Needful Things (Page 7)

Wagner?" Brian gasped. His heart felt like a very small bird which had blundered into his throat and now fluttered there, trapped.

"That’s the rarest baseball card in the universe!"

"Yes, yes," Mr. Gaunt said absently. His long fingers shuttled speedily through the cards, faces from another age trapped under transparent plastic coverings, men who had whacked the pill and chucked the apple and covered the anchors, heroes of a grand and bygone golden age, an age of which this boy still harbored cheerful and lively dreams. "A little of everything, that’s what a successful business is all about, Brian. Diversity, pleasure, amazement, fulfillment… what a successful life is all about, for that matter… I don’t give advice, but if I did, you could do worse than to remember that now let me see… somewhere… somewhere… ah!"

He pulled a card from the middle of the box like a magician doing a trick and placed it triumphantly in Brian’s hand.

It was Sandy Koufax.

It was a ’56 Topps card.

And it was signed.

"To my good friend Brian, with best wishes, Sandy Koufax," Brian read in a hoarse whisper.

And then found he could say nothing at all.

6

He looked up at Mr. Gaunt, his mouth working. Mr. Gaunt smiled.

"I didn’t plant it or plan it, Brian. It’s just a coincidence… but a nice sort of coincidence, don’t you think?"

Brian still couldn’t talk, and so settled for a single nod of his head. The plastic envelope with its precious cargo felt weirdly heavy in his hand.

"Take it out," Mr. Gaunt invited.

When Brian’s voice finally emerged from his mouth again, it was the croak of a very old invalid. "I don’t dare."

"Well, I do," Mr. Gaunt said. He took the envelope from Brian, reached inside with the carefully manicured nail of one finger, and slid the card out. He put it in Brian’s hand.

He could see tiny dents in the surface they had been made by the point of the pen Sandy Koufax had used to sign his name… their names. Koufax’s signature was almost the same as the printed one, except the printed signature said Sanford Koufax and the autograph said Sandy Koufax. Also, it was a thousand times better because it was reat Sandy Koufax had held this card in his hand and had imposed his mark upon it, the mark of his living hand and magic name.

But there was another name on it, as well-Brian’s own. Some boy with his name had been standing by the Ebbets Field bullpen before the game and Sandy Koufax, the real Sandy Koufax, young and strong, his glory years just ahead of him, had taken the offered card, probably still smelling of sweet pink bubblegum, and had set his mark upon it… and mine, too, Brian thought.

Suddenly it came again, the feeling which had swept over him when he held the splinter of petrified wood. Only this time it was much, much stronger.

Smell of grass, sweet and fresh-cut.

Heavy smack of ash on horsehide.

Yells and laughterfrom the batting cage.

"Hello, Mr. Koufax, could you sign your cardfor me?"

A narrow face. Brown eyes. Darkish hair. The cap comes off briefly, he scratches his headjust above the hairline, then puts the cap back on.

"Sure, kid." He takes the card. "What’s your name?"

"Brian, sir-Brian Seguin," Scratch, scratch, scratch on the card.

The magic: the inscribed fire.

"You want to be a ballplayer when you grow up, Brian?" The question has the feel of rote recital, and he speaks without raising his face from the card he holds in his large right hand so he can write on it with his soon-to-be-magic left hand.

"Yes, sir. "Practice your fundamentals." And hands the card back.

"Yes, sir!"

But he’s already walking away, then he’s breaking into a lazy run on the fresh-cut grass as he jogs toward the bullpen with his shadow jogging along beside him"Brian? Brian?"

Long fingers were snapping under his nose-Mr. Gaunt’s fingers.

Brian came out of his daze and saw Mr. Gaunt looking at him, amused.

"Are you there, Brian?"

"Sorry," Brian said, and blushed. He knew he should hand the card back, hand it back and get out of here, but he couldn’t seem to let it go. Mr. Gaunt was staring into his eyes-right into his head, it seemed-again, and once more he found it impossible to look away.

"So," Mr. Gaunt said softly. "Let us say, Brian, that you are the buyer. Let us say that. How much would you pay for that card?"

Brian felt despair like a rockslide weight his heart.

"All I’ve got is-" Mr. Gaunt’s’left hand flew up. "Shhh!" he said sternly. "Bite your tongue! The buyer must never tell the seller how much he has! You might as well hand the vendor your wallet, and turn the contents of your pockets out on the floor in the bargain! If you can’t tell a lie, then be still! It’s the first rule of fair trade, Brian my boy."

