Needful Things

CHAPTER FIVE

Alan slid into a booth in Nan’s Luncheonette across from Polly and saw at once that the pain was still bad-bad enough for her to have taken a Percodan in the afternoon, which was rare. He knew it even before she opened her mouth-it was something in the eyes.

A sort of shine. He had come to know it… but not to like it.

He didn’t think he would ever like it. He wondered, not for the first time, if she was addicted to the stuff yet. In Polly’s case, he supposed that addiction was just another side-effect, something to be expected, noted, and then sublimated to the main problem-which was, simply put, the fact that she was living with pain he probably couldn’t even comprehend.

His voice showed none of this as he asked, “How’s it going, pretty lady?”

She smiled. “Well, it’s been an interesting day. Verrrrry… inderesting, as that guy used to say on Laugh-In.”

“You’re not old enough to remember that.”

“I am so. Alan, who’s that?”

He turned in the direction of her gaze just in time to spot a woman with a rectangular package cradled in her arms drift past Nan’s wide plate-glass window. Her eyes were fixed straight ahead, and a man coming the other way had to jig rapidly out of her way to avol I I names and faces he kept in his head and came up with what Norris, who was deeply in love with police language, would undoubtedly have called “a partial.”

“Evans. Mabel or Mavis or something like that. Her husband’s Chuck Evans.”

“She looks like she just smoked some very good Panamanian Red,”

Polly said. “I envy her.”

Nan Roberts herself came over to wait on them. She was one of William Rose’s Baptist Christian Soldiers, and today she wore a small yellow button above her left breast. It was the third one Alan had seen this afternoon, and he guessed he would see a great many more in the weeks ahead. It showed a slot machine inside a black circle with a red diagonal line drawn through it. There were no words on the button; it made the wearer’s feelings about Casino Nite perfectly clear without them.

Nan was a middle-aged woman with a huge bosom and a sweetly pretty face that made you think of Mom and apple pie. The apple pie at Nan’s was, as Alan and all his deputies knew, very good, too-especially with a large scoop of vanilla ice cream melting on top. It was easy to take Nan at face value, but a good many business people-realtors, for the most part-had discovered that doing so was a bad idea. Behind the sweet face there was a clicking computer of a mind, and beneath the motherly swell of bosom there was a pile of account books where the heart should have been. Nan owned a very large chunk of Castle Rock, including at least five of the business buildings on Main Street, and now that Pop Merrill was in the ground, Alan suspected she was probably the wealthiest person in town.

She reminded him of a whorehouse madam he had once arrested in Utica. The woman had offered him a bribe, and when he turned that down, she had tried very earnestly to knock his brains out with a birdcage. The tenant, a scrofulous parrot who sometimes said “I fucked your mamma, Frank” in a morose and thoughtful voice, had still been in the cage at the time. Sometimes, when Alan saw the vertical frown-line between Nan Roberts’s eyes deepen down, he felt she would be perfectly capable of doing the same thing. And he found it perfectly natural that Nan, who did little these days but sit at the cash register, would come over to serve the County Sheriff herself. It was the personal touch that means so much.

‘d a collision. Alan flicked rapidly through the huge file of “Hullo, Alan,” she said, “I haven’t seen you in a dog’s age!

Where you been?”

“Here and there,” he said. “I get around, Nan.”

“Well, don’t forget your old friends while you’re doing it,” she said, giving him her shining, motherly smile. You had to spend quite awhile around Nan, Alan reflected, before you started to notice how rarely that smile made it all the way to her eyes. “Come see us once in awhile.”

“And, lo! Here I be!” Alan said.

Nan pealed laughter so loud and lusty that the men at the counter-loggers, for the most part-craned briefly around. And later, Alan thought, they’ll tell their friends that they saw Nan Roberts and the Sheriff yukking it up together. Best of friends.

“Coffee, Alan?”

“Please.”

“How about some pie to go with that? Home-made apples from McSherry’s Orchard over in Sweden. Picked yesterday.” At least she didn’t try to tell us she picked them herself, Alan thought.

“No, thanks.”

“Sure? What about you, Polly?”

Polly shook her head.

Nan went to get the coffee. “You don’t like her much, do you?”

Polly asked him in a low voice.

He considered this, a little surprised-likes and dislikes had not really entered his thoughts. “Nan? She’s all right. It’s just that I like to know who people really are, if I can.”

“And what they really want?”

“That’s too damn hard,” he said, laughing. “I’ll settle for knowing what they’re up to.”

She smiled-he loved to make her smile and said, “We’ll turn you into a Yankee philosopher yet, Alan Pangborn.”

He touched the back of her gloved hand and smiled back.

Nan returned with a cup of black coffee in a thick white mug and left at once. One thing you can say for her, Alan thought, she knows when the amenities have been performed and the flesh has been pressed to a sufficiency. It wasn’t something everyone with Nan’s interests and ambitions did know.

“Now,” Alan said, sipping his coffee. “Spill the tale of your very interesting day.”

She told him in greater detail about how she and Rosalie Drake had seen Nettle Cobb that morning, how Nettle had agonized in front of Needful Things, and how she had finally summoned up enough courage to go in.

“That’s wonderful,” he said, and meant it.

“Yes-but that’s not all. When she came out, she’d bought something! I’ve never seen her so cheerful and so… so buoyant as she was today. That’s it, buoyant. You know how sallow she usually is?”

Alan nodded.

“Well, she had roses in her cheeks and her hair was sort of mussed and she actually laughed a few times.”

“Are you sure business was all they were doing?” he asked, and rolled his eyes.

“Don’t be silly.” She spoke as if she hadn’t suggested the same thing to Rosalie herself. “Anyway, she waited outside until you’d left-I knew she would-and then she came in and showed us what she bought. You know that little collection of carnival glass she has?”

“Nope. There are a few things in this town which have escaped my notice. Believe it or not.”

“She has half a dozen pieces. Most of them came to her from her mother. She told me once that there used to be more, but some of them got broken. Anyway, she loves the few things she has, and he sold her the most gorgeous carnival glass lampshade I’ve seen in years. At first glance I thought it was Tiffany. Of course it isn’tcouldn’t be, Nettle could never afford a piece of real Tiffany glassbut it’s awfully good.”

“How much did she pay?”

“I didn’t ask her. But I’ll bet whatever sock she keeps her madmoney in is flat this afternoon.”

He frowned a little. “Are you sure she didn’t get hornswoggled?”

“Oh, Alan-do you have to be so suspicious all the time? Nettle may be vague about some things, but she knows her carnival glass.

