"Let's get on with it," Buster said in a low, hoarse voice.
"Just a minute, Dad," Ace said. "It's break-time." He handed Buster the flashlight and took out the plastic bag Mr. Gaunt had given him. He tipped a little pile of coke into the snuff-hollow on his left hand, and snorted it quickly.
"What's that?" Buster asked suspiciously.
"South American bingo-dust, and it's just as tasty as taters."
"Huh," Keeton snorted. "Cocaine. They sell cocaine."
Ace didn't have to ask who They were. The old dude had talked about nothing else on the ride up here, and Ace suspected he would talk about nothing else all night.
"Not true, Dad," Ace said. "They don't sell it; They're the ones who want it all to Themselves." He tipped a little more into the snuff-hollow at the base of his thumb and held his hand out. "Try it and tell me I'm wrong."
Keeton looked at him with a mixture of doubt, curiosity, and suspicion. "Why do you keep calling me Dad? I'm not old enough to be your dad."
"Well, I doubt if you ever read the underground comics, but there is this guy named R. Crumb," Ace said. The coke was at work in him now, sparking all his nerve-endings alight. "He does these comics about a guy named Zippy. And to me, you look just like Zippy's Dad."
"Is that good?" Buster asked suspiciously.
"Awesome," Ace assured him. "But I'll call you Mr. Keeton, if you want." He paused and then added deliberately, "Just like They do."
"No," Buster said at once, "that's all right. As long as it's not an insult."
"Absolutely not," Ace said. "Go on--try it. A little of this shit and you'll be singing 'Heigh ho, heigh ho, it's off to work we go' until the break of dawn."
Buster gave him another look of dark suspicion, then snorted the coke Ace had offered. He coughed, sneezed, then clapped a hand to his nose. His watering eyes stared balefully at Ace. "It burns!"
"Only the first time," Ace assured him happily.
"Anyway, I don't feel a thing. Let's stop fooling around and get this dynamite into the van."
"You bet, Dad."
It took them less than ten minutes to load the crates of dynamite. After they had put the last one in, Buster said: "Maybe that stuff of yours does do something, after all. Can I have a little more?"
"Sure, Dad." Ace grinned. "I'll join you."
They tooted up and headed back to town. Buster drove, and now he began to look not like Zippy's Dad but Mr. Toad in Walt Disney's The Wind in the Willows. A new, frantic light had come into the Head Selectman's eyes. It was amazing how fast the confusion had dropped out of his mind; he now felt he could understand everything They had been up to--every plan, every plot, every machination. He told Ace all about it as Ace sat in the back of the van with his legs crossed, hooking up Hotpoint timers to blasting caps. For the time being at least, Buster had forgotten all about Alan Pangborn, who was Their ringleader. He was entranced by the idea of blowing Castle Rock--or as much of it as possible--to kingdom come.
Ace's respect became solid admiration. The old fuck was crazy, and Ace liked crazy people--always had. He felt at home with them. And, like most people on their first cocaine high, old Dad's mind was touring the outer planets. He couldn't shut up. All Ace had to do was keep saying, "Uh-huh," and "That's right, Dad," and "Fuckin-A, Dad."
Several times he almost called Keeton Mr. Toad instead of Dad, but caught himself. Calling this guy Mr. Toad might be a very bad idea.
They crossed the Tin Bridge while Alan was still three miles from it and got out in the pouring rain. Ace found a blanket in one of the van's bench compartments and draped it over a bundle of dynamite and one of the cap-equipped timers.
"Do you want help?" Buster asked nervously.
"You better let me handle it, Dad. You'd be apt to fall in the goddam stream, and I'd have to waste time fishing you out. Just keep your eyes open, okay?"
"I will. Ace ... why don't we sniff a little more of that cocaine first?"
"Not right now," Ace said indulgently, and patted one of Buster's meaty arms. "This shit is almost pure. You want to explode?"
"Not me, " Buster said. "Everything else, but not me." He began to laugh wildly. Ace joined him.
"Havin some fun tonight, huh, Dad?"
