Needful Things - Stephen King [119]
Hugh hurried down the walk. He told himself not to run, but he was trotting by the time he reached his truck, just the same. He fumbled the door open, slid in behind the wheel, and stabbed the ignition key at the slot. He did this three or four times, and the fucking key kept going astray. He had to steady his right hand with his left before he could finally get it to go where it belonged. His brow was dotted with fine beads of sweat. He had suffered through many hangovers, but he had never felt like this-this was like coming down with malaria, or something.
The truck started with a roar and a belch of blue smoke. Hugh's foot slipped off the clutch. The truck took two large, snapping jerks away from the curb and stalled. Breathing harshly through his mouth, Hugh got it started again and drove away fast.
By the time he got to the motor pool (it was still as deserted as the mountains of the moon) and exchanged the town truck for his old dented Buick, he had forgotten all about Raider and the horrible thing he had done with the corkscrew. He had something else, something much more important, to think about. During the drive back to the motor pool he had been gripped with a feverish certainty: someone had been in his house while he was gone, and that someone had stolen his fox-tail.
Hugh drove home at better than sixty, came to a stop four inches from his rickety porch in a squash of gravel and a cloud of dust, and ran up the steps two at a time. He burst in, ran to the closet, and yanked the door open. He stood on his toes and began to explore the high shelf with his panicky, fluttering hands.
At first they felt nothing but bare wood, and Hugh sobbed in fright and rage. Then his left hand sank deep into that rough plush that was neither silk nor wool, and a great sense of peace and fulfillment slipped over him. It was like food to the starving, rest to the weary quinine to the malarial. The staccato drumroll in his chest finally began to ease. He drew the fox-tail down from its hiding place and sat at the kitchen table. He spread it across his fleshy thighs and began to stroke it with both hands.
Hugh sat like that for better than three hours.
7
The boy Hugh saw but failed to recognize, the one on the bike, was Brian Rusk. Brian had had his own dream last night, and had his own errand to run this morning in consequence.
In his dream, the seventh game of the World Series was about to start-some ancient Elvis-era World Series, featuring the old apocalyptic rivalry, that baseball avatar, the Dodgers versus the Yankees. Sandy Koufax was in the bullpen, warming up for Da Burns. He was also speaking to Brian Rusk, who stood beside him, between pitches.
Sandy Koufax told Brian exactly what he was supposed to do. He was very clear about it; he dotted every I and crossed every t. No problem there.
The problem was this: Brian didn't want to do it.
He felt like a creep, arguing with a baseball legend like Sandy Koufax, but he had tried, just the same. "You don't understand, Mr.
Koufax," he said. "I was supposed to play a trick on Wilma jerzyck, and I did. I already did."
"So what?" Sandy Koufax said. "What's your point, bush?"
"Well, that was the deal. Eighty-five cents and one trick."
"You sure of that, bush? One trick? Are you sure? Did he say something like'not more than one trick'? Something legal like that?"
Brian couldn't quite remember, but the feeling that he'd been had was growing steadily stronger inside him. No not just had.
Trapped. Like a mouse with a morsel of cheese.
"Let me tell you something, bush. The deal-" He broke off and uttered a little unhh! as he threw a hard overhand fastball. It popped into the catcher's mitt with a rifleshot crack. Dust drifted up from the mitt, and Brian realized with dawning dismay that he knew the stormy blue eyes looking at them from behind the catcher's mask. Those eyes belonged to Mr. Gaunt.
Sandy Koufax caught Mr. Gaunt's return toss, then glanced at Brian with flat eyes like brown glass. "The deal is whatever I say the deal is, bush."
Sandy Koufax's