Stephen King - Needful Things

“She looks like she just smoked some very good Panamanian Red,” Polly said. “I envy her.”

Nan Roberts herself came over to wait on them. She was one of William Rose’s Baptist Christian Soldiers, and today she wore a small yellow button above her left breast. It was the third one Alan had seen this afternoon, and he guessed he would see a great many more in the weeks ahead. It showed a slot machine inside a black circle with a red diagonal line drawn through it. There were no words on the button; it made the wearer’s feelings about Casino Nite perfectly clear without them.

Nan was a middle-aged woman with a huge bosom and a sweetly pretty face that made you think of Mom and apple pie. The apple pie at Nan’s was, as Alan and all his deputies knew, very good, too-especially with a large scoop of vanilla ice cream melting on top. It was easy to take Nan at face value, but a good many business people-realtors, for the most part-had discovered that doing so was a bad idea. Behind the sweet face there was a clicking computer of a mind, and beneath the motherly swell of bosom there was a pile of account books where the heart should have been. Nan owned a very large chunk of Castle Rock, including at least five of the business buildings on Main Street, and now that Pop Merrill was in the ground, Alan suspected she was probably the wealthiest person in town.

She reminded him of a whorehouse madam he had once arrested in Utica. The woman had offered him a bribe, and when he turned that down, she had tried very earnestly to knock his brains out with a birdcage. The tenant, a scrofulous parrot who sometimes said “I fucked your mamma, Frank” in a morose and thoughtful voice, had still been in the cage at the time. Sometimes, when Alan saw the vertical frown-line between Nan Roberts’s eyes deepen down, he felt she would be perfectly capable of doing the same thing. And he found it perfectly natural that Nan, who did little these days but sit at the cash register, would come over to serve the County Sheriff herself. It was the personal touch that means so much.

’d a collision. Alan flicked rapidly through the huge file of “Hullo, Alan,” she said, “I haven’t seen you in a dog’s age!

Where you been?”

“Here and there,” he said. “I get around, Nan.”

“Well, don’t forget your old friends while you’re doing it,” she said, giving him her shining, motherly smile. You had to spend quite awhile around Nan, Alan reflected, before you started to notice how rarely that smile made it all the way to her eyes. “Come see us once in awhile.”

“And, lo! Here I be!” Alan said.

Nan pealed laughter so loud and lusty that the men at the counter-loggers, for the most part-craned briefly around. And later, Alan thought, they’ll tell their friends that they saw Nan Roberts and the Sheriff yukking it up together. Best of friends.

“Coffee, Alan?”

“Please.”

“How about some pie to go with that? Home-made apples from McSherry’s Orchard over in Sweden. Picked yesterday.” At least she didn’t try to tell us she picked them herself, Alan thought.

“No, thanks.”

“Sure? What about you, Polly?”

Polly shook her head.

Nan went to get the coffee. “You don’t like her much, do you?”

Polly asked him in a low voice.

He considered this, a little surprised-likes and dislikes had not really entered his thoughts. “Nan? She’s all right. It’s just that I

like to know who people really are, if I can.”

“And what they really want?”

“That’s too damn hard,” he said, laughing. “I’ll settle for knowing what they’re up to.”

She smiled-he loved to make her smile and said, “We’ll turn you into a Yankee philosopher yet, Alan Pangborn.”

He touched the back of her gloved hand and smiled back.

Nan returned with a cup of black coffee in a thick white mug and left at once. One thing you can say for her, Alan thought, she knows when the amenities have been performed and the flesh has been pressed to a sufficiency. It wasn’t something everyone with Nan’s interests and ambitions did know.

“Now,” Alan said, sipping his coffee. “Spill the tale of your very interesting day.”

She told him in greater detail about how she and Rosalie Drake had seen Nettle Cobb that morning, how Nettle had agonized in front of Needful Things, and how she had finally summoned up enough courage to go in.

“That’s wonderful,” he said, and meant it.

“Yes-but that’s not all. When she came out, she’d bought something! I’ve never seen her so cheerful and so… so buoyant as she was today. That’s it, buoyant. You know how sallow she usually is?”

Alan nodded.

“Well, she had roses in her cheeks and her hair was sort of mussed and she actually laughed a few times.”

“Are you sure business was all they were doing?” he asked, and rolled his eyes.

“Don’t be silly.” She spoke as if she hadn’t suggested the same thing to Rosalie herself. “Anyway, she waited outside until you’d left-I knew she would-and then she came in and showed us what she bought. You know that little collection of carnival glass she has?”

“Nope. There are a few things in this town which have escaped my notice. Believe it or not.”

“She has half a dozen pieces. Most of them came to her from her mother. She told me once that there used to be more, but some of them got broken. Anyway, she loves the few things she has, and he sold her the most gorgeous carnival glass lampshade I’ve seen in years. At first glance I thought it was Tiffany. Of course it isn’tcouldn’t be, Nettle could never afford a piece of real Tiffany glassbut it’s awfully good.”

“How much did she pay?”

“I didn’t ask her. But I’ll bet whatever sock she keeps her madmoney in is flat this afternoon.”

He frowned a little. “Are you sure she didn’t get hornswoggled?”

“Oh, Alan-do you have to be so suspicious all the time? Nettle may be vague about some things, but she knows her carnival glass.

She said it was a bargain, and that means it probably was. It’s made her so happy.”

“Well, that’s great. Just The Ticket.”

“Pardon?”

“That was the name of a shop in Utica,” he said. “A long time ago. I was only a kid. Just The Ticket.”

“And did it have your Ticket?” she teased.

“I don’t know. I never went in.”

“Well,” she said, “apparently our Mr. Gaunt thinks he might have mine.”?”

“What do you mean “Nettle got my cake-box, and there was a note inside it. From Mr. Gaunt.” She pushed her handbag across the table to him. “Take a look-I don’t feel up to the clasp this afternoon.”

He ignored the handbag for the moment. “How bad is it, Polly?”

“Bad,” she said simply. “It’s been worse, but I’m not going to lie to you; it’s never been much worse. All this week, since the weather changed.”

“Are you going to see Dr. Van Allen?”

She sighed. “Not yet. I’m due for a respite. Every time it gets bad like this, it lets up just when I feel like I’m going to go crazy any minute. At least, it always has. I suppose that one of these times the respite just won’t come. If it’s not better by Monday, I’ll go see him. But all he can do is write prescriptions. I don’t want to be a junkie if I can help it, Alan.”

“But-”

“Enough,” she said softly. “Enough for now, okay?”

“Okay,” he said, a little unwillingly.

“Look at the note. It’s very sweet… and sort of cute.”

He undid the clasp of her handbag and saw a slim envelope lying on top of her billfold. He took it out. The paper had a rich, creamy feel. Written across the front, in a hand so perfectly oldfashioned it looked like something from an antique diary, was Ms.