Needful Things Read online

  Norris held it like that all the way home.

  9

  The silver bell jingled.

  Slopey Dodd walked into Needful Things.

  "Hullo, Slopey," Mr. Gaunt said.

  "Hub-Huh-Hello, Mr. G-G-Guh--"

  "You don't need to stutter around me, Slopey," Mr. Gaunt said. He raised one of his hands with the first two fingers extended in a fork. He drew them down through the air in front of Slopey's homely face, and Slopey felt something--a tangled, knotted snarl in his mind--magically dissolve. His mouth fell open.

  "What did you do to me?" he gasped. The words ran perfectly out of his mouth, like beads on a string.

  "A trick Miss Ratcliffe would undoubtedly love to learn," Mr. Gaunt said. He smiled and made a mark beside Slopey's name on his sheet. He glanced at the grandfather clock ticking contentedly away in the corner. It was quarter to one. "Tell me how you got out of school early. Will anyone be suspicious?"

  "No." Slopey's face was still amazed, and he appeared to be trying to look down at his own mouth, as if he could actually see the words tumbling from it in such unprecedented good order. "I told Mrs. DeWeese I felt sick to my stomach. She sent me to the school nurse. I told the nurse I felt better, but still sick. She asked me if I thought I could walk home. I said yes, so she let me go." Slopey paused. "I came because I fell asleep in study hall. I dreamed you were calling me."

  "I was." Mr. Gaunt tented his oddly even fingers beneath his chin and smiled at the boy. "Tell me--did your mother like the pewter teapot you got her?"

  A blush mounted into Slopey's cheeks, turning them the color of old brick. He started to say something, then gave up and inspected his feet instead.

  In his softest, kindest voice, Mr. Gaunt said: "You kept it yourself, didn't you?"

  Slopey nodded, still looking at his feet. He felt ashamed and confused. Worst of all, he felt a terrible sense of loss and grief: somehow Mr. Gaunt had dissolved that tiresome, infuriating knot in his head ... and what good did it do? He was too embarrassed to talk.

  "Now what, pray tell, does a twelve-year-old boy want with a pewter teapot?"

  Slopey's cowlick, which had bobbed up and down a few seconds ago, now waved from side to side as he shook his head. He didn't know what a twelve-year-old boy wanted with a pewter teapot. He only knew that he wanted to keep it. He liked it. He really ... really ... liked it.

  "... feels," he muttered at last.

  "Pardon me?" Mr. Gaunt asked, raising his single wavy eyebrow.

  "I like the way it feels, I said!"

  "Slopey, Slopey," Mr. Gaunt said, coming around the counter, "you don't have to explain to me. I know all about that peculiar thing people call 'pride of possession.' I have made it the cornerstone of my career."

  Slopey Dodd shrank away from Mr. Gaunt in alarm. "Don't you touch me! Please don't!"

  "Slopey, I have no more intention of touching you than I do of telling you to give your mother the teapot. It's yours. You can do anything you want with it. In fact, I applaud your decision to keep it."

  "You ... you do?"

  "I do! Indeed I do! Selfish people are happy people. I believe that with all my heart. But Slopey ..."

  Slopey raised his head a little and looked fearfully through the hanging fringe of his red hair at Leland Gaunt.

  "The time has come for you to finish paying for it."

  "Oh!" An expression of vast relief filled Slopey's face. "Is that all you wanted me for? I thought maybe ..." But he either couldn't or didn't dare finish. He hadn't been sure what Mr. Gaunt had wanted.

  "Yes. Do you remember who you promised to play a trick on?"

  "Sure. Coach Pratt."

  "Right. There are two parts to this prank--you have to put something somewhere, plus you have to tell Coach Pratt something. And if you follow directions exactly, the teapot will be yours forever."

  "Can I talk like this, too?" Slopey asked eagerly. "Can I talk without stuttering forever, too?"

  Mr. Gaunt sighed regretfully. "I'm afraid you'll go back to the way you were as soon as you leave my shop, Slopey. I believe I do have an anti-stuttering device somewhere in stock, but--"

  "Please! Please, Mr. Gaunt! I'll do anything! I'll do anything to anyone! I hate to stutter!"

  "I know you would, but that's just the problem, don't you see? I am rapidly running out of pranks which need to be played; my dance-card, you might say, is nearly full. So you couldn't pay me."

