12
"Ace!" Mr. Gaunt said. "You're just in time."
"I need a gun," Ace said. "Also, some more of that high-class boogerjuice, if you've got any."
"Yes, yes... in time. All things in time. Help me with this table, Ace."
"I'm going to kill Pangborn," Ace said. "He stole my f**king treasure and I'm going to kill him."
Mr. Gaunt looked at Ace with the flat yellow stare of a cat stalking a mouse... and in that moment, Ace felt like a mouse.
"Don't waste my time telling me things I already know," he said.
"If you want my help, Ace, help me."
Ace grabbed one side of the table, and they carried it back into the storeroom. Mr. Gaunt bent down and picked up a sign which leaned against the wall.
THIS TIME I'M REALLY CLOSED, it read. He put it on the door and then shut it. He was turning the thumb-lock before Ace realized there had been nothing on the sign to hold it in place-no tack, no tape, no nothing. But it had stayed up just the same.
Then his eye fell upon the crates which had contained the automatic pistols and the clips of ammunition. There were only three guns and three clips left.
"Holy Jesus! Where'd they all go?"
"Business has been good this evening, Ace," Mr. Gaunt said, rubbing his long-fingered hands together. "Extremely good. And it's going to get even better. I have work for you to do."
"I told you," Ace said. "The Sheriff stole my-" Leland Gaunt was upon him before Ace even saw him move.
Those long, ugly hands seized him by the front of the shirt and lifted him into the air as if he were made of feathers. A startled cry fell out of his mouth. The hands which held hirri were like iron.
Mr. Gaunt lifted him high, and Ace suddenly found himself looking down into that blazing, hellish face with only the haziest idea of how he had gotten there. Even in the extremity of his sudden terror, he noticed that smoke or perhaps it was steam-was coming out of Mr. Gaunt's ears and nostrils. He looked like a human dragon.
"You tell me NOTHING!" Mr. Gaunt screamed up at him. His tongue licked out between those jostling tombstone teeth, and Ace saw it came to a double point, like the tongue of a snake. "I tell you EVERYTHING!
Shut up when you are in the company of your elders and betters, Ace! Shut up and listen! Shut up and listen! SHUT UP AND LISTEN!"
He whirled Ace twice around his head like a carnival wrestler giving his opponent an airplane spin, and threw him against the far wall. Ace's head connected with the plaster. A large fireworks display went off in the center of his brain. When his vision cleared, he saw Leland Gaunt bearing down on him. His face was a horror of eyes and teeth and blowing steam.
"No!" Ace shrieked. "No, Mr. Gaunt, please! NO!"
The hands had become talons, the nails grown long and sharp in a moment's time... or were they that way all along? Ace's mind gibbered. Maybe they were that way all along and you just didn't see it.
They cut through the fabric of Ace's shirt like razors, and Ace was jerked back up into that fuming face.
"Are you ready to listen, Ace?" Mr. Gaunt asked. Hot blurts of steam stung Ace's cheeks and mouth with each word. "Are you ready, or should I just unzip your worthless guts and have done with it?"
"Yes!" he sobbed. "I mean no! I'll listen!"
"Are you going to be a good little errand boy and follow orders?"
"Yes!"
"Do you know what will happen if you don't?"
"Yes! Yes! Yes!"
"You're disgusting, Ace," Mr. Gaunt said. "I like that in a person." He slung Ace against the wall. Ace slid down it into a loose kneeling position, gasping and sobbing. He looked down at the floor.
He was afraid to gaze directly into the monster's face.
"If you should even think of going against my wishes, Ace, I'll see that you get the grand tour of hell. You'll have the Sheriff, don't worry. For the moment, however, he is out of town. Now. Stand up."
Ace got slowly to his feet. His head throbbed; his tee-shirt hung in ribbons.
"Let me ask you something." Mr. Gaunt was urbane and smiling again, not a hair out of place.
"Do you like this little town? Do you love it? Do you keep snapshots of it on the walls of your shitty little shack to remind yourself of its rustic charm on those days when the bee stings and the dog bites?"
"Hell, no," Ace said in an unsteady voice. His voice rose and fell with the pounding of his heart. He made it to his feet only with the greatest effort. His legs felt as if they were made of spaghetti.
He stood with his back to the wall, watching Mr. Gaunt warily.
"Would it appall you if I said I wanted you to blow this shitty little burg right off the face of the map while you wait for the Sheriff to come back?"