She said it was a bargain, and that means it probably was. It’s made her so happy.”

“Well, that’s great. Just The Ticket.”

“Pardon?”

“That was the name of a shop in Utica,” he said. “A long time ago. I was only a kid. Just The Ticket.”

“And did it have your Ticket?” she teased.

“I don’t know. I never went in.”

“Well,” she said, “apparently our Mr. Gaunt thinks he might have mine.”?”

“What do you mean “Nettle got my cake-box, and there was a note inside it. From Mr. Gaunt.” She pushed her handbag across the table to him. “Take a look-I don’t feel up to the clasp this afternoon.”

He ignored the handbag for the moment. “How bad is it, Polly?”

“Bad,” she said simply. “It’s been worse, but I’m not going to lie to you; it’s never been much worse. All this week, since the weather changed.”

“Are you going to see Dr. Van Allen?”

She sighed. “Not yet. I’m due for a respite. Every time it gets bad like this, it lets up just when I feel like I’m going to go crazy any minute. At least, it always has. I suppose that one of these times the respite just won’t come. If it’s not better by Monday, I’ll go see him. But all he can do is write prescriptions. I don’t want to be a junkie if I can help it, Alan.”

“But-” “Enough,” she said softly. “Enough for now, okay?”

“Okay,” he said, a little unwillingly.

“Look at the note. It’s very sweet… and sort of cute.”

He undid the clasp of her handbag and saw a slim envelope lying on top of her billfold. He took it out. The paper had a rich, creamy feel. Written across the front, in a hand so perfectly oldfashioned it looked like something from an antique diary, was Ms.

Polly Chalmers.

“That style is called copperplate,” she said, amused. “I think they stopped teaching it not long after the Age of the Dinosaurs.”

He took a single sheet of deckle-edged stationery from the envelope. Printed across the top was NEEDFUL THINGS Castle Rock, Maine Leland Gaunt, Proprietor The handwriting here was not as formally fancy as that on the envelope, but both it and the language itself still had a pleasingly old-fashioned quality.

Dear Polly, Thank you once again for the devil’s-food cake. It is my favorite, and it was delicious! I also want to thank you for your kindness and thoughtfulness-I suppose you knew how nervous I must be on my opening day, and in the off-season as well.

I have an item, not yet in stock but coming with a number of other things via air freight, which I believe might interest you a great deal. I don’t want to say more; I’d rather you viewed it yourself.

It’s actually not much more than a knickknack, but I thought of it almost the moment you left, and over the years I’ve rarely been wrong in my intuitions. I expect it to come in either Friday or Saturday.

If you have a chance, why not stop in Sunday afternoon? I’ll be in all day, cataloguing stock, and would be delighted to show it to You. I don’t want to say more just now; the item either will or will not explain itself. At least let me repay your kindness with a cup of tea!

I hope Nettle enjoys her new lampshade. She is a very dear lady, and it seemed to please her very much.

Yours sincerely,

Leland Gaunt “Mysterious!” Alan said, folding the note back into the envelope and putting the envelope back in her purse. “Are you going to check it out, as we say in the police biz?”

“With a build-up like that-and after seeing Nettle’s lampshade-how could I refuse? Yes, I think I’ll drop by… if my hands feel better.

Want to come, Alan? Maybe he’ll have something for you, toO.”

“Maybe. But maybe I’ll just stick with the Patriots. They’re bound to win one eventually.”

“You look tired, Alan. Dark circles under the eyes.”

“It’s been one of those days. It started with me just barely keeping the Head Selectman and one of my deputies from beating each other to a bloody pulp in the little boys’ room.”

She leaned forward, concerned. “What are you talking about?”

He told her about the dust-up between Keeton and Norris Ridgewick, finishing with how odd Keeton had seemed-his use of that word persecution had kept recurring to him at odd moments all day. When he finished, Polly was quiet for a long time.

“So?” he asked her finally. “What do you think?”

“I was thinking that it’s still going to be a lot of years before you know everything about Castle Rock that you need to know.

That probably goes for me, too-I was away a long time, and I don’t talk about where I was or what became of my ‘little problem, and I think there are a lot of people in town who don’t trust me.

But you pick things up, Alan, and you remember things. When I came back to The Rock, do you know what it felt like?”

He shook his head, interested. Polly was not a woman to dwell on the past, even with him.

“It was like tuning into a soap opera you’ve fallen out of the habit of watching. Even if you haven’t watched in a couple of years, you recognize the people and their problems at once, because they never really change. Watching a show like that again is like slipping into a comfortable old pair of shoes.”

“What are you saying?”

“That there’s a lot of soap-opera history here you haven’t caught up on yet. Did you know that Danforth Keeton’s uncle was in juniper Hill at the same time Nettle was?”

“No.”

She nodded. “Around the age of forty he started to have mental problems. My mother used to say Bill Keeton was a schizophrenic.

I don’t know if that’s the proper term or just the one Mom heard most often on TV, but there sure as hell was something wrong with him.

I remember seeing him grab people on the street and start to hector them on one thing or another-the national debt, how john Kennedy was a Communist, I don’t know whatall else. I was only a little girl.

It frightened me, though, Alan-I knew that.”

“Well, of course it did.”

“Or sometimes he’d walk along the street with his head down, talking to himself in a voice that was loud and muttery at the same time. My mother told me I was never to speak to him when he was behaving like that, not even if we were on our way to church and he was, too. Finally he tried to shoot his wife. Or so I heard, but you know how long-time gossip distorts things. Maybe all he did was wave his service pistol at her. Whatever he did, it was enough to get him carted off to county jail. There was some sort of competency hearing, and when it was over they parked him at juniper Hill. ” “Is he still there?”

“Dead now. His state of mind degenerated pretty fast, once they had him institutionalized. He was catatonic when he finally went. Or so I’ve heard.”

“Jesus.”

“But that’s not all. Ronnie Keeton, Danforth’s father and Bill Keeton’s brother, spent four years in the mental wing at the VA hospital in Togus during the mid-seventies. Now he’s in a nursing home. Alzheimer’s. And there was a great-aunt or a cousin-I’m not sure which-who killed herself in the fifties after some sort of scandal. I’m not sure what it was, but I heard once she liked the ladies a little better than she liked the men.”

“It runs in the family, is that what you’re saying?”

“No,” she said. “There’s no moral to this, no theme. I know a little town history you don’t, that’s all-the kind they don’t recount during the Town Common speech-making on the Fourth of July.

I’m just passing it on. Drawing conclusions is a job for the police.”

