He reached for the door just as someone opened it from the other side. All at once John was facing two hundred and twenty pounds of angry Phys Ed coach.
"Just the man I wanted to see," Lester Pratt said in his new soft and silky voice. He held up a black leather wallet. "Lose something, you ugly two-timing gambling godless son of a bitch?"
John didn't have the slightest idea what Lester Pratt was doing here, or how he could have found his lost wallet. He only knew that he was Clut's designated backup and he had to get going right away.
"Whatever it is, I'll talk to you about it later, Lester," John said, and reached for his wallet. When Lester first pulled it back out of his reach and then brought it down hard, smacking him in the center of the face with it, John was more astounded than angry.
"Oh, I don't want to talk," Lester said in his new soft and silky voice. "I wouldn't waste my time." He dropped the wallet, grabbed John by the shoulders, picked him up, and threw him back into the Sheriff's Office. Deputy LaPointe flew six feet through the air and landed on top of Norris Ridgewick's desk. His butt skated across it, plowing a path through the heaped paperwork and knocking Norris's IN/OUT basket onto the floor. John followed, landing on his back with a painful thump.
Sheila Brigham was staring through the dispatcher's window, her mouth wide open.
John began to pick himself up. He was shaken and dazed, without the slightest clue as to what was going on here.
Lester was walking toward him in a fighting strut. His fists were held up in an old-fashioned John L. Sullivan pose that should have been comic but wasn't. "I'm going to learn you a lesson," Lester said in his new soft and silky voice. "I'm going to teach you what happens to Catholic fellows who steal Baptist fellows' girls. I'm going to teach you all about it, and when I'm done, you'll have it so right you'll never forget it."
Lester Pratt closed in to teaching distance.
9
Billy Tupper might not have been an intellectual, but he was a sympathetic ear, and a sympathetic ear was the best medicine for Henry Beaufort's rage that afternoon. Henry drank his drink and told Billy what had happened ... and as he talked, he felt himself calming down. It occurred to him that if he had gotten the shotgun and just kept rolling, he might have ended this day not behind his bar but behind those of the holding cell in the Sheriff's Office. He loved his T-Bird a lot, but he began to realize he didn't love it enough to go to prison for it. He could replace the tires, and the scratch down the side would eventually buff out. As for Hugh Priest, let the law take care of him.
He finished the drink and stood up.
"You still goin after him, Mr. Beaufort?" Billy asked apprehensively.
"I wouldn't waste my time," Henry said, and Billy breathed a sigh of relief. "I'm going to let Alan Pangborn take care of him. Isn't that what I pay my taxes for, Billy?"
"I guess so." Billy looked out the window and brightened a little more. A rusty old car, a car which had once been white but was now a faded no-color--call it Dirt Road Gray--was coming up the hill toward The Mellow Tiger, spreading a thick blue fog of exhaust behind it. "Look! It's old Lenny! I ain't seen him in a coon's age!"
"Well, we still don't open until five," Henry said. He went behind the bar to use the telephone. The box containing the sawed-off shotgun was still on the bar. I think I was planning to use that, he mused. I think I really was. What the hell gets into people--some kind of poison?
Billy walked toward the door as Lenny's old car pulled into the parking lot.
10
"Lester--" John LaPointe began, and that was when a fist almost as large as a Daisy canned ham--but much harder--collided with the center of his face. There was a dirty crunching sound as his nose broke in a burst of horrible pain. John's eyes squeezed shut and brightly colored sparks of light fountained up in the darkness. He went reeling and flailing across the room, waving his arms, fighting a losing battle to stay on his feet. Blood was pouring out of his nose and over his mouth. He struck the bulletin board and knocked it off the wall.
Lester began to walk toward him again, his brow wrinkled into a beetling frown of concentration below his screaming haircut.
In the dispatcher's office, Sheila got on the radio and began yelling for Alan.
