Salem's Lot Page 18

  He leaned his forehead against the glass, allowing the handsome face that had been, in some measure at least, his curse sag into drawn lines of distracted weariness.

  I'm a drunk and I'm a lousy priest, Father.

  With his eyes closed he could see the darkness of the confessional booth, could feel his fingers sliding back the window and rolling up the shade on all the secrets of the human heart, could smell varnish and old velvet from the kneeling benches and the sweat of old men; could taste alkali traces in his saliva.

  Bless me, Father,

  (I broke my brother's wagon, I hit my wife, I peeked in Mrs Sawyer's window when she was undressing, I lied, I cheated, I have had lustful thoughts, I, I, I)

  for I have sinned.

  He opened his eyes and Fred Astaire had not appeared yet. On the stroke of midnight, perhaps. His town was asleep. Except--

  He glanced up. Yes, the lights were on up there.

  He thought of the Bowie girl--no, McDougall, her name was McDougall now--saying in her breathy little voice that she had hit her baby and when he asked how often, he could sense (could almost hear) the wheels turning in her mind, making a dozen times five, or a hundred a dozen. Sad excuse for a human being. He had baptized the baby. Randall Fratus McDougall. Conceived in the backseat of Royce McDougall's car, probably during the second feature of a drive-in double bill. Tiny screaming little thing. He wondered if she knew or guessed that he would like to reach through the little window with both hands and grasp the soul on the other side as it fluttered and twisted and squeeze it until it screamed. Your penance is six head-knocks and a good swift kick in the ass. Go your way and sin no more.

  "Dull," he said.

  But there was more than dullness in the confessional; it was not that by itself that had sickened him or propelled him toward that always widening club, Associated Catholic Priests of the Bottle and Knights of the Cutty Sark. It was the steady, dead, onrushing engine of the church, bearing down all petty sins on its endless shuttle to heaven. It was the ritualistic acknowledgment of evil by a church now more concerned with social evils; atonement told in beads for elderly ladies whose parents had spoken European tongues. It was the actual presence of evil in the confessional, as real as the smell of old velvet. But it was a mindless, moronic evil from which there was no mercy or reprieve. The fist crashing into the baby's face, the tire cut open with a jackknife, the barroom brawl, the insertion of razor blades into Halloween apples, the constant, vapid qualifiers which the human mind, in all its labyrinthine twists and turns, is able to spew forth. Gentlemen, better prisons will cure this. Better cops. Better social services agencies. Better birth control. Better sterilization techniques. Better abortions. Gentlemen, if we rip this fetus from the womb in a bloody tangle of unformed arms and legs, it will never grow up to beat an old lady to death with a hammer. Ladies, if we strap this man into a specially wired chair and fry him like a pork chop in a microwave oven, he will never have an opportunity to torture any more boys to death. Countrymen, if this eugenics bill is passed, I can guarantee you that never again--

  Shit.

  The truth of his condition had been becoming clearer and clearer to him for some time now, perhaps for as long as three years. It had gained clarity and resolution like an out-of-focus motion picture being adjusted until every line is sharp and defined. He had been pining for a Challenge. The new priests had theirs: racial discrimination, women's liberation, even gay liberation; poverty, insanity, illegality. They made him uncomfortable. The only socially conscious priests he felt at ease with were the ones who had been militantly opposed to the war in Vietnam. Now that their cause had become obsolete, they sat around and discussed marches and rallies the way old married couples discuss their honeymoons or their first train rides. But Callahan was neither a new priest nor an old one; he found himself cast in the role of a traditionalist who can no longer even trust his basic postulates. He wanted to lead a division in the army of--who? God, right, goodness, they were names for the same thing--into battle against EVIL. He wanted issues and battle lines and never mind standing in the cold outside supermarkets handing out leaflets about the lettuce boycott or the grape strike. He wanted to see EVIL with its cerements of deception cast aside, with every feature of its visage clear. He wanted to slug it out toe to toe with EVIL, like Muhammad Ali against Joe Frazier, the Celtics against the Knicks, Jacob against the Angel. He wanted this struggle to be pure, unhindered by the politics that rode the back of every social issue like a deformed Siamese twin. He had wanted all this since he had wanted to be a priest, and that call had come to him at the age of fourteen, when he had been inflamed by the story of St Stephen, the first Christian martyr, who had been stoned to death and who had seen Christ at the moment of his death. Heaven was a dim attraction compared to that of fighting--and perhaps perishing--in the service of the Lord.

