then had hesitated just before making his first cast, with the rod cocked back over his shoulder.
What if, he thought, a really big fish takes the lure? Smokey, for instance?
Smokey was an old brown trout, the stuff of legend among the fisherpeople of Castle Rock. He was reputed to be over two feet long, wily as a weasel, strong as a stoat, tough as nails. According to the oldtimers, Smokey’s jaw bristled with the steel of anglers who had hooked him… but had been unable to hold him.
What if he snaps the rod?
It seemed crazy to believe that a lake-trout, even a big one like Smokey (if Smokey actually existed), could snap a Bazun rod, but Norris supposed it was possible… and the way his luck had been running just lately, it might really happen. He could hear the brittle snap in his head, could feel the agony of seeing the rod in two pieces, one of them in the bottom of the boat and the other floating alongside. And once a rod was broken, it was Katy bar the doorthere wasn’t a thing you could do with it except throw it away.
So he had ended up using the old Zebco after all. There had been no fish for dinner last night… but he had dreamed of Mr.
Gaunt. In the dream Mr. Gaunt had been wearing hip-waders and an old fedora with feathered lures dancing jauntily around the brim.
He was sitting in a rowboat about thirty feet out on Castle Lake while Norris stood on the west shore with his dad’s old cabin, which had burned down ten years before, behind him. He stood and listened while Mr. Gaunt talked. Mr. Gaunt had reminded Norris of his promise, and Norris had awakened with a sense of utter certainty: he had done the right thing yesterday, putting the Bazun aside in favor of the old Zebco. The Bazun rod was too nice, far too nice. It would be criminal to risk it by actually using it.
Now Norris opened his reel. He took out a long fish-gutting knife and walked over to Hugh’s Buick.
Nobody deserves it more than this drunken slob, he told himself, but something inside didn’t agree. Something inside told him he was making a black and woeful mistake from which he might never recover.
He was a policeman; part of his job was to arrest people who did the sort of thing he was about to do. It was vandalism, that was exactly what it came down to, and vandals were bad guys.
You decide, Norris. The voice of Mr. Gaunt spoke up suddenly in his mind. It’s your fishing rod. And it’s your God-given right offree will, too. You have a choice. You always have a choice. ButThe voice in Norris Ridgewick’s head didn’t finish. It didn’t need to. Norris knew what the consequences of turning away now would be. When he went back to his car, he would find the Bazun broken in two. Because every choice had consequences. Because in America, you could have anything you wanted, just as long as you could pay for it. If you couldn’t pay, or refused to pay, you would remain needful forever.
Besides, he’d do it to me, Norris thought petulantly. And not for a nice fishing rod like my Bazun, either. Hugh Priest would cut his own mother’s throat for a bottle of Old Duke and a pack of Luckies.
Thus he refuted guilt. When the something inside tried to protest again, tried to tell him to please think before he did this, think, he smothered it. Then he bent down and began to carve up the tires of Hugh’s Buick. His enthusiasm, like Myra Evans’s, grew as he worked.
As an extra added attraction, he smashed the Buick’s headlights and the taillights, too. He finished by putting a note which read)7(/sr AwAo2Aji#v40 @oo KWOcj Wft,+TILt- ONE AFriFit mexr r#mF ftsejei-,)(0 p if A v jr 14 C KC- D M y’ f OCKOLA it 0T-#tf- L*$T -rlmg. 5-rAY OUTOF- MY t5tie under the windshield wiper on the driver’s side.
With the job done he crept back up to the bedroom window, his heart hammering heavily in his narrow chest. Hugh Priest was still deeply asleep, clutching that ratty runner of fur.
Who in God’s name would want a dirty old thing like that?
Norris wondered. He’s holding onto it like it was his fucking teddy bear.
He went back to his car. He got in, shifted into neutral, and let his old Beetle roll soundlessly down the driveway. He didn’t start the engine until the car was on the road. Then he drove away as fast as he could. He had a headache. His stomach was rolling around nastily in his guts. And he kept telling himself it didn’t matter; he felt good, he felt good, goddammit, he felt really good.
It didn’t work very well until he reached back between the seats and grasped the limber, narrow fishing rod in his left fist. Then he began to feel calm again.
Norris held it like that all the way home.
9
The silver bell jingled.
Slopey Dodd walked into Needful Things.
“Hullo, Slopey,” Mr. Gaunt said.
“Huh-Huh-Hello, Mr. G-G-Guh-”
“You don’t need to stutter around me, Slopey,” Mr. Gaunt said.