11
Frank Jewett was on the verge of leaving the home of his good old "friend" George T. Nelson when he had a sudden cautionary thought. This thought was that, when George T. Nelson arrived home to find his bedroom trashed, his coke flushed, and the likeness of his mother beshitted, he might come looking for his old party-buddy. Frank decided it would be nuts to leave without finishing what he had started ... and if finishing what he had started meant blowing the blackmailing bastard's oysters off, so be it. There was a gun cabinet downstairs, and the idea of doing the job with one of George T. Nelson's own guns felt like poetic justice to Frank. If he was unable to unlock the gun cabinet, or force the door, he would help himself to one of his old party-buddy's steak-knives and do the job with that. He would stand behind the front door, and when George T. Nelson came in, Frank would either blow his motherfucking oysters off or grab him by the hair and cut his motherfucking throat. The gun would probably be the safer of the two options, but the more Frank thought of the hot blood jetting from George T. Nelson's slit neck and splashing all over his hands, the more fitting it seemed. Et tu, Georgie. Et tu, you blackmailing fuck.
Frank's reflections were disturbed at this point by George T. Nelson's parakeet, Tammy Faye, who had picked the most inauspicious moment of its small avian life to burst into song. As Frank listened, a peculiar and terribly unpleasant smile began to surface on his face. How did I miss that goddam bird the first time? he asked himself as he strode into the kitchen.
He found the drawer with the sharp knives in it after a little exploration and spent the next fifteen minutes poking it through the bars of Tammy Faye's cage, forcing the small bird into a fluttery, feather-shedding panic before growing bored with the game and skewering it. Then he went downstairs to see what he could do with the gun cabinet. The lock turned out to be easy, and as Frank climbed the stairs to the first floor again, he burst into an unseasonal but nonetheless cheery song: Ohh ... you better not fight, you better not cry,
You better not pout, I'm telling you why,
Santa Claus is coming to town!
He sees you when you're sleeping!
He knows when you're awake!
He knows if you've been bad or good,
So you better be good for goodness' sake!
Frank, who had never failed to watch Lawrence Welk every Saturday night with his own beloved mother, sang the last line in a low Larry Hooper basso. Gosh, he felt good! How could he have ever believed, only an hour or so earlier, that his life was at an end? This wasn't the end; it was the beginning! Out with the old--especially dear old "friends" like George T. Nelson--and in with the new!
Frank settled in behind the door. He was pretty well loaded for bear; there was a Winchester shotgun leaning against the wall, a Llama .32 automatic stuffed into his belt, and a Sheffington steak-knife in his hand. From where he stood he could see the heap of yellow feathers that had been Tammy Faye. A small grin twitched Frank's Mr. Weatherbee mouth and his eyes--utterly mad eyes now--rolled ceaselessly back and forth behind his round rimless Mr. Weatherbee spectacles.
"You better be good for goodness' sake!" he admonished under his breath. He sang this line several times as he stood there, and several more times after he had made himself more comfortable, sitting behind the door with his legs crossed, his back propped against the wall, and his weapons in his lap.
He began to feel alarmed at how sleepy he was becoming. It seemed nuts to be on the verge of dozing off when he was waiting to cut a man's throat, but that didn't change the fact. He thought he had read someplace (perhaps in one of his classes at the University of Maine at Farmington, a cow college from which he had graduated with absolutely no honors at all) that a severe shock to the nervous system sometimes ha
d that very effect ... and he'd suffered a severe shock, all right. It was a wonder his heart hadn't blown like an old tire when he saw those magazines scattered all over his office.
Frank decided it would be unwise to take chances. He moved George T. Nelson's long, oatmeal-colored sofa away from the wall a little bit, crawled behind it, and lay down on his back with the shotgun by his left hand. His right hand, still curled around the handle of the steak-knife, lay on his chest. There. Much better. George T. Nelson's deep-pile carpeting was actually quite comfortable.
"You better be good for goodness' sake," Frank sang under his breath. He was still singing in a low, snory voice ten minutes later, when he finally dozed off.
12
"Unit One!" Sheila screamed from the radio slung under the dash as Alan crossed the Tin Bridge on his way back into town. "Come in, Unit One! Come in right now!"
