see and react. MARY puts an arm around her son's shoulders and looks fearfully at LINOGE.
316 STEPHEN KING
LINOGE
Hello, Davey your day off from school would make quite an English composition, wouldn't it?
DAVEY doesn't reply. LINOGE looks at him a moment longer, still smiling.
LINOGE
Your father's a thief over the last six years or so he's stolen more than fourteen thousand dollars from that marine supply company he works for. He gambles with it. (And, confidentially:) He loses.
DAVEY turns and shoots a STARTLED, INCREDULOUS GLANCE at his father. 'I don't believe it,'
234
that look says, not my dad, never my dad but for just an instant he sees NAKED GUILT and TRAPPED PANIC on STAN'S face. Only an instant, but enough to deeply shake a boy's trust in his previously idolized father.
DAVEY Dad ?
STAN HOPEWELL
I don't know who you are, mister, but you lie. (pause) You lie.
It's good, but not quite good enough. No one, including his own son and wife, believes him.
LINOGE grins.
LINOGE TH Born in vice, say it twice . . . eh, Davey? At least twice.
His work with the HOPEWELLS done, a family's lifetime of trust ruined in seconds, LINOGE starts slowly down the center aisle toward the stage. Every eye that attempts to meet his falters and turns away; every cheek grows pale; every heart recalls its mistakes and deceptions. When he reaches JOHNNY HARRIMAN, LINOGE stops and smiles.
LINOGE
Well, Johnny Harriman! The fellow who burned down the planing mill across the reach there in Machias!
STORM OF THE CENTURY 317
JOHNNY HARRIMAN I ... you ... I never did!
LINOGE
(smiling) Of course you did! Two years ago, right after they fired you!
(switches to KIRK FREEMAN)
And Kirk helped . . . didn't you? Of course you did after all, what are friends for?
(back to JOHNNY)
Seventy men lost their jobs, but you got your payback, and that's what matters, isn't it?
Ayuh shoah, deah!
ISLANDERS are staring at JOHNNY as if they have never seen him before . . . and at KIRK.
JOHNNY shrinks under that gaze until he's about a foot high.
KIRK
(to JOHNNY) There now, you dope. Lookit the trouble you got us into!
JOHNNY Shut up!
KIRK does, but it's too late. Smiling, LINOGE walks on toward the stage. Each person he looks at cringes like an oft-kicked dog. No eye will meet his. Every ISLANDER hopes LINOGE will not stop and speak to him or her, as he did to STAN and JOHNNY HARRIMAN.
LINOGE stops one more time, when he reaches JACK CARVER. JACK is sitting flanked by the two men LINOGE also mentioned in connection with the assault on the young gay man. JACK looks up quickly at LINOGE, then looks away. ALEX HABER and LUCIEN FOURNIER are equally uncomfortable.
LINOGE
You boys really ought to go see that gay fellow you beat up. You'd get a kick out of the eye patch he wears. That paisley eye patch.
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318 STEPHEN KING
84 INTERIOR: ANGIE CARVER.
Frowning, curious. What is LINOGE saying about her husband . . . that he beat someone up?
JACK wouldn't do something like that. Would he?
85 INTERIOR: RESUME CENTER AISLE OF TOWN MEETING HALL.
Shut up.
JACK (hardly more than a whisper)
LINOGE
Fellow's in one of those walk-ups on Canal Street, right behind Lisbon. I could give you the address. I don't know, maybe the three of you would like to take away the rest of his light. What do you think, Lucien, want to poke out his other eye? Finish the job?
(LUCIEN looks down, says nothing) Alex?
(ALEX is also mum) Born in sin, come on in.
LINOGE leaves them, walking toward the front of the hall again.
STORM OF THE CENTURY 319
86 INTERIOR: ROBBIE BEALS.
He's standing between his little town-manager's table and the stage, face still running with sweat, the collar of his shirt now drenched, as well. He is seeing: 87 INTERIOR: THE MEETING HALL, FROM ROBBIE'S POINT OF VIEW.
Coming slowly up the aisle to the stage, still wearing the hospital johnny, her wild white hair spraying out all around her head, is the FALSE MOTHER. It's still LINOGE, of course, and he's still clutching the wolfs head cane.
FALSE MOTHER
Robbie, why did I have to die among strangers? You still haven't explained that. Why did I have to die calling for you? All I wanted was a kiss
88 INTERIOR: THE MEETING HALL, ANGLE ON THE STAGE.
As LINOGE (he is LINOGE, in this shot) approaches, ROBBIE yanks the pistol from his pocket and points it at him.
ROBBIE Stay away! I'm warning you, stay back!
LINOGE Oh, put that down.
ROBBIE'S hand opens. We can see him struggling to keep this from happening, but it's as though a bigger hand one we can't quite see has grabbed his and is bending the fingers back one by one. The pistol THUMPS TO THE STAGE FLOOR just as LINOGE mounts the stairs at center stage.
89 INTERIOR: THE FRONT OF THE STAGE, FROM ROBBIE'S POINT OF VIEW.
It's the FALSE MOTHER