She said this last so primly that Alan laughed a little but he felt uneasy, just the same. Did insanity run in families? He had been taught in high school psychology that the idea was an old wives’ tale.

Years later, at Albany Police Academy, a lecturer had said it was true, or could be, at least, in certain cases: that some mental diseases could be traced through family trees as clearly as physical traits like blue eyes and double-‘ointedness. One of the examples he’d used had been alcoholism. Had he said something about schizophrenia as well?

Alan couldn’t remember. His academy days had been a good many years ago.

“I guess I better start asking around about Buster,” Alan said heavily. “I’ll tell you, Polly, the idea that Castle Rock’s Head Selectman could be turning into a human hand grenade does not exactly make my day.”

“Of course not. And it’s probably not the case. I just thought you ought to know. People around here will answer questions… if you know what questions to ask. If you don’t, they’ll cheerfully watch you stumble around in great big circles and never say a word.”

Alan grinned. It was the truth. “You haven’t heard it all yet, Polly-after Buster left, I had a visit from the Reverend Willie.

He ” “Shhh!” Polly said, so fiercely that Alan was startled to silence.

She looked around, seemed to decide no one had been eavesdropping on their conversation, and turned back to Alan again. “Sometimes I despair of you, Alan. If you don’t learn some discretion, you’re apt to get swept out at the polls two years from now… and you’ll stand there with a big, puzzled grin on your face and say ‘Wha hoppen?’ You have to be careful. If Danforth Keeton’s a hand grenade, that man’s a rocket launcher.”

He leaned closer to her and said, “He’s not a rocket launcher.

A self-righteous, pompous little prick is what he is.”

“Casino Nite?”

He nodded.

She put her hands over his. “Poor baby. And it looks like such a sleepy little town from the outside, doesn’t it?”

“Usually it is.”

“Did he go away mad?”

“Oh yeah,” Alan said. “This was my second conversation with the good Reverend about the legality of Casino Nite. I expect to have several more before the Catholics finally do the damned thing and get it over with.”

“He is a self-righteous little prick, isn’t he?” she asked in an even lower voice. Her face was serious, but her eyes were sparkling.

“Yes. Now there’s the buttons. They’re a new wrinkle.”

“Buttons?”

“Slot machines with lines drawn through them instead of smiley faces. Nan’s wearing one. I wonder whose idea that was.”

“Probably Don Hemphill. He’s not only a good Baptist, he’s on the Republican State Committee. Don knows a thing or three about campaigning, but I bet he’s finding out that it’s a lot harder to swing public opinion where religion is involved.” She stroked his hands.

“Take it easy, Alan. Be patient. Wait. That’s most of what life in The Rock is about-taking it easy, being patient, and waiting for the occasional stink to blow over. Yeah?”

He smiled at her, turned his hands over, and grasped hers… but gently. Oh so gently. “Yeah,” he said. “Want some company tonight, pretty lady?”

“Oh, Alan, I don’t know-” “No slap and tickle,” he assured her.

“I’ll make a fire, we’ll sit in front of it, and you can pull a few more bodies out of the town closet for my amusement.”

Polly smiled wanly. “I I think you’ve gotten a look at all the bodies I know about over the last six or seven months, Alan, including mine own. If you want to further your Castle Rock education, you ought to make friends either with old Lenny Partridge… or with her.” She nodded toward Nan, and then lowered her voice a trifle.

“The difference between Lenny and Nan,” she said, “is that Lenny is content to know things. Nan Roberts likes to use what she knows.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning the lady didn’t pay fair market value for all the property she owns,” Polly said.

Alan looked at her thoughtfully. He had never seen Polly in a mood quite like this one-introspective, talkative, and depressed all at the same time. He wondered for the first time since becoming her friend and then her lover if he was listening to Polly Chalmers… or the drugs.

“I think tonight would be a good night to stay away,” she said with sudden decision. “I’m not good company when I feel like I do now.

I can see that in your face.”

“Polly, that’s not true.”

“I’m going to go home and take a long, hot bath. I’m not going to drink any more coffee. I’m going to unplug the phone, go to bed early, and the chances are that when I wake up tomorrow, I’ll feel like a new woman. Then maybe we can… you know. No slap, a lot of tickle.”

“I worry about you,” he said.

Her hands moved gently, delicately, in his. “I know,” she said.

“It does no good, but I appreciate it, Alan. More than you know.”

2

Hugh Priest slowed as he passed The Mellow Tiger on his way home from the Castle Rock motor pool… then sped up again.

He drove home, parked his Buick in the driveway, and went inside.

His place had two rooms: the one where he slept and the one where he did everything else. A chipped Formica table, covered with aluminum frozen dinner trays (cigarette butts had been crushed in congealing gravy in most of them) stood in the center of this latter room. He went to the open closet, stood on tiptoe, and felt along the top shelf.

For a moment he thought the fox-tail was gone, that somebody had come in and stolen it, and panic ignited a ball of heat in his belly.

Then his hand encountered that silky softness, and he let out his breath in a long sigh.

He had spent most of the day thinking about the fox-tail, thinking about how he was going to tie it to the Buick’s antenna, thinking about how it would look, fluttering cheerfully up there. He had almost tied it on that morning, but it had still been raining then, and he didn’t like the idea of the dampness turning it into a soggy fur rope that just hung there like a carcass. Now he took it back outside, absently kicking an empty juice can out of his way as he went, stroking the rich fur through his fingers. God, it felt good!

He entered the garage (which had been too full of junk to admit his car since 1984 or so) and found a sturdy piece of wire after some hunting about. He had made up his mind: first he would wire the fox-tail to the antenna, then he would have some supper, and afterward he would finally drive over to Greenspark. A.A. met at the American Legion Hall there at seven o’clock. Maybe it was too late to start a new life… but it wasn’t too late to find out for sure, one way or another.

He made a sturdy little slip-loop in the wire and fastened it around the thick end of the brush. He started to wrap the other end of the wire around the antenna, but his fingers, which had moved with rapid surety at first, began to slow down. He felt his confidence slipping away and, filling the hole it left behind, doubt began to seep in.

He saw himself parking in the American Legion parking lot, and that was okay. He saw himself going in to the meeting, and that was okay, too. But then he saw some little kid, like the asshole who had stepped in front of his truck the other day, walking past the Legion Hall while he was inside saying his name was Hugh P. and he was powerless over alcohol. Something catches the kid’s eye a flash of bright orange in the blue-white glare thrown by the arc-sodiums which light the parking lot. The kid approaches his Buick and examines the fox-tail… first touching, then stroking.

