Stephen King - It

He and his wife, the actress Audra Phillips…

Tom had some dim understanding of psychology; he had used it to manipulate his wife all the years of their marriage. And now a nagging unpleasantness began to nag at him, more feeling than thought. It centered on the fact that Bev and this Denbrough had played together as kids and that Denbrough had married a woman who, in spite of what Beverly said, looked amazingly like Tom Rogan’s wife.

What sort of games had Denbrough and Beverly played when they were kids? Post-office? Spin-the-bottle?

Other games?

Tom sat in his seat and tapped the book against his leg and felt his temples begin to throb.

When he arrived at Bangor International Airport, and canvassed the rental-car booths, the girls-some dressed in yellow, some in red, some in Irish green-looked at his blasted dangerous face nervously and told him (more nervously still) that they had no cars to rent, so sorry.

Tom went to the newsstand and got a Bangor paper. He turned to the want-ads, oblivious to the looks he was getting from people passing by, and isolated three likelies. He hit paydirt on his second call.

“Paper says you’ve got a ’76 LTD wagon. Fourteen hundred bucks.”

“Right, sure.”

“I tell you what,” Tom said, touching the wallet in his jacket pocket. It was fat with cash-six thousand dollars. “You bring it out to the airport and we’ll do the deal right here. You give me the car and a bill of sale and your pink-slip.

I’ll give you cash money.” The fellow with the LTD for sale paused and then said, “I’d have to take my plates off.”

“Sure, fine.”

“How will I know you, Mr-?”

“Mr Barr,” Tom said. He was looking at a sign across the terminal lobby that said BAR HARBOUR AIRLINES GIVES YOU NEW ENGLAND-AND THE WORLD! “I’ll be standing by the far door. You’ll know me because my face doesn’t look so hot. My wife and I went roller-skating yesterday and I took one hell of a fall. Things could be worse, I guess. I didn’t break anything but my face.”

“Gee, I’m sorry to hear that, Mr Barr.”

“I’ll mend. You just get the car out here, my good buddy.”

He hung up, walked across to the door, and stepped out into the warm fragrant May night.

The guy with the LTD showed up ten minutes later driving out of the late-spring dusk. He was only a kid. They did the deal; the kid scribbled him a bill of sale which Tom stuffed indifferently into his overcoat pocket. He stood there and watched the kid take off the LTD’s Maine plates.

“Give you an extra three bucks for the screwdriver,” Tom said when he was done.

The kid looked at him thoughtfully for a moment, shrugged, handed the screwdriver over, and took the three ones Tom was holding out. None of my business, the shrug said, and Tom thought: How right you are, my good little buddy. Tom saw him into a cab, then got behind the wheel of the Ford.

It was a piece of shit: transmission whiny, universal groany, body rattly, brakes slushy. None of it mattered. He drove around to the long-term parking lot, took a ticket, and drove in. He parked next to a Subaru that looked as if it had been there for awhile. He used the kid’s screwdriver to remove the Subaru’s plates and put them on the LTD. He hummed as he worked.

By 10:00 P.M. he was driving east on Route 2, a Maine roadmap open on the seat beside him. He had discovered that the LTD’s radio didn’t work, so he drove in silence. That was all right. He had plenty to think about. All the wonderful things he was going to do to Beverly when he caught up with her, for instance.

He was sure in his heart, quite sure, that Beverly was close by.

And smoking.

Oh my dear girl, you fucked with the wrong man when you fucked with Tom Rogan. And the question is this-what, exactly, are we to do with you?

The Ford bulled its way through the night, chasing its high beams, and by the time Tom got to Newport, he knew. He found a drugs-and-sundries shop on the main drag that was still open. He went inside and bought a carton of Camels. The proprietor wished him a good evening. Tom wished him the same.

He tossed the carton on the seat and got moving again. He drove slowly on up Route 7, hunting for his turnoff. Here it was-Route 3, with a sign which read HAVEN 21 DERRY 15.

He made the turn and got the Ford rolling faster. He glanced at the carton of cigarettes and smiled a little. In the green glow of the dashlights, his cut and lumpy face looked strange, ghoulish.

Got some cigarettes for you, Bevvie, Tom thought as the wagon ran between stands of pine and spruce, heading toward Derry at a little better than sixty. Oh my yes. A whole carton. Just for you. And when I see you, dear, I’m going to make you eat every fucking one. And if this guy Denbrough needs some education, we can arrange that, too. No problem, Bevvie. No problem at all.

For the first time since the dirty bitch had bushwhacked him and run out, Tom began to feel good.

Audra Denbrough flew first class to Maine in a British Airways DC-10. She had left Heathrow at ten minutes of six that afternoon and had been chasing the sun ever since. The sun was winning-had won, in fact-but that didn’t really matter. By a stroke of providential luck she had discovered that British Airways flight 23, London to Los Angeles, made one refueling stop… at Bangor International Airport.

The day had been a crazy nightmare. Freddie Firestone, the producer of Attic Room, had of course wanted Bill first thing. There had been some kind of ballsup about the stuntwoman who was supposed to fall down a flight of stairs for Audra. It seemed that stuntpeople had a union too, and this woman had fulfilled her quota of stunts for the week, or some silly thing. The union was demanding that Freddie either sign an extension-of-salary waiver or hire another woman to do the stunt. The problem was there was no other woman close enough to Audra’s body-type available. Freddie told the union boss that they would have to get a man to do the stunt, then, wouldn’t they? It wasn’t as if the fall had to be taken in bra and panties. They had the auburn-haired wig, and the wardrobe woman could fit the fellow up with falsies and hip-padding. Even some arse-pads, if that was necessary.

Can’t be done, mate, the union boss said. Against the union charter to have a man step in for a woman. Sexual discrimination.

In the movie business Freddie’s temper was fabled, and at that point he had lost it. He told the union boss, a fat man whose BO was almost paralyzing, to bugger himself. The union boss told Freddie he better watch his gob or there would be no more stunts on the set of Attic Room at all. Then he had rubbed his thumb and forefinger together in a baksheesh gesture that had driven Freddie crazy. The union boss was big but soft; Freddie, who still played football every chance he got and who had once scored a century at cricket, was big and hard.

He threw the union boss out, went back into his office to meditate, and then came out again twenty minutes later hollering for Bill. He wanted the entire scene rewritten so that the fall could be scrubbed. Audra had to tell Freddie that Bill was no longer in England.

“What? Freddie said. His mouth hung open. He was looking at Audra as if he believed she had gone mad. “What are you telling me?”

“He’s been called back to the States-that’s what I’m telling you.”

Freddie made as if to grab her and Audra shrank back, a bit afraid. Freddie looked down at his hands, then put them in his pockets and only looked at her.

“I’m sorry, Freddie,” she said in a small voice. “really.”

She got up and poured herself a cup of coffee from the Silex on Freddie’s hotplate, noticing that her hands were trembling slightly. As she sat down she heard Freddie’s amplified voice over the studio loudspeakers, telling everyone to go home or to the pub; the day’s shooting was off. Audra winced. There went a minimum of ten thousand pounds, right down the bog.