The waste lands - Stephen King [67]
Jake tucked Charlie the Choo-Choo under his arm and picked up the riddle book. He opened it at random and saw this:
When is a door not a door?
“When it’s a jar,” Jake muttered. He could feel sweat popping out on his forehead . . . his arms . . . all over his body.
“When it’s a jar!”
“Find something, son?” a mild voice inquired.
Jake turned around and saw a fat guy in an open-throated white shirt standing at the end of the counter. His hands were stuffed in the pockets of his old gabardine slacks. A pair of half-glasses were pushed up on the bright dome of his bald head.
“Yes,” Jake said feverishly. “These two. Are they for sale?”
“Everything you see is for sale,” the fat guy said. “The building itself would be for sale, if I owned it. Alas, I only lease.” He held out his hand for the books and for a moment Jake balked. Then, reluctantly, he handed them over. Part of him expected the fat guy to flee with them, and if he did—if he gave the slightest indication of trying it—Jake meant to tackle him, rip the books out of his hands, and boogie. He needed those books.
“Okay, let’s see what you got,” the fat man said. “By the way, I’m Tower. Calvin Tower.” He stuck out his hand.
Jake’s eyes widened, and he took an involuntary step backward. “What?”
The fat guy looked at him with some interest. “Calvin Tower. Which word is profanity in your language, O Hyperborean Wanderer?”
“Huh?”
“I just mean you look like someone goosed you, kid.”
“Oh. Sorry.” He clasped Mr. Tower’s large, soft hand, hoping the man wouldn’t pursue it. The name had given him a jump, but he didn’t know why. “I’m Jake Chambers.”
Calvin Tower shook his hand. “Good handle, pard. Sounds like the footloose hero in a Western novel—the guy who blows into Black Fork, Arizona, cleans up the town, and then travels on. Something by Wayne D. Overholser, maybe. Except you don’t look footloose, Jake. You look like you decided the day was a little too nice to spend in school.”
“Oh . . . no. We finished up last Friday.”
Tower grinned. “Uh-huh. I bet. And you’ve gotta have these two items, huh? It’s sort of funny, what people have to have. Now you—I would have pegged you as a Robert Howard kind of kid from the jump, looking for a good deal on one of those nice old Donald M. Grant editions—the ones with the Roy Krenkel paintings. Dripping swords, mighty thews, and Conan the Barbarian hacking his way through the Stygian hordes.”
“That sounds pretty good, actually. These are for . . . uh, for my little brother. It’s his birthday next week.”
Calvin Tower used his thumb to flip his glasses down onto his nose and had a closer look at Jake. “Really? You look like an only child to me. An only child if I ever saw one, enjoying a day of French leave as Mistress May trembles in her green gown just outside the bosky dell of June.”
“Come again?”
“Never mind. Spring always puts me in a William Cowper-ish mood. People are weird but interesting, Tex—am I right?”
“I guess so,” Jake said cautiously. He couldn’t decide if he liked this odd man or not.
One of the counter-browsers spun on his stool. He was holding a cup of coffee in one hand and a battered paperback copy of The Plague in the other. “Quit pulling the kid’s chain and sell him the books, Cal,” he said. “We’ve still got time to finish this game of chess before the end of the world, if you hurry up.”
“Hurry is antithetical to my nature,” Cal said, but he opened Charlie the Choo-Choo and peered at the price pencilled on the flyleaf. “A fairly common book, but this copy’s in unusually fine condition. Little kids usually rack the hell out of the ones they like. I should get twelve dollars for it—”
“Goddam thief,” the man who was reading The Plague said, and the other browser laughed. Calvin Tower paid no notice.
“—but I can’t bear to dock you that much on a day like this. Seven bucks and it’s yours. Plus tax, of course. The riddle book you can have for free. Consider