The Sun Dog (23 page)

He slipped his keys out of his pocket. Now they rattled, and although the sound was muted, it seemed very loud to him. He cut his eyes to the left for a moment, sure he would see the brat's staring sheep's face. Pop's mouth was set in a hard, strained grin of fear. There was no one there.

Yet, anyway.

He found the right key, slipped it into the lock, and went in. He was careful not to open the door to the shed too wide, because the hinges picked up a squeal when you exercised them too much. Inside, he turned the thumb-bolt with a savage twist and then went into the Emporium Galorium. He was more file:///E|/Funny%20&%20Weird%20Shit/75%20-%20...ing%20-%20A%20note%20On%20The%20sun%20Dog.HTM (103 of 119)7/28/2005 9:22:39 PM

The Sun Dog

than at home in these shadows. He could have negotiated the narrow, junk-lined corridors in his sleep ...
had,
in fact, although that, like a good many other things, had slipped his mind for the time being. There was a dirty little side window near the front of the store that looked out upon the narrow alleyway the Delevans had used to trespass their way into his backyard. It also gave a sharply angled view on the sidewalk and part of the town common.

Pop slipped up to this window between piles of useless, valueless magazines that breathed their dusty yellow museum scent into the dark air. He looked out into the alley and saw it, was empty. He looked to the right and saw the Delevans, wavery as fish in an aquarium through this dirty, flawed glass, crossing the common just below the bandstand. He didn't watch them out of sight in this window or go to the front windows to get a better angle on them. He guessed they were going over to LaVerdiere's, and since they had already been here, they would be asking about him. What could the little counter-slut tell them? That he had been and gone. Anything else?

Only that he had bought two pouches of tobacco.

Pop smiled.

That
wasn't likely to hang him.

He found a brown bag, went out back, started for the chopping block, considered, then went to the gate in the alleyway instead. Careless once didn't mean a body had to be careless again. After the gate was locked, he took his bag to the chopping block and picked up the pieces of shattered Polaroid camera. He worked as fast as he could, but he took time to be thorough. He picked up everything but little shards and splinters that could be seen as no more than anonymous litter. A Police Lab investigating unit would probably be able to ID some of the stuff left around; Pop had seen TV crime shows (when he wasn't watching X-rated movies on his VCR, that was) where those scientific fellows went over the scene of a crime with little brushes and vacuums and even pairs of tweezers, putting things in little plastic bags, but the Castle Rock Sheriffs Department didn't have one of those units. And Pop doubted if Sheriff Pangborn could talk the State Police into sending their crime wagon, even if Pangborn himself could be persuaded to make the effort - not for what was no more than a case of camera theft, and that was all the Delevans could accuse him of without sounding crazy. Once he had policed the area, he went back inside, unlocked his 'special' drawer, and deposited the brown bag inside. He relocked the drawer and put his keys back in his pocket.
That
was all right, then. He knew all about search warrants, too. It would be a snowy day in hell before the Delevans could get Pangborn into district court to ask for one of those. Even if he was crazy enough to try, the remains of the goddamned camera would be gone - permanently
-long
before they could turn the trick. To try and dispose of the pieces for good right now would be more dangerous than leaving them in the locked drawer. The Delevans would come back and catch him right in the middle of it. Best to wait. Because they would be back.

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The Sun Dog

Pop Merrill knew that as well as he knew his own name.

Later, perhaps, after all this hooraw and foolishment died down, he would be able to go to the boy and say
Yes.
That's right. Everything you think I did, I did. Now why don't we just leave her alone and go back to not knowin
each other
...
all right? We can afford to do that. You might not think so, at least not at first, but we can. Because
look - you wanted to bust it up because you thought it was dangerous, and I wanted to sell it because I thought it
was valuable. Turned out you was right and I was wrong, and that's all the revenge you're ever gonna need. If
you knew me better, you'd know why - there ain't many men in this town that have ever heard me say such a
thing. It sticks in my gut, is what I mean to say, but that don't matter; when I'm wrong, I like to think I'm big
enough to own up to it, no matter how bad it hurts. In the end, boy, I did what you meant to do in the first place.
We all came out on the same street, is what I mean to say, and I think we ought to let bygones be bygones. I know
what you think of me, and I know what I think of you, and neither of us would ever vote for the other one to be
Grand Marshal in the annual Fourth of July parade, but that's all right; we can live with that, can't we? What I
mean to say is just this: we're both glad that goddam camera is gone, so let's call it quits and walk away.
But that was for later, and even then it was only perhaps. It wouldn't do for right now, that was for sure. They would need time to cool down. Right now both of them would be raring to tear a chunk out of his ass, like
(the dog in that pitcher)