He looks around, sees no one, and yanks on the fox-tail, breaking the wire. Hugh saw this kid going down to the local video-game arcade and telling one of his buddies: Hey, look what I hawked out of the Legion parking lot. Not bad, huh?

Hugh felt a frustrated anger creep into his chest, as if this were not simply speculation but something which had already happened.

He stroked the fox-tail, then looked around in the growing gloom of five o’clock, as if he expected to see a crowd of l’ lit-fingered 19 kids gathering already on the far side of Castle Hill Road, just waiting for him to go back inside and stuff a couple of Hungry Man dinners into the oven so they could take his fox-tail.

No. It was better not to go. Kids had no respect these days.

Kids would steal anything, just for the joy of stealing it. Keep it for a day or two, then lose interest and toss it in a ditch or a vacant lot. The picture-and it was a very clear picture, almost a visionof his lovely brush lying abandoned in a trashy gully, growing sodden in the rain, losing its color amid the Big Mac wrappers and discarded beer cans, filled Hugh with a feeling of angry agony.

It would be crazy to take a risk like that.

He untwisted the wire which held the tail to the antenna, took the brush into the house again, and put it back on the high shelf in the closet. This time he closed the closet door, but it wouldn’t latch tightly.

Have to get a lock for that, he thought. Kids’ll break in anyplace.

There’s no respect for authority these days. None at all.

He went to the refrigerator, got a can of beer, looked at it for a moment, then put it back. A beer-even four or five beerswouldn’t do much to put him back on an even keel. Not the way he felt tonight. He opened one of the lower cupboards, pawed past the assortment of rummage-sale pots and pans stacked there, and found the half-full bottle of Black Velvet he kept for emergencies.

He filled a jelly-glass to the halfway mark, considered for a moment, then filled it all the way to the top. He took a swallow or two, felt the heat explode in his belly, and filled the glass again.

He started to feel a little better, a little more relaxed. He looked toward the closet and smiled. It was safe up there, and would be safer as soon as he got a good strong Kreig padlock at the Western Auto and put it on. Safe. It was good when you had something you really wanted and needed, but it was even better when that thing was safe. That was the best of all.

Then the smile faded a little.

Is that what you bought it for? To keep i’t on a high shelf behind a locked door?

He drank again, slowly. All right, he thought, maybe that’s not so good. But it’s better than losing it to some light-fingered kid.

“After all,” he said aloud, “it’s not 1955 anymore. This is modern days.”

He nodded for emphasis. Still, the thought lingered. What good was the fox-tail doing in there? What good for him, or anyone else?

But two or three drinks took care of that thought. Two or three drinks made putting the fox-tail back seem like the most reasonable, rational decision in the world. He decided to put off dinner; such a sensible decision deserved to be rewarded by another drink or two.

He filled the jelly-glass again, sat down in one of the kitchen chairs with its tubular steel legs, and lit a cigarette. And as he sat there, drinking and tapping curls of ash into one of the frozen dinner trays, he forgot about the fox-tail and started thinking about Nettle Cobb. Crazy Nettle. He was going to play a trick on Crazy Nettle.

Maybe next week, maybe the week after that… but this week seemed most likely. Mr. Gaunt had told him he was a man who didn’t like to waste time, and Hugh was willing to take his word for it.

He looked forward to it.

It would break up the monotony.

He drank, he smoked, and when he finally passed out on the filthy sheets of the narrow bed in the other room at quarter of ten, he did it with a smile on his face.

3

Wilma jerzyck’s shift at Hemphill’s Market ended when the store closed at seven. She pulled into her own driveway at seven-fifteen.

Soft light spilled out through the drawn drapes across the livingroom window. She went in and sniffed. She could smell macaroni and cheese. Good enough… at least, so far.

Pete was sprawled on the couch with his shoes off, watching Wheel of Fortune. The Portland Press-Herald was in his lap.

“I read your note,” he said, sitting up quickly and putting the paper aside. “I put in the casserole. It’ll be ready by seven-thirty.”

He looked at her with earnest and slightly anxious brown eyes.

Like a dog with a strong urge to please, Pete jerzyck had been house-trained early and quite well. He had his lapses, but it had been a long time since she’d come in and found him lying on the couch with his shoes on, a longer one since he’d dared to light up his pipe in the house, and it would be a snowy day in August when he took a piss without remembering to put the ring back down after he was through.

“Did you bring in the wash?”

An expression of mingled guilt and surprise troubled his round, open face. “Jeer! I was reading the newspaper and forgot. I’ll go right out.” He was already fumbling for his shoes.

“Never mind,” she said, starting for the kitchen.

“Wilma, I’ll get it!”

“Don’t bother,” she said sweetly. “I wouldn’t want you to leave your paper or Vanna White just because I’ve been on my feet behind a cash register for the last six hours. Sit right there, Peter. En’ yourself.” JOY She didn’t have to look around and check his reaction; after seven years of marriage, she honestly believed Peter Michael jerzyck held no more surprises for her. His expression would be a mixture of hurt and weak chagrin. He would stand there for a few moments after she had gone out, looking like a man who just came out of the crapper and can’t quite remember if he’s wiped himself, and then he would go to work setting the table and dishing up the casserole. He would ask her many questions about her shift at the market, listen attentively to her answers, and not interrupt once with the details of his own day at Williams-Brown, the large real estate agency in Oxford where he worked.

Which was just as fine as paint with Wilma, since she found real estate the world’s most boring subject. After dinner, he would clear up without being asked, and she would read the paper. All of these services would be performed by him because he had forgotten one minor chore. She didn’t mind taking in the wash at all-in fact, she was fond of the feel and smell of clothes which had spent a happy afternoon drying in the sun-but she had no intention of letting Pete in on that.

It was her little secret.

She had many such secrets, and kept them all for the same reason: in a war, you held onto every advantage. Some nights she would come home and there might be an hour or even two hours of skirmishing before she was finally able to prod Peter into a fullscale retreat, replacing his white pins on her interior battle-map with her red ones. Tonight the engagement had been won less than two minutes after she stepped inside the door, and that was just fine with Wilma.

She believed in her heart that marriage was a lifetime adventure in aggression, and in such a long campaign, where ultimately no prisoners could be taken, no quarter given, no patch of marital landscape left unscorched, such easy victories might eventually lose their savor. But that time had not yet come, and so she went out to the clotheslines with the basket under her left arm and her heart light beneath the swell of her bosom.

She was halfway across the yard before coming to a puzzled stop.

Where in the hell were the sheets?

She should have seen them easily, big rectangular white shapes floating in the dark, but they weren’t there. Had they blown away?