  Slopey hesitated a long time before speaking again. When he did, his voice was low and diffident. "Couldn't you ... I mean, do you ever just ... give things away, Mr. Gaunt?"

  Leland Gaunt's face grew deeply sorrowful. "Oh, Slopey! How often I've thought of it, and with such longing! There is a deep, untapped well of charity in my heart. But..."

  "But?"

  "It just wouldn't be business," Mr. Gaunt finished. He favored Slopey with a compassionate smile ... but his eyes sparkled so wolfishly that Slopey took a step backward. "You understand, don't you?"

  "Uh ... yeah! Sure!"

  "Besides," Mr. Gaunt went on, "the next few hours are crucial to me. Once things really get rolling, they can rarely be stopped ... but for the time being, I must make prudence my watchword. If you suddenly stopped stuttering, it might raise questions. That would be bad. The Sheriff is already asking questions he has no business asking." His face darkened momentarily, and then his ugly, charming, jostling smile burst forth again. "But I intend to take care of him, Slopey. Ah, yes."

  "Sheriff Pangborn, you mean?"

  "Yes--Sheriff Pangborn, that's what I mean to say." Mr. Gaunt raised his first two fingers and once again drew them down in front of Slopey Dodd's face, from forehead to chin. "But we never talked about him, did we?"

  "Talked about who?" Slopey asked, bewildered.

  "Exactly."

  Leland Gaunt was wearing a jacket of dark-gray suede today, and from one of its pockets he produced a black leather wallet. He held it out to Slopey, who took it gingerly, being careful not to touch Mr. Gaunt's fingers.

  "You know Coach Pratt's car, don't you?"

  "The Mustang? Sure."

  "Put this in it. Under the passenger seat, with just a comer sticking out. Go to the high school right now--it wants to be there before the last bell. Do you understand?"

  "Yes."

  "Then you're to wait until he comes out. And when he does ..."

  Mr. Gaunt went on speaking in a low murmur, and Slopey looked up at him, jaw slack, eyes dazed, nodding every once in a while.

  Slopey Dodd left a few minutes later with John LaPointe's wallet tucked into his shirt.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  1

  Nettie lay in a plain gray casket which Polly Chalmers had paid for. Alan had asked her to let him help share the expense, and she'd refused in that simple but final way he had come to know, respect, and accept. The coffin stood on steel runners above a plot in Homeland Cemetery near the area where Polly's people were buried. The mound of earth next to it was covered with a carpet of bright green artificial grass which sparkled feverishly in the hot sunlight. That fake grass never failed to make Alan shudder. There was something obscene about it, something hideous. He liked it even less than the morticians' practice of first rouging the dead and then dolling them up in their finest clothes so they looked as if they were bound for a big business meeting in Boston instead of a long season of decay amid the roots and the worms.

  Reverend Tom Killingworth, the Methodist minister who conducted twice-weekly services at Juniper Hill and who had known Nettie well, performed the service at Polly's request. The homily was brief but warm, full of reference to the Nettie Cobb this man had known, a woman who had been slowly and bravely coming out of the shadows of insanity, a woman who had taken the courageous decision to try to treat once more with the world which had hurt her so badly.

  "When I was growing up," Tom Killingworth said, "my mother kept a plaque with a lovely Irish saying on it in her sewing room. It said 'May you be i
n heaven half an hour before the devil knows you're dead.' Nettie Cobb had a hard life, in many ways a sad life, but in spite of that I do not believe she and the devil ever had much to do with each other. In spite of her terrible, untimely death, my heart believes that it is to heaven she has gone, and that the devil still hasn't gotten the news." Killingworth raised his arms in the traditional gesture of benediction. "Let us pray."

  From the far side of the hill, where Wilma Jerzyck was being buried at the same time, came the sound of many voices rising and falling in response to Father John Brigham. Over there, cars were lined up from the burial site all the way to the cemetery's east gate; they had come for Peter Jerzyck, the living, if not for his dead wife. Over here there were only five mourners: Polly, Alan, Rosalie Drake, old Lenny Partridge (who went to all funerals on general principles, so long as it wasn't one of the Pope's army getting buried), and Norris Ridgewick. Norris looked pale and distracted. Fish must not have been biting, Alan thought.

