Without thinking, Ace said, “The Plains of Leng. Yog-Sothoth Vintage Motors.”
“Huh?”
“Just fill it up, son-this isn’t Twenty Questions.”
“Oh!” the pump jockeysaid, taking a second look at Ace and becoming obsequious at once. “Sure! You bet!”
And he tried, but the pump clicked off after running just fourteen cents into the tank. The pump jockey tried to squeeze more in by running the pump manually, but the gas only slopped out, running down the Talisman’s gleaming yellow flank and dripping onto the tarmac.
“I guess it doesn’t need gas,” the jockeysaid timidly.
“Guess not.”
“Maybe your fuel gauge is bust-”
“Wipe that gas off the side of my car. You want the paint to blister? What’s the matter with you?”
The kid sprang to do it, and Ace went into the bathroom to help his nose a little. When he came out, the pump jockey was standing at a respectful distance from the Talisman, twisting his rag nervously in both hands.
He’s scared, Ace thought. Scared of what? Me?
No; the kid in the Mobile coverall barely glanced in Ace’s direction. It was the Tucker that kept drawing his gaze.
He tried to touch it, Ace thought.
The revelation-and that was what it was, exactly what it wasbrought a grim little smile to the corners of his mouth.
He tried to touch it and something happened. What it was don’t really matter. It taught him that he can look but he better not touch, and that’s all that does matter.
“Won’t be no charge,” the pump ’ockeysaid.
“You got that right.” Ace slid behind the wheel and got rolling in a hurry. He had a brand-new idea about the Talisman. In a way it was a scary idea, but in another way it was a really great idea. He thought that maybe the gas gauge always read empty… and that the tank was always full.
7
The toll-gates for passenger cars in New Hampshire are the automated kind; you throw a buck’s worth of change (No Pennies Please) into the basket, the red light turns green, and you go. Except when Ace rolled the Tucker Talisman up to the basket jutting out from the post, the light turned green on its own and the little sign shone out:
“Betcha fur,” Ace muttered, and drove on toward Maine.
By the time he left Portland behind, he had the Talisman cruising along at just over eighty miles an hour, and there was plenty left under the hood. just past the Falmouth exit, he topped a rise and saw a State Police cruiser lurking beside the highway. The distinctive torpedo-shape of a radar gun jutted from the driver’s window.
Uh-oh, Ace thought. He got me. Dead-bang. Jesus Christ, why was I speeding anyway, with all the shit I’m carrying?
But he knew why, and it wasn’t the coke he had snorted. Maybe on another occasion, but not this time. It was the Talisman. It wanted to go fast. He would look at the speedometer, ease his foot off the go-pedal a little… and five minutes later he would realize he had it three quarters of the way to the floor again.
He waited for the cruiser to come alive in a blaze of pulsing blue lights and rip out after him, but it didn’t happen. Ace blipped past at eighty, and the State Bear never made a move.
Hell, he must have been cooping.
But Ace knew better. When you saw a radar gun poking out of the window, you knew the guy inside was wide awake and hot to trot. No, what had happened was this: the State cop hadn’t been able to see the Talisman. It sounded crazy, but it felt exactly right.
The big yellow car with its three headlights screaming out of the front was invisible to both high-tech hardware and the cops that used it.
Grinning, Ace walked Mr. Gaunt’s Tucker Talisman up to a hundred and ten. He arrived back in The Rock at quarter past eight, with almost four hours to spare.
8
Mr. Gaunt emerged from his shop and stood beneath the canopy to watch Ace baby the Talisman into one of the three slant parking spaces in front of Needful Things.
“You made good time, Ace.”
“Yeah. This is some car.”
“Bet your fur,” Mr. Gaunt said. He ran a hand along the Tucker’s smoothly sloping front deck. “One of a kind. You have brought my merchandise, I take it?”
“Yeah. Mr. Gaunt, I got some idea of just how special this car of yours is on the way back, but I think you still might consider getting some license plates for it, and maybe an inspection stick-”
“They are not necessary,” Mr. Gaunt said Indifferently. “Park it in the alley behind the shop, Ace, if you please. I’ll take care of it later.”
“How? Where?” Ace found himself suddenly reluctant to turn the car over to Mr. Gaunt. It was not just that he’d left his own car in Boston and needed wheels for his night’s work; the Talisman made every other car he had ever driven, including the Challenger, seem like street-trash.
“That,” said Mr. Gaunt, “is my business.” He looked at Ace imperturbably. “You’ll find that things go more smoothly for you, Ace, if you look at working for me the way you would look at serving in the Army. There are three ways of doing things for you now-the right way, the wrong way, and Mr. Gaunt’s way. If you always opt for the third choice, trouble will never find you. Do you understand me?”
“Yeah. Yeah, I do.”
“That’s fine. Now drive around to the back door.”
Ace piloted the yellow car around the corner and drove slowly up the narrow alley which ran behind the business buildings on the west side of Main Street. The rear door of Needful Things was open. Mr.
Gaunt stood in a slanted oblong of yellow light, waiting.
He made no effort to help as Ace carried the crates into the shop’s back room, puffing with the effort. He did not know it, but a good many customers would have been surprised if they had seen that room. They had heard Mr. Gaunt back there behind the hanging velvet drape which divided the shop from the storage area, shifting goods, moving boxes around… but there was nothing at all in the room until Ace stacked the crates in one corner at Mr. Gaunt’s direction.
Yes-there was one thing. On the far side of the room, a brown Norway rat was lying beneath the sprung arm of a large Victory rat-trap. Its neck was broken, its front teeth exposed in a dead snarl.
“Good job,” Mr. Gaunt said, rubbing his long-fingered hands together and smiling. “This has been a good evening’s work, all told.
You have performed to the top of my expectations, Ace-the very top.”
“Thanks, sir.” Ace was astounded. He had never in his life called any man sir until this moment.
“Here’s a little something for your trouble.” Mr. Gaunt handed Ace a brown envelope. Ace pressed at it with the tips of his fingers and felt the loose grit of powder inside. “I believe you will want to do some investigating tonight, won’t you? This might give you a little extra go-power, as the old Esso ads used to say.”
Ace started. “Oh, shit! Shit! I left that book-the book with the map in it-in my car! It’s back in Boston! God damn it!” He made a fist and slammed it against his thigh.
Mr. Gaunt was smiling. “I don’t think so,” he said. “I think it’s in the Tucker.”
“No, I-”
“Why not check for yourself?”
So Ace did, and of course the book was there, sitting on the dashboard with its spine pressing against the Tucker’s patented popout windshield. Lost and Buried Treasures of New England. He took it and thumbed it. The map was still inside. He looked at Mr.
Gaunt with dumb gratitude.
“I won’t require your services again until tomorrow evening, around this same time,” Mr. Gaunt said. “I suggest you spend the daylight hours at your place in Mechanic Falls. That should suit you well enough; I believe you’ll want to sleep late. You still have a busy night ahead of you, if I am not mistaken.”