Needful Things

5

After they had put the last one in, Buster said: “Maybe that stuff of yours does do something, after all. Can I have a little more?”

“Sure, Dad.” Ace gri

They tooted up and headed back to town. Buster drove, and now he began to look not like Zippy’s Dad but Mr. Toad in Walt Disney’s The Wind i’n the Willows. A new, frantic light had come into the Head Selectman’s eyes. It was amazing how fast the confusion had dropped out of his mind; he now felt he could understand everything They had been up to-every plan, every plot, every machination. He told Ace all about it as Ace sat in the back of the van with his legs crossed, hooking up Hotpoint timers to blasting caps.

For the time being at least, Buster had forgotten all about Alan Pangborn, who was Their ringleader. He was entranced by the idea of blowing Castle Rock-or as much of it as possible-to kingdom come.

Ace’s respect became solid admiration. The old fuck was crazy, and Ace liked crazy people-always had. He felt at home with them.

And, like most people on their first cocaine high, old Dad’s mind was touring the outer planets. He couldn’t shut up. All Ace had to do was keep saying, “Uh-huh,” and “That’s right, Dad,” and “FuckinA, Dad.

Several times he almost called Keeton Mr. Toad instead of Dad, but caught himself. Calling this guy Mr. Toad might be a very bad idea.

They crossed the Tin Bridge while Alan was still three miles from it and got out in the pouring rain. Ace found a blanket in one of the van’s bench compartments and draped it over a bundle of dynamite and one of the cap-equipped timers.

“Do you want help?” Buster asked nervously.

“You better let me handle it, Dad. You’d be apt to fall in the goddam stream, and I’d have to waste time fishing you out. just keep your eyes open, okay?”

“I will. Ace… why don’t we sniff a little more of that cocaine first?”

“Not right now,” Ace said indulgently, and patted one of Buster’s meaty arms. “This shit is almost pure. You want to explode?”

“Not me,” Buster said. “Everything else, but not me.” He began to laugh wildly. Ace joined him.

“Havin some fun tonight, huh, Dad?”

Buster was amazed to find this was true. His depression following Myrtle’s… Myrtle’s accident… now seemed years distant.

He felt that he and his excellent friend Ace Merrill finally had Them right where they wanted Them: in the palm of their collective hand.

“You bet,” he said, and watched Ace slide down the wet, grassy bank beside the bridge with the blanket-wrapped parcel of dynamite held against his belly.

It was relatively dry under the bridge; not that it mattered the dynamite and the blasting caps had been waterproofed.

Ace put his package in the elbow-crook formed by two of the struts, then attached the blasting cap to the dynamite by poking the wires-the tips were already stripped, how convenient-into one of the sticks. He twisted the big white dial of the timer to 40. It began ticking.

He crawled out and scrambled back up the slippery bank.

“Well?” Buster asked anxiously. “Will it blow, do you think?”

“It’ll blow,” Ace said reassuringly, and climbed into the van.

He was soaked to the skin, but he didn’t mind.

“What if They find it? What if They disco

“Dad,” Ac.- said. “Listen a minute. Poke your head out this door and listen.”

Buster did. Faintly, between blasts of thunder, he thought he could hear yells and screams. Then, clearly, he heard the thin, hard crack of a pistol shot.

“Mr. Gaunt is keeping Them busy,” Ace said. “He’s one clever son of a bitch.” He tipped a pile of cocaine into his snuff-hollow, tooted, then held his hand under Buster’s nose. “Here, Dad-it’s Miller Time.”

Buster dipped his head and snorted.

They drove away from the bridge about seven minutes before Alan Pangborn crossed it. Underneath, the timer’s black marker stood at 30.

6

Ace Merrill and Danforth Keeton-aka Buster, aka Zippy’s Dad, aka Toad of Toad Hall-drove slowly up Main Street in the pouring rain like Santa and his helper, leaving little bundles here and there.

State Police cars roared by them twice, but neither had any interest in what looked like just one more TV newsvan. As Ace had said, Mr. Gaunt was keeping Them busy.

They left a timer and five sticks of dynamite in the doorway of

The Samuels Funeral Home. The barber shop was beside it. Ace wrapped a piece of blanket around his arm and popped his elbow through the gless pane in the door. He doubted very much if the barber shop was equipped with an alarm… or if the police would bother responding, even if it was. Buster handed him a freshly prepared bomb-they were using wire from one of the bench compartments to bind the timers and the blasting caps securely to the dynamite-and Ace lobbed it through the hole in the door. They watched it tumble to a stop at the foot of the # I chair, the timer ticking down from 25.

“Won’t nobody be getting a shave in there for awhile, Dad,” Ace breathed, and Buster giggled breathlessly.

They split up then, Ace tossing one bundle into Galaxia while Buster crammed another into the mouth of the bank’s night-deposit slot.

As they returned to the van through the slashing rain, lightning ripped across the sky. The elm toppled into Castle Stream with a rending roar. They stood on the sidewalk for a moment, staring in that direction, both of them thinking that the dynamite under the bridge had gone twenty minutes or more early, but there was no blossom of fire.

“I think it was lightning,” Ace said. “Must have hit a tree.

Come on.”

As they pulled out, Ace driving now, Alan’s station wagon passed them. In the pouring rain, neither driver noticed the other.

They drove up to Nan’s. Ace broke the glass of the door with his elbow and they left the dynamite and a ticking timer, this one set at 20, just inside, near the cash register stand. As they were leaving, an incredibly bright stroke of lightning flashed, and all the streetlights went out.

“It’s the power!” Buster cried happily. “The power’s out!

Fantastic! Let’s do the Municipal Building! Let’s blow it sky-high!”

“Dad, that place is crawling with cops! Didn’t you see them?”

“They’re chasing their own tails,” Buster said impatiently.

“And when these things start to go up, they’re going to be chasing them twice as fast. Besides, it’s dark now, and we can go in through the courthouse on the other side. The master-key opens that door, too.”

“You’ve got the balls of a tiger, Dad-you know that?”

Buster smiled tightly. “So do you, Ace. So do you.”

7

Alan pulled into one of the slant parking spaces in front of Needful Things, turned off the station wagon’s engine, and simply sat for a moment, staring at Mr. Gaunt’s shop. The sign in the window now read

GOODBYE GOODBYE I DON’T KNOW WHY YOU SAY HELLO I SAY GOODBYE.

Lightning stuttered on and off like giant neon, giving the window the look of a blank, dead eye.

Yet a deep instinct suggested that Needful Things, while closed and quiet, might not be empty. Mr. Gaunt could have left town in all the confusion, yes-with the storm raging and the cops ru

Batman’s nemesis, the Joker. Alan had an idea that he was dealing with the sort of man who would think installing a jet-powered backflow valve in a friend’s toilet the very height of humor. And would a fellow like that-the sort of fellow who would put a tack in your chair or stick a burning match in the sole of your shoe just for laughs-leave before you sat down or noticed that your socks were on fire and your pantscuffs were catching? Of course not. What fun would that be?