Needful Things (Page 41)

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.

I can feel it."

He hadn’t any idea of how to bet, and Frazier’s constant chatter made it hard to listen to what the other bettors in line were saying when they got to the two-dollar window.

When he got there, he pushed a five-dollar bill across to the teller and said, "Number four."

"Win, place, or show?" the teller asked, but for a moment Keeton had not been able to reply. Behind the teller he saw an amazing thing.

Three clerks were counting and banding huge piles of currency, more cash than Keeton had ever seen in one place.

"Win, place, or show?" the teller repeated impatiently. "Hurry up, buddy. This is not the Public Library."

"Win," Keeton had said. He hadn’t the slightest idea what "place" and "show" meant, but "win" he understood very well.

The teller thrust him a ticket and three dollars’ change a one and a two. Keeton looked at the two with curious interest as Frazier placed his bet. He had known there were such things as two-dollar bills, of course, but he didn’t think he’d ever seen one before.

Thomas Jefferson was on it. Interesting. In fact, the whole thing was interesting-the smells of horses, popcorn, peanuts; the hurrying crowds; the atmosphere of urgency. The place was awake in a way he recognized and responded to at once. He had felt this sort of wakefulness in himself before, yes, many times, but it was the first time he had ever sensed it in the wider world. Danforth "Buster" Keeton, who rarely felt a part of anything, not really, felt he was a part of this. Very much a part.

"This beats hell out of The Holly," he said as Frazier rejoined him.

"Yeah, harness racing’s okay," Frazier said. "It won’t ever replace the World Series, but you know. Come on, let’s get over to the rail. Which horse did you bet on?"

Keeton didn’t remember. He’d had to check his ticket. "Number four," he said.

"Place or show?"

"Uh… win."

Frazier shook his head in good-natured contempt and clapped him on the shoulder. "Win’s a sucker bet, Buster. It’s a sucker bet even when the tote-board says it isn’t. But you’ll learn."

And, of course, he had.

Somewhere a bell went off with a loud Brrrrr-rannggg! that made Keeton jump. A voice bellowed, "And theyyy’rrre OFF!" through the Raceway’s speakers. A thunderous roar went up from the crowd, and Keeton had felt a sudden spurt of electricity course through his body.

Hooves tattooed the dirt track. Frazier grabbed Keeton’s elbow with one hand and used the other to make a path through the crowd to the rail. They came out less than twenty yards from the finish line.

Now the announcer was calling the race. Number seven, My Lass, leading at the first turn, with number eight, Broken Field, second, and number one, How Do?, third. Number four was named Absolutely-the dumbest name for a horse Keeton had ever heard in his life-and it was running sixth. He hardly cared. He was transfixed by the pelting horses, their coats gleaming under the floodlights, by the blur of wheels as the sulkies swept around the turn, the bright colors of the silks worn by the drivers.

As the horses entered the backstretch, Broken Field began to press My Lass for the lead. My Lass broke stride and Broken Field flew by her. At the same time, Absolutely began to move up on the outside-Keeton saw it before the disembodied voice of the announcer sent the news blaring across the track, and he barely felt Frazier elbowing him, barely heard him screaming, "That’s your horse, Bustert That’s your horse and she’s got a chance!"

As the horses thundered down the final straightaway toward the place where Keeton and Frazier were standing, the entire crowd began to bellow. Keeton had felt the electricity whip through him again, not a spark this time but a storm. He began to bellow with them; the next day he would be so hoarse he could barely speak above a whisper.

"Absolutely!" he screamed. "Come on Absolutely, come on you bitch andr UN."’ "Trot," Frazier said, laughing so hard tears ran down his cheeks.

"Come on you bitch and trot. That’s what you mean, Buster."

Keeton paid no attention. He was in another world. He was sending brain-waves out to Absolutely, sending her telepathic strength through the air.

"Now it’s Broken Field and How Do?, How Do? and Broken Field", the godlike voice of the announcer chanted, "and Absolutely is gaining fast as they come to the last eighth of a [email protected]’ The horses approached, raising a cloud of dust. Absolutely trotted with her neck arched and her head thrust forward, legs rising and falling like pistons; she passed How Do? and Broken Field, who was flagging badly, right where Keeton and Frazier were standing. She was still widening her lead when she crossed the finish line.

When the numbers went up on the tote-board, Keeton had to ask Frazier what they meant. Frazier had looked at his ticket, then at the board. He whistled soundlessly.

"Did I make my money back?" Keeton asked anxiously.

"Buster, you did a little better than that. Absolutely was a thirtyto-one shot."

Before he left the track that night, Keeton had made just over three hundred dollars. That was how his obsession was born.

3

He took his overcoat from the tree in the corner of his office, drew it on, started to leave, then stopped, holding the doorknob in his hand. He looked back across the room. There was a mirror on the wall opposite the window. Keeton looked at it for a long, speculative moment, then walked across to it. He had heard about how They used mirrors-he hadn’t been born yesterday.