"I... I don't know what that word means," Ace said nervously.
"I'm not surprised. But I think you understand what I mean, Ace.
Don't you?"
Ace thought back. He thought back all the way to a time, many years ago, when four snotnosed kids had cheated him and his friends (Ace had had friends back in those days, or at least a reasonable approximation thereof) out of something Ace had wanted. They had caught one of the snotnoses-Gordie LaChance-later on and had beaten the living shit out of him, but it hadn't mattered. These days LaChance was a bigshot writer living in another part of the state, and he probably wiped his ass with ten-dollar bills. Somehow the snotnoses had won, and things had never been the same for Ace after that. That was when his luck had turned bad. Doors that had been open to him had begun to close, one by one. Little by little he had begun to realize that he was not a king and Castle Rock was not his kingdom. If that had ever been true, those days had begun to pass that Labor Day weekend when he was sixteen, when the snots had cheated him and his friends out of what was rightfully theirs. By the time Ace was old enough to drink legally in The Mellow Tiger, he had gone from being a king to being a soldier without a uniform, skulking through enemy territory.
"I hate this f**king toilet," he said to Leland Gaunt.
"Good," Mr. Gaunt said. "Very good. I have a friend-he's parked just up the street-who is going to help you do something about that, Ace. You'll have the Sheriff... and you'll have the whole town, too. Does that sound good?" He had captured Ace's eyes with his own.
Ace stood before him in the tattered rags of his tee-shirt and began to grin. His head no longer ached.
"Yeah," he said. "It sounds absolutely t-fine."
Mr. Gaunt reached into his coat pocket and brought out a plastic sandwich bag filled with white powder. He held it out to Ace.
"There's work to do, Ace," he said.
Ace took the sandwich bag, but it was still Mr. Gaunt's eyes he looked at, and into.
"Good," he said. "I'm ready."
13
Buster watched as the last man he had seen enter the service alley came back out again. The guy's tee-shirt hung in ragged strips now, and he was carrying a crate. Tucked into the waistband of his bluejeans were the butts of two automatic pistols.
Buster drew back in sudden alarm as the man, whom he now recognized as John "Ace" Merrill, walked directly to the van and set the crate down.
Ace tapped on the glass. "Open up the back, Daddy-O," he said.
"We got work to do."
Buster unrolled his window. "Get out of here," he said. "Get out, you ruffian! Or I'll call the police!"
"Good f**king luck," Ace grunted.
He drew one of the pistols from the waistband of his pants.
Buster stiffened, and then Ace thrust it through the window at him, butt first. Buster blinked at it.
"Take it," Ace said impatiently, "and then open the back. If you don't know who sent me, you're even dumber than you look." He reached out with his other hand and felt the wig. "Love your hair," he said with a small smile. "Simply marvelous."
"Stop that," Buster said, but the anger and outrage had gone out of his voice. Three good men can do a lot of damage, Mr. Gaunt had said. I will send someone to you.
But Ace? Ace Merrill? He was a criminal!
"Look," Ace said, "if you want to discuss the arrangements with Mr. Gaunt, I think he might still be in there. But as you can see"he fluttered his hands through the long strips of tee-shirt hanging over his chest and belly-"his mood is a little touchy."
"You're supposed to help me get rid of Them?" Buster asked.
"That's right," Ace said. "We're gonna turn this whole town into a Flame-Broiled Whopper." He picked up the crate. "Although I don't know how we're supposed to do any real damage with just a box of blasting caps. He said you'd know the answer to that one."
Buster had begun to grin. He got up, crawled into the back of the van, and slid the door open on its track. "I believe I do," he said.
"Climb in, Mr. Merrill. We've got an errand to run."
"Where?"
"The town motor pool, to start with," Buster said. He was still grinning.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
1
The Rev. William Rose, who had first stepped into the pulpit of The United Baptist Church of Castle Rock in May of 1983, was a bigot of the first water; no question about it. Unfortunately, he was also energetic, sometimes witty in a n odd, cruel way, and extremely popular with his congregation. His first sermon as leader of the Baptist flock had been a sign of things to come. It was called "Why the Catholics are Hellbound." He had kept up in this vein, which was extremely popular with his congregation, ever since. The Catholics, he informed them, were blasphemous, misguided creatures who worshipped not Jesus but the woman who had been chosen to bear Him. Was it any wonder they were so prone to error on other subjects as well?