against the glass for a few seconds. Although Gaunt was standing right in front of him with his arms folded, the Sheriff did not see him.
Mr. Gaunt found himself disliking Pangborn’s face on sight.
Nor did this much surprise him. He was even better at reading faces than he was at remembering them, and the words on this one were large and somehow dangerous.
Pangborn’s face changed suddenly; the eyes widened a little, the good-humored mouth narrowed down to a tight slit. Gaunt felt a brief and totally uncharacteristic burst of fear. He sees me! he thought, although that, of course, was impossible. The Sheriff took half a step backward… and then laughed. Gaunt understood at once what had happened, but this did not moderate his instant deep dislike of Pangborn in the slightest.
“Get out of here, Sheriff,” he whispered. “Get out and leave me alone.”
8
Alan stood looking into the display window for a long time. He found himself wondering what, exactly, all the shouting was about.
He had spoken to Rosalie Drake before going over to Polly’s house yesterday evening, and Rosalie had made Needful Things sound like northern New England’s answer to Tiffany’s, but the set of china in the window didn’t look like anything to get up in the night and write home to mother about-it was rummage-sale quality at best. Several of the plates were chipped, and a hairline crack ran right through the center of one.
Oh well, Alan thought, different strokes for different folks.
That china’s probably a hundred years old, worth a fortune, and I’m just too dumb to know it.
He cupped his hands to the glass in order to see beyond the display, but there was nothing to look at-the lights were off and the place was deserted. Then he thought he caught sight of someone-a strange, transparent someone looking out at him with ghostly and malevolent interest. He took half a step backward before realizing it was the reflection of his own face he was seeing.
He laughed a little, embarrassed by his mistake.
He strolled to the door. The shade was drawn; a hand-lettered sign hung from a clear plastic suction cup.
GONE TO PORTLAND TO RECEIVE A CONSIGNMENT OF GOODS SORRY TO HAVE MISSED YOU PLEASE COME AGAIN Alan pulled his wallet from his back pocket, removed one of his business cards, and scribbled a brief message on the back.
Dear Mr. Gaunt, I dropped by Saturday morning to say hello and welcome you to town. Sorry to have missed you. Hope you’re enjoying Castle Rock! I’ll drop by again on Monday. Maybe we could have a cup of coffee. If there’s anything I can do for you, my numbers-home and office-are on the other side.
Alan Pangborn He stooped, slid the card under the door, and stood up again.
He looked into the display window a moment longer, wondering who would want that set of nondescript dishes. As he looked, a queerly pervasive feeling stole over him-a sense of being watched.
Alan turned around and saw no one but Lester Pratt. Lester was putting one of those damned posters up on a telephone pole and not looking in his direction at all. Alan shrugged and headed back down the street toward the Municipal Building. Monday would be time enough to meet Leland Gaunt; Monday would be just fine.
9
Mr. Gaunt watched him out of sight, then went to the door and picked up the card Alan had slid beneath. He read both sides carefully, and then began to smile. The Sheriff meant to drop by again on Monday, did he? Well, that was just fine, because Mr.
Gaunt had an idea that by the time Monday rolled around, Castle County’s Sheriff was going to have other fish to fry. A whole mess of other fish. And that was just as well, because he had met men like Pangborn before, and they were good men to steer clear of, at least while one was still building up one’s business and feeling out one’s clientele. Men like Pangborn saw too much.
“Something happened to you, Sheriff,” Gaunt said. “Something that’s made you even more dangerous than you should be. That’s on your face, too. What was it, I wonder? Was it something you did, something you saw, or both?”
He stood looking out onto the street, and his lips slowly pulled back from his large, uneven teeth. He spoke in the low, comfortable tones of one who has been his own best listener for a very long time.
“I’m given to understand you’re something of a parlor prestidigitator, my uniformed friend. You like tricks. I’m going to show you a few new ones before I leave town. I’m confident they will amaze you.”
He rolled his hand into a fist around Alan’s business card, first bending and then crumpling it. When it was completely hidden, a lick of blue fire squirted out from between his second and third fingers.
He opened his hand again, and although little tendrils of smoke drifted up from the palm, there was no sign of the cardnot even a smear of ash.
“Say-hey and abracadabra,” Gaunt said softly.
10
Myrtle Keeton went to the door of her husband’s study for the third time that day and listened. When she got out of bed around nine o’clock that morning, Danforth had already been in there with the door locked. Now, at one in the afternoon, he was still in there with the door locked. When she asked him if he wanted some lunch, he told her in a muffled voice to go away, he was busy.
She raised her hand to knock again… and paused. She cocked her head slightly. A noise was coming from beyond the door-a grinding, rattling sound. It reminded her of the sounds her mother’s cuckoo clock had made during the week before it broke down completely.
She knocked lightly. “Danforth?”
“Go away!” His voice was agitated, but she could not tell if the reason was excitement or fear.
“Danforth, are you all right?”
“Yes, dammit! Go away! I’ll be out soon!”
Rattle and grind. Grind and rattle. It sounded like dirt in a dough-mixer. It made her a little afraid. She hoped Danforth wasn’t having a nervous breakdown in there. He had been acting so strange lately.
“Danforth, would you like me to go down to the bakery and get some doughnuts?”
“Yes!” he shouted. “Yes! Yes! Doughnuts! Toilet paper! A nose job! Go anywhere! Get anything! just leave me alone!”
She stood a moment longer, troubled. She thought about knocking again and decided not to. She was no longer sure she wanted to know what Danforth was doing in his study. She was no longer sure she even wanted him to open the door.
She put on her shoes and her heavy fall coat-it was sunny but chilly-and went out to the car. She drove down to The Country Oven at the end of Main Street and got half a dozen doughnutshoney-glazed for her, chocolate coconut for Danforth. She hoped they would cheer him up-a little chocolate always cheered her up.
On her way back, she happened to glance in the show window of Needful Things. What she saw caused her to jam both feet down on the brake-pedal, hard. If anyone had been following her, she would have been rammed for sure.
There was the most gorgeous doll in the window.
The shade was up again, of course. And the sign hanging from the clear plastic suction cup again read
Of course.
Polly Chalmers spent that Saturday afternoon in what was, for her, a most unusual fashion: by doing nothing at all. She sat by the window in her bentwood Boston rocker with her hands folded neatly in her lap, watching the occasional traffic on the street outside. Alan had called her before going out on patrol, had told her of having missed Leland Gaunt, had asked her if she was all right and if there was anything she needed. She had told him that she was fine and that she didn’t need a single thing, thanks. Both of these statements were lies; she was not fine at all and there were several things she needed. A cure for arthritis headed the list.
No, Polly what you really need is some courage. just enough to walk UP to the man you love and say, “Alan, I bent the truth in places about the years when I was away from Castle Rock, and I outright lied to you about what happened to my son. Now I’d like to ask your forgiveness and tell you the truth.”
It sounded easy when you stated it baldly like that. It only got hard when you looked the man you loved in the eyes, or when you tried to find the key that would unlock your heart without tearing it into bleeding, painful pieces.
Pain and lies; lies and pain. The two subjects her life seemed to revolve around just lately.
How are you today, Polly?
Fine, Alan. I’m fine.
In fact, she was terrified. it wasn’t that her hands were so awfully painful at this very second; she almost wished they did hurt, because the pain, bad as it was when it finally came, was still better than the waiting.
