who had apparently taught the girl Lester loved, the girl who would do no more than part her lips the tiniest bit when Lester kissed her, how to really suck face.