like ... well, never mind what they'd be like. The important thing was to be down here, business as usual and as innocent as a goddam baby when they got back.

Because they
would
be back.

But that was all right. It was all right because 'B'cause things are under control,' Pop whispered.
'That's
what I mean to say.'

Now he did go to the front door, and switched the CLOSED sign over to OPEN (he then turned it promptly back to CLOSED again, but this Pop did not observe himself doing, nor would he remember it later). All right; that was a start. What was next? Make it look like just another normal day, no more and no less. He had to be all surprise and what-in-the-tarnation-are-you-talking-about when they came back with steam coming out of their collars, all ready to do or die for what had already been killed just as dead as sheepdip. So ... what was the most normal thing they could find him doing when they came back, with Sheriff Pangborn or without him?

Pop's eye fixed on the cuckoo clock hanging from the beam beside that nice bureau he'd gotten at an estate sale in Sebago a month or six weeks ago. Not a very nice cuckoo clock, probably one originally purchased with trading stamps by some soul trying to be thrifty (people who could only
try
to be thrifty were, in Pop's estimation, poor puzzled souls who drifted through life in a vague and constant state of disappointment). Still, if he could put it right so it would run a little, he could maybe sell it to one of the skiers who would be up in another month or two, somebody who needed a clock at their cottage or ski-lodge because the last bargain had up and died and who didn't understand yet (and probably never would) that another bargain wasn't the solution but the problem. file:///E|/Funny%20&%20Weird%20Shit/75%20-%20...ing%20-%20A%20note%20On%20The%20sun%20Dog.HTM (105 of 119)7/28/2005 9:22:39 PM

The Sun Dog

Pop would feel sorry for that person, and would dicker with him or her as fairly as he thought he could, but he wouldn't disappoint the buyer.
Caveet emperor
was not only what he
meant
to say but often
did
say, and he had a living to make, didn't he?

Yes. So he would just sit back there at his worktable and fuss around with that clock, see if he could get it running, and when the Delevans got back, that was what they would find him doing. Maybe there'd even be a few prospective customers browsing around by then; he could hope, although this was always a slack time of year. Customers would be icing on the cake, anyway. The important thing was how it would look: just a fellow with nothing to hide, going through the ordinary motions and ordinary rhythms of his ordinary day. Pop went over to the beam and took the cuckoo clock down, being careful not to tangle up the counterweights. He carried it back to his worktable, humming a little. He set it down, then felt his back pocket. Fresh tobacco. That was good, too.

Pop thought he would have himself a little pipe while he worked.

'You can't
know
he was in here, Kevin!' Mr Delevan was still protesting feebly as they went into LaVerdiere's. Ignoring him, Kevin went straight to the counter where Molly Durham stood. Her urge to vomit had passed off, and she felt much better. The whole thing seemed a little silly now, like a nightmare you have and then wake up from and after the initial relief you think: I
was afraid of THAT? How could I ever have thought THAT was really
happening to me, even in a dream?

But when the Delevan boy presented his drawn white face at the counter, she
knew
how you could be afraid, yes, oh yes, even of things as ridiculous as the things which happened in dreams, because she was tumbled back into her own waking dreamscape again.

The thing was, Kevin Delevan had almost the same look on his face: as though he were so deep inside somewhere that when his voice and his gaze finally reached her, they seemed almost expended.

'Pop Merrill was in here,' he said. 'What did he buy?'

