Needful Things - Stephen King [151]
When he left the men's room, he put the hanger back on the same file-cabinet handle, where he could not help seeing it on his way out.
That was also good, because Alan got pissed like a bear when Norris forgot and left his duds hanging around the police station. He said it made the place look like a laundrymat.
He went over to his desk. Someone really had left him a present-it was a box done up in light-blue foil wrapping paper and blue velvet ribbon exploding into a fluffy bow on top. There was a square white envelope tucked under the ribbon. Very curious now, Norris removed the envelope and tore it open. There was a card inside. Typed on it in capital letters was a short, enigmatic message: !!!!!JUSTA REMINDER!!!!!
He frowned. The only two persons he could think of who were always reminding him of things were Alan and his mother and his mother had died five years ago. He picked up the package, broke the ribbon, and set the bow carefully aside. Then he took off the paper, revealing a plain white cardboard box. It was about a foot long, four inches wide, and four inches deep. The lid was taped shut.
Norris broke the tape and opened the box. There was a layer of white tissue paper over the object inside, thin enough to indicate a flat surface with a number of raised ridges running across it, but not thin enough to allow him to see what his present was.
He reached in to pull the tissue paper out, and his forefinger struck something hard-a protruding tongue of metal. A heavy steel jaw closed on the tissue paper and also on Norris Ridgewick's first three fingers. Pain ripped up his arm. He screamed and stumbled backward, grabbing his right wrist with his left hand. The white box tumbled to the floor. Tissue-paper crinkled.
Oh, son of a bitch, it hurt! He grabbed at the tissue, which hung down in a wrinkled ribbon, and tore it free. What he revealed was a large Victory rat-trap. Someone had armed it, stuck it in a box, put tissue-paper over it to hide it, and then wrapped it in pretty blue paper. Now it was clamped on the first three fingers of his right hand. It had torn the nail of his index finger right off, he saw; all that remained was a bleeding crescent of raw flesh.
"Whoremaster!" Norris cried. In his pain and shock, he at first beat the trap against the side of John LaPointe's desk instead of just prying back the steel bar. All he managed to do was bang his hurt fingers against the desk's metal corner and send a fresh snarl of pain up his arm. He screamed again, then grabbed the trap's bar and pulled it back. He released his fingers and dropped the trap.
The steel bar snapped down again on the trap's wooden base as it fell to the floor.
Norris stood trembling for a moment, then bolted back into the men's room, turned on the cold water with his left hand, and thrust his right hand under the tap. It throbbed like an impacted wisdom tooth.
He stood with his lips drawn back in a grimace, watching thin threads of blood swirl down the drain, and thought of what Sandy had said: Mr. Keeton was by. maybe it's a kiss-andmake-up present.
And the card: JUST A REMINDER.
Oh, it had been Buster, all right. He didn't doubt it a bit. It was just Buster's style.
"You son of a bitch," Norris groaned.
The cold water was numbing his fingers, damping down that sick throbbing, but he knew it would be back by the time he arrived home.
Aspirin might dull it a little, but he still thought he could forget getting any real sleep tonight. Or any fishing tomorrow, for that matter.
Oh yes I will-I'll go fishing even if my fucking hand falls fucking off. I had it planned, I've been looking forward to it, and Danforth Fucking Buster Keeton isn't going to stop me.
He turned off the water and used a paper towel to blot his hand gently dry. None of the fingers which had been caught in the trap were broken-at least he didn't think so-but they were already beginning to swell, cold water or no cold water. The arm of the trap had left a dark red-purple weal which