Nelson’s attention, and once he did that he thought the odds were good that George T. Nelson would get his fat ass off this sofa before Frank died down here with his nose squashed against the baseboard heating unit.
Frank opened the hand holding the steak-knife and tried to reach for the pistol tucked into the waistband of his pants. Dreamlike horror washed through him as he realized he couldn’t get ithis fingers were opening and closing two full inches above the gun’s ivory-inlaid handle. He tried with all his remaining strength to get the hand down lower, but his pinned shoulder would not move at all; the big sofa-and George T. Nelson’s considerable weightheld it firmly against the wall.
It might have been nailed there.
Black roses-harbingers of approaching asphyxiation-began to bloom before Frank’s bulging eyes.
As from some impossible distance, he heard his old “friend” screaming at Fred Rubin, who undoubtedly had been George T.
Nelson’s partner in the cocaine deal. “What are you talking about?
I call to tell you I’ve been violated and you tell me to go see the new guy downstreet? I don’t need knickknacks, Fred, I need-” He broke off, got up, and paced across the room. With what was literally the last of his strength, Frank managed to push the sofa a few inches away from the wall. It wasn’t much, but he was able to take small sips of incredibly wonderful air.
“He sells what?” George T. Nelson shouted. “Well, Jesus! Jesus
H. Christ! Why didn’t you say so in the first place?” Silence again. Frank lay behind the sofa like a beached whale, sipping air and hoping his monstrously pounding head would not explode.
In a moment he would arise and blow his old “friend” George T.
Nelson’s oysters off. In a moment. When he got his breath back. And when the big black flowers currently filling his sight shrank back into nothing. In a moment. Two at the most.
“Okay,” George T. Nelson said. “I’ll go see him. I doubt if he’s the miracle-worker you think he is, but any goddam port in a storm, right? I have to tell you something, though-I don’t give much of a shit if he’s dealing or not. I’m going to find the son of a bitch who did this-that’s the first goddam order of business-and I’m going to nail him to the nearest wall. Have you got that?”
I got it, Frank thought, but just who nails who to that fabled wall still remains to be seen, my dear old party-buddy. “Yes, I did get the name!” George T. Nelson screamed into the phone. “Gaunt, Gaunt, fucking Gaunt!” He slammed the phone down, then must have thrown it across the room-Frank heard the shatter of breaking glass. Seconds later, George
T. Nelson uttered a final oath and stormed out of the house. The engine of his Iroc-Z raved to life. Frank heard him backing down the driveway as he himself slowly pushed the sofa away from the wall. Rubber screamed against pavement outside and then Frank’s old “friend” George T. Nelson was gone.
Two minutes later, a pair of hands rose into view and clutched the back of the oatmeal-colored sofa. A moment after that, the face of Frank M. jewett-pale and crazed, the rimless Mr. Weatherbee glasses sitting askew on his small pug nose and one lens crackedappeared between the hands. The sofa-back had left a red, stippled pattern on his right cheek. A few dust-bunnies danced in his thinning hair.
Slowly, like a bloated corpse rising from the bed of a river until it floats just below the surface, the grin reappeared on Frank’s face.
He had missed his old “friend” George T. Nelson this time, but George T. Nelson had no plans to leave town. His phone conversation had made that quite clear. Frank would find him before the day was over. In a town the size of Castle Rock, how could he miss?
32
Sean Rusk stood in the kitchen doorway of his house, looking anxiously out at the garage. Five minutes before, his older brother had gone out there Sean had been looking out of his bedroom window and had just happened to see him. Brian had been holding something in one hand. The distance had been too great for Sean to see what it was, but he didn’t need to see. He knew. It was the new baseball card, the one Brian kept creeping upstairs to look at.
Brian didn’t know Sean knew about that card, but Sean did. He even knew who was on it, because he’d gotten home much earlier from school today than Brian, and he had sneaked into Brian’s room to look at it. He didn’t have the slightest idea why Brian cared about it so much; it was old, dirty, dog-eared, and faded. Also, the player was somebody Sean had never heard of-a pitcher for the Los Angeles Dodgers named Sammy Koberg, lifetime record one win, three losses. The guy had never even spent a whole year in the majors. Why would Brian care about a worthless card like that?
Sean didn’t know. He only knew two things for sure: Brian did care, and the way Brian had been acting for the last week or so was scary. It was like those TV ads you saw about kids on drugs. But Brian wouldn’t use drugs… would he?
Something about Brian’s face when he went out to the garage had scared Sean so badly he had gone to tell his mother. He wasn’t sure exactly what to say, and it turned out not to matter because he didn’t get a chance to say anything. She was mooning around in the bedroom, wearing her bathrobe and those stupid sunglasses from the new store downtown.
“Mom, Brian’s-” he began, and that was as far as he got.
“Go away, Sean. Mommy’s busy right now.”
“But Mom-”
“Go away, I said!”
And before he had a chance to go on his own, he’d found himself hustled unceremoniously out of the bedroom. Her bathrobe fell open as she pushed him, and before he could look away, he saw that she was wearing nothing beneath it, not even a nightgown.
She had slammed the door behind him. And locked it.
Now he stood in the kitchen doorway, waiting anxiously for Brian to come back out of the garage… but Brian didn’t.
His unease had grown in some stealthy way until it was barely controlled terror. Sean went out the kitchen door, trotted through the breezeway, and entered the garage.
It was dark and oily-smelling and explosively hot inside. For a moment he didn’t see his brother in the shadows and thought he must have gone out through the back door into the yard. Then his eyes adjusted, and he uttered a small, whimpery gasp.
Brian was sitting against the rear wall, next to the Lawnboy. He had gotten Daddy’s rifle. The butt was propped on the floor. The muzzle was pointed at his own face. Brian was supporting the barrel with one hand while the other clutched the dirty old baseball card which had somehow gained such a hold over his life this last week.
“Brian!” Sean cried. “What are you doing?”
“Don’t come any closer, Sean, you’ll get the mess on you.”
“Brian, don’t!” Sean cried, beginning to weep. “Don’t be such a wussy! You’re… you’re scaring me!”
“I want you to promise me something,” Brian said. He had taken off his socks and sneakers, and now he wriggled one of his big toes inside the Remington’s trigger-guard.
Sean felt his crotch grow wet and warm. He had never been so scared in his life. “Brian, please! Pleeease!”
“I want you to promise me you’ll never go to the new store,” Brian said. “Do you hear me?” Sean took a step toward his brother. Brian’s toe tightened on the trigger of the rifle. “No!” Sean screamed, drawing back at once. “I mean yes! Yes!” Brian let the barrel drop a little when he saw his brother retreat. His toe relaxed a bit. “Promise me.”