Needful Things (85 page)

Scratch-scritch-scratch.

The silver ball jiggled minutely between the white cotton cup of her bra and the coverlet of the bed.

Scratchy-scritch-scratch.

That thing is alive, Trisha,
Aunt Evvie said.
That thing is alive, and you know it.

Don't be silly, Polly told her, tossing over to the other side. How could there possibly be some creature in there? I suppose it might be able to breathe through all those tiny holes, but what in God's name would it eat?

Maybe,
Aunt Evvie replied with soft implacability,
it's eating
YOU
, Trisha.

“Polly,” she murmured. “My name is
Polly.”

This time the tug at her subconscious mind was stronger—somehow alarming—and for a moment she was almost able to grasp it. Then the telephone began to ring again. She gasped and sat up, her face wearing a look of tired dismay. Pride and longing were at war there.

Talk to him, Trisha—what can it hurt? Better still, listen to him. You didn't do much of that before, did you?

I don't want to talk to him. Not after what he did.

But you still love him.

Yes; that was true. The only thing was, now she hated him as well.

The voice of Aunt Evvie rose once more, gusting
angrily in her mind.
Do you want to be a ghost all your life, Trisha? What's the matter with you, girl?

Polly reached out for the telephone in a mockery of decisiveness. Her hand—her limber, pain-free hand—faltered just short of the handset. Because maybe it
wasn't
Alan. Maybe it was Mr. Gaunt. Maybe Mr. Gaunt wanted to tell her that he wasn't finished with her yet, that she hadn't finished paying yet.

She made another move toward the telephone—this time the tips of her fingers actually brushed the plastic casing—and then she drew back. Her hand clutched its partner and they folded into a nervous ball on her belly. She was afraid of Aunt Evvie's dead voice, of what she had done this afternoon, of what Mr. Gaunt (or Alan!) might tell the town about her dead son, of what yonder confusion of sirens and racing cars might mean.

But more than all of these things, she had discovered, she was afraid of Leland Gaunt himself. She felt as if someone had tied her to the clapper of a great iron bell, a bell which would simultaneously deafen her, drive her mad, and crush her to a pulp if it began to ring.

The telephone fell quiet.

Outside, another siren began to scream, and as it began to fade toward the Tin Bridge, the thunder rolled again. Closer than ever now.

Take it off,
the voice of Aunt Evvie whispered.
Take it off, honey. You can do it
—
his power is over need, not will. Take it off. Break his hold on you.

But she was looking at the telephone and remembering the night—was it less than a week ago?—when she had reached for it and struck it with her fingers, knocking it to the floor. She remembered the pain which had clawed its way up her arm like a hungry rat with broken teeth. She couldn't go back to that. She just couldn't.

Could she?

Something nasty is going on in The Rock tonight,
Aunt Evvie said.
Do you want to wake up tomorrow and have to figure out how much of it was
YOUR
nastiness? Is that really a score you want to add up, Trisha?

“You don't understand,” she moaned. “It wasn't on Alan, it was on Ace! Ace Merrill! And he deserves whatever he gets!”

The implacable voice of Aunt Evvie returned:
Then so do you, honey. So do you.

At twenty minutes past six on that Tuesday evening, as the thunderheads neared and real dark began to overtake twilight, the State Police officer who had replaced Sheila Brigham in dispatch came out into the Sheriff's Office bullpen. He skirted the large area, roughly diamond-shaped, which was marked with
CRIME-SCENE
tape and hurried over to where Henry Payton stood.

Payton looked dishevelled and unhappy. He had spent the previous five minutes with the ladies and gentlemen of the press, and he felt as he always did after one of these confrontations: as if he had been coated with honey and then forced to roll in a large pile of ant-infested hyena-shit. His statement had not been as well prepared—or as unassailably vague—as he would have liked. The TV people had forced his hand. They wanted to do live updates during the six–to–six-thirty time-slot when the local news was broadcast—felt they
had
to do live updates—and if he didn't throw them some kind of bone, they were apt to crucify him at eleven. They had almost crucified him anyway. He had come as close as he ever had in his entire career to admitting he didn't have a fucking clue. He had not left this impromptu press conference; he had escaped it.

