Salem's Lot Page 12

  "What's that for?"

  "Forgot all about paying you for that Brennan job last month. You should prod me about those things, Hank. You know how I forget things."

  "But you did--"

  "Why," Larry interrupted, smiling, "you could be sitting right here and telling me something, and I wouldn't remember a thing about it tomorrow morning. Ain't that a pitiful way to be?"

  "Yeah," Hank whispered. His hand reached out trembling and took the bills; stuffed them into the breast pocket of his denim jacket as if anxious to be rid of the touch of them. He got up with such jerky hurriedness that he almost knocked his chair over. "Listen, I got to go, Larry. I...I didn't...I got to go."

  "Take the bottle," Larry invited, but Hank was already going out the door. He didn't pause.

  Larry sat back down. He poured himself another drink. His hand still did not tremble. He did not go on shutting up shop. He had another drink, and then another. He thought about deals with the devil. And at last his phone rang. He picked it up. Listened.

  "It's taken care of," Larry Crockett said.

  He listened. He hung up. He poured himself another drink.

  SEVEN

  Hank Peters woke up in the early hours of the next morning from a dream of huge rats crawling out of an open grave, a grave which held the green and rotting body of Hubie Marsten, with a frayed length of manila hemp around his neck. Peters lay propped on his elbows, breathing heavily, naked torso slicked with sweat, and when his wife touched his arm he screamed aloud.

  EIGHT

  Milt Crossen's Agricultural Store was located in the angle formed by the intersection of Jointner Avenue and Railroad Street, and most of the town's old codgers went there when it rained and the park was uninhabitable. During the long winters, they were a day-by-day fixture.

  When Straker drove up in that '39 Packard--or was it a '40?--it was just misting gently, and Milt and Pat Middler were having a desultory conversation about whether Freddy Overlock's girl Judy run off in 1957 or '58. They both agreed that she had run off with that Salad-master salesman from Yarmouth, and they both agreed that he hadn't been worth a pisshole in the snow, nor was she, but beyond that they couldn't get together.

  All conversation ceased when Straker walked in.

  He looked around at them--Milt and Pat Middler and Joe Crane and Vinnie Upshaw and Clyde Corliss--and smiled humorlessly. "Good afternoon, gentlemen," he said.

  Milt Crossen stood up, pulling his apron around him almost primly. "Help you?"

  "Very good," Straker said. "Attend over at this meat case, please."

  He bought a roast of beef, a dozen prime ribs, some hamburger, and a pound of calves' liver. To this he added some dry goods--flour, sugar, beans--and several loaves of ready-made bread.

  His shopping took place in utter silence. The store's habitues sat around the large Pearl Kineo stove that Milt's father had converted to range oil, smoked, looked wisely out at the sky, and observed the stranger from the corners of their eyes.

  When Milt had finished packing the goods into a large cardboard carton, Straker paid with hard cash--a twenty and a ten. He picked up the carton, tucked it under one arm, and flashed that hard, humorless smile at them again.

  "Good day, gentlemen," he said, and left.

  Joe Crane tamped a load of Planter's into his corncob. Clyde Corliss hawked back and spat a mass of phlegm and chewing tobacco into the dented pail beside the stove. Vinnie Upshaw produced his old Top cigarette roller from inside his vest, spilled a line of tobacco into it, and inserted a cigarette paper with arthritis-swelled fingers.

  They watched the stranger lift the carton into the trunk. All of them knew that the carton must have weighed thirty pounds with the dry goods, and they had all seen him tuck it under his arm like a feather pillow going out. He went around to the driver's side, got in, and drove off up Jointner Avenue. The car went up the hill, turned left onto the Brooks Road, disappeared, and reappeared from behind the screen of trees a few moments later, now toy-sized with distance. It turned into the Marsten driveway and was lost from sight.

  "Peculiar fella," Vinnie said. He stuck his cigarette in his mouth, plucked a few bits of tobacco from the end of it, and took a kitchen match from his vest pocket.

  "Must be one of the ones got that store," Joe Crane said.

  "Marsten House, too," Vinnie agreed.

  Clyde Corliss broke wind.

  Pat Middler picked at a callus on his left palm with great interest.

  Five minutes passed.

  "Do you suppose they'll make a go of it?" Clyde asked no one in particular.

