Needful Things - Stephen King [120]
"But-" Koufax/Gaunt raised his gloved hand. "Let me tell you something, bush: I hate that word. Of all the words in the English language, it is easily the worst. I think it's the worst word in any language. You know what a butt is, bush? It's the place shit comes out of."
The man in the old-fashioned Brooklyn Dodgers uniform hid the baseball in his glove and turned to face Brian fully. It was Mr.
Gaunt, all right, and Brian felt a freezing, dismal terror grip his heart. "I did say I wanted you to play a trick on Wilma, Brian, that's true, but I never said it was the one and only trick I wanted you to play on her. You just assumed, bush. Do you believe me, or would you like to hear the tape of our conversation?"
"I believe you," Brian said. He was perilously close to blubbering now. "I believe you, but-" "What did I just tell you about that word, bush?"
Brian dropped his head and swallowed hard.
"You've got a lot to learn about dickering," Koufax/Gaunt said.
"You and everyone else in Castle Rock. But that's one of the reasons I came-to conduct a seminar in the fine art of dickering.
There was one fellow in town, a gent named Merrill, who knew a little something about it, but he's long gone and hard to find." He grinned, revealing Leland Gaunt's large, uneven teeth in Sandy Koufax's narrow, brooding face. "And the word 'bargain,' BrianI have some tall teaching to do on that subject, as well."
"But-" The word was out of Brian's mouth before he could call it back.
"No buts about it," Koufax/Gaunt said. He leaned forward. His face stared solemnly at Brian from beneath the bill of his baseball cap. "Mr. Gaunt knows best. Can you say that, Brian?"
Brian's throat worked, but no sound came out. He felt hot, loose tears behind his eyes.
A large, cold hand descended upon Brian's shoulder. And gripped.
"Say it!"
"Mr. Gaunt. Brian had to swallow again to make room for the words. "Mr. Gaunt knows best."
"That's right, bush. That's exactly right. And what that means is you're going to do what I say or else."
Brian summoned all his will and made one final effort.
"What if I say no, anyway? What if I say no because I didn't understand the whatdoyoucallems the terms?"
Koufax/Gaunt picked the baseball out of his glove and closed his hand over it. Small drops of blood began to sweat out of the stitches.
"You really can't say no, Brian," he said softly. "Not anymore.
Why, this is the seventh game of the World Series. All the chickens have come home to roost, and it's time to shit or git. Take a look around you. Go on and take a good look."
Brian looked around and was horrified to see that Ebbets Field was so full they were standing in the aisles and he knew them all. He saw his Ma and Pa sitting with his little brother, Sean, in the Commissioner's Box behind home plate. His speech therapy class, flanked by Miss Ratcliffe on one end and her big dumb boyfriend, Lester Pratt, on the other, was ranged along the first-base line, drinking Royal Crown Cola and munching hotdogs. The entire Castle Rock Sheriff's Office was seated in the bleachers, drinking beer from paper cups with pictures of this year's Miss Rheingold contestants on them.
He saw his Sunday School class, the town selectmen, Myra and Chuck Evans, his aunts, his uncles, his cousins.
There, sitting behind third base, was Sonny jackett, and when Koufax/Gaunt threw the bleeding ball and it made that rifleshot crack in the catcher's glove again, Brian saw that the face behind the mask now belonged to Hugh Priest.
"Run you down, little buddy," Hugh said as he threw the ball back.
"Make you squeak."
"You see, bush, it's not just a question of the baseball card anymore," Koufax/Gaunt said from beside him. "You know that, don't you? When you slung that mud at Wilma jerzyck's sheets, you started something. Like a guy who starts an avalanche just by shouting too loud on a warm winter day. Now your choice is simple.
You can keep