Needful Things (8 page)

Stephanie Bonsaint, Cynthia Rose Martin, Barbara Miller, and Francine Pelletier were the first; Steffie, Cyndi Rose, Babs, and Francie arrived in a protective bunch not ten minutes after Polly was observed leaving the new shop (the
news of her departure spread quickly and thoroughly by telephone and the efficient bush telegraph which runs through New England back yards).

Steffie and her friends looked. They ooohed and ahhhed. They assured Gaunt they could not stay long because this was their bridge day (neglecting to tell him that the weekly rubber usually did not start until about two in the afternoon). Francie asked him where he came from. Gaunt told her Akron, Ohio. Steffie asked him if he had been in the antiques business for long. Gaunt told her he did not consider it to be the antiques business . . . exactly. Cyndi wanted to know if Mr. Gaunt had been in New England long. Awhile, Gaunt replied; awhile.

All four agreed later that the shop was interesting—so many odd things!—but it had been a very unsuccessful interview. The man was as close-mouthed as Polly Chalmers, perhaps more. Babs then pointed out what they all knew (or thought they knew): that Polly had been the first person in town to actually enter the new shop, and that she had
brought a cake.
Perhaps, Babs speculated, she knew Mr. Gaunt . . . from that Time Before, that time she had spent Away.

Cyndi Rose expressed interest in a Lalique vase, and asked Mr. Gaunt (who was nearby but did not hover, all noted with approval) how much it was.

“How much do you think?” he asked, smiling.

She smiled back at him, rather coquettishly.
“Oh,”
she said. “Is
that
the way you do things, Mr. Gaunt?”

“That's the way I do them,” he agreed.

“Well, you're apt to lose more than you gain, dickering with Yankees,” Cyndi Rose said, while her friends looked on with the bright interest of spectators at a Wimbledon Championship match.

“That,” he said, “remains to be seen.” His voice was still friendly, but now it was mildly challenging, as well.

Cyndi Rose looked more closely at the vase this time. Steffie Bonsaint whispered something in her ear. Cyndi Rose nodded.

“Seventeen dollars,” she said. The vase actually looked as if it might be worth fifty, and she guessed that in a Boston antiques shop, it would be priced at one hundred and eighty.

Gaunt steepled his fingers under his chin in a gesture Brian Rusk would have recognized. “I think I'd have to have at least forty-five,” he said with some regret.

Cyndi Rose's eyes brightened; there were possibilities here. She had originally seen the Lalique vase as something only mildly interesting, really not much more than another conversational crowbar to use on the mysterious Mr. Gaunt. Now she looked at it more closely and saw that it really
was
a nice piece of work, one which would look right at home in her living room. The border of flowers around the long neck of the vase was the exact color of her wallpaper. Until Gaunt had responded to her suggestion with a price which was only a finger's length out of her reach, she hadn't realized that she wanted the vase as badly as she now felt she did.

She consulted with her friends.

Gaunt watched them, smiling gently.

The bell over the door rang and two more ladies came in.

At Needful Things, the first full day of business had begun.

When the Ash Street Bridge Club left Needful Things ten minutes later, Cyndi Rose Martin carried a shopping bag by the handles. Inside was the Lalique vase, wrapped in tissue paper. She had purchased it for thirty-one dollars plus tax, almost all of her pin money, but she was so delighted with it that she was almost purring.

Usually she felt doubtful and a little ashamed of herself after such an impulse buy, certain that she had been cozened a little if not cheated outright, but not today. This was
one
deal where she had come out on top. Mr. Gaunt had even asked her to come back, saying he had the twin of this vase, and it would be arriving in a shipment later in the week—perhaps even tomorrow! This one would look lovely on the little table in her living room, but if she had two, she could put one on each end of the mantel, and that would be
smashing.

Her three friends also felt that she had done well, and although they were a little frustrated at having gotten so little of Mr. Gaunt's background, their opinion of him was, on the whole, quite high.

“He's got the most beautiful green eyes,” Francie Pelletier said, a little dreamily.

“Were
they green?” Cyndi Rose asked, a little startled. She herself had thought they were gray. “I didn't notice.”