  "Might," Vinnie said. "They might show up right pert in the summertime. Hard to tell the way things are these days."

  A general murmur, sigh almost, of agreement.

  "Strong fella," Joe said.

  "Ayuh," Vinnie said. "That was a thirty-nine Packard, and not a spot of rust on her."

  "'Twas a forty," Clyde said.

  "The forty didn't have runnin' boards," Vinnie said. "'Twas a thirty-nine."

  "You're wrong on that one," Clyde said.

  Five minutes passed. They saw Milt was examining the twenty Straker had paid with.

  "That funny money, Milt?" Pat asked. "That fella give you some funny money?"

  "No; but look." Milt passed it across the counter and they all stared at it. It was much bigger than an ordinary bill.

  Pat held it up to the light, examined it, then turned it over. "That's a series E twenty, ain't it, Milt?"

  "Yep," Milt said. "They stopped makin' those forty-five or fifty years back. My guess is that'd be worth some money down to Arcade Coin in Portland."

  Pat handed the bill around and each examined it, holding it up close or far off depending on the flaws in their eyesight. Joe Crane handed it back, and Milt put it under the cash drawer with the personal checks and the coupons.

  "Sure is a funny fella," Clyde mused.

  "Ayuh," Vinnie said, and paused. "That was a thirty-nine, though. My half brother Vic had one. Was the first car he ever owned. Bought it used, he did, in 1944. Left the oil out of her one mornin' and burned the goddamn pistons right out of her."

  "I believe it was a forty," Clyde said, "because I remember a fella that used to cane chairs down by Alfred, come right to your house he would, and--"

  And so the argument was begun, progressing more in the silences than in the speeches, like a chess game played by mail. And the day seemed to stand still and stretch into eternity for them, and Vinnie Upshaw began to make another cigarette with sweet, arthritic slowness.

  NINE

  Ben was writing when the tap came at the door, and he marked his place before getting up to open it. It was just after three o'clock on Wednesday, September 24. The rain had ended any plans to search further for Ralphie Glick, and the consensus was that the search was over. The Glick boy was gone...solid gone.

  He opened the door and Parkins Gillespie was standing there, smoking a cigarette. He was holding a paperback in one hand, and Ben saw with some amusement that it was the Bantam edition of Conway's Daughter.

  "Come on in, Constable," he said. "Wet out there."

  "It is, a trifle," Parkins said, stepping in. "September's grippe weather. I always wear m' galoshes. There's some that laughs, but I ain't had the grippe since St-Lo, France, in 1944."

  "Lay your coat on the bed. Sorry I can't offer you coffee."

  "Wouldn't think of wettin' it," Parkins said, and tapped ash in Ben's wastebasket. "And I just had a cup of Pauline's down to the Excellent."

  "Can I do something for you?"

  "Well, my wife read this..." He held up the book. "She heard you was in town, but she's shy. She kind of thought maybe you might write your name in it, or somethin'."

  Ben took the book. "The way Weasel Craig tells it, your wife's been dead fourteen or fifteen years."

  "That so?" Parkins looked totally unsurprised. "That Weasel, he does love to talk. He'll open his mouth too wide one day and fall right in."


  Ben said nothing.

  "Do you s'pose you could sign it for me, then?"

  "Delighted to." He took a pen from the desk, opened the book to the flyleaf ("A raw slice of life!"--Cleveland Plain Dealer), and wrote: Best wishes to Constable Gillespie, from Ben Mears, 9/24/75. He handed it back.

  "I appreciate that," Parkins said, without looking at what Ben had written. He bent over and crushed out his smoke on the side of the wastebasket. "That's the only signed book I got."

  "Did you come here to brace me?" Ben asked, smiling.

  "You're pretty sharp," Parkins said. "I figured I ought to come and ask a question or two, now that you mention it. Waited until Nolly was off somewheres. He's a good boy, but he likes to talk, too. Lordy, the gossip that goes on."

  "What would you like to know?"

  "Mostly where you were on last Wednesday evenin'."

  "The night Ralphie Glick disappeared?"

  "Yeah."

  "Am I a suspect, Constable?"

  "No, sir. I ain't got no suspects. A thing like this is outside my tour, you might say. Catchin' speeders out by Dell's or chasin' kids outta the park before they turn randy is more my line. I'm just nosin' here and there."

