His father put the aluminum siding on our house two years ago.
The boy came over and helped out for awhile. He seemed like a nice boy to me."
"Do you have any idea what he might have been doing there?"
"He said he wanted to ask if they'd hired anyone to shovel their driveway this winter. I think that was it. He said he'd come back later, when they weren't fighting. The poor kid looked scared to death, and I don't blame him." She shook her head. The large curls bounced softly. "I'm sorry she died the way she did..." Jill Mislaburski lowered her voice confidentially. "But I'm happy for Pete.
No one knows what he had to put up with, married to that woman.
No one." She looked meaningfully at Jesus on the wall, then back at Alan again.
"Uh-huh," Alan said. "Did you notice anything else, Mrs.
Mislaburski? Anything about the house, or the sounds, or the boy?"
She put a finger against her nose and cocked her head. "Well, not really. The boy-Brian Rusk-had a cooler in his bike basket.
I remember that, but I don't suppose that's the kind of thing-"
"Whoa," Alan said, raising his hand. A bright light had gone on I for a moment at the front of his mind. "A cooler?"
"You know, the kind you take on picnics or to tailgate parties?
I only remember it because it was really too big for his bike basket.
It was in there crooked. It looked like it might fall out."
"Thank you, Mrs. Mislaburski," Alan said slowly. "Thank you very much."
"Does it mean something? Is it a clue?"
"Oh, I doubt it." But he wondered.
I'd like the possibility of vandalism a lot better if the kid was sixteen or seventeen, Henry Payton had said. Alan had felt the same way... but he had come across twelve-year-old vandals before, and he guessed you could tote a pretty fair number of rocks in one of those picnic coolers.
Suddenly he began to feel a good deal more interested in the talk he would be having with young Brian Rusk this afternoon.
5
The silver bell tinkled. Sonny jackett came into Needful Things slowly, warily, kneading his grease-stained Sunoco cap in his hands.
His manner was that of a man who sincerely believes he will soon break many expensive things no matter how much he doesn't want to; breaking things, his face proclaimed, was not his desire but his karma.
"Mr. jackett!" Leland Gaunt cried his customary welcome with his customary vigor, and then made another tiny check-mark on the sheet beside the cash register. "So glad you could stop by!"
Sonny advanced three steps farther into the room and then stopped, glancing warily from the glass cases to Mr. Gaunt.
"Well," he said, "I didn't come in to buy nuthin. Got to put you straight on that. Ole Harry Samuels said you ast if I'd stop by this mornin if I had a chance. Said you had a socket-wrench set that was some nice. I been lookin for one, but this ain't no store for the likes of me. I'm just makin my manners to you, sir."
"Well, I appreciate your honesty," Mr. Gaunt said, "but you don't want to speak too soon, Mr. jackett. This is one nice set of sockets-double-measure adjustable."
"Oh, ayuh?" Sonny raised his eyebrows. He knew there were such things, which made it possible to work on both foreign and domestic cars with the same socket-wrenches, but he had never actually seen such a rig. "That so?"
"Yes. I put them in the back room, Mr. Jackett, as soon as I heard you were looking. Otherwise they would have gone almost at once, and I wanted you to at least see them before I sold the set to someone else."
Sonny jackett reacted to this with instant Yankee suspicion.
"Now, why would you want to do that?"
"Because I have a classic car, and classic cars need frequent repairs. I've been told you're the best mechanic this side of Derry."
"Oh." Sonny relaxed. "Mayhap I am. What've you got for wheels?"
"A Tucker."
Sonny's eyebrows shot up and he looked at Mr. Gaunt with a new respect. "A Torpedo! Fancy that!"
"No. I have a Talisman."
"Ayuh? Never heard of a Tucker Talisman."
"There were only two built-the prototype and mine. In 1953, that was. Mr. Tucker moved to Brazil not long after, where he died." Mr.
Gaunt smiled mistily. "Preston was a sweet fellow, and a wizard when it came to auto design... but he was no businessman."
"That so?"
"Yes." The mist in Mr. Gaunt's eyes cleared. "But that's yesterday, and this is today! Turn the page, eh, Mr. jackett? Turn the page, I always say-face front, march cheerily into the future, and never look back!"
Sonny regarded Mr. Gaunt from the corners of his eyes with some unease and said nothing.
"Let me show you the socket-wrenches."
Sonny didn't agree at once. Instead, he looked doubtfully at the contents of the glass cases again. "Can't afford nothing too nice.
Got bills a mile high. Sometimes I think I ought to get right the hell out of hiness and go on the County."