  But there were no battles. There were only skirmishes of vague resolution. And EVIL did not wear one face but many, and all of them were vacuous and more often than not the chin was slicked with drool. In fact, he was being forced to the conclusion that there was no EVIL in the world at all but only evil--or perhaps (evil). At moments like this he suspected that Hitler had been nothing but a harried bureaucrat and Satan himself a mental defective with a rudimentary sense of humor--the kind that finds feeding firecrackers wrapped in bread to seagulls unutterably funny.

  The great social, moral, and spiritual battles of the ages boiled down to Sandy McDougall slamming her snot-nosed kid in the corner and the kid would grow up and slam his own kid in the corner, world without end, hallelujah, chunky peanut butter. Hail Mary, full of grace, help me win this stock-car race.

  It was more than dull. It was terrifying in its consequences for any meaningful definition of life, and perhaps of heaven. What there? An eternity of church bingo, amusement park rides, and celestial drag strips?

  He looked over at the clock on the wall. It was six minutes past midnight and still no sign of Fred Astaire or Ginger Rogers. Not even Mickey Rooney. But the E-Vap had had time to set. Now he would vacuum it up and Mrs Curless would not look at him with that expression of pity, and life would go on. Amen.

  Chapter Seven

  Matt

  At the end of period three on Tuesday, Matt walked up to the office and Ben Mears was there waiting for him.

  "Hi," Matt said. "You're early."

  Ben stood up and shook hands. "Family curse, I guess. Say, these kids aren't going to eat me, are they?"

  "Positive," Matt said. "Come on."

  He was a little surprised. Ben had dressed in a nice-looking sport coat and a pair of gray double-knit slacks. Good shoes that looked as if they hadn't been worn much. Matt had had other literary types into his classes and they were usually dressed in casual clothes or something downright weird. A year ago he had asked a rather well-known female poet who had done a reading at the University of Maine at Portland if she would come in the following day and talk to a class about poetry. She had shown up in pedal pushers and high heels. It seemed to be a subconscious way of saying: Look at me, I've beaten the system at its own game. I come and go like the wind.

  His admiration for Ben went up a notch in comparison. After thirty-plus years of teaching, he believed that nobody beat the system or won the game, and only suckers ever thought they were ahead.

  "It's a nice building," Ben said, looking around as they walked down the hall. "Helluva lot different from where I went to high school. Most of the windows in that place looked like loopholes."

  "First mistake," Matt said. "You must never call it a building. It's a 'plant.' Blackboards are 'visual aids.' And the kids are a 'homogenous midteen coeducational student body.'"

  "How wonderful for them," Ben said, grinning.

  "It is, isn't it? Did you go to college, Ben?"

  "I tried. Liberal arts. But everybody seemed to be playing an intellectual game of capture-the-flag--you too can find an ax and grind it, thus becoming known and loved. Also, I fl
unked out. When Conway's Daughter sold, I was bucking cases of Coca-Cola onto delivery trucks."

  "Tell the kids that. They'll be interested."

  "You like teaching?" Ben said.

  "Sure I like it. It would have been a busted-axle forty years if I didn't."

  The late bell rang, echoing loudly in the corridor, which was empty now except for one loitering student who was wandering slowly past a painted arrow under a sign which read "Wood Shop."

  "How's drugs here?" Ben asked.

  "All kinds. Like every school in America. Ours is booze more than anything else."

  "Not marijuana?"

  "I don't consider pot a problem and neither does the administration, when it speaks off the record with a few knocks of Jim Beam under its belt. I happen to know that our guidance counselor, who is one of the best in his line, isn't averse to toking up and going to a movie. I've tried it myself. The effect is fine, but it gives me acid indigestion."

  "You have?"

  "Shhh," Matt said. "Big Brother is listening everywhere. Besides, this is my room."

  "Oh boy."