  "Suppose I don't want to tell you."

  Parkins shrugged and produced his cigarettes. "That's your business, son."

  "I had dinner with Susan Norton and her folks. Played some badminton with her dad."

  "Bet he beat you, too. He always beats Nolly. Nolly raves up and down about how bad he'd like to beat Bill Norton just once. What time did you leave?"

  Ben laughed, but the sound did not contain a great deal of humor. "You cut right to the bone, don't you?"

  "You know," Parkins said, "if I was one of those New York detectives like on TV, I might think you had somethin' to hide, the way you polka around my questions."

  "Nothing to hide," Ben said. "I'm just tired of being the stranger in town, getting pointed at in the streets, being nudged over in the library. Now you come around with this Yankee trader routine, trying to find out if I've got Ralphie Glick's scalp in my closet."

  "Now, I don't think that, not at all." He gazed at Ben over his cigarette, and his eyes had gone flinty. "I'm just tryin' to close you off. If I thought you had anything to do with anything, you'd be down in the tank."

  "Okay," Ben said. "I left the Nortons around quarter past seven. I took a walk out toward Schoolyard Hill. When it got too dark to see, I came back here, wrote for two hours, and went to bed."

  "What time did you get back here?"

  "Quarter past eight, I think. Around there."

  "Well, that don't clear you as well as I'd like. Did you see anybody?"

  "No," Ben said. "No one."

  Parkins made a noncommittal grunt and walked toward the typewriter. "What are you writin' about?"

  "None of your damn business," Ben said, and his voice had gone tight. "I'll thank you to keep your eyes and your hands off that. Unless you've got a search warrant, of course."

  "Kind of touchy, ain't you? For a man who means his books to be read?"

  "When it's gone through three drafts, editorial correction, galley-proof corrections, final set and print, I'll personally see that you get four copies. Signed. Right now that comes under the heading of private papers."

  Parkins smiled and moved away. "Good enough. I doubt like hell that it's a signed confession to anything, anyway."

  Ben smiled back. "Mark Twain said a novel was a confession to everything by a man who had never done anything."

  Parkins blew out smoke and went to the door. "I won't drip on your rug anymore, Mr Mears. Want to thank you for y'time, and just for the record, I don't think you ever saw that Glick boy. But it's my job to kind of ask round about these things."

  Ben nodded. "Understood."

  "And you oughtta know how things are in places like 'salem's Lot or Milbridge or Guilford or any little pissant burg. You're the stranger in town until you been here twenty years."

  "I know. I'm sorry if I snapped at you. But after a week of looking for him and not finding a goddamned thing--" Ben shook his head.

  "Yeah," Parkins said. "It's bad for his mother. Awful bad. You take care."

  "Sure," Ben said.

  "No hard feelin's?"

  "No." He paused. "Will you tell me one thing?"

  "I will if I can."

  "Where did you get that book? Really?"

  Parkins Gillespie smiled. "Well, there's a fella over in Cumberland that's got a used-furniture barn. Kind of a sissy fella, he is. Name of Gendron. He sells paperbacks a dime apiece. Had five of these."

  Ben threw back his head and laughed, and Parkins Gillespie went out, smiling and smoking. Ben went to the window and watched until he saw the constable come out and cross the street, walking carefully around puddles in his black galoshes.

  TEN

  Parkins paused a moment to look in the show window of the new shop before knocking on the door. When the place had been the Village Washtub, a body could look in here and see nothing but a lot of fat women in rollers adding bleach or getting change out of the machine on the wall, most of them chewing gum like cows with mouthfuls of mulch. But an interior decorator's truck from Portland had been here yesterday afternoon and most of today, and the place looked considerably different.

  A platform had been shoved up behind the window, and it was covered with a swatch of deep nubby carpet, light green in color. Two spotlights had been installed up out of sight, and they cast soft, highlighting glows on the three objects that had been arranged in the window: a clock, a spinning wheel, and an old-fashioned cherrywood cabinet. There was a small easel in front of each piece, and a discreet price tag on each easel, and my God, would anybody in their right mind actually pay $600 for a spinning wheel when they could go down to the Value House and get a Singer for $48.95?

  Sighing, Parkins went to the door and knocked.

