Salem's Lot - Stephen King [108]
He paused indecisively, holding the spoon in one hand and the key ring in the other, a big man whose open-throat white shirts always sweat-stained around the armpits by noon of a warm day. He was a league bowler with an average of 151 and a weekend bar-hopper with a list of Portland red-light bars and motels in his wallet right behind his Lutheran Ministry pocket calendar. He was a friendly man, a natural fall guy, slow of reaction and also slow to anger. For all these not inconsiderable advantages, he was not particularly agile on his mental feet and for several minutes he stood wondering how to proceed, beating on the bars with the spoon, hailing Floyd, wishing he would move or snore or do something. He was just thinking he better call Parkins on the citizen’s band and get instructions when Parkins himself said from the office doorway:
‘What in hell are you doin’, Nolly? Callin’ the hogs?’
Nolly blushed. ‘Floyd won’t move, Park. I’m afraid that maybe he’s… you know, sick.’
‘Well, do you think beatin’ the bars with that goddamn spoon will make him better?’ Parkins stepped by him and unlocked the cell.
‘Floyd?’ He shook Floyd’s shoulder. ‘Are you all r-’
Floyd fell off the chained bunk and onto the floor.
‘Goddamn,’ said Nolly. ‘He’s dead, ain’t he?’
But Parkins might not have heard. He was staring down at Floyd’s uncannily reposeful face. The fact slowly dawned on Nolly that Parkins looked as if someone had scared the bejesus out of him.
‘What’s the matter, Park?’
‘Nothin’,’ Parkins said. ‘Just… let’s get out of here.’ And then, almost to himself, he added: ‘Christ, I wish I hadn’t touched him.’
Nolly looked down at Floyd’s body with dawning horror.
‘Wake up,’ Parkins said. ‘We’ve got to get the doctor down here.’
6
It was midafternoon when Franklin Boddin and Virgil Rathbun drove up to the slatted wooden gate at the end of the Burns Road fork, two miles beyond Harmony Hill Cemetery. They were in Franklin’s 1957 Chevrolet pickup, a vehicle that had been Corinthian ivory back in the first year of Ike’s second term but which was now a mixture of shit brown and primer-paint red. The back of the truck was filled with what Franklin called Crappie. Once every month or so, he and Virgil took a load of Crappie to the dump, and a great deal of said Crappie consisted of empty beer bottles, empty beer cans, empty half-kegs, empty wine bottles, and empty Popov vodka bottles.
‘Closed,’ Franklin Boddin said, squinting to read the sign nailed to the gate. ‘Well I’ll be dipped in shit.’ He took a honk off the bottle of Dawson’s that had been resting comfortably against the bulge of his crotch and wiped his mouth with his arm. ‘This is Saturday, ain’t it?’
‘Sure is,’ Virgil Rathbun said. Virgil had no idea if it was Saturday or Tuesday. He was so drunk he wasn’t even sure what month it was.
‘Dump ain’t closed on Saturday, is it’?’ Franklin asked. There was only one sign, but he was seeing three. He squinted again. All three signs said ‘Closed’. The paint was barn-red and had undoubtedly come out of the can of paint that rested inside the door of Dud Rogers’s caretaker shack.
‘Never was closed on Saturday,’ Virgil said. He swung his bottle of beer toward his face, missed his mouth, and poured a blurt of beer on his left shoulder. ‘God, that hits the spot.’
‘Closed,’ Franklin said, with mounting irritation. ‘That son of a whore is off on a toot, that’s what. I’ll close him.’ He threw the truck into first gear and popped the clutch. Beer foamed out of the bottle between his legs and ran over his pants.
‘Wind her, Franklin!’ Virgil cried, and let out a massive belch as the pickup crashed through the gate, knocking it onto the can-littered verge of the road. Franklin shifted into second and shot up the rutted, chuck-holed road. The truck bounced madly on its worn springs. Bottles fell off the back end and smashed. Sea gulls took to the air in screaming, circling waves.
A quarter of a mile beyond the gate, the Burns Road fork (now known as the Dump Road) ended in a widening clearing that was the