  "Don't be nervous," Matt said, and led him in. "Good morning, folks," he said to the twenty or so students, who were eying Ben closely. "This is Mr Ben Mears."

  TWO

  At first Ben thought he had the wrong house.

  When Matt Burke invited him for supper he was quite sure he had said the house was the small gray one after the red brick, but there was rock 'n' roll music pouring from this one in a steady stream.

  He used the tarnished brass knocker, got no answer, and rapped again. This time the music was turned down and a voice that was unmistakably Matt's yelled, "It's open! Come on in!"

  He did, looking around curiously. The front door opened directly on a small living room furnished in Early American Junk Shop and dominated by an incredibly ancient Motorola TV. A KLH sound system with quad speakers was putting out the music.

  Matt came out of the kitchen, outfitted in a red-and-white checked apron. The odor of spaghetti sauce wandered out after him.

  "Sorry about the noise," Matt said. "I'm a little deaf. I turn it up."

  "Good music."

  "I've been a rock fan ever since Buddy Holly. Lovely music. Are you hungry?"

  "Yeah," Ben said. "Thanks again for asking me. I've eaten out more since I came back to 'salem's Lot than I have in the last five years, I guess."

  "It's a friendly town. Hope you don't mind eating in the kitchen. An antique man came by a couple of months ago and offered me two hundred dollars for my dining room table. I haven't gotten around to getting another one."

  "I don't mind. I'm a kitchen eater from a long line of kitchen eaters."

  The kitchen was astringently neat. On the small four-burner stove, a pot of spaghetti sauce simmered and a colander full of spaghetti stood steaming. A small drop-leaf table was set with a couple of mismatched plates and glasses which had animated cartoon figures dancing around the rims--jelly glasses, Ben thought with amusement. The last constraint of being with a stranger dropped away and he began to feel at home.

  "There's Bourbon, rye, and vodka in the cupboard over the sink," Matt said, pointing. "There's some mixers in the fridge. Nothing too fancy, I'm afraid."

  "Bourbon and tap water will do me."

  "Go to it. I'm going to serve this mess up."

  Mixing his drink, Ben said, "I liked your kids. They asked good questions. Tough, but good."

  "Like where do you get your ideas?" Matt asked, mimicking Ruthie Crockett's sexy little-girl lisp.

  "She's quite a piece."

  "She is indeed. There's a bottle of Lancers in the icebox behind the pineapple chunks. I got it special."

  "Say, you shouldn't--"

  "Oh come, Ben. We hardly see best-selling authors in the Lot every day."

  "That's a little extravagant."

  Ben finished the rest of his drink, took a plate of spaghetti from Matt, ladled sauce over it, and twirled a forkful against his spoon. "Fantastic," he said. "Mamma mia."

  "But of course," Matt said.

  Ben looked down at his plate, which had emptied with amazing rapidity. He wiped his mouth a little guiltily.

  "More?"

  "Half a plate, if it's okay. It's great spaghetti."

  Matt brought him a whole plate. "If we don't eat it, my cat will. He's a miserable animal. Weighs twenty pounds and waddles to his dish."

  "Lord, how did I miss him?"

  Matt smiled. "He's cruising. Is your new book a novel?"

  "A fictionalized sort of thing," Ben said. "To be honest, I'm writing it for money. Art is wonderful, but just once I'd like to pull a big number out of the hat."

  "What are the prospects?"

  "Murky," Ben said.

  "Let's go in the living room," Matt said. "The chairs are lumpy but more comfortable than these kitchen horrors. Did you get enough to eat?"

  "Does the Pope wear a tall hat?"

  In the living room Matt put on a stack of albums and went to work firing up a huge, knotted calabash pipe. After he had it going to his satisfaction (sitting in the middle of a huge raft of smoke), he looked up at Ben.

  "No," he said. "You can't see it from here."

  Ben looked around sharply. "What?"

  "The Marsten House. I'll bet you a nickel that's what you were looking for."

  Ben laughed uneasily. "No bet."

  "Is your book set in a town like 'salem's Lot?"