His eyes-so large and dark. Brian felt that he was swimming in them.

"There are two prices for this card, Brian. Half… and half.

One half is cash. The other is a deed. Do you understand?"

"Yes," Brian said. He feltfar again-far away from Castle Rock, far away from Needful Things, even far away from himself The only things which were real in this far place were Mr. Gaunt’s wide, dark eyes.

"The cash price for that 1956 autographed Sandy Koufax card is eighty-five cents," Mr. Gaunt said. "Does that seem fair?"

"Yes," Brian said. His voice was far and wee. He felt himself dwindling, dwindling away… and approaching the point where any clear memory would cease.

"Good," Mr. Gaunt’s caressing voice said. "Our trading has progressed well thus far. As for the deed… do you know a woman named Wilma jerzyck, Brian?"

"Wilma, sure," Brian said out of his growing darkness. "She lives on the other side of the block from us."

"Yes, I believe she does," Mr. Gaunt agreed. "Listen carefully, Brian." So he must have gone on speaking, but Brian did not remember what he said.

7

The next thing he was aware of was Mr. Gaunt shooing him gently out onto Main Street, telling him how much he had enjoyed meeting him, and asking him to tell his mother and all his friends that he had been well treated and fairly dealt with.

"Sure," Brian said. He felt bewildered… but he also felt very good, as if he had just awakened from a refreshing early afternoon nap.

"And come again," Mr. Gaunt said, just before he shut the door.

Brian looked at it. The sign hanging there now read

CLOSED.

8

It seemed to Brian that he had been in Needful Things for hours, but the clock outside the bank said it was only ten of four. It had been less than twenty minutes. He prepared to mount his bike, then leaned the handlebars against his belly while he reached in his pants pockets.

From one he drew six bright copper pennies.

From the other he drew the autographed Sandy Koufax card.

They apparently had made some sort of deal, although Brian could not for the life of him remember exactly what it had been-only that Wilma jerzyck’s name had been mentioned.

To my good friend Brian, with best wishes, Sandy Koufax.

Whatever deal they had made, this was worth it.

A card like this was worth practically anything.

Brian tucked it carefully into his knapsack so it wouldn’t get bent, mounted his bike, and began to pedal home fast. He grinned all the way.

CHAPTER TWO

1

When a new shop opens in a small New England town, the residents-hicks though they may be in many other [email protected] a cosmopolitan attitude which their city cousins can rarely match. In New York or Los Angeles, a new gallery may attract a little knot of might-be patrons and simple lookers-on before the doors are opened for the first time; a new club may even garner a line, and police barricades with paparazzi, armed with gadget bags and telephoto lenses, standing expectantly beyond them. There is an excited hum of conversation, as among theatergoers on Broadway before the opening of a new play which, smash hit or drop-dead flop, is sure to cause comment

When a new shop opens in a small New England town, there is rarely a crowd before the doors open, and never a line. When the shades are drawn up, the doors unlocked, and the new concern declared open for business, customers come and go in a trickle which would undoubtedly strike an outsider as apathetic… and probably as an ill omen for the shopkeeper’s future prosperity

What seems like lack of interest often masks keen anticipation and even keener observation (Cora Rusk and Myra Evans were not the only two women in Castle Rock who had kept the telephone lines buzzing about Needful Things in the weeks before it opened)

That interest and anticipation do not change the small-town shopper’s conservative code of conduct, however. Certain things are simply Not Done, particularly not in the tight Yankee enclaves north of Boston. These are societies which exist for nine months of every year mostly sufficient unto themselves, and it is considered bad form to show too much interest too soon, or in any way to indicate that one has felt more than a passing interest, so to speak

Investigating a new shop in a small town and attending a socially prestigious party in a large city are both activities which cause a fair amount of excitement among those likely to participate, and there are rules for both-rules which are unspoken, immutable, and strangely similar. The chief among these is that one must not arrive first. Of course, someone has to break this cardinal rule, or no one would arrive at all, but a new shop is apt to stand empty for at least twenty minutes after the CLOSED sign in the window has been turned over to read OPEN for the first time, and a knowledgeable observer would feel safe in wagering that the first arrivals would come in a group-a pair, a trio, but more likely a foursome of ladies