Needful Things (91 page)

Rev. Rose mobilized his forces. The Baptists began with a No Casino Nite letter-writing campaign to the Castle Rock
Call
(Wanda Hemphill, Don's wife, wrote most of them herself), and followed up the letters with the
DICE AND THE DEVIL
posters. Betsy Vigue, Casino Nite Chairwoman and Grand Regeant of the local Daughters
of Isabella chapter, organized the counterattack. For the previous three weeks, the
Call
had expanded to sixteen pages to handle the resulting debate (except it was more a shouting-match than a reasonable airing of different views). More posters went up; they were just as quickly torn down again. An editorial urging temperance on both sides was ignored. Some of the partisans were having fun; it was sort of neat to be caught up in such a teapot tempest. But as the end drew near, Steamboat Willie was not having fun, and neither was Father Brigham.

“I loathe that self-righteous little piece of shit!” Brigham burst out at a surprised Albert Gendron on the day Albert brought him the infamous “
LISTEN UP YOU MACKEREL-SNAPPER
” letter which Albert had found taped to the door of his dental office.

“Imagine that whore's son accusing good Baptists of such a thing!” Rev. Rose had spat at an equally surprised Norman Harper and Don Hemphill. That had been on Columbus Day, following a call from Father Brigham. Brigham had tried to read the mackerel-snapper letter to Rev. Rose; Rev. Rose had (quite properly, in the view of his deacons) refused to listen.

Norman Harper, a man who outweighed Albert Gendron by twenty pounds and stood nearly as tall, was made uneasy by the shrill, almost hysterical quality of Rose's voice, but he didn't say so. “I'll tell you what it is,” he rumbled. “Old Father Bog-Trotter's gotten a little nervous about that card you got at the parsonage, Bill, that's all. He's realized that was going too far. He figures if he says one of his buddy-boys got a letter full of the same kind of filth, it'll spread the blame around.”

“Well, it won't work!” Rose's voice was shriller than ever. “No one in my congregation would be a party to such filth!
No one!”
His voice splintered on the last word. His hands opened and closed convulsively. Norman and Don exchanged a quick, uneasy glance. They had discussed just this sort of behavior, which was becoming more and more common in Rev. Rose, on several occasions over the last few weeks. The Casino Nite business was tearing Bill apart. The two men were afraid he might actually have a nervous breakdown before the situation was finally resolved.

“Don't you fret,” Don said soothingly. “We know the truth of the thing, Bill.”

“Yes!” Rev. Rose cried, fixing the two men with a trembling, liquid gaze. “Yes,
you
know—you two. And I—
I
know! But what about the rest of this town-uh? Do
they
know?”

Neither Norman nor Don could answer this.

“I hope someone rides the lying idol-worshipper out on a rail!” William Rose cried, clenching his fists and shaking them impotently. “On a rail! I would pay to see that! I would pay handsomely!”

Later on Monday, Father Brigham had phoned around, asking those interested in “the current atmosphere of religious repression in Castle Rock” to drop by the rectory for a brief meeting that evening. So many people showed up that the meeting had to be moved to the Knights of Columbus Hall next door.

Brigham began by speaking of the letter Albert Gendron had found on his door—the letter purporting to be from The Concerned Baptist Men of Castle Rock—and then recounted his unrewarding telephone conversation with Rev. Rose. When he told the assembled group that Rose claimed to have received his own obscene note, a note which purported to be from The Concerned
Catholic
Men of Castle Rock, there was a rumble from the crowd . . . shocked at first, then angry.

“The man's a damned liar!” someone called from the back of the room.

Father Brigham seemed to nod and shake his head at the same time. “Perhaps, Sam, but that's not the real issue. He is quite mad—I think
that
is the issue.”

Thoughtful, worried silence greeted this, but Father Brigham felt a sense of almost palpable relief, just the same.
Quite mad:
it was the first time he had spoken the words aloud, although they had been circling in his mind for at least three years.

