But Ace? Ace Merrill? He was a criminal!
"Look," Ace said, "if you want to discuss the arrangements with Mr. Gaunt, I think he might still be in there. But as you can see"he fluttered his hands through the long strips of tee-shirt hanging over his chest and belly-"his mood is a little touchy."
"You're supposed to help me get rid of Them?" Buster asked.
"That's right," Ace said. "We're gonna turn this whole town into a Flame-Broiled Whopper." He picked up the crate. "Although I don't know how we're supposed to do any real damage with just a box of blasting caps. He said you'd know the answer to that one."
Buster had begun to grin. He got up, crawled into the back of the van, and slid the door open on its track. "I believe I do," he said.
"Climb in, Mr. Merrill. We've got an errand to run."
"Where?"
"The town motor pool, to start with," Buster said. He was still grinning.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
1
The Rev. William Rose, who had first stepped into the pulpit of The United Baptist Church of Castle Rock in May of 1983, was a bigot of the first water; no question about it. Unfortunately, he was also energetic, sometimes witty in a n odd, cruel way, and extremely popular with his congregation. His first sermon as leader of the Baptist flock had been a sign of things to come. It was called "Why the Catholics are Hellbound." He had kept up in this vein, which was extremely popular with his congregation, ever since. The Catholics, he informed them, were blasphemous, misguided creatures who worshipped not Jesus but the woman who had been chosen to bear Him. Was it any wonder they were so prone to error on other subjects as well?
He explained to his flock that the Catholics had perfected the science of torture during the Inquisition; that the Inquisitors had burned the true faithful at what he called The Smoking-uh Stake right up until the end of the nineteenth century, when heroic Protestants (Baptists, mostly) had made them stop; that forty different Popes through history had known their own mothers and sisters, and even their illegitimate daughters, in-uh unholy sexual congressuh; that the Vatican was built on the gold of Protestant martyrs and plundered nations.
This sort of ignorant twaddle was hardly news to the Catholic Church, which had had to put up with similar heresies for hundreds of years. Many priests would have taken it in stride, perhaps even making gentle fun of it. Father John Brigham, however, was not the sort to take things in his stride. Quite the contrary. A badtempered, bandy-legged Irishman, Brigham was one of those humorless men who cannot suffer fools, especially strutting fools of Rev. Rose's stripe.
He had borne Rose's strident Catholic-baiting in silence for almost a year before finally cutting loose from his own pulpit. His homily, which pulled no punches at all, was called "The Sins of Reverend Willie." In it he characterized the Baptist minister as "a psalm-singin 'ackass of a man who thinks Billy Graham walks on water and Billy Sunday sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty."
Later that Sunday, Rev. Rose and four of his largest deacons had paid a visit on Father Brigham. They were shocked and angered, they said, by the slanderous things Father Brigham had said.
"You've got your nerve tellin me to tone down," Father Brigham said, "after a hard mornin of tellin the faithful that I serve the Whore of Babylon."
Color rose quickly in Rev. Rose's normally pale cheeks and overspread his mostly bald pate. He had never said anything about the Whore of Babylon, he told Father Brigham, although he had mentioned the Whore of Rome several times, and if the shoe fit, why, Father Brigham had)just better slip his heel in and wear it.
Father Brigham had stepped out of the rectory's front door with his fists bunched. "If you want to discuss this on the front walk, my friend," he said, "Just ask your little Gestapo unit there to stand aside and we'll discuss it all you want."
Rev. Rose, who was three inches taller than Father Brighambut perhaps twenty pounds lighter-stepped back with a sneer. "I would not soil-uh my hands," he said.
One of the deacons was Don Hemphill. He was both taller and heavier than the combative priest. "I'll discuss it with you if you want," he said. "I'll wipe the walk with your Pope-loving, bogtrotting ass."
Two of the other deacons, who knew Don was capable of just that, had restrained him in the nick of time... but after that, the rumble was on.