Needful Things - Stephen King [193]
"I guess it doesn't need gas," the jockeysaid timidly.
"Guess not."
"Maybe your fuel gauge is bust-" "Wipe that gas off the side of my car. You want the paint to blister? What's the matter with you?"
The kid sprang to do it, and Ace went into the bathroom to help his nose a little. When he came out, the pump jockey was standing at a respectful distance from the Talisman, twisting his rag nervously in both hands.
He's scared, Ace thought. Scared of what? Me?
No; the kid in the Mobile coverall barely glanced in Ace's direction. It was the Tucker that kept drawing his gaze.
He tried to touch it, Ace thought.
The revelation-and that was what it was, exactly what it wasbrought a grim little smile to the corners of his mouth.
He tried to touch it and something happened. What it was don't really matter. It taught him that he can look but he better not touch, and that's all that does matter.
"Won't be no charge," the pump 'ockeysaid.
"You got that right." Ace slid behind the wheel and got rolling in a hurry. He had a brand-new idea about the Talisman. In a way it was a scary idea, but in another way it was a really great idea. He thought that maybe the gas gauge always read empty and that the tank was always full.
7
The toll-gates for passenger cars in New Hampshire are the automated kind; you throw a buck's worth of change (No Pennies Please) into the basket, the red light turns green, and you go. Except when Ace rolled the Tucker Talisman up to the basket jutting out from the post, the light turned green on its own and the little sign shone out:
TOLL PAID, THANK U.
"Betcha fur," Ace muttered, and drove on toward Maine.
By the time he left Portland behind, he had the Talisman cruising along at just over eighty miles an hour, and there was plenty left under the hood. just past the Falmouth exit, he topped a rise and saw a State Police cruiser lurking beside the highway. The distinctive torpedo-shape of a radar gun jutted from the driver's window.
Uh-oh, Ace thought. He got me. Dead-bang. Jesus Christ, why was I speeding anyway, with all the shit I'm carrying?
But he knew why, and it wasn't the coke he had snorted. Maybe on another occasion, but not this time. It was the Talisman. It wanted to go fast. He would look at the speedometer, ease his foot off the go-pedal a little and five minutes later he would realize he had it three quarters of the way to the floor again.
He waited for the cruiser to come alive in a blaze of pulsing blue lights and rip out after him, but it didn't happen. Ace blipped past at eighty, and the State Bear never made a move.
Hell, he must have been cooping.
But Ace knew better. When you saw a radar gun poking out of the window, you knew the guy inside was wide awake and hot to trot. No, what had happened was this: the State cop hadn't been able to see the Talisman. It sounded crazy, but it felt exactly right.
The big yellow car with its three headlights screaming out of the front was invisible to both high-tech hardware and the cops that used it.
Grinning, Ace walked Mr. Gaunt's Tucker Talisman up to a hundred and ten. He arrived back in The Rock at quarter past eight, with almost four hours to spare.
8
Mr. Gaunt emerged from his shop and stood beneath the canopy to watch Ace baby the Talisman into one of the three slant parking spaces in front of Needful Things.
"You made good time, Ace."
"Yeah. This is some car."
"Bet your fur," Mr. Gaunt said. He ran a hand along the Tucker's smoothly sloping front deck. "One of a kind. You have brought my merchandise, I take it?"
"Yeah. Mr. Gaunt, I got some idea of just how special this car of yours is on the way back, but I think you still might consider getting some license plates for it, and maybe an inspection stick-"
"They are not necessary," Mr. Gaunt said Indifferently. "Park it in the alley behind the shop, Ace, if you please. I'll take care of it later."
"How? Where?" Ace found himself suddenly reluctant to turn the car over to Mr. Gaunt. It was not just that he'd left his own car in Boston and