“I don't want to be stopped by a religious nut,” Father Brigham went on. “Our Casino Nite is harmless and wholesome, no matter what the Reverend Steamboat Willie may think about it. But I feel, since he has grown increasingly strident and increasingly less stable, that we should take a vote. If you are in favor of cancelling Casino Nite—of
bowing to this pressure in the name of safety—you should say so.”

The vote to hold Casino Nite just as planned had been unanimous.

Father Brigham nodded, pleased. Then he looked at Betsy Vigue. “You're going to have a planning session tomorrow night, aren't you, Betsy?”

“Yes, Father.”

“Then may I suggest,” Father Brigham said, “that we men meet here, at the K of C Hall, at just the same time.”

Albert Gendron, a ponderous man who was both slow to anger and slow to recover from anger, got up slowly and stood to his full height. Necks craned to follow his rise. “Are you suggesting those Baptist clunks might try to bother the ladies, Father?”

“No, no, not at all,” Father Brigham soothed. “But I think it might be wise if we discussed some plans to ensure that Casino Nite
itself
goes smoothly—”

“Guards?” someone else asked enthusiastically. “Guards, Father?”

“Well . . . eyes and ears,” Father Brigham said, leaving no doubt at all that guards were what he meant. “And, if we meet Tuesday evening while the ladies are meeting, we'll be there just in case there
is
trouble.”

So, while the Daughters of Isabella were gathering at the building on one side of the parking lot, the Catholic men were gathering at the building on the other. And, across town, Rev. William Rose had called a meeting at this same time to discuss the latest Catholic slander and to plan the making of signs and the organizing of Casino Nite picketers.

The various alarums and excursions in The Rock that early evening did not dent attendance at these meetings very much—most of the gawkers milling around the Municipal Building as the storm approached were people who were neutral in The Great Casino Nite Controversy. As far as the Catholics and Baptists actually embroiled in the brouhaha were concerned, a couple of murders could not hold a candle to the prospect of a really good holy grudge-match. Because, after all, other things had to take a back seat when it came to questions of religion.

Over seventy people showed up at the fourth meeting of what Rev. Rose had dubbed The Baptist Anti-Gambling Christian Soldiers of Castle Rock. This was a great turnout; attendance had fallen off sharply at the last meeting, but rumors of the obscene card dropped through the parsonage mail-slot had pumped it up again. The showing relieved Rev. Rose, but he was both disappointed and puzzled to realize that Don Hemphill wasn't in attendance. Don had promised he would be here, and Don was his strong right arm.

Rose glanced at his watch and saw it was already five after seven—no time to call the market and see if Don had forgotten. Everyone who was coming was here, and he wanted to catch them while their indignation and curiosity were at flood-tide. He gave Hemphill one more minute, then mounted the pulpit and raised his skinny arms in a gesture of welcome. His congregation—dressed tonight in their working clothes, for the most part—filed into the pews and sat down on the plain wooden benches.

“Let us begin this endeavor as all great-uh endeavors are begun,” Rev. Rose said quietly. “Let us bow our heads-uh in prayer.”

They dropped their heads, and that was when the vestibule door banged open behind them with gunshot force. A few of the women screamed and several men leaped to their feet.

It was Don. He was his own head butcher, and he still wore his bloodstained white apron. His face was as red as a beefsteak tomato. His wild eyes were streaming water. Runners of snot were drying on his nose, his upper lip, and the creases which bracketed his mouth.

Also, he stank.

Don smelled like a pack of skunks which had been first run through a vat of sulphur, then sprayed with fresh cowshit, and finally let loose to rant and racket their panicky way through a closed room. The smell preceded him; the smell followed him; but mostly the smell hung around him in a pestilential cloud. Women shrank away from the aisle and groped for their handkerchiefs as he stumbled
past them with his apron flapping in front and his untucked white shirt flapping behind. The few children in attendance began to cry. Men roared out cries of mingled disgust and bewilderment.

“Don!” Rev. Rose cried in a prissy, surprised voice. His arms were still raised, but as Don Hemphill neared the pulpit, Rose lowered them and involuntarily clapped one hand over his nose and mouth. He thought he might vomit. It was the most incredible nose-buster of a stink he had ever encountered. “What . . . what has happened?”

