Needful Things - Stephen King [169]
And what was he going to say to that?
Ace didn't know-he only knew that the flash of dark-blue light with which he had awakened was still glimmering somewhere inside him.
The lot where the Emporium Galorium had stood was still vacant, he saw. Nothing there but weeds, a few charred board-ends, and some road-litter. Broken glass twinkled back the sun in eyewatering shards of hot light. There was nothing there to look at, but Ace wanted to look, anyway. He started across the street. He had almost reached the far side when the green awning two storefronts up caught his eye.
NEEDFUL THINGS,
the side of the awning read. Now what kind of name for a store was that? Ace walked up the street to see. He could look at the vacant lot where his uncle's tourist-trap had stood later on; he didn't think anyone was going to move it.
The first thing to catch his eye was the
HELP WANTED
sign. He paid it little attention. He didn't know what he had come back to Castle Rock for, but a stockboy job wasn't it.
There were a number of rather classy-looking items in the window-the sort of stuff he would have taken away if he were doing a little nightwork in some rich guy's house. A chess set with carved jungle animals for pieces. A necklace of black pearls-it looked valuable to Ace, but he supposed the pearls were probably artificial.
Surely no one in this dipshit burg could afford a string of genuine black pearls. Good job, though; they looked real enough to him.
AndAce looked at the book behind the pearls with narrowed eyes.
It had been set up on its spine so someone looking in the window could easily see the cover, which depicted the silhouettes of two men standing on a ridge at night. One had a pick, the other a shovel.
They appeared to be digging a hole. The title of the book was Lost and Buried Treasures of New England. The author's name was printed below the picture in small white letters.
It was Reginald Merrill.
Ace went to the door and tried the knob. It turned easily. The bell overhead jingled. Ace Merrill entered Needful Things.
"No," Ace said, looking at the book Mr. Gaunt had taken from the window display and put into his hands. "This isn't the one I want.
You must have gotten the wrong one."
"It's the only book in the show window, I assure you," Mr.
Gaunt said in a mildly puzzled voice. "You can look for yourself if you don't believe me."
For a moment Ace did almost that, and then he let out an exasperated little sigh. "No, that's okay," he said.
The book the shopkeeper had handed him was Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson. What had happened was clear enoughhe'd had Pop on his mind, and he'd made a mistake. The real mistake, though, had been coming back to Castle Rock in the first place. Why in the fuck had he done it?
"Listen, this is a very interesting place you've got here, but I ought to get a move on. I'll see you another time, Mr.-" "Gaunt," the shopkeeper said, putting out his hand. "Leland Gaunt."
Ace put his own hand out and it was swallowed up. A great, galvanizing power seemed to rush through him at the moment of contact.
His mind was filled with that dark-blue light again: a huge, sheeting flare of it this time.
He took his hand back, dazed and weak-kneed.
"What was that?" he whispered.
"I believe they call it'an attention-getter,' " Mr. Gaunt said.
He spoke with quiet composure. "You'll want to pay attention to me, Mr. Merrill."
"How did you know my name? I didn't tell you my name."
"Oh, I know who you are," Mr. Gaunt said with a little laugh.
"I've