Alan felt a sickening lift-drop in his stomach. Clut had run into a hornet's nest up at Hugh Priest's house on Castle Hill Road--he was sure of it. Why in Christ's name hadn't he told Clut to rendezvous with John before bracing Hugh?
You know why--because not all your attention was on your job when you were giving orders. If something's happened to Clut because of that, you'll have to face it and own the part of it that's yours. But that comes later. Your job right now is to do your job. So do it, Alan--forget about Polly and do your damned job.
He snatched the microphone off its prongs. "Unit One, come back?"
"Someone's beating John up!" she screamed. "Come quick, Alan, he's hurting him bad!"
This information was so completely at odds with what Alan had expected that he was utterly flummoxed for a moment.
"What? Who? There?"
"Hurry up, he's killing him!"
All at once it clicked home. It was Hugh Priest, of course. For some reason Hugh had come to the Sheriff's Office, had arrived before John could get rolling for Castle Hill, and had started swinging. It was John LaPointe, not Andy Clutterbuck, who was in danger.
Alan grabbed the dash-flash, turned it on, and stuck it on the roof. When he reached the town side of the bridge he offered the old station wagon a silent apology and floored the accelerator.
13
Clut began to suspect Hugh wasn't home when he saw that all the tires on the man's car were not just flat but cut to pieces. He was about to approach the house anyway when he finally heard thin cries for help.
He stood where he was for a moment, undecided, then hurried back down the driveway. This time he saw Lenny lying on the side of the road and ran, holster flapping, to where the old man lay.
"Help me!" Lenny wheezed as Clut knelt by him. "Hugh Priest's gone crazy, tarnal fool's busted me right to Christ up!"
"Where you hurt, Lenny?" Clut asked. He touched the old man's shoulder. Lenny let out a shriek. It was as good an answer as any. Clut stood up, unsure of exactly what to do next. Too many things had gotten crammed up in his mind. All he knew for sure was that he desperately did not want to fuck this up.
"Don't move," he said at last. "I'm going to go call Medical Assistance."
"I ain't got no plans to get up and do the tango, y'goddam fool," Lenny said. He was crying and snarling with pain. He looked like an old bloodhound with a broken leg.
"Right," Clut said. He started to run back to his cruiser, then returned to Lenny again. "He took your car, right?"
"No!" Lenny gasped, holding his hands against his broken ribs. "He busted me up and then flew off on a magic fuckin carpet. Sure, he took my car! Why do you think I'm layin here? Get a fuckin tan?"
"Right," Clut repeated, and sprinted back down the road. Dimes and quarters bounced out of his pockets and spun across the macadam in bright little arcs.
He leaned in the window of his car so fast he almost knocked himself out on the door-ledge. He snagged the mike. He had to get Sheila to send help for the old man, but that wasn't the most important thing. Both Alan and the State Police had to know that Hugh Priest was now driving Lenny Partridge's old Chevrolet Bet-Air. Clut wasn't sure what year it was, but nobody could miss that dust-colored oil-burner.
But he could not raise Sheila in dispatch. He tried three times and there was no answer. No answer at all.
Now he could hear Lenny starting to scream again, and Clut went into Hugh's house to call Rescue Services in Norway on the telephone.
One hell of a fine time for Sheila to have to be on the john, he thought.
14
Henry Beaufort was also trying to reach the Sheriff's Office. He stood at the bar with the telephone pressed against his ear. It rang again and again and again. "Come on," he said, "answer the fucking phone. What are you guys doing over there? Playing gin rummy?"
Billy Tupper had gone outside. Henry heard him yell something and looked up impatiently. The yell was followed by a sudden loud bang. Henry's first thought was that one of Lenny's old tires had blown ... and then there were two more bangs.
Billy walked back into the Tiger. He was walking very slowly. He was holding one hand against his throat, and blood was pouring through his fingers.
" 'Enry!" Billy cried in a weird, strangled Cockney voice. "'Enry! 'En--"
He reached the Rock-Ola, stood there swaying for a moment, and then everything in his body seemed to let go at once and he collapsed in a loose tumble.