“Happened?” Don Hemphill roared.
“Happened?
I'll tell you what happened! I'll tell you
all
what happened!”

He wheeled on the congregation, and in spite of the stink which both clung to him and spread out from him, they grew still as his furious, maddened eyes fell upon them.

“The sons of bitches stink-bombed my store, that's what happened! There weren't more than half a dozen people there because I put up a sign saying I was closing early, and thank God for that, but the stock is ruined! All of it! Forty thousand dollars' worth! Ruined! I don't know what the bastards used, but it's going to stink for
days!”

“Who?” Rev. Rose asked in a timorous voice. “Who did it, Don?”

Don Hemphill reached into the pocket of his apron. He brought out a curved black band with a white notch in it and a stack of leaflets. The band was a Roman collar. He held it up for them all to see.

“WHO THE HELL DO YOU THINK?”
he screamed.
“My store! My stock! All shot to hell, and who do you think?”

He threw the leaflets at the stunned members of The Baptist Anti-Gambling Christian Soldiers. They separated in the air and fluttered down like confetti. Some of those present reached out and grabbed at them. Each one was the same; each showed a crowd of laughing men and women standing around a roulette table.

JUST FOR FUN!

it said over the picture. And, below it:

JOIN US FOR “CASINO NITE”

AT THE KNIGHTS OF COLUMBUS HALL

OCTOBER
31, 1991

TO BENEFIT THE CATHOLIC BUILDERS' FUND

“Where did you find these pamphlets, Don?” Len Milliken asked in a rumbling, ominous voice. “And this collar?”

“Somebody put them inside the main doors,” Don said, “just before everything went to he—”

The vestibule door boomed again, making them all jump, only this time it was not opening but closing.

“Hope you like the smell, you Baptist faggots!” someone shouted. This was followed by a burst of shrill, nasty laughter.

The congregation stared at Rev. William Rose with frightened eyes. He stared back at them with eyes which were equally frightened. And that was when the box hidden in the choir suddenly began to hiss. Like the box placed in the Daughters of Isabella Hall by the late Myrtle Keeton, this one (planted by Sonny Jackett, now also late) contained a timer which had ticked all afternoon.

Clouds of incredibly potent stink began to pour out of the grilles set into the sides of the box.

At The United Baptist Church of Castle Rock, the fun had just begun.

Babs Miller skulked along the side of the Daughters of Isabella Hall, freezing in place each time a blue-white flash of lightning smoked across the sky. She had a crowbar in one hand and one of Mr. Gaunt's automatic pistols in the other. The music box she had bought at Needful Things was tucked into one pocket of the man's overcoat she wore, and if anyone tried to steal it, that person was going to eat an ounce or so of lead.

Who would want to do such a low, nasty, mean thing?
Who would want to steal the music box before Babs could even find out what tune it played?

Well, she thought, let's just put it this way—I hope Cyndi Rose Martin doesn't show her face in front of mine tonight. If she does, she isn't ever going to show her face again
anywhere
—not on
this
side of hell, anyway. What does she think I am . . . stupid?

Meanwhile, she had a little trick to perform. A prank. At Mr. Gaunt's request, of course.

Do you know Betsy Vigue?
Mr. Gaunt had asked.
You do, don't you?

Of course she did. She had known Betsy ever since grade school, when they were often hall-monitors together and inseparable comrades.

Good. Watch through the window. She will sit down. She will pick up a piece of paper, and see something beneath it.

What?
Babs had asked, curious.

Never mind what. If you ever expect to find the key that unlocks the music box, you had better just shut your mouth and open your ears—do you understand, dear?

She had understood. She understood something else, as well. Mr. Gaunt was a scary man sometimes. A
very
scary man.

She'll pick up the thing she's found. She'll examine it. She'll begin to open it. By then you should be by the door to the building. Wait until everyone looks around toward the left rear of the hall.

Babs had wanted to ask why they would all do that, but decided it would be safer not to ask.