He raised one of his hands with the first two fingers extended in a fork. He drew them down through the air in front of Slopey’s homely face, and Slopey felt something-a tangled, knotted snarl in his mind-magically dissolve. His mouth fell open.
“What did you do to me?” he gasped. The words ran perfectly out of his mouth, like beads on a string.
“A trick Miss Ratcliffe would undoubtedly love to learn,” Mr.
Gaunt said. He smiled and made a mark beside Slopey’s name on his sheet. He glanced at the grand father clock ticking contentedly away in the corner. It was quarter to one. “Tell me how you got out of school early. Will anyone be suspicious?”
“No.” Slopey’s face was still amazed, and he appeared to be trying to look down at his own mouth, as if he could actually see the words tumbling from it in such unprecedented good order. “I told Mrs.
DeWeese I felt sick to my stomach. She sent me to the school nurse. I told the nurse I felt better, but still sick. She asked me if I thought I could walk home. I said yes, so she let me go.”
Slopey paused. “I came because I fell asleep in study hall. I dreamed you were calling me.”
“I was.” Mr. Gaunt tented his oddly even fingers beneath his chin and smiled at the boy. “Tell me-did your mother like the pewter teapot you got her?”
A blush mounted into Slopey’s cheeks, turning them the color of old brick. He started to say something, then gave up and inspected his feet instead.
In his softest, kindest voice, Mr. Gaunt said: “You kept it yourself, didn’t you?”
Slopey nodded, still looking at his feet. He felt ashamed and confused. Worst of all, he felt a terrible sense of loss and griefsomehow Mr. Gaunt had dissolved that tiresome, infuriating knot in his head… and what good did it do? He was too embarrassed to talk.
“Now what, pray tell, does a twelve-year-old boy want with a pewter teapot?”
Slopey’s cowlick, which had bobbed up and down a few seconds ago, now waved from side to side as he shook his head. He didn’t know what a twelve- year-old boy wanted with a pewter teapot. He only knew that he wanted to keep it. He liked it. He really… really… liked it.
“… feels,” he muttered at last.
“Pardon me?” Mr. Gaunt asked, raising his single wavy eyebrow.
“I like the way it feels, I said!”
“Slopey, Slopey,” Mr. Gaunt said, coming around the counter, “you don’t have to explain to me. I know all about that peculiar thing people call ’pride of possession.’ I have made it the cornerstone of my career.”
Slopey Dodd shrank away from Mr. Gaunt in alarm. “Don’t you touch me! Please don’t!”
“Slopey, I have no more intention of touching you than I do of telling you to give your mother the teapot. It’s yours. You can do anything you want with it. In fact, I applaud your decision to keep it.”
“You… you do?”
“I do! Indeed I do! Selfish people are happy people. I believe that with all my heart. But Slopey…”
Slopey raised his head a little and looked fearfully through the hanging fringe of his red hair at Leland Gaunt.
“The time has come for you to finish paying for it.”
“Oh!” An expression of vast relief filled Slopey’s face. “Is that all you wanted me for? I thought maybe…” But he either couldn’t or didn’t dare finish. He hadn’t been sure what Mr. Gaunt had wanted.
“Yes. Do you remember who you promised to play a trick on?”
“Sure. Coach Pratt.”
“Right. There are two parts to this prank-you have to put something somewhere, plus you have to tell Coach Pratt something.
And if you follow directions exactly, the teapot will be yours forever.”
“Can I talk like this, too?” Slopey asked eagerly. “Can I talk without stuttering forever, too?”
Mr. Gaunt sighed regretfully. “I’m afraid you’ll go back to the way you were as soon as you leave my shop, Slopey. I believe I do have an anti-stuttering device somewhere in stock, but-”
“Please! Please, Mr. Gaunt! I’ll do anything! I’ll do anything to anyone! I hate to stutter!”
“I know you would, but that’s just the problem, don’t you see?
I am rapidly running out of pranks which need to be played; my dance-card, you might say, is nearly full. So you couldn’t pay me.”
Slopey hesitated a long time before speaking again. When he did, his voice was low and diffident. “Couldn’t you… I mean, do you ever just… give things away, Mr. Gaunt?”
Leland Gaunt’s face grew deeply sorrowful. “Oh, Slopey! How often I’ve thought of it, and with such longing! There is a deep, untapped well of charity in my heart. But…
“But?”
“It just wouldn’t be business,” Mr. Gaunt finished. He favored Slopey with a compassionate smile… but his eyes sparkled so wolfishly that Slopey took a step backward. “You understand, don’t you?”
