“You… you do?”
“I do! Indeed I do! Selfish people are happy people. I believe that with all my heart. But Slopey…”
Slopey raised his head a little and looked fearfully through the hanging fringe of his red hair at Leland Gaunt.
“The time has come for you to finish paying for it.”
“Oh!” An expression of vast relief filled Slopey’s face. “Is that all you wanted me for? I thought maybe…” But he either couldn’t or didn’t dare finish. He hadn’t been sure what Mr. Gaunt had wanted.
“Yes. Do you remember who you promised to play a trick on?”
“Sure. Coach Pratt.”
“Right. There are two parts to this prank-you have to put something somewhere, plus you have to tell Coach Pratt something.
And if you follow directions exactly, the teapot will be yours forever.”
“Can I talk like this, too?” Slopey asked eagerly. “Can I talk without stuttering forever, too?”
Mr. Gaunt sighed regretfully. “I’m afraid you’ll go back to the way you were as soon as you leave my shop, Slopey. I believe I do have an anti-stuttering device somewhere in stock, but-”
“Please! Please, Mr. Gaunt! I’ll do anything! I’ll do anything to anyone! I hate to stutter!”
“I know you would, but that’s just the problem, don’t you see?
I am rapidly running out of pranks which need to be played; my dance-card, you might say, is nearly full. So you couldn’t pay me.”
Slopey hesitated a long time before speaking again. When he did, his voice was low and diffident. “Couldn’t you… I mean, do you ever just… give things away, Mr. Gaunt?”
Leland Gaunt’s face grew deeply sorrowful. “Oh, Slopey! How often I’ve thought of it, and with such longing! There is a deep, untapped well of charity in my heart. But…
“But?”
“It just wouldn’t be business,” Mr. Gaunt finished. He favored Slopey with a compassionate smile… but his eyes sparkled so wolfishly that Slopey took a step backward. “You understand, don’t you?”
“Uh… yeah! Sure!”
“Besides,” Mr. Gaunt went on, “the next few hours are crucial to me. Once things really get rolling, they can rarely be stopped… but for the time being, I must make prudence my watchword.
If you suddenly stopped stuttering, it might raise questions.
That would be bad. The Sheriff is already asking questions he has no business asking.” His face darkened momentarily, and then his ugly, charming, jostling smile burst forth again. “But I intend to take care of him, Slopey. Ah, yes.”
“Sheriff Pangborn, you mean?”
“Yes-Sheriff Pangborn, that’s what I mean to say.” Mr. Gaunt raised his first two fingers and once again drew them down in front of Slopey Dodd’s face, from forehead to chin. “But we never talked about him, did we?”
“Talked about who?” Slopey asked, bewildered.
“Exactly. “Leland Gaunt was wearing a jacket of dark-gray suede today, and from one of its pockets he produced a black leather wallet.
He held it out to Slopey, who took it gingerly, being careful not to touch Mr. Gaunt’s fingers.
“You know Coach Pratt’s car, don’t you?”
“The Mustang? Sure.”
“Put this in it. Under the passenger seat, with just a corner sticking out. Go to the high school right now-it wants to be there before the last bell. Do you understand?”
“Yes.”
“Then you’re to wait until he comes out. And when he does…
Mr. Gaunt went on speaking in a low murmur, and Slopey looked up at him, jaw slack, eyes dazed, nodding every once in awhile.
Slopey Dodd left a few minutes later with john LaPointe’s wallet tucked into his shirt.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
1
Nettle lay in a plain gray casket which Polly Chalmers had paid for.
Alan had asked her to let him help share the expense, and she’d refused in that simple but final way he had come to know, respect, and accept. The coffin stood on steel runners above a plot in Homeland Cemetery near the area where Polly’s people were buried. The mound of earth next to it was covered with a carpet of bright green artificial grass which sparkled feverishly in the hot sunlight. That fake grass never failed to make Alan shudder. There was something obscene about it, something hideous. He liked it even less than the morticians’ practice of first rouging the dead and then dolling them up in their finest clothes so they looked as if they were bound for a big business meeting in Boston instead of a long season of decay amid the roots and the worms.
Reverend Tom Killingworth, the Methodist minister who conducted twice-weekly services at juniper Hill and who had known Nettle well, performed the service at Polly’s request. The homily was brief but warm, full of reference to the Nettle Cobb this man had known, a woman who had been slowly and bravely coming out of the shadows of insanity, a woman who had taken the courageous decision to try to treat once more with the world which had hurt her so badly.
“When I was growing up,” Tom Killingworth said, “my mother kept a plaque with a lovely Irish saying on it in her sewing room.
It said ’May you be in heaven half an hour before the devil knows you’re dead.’ Nettle Cobb had a hard life, in many ways a sad life, but in spite of that I do not believe she and the devil ever had much to do with each other. In spite of her terrible, untimely death, my heart believes that it is to heaven she has gone, and that the devil still hasn’t gotten the news.” Killingworth raised his arms in the traditional gesture of benediction. “Let us pray.”
From the far side of the hill, where Wilma jerzyck was being buried at the same time, came the sound of many voices rising and falling in response to Father John Brigham. Over there, cars were lined up from the burial site all the way to the cemetery’s east gate; they had come for Peter jerzyck, the living, if not for his dead wife.
Over here there were only five mourners: Polly, Alan, Rosalie Drake, old Lenny Partridge (who went to all funerals on general principles, so long as it wasn’t one of the Pope’s army getting buried), and Norris Ridgewick. Norris looked pale and distracted.
Fish must not have been biting, Alan thought.
“May the Lord bless you and keep your memories of Nettle Cobb fresh and green in your hearts,” Killingworth said, and beside Alan, Polly began to cry again. He put an arm around her and she moved against him gratefully, her hand finding his and twining in it tightly.
“May the Lord lift up His face upon you; may He shower His grace upon you; may He cheer your souls and give you peace.
Amen.”
The day was even hotter than Columbus Day had been, and when Alan raised his head, darts of bright sunlight bounced off the casket-rails and into his eyes. He wiped his free hand across his forehead, where a solid summer sweat had broken. Polly fumbled in her purse for a fresh Kleenex and wiped her streaming eyes with it.
“Honey, are you all right?” Alan asked.
“Yes… but I have to cry for her, Alan. Poor Nettle. Poor, poor Nettle. Why did this happen? Why?” And she began to sob again.
Alan, who wondered exactly the same thing, gathered her into his arms. Over her shoulder he saw Norris wandering away toward where the cars belonging to Nettle’s mourners were huddled, looking like a man who either doesn’t know where he is going or who isn’t quite awake.
Alan frowned. Then Rosalie Drake approached Norris, said something to him, and Norris gave her a hug.
Alan thought, He knew her, too-he’s just sad, that’s all. You’re jumping at an almighty lot of shadows these days-maybe the real question here is what’s the matter with you?