Needful Things - Stephen King [94]
Then he went to the window and stood looking out over the sleeping town, taking deep breaths and trying to calm himself They had it in for him. The Persecutors. He found himself wondering for the thousandth time who had sicced Them on him in the first place. If he could find that person, that dirty Chief Persecutor, Keeton would take the gun from where it lay in its box under the motheaten sweaters and put an end to him. He would not do it quickly, however. Oh no. He would shoot off a piece at a time and make the dirty bastard sing the National Anthem while he did it.
His mind turned to the skinny deputy, Ridgewick. Could it have been him? He didn't seem bright enough but looks could be deceiving. Pangborn said Ridgewick had ticketed the Cadillac on his orders, but that didn't make it true. And in the men's room, when Ridgewick had called him Buster, there had been a look of knowing, jeering contempt in his eyes. Had Ridgewick been around when the first letters from the Bureau of Taxation began to come in? Keeton was quite sure he had been. Later today he would look up the man's employment record, just to be sure.
What about Pangborn himself? He was certainly bright enough, he most certainly hated Danforth Keeton (didn't They all? didn't They all hate him?), and Pangborn knew lots of people in Augusta.
He knew Them well. Hell, he was on the phone to Them every fucking day, it seemed. The phone bills, even with the WATS line, were horrible.
Could it be both of them? Pangborn and Ridgewick? In on it together?
"The Lone Ranger and his faithful Indian companion, Tonto," Keeton said in a low voice, and smiled balefully. "If it was you, Pangborn, you'll be sorry. And if it was both of you, you'll both be sorry."
His hands slowly rolled themselves into fists. "I won't stand this persecution forever, you know."
His carefully manicured nails cut into the flesh of his palms. He did not notice the blood when it began to flow. Maybe Ridgewick.
Maybe Pangborn, maybe Melissa Clutterbuck, the frigid bitch who was the Town Treasurer, maybe Bill Fullerton, the Second Selectman (he knew for a fact that Fullerton wanted his job and wouldn't rest until he had it)
Maybe all of them.
All of them together.
Keeton let out his breath in a long, tortured sigh, making a fogflower on the wire-reinforced glass of his office window. The question was, what was he going to do about it? Between now and the 17th of the month, what was he going to do?
The answer was simple: he didn't know.
2
Danforth Keeton's life as a young man had been a thing of clear blacks and whites, and he had liked that just fine. He had gone to Castle Rock High School and began working part-time at the family car dealership when he was fourteen, washing the demonstrators and waxing the showroom models. Keeton Chevrolet was one of the oldest Chevrolet franchises in New England and keystone of the Keeton financial structure. That had been a solid structure indeed, at least until fairly recently.
During his four years at Castle Rock High, he had been Buster to just about everyone. He took the commercial courses, maintained a solid B average, ran the student council almost singlehanded, and went on to Traynor Business College in Boston. He made straight A's at Traynor and graduated three semesters early.
When he came back to The Rock, he quickly made it clear that his Buster days were over.
It had been a fine life until the trip he and Steve Frazier had made to Lewiston nine or ten years ago. That was when the trouble had started; that was when his neat black-and-white life began to fill with deepening shades of gray. mbled-not as Buster at C.R.H.S not as Dan at Traynor Business, not as Mr. Keeton of Keeton Chevrolet and the Board of Selectmen. As far as Keeton knew, no one in his whole family had gambled; he could not remember even such innocent pastimes as nickel skat or pitching pennies. There was no taboo against these things, no thou shalt not, but no