Needful Things - Stephen King [313]
Several times he almost called Keeton Mr. Toad instead of Dad, but caught himself. Calling this guy Mr. Toad might be a very bad idea.
They crossed the Tin Bridge while Alan was still three miles from it and got out in the pouring rain. Ace found a blanket in one of the van's bench compartments and draped it over a bundle of dynamite and one of the cap-equipped timers.
"Do you want help?" Buster asked nervously.
"You better let me handle it, Dad. You'd be apt to fall in the goddam stream, and I'd have to waste time fishing you out. just keep your eyes open, okay?"
"I will. Ace why don't we sniff a little more of that cocaine first?"
"Not right now," Ace said indulgently, and patted one of Buster's meaty arms. "This shit is almost pure. You want to explode?"
"Not me," Buster said. "Everything else, but not me." He began to laugh wildly. Ace joined him.
"Havin some fun tonight, huh, Dad?"
Buster was amazed to find this was true. His depression following Myrtle's Myrtle's accident now seemed years distant.
He felt that he and his excellent friend Ace Merrill finally had Them right where they wanted Them: in the palm of their collective hand.
"You bet," he said, and watched Ace slide down the wet, grassy bank beside the bridge with the blanket-wrapped parcel of dynamite held against his belly.
It was relatively dry under the bridge; not that it mattered the dynamite and the blasting caps had been waterproofed.
Ace put his package in the elbow-crook formed by two of the struts, then attached the blasting cap to the dynamite by poking the wires-the tips were already stripped, how convenient-into one of the sticks. He twisted the big white dial of the timer to 40. It began ticking.
He crawled out and scrambled back up the slippery bank.
"Well?" Buster asked anxiously. "Will it blow, do you think?"
"It'll blow," Ace said reassuringly, and climbed into the van.
He was soaked to the skin, but he didn't mind.
"What if They find it? What if They disconnect it before-" "Dad,"
Ac.- said. "Listen a minute. Poke your head out this door and listen."
Buster did. Faintly, between blasts of thunder, he thought he could hear yells and screams. Then, clearly, he heard the thin, hard crack of a pistol shot.
"Mr. Gaunt is keeping Them busy," Ace said. "He's one clever son of a bitch." He tipped a pile of cocaine into his snuff-hollow, tooted, then held his hand under Buster's nose. "Here, Dad-it's Miller Time."
Buster dipped his head and snorted.
They drove away from the bridge about seven minutes before Alan Pangborn crossed it. Underneath, the timer's black marker stood at 30.
6
Ace Merrill and Danforth Keeton-aka Buster, aka Zippy's Dad, aka Toad of Toad Hall-drove slowly up Main Street in the pouring rain like Santa and his helper, leaving little bundles here and there.
State Police cars roared by them twice, but neither had any interest in what looked like just one more TV newsvan. As Ace had said, Mr. Gaunt was keeping Them busy.
They left a timer and five sticks of dynamite in the doorway of The Samuels Funeral Home. The barber shop was beside it. Ace wrapped a piece of blanket around his arm and popped his elbow through the gless pane in the door. He doubted very much if the barber shop was equipped with an alarm or if the police would bother responding, even if it was. Buster handed him a freshly prepared bomb-they were using wire from one of the bench compartments to bind the timers and the blasting caps securely to the dynamite-and Ace lobbed it through the hole in the door. They watched it tumble to a stop at the foot of the # I chair, the timer ticking down from 25.
"Won't nobody be getting a shave in there for awhile, Dad," Ace breathed, and Buster giggled breathlessly.
They split up then, Ace tossing one bundle into Galaxia while Buster crammed another into the mouth of the bank's night-deposit slot.
As they returned to the van through the slashing rain,