Ridiculous! There had been a breeze that afternoon, but hardly a gale. Had someone stolen them?

Then a gust of wind kicked through the air and she heard a large, lazy flapping sound. Okay, they were there… somewhere.

When you were the oldest daughter in a sprawling Catholic clan of thirteen children, you knew what a sheet sounded like when it flapped on the line. But it still wasn’t right, that sound. It was too heavy.

Wilma took another step forward. Her face, which always wore the faintly shadowed look of a woman who expects trouble, grew darker. Now she could see the sheets… or shapes that should have been the sheets. But they were dark.

She took another, smaller step forward, and the breeze whisked through the yard again. The shapes flapped toward her this time, belling out, and before she could get her hand up, something heavy and slimy struck her. Something gooey splattered her cheeks; something thick and soggy pressed against her. It was almost as if a cold, sticky hand were trying to grasp her.

She was not a woman who cried out easily or often, but she cried out now, and dropped the laundry-basket. That sloppy flapping sound came again and she tried to twist away from the shape looming before her. Her left ankle struck the wicker laundry-basket and she stumbled to one knee, missing a full-length tumble only by a combination of luck and quick reflexes.

A heavy, wet thing slobbered its way up her back; thick wetness drooled down the sides of her neck. Wilma cried out again and crawled away from the lines on her hands and knees. Some of her hair had escaped the kerchief she wore and hung against her cheeks, tickling.

She hated that feeling… but she hated that drooling, clammy caress from the dark shape hung on her clothesline even more.

The kitchen door banged open, and Pete’s alarmed voice carried across the yard: “Wilma? Wilma, are you all right?”

Flapping from behind her-a nasty sound, like a chuckle from vocal cords clotted with dirt. In the next yard the Haverhills’ mutt began to bellow hysterically in its high, unpleasant voice-yark! yark! yark!-and this did nothing to improve Wilma’s state of mind.

She got to her feet and saw Pete cautiously descending the back steps. “Wilma? Did you fall down? Are you okay?”

“Yes!” she shouted furiously. “Yes, I fell down! Yes, I’m okay!

Turn on the goddam light!”

“Did you hurt yourself-” ‘Just turn on the goddam LIGHT!” she screamed at him, and rubbed a hand across the front of her coat. It came away covered with cold goo. She was now so angry she could see her own pulse as bright points of light before her eyes… and angriest of all at herself, for being scared. Even for a second.

Yark! Yark! Yark!

The goddam mutt in the next yard was going ape. Christ, she hated dogs, especially the mouthy ones.

Pete’s shape retreated to the top of the kitchen steps. The door opened, his hand snaked inside, and then the floodlight came on, bathing the rear yard with bright light.

Wilma looked down at herself and saw a wide swath of dark brown across the front of her new fall coat. She wiped furiously at her face, held out her hand, and saw it had also turned brown. She could feel a slow, syrupy trickle running down the middle of her back.

“Mud!” She was stupefied with disbelief-so much so that she was unaware she had spoken aloud. Who could have done this to her? Who would have dared?

“What did you say, honey?” Pete asked. He had been coming toward her; now he stopped a prudent distance away. Wilma’s face was working in a way Pete jerzyck found extremely alarming: it was as if a nest of baby snakes had hatched just beneath her skin.

“Mud!” she screamed, holding her hands out toward him… at him. Flecks of brown flew from her fingertips. “Mud, I say!

Mud!”

Pete looked past her, finally understanding. His mouth dropped open. Wilma whirled in the direction of his gaze. The floodlight mounted above the kitchen door lit the clotheslines and the garden with merciless clarity, revealing everything that needed to be revealed.

The sheets which she had hung out clean were now drooping from their pins in dispirited, soggy clots. They were not just spattered with mud; they were coated with it, plated with it.

Wilma looked at the garden and saw deep divots where the mud had been scooped out. She saw a beaten track in the grass where the mudslinger had gone back and forth, first loading up, then walking to the lines, then throwing, then going back to reload.

“God damn it!” she screamed.

“Wilma… come on in the house, honey, and I’ll Pete groped, then looked relieved as an idea actually dawned. “I’ll make us some tea.”

“Fuck the tea!” Wilma howled at the top, the very tippy-top, of her vocal range, and from next door the Haverhills’ mutt went for broke, yarkyarkyark, oh she hated dogs, it was going to drive her crazy, fucking loudmouth dog!

Her rage overflowed and she charged the sheets, clawed at them, began pulling them down. Her fingers caught over the first line and it snapped like a guitar string. The sheets hung from it dropped in a sodden, meaty swoop. Fists clenched, eyes squinched like a child doing a tantrum, Wilma took a single large, froggy leap and landed on top of one. It made a weary flooosh sound and billowed up, splattering gobbets of mud on her nylons. It was the final touch.

She opened her mouth and shrieked her rage. Oh, she would find who had done this. Yes-indeedy-doodad. You better believe it. And when she did-“is everything all right over there, Mrs. jerzyck?” it was Mrs. Haverhill’s voice, wavering with alarm.

“Yes goddammit, we’re drinking Sterno and watching Lawrence Welk, can’t you shut that mutt of yours up?” Wilma screamed.

She backed off the muddy sheet, panting, her hair hanging all around her flushed face. She swiped at it savagely. Fucking dog was going to drive her crazy. Fucking loudmouth doHer thoughts broke off with an almost audible snap.

Dogs.

Fucking loudmouth dogs.

Who lived almost right around the corner from here, on Ford Street?

Correction: What crazy lady with a fucking loudmouth dog named Raider lived right around the corner from here?

Why, Nettle Cobb, that was who.

The dog had barked all spring, those high-pitched puppy yaps that really got under your skin, and finally Wilma had called Nettle and told her that if she couldn’t get her dog to shut up, she ought to get rid of it. A week later, when there had still been no improvement (at least none that Wilma was willing to admit), she had called Nettle again and told her that if she couldn’t keep the dog quiet, she, Wilma, would have to call the police. The next night, when the goddamned mutt started up its yarking and barking once more, she had.

A week or so after that, Nettle had shown up at the market (unlike Wilma, Nettle seemed to be the sort of person who had to turn things over in her mind for awhile brood on them, evenbefore she was able to act). She stood in line at Wilma’s register, although she didn’t have a single solitary item. When her turn came, she had said in a squeaky, breathless little voice: “You stop making trouble for me and my Raider, Wilma jerzyck. He’s a good little doggy, and you just better stop making trouble.”