Late that afternoon, Rosalie Drake from You Sew and Sew stopped in Needful Things on her coffee break, accompanied by Polly's housekeeper, Nettie Cobb. There were several women browsing in the store, and in the rear corner two boys from Castle County High were leafing through a cardboard carton of comic books and muttering excitedly to each other—it was amazing, they both agreed, how many of the items they needed to fill their respective collections were here. They only hoped the prices would not prove too high. It was impossible to tell without asking, because there were no price-stickers on the plastic bags which held the comics.

Rosalie and Nettie said hello to Mr. Gaunt, and Gaunt asked Rosalie to thank Polly again for the cake. His eyes followed Nettie, who had wandered away after the introductions and was looking rather wistfully at a small collection of carnival glass. He left Rosalie studying the picture of Elvis next to the splinter of
PETRIFIED WOOD FROM THE HOLY LAND
and walked over to Nettie.

“Do you like carnival glass, Ms. Cobb?” he asked softly.

She jumped a little—Nettie Cobb had the face and almost painfully shy manner of a woman made to jump at voices, no matter how soft and friendly, when they spoke from the general area of her elbow—and smiled at him nervously.

“It's Missus Cobb, Mr. Gaunt, although my husband's been passed on for some time now.”

“I'm sorry to hear it.”

“No need to be. It's been fourteen years. A long time. Yes, I have a little collection of carnival glass.” She seemed almost to quiver, as a mouse might quiver at the approach of a cat. “Not that I could afford anything so nice as these pieces. Lovely, they are. Like things must look in heaven.”

“Well, I'll tell you something,” he said. “I bought quite a lot of carnival glass when I got these, and they're not as expensive as you might think. And the others are
much
nicer. Would you like to come by tomorrow and have a look at them?”

She jumped again and sidled away a step, as if he had suggested she might like to come by the next day so he could pinch her bottom a few times . . . perhaps until she cried.

“Oh, I don't think . . . Thursday's my busy day, you know . . . at Polly's . . . we have to really turn the place out on Thursdays, you know . . .”

“Are you sure you can't drop by?” he coaxed. “Polly told me that you made the cake she brought this morning—”

“Was it all right?” Nettie asked nervously. Her eyes said she expected him to say, No, it was
not
all right, Nettie, it gave me
cramps,
it gave me the backdoor
trots,
in fact, and so I am going to hurt you, Nettie, I'm going to drag you into the back room and twist your nipples until you holler uncle.

“It was wonderful,” he said soothingly. “It made me think of cakes my mother used to make . . . and that was a very long time ago.”

This was the right note to strike with Nettie, who had loved her own mother dearly in spite of the beatings that lady had administered after her frequent nights out in the juke-joints and ginmills. She relaxed a little.

“Well, that's fine, then,” she said. “I'm awfully glad it was good. Of course, it was Polly's idea. She's just about the sweetest woman in the world.”

“Yes,” he said. “After meeting her, I can believe that.” He glanced at Rosalie Drake, but Rosalie was still browsing. He looked back at Nettie and said, “I just felt I owed you a little something—”

“Oh no!” Nettie said, alarmed all over again. “You don't owe
me a thing. Not a single solitary thing, Mr. Gaunt.”

“Please come by. I can see you have an eye for carnival glass . . . and I could give you back Polly's cake-box.”

“Well . . . I suppose I
could
drop by on my break . . .” Nettie's eyes said she could not believe what she was hearing from her own mouth.

“Wonderful,” he said, and left her quickly, before she could change her mind again. He walked over to the boys and asked them how they were doing. They hesitantly showed him several old issues of
The Incredible Hulk
and
The X-Men.
Five minutes later they went out with most of the comic books in their hands and expressions of stunned joy on their faces.

The door had barely shut behind them when it opened again. Cora Rusk and Myra Evans strode in. They looked around, eyes as bright and avid as those of squirrels in nut-gathering season, and went immediately to the glass case containing the picture of Elvis. Cora and Myra bent over, cooing with interest, displaying bottoms which were easily two axe-handles wide.

Gaunt watched them, smiling.

The bell over the door jingled again. The new arrival was as large as Cora Rusk, but Cora was fat and this woman looked
strong
—the way a lumberjack with a beer belly looks strong. A large white button had been pinned to her blouse. The red letters proclaimed:

CASINO NITE—JUST FOR FUN!

