Needful Things - Stephen King [22]
"I see."
"Do you really?"
"Well I think so. It explains the name of the shop."
He smiled. "It might," he said. "I suppose it might, at that."
"Well, I'll wish you a very good day, Mr. Gaunt-" "Leland, please. Or just Lee."
"Leland, then. And you're not to worry about customers. I think by Friday, you'll have to hire a security guard to shoo them out at the end of the day."
"Do you? That would be lovely."
"Goodbye."
"Ciao," he said, and closed the door after her.
He stood there a moment, watching as Polly Chalmers walked down the street, smoothing her gloves over her hands, so misshapen and in such startling contrast to the rest of her, which was trim and pretty, if not terribly remarkable. Gaunt's smile grew. As his lips drew back, exposing his uneven teeth, it became unpleasantly predatory.
"You'll do," he said softly in the empty shop. "You'll do just fine."
5
Polly's prediction proved quite correct. By closing time that day, almost all of the women in Castle Rock-those who mattered, anyway-and several men had stopped by Needful Things for a quick browse. Almost all of them were at some pains to assure Gaunt that they had only a moment, because they were on their way to someplace else.
Stephanie Bonsaint, Cynthia Rose Martin, Barbara Miller, and Francine Pelletier were the first; Steffie, Cyndi Rose, Babs, and Francie arrived in a protective bunch not ten minutes after Polly was observed leaving the new shop (the news of her departure spread quickly and thoroughly by telephone and the efficient bush telegraph which runs through New England back yards).
Steffie and her friends looked. They ooohed and ahhhed. They assured Gaunt they could not stay long because this was their bridge day (neglecting to tell him that the weekly rubber usually did not start until about two in the afternoon). Francae asked him where he came from. Gaunt told her Akron, Ohio. Steffie asked him if he had been in the antiques business for long. Gaunt told her he did not consider it to be the antiques business exactly. Cyndi wanted to know if Mr. Gaunt had been in New England.long.
Awhile, Gaunt replied; awhile.
All four agreed later that the shop was many odd things!-but it had been a very unsuccessful interview. The man was as close-mouthed as Polly Chalmers, perhaps more. Babs then pointed out what they all knew (or thought they knew): that Polly had been the first person in town to actually enter the new shop, and that she had brought a cake.
Perhaps, Babs speculated, she knew Mr. Gaunt from that Time Before, that time she had spent Away.
Cyndi Rose expressed interest in a Lalique vase, and asked Mr.
Gaunt (who was nearby but did not hover, all noted with approval) how much it was.
"How much do you think?" he asked, smiling.
She smiled back at him, rather coquettishly. "Oh," she said. "Is that the way you do things, Mr. Gaunt?"
"That's the way I do them," he agreed.
"Well, you're apt to lose more than you gain, dickering with Yankees," Cyndi Rose said, while her friends looked on with the bright interest of spectators at a Wimbledon Championship match.
"That," he said, "remains to be seen." His voice was still friendly, but now it was mildly challenging, as well.
Cyndi Rose looked more closely at the vase this time. Steffie Bonsaint whispered something in her ear. Cyndi Rose nodded.
"Seventeen dollars," she said. The vase actually looked as if it might be worth fifty, and she guessed that in a Boston antiques shop, it would be priced at one hundred and eighty.
Gaunt steepled his fingers under his chin in a gesture Brian Rusk would have recognized. "I think I'd have to have at least forty-five," he said with some regret.
Cyndi Rose's eyes brightened; there were possibilities here. She had originally seen the Lalique vase as something only mildly interesting, really not much more than another conversational crowbar to use on the mysterious Mr. Gaunt. Now she looked at it more closely