Wilma, always ready for a fight, had not been in the least disconcerted at being confronted in the workplace. In fact, she rather liked it. “Lady, you don’t know what trouble is. But if you can’t get your damn dog to shut up, you will.”

The Cobb woman had been as pale as milk, but she drew herself up, clutching her purse so tightly that the tendons on her scrawny forearms showed all the way from her wrists to her elbows. She said: “I’m warning you,” then hurried out.

“Oh-oh, I think I just peed my panties!” Wilma had called boisterously after her (a taste of battle always put her in good spirits), but Nettle never turned-only hurried on her way a little faster.

After that, the dog had quieted down. This had rather disappointed Wilma, because it had been a boring spring. Pete was showing no signs of rebellion, and Wilma had been feeling an endof-winter dullness that the new green in the trees and grass couldn’t seem to touch. What she really needed to add color and spice to her life was a good feud. For awhile it had seemed that crazy Nettle Cobb would fill the bill admirably, but with the dog minding its manners, it seemed to Wilma that she would have to look elsewhere for diversion.

Then one night in May the dog had started barking again. The mutt had only gone on for awhile, but Wilma hurried to the telephone and called Nettle anyway-she had marked the number in the book just in case such an occasion offered.

She did not waste time on the niceties but got right to the point.

“This is Wilma jerzyck, dear. I called to tell you that if you don’t shut that dog up, I’ll shut him up myself.”

“He’s already stopped!” Nettle had cried. “I brought him in as soon as I got home and heard him! You just leave me and Raider alone!

I warned you! If you don’t, you’ll be sorry!”

“Just remember what I said,” Wilma told her. “I’ve had enough.

The next time he starts up that ruckus, I won’t bother complaining to the cops. I’ll come over and cut his goddam throat.”

She had hung up before Nettle could reply. The cardinal rule governing engagements with the enemy (relatives, neighbors, spouses) was that the aggressor must have the last word.

The dog hadn’t popped off since then. Well, maybe it had, but Wilma hadn’t noticed it if so; it had never been that bothersome in the first place, not really, and besides, Wilma had inaugurated a more productive wrangle with the woman who ran the beauty parlor in Castle View. Wilma had almost forgotten Nettle and Raider.

But maybe Nettle hadn’t forgotten her. Wilma had seen Nettle just yesterday, in the new shop. And if looks could kill, Wilma thought, I would have been laid out dead on the floor right there.

Standing here now by her muddied, ruined sheets, she remembered the look of fear and defiance that had come over the nutty bitch’s face, the way her lip had curled back, showing her teeth for a second.

Wilma was very familiar with the look of hate, and she had seen it on Nettle Cobb’s face yesterday.

I warned you… you’ll he sorry.

“Wilma, come on inside,” Pete said. He put a tentative hand on her shoulder.

She shrugged it off briskly. “Leave me alone.”

Pete withdrew a step. He looked like he wanted to wring his hands but didn’t quite dare.

Maybe she forgot, too, Wilma thought. At least until she saw me yesterday, in that new store. Or maybe she’s been planning something (i warned you) all along in that half-stewed head of hers, and seeing me finally set her off.

Somewhere in the last few moments she had become sure that Nettle was the one-who else had she crossed glances with in the last couple of days who might hold a grudge? There were other people in town who didn’t like her, but this kind of trick-this kind of sneaking, cowardly trick-went with the way Nettle had looked at her yesterday. That sneer of mingled fear (you’ll be sorry) and hate. She had looked like a dog herself, one brave enough to bite only when its victim’s back is turned.

Yes, it had been Nettle Cobb, all right. The more Wilma thought about it, the surer she became. And the act was unforgivable. Not because the sheets were ruined. Not because it was a cowardly trick.

Not even because it was the act of someone with a cracked brain.

It was unforgivable because Wilma had been frightened.

Only for a second, true, that second when the slimy brown thing had flapped out of the darkness and into her face, caressing her coldly like some monster’s hand… but even one single second of fear was a second too much.

“Wilma?” Pete asked as she turned her flat face toward him. He did not like the expression the porch light showed him, all shiny white surfaces and black, dimpled shadows. He did not like that flat look in her eyes. “Honey? Are you all right?”

She strode past him, taking no notice of him at all. Pete scurried after her as she headed for the house… and the telephone.

4

Nettle was sitting in her living room with Raider at her feet and her new carnival glass lampshade on her lap when the telephone rang.

It was twenty minutes of eight. She jumped and clutched the lampshade tighter, looking at the telephone with fear and distrust.

She had a momentary certainty-silly, of course, but she couldn’t seem to rid herself of such feelings-that it would be Some Person in Authority, calling to tell her she must give the beautiful lampshade back, that it belonged to someone else, that such a lovely object could not possibly have accrued to Nettle’s little store of possessions in any case, the very idea was ridiculous.

Raider looked up at her briefly, as if to ask if she was going to answer that or not, then put his muzzle back down on his paws.

Nettle set the lampshade carefully aside and picked up the telephone. It was probably just Polly, calling to ask if she’d pick up something for dinner at Hemphill’s Market before she came to work tomorrow morning.

“Hello, Cobb residence,” she said crisply. All her life she had been terrified of Some Person in Authority, and she had discovered that the best way to handle such a fear was to sound like a person in authority yourself. It didn’t make the fear go away, but at least it held the fear in check.

“I know what you did, you crazy bitch!” a voice spat at her. It was as sudden and as gruesome as the stab of an icepick.

Nettle’s breath caught as if on a thorn; an expression of trapped horror froze her face and her heart tried to cram its way up into her throat. Raider looked up at her again, questioningly.

“Who… who…”

“You know goddam well who,” the voice said, and of course Nettle did. It was Wilma jerzyck. It was that evil, evil woman.

“He hasn’t been barking!” Nettle’s voice was high and thin and screamy, the voice of someone who has just inhaled the entire contents of a helium balloon. “He’s all grown up and he’s not barking! He’s right here at my feet!”

“Did you have a good time throwing mud at my sheets, you numb cunt?” Wilma was furious. The woman was actually trying to pretend this was still about the dog.

“Sheets? What sheets? I… I…” Nettle looked toward the carnival glass lampshade and seemed to draw strength from it. “You leave me alone! You’re the one that’s crazy, not me!”

“I’m going to get you for this. Nobody comes into my yard and throws mud at my sheets while I’m gone. Nobody. NOBODY!

Understand? Is this getting through that cracked skull of yours?

You won’t know where, and you won’t know when, and most of all you won’t know how, but I… am going… to GET you. Do you understand?”