  "May the Lord bless you and keep your memories of Nettie Cobb fresh and green in your hearts," Killingworth said, and beside Alan, Polly began to cry again. He put an arm around her and she moved against him gratefully, her hand finding his and twining in it tightly. "May the Lord lift up His face upon you; may He shower His grace upon you; may He cheer your souls and give you peace. Amen."

  The day was even hotter than Columbus Day had been, and when Alan raised his head, darts of bright sunlight bounced off the casket-rails and into his eyes. He wiped his free hand across his forehead, where a solid summer sweat had broken. Polly fumbled in her purse for a fresh Kleenex and wiped her streaming eyes with it.

  "Honey, are you all right?" Alan asked.

  "Yes ... but I have to cry for her, Alan. Poor Nettie. Poor, poor Nettie. Why did this happen? Why?" And she began to sob again.

  Alan, who wondered exactly the same thing, gathered her into his arms. Over her shoulder he saw Norris wandering away toward where the cars belonging to Nettie's mourners were huddled, looking like a man who either doesn't know where he is going or who isn't quite awake. Alan frowned. Then Rosalie Drake approached Norris, said something to him, and Norris gave her a hug.

  Alan thought, He knew her, too--he's just sad, that's all. You're jumping at an almighty lot of shadows these days--maybe the real question here is what's the matter with you?

  Then Killingworth was there and Polly was turning to thank him, getting herself under control. Killingworth held out his hands. With guarded amazement Alan watched the fearless way Polly allowed her own hand to be swallowed up in the minister's larger ones. He could not remember ever seeing Polly offer one of her hands so freely and unthoughtfully.

  She's not just a little better; she's a lot better. What in the hell happened?

  On the other side of the hill, Father John Brigham's nasal, rather irritating voice proclaimed: "Peace be with you."

  "And with you," the mourners replied en masse.

  Alan looked at the plain gray casket beside that hideous swath of fake green grass and thought, Peace be with you, Nettie. Now and at last, peace be with you.

  2

  As the twin funerals at Homeland were winding up, Eddie Warburton was parking in front of Polly's house. He slipped from his car--not a nice new car like the one that honky bastard down at the Sunoco had wrecked, just transportation--and looked cautiously both ways. Everything seemed fine; the street was dozing through what might have been an afternoon in early August.

  Eddie hurried up Polly's walk, fumbling an official-looking envelope out of his shirt as he went. Mr. Gaunt had called him only ten minutes ago, telling him it was time to finish paying for his medallion, and here he was ... of course. Mr. Gaunt was the sort of guy who, when he said frog, you jumped.

  Eddie climbed the three steps to Polly's porch. A hot little gust of breeze stirred the windchimes above the door, making them jingle softly together. It was the most civilized sound imaginable, but Eddie jumped slightly anyway. He took another look around, saw no one, then looked down at the envelope again. Addressed to "Ms. Patricia Chalmers"--pretty hoity-toity! Eddie hadn't the slightest idea that Polly's real first name was Patricia, nor did he care. His job was to do this little trick and then get the hell out of here.

  He dropped the letter into the mail-slot. It fluttered down and landed on top of the other mail: two catalogues and a cable-TV brochure. Just a business-length envelope with Polly's name and address centered below the metered mail stamp in the upper right comer and the return address in the upper left: San Francisco Department of Child

  Welfare 666 Geary Street

  San Francisco, California 94112

  3

  "What is it?" Alan asked as he and Polly walked slowly down the hill toward Alan's station wagon. He had hoped to pass at least a word with Norris, but Norris had already gotten into his VW and taken off. Back to the lake for a little more fishing before the sun went down, probably.

  Polly looked up at him, still red-eyed and too pale, but smiling tentatively. "What is what?"

  "Your hands. What's made them all better? It's like magic."

  "Yes," she said, and held them out before her, splay-fingered, so they could both look at them. "It is, isn't it?" Her smile was a little more natural now.

  Her fingers were still twisted, still crooked, and the joints were still bunched, but the acute swelling which had been there Friday night was almost completely gone.

  "Come on, lady. Give."

  "I'm not sure I want to tell you," she said. "I'm a little embarrassed, actually."

  They stopped and waved at Rosalie as she drove by in her old blue Toyota.

  "Come on," Alan said. " 'Fess up."

  "Well," she said, "I guess it was just a matter of finally meeting the right doctor." Slow color was rising in her cheeks.