Buster was amazed to find this was true. His depression following Myrtle's ... Myrtle's accident ... now seemed years distant. He felt that he and his excellent friend Ace Merrill finally had Them right where they wanted Them: in the palm of their collective hand.
"You bet," he said, and watched Ace slide down the wet, grassy bank beside the bridge with the blanket wrapped parcel of dynamite held against his belly.
It was relatively dry under the bridge; not that it mattered--both the dynamite and the blasting caps had been waterproofed. Ace put his package in the elbow-crook formed by two of the struts, then attached the blasting cap to the dynamite by poking the wires--the tips were already stripped, how convenient--into one of the sticks. He twisted the big white dial of the timer to 40. It began ticking.
He crawled out and scrambled back up the slippery bank.
"Well?" Buster asked anxiously. "Will it blow, do you think?"
"It'll blow," Ace said reassuringly, and climbed into the van. He was soaked to the skin, but he didn't mind.
"What if They find it? What if They disconnect it before--"
"Dad," Ace said. "Listen a minute. Poke your head out this door and listen."
Buster did. Faintly, between blasts of thunder, he thought he could hear yells and screams. Then, clearly, he heard the thin, hard crack of a pistol shot.
"Mr. Gaunt is keeping Them busy," Ace said. "He's one clever son of a bitch." He tipped a pile of cocaine into his snuff-hollow, tooted, then held his hand under Buster's nose. "Here, Dad--it's Miller Time."
Buster dipped his head and snorted.
They drove away from the bridge about seven minutes before Alan Pangborn crossed it. Underneath, the timer's black marker stood at 30.
6
Ace Merrill and Danforth Keeton--aka Buster, aka Zippy's Dad, aka Toad of Toad Hall--drove slowly up Main Street in the pouring rain like Santa and his helper, leaving little bundles here and there. State Police cars roared by them twice, but neither had any interest in what looked like just one more TV newsvan. As Ace had said, Mr. Gaunt was keeping Them busy.
They left a timer and five sticks of dynamite in the doorway of The Samuels Funeral Home. The barber shop was beside it. Ace wrapped a piece of blanket around his arm and popped his elbow through the glass pane in the door. He doubted very much if the barber shop was equipped with an alarm ... or if the police would bother responding, even if it was. Buster handed him a freshly prepared bomb--they were using wire from one of the bench compartments to bind the timers and the blasting caps securely to the dynamite--and Ace lobbed it through the hole in the door. They watched it tumble to a stop at the foot of the #1 chair, the timer ticking down from 25.
"Won't nobody be getting a shave in there for a while, Dad," Ace breathed, and Buster giggled breathlessly.
They split up then, Ace tossing one bundle into Galaxia while Buster crammed another into the mouth of the bank's night-deposit slot. As they returned to the van through the slashing rain, lightning ripped across the sky. The elm toppled into Castle Stream with a rending roar. They stood on the sidewalk for a moment, staring in that direction, both of them thinking that the dynamite under the bridge had gone twenty minutes or more early, but there was no blossom of fire.
"I think it was lightning," Ace said. "Must have hit a tree. Come on."
As they pulled out, Ace driving now, Alan's station wagon passed them. In the pouring rain, neither driver noticed the other.
They drove up to Nan's. Ace broke the glass of the door with his elbow and they left the dynamite and a ticking timer, this one set at 20, just inside, near the cash register stand. As they were leaving, an incredibly bright stroke of lightning flashed, and all the streetlights went out.
"It's the pow
er!" Buster cried happily. "The power's out! Fantastic! Let's do the Municipal Building! Let's blow it sky-high!"
"Dad, that place is crawling with cops! Didn't you see them?"
"They're chasing their own tails," Buster said impatiently. "And when these things start to go up, they're going to be chasing them twice as fast. Besides, it's dark now, and we can go in through the courthouse on the other side. The master-key opens that door, too."
"You've got the balls of a tiger, Dad--you know that?"
Buster smiled tightly. "So do you, Ace. So do you."
7
Alan pulled into one of the slant parking spaces in front of Needful Things, turned off the station wagon's engine, and simply sat for a moment, staring at Mr. Gaunt's shop. The sign in the window now read
YOU SAY HELLO
I SAY GOODBYE GOODBYE GOODBYE
I DON'T KNOW WHY YOU SAY HELLO
I SAY GOODBYE.
