“The way they do it, it’s really not gambling for money. Each participant… pays a donation at the door. In return, the participant is given an equal amount of play money. At the end of the night, a number of prizes-not money but prizes-are auctioned off. A VCR, a toaster-oven, a Dirt Devil, a set of china, things like that.” And some dancing, interior imp made him add: “I believe the initial donation may even be tax deductible.”
“It is a sinful abomination,” Rev. Rose said. The color had faded from his cheeks. His nostrils flared.
“That’s a moral judgment, not a legal one. It’s done this way all over the country.”
“Yes,” Rev. Rose said. He got to his feet, clutching his Bible before him like a shield. “By the Catholics. The Catholics love gambling. I intend to put a stop to this, Chief-uh Pangborn. With your help or without it.”
Alan also got up. “A couple of things, Reverend Rose. It’s Sheriff Pangborn, not Chief. And I can’t tell you what to say from your pulpit any more than I can tell Father Brigham what sort of events he can run in his church, or the Daughters of Isabella Hall, or the K of C Hall-as long as they’re not expressly forbidden by the State’s laws, that is-but I can warn you to be careful, and I think I have to warn you to be careful.”
Rose looked at him coldly. “What do you mean?”
“I mean that you’re upset. The posters your people have been putting up around town are okay, and the letters to the paper are okay, but there’s a line of infringement you must not cross. My advice is to let this one go by.”
“When-uh Jesus saw the whores and the moneylenders in-uh the Temple, He did not consult any written Code of Laws, Sheriff.
When-uh Jesus saw those evil men and women defiling the house of the Lord-uh, He looked for no line of infringement. Our Lord did what He-uh knew to be right!”
“Yes,” Alan said calmly, “but you’re not Him.”
Rose looked at him for a long moment, eyes blazing like gas-jets, and Alan thought: Uh-oh. This guy’s just as mad as a hatter.
“Good day, Chief Pangborn,” Rose said coldly.
This time Alan did not bother to correct him. He only nodded and held out his hand, knowing perfectly well it would not be shaken. Rose turned and stalked toward the door, Bible still held against his chest.
“Let this one go by, Reverend Rose, okay?” Alan called after him.
Rose neither turned nor spoke. He strode out the door and slammed it shut behind him hard enough to rattle the glass in the frame. Alan sat down behind his desk and pressed the heels of his palms to his temples.
A few moments later, Sheila Brigham poked her head timidly in through the door. “Alan?”
“is he gone?” Alan asked without looking up.
“The preacher? Yes. He slammed out of here like a March wind.
“Elvis has left the building,” Alan said hollowly.
“What?”
“Never mind.” He looked up. “I’d like some hard drugs, please.
Would you check the evidence locker, Sheila, and see what we have?”
She smiled. “Already have. The cupboard’s bare, I’m afraid.
Would a cup of coffee do?”
He smiled back. The afternoon had begun, and it had to be better than this morning-had to. “Sold.”
“Good deal.” She closed the door, and Alan at last let his hands out of jail. Soon a series of blackbirds was flying through a band of sunshine on the wall across from the window.
7
On Thursdays, the last period of the day at Castle Rock Middle School was set aside for activities. Because he was an honor student and would not be enrolled in a school activity until casting for the Winter Play took place, Brian Rusk was allowed to leave early on that day-it balanced out his late Tuesdays very nicely.
This Thursday afternoon he was out the side door almost before the sixth-period bell had stopped ringing. His packsack contained not only his books but the rain-slicker his mother had made him wear that morning, and it bulged comically on his back.
He rode away fast, his heart beating hard in his chest. He had something (a deed) to do. A little chore to get out of the way. Sort of a fun chore, actually. He now knew what it was. It had come to him clearly as he had been daydreaming his way through math class.
As Brian descended Castle Hill by way of School Street, the sun came out from behind the tattering clouds for the first time that day. He looked to his left and saw a shadow-boy on a shadowbike keeping pace with him on the wet pavement.
You’ll have to go fast to keep up with me today, shadow-kid, he thought. I got places to go and things to do.
Brian pedaled through the business district without looking across Main Street at Needful Things, pausing briefly at intersections for a perfunctory glance each way before hurrying on again.
When he reached the intersection of Pond (which was his street) and Ford streets, he turned right instead of continuing up Pond Street to his house. At the intersection of Ford and Willow, he turned left.
Willow Street paralleled Pond Street; the back yards of the houses on the two streets backed up against each other, divided in most cases by board fences.
Pete and Wilma Jersyck lived on Willow Street.
Got to be a little careful here.
But he knew how to be careful; he had worked all that out in his mind on the ride from school, and it had come easily, almost as though it had also been there all along, like his knowledge of the thing he was supposed to do.
The jerzyck house was quiet and the driveway was empty, but that didn’t necessarily make everything safe and okay. Brian knew that Wilma worked at least part of the time at Hemphill’s Market out on Route I17, because he had seen her there, running a cashregister with the ever-present scarf tied over her head, but that didn’t mean she was there now. The beat-up little Yugo she drove might be parked in the jerzyck garage, where he couldn’t see.
Brian pedaled his bike up the driveway, got off, and put down the kickstand. He could feel his heartbeat in his ears and his throat now.
It sounded like the ruffle of drums. He walked to the front door, rehearsing the lines he would speak if it turned out Mrs. jerzyck was there after all.
Hi, Mrs. jerzyck, I’m Brian Rusk, from the other side of the block?
I go to the MiddleSchoolandpretty soon we’re going to beselling magazine subscriptions, so the band can get new uniforms, and I’ve been asking people if they want magazines. So I can come back later when I’ve got my sales kit. We get prizes if we sell a lot.
It had sounded good when he was working it out in his head, and it still sounded good, but he felt tense all the same. He stood on the doorstep for a minute, listening for sounds inside the house-a radio, a TV tuned to one of the stories (not Santa Barbara, though; it wouldn’t be Santa Barbara time for another couple of hours), maybe a vacuum. He heard nothing, but that didn’t mean any more than the empty driveway.
Brian rang the doorbell. Faintly, somewhere in the depths of the house, he heard it: Bing-Bong!
He stood on the stoop, waiting, looking around occasionally to see if anyone had noticed him, but Willow Street seemed fast asleep.
And there was a hedge in front of the jerzyck house. That was good. When you were up to (a deed) something that people-your Ma and Pa, for instance-wouldn’t exactly approve of, a hedge was about the best thing in the world.
It had been half a minute, and nobody was coming. So far so good… but it was also better to be safe than sorry. He rang the doorbell again, thumbing it twice this time, so the sound from the belly of the house was BingBong! BingBong!
Still nothing.
Okay, then. Everything was perfectly okay. Everything was, in fact, most sincerely awesome and utterly radical.