Needful Things - Stephen King [103]
"What are you up to this morning?"
Alan rolled down his sleeve and buttoned the cuff. "Right now I'm going upstreet to Needful Things," he said. "I want to meet Mr.
Leland Gaunt. He made quite an impression on Polly, and from what I hear around town, she's not the only one who's taken with him. Have you met him?"
"Not yet," John said. They started toward the door. "Been by the place a couple of times, though. Interesting mix of stuff in the window."
They walked past Eddie, who was now polishing the watercooler's big glass bottle with a rag he had produced from his back pocket. He did not look at Alan and John as they went by; he seemed lost in his own private universe. But as soon as the rear door had clicked shut behind them, Eddie Warburton hurried into the dispatcher's office and picked up the telephone.
7
"All right yes yes, I understand."
Leland Gaunt stood beside his cash register, holding a Cobra cordless phone to his ear. A smile as thin as a new crescent moon curved his lips.
"Thank you, Eddie. Thank you very much."
Gaunt strolled toward the curtain which closed off the shop from the area behind it. He poked his upper body through the curtain and bent over. When he pulled back through the curtain, he was holding a sign.
"YOu can go home now yes you may be sure I won't forget.
I never forget a face or a service, Eddie, and that is one of the reasons why I strongly dislike being reminded of either.
Goodbye."
He pushed the END button without waiting for a response, collapsed the antenna, and dropped the telephone into the pocket of his smoking jacket. The shade was drawn over his door again.
Mr. Gaunt reached between shade and glass to remove the sign which read
OPEN.
He replaced it with the one he had taken from behind the curtain, then went to the show window to watch Alan Pangborn approach.
Pangborn looked into the window Gaunt was looking out of for some time before approaching the door; he even cupped his hands and pressed his nose against the glass for a few seconds. Although Gaunt was standing right in front of him with his arms folded, the Sheriff did not see him.
Mr. Gaunt found himself disliking Pangborn's face on sight.
Nor did this much surprise him. He was even better at reading faces than he was at remembering them, and the words on this one were large and somehow dangerous.
Pangborn's face changed suddenly; the eyes widened a little, the good-humored mouth narrowed down to a tight slit. Gaunt felt a brief and totally uncharacteristic burst of fear. He sees me! he thought, although that, of course, was impossible. The Sheriff took half a step backward and then laughed. Gaunt understood at once what had happened, but this did not moderate his instant deep dislike of Pangborn in the slightest.
"Get out of here, Sheriff," he whispered. "Get out and leave me alone."
8
Alan stood looking into the display window for a long time. He found himself wondering what, exactly, all the shouting was about.
He had spoken to Rosalie Drake before going over to Polly's house yesterday evening, and Rosalie had made Needful Things sound like northern New England's answer to Tiffany's, but the set of china in the window didn't look like anything to get up in the night and write home to mother about-it was rummage-sale quality at best. Several of the plates were chipped, and a hairline crack ran right through the center of one.
Oh well, Alan thought, different strokes for different folks.
That china's probably a hundred years old, worth a fortune, and I'm just too dumb to know it.
He cupped his hands to the glass in order to see beyond the display, but there was nothing to look at-the lights were off and the place was deserted. Then he thought he caught sight of someone-a strange, transparent someone looking out at him with ghostly and malevolent interest. He took half a step backward before realizing it was the reflection of his own face he was seeing.
He laughed a little, embarrassed by his mistake.