Lightning stuttered on and off like giant neon, giving the window the look of a blank, dead eye.
Yet a deep instinct suggested that Needful Things, while closed and quiet, might not be empty. Mr. Gaunt could have left town in all the confusion, yes--with the storm raging and the cops running around like chickens with their heads cut off, doing that would have been no problem at all. But the picture of Mr. Gaunt which had formed in his mind on the long, wild ride from the hospital in Bridgton was that of Batman's nemesis, the Joker. Alan had an idea that he was dealing with the sort of man who would think installing a jet-powered backflow valve in a friend's toilet the very height of humor. And would a fellow like that--the sort of fellow who would put a tack in your chair or stick a burning match in the sole of your shoe just for laughs--leave before you sat down or noticed that your socks were on fire and your pantscuffs were catching? Of course not. What fun would that be?
I think you're still around, Alan thought. I think you want to watch all the fun. Don't you, you son of a bitch?
He sat quite still, looking at the shop with the green awning, trying to fathom the mind of a man who would set such a complex and mean-spirited set of events in motion. He was concentrating far too deeply to notice that the car parked on his left was quite old, although smoothly, almost aerodynamically, designed. It was Mr. Gaunt's Tucker Talisman, in fact.
How did you do it? There's a lot I want to know, but just that one thing will suffice for tonight. How could you do it? How could you learn so much about us so fast?
Brian said Mr. Gaunt wasn't really a man at all.
In daylight Alan would have scoffed at this idea, as he had scoffed at the idea that Polly's charm might have some supernatural healing power. But tonight, cupped in the crazy palm of the gale, staring at the display window which had become a blank dead eye, the idea had its own undeniable, gloomy power. He remembered the day he had come to Needful Things with the specific intention of meeting and talking to Mr. Gaunt, and he remembered the odd sensation that had crept over him as he peered in through the window with his hands cupped at the sides of his face to reduce the glare. He had felt he was being watched, although the shop was clearly empty. And not only that; he'd felt the watcher was malign, hateful. The feeling had been so strong that for a moment he had actually mistaken his own reflection for the unpleasant (and half-transparent) face of someone else.
How strong that feeling had been ... how very strong.
Alan found himself remembering something else--something his grandmother used to tell him when he was small: The devil's voice is sweet to hear.
Brian said--
How had Mr. Gaunt come by his knowledge? And why in God's name would he bother with a wide place in the road like Castle Rock?
--Mr. Gaunt wasn't really a man at all.
Alan suddenly leaned over and groped on the floor of the station wagon's passenger side. For a moment he thought that what he was feeling around for was gone--that it had fallen out of the car at some point during the day when the passenger door was open--and then his fingers happened on the metal curve. It had rolled underneath the seat, that was all. He fumbled it out, held it up ... and the voice of depression, absent since he had left Sean Rusk's hospital room (or maybe it was just that things had been too busy since then for Alan to hear it), spoke up in its loud and unsettlingly merry voice.
Hi, Alan! Hello! I've been away, sorry about that, but rm back now, okay? What you got there? Can of nuts? Nope--that's what it looks like, but that's not what it is, is it? It's the last joke Todd ever bought at the Auburn Novelty Shop, correct? A fake can of Tastee-Munch Mixed Nuts with a green snake inside--crepe-paper wrapped around a spring. And when he brought it to you with his eyes glowing and a big, goofy smile on his face, you told him to put that silly thing back, didn't you? And when his face fell, you pretended not to notice-you told him... let me see. What DID you tell him?
"That the fool and his money soon parted," Alan said dully. He turned the can around and around in his hands, looking at it, remembering Todd's face. "That's what I told him."
Ohhhh, riiiiight, the voice agreed. How could I have forgotten a thing like that? You want to talk about mean-spirited? Jeez, Louise! Good thing you reminded me! Good thing you reminded us BOTH, right? Only Annie saved the day--she said to let him have it. She said ... let me see, What DID she say?