Nettle held the phone tightly screwed against her ear. Her face had gone dead pale except for a single bright streak of red which ran across her forehead between her eyebrows and hairline. Her teeth were clenched and her cheeks puffed in and out like a bellows as she panted from the sides of her mouth.

“You leave me alone or you’ll be sorry!” she screamed in her high, fainting, helium voice. Raider was standing now, his ears up, his eyes bright and anxious. He sensed menace in the room. He barked once, severely. Nettle didn’t hear him. “You’ll be very sorry!

I… I know people! People in Authority! I know them very well!

I don’t have to put up with this!”

Speaking slowly in a voice which was low and sincere and utterly furious, Wilma said: “Tucking with me is the worst mistake you ever made in your life. You won’t see me coming.”

There was a click.

“You don’t dare!” Nettle wailed. Tears were running down her cheeks now, tears of terror and abysmal, impotent rage. “You don’t dare, you bad thing! I… I’ll…”

There was a second click. It was followed by the buzz of an open line.

Nettle hung up the phone and sat bolt upright in her chair for almost three minutes, staring into space. Then she began to weep.

Raider barked again and put his paws up on the edge of her chair.

Nettle hugged him and wept against his fur. Raider licked her neck.

“I won’t let her hurt you, Raider,” she said. She inhaled the sweet and clean doggy warmth of him, trying to take comfort from it.

“I won’t let that bad, bad woman hurt you. She’s not a Person in Authority, not at all. She’s just a bad old thing and if she tries to hurt you… or me… she’ll be sorry.”

She straightened at last, found a Kleenex tucked down between the side of her chair and the cushion, and used it to wipe her eyes.

She was terrified… but she could also feel anger buzzing and drilling through her. It was the way she’d felt before she’d taken the meat-fork from the drawer under the sink and stuck it in her husband’s throat.

She took the carnival glass lampshade off the table and hugged it gently to her. “If she starts something, she will be very, very sorry,” Nettle said.

She sat that way, with Raider at her feet and the lampshade in her lap, for a very long time.

5

Norris Ridgewick cruised slowly down Main Street in his police cruiser, eyeballing the buildings on the west side of the street.

His shift would be over soon, and he was glad. He could remember how good he had felt this morning before that idiot had grabbed him; could remember standing at the mirror in the men’s room, adjusting his hat and thinking with satisfaction that he looked Squared Away. He could remember it, but the memory seemed very old and sepia-toned, like a photograph from the nineteenth century. From the moment that idiot Keeton had grabbed him up to right now, nothing had gone right.

He’d gotten lunch at Cluck-Cluck Tonite, the chicken shack out on Route 119. The food there was usually good, but this time it had given him a roaring case of acid indigestion followed by a case of the dribbling shits. Around three o’clock he had run over a nail out on Town Road #7 near the old Camber place and had to change the tire.

He’d wiped his fingers on the front of his freshly dry-cleaned uniform blouse, not thinking about what he was doing, only wanting to dry the tips so they would provide a better grip on the loosened lug-nuts, and he had rubbed grease across the shirt in four glaring dark-gray stripes. While he was looking at this with dismay, the cramps had turned his bowels to water again and he’d had to hurry off into the puckerbrush. It had been a race to see if he could manage to drop his trousers before he filled them. That race Norris managed to win… but he hadn’t liked the look of the little stand of bushes he had chosen to take a squat in. It had looked like poison sumac, and the way his day had gone so far, it probably had been.

Norris crept slowly past the buildings which made up Castle Rock’s downtown: the Norway Bank and Trust, the Western Auto, Nan’s Luncheonette, the black hole where Pop Merrill’s rickrack palace had once stood, You Sew and Sew, Needful Things, Castle Rock Hardware Norris suddenly applied the brakes and came to a stop. He had seen something amazing in the window of Needful Things thought he had, anyway.

He checked the rearview mirror, but Main Street was deserted.

The stop-and-go light at the lower end of the business district abruptly went out, and remained dark for a few seconds while relays clicked thoughtfully inside. Then the yellow light in the center began to flash off and on. Nine o’clock, then. Nine o’clock on the button.

Norris reversed back up the street, then pulled in at the curb.

He looked down at the radio, thought of calling in 10-22-officer leaving the vehicle-and decided not to. He only wanted a quick look in the shop window. He turned up the gain on the radio a little and rolled down the window before getting out. That ought to do it.

You didn’t see what you thought you saw, he cautioned himself, hitching up his trousers as he walked across the sidewalk. No way.

Today was made for disappointment, not discovery. That was just someone’s old Zebco rod and reelExcept it wasn’t. The fishing rod in the window of Needful Things was arranged in a cute little display with a net and a pair of bright yellow gum-rubber boots, and it was definitely not a Zebco.

It was a Bazun. He hadn’t seen one since his father died sixteen years before. Norris had been fourteen then, and he had loved the Bazun for two reasons: what it was and what it stood for.

What was it? Just the best damned lake-and-stream fishing rod in the world, that was all.

What had it stood for? Good times. As simple as that. The good times a skinny little boy named Norris Ridgewick had had with his old man. Good times ploughing through the woods beside some stream out on the edge of town, good times in their little boat, sitting in the middle of Castle Lake while everything around them was white with the mist that rose off the lake in steamy little columns and enclosed them in their own private world. A world made only for guys. In some other world moms would soon be making breakfast, and that was a good world, too, but not as good as this one.

No world had been as good as that one, before or since.

After his father’s fatal coronary, the Bazun rod and reel had disappeared. He remembered looking for it in the garage after the funeral and it was just gone. He had hunted in the cellar, had even looked in the closet of his mom and dad’s bedroom (although he knew his mom would have been more likely to let Henry Ridgewick store an elephant in there than a fishing pole), but the Bazun was gone. Norris had always suspected his Uncle Phil. Several times he had gathered his courage to ask, but each time it came to the sticking point, he had backed down.

Now, looking at this rod and reel, which could have been that very one, he forgot about Buster Keeton for the first time that day.

He was overwhelmed with a simple, perfect memory: his father sitting in the stern of the boat, his tackle-box between his feet, handing the Bazun to Norris so he could pour himself a cup of coffee from his big red Thermos with the gray stripes. He could smell the coffee, hot and good, and he could smell his father’s aftershave lotion: Southern Gentleman, it had been called.

Suddenly the old grief rose up and folded him in its gray embrace and he wanted his father. After all these years that old pain was gnawing his bones again, as fresh and as hungry as it had been on the day when his mother had come home from the hospital and taken his hands and said We have to be very brave now, Norris.

