They.
The letter was signed by the State Treasurer, the State Auditor, and, even more ominous, by the Attorney General-Maine’s top cop. And these were personal signatures, not reproductions.
“They,” Keeton whispered at the letter. He shook it in his fist and it rattled softly. He bared his teeth at it. “Theyyyyyyy!”
He slammed the letter down on top of the others. He closed the file. Typed neatly onthe tabwas CORRESPONDENCE, MAINE BUREAU OF TAXATION. Keeton stared at the closed file for a moment. Then he snatched a pen from its holder (the set had been agift from the Castle Countyjaycees) and slashed the words MAINE BUREAU OF KAKA! across the file in large, trembling letters. He stared at it a moment and then wrote MAINE BUREAU OF ASSHOLES! below it. He held the pen in his closed fist, wielding it like a knife. Then he threw it across the room. It landed in the corner with a small clatter.
Keeton closed the other file, the one which contained copies of letters he had written himself (and to which he always added his secretary’s lower-case initials), letters he had concocted on long, sleepless nights, letters which had ultimately proved fruitless. A vein pulsed steadily in the center of his forehead.
He got up, took the two files over to the cabinet, put them in the bottom drawer, slammed it shut, checked to make sure it was locked.
Then he went to the window and stood looking out over the sleeping town, taking deep breaths and trying to calm himself They had it in for him. The Persecutors. He found himself wondering for the thousandth time who had sicced Them on him in the first place. If he could find that person, that dirty Chief Persecutor, Keeton would take the gun from where it lay in its box under the motheaten sweaters and put an end to him. He would not do it quickly, however. Oh no. He would shoot off a piece at a time and make the dirty bastard sing the National Anthem while he did it.
His mind turned to the skinny deputy, Ridgewick. Could it have been him? He didn’t seem bright enough… but looks could be deceiving. Pangborn said Ridgewick had ticketed the Cadillac on his orders, but that didn’t make it true. And in the men’s room, when Ridgewick had called him Buster, there had been a look of knowing, jeering contempt in his eyes. Had Ridgewick been around when the first letters from the Bureau of Taxation began to come in? Keeton was quite sure he had been. Later today he would look up the man’s employment record, just to be sure.
What about Pangborn himself? He was certainly bright enough, he most certainly hated Danforth Keeton (didn’t They all? didn’t They all hate him?), and Pangborn knew lots of people in Augusta. He knew Them well. Hell, he was on the phone to Them every fucking day, it seemed. The phone bills, even with the WATS line, were horrible.
Could it be both of them? Pangborn and Ridgewick? In on it together?
“The Lone Ranger and his faithful Indian companion, Tonto,” Keeton said in a low voice, and smiled balefully. “If it was you, Pangborn, you’ll be sorry. And if it was both of you, you’ll both be sorry.” His hands slowly rolled themselves into fists. “I won’t stand this persecution forever, you know.”
His carefully manicured nails cut into the flesh of his palms. He did not notice the blood when it began to flow. Maybe Ridgewick.
Maybe Pangborn, maybe Melissa Clutterbuck, the frigid bitch who was the Town Treasurer, maybe Bill Fullerton, the Second Selectman (he knew for a fact that Fullerton wanted his job and wouldn’t rest until he had it)…
Maybe all of them.
All of them together.
Keeton let out his breath in a long, tortured sigh, making a fogflower on the wire-reinforced glass of his office window. The question was, what was he going to do about it? Between now and the 17th of the month, what was he going to do?
The answer was simple: he didn’t know.
2
Danforth Keeton’s life as a young man had been a thing of clear blacks and whites, and he had liked that just fine. He had gone to Castle Rock High School and began working part-time at the family car dealership when he was fourteen, washing the demonstrators and waxing the showroom models. Keeton Chevrolet was one of the oldest Chevrolet franchises in New England and keystone of the Keeton financial structure. That had been a solid structure indeed, at least until fairly recently.
During his four years at Castle Rock High, he had been Buster to just about everyone. He took the commercial courses, maintained a solid B average, ran the student council almost singlehanded, and went on to Traynor Business College in Boston. He made straight A’s at Traynor and graduated three semesters early.
When he came back to The Rock, he quickly made it clear that his Buster days were over.
It had been a fine life until the trip he and Steve Frazier had made to Lewiston nine or ten years ago. That was when the trouble had started; that was when his neat black-and-white life began to fill with deepening shades of gray. mbled-not as Buster at C.R.H.S not as Dan at Traynor Business, not as Mr. Keeton of Keeton Chevrolet and the Board of Selectmen. As far as Keeton knew, no one in his whole family had gambled; he could not remember even such innocent pastimes as nickel skat or pitching pennies. There was no taboo against these things, no thou shalt not, but no one did them. Keeton had not laid down a bet on anything until that first trip to Lewiston Raceway with Steve Frazier. He had never placed a bet anywhere else, nor did he need to. Lewiston Raceway was all the ruin Danforth Keeton ever needed.
He had been Third Selectman then. Steve Frazier, now at least five years in his grave, had been Castle Rock’s Head Selectman.
Keeton and Frazier had gone “up the city” (trips to Lewiston were always referred to in this way) along with Butch Nedeau, The Rock’s overseer of County Social Services, and Harry Samuels, who had been a Selectman for most of his adult life and would probably die as one. The occasion had been a statewide conference of county officials; the subject had been the new revenue-sharing laws… and it was revenue-sharing, of course, that had caused most of his trouble. Without it, Keeton would have been forced to dig his grave with a pick and shovel. With it, he had been able to use a financial bucket-loader.
It was a two-day conference. On the evening between, Steve had suggested they go out and have a little fun in the big city. Butch, and Harry had declined. Keeton had no interest in spending the evening with Steve Frazier, either-he was a fat old blowhard with lard for brains. He had gone, though. He supposed he would have gone if Steve had suggested they spend the evening touring the deepest shitpits of hell. Steve was, after all, the Head Selectman.
Harry Samuels would be content to drone along as Second, Third, or Fourth Selectman for the rest of his life, Butch Nedeau had already Indicated that he meant to step down after his current term… but Danforth Keeton had ambitions, and Frazier, fat old blowhard or not, was the key to them.
So they had gone out, stopping first at The Holly. BE JOLLY AT THE HOLLYI read the motto over the door, and Frazier had gotten very jolly indeed, drinking Scotch-and-waters as if the Scotch had been left out of them, and whistling at the strippers, who were mostly fat and mostly old and always slow. Keeton thought most of them looked stoned.
He remembered thinking it was going to be a long evening.
Then they had gone to the Lewiston Raceway and everything changed.
They got there in time for the fifth pace, and Frazier had hustled a protesting Keeton over to the betting windows like a sheepdog nipping a wayward lamb back to the herd.
“Steve, I don’t know anything about this-”
“That doesn’t matter,” Frazier replied happily, breathing Scotch fumes into Keeton’s face.
“We’re gonna be lucky tonight, Buster.