Salem's Lot - Stephen King [59]
‘Are you from town, Ben?’ Matt asked.
‘I spent some time here as a boy. With my Aunt Cynthia.’
‘Cindy Stowens?’
‘Yes.’
Jackie came with a clean glass, and Matt tipped beer into it. ‘It really is a small world, then. Your aunt was in a senior class I taught my first year in ‘salem’s Lot. Is she well?’
‘She died in 1972.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘She went very easily,’ Ben said, and refilled his glass. The band had finished its set, and the members were trouping toward the bar. The level of conversation went down a notch.
‘Have you come back to Jerusalem’s Lot to write a book about us?’ Matt asked.
A warning bell went off in Ben’s mind.
‘In a way, I suppose,’ he said.
‘This town could do much worse for a biographer. Air Dance was a fine book. I think there might be another fine book in this town. I once thought I might write it.’
‘Why didn’t you?’
Matt smiled-an easy smile with no trace of bitterness, cynicism, or malice. ‘I lacked one vital ingredient. Talent.’
‘Don’t you believe it,’ Weasel said, refilling his glass from the dregs of the pitcher. ‘Ole Matt’s got a world of talent. Schoolteachin’ is a wonnerful job. Nobody appreciates schoolteachers, but they’re… ’ He swayed a little in his chair, searching for completion. He was becoming very drunk. ‘Salt of the earth,’ he finished, took a mouthful of beer, grimaced, and stood up. ‘Pardon me while I take a leak.’
He wandered off, bumping into people and hailing them by name. They passed him on with impatience or good cheer, and watching his progress to the men’s room was like watching a pinball racket and bounce its way down toward the flipper buttons.
‘There goes the wreck of a fine man,’ Matt said, and held up one finger. A waitress appeared almost immediately and addressed him as Mr Burke. She seemed a trifle scandalized that her old English Classics teacher should be here, boozing it up with the likes of Weasel Craig. When she turned away to bring them another pitcher, Ben thought Matt looked a trifle bemused.
‘I like Weasel,’ Ben said. ‘I get a feeling there was a lot there once. What happened to him?’
‘Oh, there’s no story there,’ Matt said. ‘The bottle got him. It got him a little more each year and now it’s got all of him. He won a Silver Star at Anzio in World War II. A cynic might believe his life would have had more meaning if he had died there.’
‘I’m not a cynic,’ Ben said. ‘I like him still. But I think I better give him a ride home tonight.’
‘That would be good of you. I come out here now and then to listen to the music. I like loud music. More than ever, since my hearing began to fail. I understand that you’re interested in the Marsten House. Is your book about it?’
Ben jumped. ‘Who told you that?’
Matt smiled. ‘How does that old Marvin Gaye song put it? I heard it through the grapevine. Luscious, vivid idiom, although the image is a bit obscure if you consider it. One conjures up a picture of a man standing with his ear cocked attentively toward a Concord or Tokay… I’m rambling. I ramble a great deal these days but rarely try to keep it in hand anymore. I heard from what the gentlemen of the press would call an informed source-Loretta Starcher, actually. She’s the librarian at our local citadel of literature. You’ve been in several times to look at the Cumberland Ledger articles pertaining to the ancient scandal, and she also got you two true-crime books that had articles on it. By the way, the Lubert one is good-he came to the Lot and researched it himself in 1946-but the Snow chapter is speculative trash.’
‘I know,’ Ben said automatically.
The waitress set down a fresh pitcher of beer and Ben suddenly had an uncomfortable image: Here is a fish swimming around comfortably and (he thinks) unobtrusively, flicking here and there amongst the kelp and the plankton. Draw away for the long view and there’s the kicker: It’s a goldfish bowl.
Matt paid the waitress and said, ‘Nasty thing that happened up there. It’s stayed in the town’s consciousness, too. Of course, tales of nastiness and murder are always handed down with