Brian pedaled his bike up the driveway, got off, and put down the kickstand. He could feel his heartbeat in his ears and his throat now.
It sounded like the ruffle of drums. He walked to the front door, rehearsing the lines he would speak if it turned out Mrs. jerzyck was there after all.
Hi, Mrs. jerzyck, I’m Brian Rusk, from the other side of the block?
I go to the MiddleSchoolandpretty soon we’re going to beselling magazine subscriptions, so the band can get new uniforms, and I’ve been asking people if they want magazines. So I can come back later when I’ve got my sales kit. We get prizes if we sell a lot.
It had sounded good when he was working it out in his head, and it still sounded good, but he felt tense all the same. He stood on the doorstep for a minute, listening for sounds inside the house-a radio, a TV tuned to one of the stories (not Santa Barbara, though; it wouldn’t be Santa Barbara time for another couple of hours), maybe a vacuum. He heard nothing, but that didn’t mean any more than the empty driveway.
Brian rang the doorbell. Faintly, somewhere in the depths of the house, he heard it: Bing-Bong!
He stood on the stoop, waiting, looking around occasionally to see if anyone had noticed him, but Willow Street seemed fast asleep.
And there was a hedge in front of the jerzyck house. That was good. When you were up to (a deed) something that people-your Ma and Pa, for instance- wouldn’t exactly approve of, a hedge was about the best thing in the world.
It had been half a minute, and nobody was coming. So far so good… but it was also better to be safe than sorry. He rang the doorbell again, thumbing it twice this time, so the sound from the belly of the house was BingBong! BingBong!
Still nothing.
Okay, then. Everything was perfectly okay. Everything was, in fact, most sincerely awesome and utterly radical.
Sincerely awesome and utterly radical or not, Brian could not resist another look around-a rather furtive one this time-as he trundled his bike, with the kickstand still down, between the house and the garage. In this area, which the friendly folks at the Dick Perry Siding and Door Company in South Paris called a breezeway, Brian parked his bike again. Then he walked on into the back yard.
His heart was pounding harder than ever. Sometimes his voice shook when his heart was pounding hard like this. He hoped that if Mrs. jerzyck was out back, planting bulbs or something, his voice wouldn’t shake when he told her about the magazine subscriptions.
If it did, she might suspect he wasn’t telling the truth. And that could lead to kinds of trouble he didn’t even want to think about.
He halted near the back of the house. He could see part of the jerzyck back yard, but not all of it. And suddenly this didn’t seem like so much fun any more. Suddenly it seemed like a mean trickno more than that, but certainly no less. An apprehensive voice suddenly spoke up in his mind. Why not just climb back on your bike again, Brian? Go on back home. Have a glass of milk and think this over.
Yes. That seemed like a very good-a very sane-idea. He actually began to turn around… and then a picture came to him, one which was a great deal more powerful than the voice. He saw a long black car-a Cadillac or maybe a Lincoln Mark IV-pulling up in front of his house. The driver’s door opened and Mr. Leland Gaunt stepped out. Only Mr. Gaunt was no longer wearing a smoking jacket like the one Sherlock Holmes wore in some of the stories.
The Mr. Gaunt who now strode across the landscape of Brian’s imagination wore a formidable black suit-the suit of a funeral director-and his face was no longer friendly. His dark-blue eyes were even darker in anger, and his lips had pulled back from his crooked teeth… but not in a smile. His long, thin legs went scissoring up the walk to the Rusk front door, and the shadow-man attached to his heels looked like a hangman in a horror movie.
When he got to the door he would not pause to ring the bell, oh no. He would simply barge in. If Brian’s Ma tried to get in his way he would push her aside. If Brian’s Pa tried to get in his way he would knock him down. And if Brian’s little brother, Sean, tried to get in his way he would heave him the length of the house, like a quarterback throwing a Hail Mary. He would stride upstairs, bellowing Brian’s name, and the roses on the wallpaper would wilt when that hangman’s shadow passed over them.
He’dfind me, too, Brian thought. His face as he stood by the side of the jerzyck house was a study in dismay. It wouldn’t matter if I tried to hide. It wouldn’t matter if I went all the way to Bombay.
He’d find me. And when he did. He tried to block the picture, to turn it off, and couldn’t. He saw Mr. Gaunt’s eyes growing, turning into blue chasms which went down and down into some horrid indigo eternity. He saw Mr. Gaunt’s long hands, with their queerly even fingers, turning into claws as they descended upon his shoulders. He felt his skin crawl at that loathsome touch. He heard Mr. Gaunt bellowing: You have something of mine, Brian, and you haven’t Paidfor it!