"She said it was sort of funny, that Todd was just like me, and that he'd only be young once." Alan's voice was hoarse and trembling. He had begun to cry again, and why not? Just why the fucking hell not? The old pain was back, twisting itself around his aching heart like a dirty rag.
Hurts, doesn't it? the voice of depression--that guilty, self-hating voice--asked with a sympathy Alan (the rest of Alan) suspected was entirely bogus. It hurts too much, like having to live inside a country-and-western song about good love gone bad or good kids gone dead. Nothing that hurts this much can do you any good. Shove it back in the glove compartment, buddy. Forget about it. Next week, when this madness is all over, you can trade the wagon with the fake can of nuts still in it. Why not? It's the sort of cheap practical joke that would appeal only to a child, or to a man like Gaunt. Forget it. Forget--
Alan cut the voice off in mid-rant. He hadn't known he could do that until this moment, and it was good knowledge to have, knowledge that might be useful in the future ... if he had a future, that was. He looked more closely at the can, turning it this way and that, really looking at it for the first time, seeing it not as a sappy memento of his lost son but as an object which was as much a tool of misdirection as his hollow magic wand, his silk top-hat with the false bottom, or the Folding Flower Trick which still nestled beneath his watchband.
Magic--wasn't that what this was all about? It was mean-spirited magic, granted; magic calculated not to make people gasp and laugh but to turn them into angry charging bulls, but it was magic, just the same. And what was the basis of all magic? Misdirection. It was a five-foot-long snake hidden inside a can of nuts ... or, he thought, thinking of Polly, it's a disease that looks like a cure.
He opened the car door, and when he got out into the pouring rain, he was still carrying the fake can of nuts in his left hand. Now that he had drawn back a little from the dangerous lure of sentiment, he remembered his opposition to the purchase of this thing with something like amazement. All his life he had been fascinated with magic, and of course he would have been entranced by the old snake-in-a-can-of-nuts trick as a kid. So why had he spoken to Todd in such an unfriendly way when the boy had wanted to buy it, and then pretended not to see the boy's hurt? Had it been jealousy of Todd's youth and enthusiasm? An inability to remember the wonder of simple things? What?
He didn't know. He only knew it was exactly the sort of trick a Mr. Gaunt would understand, and he wanted it with him now.
Alan bent back into the car, grabbed a flashlight from the small box of jumbled tools sitting on the rear seat, then walked past the nose of Mr. Gaunt's Tucker Talisman (still without noticing it), and passed under the deep-green awning of Needful Things. br />
8
Well, here I am. Here I am at last.
Alan's heart was pounding hard but steadily in his chest. In his mind, the faces of his son and his wife and Sean Rusk seemed to have combined. He glanced at the sign in the window again and then tried the door. It was locked. Overhead, the canvas awning rippled and snapped in the howling wind.
He had tucked the Tastee-Munch can into his shirt. Now he touched it with his right hand and seemed to draw some indescribable but perfectly real comfort from it.
"Okay," he muttered. "Here I come, ready or not." He reversed the flashlight and used the handle to smash a hole in the glass. He steeled himself for the wail of the burglar alarm, but it didn't come. Either Gaunt hadn't turned it on or there was no alarm. He reached through the jagged hole and tried the inside knob. It turned, and for the first time, Alan Pangborn stepped into Needful Things.
The smell hit him first; it was deep and still and dusty. It wasn't the smell of a new shop but of a place which had been untenanted for months or even years. Holding his gun in his right hand, he shone the flashlight around with his left. It illuminated a bare floor, bare walls, and a number of glass cases. The cases were empty, the stock was gone. Everything was blanketed by a thick fall of dust, and the dust was undisturbed by any mark.
No one's been here for a long, long time.
But how could that possibly be, when he had seen people going in and out all week long?
Because he's not a man at all. Because the devil's voice is sweet to hear.
He took two more steps, using the flashlight to cover the empty room in zones, breathing the dry museum dust which hung in the air. He looked behind him and saw, in a flash of lightning, the tracks of his own feet in the dust. He shone the light back into the store, ran it from right to left along the case which had also served Mr. Gaunt as a counter ... and stopped.