The spotlight high in the display window pricked bright beams of light off the steel casing of the reel and all the old love, that dark and golden love, swept through him again. Norris stared in at the Bazun rod and thought of the smell of fresh coffee rising from a big red Thermos with gray stripes and the calm, wide sweep of the lake. In his mind he felt again the rough texture of the rod’s cork handle, and slowly raised one hand to wipe his eyes.

“Officer?” a quiet voice asked.

Norris gave a little cry and leaped back from the window. For one wild moment he thought he was going to fill his pants after all-the perfect end to a perfect day. Then the cramp passed and he looked around. A tall man in a tweed jacket was standing in the open door of the shop, looking at him with a little smile.

“Did I startle you?” he asked. “I’m very sorry.”

“No,” Norris said, and then managed a smile of his own. His heart was still beating like a triphammer. “Well… maybe just a little.

I was looking at that rod and thinking about old times.”

“That just came in today,” the man said. “It’s old, but it’s in awfully good condition. It’s a Bazun, you know. Not a well-known brand, but well-regarded among serious fishermen. It’s-” “-Japanese,”

Norris said. “I know. My dad used to have one.”

“Did he?” The man’s smile broadened. The teeth it revealed were crooked, but Norris found it a pleasant smile just the same.

“That is a coincidence, isn’t it?”

“It sure is,” Norris agreed.

“I’m Leland Gaunt. This is my shop.” He held out his hand.

A momentary revulsion swept over Norris as those long fingers wrapped themselves around his hand. Gaunt’s handshake was the matter of a moment, however, and when he let go, the feeling passed at once.

Norris decided it was just his stomach, still queasy over those bad clams he’d eaten for lunch. Next time he was out that way, he’d stick to the chicken, which was, after all, the house specialty.

“I could give you an extremely fair deal on that rod,” Mr. Gaunt said. “Why not step in, Officer Ridgewick? We’ll talk about it.”

Norris started a little. He hadn’t told this old bird his name, he was sure of it. He opened his mouth to ask how Gaunt had known, then closed it again. He wore a little name-tag above his badge.

That was it, of course.

“I really shouldn’t,” he said, and hoisted a thumb back over his shoulder at the cruiser. He could still hear the radio, although static was all it was putting out; he hadn’t had a call all night. “On duty, you know. Well, I’m off at nine, but technically, until I turn in my car-” “This would only take a minute or so,” Gaunt coaxed. His eyes regarded Norris merrily. “When I make up my mind to deal with a man, Officer Ridgewick, I don’t waste time. Especially when the man in question is out in the middle of the night protecting my business.”

Norris thought of telling Gaunt that nine o’clock was hardly the middle of the night, and in a sleepy little place like Castle Rock, protecting the investments of the local business people was rarely much of a chore. Then he looked back at the Bazun rod and reel and that old longing, so surprisingly strong and fresh, washed over him again. He thought of going out on the lake with such a rod this weekend, going out early in the morning with a box of worms and a big Thermos of fresh coffee from Nan’s. it would almost be like being with the old man again.

“Well…”

“Oh, come on,” Gaunt coaxed. “if I can do a little selling after hours, you can do a little buying on the town’s time. And, really, Officer Ridgewick-I don’t think anyone is going to rob the bank tonight, do you?”

Norris looked toward the bank, which flicked first yellow and then black in the measured stutter of the blinker-light, and laughed.

“I doubt it.”

“Well?”

“Okay,” Norris said. “But if we can’t make a deal in a couple of minutes, I’ll really have to split.”

Leland Gaunt groaned and laughed at the same time. “I think I hear the soft sound of my pockets being turned out,” he said.

“Come along, Officer Ridgewick-a couple of minutes it shall be.”

“I sure would like to have that rod,” Norris blurted. It was a bad way to start a trade and he knew it, but he couldn’t help it.

“And so you shall,” Mr. Gaunt said. “I’m going to offer you the best deal of your life, Officer Ridgewick.”

He led Norris inside Needful Things and closed the door.

Wilma jerzyck did not know her husband, Pete, quite as well as she thought she did.

She went to bed that Thursday night planning to go over to Nettle Cobb’s first thing Friday morning and Take Care of Things.

Her frequent wrangles sometimes simply faded away, but on those occasions when they came to a head, it was Wilma who picked the duelling ground and chose the weapons. The first rule of her confrontational life-style was Always get the last word. The second was Always make the first move. Making this first move was what she thought of as Taking Care of Things, and she meant to take care of Nettle in a hurry. She told Pete she just might see how many times she could turn the crazy bitch’s head around before it popped off the stem.

She fully expected to spend most of the night awake and steaming, taut as a drawn bowstring; it wouldn’t have been the first time.

Instead, she slipped off to sleep less than ten minutes after lying down, and when she woke up she felt refreshed and oddly calm.

Sitting at the kitchen table in her housecoat on Friday morning, it came to her that maybe it was too early to Take Care of Things Permanently. She had scared the living Jesus out of Nettle on the phone last night; as mad as Wilma had been, she hadn’t been mad enough to miss that. Only a person as deaf as a stone post could have missed it.

Why not just let Ms. Mental Illness of 1991 swing in the wind for a little while? Let her be the one to lie awake nights, wondering from which direction the Wrath of Wilma would fall. Do a few drive-bys, perhaps make a few more phone calls. As she sipped her coffee (Pete sat across the table, watching her apprehensively from above the sports section of the paper), it occurred to her that, if Nettle was as cracked as everyone said, she might not have to Take Care of Things at all. This might be one of those rare occasions when Things Took Care of Themselves. She found this thought so cheering that she actually allowed Pete to kiss her as he gathered up his briefcase and made ready to leave for work.

The idea that her frightened mouse of a husband might have drugged her never crossed Wilma’s mind. Nevertheless, that was just what Pete jerzyck had done, and not for the first time, either.

Wilma knew that she had cowed her husband, but she had no idea to how great an extent. He did not just live in fear of her; he lived in awe of her, as natives in certain tropical climes once supposedly lived in awe and superstitious dread of the Great God Thunder Mountain, which might brood silently over their sunny lives for years or even generations before suddenly exploding in a murderous tirade of burning lava.

Such natives, whether real or hypothetical, undoubtedly had their own rituals of propitiation. These may not have helped much when the mountain awoke and cast its bolts of thunder and rivers of fire at their villages, but they surely improved everyone’s peace of mind when the mountain was quiet. Pete jerzyck had no high rituals with which he could worship Wilma; it seemed that more prosaic measures would have to serve. Prescription drugs instead of Communion wafers, for instance.