I’ll give it back! he heard himself screaming at that twisted, burning face. Please oh please I’ll give it back I’ll give it back, Just don’t hurt me!
Brian returned to himself, as dazed as he had been when he came out of Needful Things on Tuesday afternoon. The feeling now wasn’t as pleasant as it had been then.
He didn’t want to give back the Sandy Koufax card, that was the thing.
He didn’t want to, because it was his.
8
Myra Evans stepped under the awning of Needful Things just as her best friend’s son was finally walking into Wilma jerzyck’s back yard.
Myra’s glance, first behind her and then across Main Street, was even more furtive than Brian’s glance across Willow Street had been.
If Cora-who really was her best friend-knew she was here, and, more important, why she was here, she would probably never speak to Myra again. Because Cora wanted the picture, too.
Never mind that, Myra thought. Two sayings occurred to her and both seemed to fit this situation. First come, first served was one.
What she doesn’t know won’t hurt her was the other.
All the same, Myra had donned a large pair of Foster Grant sunglasses before coming downtown. Better safe than sorry was another worthwhile piece of advice.
Now she advanced slowly on the door and studied the sign which hung there:
TUESDAYS AND THURSDAYS BY APPOINTMENT ONLY
Myra did not have an appointment. She had come down here on the spur of the moment, galvanized into action by a call from Cora not twenty minutes ago.
“I’ve been thinking about it all day! I’ve simply got to have it, Myra-I should have bought it on Wednesday, but I only had four dollars in my purse and I wasn’t sure if he’d take a personal check.
You know how embarrassing it is when people won’t. I’ve been kicking myself ever since. Why, I hardly slept a wink last night. I know you’ll think it’s silly, but it’s true.”
Myra didn’t think it was silly at all, and she knew it was true, because she had hardly slept a wink last night, either. And it was wrong of Cora to assume that picture should be hers simply because she had seen it first-as if that gave her some sort of divine right, or something.
“I don’t believe she saw it first, anyway,” Myra said in a small, sulky voice. “I think I saw it first.”
The question of who had seen that absolutely delicious picture first was really moot, anyway. What wasn’t moot was how Myra felt when she thought of coming into Cora’s house and seeing that picture of Elvis hung above the mantel, right between Cora’s ceramic Elvis figure and Cora’s porcelain Elvis beer-stein. When she thought of that, Myra’s stomach rose to somewhere just under her heart and hung there, knotted like a wet rag. It was the way she’d felt during the first week of the war against Iraq.
It wasn’t right. Cora had all sorts of nice Elvis things, had even seen Elvis in concert once. That had been at the Portland Civic Center, a year or so before The King was called to heaven to be with his beloved mother.
“That picture should be mine,” she muttered, and, summoning all her courage, she knocked on the door. it was opened almost before she could lower her hand, and a narrow-shouldered man almost bowled her over on his way out.
“Excuse me,” he muttered, not raising his head, and she barely had time to register the fact that it was Mr. Constantine, the pharmacist at LaVerdiere’s Super Drug. He hurried across the street and then onto the Town Common, holding a small wrapped package in his hands, looking neither to the right nor to the left.
When she looked back, Mr. Gaunt was in the doorway, smiling at her with his cheery brown eyes.
“I don’t have an appointment she said in a small voice.
Brian Rusk, who had grown used to hearing Myra pronouncing on things in a tone of total authority and assurance, would not have recognized that voice in a million years.
“You do now, dear lady,” Mr. Gaunt said, smiling and standing aside. “Welcome back! Enter freely, and leave some of the happiness you bring!”
After one final quick look around that showed her no one she knew, Myra Evans scurried into Needful Things.
The door swung shut behind her.
A long-fingered hand, as white as the hand of a corpse, reached up in the gloom, found the ring-pull which hung down, and drew the shade.
Brian didn’t realize he had been holding his breath until he let it out in a long, whistling sigh.
There was no one in the jerzyck back yard.
Wilma, undoubtedly encouraged by the improving weather, had hung out her wash before leaving for work or wherever she had gone. It flapped on three lines in the sunshine and freshening breeze. Brian went to the back door and peered in, shading the sides of his face with his hands to cut the glare. He was looking into a deserted kitchen.
He thought of knocking and decided it was just another way to keep from doing what he had come to do. No one was here. The best thing was to complete his business and then get the hell out.
He walked slowly down the steps and into the jerzyck back yard.
The clotheslines, with their freight of shirts, pants, underwear, sheets, and pillow-cases, were to the left. To the right was a small garden from which all the vegetables, with the exception of a few puny pumpkins, had been harvested. At the far end was a fence of pine boards. On the other side, Brian knew, was the Haverhills’ place, only four houses down from his own.