The lady's face had all the charm of a snowshovel. Her hair, an unremarkable and lifeless shade of brown, was mostly covered by a kerchief which was knotted severely under her wide chin. She surveyed the interior of the store for a moment or two, her small, deepset eyes flicking here and there like the eyes of a gunslinger who surveys the interior of a saloon before pushing all the way through the batwing doors and starting to raise hell. Then she came in.

Few of the women circulating among the displays gave her more than a glance, but Nettie Cobb looked at the newcomer with an extraordinary expression of mingled
dismay and hate. Then she scuttled away from the carnival glass. Her movement caught the newcomer's eye. She glanced at Nettie with a kind of massive contempt, then dismissed her.

The bell over the door jingled as Nettie left the shop. Mr. Gaunt observed all of this with great interest.

He walked over to Rosalie and said, “Mrs. Cobb has left without you, I'm afraid.”

Rosalie looked startled. “Why—” she began, and then her eyes settled on the newcomer with the Casino Nite button pinned adamantly between her breasts. She was studying the Turkish rug hung on the wall with the fixed interest of an art student in a gallery. Her hands were planted on her vast hips.
“Oh,”
Rosalie said. “Excuse me, I really ought to go along.”

“No love lost between those two, I'd say,” Mr. Gaunt remarked.

Rosalie smiled distractedly.

Gaunt glanced at the woman in the kerchief again. “Who is she?”

Rosalie wrinkled her nose. “Wilma Jerzyck,” she said. “Excuse me . . . I really ought to catch up with Nettie. She's high-strung, you know.”

“Of course,” he said, and watched Rosalie out the door. To himself he added, “Aren't we all.”

Then Cora Rusk was tapping him on the shoulder. “How much is that picture of The King?” she demanded.

Leland Gaunt turned his dazzling smile upon her. “Well, let's talk about it,” he said. “How much do you think it's worth?”

Castle Rock's newest port of commerce had been closed for nearly two hours when Alan Pangborn rolled slowly down Main Street toward the Municipal Building, which housed the Sheriff's Office and Castle Rock Police Department. He was behind the wheel of the ultimate unmarked car: a 1986 Ford station wagon. The family car. He felt low and half-drunk. He'd only had three beers, but they had hit him hard.

He glanced at Needful Things as he drove past, approving of the dark-green canopy which jutted out over the street, just as Brian Rusk had done. He knew less about such things (having no relations who worked for the Dick Perry Siding and Door Company in South Paris), but he thought it
did
lend a certain touch of class to Main Street, where most shopowners had added false fronts and called it good. He didn't know yet what the new place sold—Polly would, if she had gone over this morning as she had planned—but it looked to Alan like one of those cozy French restaurants where you took the girl of your dreams before trying to sweet-talk her into bed.

The place slipped from his mind as soon as he passed it. He signalled right two blocks farther down, and turned up the narrow passage between the squat brick block of the Municipal Building and the white clapboard Water District building. This lane was marked
OFFICIAL VEHICLES ONLY.

The Municipal Building was shaped like an upside
down L, and there was a small parking lot in the angle formed by the two wings. Three of the slots were marked
SHERIFF'S OFFICE
. Norris Ridgewick's bumbling old VW Beetle was parked in one of them. Alan parked in another, cut the headlights and the motor, reached for the door-handle.

The depression which had been circling him ever since he left The Blue Door in Portland circling the way wolves often circled campfires in the adventure stories he had read as a boy, suddenly fell upon him. He let go of the door-handle and just sat behind the wheel of the station wagon, hoping it would pass.

He had spent the day in Portland's District Court, testifying for the prosecution in four straight trials. The district encompassed four counties—York, Cumberland, Oxford, Castle—and of all the lawmen who served in those counties, Alan Pangborn had the farthest to travel. The three District Judges therefore tried as best they could to schedule his court cases in bunches, so he would have to make the trip only once or twice a month. This made it possible for him to actually spend some time in the county which he had sworn to protect, instead of on the roads between Castle Rock and Portland, but it also meant that, after one of his court days, he felt like a high school kid stumbling out of the auditorium where he has just taken the Scholastic Aptitude Tests. He should have known better than to drink on top of that, but Harry Cross and George Crompton had just been on their way down to The Blue Door, and they had insisted that Alan join them. There had been a good enough reason to do so: a string of clearly related burglaries which had occurred in all of their areas. But the real reason he'd gone was the one most bad decisions have in common: it had seemed like a good idea at the time.