Needful Things

She had come to work for Polly as part of a work-release program.

As far as Alan was concerned, she could not possibly have fallen in with better company, and Nettle’s steadily improving state of mind confirmed his opinion. Two years ago, Nettle had moved into her own little place on Ford Street, six blocks from downtown.

“Nettle’s got problems, all right,” Polly said, “but her reaction to Mr. Gaunt was nothing short of amazing. It really was awfully sweet.”

“I have to see this guy for myself,” Alan said.

“Tell me what you think. And check out those hazel eyes.”

“I doubt if they’ll cause the same reaction in me they seem to have caused in you,” Alan said dryly.

She laughed again, but this time he thought it sounded slightly forced.

“Try to get some sleep,” he said.

“I will. Thanks for calling, Alan.”

“Welcome.” He paused. “I love you, pretty lady.”

“Thank you, Alan-I love you, too. Goodnight.”

“Goodnight.”

He racked the telephone, twisted the gooseneck of the desk lamp so it threw a spot of light on the wall, put his feet up on his desk, and brought his hands together in front of his chest, as if praying. He extended his index fingers. On the wall, a shadowrabbit poked up its ears. Alan slipped his thumbs between his extended fingers, and the shadow-rabbit wiggled its nose. Alan made the rabbit hop across the makeshift spotlight. What lumbered back was an elephant, wagging its trunk. Alan’s hands moved with a dextrous, eerie ease. He barely noticed the animals he was creating; this was an old habit with him, his way of looking at the tip of his nose and saying “Om.”

He was thinking about Polly; Polly and her poor hands. What to do about Polly?

If it had been just a matter of money, he would have had her checked into a room at the Mayo Clinic by tomorrow afternoonsigned, sealed, and delivered. He would have done it even if it meant wrapping her in a straitjacket and shooting her full of sedative But it wasn’t just a matter of money. Ultrasound as a treatment for degenerative arthritis was in its infancy. It might eventually turn out to be as effective as the Salk vaccine, or as bogus as the science of phrenology. Either way, it didn’t make sense right now. The chances were a thousand to one that it was a dry hole. It was not the loss of money he dreaded, but Polly’s dashed hopes.

A crow-as limber and lifelike as a crow in a Disney animated cartoon-flapped slowly across his framed Albany Police Academy graduation certificate. Its wings lengthened and it became a prehistoric pterodactyl, triangular head cocked as it cruised toward the filing cabinets in the corner and out of the spotlight.

The door opened. The doleful basset-hound face of Norris Ridgewick poked through. “I did it, Alan,” he said, sounding like a man confessing to the murder of several small children.

“Good, Norris,” Alan said. “You’re not going to get hit with the shit on this, either. I promise.”

Norris looked at him for a moment longer with his moist eyes, then nodded doubtfully. He glanced at the wall. “Do Buster, Alan.”

Alan gri

“Come on,” Norris coaxed. “I ticketed his damn car-I deserve it.

Do Buster, Alan. Please. That wipes me out.”

Alan glanced over Norris’s shoulder, saw no one, and curled one hand against the other. On the wall, a stout shadow-man stalked across the spotlight, belly swinging. He paused once to hitch up his to get her out there. shadow-pants in the back and then stalked on, head turning truculently from side to side.

Norris’s laughter was high and happy-the laughter of a child.

For one moment Alan was reminded forcibly of Todd, and then he shoved that away. There had been enough of that for one night, please God.

“Jeer, that slays me,” Norris said, still laughing. “You were born too late, Alan-you coulda had a career on The Ed Sullivan Show.”

“Go on,” Alan said. “Get out of here.”

Still laughing, Norris pulled the door closed.

Alan made Norris-ski

He put his notebook back in his pocket, thought about going home, and turned on the lamp again instead. Soon the shadowparade was marching across the wall once more: lions and tigers and bears, oh my.

Like Sandburg’s fog, the depression crept back on small feline feet.

The voice began speaking about A

4

Polly was lying on her bed, and when she finished talking with Alan, she turned over on her left side to hang up the telephone. It fell out of her hand and crashed to the floor instead. The Princess phone’s base slid slowly across the nighttable, obviously meaning to join its other half She reached for it and her hand struck the edge of the table instead. A monstrous bolt of pain broke through the thin web the painkiller had stretched over her nerves and raced all the way up to her shoulder. She had to bite down on her lips to stifle a cry.

The telephone base fell off the edge of the table and crashed with a single cling! of the bell inside. She could hear the steady idiot buzz of the open line drifting up. It sounded like a hive of insects being broadcast via shortwave.

She thought of picking the telephone up with the claws which were now cradled on her chest, having to do it not by graspingtonight her fingers would not bend at all-but by pressing, like a woman playing the accordion, and suddenly it was too much, even something as simple as picking up a telephone which had fallen on the floor was too much, and she began to cry.

The pain was fully awake again, awake and raving, turning her hands-especially the one she had bumped-into fever-pits. She lay on her bed, looking up at the ceiling through her blurry eyes, and wept.

Oh I would give anything to be free of this, she thought. I would give anything, anything, anything at all,

5

By ten o’clock on an autumn weeknight, Castle Rock’s Main Street was as tightly locked up as a Chubb safe. The streetlamps threw circles of white light on the sidewalk and the fronts of the business buildings in diminishing perspective, making downtown look like a deserted stage-set. Soon, you might think, a lone figure dressed in tails and a top-hat-Fred Astaire, or maybe Gene Kelly-would appear and dance his way from one of those spots to the next, singing about how lonely a fellow could be when his best girl had given him the air and all the bars were closed. Then, from the other end of Main Street, another figure would appear-Ginger Rogers or maybe Cyd Charisse-dressed in an evening gown. She would dance toward Fred (or Gene), singing about how lonely a gal could be when her best guy had stood her up.

They would see each other, pause artistically, and then dance together in front of the bank or maybe You Sew and Sew.

Instead, Hugh Priest hove into view.

He did not look like either Fred Astaire or Gene Kelly, there was no girl at the far end of Main Street advancing toward a romantic chance meeting with him, and he most definitely did not dance. He did drink, however, and he had been drinking steadily in The Mellow Tiger since four that afternoon. At this point in the festivities just walking was a trick, and never mind any fancy dance-steps.