He washed off the mud and later on I heard him in his room, crying."
The sheets, Alan thought. Wilma's sheets. It was Brian.
"Brian said Needful Things is a poison place and he's a poison man and I should never go there."
"Brian said that? He said Needful Things?"
"Yes."
"Sean-" He paused, thinking. Electric sparks 'Were shooting through him everywhere, jigging and jagging in tiny blue splinters.
"What?"
"Did... did your mother get her sunglasses at Needful Things?"
"Yes."
"She told you that she did?"
"No. But I know she did. She wears the sunglasses and that's how she visits with The King."
"What King, Sean? Do you know?"
Sean looked at Alan as though he were crazy. "Elvis. He's The King. "Elvis," Alan muttered. "Sure-who else?"
"I want my father."
"I know, honey. just a couple more questions and I'll leave you alone. Then you'll go back to sleep and when you wake up, your father will be here." He hoped. "Sean, did Brian say who the poison man was?"
"Yes. Mr. Gaunt. The man who runs the store. He's the poison man."
Now his mind jumped to Polly-Polly after the funeral, saying I guess it was just a matter of finally meeting the right doctor... Dr.
Gaunt. Dr. Leland Gaunt.
He saw her holding out the little silver ball she had bought in Needful Things so he could see it... but cupping her hand protectively over it when he put a hand out to touch it. There had been an expression on her face in that moment which was totally unlike Polly.
A look of narrow suspicion and possessiveness. Then, later, speaking in a strident, shaky, tear-filled voice which was also totally unlike her: It's hard to find out the face you thought you loved is only a mask... How could you go behind my back?... How could you?
"What did you tell her?" he muttered. He was totally unaware that he had seized the counterpane of the hospital bed in one hand and was twisting it slowly into his clenched fist. "What did you tell her?
And how the hell did you make her believe it?"
"Mr. Sheriff? Are you okay?"
Alan forced himself to open his fist. "Yes-fine. You're sure Brian said Mr. Gaunt, aren't you, Sean?"
"Yes."
"Thank you," Alan said. He bent over the bars, took Sean's hand, and kissed his cool, pale cheek. "Thank you for talking to me." He let go of the boy's hand and stood up.
During the last week, there had been one piece of business on his agenda which simply hadn't gotten done-a courtesy call on Castle Rock's newest businessman. No big deal; just a friendly hello, a welcome to town, and a quick rundown on what the procedure was in case of trouble.
He had meant to do it, had once even dropped by, but it kept not getting done. And today, when Polly's behavior began to make him wonder if Mr. Gaunt was on the upand-up, the shit had really hit the fan, and he had wound up here, more than twenty miles away.
Is he keeping me away? Has he been keeping me away all along?
The idea should have seemed ridiculous, but in this quiet, shadowy room, it did not seem ridiculous at all.
Suddenly he needed to get back. He needed to get back just as fast as he could.
"Mr. Sheriff." Alan looked down at him.
"Brian said something else, too," Sean said.
"Did he?" Alan asked. "What was that, Sean?"
"Brian said Mr. Gaunt wasn't really a man at all."
Alan walked down the hall toward the door with the EXIT sign over it as quietly as he could, expecting to be frozen in his tracks by a challenging shout from Miss Hendrie's replacement at any moment. But the only person who spoke to him was a little girl.
She stood in the doorway of her room, her blonde hair tied in braids which lay on the front of her faded pink flannel nightie. She was holding a blanket. Her favorite, from its ragged well-used look.
Her feet were bare, the ribbons at the ends of her braids were askew, and her eyes were enormous in her haggard face. It was a face which knew more about pain than any child's face should know.
"You've got a gun," she announced.
"Yes."
"My dad has a gun."
"Does he?"
"Yes. It's bigger than yours. It's bigger than the world. Are you the Boogeyman?"
"No, honey," he said, and thought: I think maybe the Boogeyman is in my home town tonight.
He pushed through the door at the end of the corridor, went downstairs, and pushed through another door into a late twilight as sultry as any midsummer evening. He hurried around to the parking lot, not quite running. Thunder bumbled and grumbled out of the west, from the direction of Castle Rock.
He unlocked the driver's door of the station wagon, got in, and pulled the Radio Shack microphone off its prongs. "Unit One to base.
Come back."
His only response was a rush of brainless static.
The goddam storm.