Albert, who had been one of Our Lady of Serene Waters’ stalwarts since the days of old Father O’Neal, was getting on now, his once-black hair turning salt-and-pepper, his broad shoulders sloping in a way they never had in his young days, but he was still a man of imposing size-at six feet, seven inches tall and two hundred and eighty pounds, he was the biggest man in town, if not the entire county.
He climbed the narrow staircase to the fourth and top floor slowly, stopping on the landings to catch his breath before going on up, mindful of the heart- murmur Dr. Van Allen said he now had.
Halfway up the final flight, he saw a sheet of paper taped to the frosted glass panel of his office door, obscuring the lettering which read ALBERT GENDRON D.D.S.
He was able to read the salutation on this note while he was still five steps from the top, and his heart began to pound harder, murmur or no murmur. Only it wasn’t exertion causing it to kick up its heels; it was rage.
LISTEN UP YOU MACKEREL-SNAPPER! was printed at the top of the sheet in bright red Magic Marker.
Albert pulled the note from the door and read it quickly. He breathed through his nose as he did so-harsh, snorting exhalations that made him sound like a bull about to charge.
We have tried to reason with you-'Let him hear who hath understanding'-but it has been no use. YOU ARE SET ON YOUR COURSE OF DAMNATION AND BY THEIR WORKS SHALT YOU KNOW THEM. We have put up with your Popish idolatry and even with your licentious worship of the Babylon Whore. But now you have gone too far.
THERE WILL BE NO DICING WITH THE DEVIL IN CASTLE ROCK!
Decent Christians can smell HELLFIRIE and BRIMSTONE in Castle Rock this fall. If you cannot it is because your nose has been stuffed shut by your own sin and degradation. HEAR OUR WARNING AND HEED IT: GIVE UP YOUR PLAN TO TURN THIS TOWN INTO A DEN OF THIEVES AND GAMBLERS OR YOU WILL SMELL THE HELLFIRE! YOU WILL SMELL THE BRIMSTONE!
“The wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the nations that forget God.” Psalm 9:17.
HEAR AND HEED, OR YOUR CRIES OF LAMENTATION WILL BE LOUD INDEED.
OF CASTLE ROCK “Shit on toast,” Albert said at last, and crumpled the note into one ham-sized fist. “That idiotic little Baptist shoe-salesman has finally gone out of his mind.”
His first order of business after opening his office was to call Father John and tell him the game might be getting a little rougher between now and Casino Nite.
“Don’t worry, Albert,” Father Brigham said calmly. “If the idiot bumps us, he’s going to find out how hard we mackerel-snappers can bump back… am I right?”
“Right you are, Father,” Albert said. He was still holding the crumpled note in one hand. Now he looked down at it and an unpleasant little smile surfaced below his walrus moustache. “Right you are.”
5
By quarter past ten that morning, the digital read-out in front of the bank announced the temperature in Castle Rock as seventy-seven degrees. On the far side of the Tin Bridge, the unseasonably hot sun produced a bright twinkle, a daystar at the place where Route 117 came over the horizon and headed toward town. Alan Pangborn was in his office, going over reports on the Cobb-jerzyck murders, and did not see that reflection of sun on metal and glass.
It wouldn’t have interested him much if he had-it was, after all, only an approaching car. Nevertheless, the savagely bright twinkle of chrome and glass, heading toward the bridge at better than seventy miles an hour, heralded the arrival of a significant part of Alan Pangborn’s destiny… and that of the whole town.
In the show window of Needful Things, the sign reading CLOSED COLUMBUS DAY was taken down by a long-fingered hand which emerged from the sleeve of a fawn sport-jacket. A new sign went up in its place.
This one read
6
The car was still doing fifty in a zone posted for twenty-five when it crossed the bridge. It was a unit the high school kids would have regarded with awe and envy: a lime-green Dodge Challenger that had been jacked in the back so the nose pointed toward the road.
Through the smoked-glass windows, one could dimly make out the roll-bar which arched across the roof between the front and back seats.
The rear end was covered with stickers: HEARST, FUELLY, FRAM, QUAKER STATE, GOODYEAR WIDE OVALS, RAM CHARGER. The straight-pipes burbled contentedly, fat on the ninety-six-octane fuel which could be purchased only at Oxford Plains Speedway once you got north of Portland.
It slowed a little at the intersection of Main and Laurel, then pulled into one of the slant-parking spaces in front of The Clip Joint with a low squeal of tires. There was no one in the shop getting a haircut just then; both Bill Fullerton and Henry Gendron, his number-two barber, were seated in the customers’ chairs under the old
Brylcreem and Wildroot Creme Oil signs. They had shared the morning paper out between them. As the driver gunned his engine briefly, causing exhaust to crackle and bang through the pipes, both looked up.
“A death-machine if I ever saw one,” Henry said.
Bill nodded and plucked at his lower lip with the thumb and index finger of his right hand. “Ayuh.”
They both watched expectantly as the engine died and the driver’s door opened. A foot encased in a scuffed black engineer boot emerged from the Challenger’s dark innards. It was attached to a leg clad in tight, faded denim. A moment later the driver got out and stood in the unseasonably hot daylight, removing his sunglasses and tucking them into the V of his shirt as he looked around in leisurely, contemptuous fashion.
“Uh-oh,” Henry said. “Looks like a bad penny just turned up.”
Bill Fullerton stared at the apparition with the sports section of the newspaper in his lap and his jaw hanging slightly agape. “Ace Merrill,” he said. “As I live and breathe.”
“What in the hell is he doing here?” Henry asked indignantly.
“I thought he was over in Mechanic Falls, fuckin up their way of life.”
“Dunno,” Bill said, and pulled at his lower lip again.
“Lookit im!”
“Gray as a rat and probably twice as mean! How old is he, Henry?”
Henry shrugged.
“More’n forty and lesson fifty is all I know. Who cares how old he is, anyway? He still looks like trouble to me.”
As if he had overheard him, Ace turned toward the plate-glass window and raised his hand in a slow, sarcastic wave. The two men jerked and rustled indignantly, like a pair of old maids who have just realized that the insolent wolf-whistle coming from the doorway of the pool-hall is for them.
Ace shoved his hands into the pockets of his Low Riders and strolled away-portrait of a man with all the time in the world and all the cool moves in the known universe.
“You think you oughtta call Sheriff Pangborn?” Henry asked. Bill Fullerton pulled at his lower lip some more. At last he shook his head. “He’ll know Ace is back in town soon enough,” he said.
“Won’t need me to tell him. Or you either.”
They sat in silence and watched Ace stroll up Main Street until he had passed from their view.
7
No one would have guessed, watching Ace Merrill strut indolently up Main Street, that he was a man with a desperate problem. It was a problem Buster Keeton could have identified with to some extent; Ace owed some fellows a large chunk of money. Well over eighty thousand dollars, to be specific. But the worst Buster’s creditors could do was put him in jail. If Ace didn’t have the money soon, say by the first of November, his creditors were apt to put him in the ground.
The boys Ace Merrill had once terrorized-boys like Teddy Duchamp, Chris Chambers, and Vern Tessio-would have recognized him at once in spite of his graying hair. During the years when Ace had worked at the local textile mill (it had been closed for the last five years), that might not have been the case. In those days his vices had been beer and
