Needful Things - Stephen King [333]
"I don't think so, Mr. Gaunt. I have an idea that what's in there is stolen property. I think you'd better-" Ace had been staring at Gaunt's subtle but steady transformation from businessman to monster, his mouth agape. The arm around Polly's throat had relaxed a little, and she saw her chance. She twisted her head and buried her teeth up to the gumline in Ace Merrill's wrist. Ace shoved her away without thinking, and Polly went sprawling into the street. Ace levelled the gun at her.
"Bitch!" he cried.
15
"There," Norris Ridgewick murmured gratefully.
He had rested the barrel of his service revolver along one of the flasher-bars. Now he held his breath, caught his lower lip in his teeth, and squeezed the trigger. Ace Merrill was suddenly hurled over the woman in the street-it was Polly Chalmers, and Norris had time to think he should have known-with the back of his head spreading and flying outward in clumps and clots.
Suddenly Norris felt very faint.
But he also felt very, very blessed.
16
Alan took no notice of Ace Merrill's end.
Neither did Leland Gaunt.
They faced each other, Gaunt on the sidewalk, Alan standing by his station wagon in the street with the horrible, breathing valise between his feet.
Gaunt took a deep breath and closed his eyes. Something passed over his face-a kind of shimmer. When he opened his eyes again, a semblance of the Leland Gaunt who had fooled so many people in The Rock was back-charming, urbane Mr. Gaunt. He glanced down at the paper snake lying on the sidewalk, grimaced with distaste, and kicked it into the gutter. Then he looked back at Alan and held out one hand.
"Please, Sheriff-let's not argue. The hour is late and I'm tired.
You want me out of your town, and I want to go. I will go as soon as you give me what's mine. And it is mine, I assure you."
"Assure and be damned. I don't believe you, my friend."
Gaunt stared at Alan with impatience and anger. "That bag and its contents belong to me! Don't you believe in free trade, Sheriff Pangborn? What are you, some sort of Communist? I dickered for each and every one of the things in that valise! I got them fair and square. If it's a reward you want, an emolument, a commission, a finder's fee, a dip out of the old gravy-boat, whatever you want to call it, that I can understand and that I will gladly pay. But you must see that this is a business matter, not a legal m-" "You cheated!"
Polly screamed. "You cheated and you lied and you cozened!"
Gaunt shot her a pained glance, then looked back at Alan. "I didn't, you know. I dealt as I always do. I show people what I have to sell and let them make up their own minds. So if you please "
"I think I'll keep it," Alan said evenly. A small smile, as thin and sharp as a rind of November ice, touched his mouth. "Let's just call it evidence, okay?"
"I'm afraid you can't do that, Sheriff." Gaunt stepped off the sidewalk and into the street. Small red pits of light glowed in his eyes. "You can die, but you can't keep my property. Not if I mean to take it. And I do." He began to walk toward Alan, the red pinpricks in his eyes deepening. He left a boot-track in an oatmealcolored lump of Ace's brains as he came.
Alan felt his belly try to fold in on itself, but he didn't move.
Instead, prompted by some instinct he made no effort to understand, he put his hands together in front of the station wagon's left headlight. He crossed them, made a bird-shape, and began to bend his wrists rapidly back and forth.
The sparrows are flying again, Mr. Gaunt, he thought.
A large projected shadow-bird-more hawk than sparrow and unsettlingly realistic for an insubstantial shade-suddenly flapped across the false front of Needful Things. Gaunt saw it from the corner of his eye, whirled toward it, gasped, and retreated again.
"Get out of town, my friend," Alan said. He rearranged his hands and now a large shadow-dog-perhaps a Saint Bernardslouched across the front of You Sew and Sew in the spotlight thrown by the station wagon's headlights. And somewhere