And boy-howdy! At last! There was George T. Nelson himself, in the flesh, strolling by on the sidewalk below the courthouse steps!
Except for the automatic pistol jammed into the waistband of George T. Nelson’s Sans-A-Belt polyester slacks (and the fact that it was still raining like hell), the man might have been on his way to a picnic. just strolling along in the rain was Monsieur George T.
Motherfucking Nelson, just breezing along with the Christina breeze, and what had the note in Frank’s office said? Oh yes:
Remember, $2, 000 at my house by 7:15 at the latest or you will wish you were born without a dick. Frank glanced at his watch, saw it was closer to eight o’clock than to 7:15, and decided that didn’t matter much.
He raised George T. Nelson’s Spanish Llama and pointed it at the head of the son of a bitching shop teacher who had caused all his trouble. it NELSON!” he screamed. “GEORGE NELSON! TURN AROUND AND LOOK AT ME, YOU PRICK!”
George T. Nelson wheeled around. His hand dropped toward the butt of his automatic, then fell away when he saw he was covered.
He placed his hands on his hips instead and peered up the courthouse steps at Frank Jewett, who stood there with rain dripping from his nose, his chin, and the muzzle of his stolen gun.
“You going to shoot me?” George T. Nelson asked.
“You bet I am!” Frank snarled.
“Just shoot me down like a dog, huh?”
“Why not? It’s what you deserve!”
To Frank’s amazement, George T. Nelson was smiling and nodding.
“Ayup,” he said, “and that’s what I’d expect from a chickenshit bastard who’d break into a friend’s house and kill a defenseless little birdie.
Exactly what I’d expect. So go ahead, you yellowbelly foureyes fuck.
Shoot me and get it over with.”
Thunder bellowed overhead, but Frank didn’t hear it. The bank blew up ten seconds later and he barely heard that. He was too busy struggling with his fury… and his amazement. Amazement at the gall, the bold, bare-ass gall of Monsieur George T. Motherfucker Nelson.
At last Frank managed to break the lock on his tongue. “Killed your bird, right! Shit on that stupid picture of your mom, right again! And what did you do? What did you do, George, besides make sure that I’ll lose my job and never teach again? God, I’ll be lucky not to end up in jail!” He saw the total injustice of this in a sudden black flash of comprehension; it was like rubbing vinegar into a raw scrape. “Why didn’t you just come and ask me for money, if you needed it? Why didn’t you just come and ask? We could have worked something out, you dumb bastard!”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about!” George T. Nelson shouted back. “All I know is that you’re brave enough to kill teenytiny parakeets but you don’t have balls enough to take me on in a fair fight!”
“Don’t know what… don’t know what I’m talking about?” Frank sputtered. The muzzle of the Llama wavered wildly back and forth.
He could not believe the gall of the man below him on the sidewalk; simply could not believe it. To be standing there with one foot on the pavement and the other practically in eternity and to simply go on lying…
“No! I don’t! Not the slightest idea!”
In the extremity of his rage, Frank jewett regressed to the childhood response to such outrageous, boldface deniaclass="underline" “Liar, liar, pants on fire!”
“Coward!” George T. Nelson smartly returned. “Baby-coward!
Parakeet-killer!”
“Blackmailer!”
“Loony! Put the gun away, loony! Fight me fair!”
Frank grinned down at him. “Fair? Fight you fair? What do you know about fair?”
George T. Nelson held up his empty hands and waggled the fingers at Frank. “More than you, it looks like.”
Frank opened his mouth to reply, but nothing came out. He was temporarily silenced by George T. Nelson’s empty hands.
“Go on,” George T. Nelson said. “Put it away. Let’s do it like they do in the Westerns, George. If you’ve got the sack for it, that is. Fastest man wins.”
Frank thought: Well, why not? just why the hell not?
He hadn’t much else to live for, one way or the other, and if he did nothing else, he could show his old “friend” he wasn’t a coward.
“Okay,” he said, and shoved the Llama into the waistband of his own pants. He held his hands out in front of him, hovering just I above the butt of the gun. “How do you want to do it, GeorgiePorgie?”
George T. Nelson was grinning. “You start down the steps,” he said. “I start up. Next time the thunder goes overhead-”
“All right,” Frank said. “Fine. Let’s do it.”
He started down the stairs. And George T. Nelson started up.
7
Polly had just spotted the green awning of Needful Things up ahead when the funeral parlor and the barber shop went up. The glare of light and the roar of sound were enormous. She saw debris burst out of the heart of the explosion like asteroids in a science fiction movie and ducked instinctively. It was well that she did; several chunks of wood and the stainless-steel lever from the side of Chair #2-Henry Gendron’s chair-smashed through the windshield of her Toyota. The lever made a weird, hungry humming sound as it flew through the car and exited by way of the rear window. Broken glass whispered through the air in a widening shotgun cloud.
The Toyota, with no driver to steer it, bumped up over the curb, struck a fire hydrant, and stalled.
Polly sat up, blinking, and stared out through the hole in the windshield. She saw someone coming out of Needful Things and heading toward one of the three cars parked in front of the store.
In the bright light of the fire across the street, she recognized Alan easily.
“Alan!” She yelled it, but Alan didn’t turn. He moved with single-minded purpose, like a robot.
Polly shoved open the door of her car and ran toward him, screaming his name over and over. From down the street came the rapid rattle of gunfire. Alan did not turn in that direction, nor did he look at the conflagration which, only moments ago, had been the funeral parlor and the barber shop. He seemed to be locked entirely on his own interior course of action, and Polly suddenly realized that she was too late. Leland Gaunt had gotten to him. He had bought something after all, and if she didn’t make it to his car before he embarked on whatever wild-goose chase it was that Gaunt was sending him on, he would simply leave… and God only knew what might happen then.
She ran faster.
8
“Help me,” Norris said to Seaton Thomas, and slung an arm around Seat’s neck. He staggered to his feet.
“I think I winged him,” Seaton said. He was puffing, but his color had come back.
“Good,” Norris said. His shoulder hurt like fire… and the as if pain seemed to be sinking deeper into his flesh all the time, seeking his heart. “Now just help me.”
“You’ll be all right,” Seaton said. In his distress over Norris, Seat had forgotten his fear that he was, in his words, coming down with a heart attack. “Soon as I get you insid"No,” Norris gasped.
“Cruiser.”
“What?”
Norris turned his head and glared at Thomas with frantic, painfilled eyes. “Get me in my cruiser! I have to GO to Needful Things!”
Yes. The moment the words were out of his mouth, everything seemed to fall into place. Needful Things was where he had bought the Bazun fishing rod- It was the direction In which the man who had shot him had gone running. Needful Things was the place where everything had started; Needful Things was - where it all must end.
Ga@ia blew up, flooding Main Street with fresh glare. A Double Dragon machine rose out of the ruins, turned over twice, and landed upside down in the street with a crunch.