  "Who's that?"

  "Dr. Gaunt," she said with a nervous little laugh. "Dr. Leland Gaunt."

  "Gaunt!" He looked at her in surprise. "What does he have to do with your hands?"

  "Drive me down to his shop and I'll tell you on the way."

  4

  Five minutes later (one of the nicest things about living in Castle Rock, Alan sometimes thought, was that almost everything was only five minutes away), he swung into one of the slant spaces in front of Needful Things. There was a sign in the window, one Alan had seen before: TUESDAYS AND THURSDAYS BY APPOINTMENT ONLY.

  It suddenly occurred to Alan--who hadn't thought about this aspect of the new store at all until now--that closed except "by appointment" was one fuck of a strange way to run a small-town business.

  "Alan?" Polly asked hesitantly. "You look mad."

  "I'm not mad," he said. "What in the world do I have to be mad about? The truth is, I don't know how I feel. I guess--" He uttered a short laugh, shook his head, and started again. "I guess I'm what Todd used to call 'gabberflasted.' Quack remedies? It just doesn't seem like you, Pol."

  Her lips tightened at once, and there was a warning in her eyes when she turned to look at him. " 'Quack' isn't the word I'd have used. Quack is for ducks and ... and prayer-wheels from the ads in the back of Inside View. 'Quack' is the wrong word to use if a thing works, Alan. Do you think I'm wrong?"

  He opened his mouth--to say what, he wasn't sure--but she went on before he could say anything.

  "Look at this." She held her hands out in the sunshine flooding through the windshield, then opened them and closed them effortlessly several times.

  "All right. Poor choice of words. What I--"

  "Yes, I'd say so. A very poor choice."

  "I'm sorry."

  She turned all the way around to face him then, sitting where Annie had so often sat, sitting in what had once been the Pangborn family car. Why haven't I traded this thing yet? Alan wondered. What am I--crazy?

  Polly placed her hands gently over Alan's. "Oh, this is starting to feel really uncomfortable--we never argue, and I'm not going to start now. I buried a good companion today. I'm not going to have a f
ight with my boyfriend, as well."

  A slow grin lit his face. "That what I am? Your boyfriend?"

  "Well ... you're my friend. Can I at least say that?"

  He hugged her, a little astonished at how close they had come to having harsh words. And not because she felt worse; because she felt better. "Honey, you can say anything you want. I love you a bunch."

  "And we're not going to fight, no matter what."

  He nodded solemnly. "No matter. what."

  "Because I love you, too, Alan."

  He kissed her cheek, then let her go. "Let me see this ashcan thing he gave you."

  "It's not an ashcan, it's an azka. And he didn't give it to me, he loaned it to me on a trial basis. That's why I'm here--to buy it. I told you that. I just hope he doesn't want the moon and stars for it."

  Alan looked at the sign in the display window, and at the shade pulled down over the door. He thought, I'm afraid that's just what he is going to want, darlin.

  He didn't. like any of this. He had found it hard to take his eyes away from Polly's hands during the funeral service--he had watched her manipulate the catch on her purse effortlessly, dip into her bag for a Kleenex, then close the catch with the tips of her fingers instead of shuffling the bag awkwardly around so she could do it with her thumbs, which were usually a good deal less painful. He knew her hands were better, but this story about a magic charm--and that was what it came down to when you scraped the frosting off the cake--made him extremely nervous. It reeked of confidence game.

  TUESDAYS AND THURSDAYS BY APPOINTMENT ONLY.

  No--except for a few fancy restaurants like Maurice, he hadn't seen a business that kept appointment-only hours since he'd come to Maine. And you could walk right off the street and get a table at Maurice nine times out of ten ... except in the summer, of course, when the tourists were spawning.

  BY APPOINTMENT ONLY.

  Nevertheless, he had seen (out of the corner of his eye, as it were) people going in and out all week long. Not in droves, maybe, but it was clear that Mr. Gaunt's way of doing business hadn't hurt him any, odd or not. Sometimes his customers came in little groups, but far more often they seemed to be on their own ... or so it seemed to Alan now, casting his mind back over the previous week. And wasn't that how con-men worked? They split you off from the herd, got you on your own, made you comfortable, and then showed you how you could own the Lincoln Tunnel for this one-time-only low price.