Payton found himself wishing he had listened more closely to Alan. When he arrived, it had seemed that the job was essentially damage control. Now he wondered, because there had been
another
murder since he took the case—a woman named Myrtle Keeton. Her husband was still out there someplace, probably headed over the hills and far away by now, but just possibly still galloping gaily around this weird little town. A man who had offed his wife with a hammer. A prime psycho, in other words.

The trouble was, he didn't
know
these people. Alan and his deputies did, but both Alan and Ridgewick were gone. LaPointe was in the hospital, probably hoping the
doctors could get his nose on straight again. He looked around for Clutterbuck and was somehow not surprised to see that he had also melted away.

You want it, Henry?
he heard Alan say inside his head.
Fine. Take it. And as far as suspects go, why not try the phone book?

“Lieutenant Payton? Lieutenant Payton!” It was the officer from dispatch.

“What?” Henry growled.

“I've got Dr. Van Allen on the radio. He wants to talk to you.”

“About what?”

“He wouldn't say. He only told me he
had
to speak to you.”

Henry Payton walked into the dispatcher's office feeling more and more like a kid riding a bike with no brakes down a steep hill with a drop-off on one side, a rock wall on the other, and a pack of hungry wolves with reporters' faces behind him.

He picked up the mike. “This is Payton, come back.”

“Lieutenant Payton, this is Dr. Van Allen. County Medical Examiner?” The voice was hollow and distant, broken up occasionally by heavy bursts of static. That would be the approaching storm, Henry knew. More fun with Dick and Jane.

“Yes, I know who you are,” Henry said. “You took Mr. Beaufort to Oxford. How is he, come back?”

“He's—”

Crackle crackle buzz snacker.

“You're breaking up, Dr. Van Allen,” Henry said, speaking as patiently as he could. “We've got what looks to be a really first-class electrical storm on the way here. Please say again. K.”

“Dead!” Van Allen shouted through a break in the static. “He died in the ambulance, but we do not believe it was gunshot trauma which killed him. Do you understand?
We do not believe this patient died of gunshot trauma.
His brain first underwent atypical edema and then ruptured. The most likely diagnosis is that some toxic substance, some
extremely
toxic substance, was introduced into his blood when he was shot. This same substance
appears to have literally burst his heart open. Please acknowledge.”

Oh Jesus,
Henry Payton thought. He pulled down his tie, unbuttoned his collar, and then pressed the transmit button again.

“I acknowledge your message, Dr. Van Allen, but I'll be damned if I understand it. K.”

“The toxin was very likely on the bullets in the gun that shot him. The infection appears to spread slowly at first, then to pick up speed. We have two clear, fan-shaped areas of introduction here—the cheek-wound and the chest-wound. It's very important to—”

Crackle snackle buzzzit.

“—has it? Ten-four?”

“Say again, Dr. Van Allen.” Henry wished to Christ the man had simply picked up the telephone. “Please say again, come back.”

“Who has that gun?”
Van Allen shrieked.
“Ten-four!”

“David Friedman. Ballistics. He's taken it to Augusta. K.”

“Would he have unloaded it first—ten-four?”

“Yes. That's standard practice. Come back.”

“Was it a revolver or an automatic.
Lieutenant Payton? That's of prime importance right now. Ten-four.' ”

“An automatic. K.”

“Would he have unloaded the clip? Ten-four.”

“He'd do that at Augusta.” Payton sat down heavily in the dispatcher's chair. Suddenly he needed to take a heavy dump. “Ten-four.”

“No! No, he mustn't!
He must not do that—
do you copy?”

“I copy,” Henry said. “I'll leave a message for him at the Ballistics Lab, saying he's to leave the goddam bullets in the goddam clip until we get this latest goddam snafu sorted the goddam hell out.” He felt a childish pleasure at the realization that this was going out on the air . . . and then he wondered how many of the reporters out front were monitoring him on their Bearcats. “Listen, Dr. Van Allen, we've got no business talking about this on the radio. Ten-four.”