'Please excuse my son,' Mr Delevan said. 'He's not feeling w -'

Then
he
saw Molly's face and stopped. She looked like she had just seen a man lose his arm to a factory machine.

'Oh!' she said. 'Oh my God!'

'Was it film?' Kevin asked her.

'What's wrong with him?' Molly asked faintly. 'I
knew
something was the minute he walked in. What is it? Has file:///E|/Funny%20&%20Weird%20Shit/75%20-%20...ing%20-%20A%20note%20On%20The%20sun%20Dog.HTM (106 of 119)7/28/2005 9:22:39 PM

The Sun Dog

he ... done something?'

Jesus,
John Delevan thought.
He DOES know. It's all true, then.
At that moment, Mr Delevan made a quietly heroic decision: he gave up entirely. He gave up entirely and put himself and what he believed could and could not be true entirely in his son's hands.

'It was, wasn't it?' Kevin pressed her. His urgent face rebuked her for her flutters and tremors. 'Polaroid film. From
that.'
He pointed at the display.

'Yes.' Her complexion was as pale as china; the bit of rouge she had put on that morning stood out in hectic, flaring patches. 'He was so ... strange. Like a talking doll. What's wrong with him? What -'

But Kevin had whirled away, back to his father.

'I need a camera,' he rapped. 'I need it right now. A Polaroid Sun 660. They have them. They're even on special. See?'

And in spite of his decision, Mr Delevan's mouth would not quite let go of the last clinging shreds of rationality.

'Why -' he began, and that was as far as Kevin let him get.

'I don't
KNOW
why!'
he shouted, and Molly Durham moaned. She didn't want to throw up now; Kevin Delevan was scary, but not
that
scary. What she wanted to do right now was simply go home and creep up to her bedroom and draw the covers over her head.
'But we have to have it, and time's almost up, Dad!'

'Give me one of those cameras,' Mr Delevan said, drawing his wallet out with shaking hands, unaware that Kevin had already darted to the display.

'Just take one,' she heard a trembling voice entirely unlike her own say. 'Just take one and go.'

Across the square, Pop Merrill, who believed he was peacefully repairing a cheap cuckoo clock, innocent as a babe in arms, finished loading Kevin's camera with one of the film packs. He snapped it shut. It made its squidgy little whine.

Damn cuckoo sounds like he's got a bad case of laryngitis. Slipped a gear, I guess. Well, I got the cure for that.

'I'll fix you,' Pop said, and raised the camera. He applied one blank eye to the viewfinder with the hairline crack which was so tiny you didn't even see it when you got your eye up to it. The camera was aimed at the front of the store, but
that
didn't matter; wherever you pointed it, it was aimed at a certain black dog that wasn't any dog God had ever made in a little town called for the want of a better word Polaroidsville, which He also hadn't ever made. file:///E|/Funny%20&%20Weird%20Shit/75%20-%20...ing%20-%20A%20note%20On%20The%20sun%20Dog.HTM (107 of 119)7/28/2005 9:22:39 PM

The Sun Dog

That squidgy little whine as Kevin's camera pushed out a new picture.

'There,' Pop said with quiet satisfaction. 'Maybe I'll do more than get you talking, bird. What I mean to say is I might just get you
singing. I
don't promise, but I'll give her a try.'

Pop grinned a dry, leathery grin and pushed the button again.

They were halfway across the square when John Delevan saw a silent white light fill the dirty windows of the Emporium Galorium. The
light
was silent, but following it, like an aftershock, he heard a low, dark rumble that seemed to come to his ears from the old man's junk-store
...
but only because the old man's junk-store was the only place it could find a way to get out. Where it seemed to be
emanating
from was under the earth
...
or was it just that the earth itself seemed the only place large enough to cradle the owner of that voice?

'Run, Dad!' Kevin cried.
'He's started doing it!'

That flash recurred, lighting the windows like a heatless stroke of electricity. It was followed by that subaural growl again, the sound of a sonic boom in a wind-tunnel, the sound of some animal which was horrible beyond comprehension being kicked out of its sleep.