  It was opened only a second later, almost as if the new fella had been lurking behind it, waiting for him to come to the door.

  "Inspector!" Straker said with a narrow smile. "How good of you to drop by!"

  "Plain old constable, I guess," Parkins said. He lit a Pall Mall and strolled in. "Parkins Gillespie. Pleased to meet you." He stuck out his hand. It was gripped, squeezed gently by a hand that felt enormously strong and very dry, and then dropped.

  "Richard Throckett Straker," the bald man said.

  "I figured you was," Parkins said, looking around. The entire shop had been carpeted and was in the process of being painted. The smell of fresh paint was a good one, but there seemed to be another smell underneath it, an unpleasant one. Parkins could not place it; he turned his attention back to Straker.

  "What can I do for you on this so-fine day?" Straker asked.

  Parkins turned his mild gaze out the window, where the rain continued to pour down.

  "Oh, nothing at all, I guess. I just came by to say how-do. More or less welcome you to the town an' wish you good luck, I guess."

  "How thoughtful. Would you care for a coffee? Some sherry? I have both out back."

  "No thanks, I can't stop. Mr Barlow around?"

  "Mr Barlow is in New York, on a buying trip. I don't expect him back until at least the tenth of October."

  "You'll be openin' without him, then," Parkins said, thinking that if the prices he had seen in the window were any indication, Straker wouldn't exactly be swamped with customers. "What's Mr Barlow's first name, by the way?"

  Straker's smile reappeared, razor-thin. "Are you asking in your official capacity, ah...Constable?"

  "Nope. Just curious."

  "My partner's full name is Kurt Barlow," Straker said. "We have worked together in both London and Hamburg. This"--he swept his arm around him--"this is our retirement. Modest. Yet tasteful. We expect to make no more than a living. Yet we both love old things, fine things, and we hope to make a reputation in the area...perhaps even throughout your so-beautiful New England region. Do yo
u think that would be possible, Constable Gillespie?"

  "Anything's possible, I guess," Parkins said, looking around for an ashtray. He saw none, and tapped his cigarette ash into his coat pocket. "Anyway, I hope you'll have the best of luck, and tell Mr Barlow when you see him that I'm gonna try and get around."

  "I'll do so," Straker said. "He enjoys company."

  "That's fine," Gillespie said. He went to the door, paused, looked back. Straker was looking at him intently. "By the way, how do you like that old house?"

  "It needs a great deal of work," Straker said. "But we have time."

  "I guess you do," Parkins agreed. "Don't suppose you seen any yow'uns up around there."

  Straker's brow creased. "Yowwens?"

  "Kids," Parkins explained patiently. "You know how they sometimes like to devil new folks. Throw rocks or ring the bell an' run away...that sort of thing."

  "No," Straker said. "No children."

  "We seem to kind have misplaced one."

  "Is that so?"

  "Yes," Parkins said judiciously, "yes, it is. The thinkin' now is that we may not find him. Not alive."

  "What a shame," Straker said distantly.

  "It is, kinda. If you should see anything..."

  "I would of course report it to your office, posthaste." He smiled his chilly smile again.

  "That's good," Parkins said. He opened the door and looked resignedly out at the pouring rain. "You tell Mr Barlow that I'm lookin' forward."

  "I certainly will, Constable Gillespie. Ciao."

  Parkins looked back, startled. "Chow?"

  Straker's smile widened. "Good-by, Constable Gillespie. That is the familiar Italian expression for good-by."

  "Oh? Well, you learn somethin' new every day, don't you? 'By." He stepped out into the rain and closed the door behind him. "Not familiar to me, it ain't." His cigarette was soaked. He threw it away.

  Inside, Straker watched him up the street through the show window. He was no longer smiling.

  ELEVEN

  When Parkins got back to his office in the Municipal Building, he called, "Nolly? You here, Nolly?"

  No answer. Parkins nodded. Nolly was a good boy, but a little bit short on brains. He took off his coat, unbuckled his galoshes, sat down at his desk, looked up a telephone number in the Portland book, and dialed. The other end picked up on the first ring.

  "FBI, Portland. Agent Hanrahan."

  "This is Parkins Gillespie. Constable at Jerusalem's Lot township. We've got us a missin' boy up here."