“Never mind the public-relations aspect,” Van Allen came back harshly. “We're talking about a man's
life
here, Lieutenant Payton—I tried to get you on the telephone and couldn't get through. Tell your man Friedman to examine his hands carefully for scratches, small nicks, even hangnails. If he has the smallest break in the skin of his hands, he's to go to the nearest hospital
immediately.
I have no way of knowing if the crap we're dealing with was on the casing of the ammunition clip as well as on the bullets themselves. And it isn't the kind of thing he wants to take the slightest chance with. This stuff is
deadly.
Ten-four?”

“I acknowledge,” Henry heard himself say. He found himself wishing he were anywhere but here—but since he
was
here, he wished that Alan Pangborn were here beside him. Since arriving in Castle Rock, he had come more and more to feel like Brer Rabbit stuck in the Tar Baby. “What
is
it? K?”

“We don't know yet. Not curare, because there was no paralysis until the very end. Also, curare is relatively painless, and Mr. Beaufort suffered a great deal. All we know right now is that it started slowly and then moved like a freight-train. Ten-four.”

“That's
all?
Ten-four.”

“Jesus Christ,” Ray Van Allen ejaculated. “Isn't it enough? Ten-four.”

“Yes. I guess it is. K.”

“Just be glad—”

Crackle crackle brrack!

“Say again, Dr. Van Allen. Say again. Ten-four.”

Through the swelling ocean of static he heard Dr. Van Allen say, “Just be glad you've got the gun in custody. That you don't have to worry about it doing any more damage. Ten-four.”

“You got
that
right, buddy. Ten-forty, out.”

Cora Rusk turned onto Main Street and walked slowly toward Needful Things. She passed a bright yellow Ford Econoline van with
WPTD CHANNEL
5
ACTION NEWS
emblazoned on the side, but did not see Danforth “Buster”
Keeton looking out of the driver's window at her with unblinking eyes. She probably wouldn't have recognized him in any case; Buster had become, in a manner of speaking, a new man. And even if she had seen and recognized him, it would have meant nothing to Cora. She had her own problems and sorrows. Most of all, she had her own anger. And none of this concerned her dead son.

In one hand, Cora Rusk held a pair of broken sunglasses.

It had seemed to her that the police were going to question her forever . . . or at least until she went mad.
Go away!
she wanted to scream at them.
Stop asking me all these stupid questions about Brian! Arrest him if he's in trouble, his father will fix it, fixing things is all he's good for, but leave me alone! I've got a date with The King, and I can't keep him waiting!

At one point she had seen Sheriff Pangborn leaning in the doorway between the kitchen and the back stoop, his arms folded across his chest, and she had been on the very verge of blurting this out, thinking
he
would understand. He wasn't like these others—he was from town, he would know about Needful Things, he would have bought his own special item there, he would understand.

Except Mr. Gaunt had spoken up in her mind just then, as calm and as reasonable as ever.
No, Cora—don't talk to him. He wouldn't understand. He's not like you. He's not a smart shopper. Tell them you want to go to the hospital and see your other boy. That will get rid of them, at least for a while. After that it won't matter.

So she had told them just that, and it worked like a charm. She had even managed to squeeze out a tear or two, thinking not about Brian but about how sad Elvis must feel, wandering around Graceland without her. Poor lost King!

They had left, all but the two or three who were out in the garage. Cora didn't know what they were doing or what they could possibly want out there, and she didn't care. She grabbed her magic sunglasses off the table and hurried upstairs. Once she was in her room she slipped out of her robe, lay down on her bed, and put them on.

At once she was in Graceland again. Relief, anticipation, and amazing horniness filled her.

She swept up the curving staircase, cool and nude, to the upstairs hall, hung with jungle tapestries and nearly as wide as a freeway. She walked down to the closed double doors at the far end, her bare feet whispering in the deep nap of the carpet. She saw her fingers reach out and close around the handles. She pushed the doors open, revealing The King's bedroom, a room which was all black and white—black walls, white shag rug, black drapes over the windows, white trim on the black bedspread—except for the ceiling, which was painted midnight blue with a thousand twinkly electric stars.