  "Town and people." Ben nodded. "There are a series of sex murders and mutilations. I'm going to open with one of them and describe it in progress, from start to finish, in minute detail. Rub the reader's nose in it. I was outlining that part when Ralphie Glick disappeared and it gave me...well, it gave me a nasty turn."

  "You're basing all of this on the disappearances of the thirties in the township?"

  Ben looked at him closely. "You know about that?"

  "Oh yes. A good many of the older residents do, too. I wasn't in the Lot then, but Mabel Werts and Glynis Mayberry and Milt Crossen were. Some of them have made the connection already."

  "What connection?"

  "Come now, Ben. The connection is pretty obvious, isn't it?"

  "I suppose so. The last time the house was occupied, four kids disappeared over a period of ten years. Now it's occupied again after a thirty-six-year period, and Ralphie Glick disappears right off the bat."

  "Do you think it's a coincidence?"

  "I suppose so," Ben said cautiously. Susan's words of caution were very much in his ears. "But it's funny. I checked through the copies of the Ledger from 1939 to 1970 just to get a comparison. Three kids disappeared. One ran off and was later found working in Boston--he was sixteen and looked older. Another one was fished out of the Androscoggin a month later. And one was found buried off Route 116 in Gates, apparently the victim of a hit-and-run. All explained."

  "Perhaps the Glick boy's disappearance will be explained, too."

  "Maybe."

  "But you don't think so. What do you know about this man Straker?"

  "Nothing at all," Ben said. "I'm not even sure I want to meet him. I've got a viable book working right now, and it's bound up in a certain concept of the Marsten House and inhabitants of that house. Discovering Straker to be a perfectly ordinary businessman, as I'm sure he is, might knock me off kilter."

  "I don't think that would be the case. He opened the store today, you know. Susie Norton and her mother dropped by, I understand...hell, most of the women in town got in long enough to get a peek. According to Dell Markey, an unimpeachable source, even Mabel Werts hobbled down. The man is supposed to be quite striking. A dandy dresser, extremely graceful, totally bald. And charming. I'm told he actually sold some pieces."

  Ben grinned. "Wonderful. Has anyone seen the other half of the team?"

  "He's on a buying trip, supposedly."

  "Why supposedly?"

  Matt shrugged restlessly. "I don't know. The whole thing is probably perfectly on the
level, but the house makes me nervous. Almost as if the two of them had sought it out. As you said, it's like an idol, squatting there on top of its hill."

  Ben nodded.

  "And on top of everything else, we have another child disappearance. And Ralphie's brother, Danny. Dead at twelve. Cause of death pernicious anemia."

  "What's odd about that? It's unfortunate, of course--"

  "My doctor is a young fellow named Jimmy Cody, Ben. I had him in school. He was a little heller then, a good doctor now. This is gossip, mind you. Hearsay."

  "Okay."

  "I was in for a checkup, and happened to mention that it was a shame about the Glick boy, dreadful for his parents on top of the other one's vanishing act. Jimmy said he had consulted with George Gorby on the case. The boy was anemic, all right. He said that a red cell count on a boy Danny's age should run anywhere from eighty-five to ninety-eight percent. Danny's was down to forty-five percent."

  "Wow," Ben said.

  "They were giving him B12 injections and calf liver and it seemed to be working fine. They were going to release him the next day. And boom, he dropped dead."

  "You don't want to let Mabel Werts get that," Ben said. "She'll be seeing natives with poison blowguns in the park."

  "I haven't mentioned it to anyone but you. And I don't intend to. And by the way, Ben, I believe I'd keep the subject matter of your book quiet, if I were you. If Loretta Starcher asks what you're writing about, tell her it's architecture."

  "I've already been given that advice."

  "By Susan Norton, no doubt."

  Ben looked at his watch and stood up. "Speaking of Susan--"

  "The courting male in full plumage," Matt said. "As it happens, I have to go up to the school. We are reblocking the third act of the school play, a comedy of great social significance called Charley's Problem."

  "What is his problem?"

  "Pimples," Matt said, and grinned.

  They walked to the door together, Matt pausing to pull on a faded school letter jacket. Ben thought he had the figure of an aging track coach rather than that of a sedentary English teacher--if you ignored his face, which was intelligent yet dreamy, and somehow innocent.