A shadow fell over his feet, which were almost out the door, and then the shadow's owner appeared. He was wearing a fox-tail around his neck and holding a pistol in one hand. Smoke drifted from its barrel. Tiny jewels of perspiration nestled in the sparse mat of hair between his nipples. The skin under his eyes was puffy and brown. He stepped over Billy Tupper and into the dimness of The Mellow Tiger.
"Hello, Henry," said Hugh Priest.
15
John LaPointe didn't know why this was happening, but he knew Lester was going to kill him if he kept it up--and Lester showed no sign of even slowing down, let alone stopping. He tried to slide down the wall and out of Lester's reach, but Lester grabbed his shirt and yanked him back up. Lester was still breathing easily. His own shirt had not even come untucked from the elastic waistband of his sweatpants.
"Here you go, Johnny-boy," Lester said, and smashed another fist into John's upper lip. John felt it split apart on his teeth. "Grow your goddam pussy-tickler over that."
Blindly, John stuck out one leg behind Lester and pushed as hard as he could. Lester uttered a surprised yell and went over, but he shot both hands out as he toppled, snagged them in John's blood-spattered shirt, and pulled the Deputy over on top of him. They began to roll across the floor, butting and punching.
Both were far too busy to see Sheila Brigham dart out of the dispatcher's cubicle and into Alan's office. She snatched the shotgun off the wall, cocked it, and ran back into the bullpen area, which was now a shambles. Lester was sitting on top of John, industriously banging his head against the floor.
Sheila knew how to use the gun she held ; she had been target-shooting since she was eight years old. Now she socked the butt-plate against her shoulder and screamed: "Get away from him, John! Give me a clear field!"
Lester turned at the sound of her voice, his eyes glaring. He bared his teeth at Sheila like an angry bull gorilla, then went back to banging John's head on the floor.
16
As Alan approached the Municipal Building, he saw the first unqualifiedly good thing of the day: Norris Ridgewick's VW approaching from the other direction. Norris was in plain clothes, but Alan cared not at all about that. He could use him this afternoon. Oh boy, how he could use him.
Then that went to hell, too.
A large red car--a Cadillac, license plate KEETON 1--suddenly shot out of the narrow alley which gave access to the Municipal Building's parking lot. Alan watched, gape-mouthed, as Buster drove his Cadillac into the side of Norris's Beetle. The Caddy wasn't going fast, but it was roughly four times the size of Norris's car. There was a crunch of crimping metal and the VW toppled over onto the passenger side wit
h a hollow bang and a tinkle of glass.
Alan slammed on the brakes and got out of his cruiser.
Buster was getting out of his Cadillac.
Norris was struggling out through the window of his Volkswagen with a dazed expression on his face.
Buster began to stalk toward Norris, his hands closing into fists. A frozen grin was rising on his fat round face.
Alan took one look at that grin and began to run.
17
The first shot Hugh fired shattered a bottle of Wild Turkey on the backbar. The second shattered the glass over a framed document which hung on the wall just above Henry's head and left a round black hole in the liquor license beneath. The third tore off Henry Beaufort's right cheek in a pink cloud of blood and vaporized flesh.
Henry shrieked, grabbed the box with the sawed-off shotgun inside, and dropped behind the bar. He knew Hugh had shot him, but he didn't know if it was bad or not. He was only aware that the right side of his face was suddenly as hot as a furnace, and that blood, warm, wet, and sticky, was pouring down the side of his neck.
"Let's talk about cars, Henry," Hugh was saying as he approached the bar. "Even better than that, let's talk about my fox-tait--what do you say?"
Henry opened the box. It was lined with red velvet. He stuck his jittery, unstable hands in and pulled out the sawed-off Winchester. He started to break it, then realized there was no time. He would just have to hope it was loaded.
He gathered his legs under him, getting ready to spring up and give Hugh what he sincerely hoped would be a big surprise.
18
Sheila realized John wasn't going to get out from under the crazy man, who she now believed was Lester Platt or Pratt . . . the gym teacher at the high school, anyway. She didn't think John could get out from under. Lester had stopped banging John's head against the floor and had closed his big hands around John's throat instead.