"I'll think about it," Ace said. "Hey, Ace! Don't hang up!"
"Fuck you very much, Natty," Ace replied, and did just that. He sat where he was for a moment, brooding over the pennies and the two rusty cans. There was something very weird about all of this. Useless trading stamps and six hundred dollars' worth of steel pennies. What did that add up to? That's the bitch of it, Ace thought. It doesn't add up to anything.
Where's the real stuff? Where's the goddam LOOT?
He pushed back from the table, went into the bedroom, and snorted the rest of the blow Mr. Gaunt had laid on him. When he came out again, he had the book with the map in it and he was feeling considerably more cheerful. It did add up. It added up just fine.
Now that he had helped his head a little bit, he could see that.
After all, there had been lots of crosses on that map. He had found two caches right where those crosses suggested they would be, each marked with a large, flat stone. Crosses + Flat Stones = Buried Treasure. It did seem that Pop had been a little softer in his old age than people from town had believed, that he'd had a bit of a problem telling the difference between diamonds and dust there at the end, but the big stuff-gold, currency, maybe negotiable securities-had to be out there someplace, under one or more of those flat rocks.
He had proved that. His uncle had buried things of value, not just bunches of moldy old trading stamps. At the old Masters farm he had found six rolls of steel pennies worth at least six hundred dollars. Not much... but an indication.
"It's out there," Ace said softly. His eyes sparkled madly.
"It's all out there in one of those other seven holes. Or two. Or three."
He knew it.
He took the brown-paper map out of the book and let his finger wander from one cross to the next, wondering if some were more likely than others. Ace's finger stopped on the old Joe Camber place. It was the only location where there were two crosses close together. His finger began to move slowly back and forth between them.
Joe Camber had died in a tragedy that had taken three other lives.
His wife and boy had been away at the time. On vacation.
People like the Cambers didn't ordinarily take vacations, but Charity Camber had won some money in the state lottery, Ace seemed to recall. He tried to remember more, but it was hazy in his mind.
He'd had his own fish to fry back then-plenty of them.
What had Mrs. Camber done when she and her boy had returned from their little trip to find that Joe-a world-class shit, according to everything Ace had heard-was dead and gone? Moved out of state, hadn't they? And the property? Maybe she'd wanted to turn it over in a hurry. In Castle Rock, one name stood above all the rest when it came to turning things over in a hurry; that name was Reginald Marion "Pop" Merrill. Had she gone to see him? He would have offered her short commons-that was his way-but if she was anxious enough to move, short commons might have been okay with her. In other words, the Camber place might also have belonged to Pop at the time of his death.
This possibility solidified to a certainty in Ace's mind only moments after it occurred to him.
"The Camber place," he said. "I bet that's where it is! I know that's where it is!"
Thousands of dollars! Maybe tens of thousands! Hoppingjesus!
He snatched up the map and slammed it back into the book.
Then he headed out to the Chevy Mr. Gaunt had loaned him, almost running.
One question still nagged: If Pop really had been able to tell the difference between diamonds and dust, why had he bothered to bury the trading stamps at all?
Ace pushed this question impatiently aside and got on the road to Castle Rock.
5
Danforth Keeton arrived back home in Castle View just as Ace was leaving for the town's more rural environs. Buster was still handcuffed to the doorhandle of his Cadillac, but his mood was one of savage euphoria. He had spent the last two years fighting shadows, and the shadows had been winning. It had gotten to the point where he had begun fearing that he might be going insane... which, of course, was just what They wanted him to believe.
He saw several "satellite dishes" on his drive from Main Street to his home on the View. He had noticed them before, and had wondered if they might not be a part of what was going on in this town. Now he felt sure. They weren't "satellite dishes" at all. They were mind-disrupters. They might not all be aimed at his house, but you could be sure any which weren't were aimed at the few other people like him who understood that a monstrous conspiracy was afoot.
Buster parked in his driveway and pushed the garage-door opener clipped to his sun visor. The door began to rise, but he felt a monstrous bolt of pain go through his head at the same instant.
He understood that was a part of it, too-they had replaced his real Wizard garage-door opener with something else, something that shot bad rays into his head at the same time it was opening the door.