Stephen King - Needful Things

Sheriff Pangborn, just go on pushing me.” There was anger written on Keeton’s face-yes, most assuredly-but Alan thought there was something else written there, as well. He thought it was fear. Did he see that? Smell it? He didn’t know, and it didn’t matter. But what Keeton was afraid of… that might matter. That might matter a lot.

“Do you understand?” he repeated.

“Yes,” Keeton said. He stripped the cellophane from his cigar with a sudden hard gesture and dropped it on the floor. He stuck the cigar in his mouth and spoke around it. “Do you understand me?”

The chair creaked and croaked as Alan rocked forward again.

He looked at Keeton earnestly. “I understand what you’re saying, but I sure as hell don’t understand how you’re acting, Danforth.

We’ve never been best buddies, you and I-”

“That’s for sure,” Keeton said, and bit off the end of his cigar.

For a moment Alan thought that was going to end up on the floor, too, and he was prepared to let it go if it did-politics-but Keeton spat it into the palm of his hand and then deposited it in the clean ashtray on the desk. It sat there like a small dog-turd.

“-but we’ve always had a pretty good working relationship.

Now this. Is there something wrong? If there is, and I can help-”

“Nothing is wrong,” Keeton said, rising abruptly. He was angry again-more than just angry. Alan could almost see the steam coming out of his ears. “It’s just that I’m so tired of this… persecution.”

It was the second time he had used the word. Alan found it an odd word, an unsettling word. In fact, he found this whole conversation unsettling.

“Well, you know where I am,” Alan said.

“God, yes!” Keeton said, and went to the door.

“And, please, Danforth-remember about the handicap space.”

“Fuck the handicap space!” Keeton said, and slammed out.

Alan sat behind his desk and looked at the closed door for a long time, a troubled expression on his face. Then he went around the desk, picked up the crumpled cellophane cylinder lying on the floor, dropped it into the wastebasket, and went to the door to invite Steamboat Willie in.

“Mr. Keeton looked rather upset,” Rose said. He seated himself carefully in the chair the Head Selectman had just vacated, looked with distaste at the cigar-end sitting in the ashtray, and then placed his white Bible carefully in the center of his ungenerous lap.

“Lots of appropriations meetings in the next month or so,” Alan said vaguely. “I’m sure it’s a strain for all the selectmen.”

“Yes,” Rev. Rose agreed. “For Jesus-uh told us: ’render unto Caesar those things which are Caesar’s, and render unto God those things which are God’s."’ “Uh-huh,” Alan said. He suddenly wished he had a cigarette, something like a Lucky or a Pall Mall that was absolutely stuffed with tar and nicotine. “What can I render unto you this afternoon, R… Reverend Rose?” He was horrified to realize he had just come extremely close to calling the man Reverend Willie.

Rose took off his round rimless spectacles, polished them, and then settled them back in place, hiding the two small red spots high up on his nose. His black hair, plastered in place with some sort of hair potion Alan could smell but not identify, gleamed in the light of the fluorescent grid set into the ceiling.

“It’s about the abomination Father John Brigham chooses to call Casino Nite,” the Rev. Rose announced at last. “If you recall, Chief Pangborn, I came to you not long after I first heard of this dreadful idea to demand that you refuse to sanction such an event in the name-uh of decency.”

“Reverend Rose, if you’ll recall-” Rose held up one hand imperiously and dipped the other into his jacket pocket. He came out with a pamphlet which was almost the size of a paperback book. It was, Alan saw with a sinking heart (but no real surprise), the abridged version of the State of Maine’s Code of Laws.

“I now come again,” Rev. Rose said in ringing tones, “to demand that you forbid this event not only in the name of decency but i’n the name of the law!”

“Reverend Rose “This is Section 24, subsection 9, paragraph 2 of the Maine State Code of Laws,” Rev. Rose overrode him. His cheeks now flared with color, and Alan realized that the only thing he’d managed to do in the last few minutes was swap one crazy for another.

“’Except where noted-uh,’ “Rev. Rose read, his voice now taking on the pulpit chant with which his mostly adoring congregation was so familiar, “’games of chance, as previously defined in Section 23 of the Code-uh, where wagers of money are induced as a condition of play, shall be deemed illegal."’ He snapped the Code closed and looked at Alan. His eyes were blazing. “Shall be deemed-uh illegal!” he cried.

Alan felt a brief urge to throw his arms in the air and yell Praiseuhjeesus! When it had passed he said: “I’m aware of those sections of the Code which pertain to gambling, Reverend Rose. I looked them up after your earlier visit to me, and I showed them to Albert Martin, who does a lot of the town’s legal work. His opinion was that Section 24 does not apply to such functions as Casino Nite.”

He paused, then added: “I have to tell you that was my opinion, as well.”

“Impossible!” Rose spat. “They propose to turn a house of the Lord into a gambler’s lair, and you tell me that is legal?”

“It’s every bit as legal as the bingo games that have been going on at the Daughters of Isabella Hall since 1931.”

“This-uh is not bingo! This is roulette-uh! This is playing cards for money! This is"-Rev. Rose’s voice trembled-"dice-uh!”

Alan caught his hands trying to make another bird, and this time he locked them together on the desk blotter. “I had Albert write a letter of inquiry to Jim Tierney, the State’s Attorney General.

The answer was the same. I’m sorry, Reverend Rose. I know it offends you. Me, I’ve got a thing about kids on skateboards. I’d outlaw them if I could, but I can’t. In a democracy we sometimes have to put up with things we don’t like or approve of.”

“But this is gambling!” Rev. Rose said, and there was real anguish in his voice. “This is gambling for money! How can such a thing be legal, when the Code specifically says-”

“The way they do it, it’s really not gambling for money. Each participant… pays a donation at the door. In return, the participant is given an equal amount of play money. At the end of the night, a number of prizes-not money but prizes-are auctioned off. A VCR, a toaster-oven, a Dirt Devil, a set of china, things like that.” And some dancing, interior imp made him add: “I believe the initial donation may even be tax deductible.”

“It is a sinful abomination,” Rev. Rose said. The color had faded from his cheeks. His nostrils flared.

“That’s a moral judgment, not a legal one. It’s done this way all over the country.”

“Yes,” Rev. Rose said. He got to his feet, clutching his Bible before him like a shield. “By the Catholics. The Catholics love gambling. I intend to put a stop to this, Chief-uh Pangborn. With your help or without it.”

Alan also got up. “A couple of things, Reverend Rose. It’s Sheriff Pangborn, not Chief. And I can’t tell you what to say from your pulpit any more than I can tell Father Brigham what sort of events he can run in his church, or the Daughters of Isabella Hall, or the K of C Hall-as long as they’re not expressly forbidden by the State’s laws, that is-but I can warn you to be careful, and I think I have to warn you to be careful.”

Rose looked at him coldly. “What do you mean?”

“I mean that you’re upset. The posters your people have been putting up around town are okay, and the letters to the paper are okay, but there’s a line of infringement you must not cross. My advice is to let this one go by.”