Needful Things - Stephen King [24]
"Are you sure you can't drop by?" he coaxed. "Polly told me that you made the cake she brought this morning-" "Was it all right?"
Nettle asked nervously. Her eyes said she expected him to say, No, it was not all right, Nettle, it gave me cramps, it gave me the backdoor trots, in fact, and so I am going to hurt you, Nettle, I'm going to drag you into the back room and twist your nipples until you holler uncle.
"It was wonderful," he said soothingly. "It made me think of cakes my mother used to make and that was a very long time ago."
This was the right note to strike with Nettle, who had loved her own mother dearly in spite of the beatings that lady had administered after her frequent nights out in the juke-joints and ginmills. She relaxed a little.
"Well, that's fine, then," she said. "I'm awfully glad it was good.
Of course, it was Polly's idea. She's just about the sweetest woman in the world."
"Yes," he said. "After meeting her, I can believe that." He glanced at Rosalie Drake, but Rosalie was still browsing. He looked back at Nettle and said, "I just felt I owed you a little something-"
"Oh no!" Nettle said, alarmed all over again. "You don't owe me a thing. Not a single solitary thing, Mr. Gaunt."
"Please come by. I can see you have an eye for carnival glass and I could give you back Polly's cake-box."
"Well I suppose I could drop by on my break " Nettle's eyes said she could not believe what she was hearing from her own mouth.
"Wonderful," he said, and left her quickly, before she could change her mind again. He walked over to the boys and asked them how they were doing. They hesitantly showed him several old issues of The Incredible Hulk and The X-Men. Five minutes later they went out with most of the comic books in their hands and expressions of stunned joy on their faces.
The door had barely shut behind them when it opened again.
Cora Rusk and Myra Evans strode in. They looked around, eyes as bright and avid as those of squirrels in nut-gathering season, and went immediately to the glass case containing the picture of Elvis.
Cora and Myra bent over, cooing with interest, displaying bottoms which were easily two axe-handles wide.
Gaunt watched them, smiling.
The bell over the door jingled again. The new arrival was as large as Cora Rusk, but Cora was fat and this woman looked strong-the way a lumberjack with a beer belly looks strong. A large white button had been pinned to her blouse. The red letters proclaimed:
CASINO NITE-JUST FOR FUN!
The lady's face had all the charm of a snowshovel. Her hair, an unremarkable and lifeless shade of brown, was mostly covered by a kerchief which was knotted severely under her wide chin. She surveyed the interior of the store for a moment or two, her small, deepset eyes flicking here and there like the eyes of a gunslinger who surveys the interior of a saloon before pushing all the way through the batwing doors and starting to raise hell. Then she came in.
Few of the women circulating among the displays gave her more than a glance, but Nettle Cobb looked at the newcomer with an extraordinary expression of mingled dismay and hate. Then she scuttled away from the carnival glass. Her movement caught the newcomer's eye. She glanced at Nettle with a kind of massive contempt, then dismissed her.
The bell over the door jingled as Nettle left the shop.
Mr. Gaunt observed all of this with great interest.
He walked over to Rosalie and said, "Mrs. Cobb has left without you, I'm afraid."
Rosalie looked startled. "Why-" she began, and then her eyes settled on the newcomer with the Casino Nite button pinned adamantly between her breasts. She was studying the Turkish rug hung on the wall with the fixed interest of an art student in a gallery.
Her hands were planted on her vast hips. "Oh, " Rosalie said.
"Excuse me, I really ought to go along."
"No love lost between those two, I'd say," Mr. Gaunt remarked.
Rosalie smiled distractedly.
Gaunt glanced at the woman in the kerchief again. "Who is she?"
Rosalie wrinkled her nose. "Wilma Jersyck,"