“Planning to steal my new socket-wrench set wasn’t your mistake,” Sonny said as he pressed the barrel of the automatic against the center of Eddie Warburton’s forehead. “Writing and telling me you were gonna do it… that was your mistake.”
A great white light-the light of understanding-suddenly went on in Eddie’s mind. Now he remembered the letter he had pushed through the Chalmers woman’s mail-slot, and he found himself able to put that piece of mischief together with the note he had received and the one Sonny was talking about.
“Listen!” he whispered. “You have to listen to me, jackett-we been played for suckers, both of us. We-”
“Goodbye, black boy,” Sonny said, and pulled the trigger.
Sonny looked fixedly at what remained of Eddie Warburton for almost a full minute, wondering if he should have listened to what Eddie had to say. He decided the answer was no. What could a fellow dumb enough to send a note like that have to say that could possibly matter?
Sonny got up, walked into the office, and stepped over Ricky Bissonette’s legs. He opened the safe and took out the adjustable socket-wrenches Mr. Gaunt had sold him. He was still looking at them, picking each one up, handling it lovingly, then putting it back in the custom case again, when the State Police arrived to take him into custody.
5
Park at the corner of Birch and Main, Mr. Gaunt had told Buster on the telephone, and just wait. I will send someone to you.
Buster had followed these instructions to the letter. He had seen a great many comings and goings at the mouth of the service alley from his vantage point one block up-almost all his friends and neighbors, it seemed to him, had a little business to do with Mr. Gaunt this evening. Ten minutes ago the Rusk woman had walked down there with her dress unbuttoned, looking like something out of a bad dream.
Then, not five minutes after she came back out of the alley, putting something into her dress pocket (the dress was still unbuttoned and you could see a lot, but who in his right mind, Buster wondered, would want to look), there had been several gunshots from farther up Main Street. Buster couldn’t be sure, but he thought they came from the Sunoco station.
State Police cruisers came winding up Main from the Municipal Building, their blue lights flashing, scattering reporters like pigeons.
Disguise or no disguise, Buster decided it would be prudent to climb into the back of the van for a little while.
The State Police cars roared by, and their whirling blue lights picked out something which leaned against the van’s rear doorsa green canvas duffle bag. Curious, Buster undid the knot in the drawstring, pulled the mouth of the bag open, and looked inside.
There was a box on top of the bag’s contents. Buster took it out and saw the rest of the duffle was full of timers. Hotpoint clocktimers.
There were easily two dozen of them.
Their smooth white
faces stared up at him like pupilless Orphan Annie eyes. He opened the box he had removed and saw it was full of alligator clips-the kind electricians sometimes used to make quick connections.
Buster frowned… and then, suddenly, his mind’s eye saw an office form-a Castle Rock fund-release form, to be exact. Typed neatly in the space provided for Goods and/or Services to Be Supplied were these words: 16 CASES OF DYNAMITE.
Sitting in the back of the van, Buster began to grin. Then he began to laugh. Outside, thunder boomed and rolled. A tongue of lightning licked out of the dragging belly of a cloud and jabbed down into Castle Stream.
Buster went on laughing. He laughed until the van shook with it.
“Them!” he cried, laughing. “Oh, boy, have we got something for Them! Have we ever!”
6
Henry Payton, who had come to Castle Rock to pull Sheriff Pangborn’s smoking irons out of the fire, stood in the doorway of the Sunoco station’s office with his mouth open. They had two more men down. One was white and one was black, but both were dead.
A third man, the station owner according to the name on his coverall, sat on the floor by the open safe with a dirty steel case cradled in his arms as if it were a baby. Beside him on the floor was an automatic pistol. Looking at it, Henry felt an elevator go down in his guts. It was the twin of the one Hugh Priest had used to shoot Henry Beaufort.
“Look,” one of the officers behind Henry said in a quiet, awed voice. “There’s another one.”
Henry turned his head to look, and heard the tendons in his neck creak. Another gun-a third automatic pistol-lay near the outstretched hand of the black guy.
“Don’t touch em,” he said to the other officers. “Don’t even get near em.” He stepped over the pool of blood, seized Sonny jackett by the lapels of his coverall, and pulled him to his feet. Sonny did not resist, but he clutched the steel case tighter against his breast.
“What went on here?” Henry yelled into his face. “What in God’s name went on?”
Sonny gestured toward Eddie Warburton, using his elbow so he would not have to let go of the case. “He came in. He had a gun. He was crazy. You can see he was crazy; look what he did to Ricky. He thought Ricky was me. He wanted to steal my adjustables. Look.”
Sonny smiled and tilted the steel case so Henry could look at the jumble of rusty ironmongery inside.
“I couldn’t let him do that, could I? I mean… these are mine.
I paid for them, and they’re mine.”
Henry opened his mouth to say something. He had no idea what it would have been, and it never got out. Before he could say the first word, there were more gunshots, this time from up on Castle View.
7
Lenore Potter stood over the body of Stephanie Bonsaint with a smoking automatic pistol in her hand. The body lay in the flowerbed behind the house, the only one the evil, vindictive bitch hadn’t torn up on her previous two trips.
“You shouldn’t have come back,” Lenore said. She had never fired a gun in her life before and now she had killed a woman… but the only feeling she had was one of grim exultation. The woman had been on her property, tearing up her garden (Lenore had waited until the bitch actually got going-her mamma hadn’t raised any fools), and she had been within her rights. Perfectly within her rights.
“Lenore?” her husband called. He was leaning out of the upstairs bathroom window with shaving cream on his face. His voice was alarmed.
“Lenore, what’s going on?”
“I’ve shot a trespasser,” Lenore said calmly, without looking around. She placed her foot under the heavy weight of the body and lifted. Feeling her toe sink into the Bonsaint bitch’s unresisting side gave her a sudden mean pleasure. “It’s Stephanie Bon-” The body rolled over. It was not Stephanie Bonsaint- It was that nice Deputy Sheriff’s wife.
She had shot Melissa Clutterbuck.
Quite suddenly, Lenore Potter’s calava went past blue, past purple, past magenta. It went all the way to midnight black.
8
Alan Pangborn sat looking down at his hands, looking past them into a darkness so black it could only be felt. It had occurred to him that he might have lost Polly this afternoon, not for just a little while-until this current misunderstanding was ironed out-but forever.
And that was going to leave him with about thirty-five years to kill.
He heard a small scuffing sound and looked up quickly. It was Miss Hendrie. She looked nervous, but she also looked as if she had come to a decision.
“The Rusk boy is stirring,” she said. “He’s not awake-they gave him a tranquilizer and he won’t be really awake for some time yet-but he is stirring.”