Salem's Lot - Stephen King [49]
‘Sure is a funny fella,’ Clyde mused.
‘Ayuh,’ Vinnie said, and paused. ‘That was a thirty-nine, though. My half brother Vic had one. Was the first car he ever owned. Bought it used, he did, in 1944. Left the oil out of her one mornin’ and burned the goddamn pistons right out of her.’
‘I believe it was a forty,’ Clyde said,’ because I remember a fella that used to cane chairs down by Alfred, come right to your house he would, and-’
And so the argument was begun, progressing more in the silences than in the speeches, like a chess game p aye by mail. And the day seemed to stand still and stretch into eternity for them, and Vinnie Upshaw began to make another cigarette with sweet, arthritic slowness.
9
Ben was writing when the tap came at the door, and he marked his place before getting up to open it. It was just after three o’clock on Wednesday, September 24. The rain had ended any plans to search further for Ralphie Glick, and the consensus was that the search was over. The Glick boy was gone… solid gone.
He opened the door and Parkins Gillespie was standing there, smoking a cigarette. He was holding a paperback in one hand, and Ben saw with some amusement that it was the Bantam edition of Conway’s Daughter.
‘Come on in, Constable,’ he said. ‘Wet out there.’
‘It is, a trifle,’ Parkins said, stepping in. ‘September’s grippe weather. I always wear in’ galoshes. There’s some that laughs, but I ain’t had the grippe since St.-Lô, France, in 1944.’
‘Lay your coat on the bed. Sorry I can’t offer you coffee.’
‘Wouldn’t think of wettin’ it,’ Parkins said, and tapped ash in Ben’s wastebasket. ‘And I just had a cup of Pauline’s down to the Excellent.’
‘Can I do something for you?’
‘Well, my wife read this… ’ He held up the book. She heard you was in town, but she’s shy. She kind of thought maybe you might write your name in it, or somethin’.’
Ben took the book. ‘The way Weasel Craig tells it, your wife’s been dead fourteen or fifteen years.’
‘That so?’ Parkins looked totally unsurprised. ‘That Weasel, he does love to talk. He’ll open his mouth too wide one day and fall right in.’
Ben said nothing.
‘Do you s’pose you could sign it for me, then?’
‘Delighted to.’ He took a pen from the desk, opened the book to the flyleaf (‘A raw slice of life!’-Cleveland Plain Dealer), and wrote: Best wishes to Constable Gillespie, from Ben Mears, 9/24/75. He handed it back.
‘I appreciate that,’ Parkins said, without looking at what Ben had written. He bent over and crushed out his smoke on the side of the wastebasket. ‘That’s the only signed book I got.’
‘Did you come here to brace me?’ Ben asked, smiling.
‘You’re pretty sharp,’ Parkins said. ‘I figured I ought to come and ask a question or two, now that you mention it. Waited until Nolly was off somewheres. He’s a good boy, but he likes to talk, too. Lordy, the gossip that goes on.’
‘What would you like to know?’
‘Mostly where you were on last Wednesday evenin’.’
‘The night Ralphie Glick disappeared?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Am I a suspect, Constable?’
‘No, sir. I ain’t got no suspects. A thing like this is outside my tour, you might say. Catchin’ speeders out by Dell’s or chasin’ kids outta the park before they turn randy is more my line. I’m just nosin’ here and there.’
‘Suppose I don’t want to tell you.’
Parkins shrugged and produced his cigarettes. ‘That’s your business, son.’
‘I had dinner with Susan Norton and her folks. Played some badminton with her dad.’
‘Bet he beat you, too. He always beats Nolly. Nolly raves up and down about how bad he’d like to beat Bill Norton just once. What time did you leave?’
Ben laughed, but the sound did not contain a great deal of humor. ‘You cut right to the bone, don’t you?’
‘You know,’ Parkins said, ‘if I was one of those New York detectives like on TV, I might think you had somethin’ to hide, the way you polka around my questions.’
‘Nothing to hide,’ Ben said. ‘I’m just tired of being the stranger in