Stephen King - Thinner

He thought of the two cops, rousting the Gypsies when they came into town … when they had presumed to start doing their Gypsy tricks on the town common. One of them had just been a spear-carrier, of course. Just a patrol-car jockey following …

Following orders.

Whose orders? Why, the police chiefs orders, of course. Duncan Hopley's orders.

The Gypsies had been rousted because they had no permit to perform on the common. But of course they would have understood that the message was somewhat broader than that. If you wanted Gypsy folk out, there were plenty of ordinances. Vagrancy. Public nuisance.

Spitting on the sidewalk. You name it.

The Gypsies had made a deal with a fanner out on the west side of town, a sour old man named Arncaster. There was always a farm, always a sour old farmer, and the Gypsies always found him. Their noses have been trained to smell out guys like Arncaster, Billy thought now as he sat on the bench listening to the first droplets of spring rain strike the bus shelter's roof. Simple evolution. All it takes is two thousand years of being moved along. You talk to a few people; maybe Madame Azonka does a free reading or two. You sniff for the name of the fellow in town who owns land but owes money, the fellow who has no great love for the town or for town ordinances, the guy who posts his apple orchards during hunting season out of pure orneriness – because he'd rather let the deer have his apples than let the hunters have the deer. You sniff for the name and you always find it, because there's always at least one Arncaster in the richest towns, and sometimes there are two or three to choose among.

They parked their cars and campers in a circle, just as their ancestors had drawn their wagons and handcarts into a circle two hundred, four hundred, eight hundred years before them. They obtained a fire permit, and at night there was talk and laughter and undoubtedly a bottle or two passed from hand to hand.

All of this, Halleck thought, would have been acceptable to Hopley. It was the way things were-done. Those who wanted to buy some of whatever the gypsies were selling could drive out the West Fairview Road to the Arncaster place; at least it was out of sight, and the Arncaster place was something of an eyesore to begin with – the farms the Gypsies found always were. And soon they would move on to Raintree or Westport, and from thence out of view and thought.

Except that, after the accident, after the old Gypsy man had made a nuisance of himself by turning up on the courthouse steps and touching Billy Halleck, 'the way things were done' was no longer good enough.

Hopley had given the Gypsies two days, Halleck remembered, and when they showed no signs of moving along, he had moved them along. First Jim Roberts had revoked their Are permit. Although there had been heavy showers every day for the previous week, Roberts told them that the fire danger had suddenly gone way, way up. Sorry. And by the way, they wanted to remember that the same regulations which controlled campfires and cook-fires also applied to propane stoves, charcoal fires, and brazier fires.

Next, of course, Hopley would have gone around to visit a number of local businesses where Lars Arncaster had a credit line – a line of credit that was usually overextended. These would have included the hardware store, the feed-and-grain store on Raintree Road, the Farmers' Co-Op in Fairview Village, and Normie's Sunoco. Hopley might also have gone to visit Zachary Marchant at the Connecticut Union Bank … the bank that held Amcaster's mortgage.

All part of the job. Have a cup of coffee with this one, a spot of lunch with that one – perhaps something as simple as a couple of franks and lemonades purchased at Dave's Dog Wagon – a bottle of beer with the other one. And by sundown of the following day, everyone with a claim cheek on a little piece of Lars Arncaster's ass had given him a call, mentioning how really good it would be to have those damned Gypsies out of town . . how really grateful everyone would be.

The result was just what Duncan Hopley had known it would be. Arncaster went to the Gypsies, refunded the balance of whatever sum they had agreed upon for rent, and had undoubtedly turned a deaf ear to any protests they might have made (Halleck was thinking specifically of the young man with the bowling pins, who apparently had not as yet comprehended the immutability of his station in life). It wasn't as if the Gypsies had a signed lease that would stand up in court.

Sober, Arncaster might have told them they were just lucky he was an honest man and had refunded them the unused portion of what they had paid. Drunk – Arncaster was a three-six-packs-a-night man – he might have been slightly more expansive. There were forces in town that wanted the Gypsies gone, he might have told them.

Pressure had been brought to bear, pressure that a poor dirt farmer like Lars Arncaster simply couldn't stand against. Particularly when half the so-called 'good people' in town had the knife out for him to begin with.

Not that any of the Gypsies (with the possible exception of Juggler, Billy thought) would need a chapter-and-verse rendition.

Billy got up and walked slowly back home through a cold, drifting rain. There was a light burning in the bedroom; Heidi, waiting up for him.

Not the patrol-car jockey; no need for revenge there. Not Arncaster; he had seen a chance for five hundred dollars cash money and had sent them on their way because he'd had to do so.

Duncan Hopley?

Hopley, maybe. A strong maybe, Billy amended. In one way Hopley was just another species of trained dog whose most urgent directives were aimed at preserving Fairview's well-oiled status quo. But Billy doubted if the old Gypsy man would be disposed to take such a bloodlessly sociological view of things, and not just because Hopley had rousted them so efficiently following the hearing. Rousting was one thing. They were used to that. Hopley's failure to investigate the accident which had taken the old woman's life …

Ah, that was something else, wasn't it?

Failure to investigate? Hell, Billy, don't make me laugh. Failure to investigate is a sin of omission. What Hopley did was to throw as much dirt as he could over any possible culpability. Beginning with the conspicuous lack of a breathalyzer test. It was a cover-up on general principles. You know it, and Cary Rossington knew it too.

The wind was picking up and the rain was harder now. He could see it cratering the puddles in the street. The water had a queer polished look under the amber highsecurity streetlamps that lined Lantern Drive. Overhead, branches moaned and creaked in the wind, and Billy Halleck looked up uneasily.

I ought to go see Duncan Hopley.

Something glimmered – something that might have been the spark of an idea. Then he thought of Leda Rossington's drugged, horrified face … he thought of Leda saying He's hard to talk to now … it's happening inside his mouth, you see … everything he says to me comes out in grunts.

Not tonight. He'd had enough for tonight.

'Where did you go, Billy?'

She was in bed, lying in a pool of light thrown by the reading lamp. Now she laid her book aside on the coverlet, looked at him, and Billy saw the dark brown hollows under her eyes. Those brown hollows did not exactly overwhelm him with pity . . . at least, not tonight.

For just a moment he thought of saying: I went to see Cary Rossington, but since he was gone I ended up having a few drinks with his wife – the kind of drinks the Green Giant must have when he's on a toot. And you'll never guess what she told me, Heidi, dear. Cary Rossington, who grabbed your tit once at the stroke of midnight on New Year's Eve, is turning into an alligator. When he finally dies, they can turn him into a brand-new product: Here Come de Judge Pocketbooks.