Buster was amazed to find this was true. His depression following Myrtle's... Myrtle's accident... now seemed years distant.
He felt that he and his excellent friend Ace Merrill finally had Them right where they wanted Them: in the palm of their collective hand.
"You bet," he said, and watched Ace slide down the wet, grassy bank beside the bridge with the blanket-wrapped parcel of dy***ite held against his belly.
It was relatively dry under the bridge; not that it mattered the dy***ite and the blasting caps had been waterproofed.
Ace put his package in the elbow-crook formed by two of the struts, then attached the blasting cap to the dy***ite by poking the wires-the tips were already stripped, how convenient-into one of the sticks. He twisted the big white dial of the timer to 40. It began ticking.
He crawled out and scrambled back up the slippery bank.
"Well?" Buster asked anxiously. "Will it blow, do you think?"
"It'll blow," Ace said reassuringly, and climbed into the van.
He was soaked to the skin, but he didn't mind.
"What if They find it? What if They disconnect it before-"
"Dad," Ac.- said. "Listen a minute. Poke your head out this door and listen."
Buster did. Faintly, between blasts of thunder, he thought he could hear yells and screams. Then, clearly, he heard the thin, hard crack of a pistol shot.
"Mr. Gaunt is keeping Them busy," Ace said. "He's one clever son of a bitch." He tipped a pile of cocaine into his snuff-hollow, tooted, then held his hand under Buster's nose. "Here, Dad-it's Miller Time."
Buster dipped his head and snorted.
They drove away from the bridge about seven minutes before Alan Pangborn crossed it. Underneath, the timer's black marker stood at 30.
6
Ace Merrill and Danforth Keeton-aka Buster, aka Zippy's Dad, aka Toad of Toad Hall-drove slowly up Main Street in the pouring rain like Santa and his helper, leaving little bundles here and there.
State Police cars roared by them twice, but neither had any interest in what looked like just one more TV newsvan. As Ace had said, Mr. Gaunt was keeping Them busy.
They left a timer and five sticks of dy***ite in the doorway of
The Samuels Funeral Home. The barber shop was beside it. Ace wrapped a piece of blanket around his arm and popped his elbow through the gless pane in the door. He doubted very much if the barber shop was equipped with an alarm... or if the police would bother responding, even if it was. Buster handed him a freshly prepared bomb-they were using wire from one of the bench compartments to bind the timers and the blasting caps securely to the dy***ite-and Ace lobbed it through the hole in the door. They watched it tumble to a stop at the foot of the # I chair, the timer ticking down from 25.
"Won't nobody be getting a shave in there for awhile, Dad," Ace breathed, and Buster giggled breathlessly.
They split up then, Ace tossing one bundle into Galaxia while Buster crammed another into the mouth of the bank's night-deposit slot.
As they returned to the van through the slashing rain, lightning ripped across the sky. The elm toppled into Castle Stream with a rending roar. They stood on the sidewalk for a moment, staring in that direction, both of them thinking that the dy***ite under the bridge had gone twenty minutes or more early, but there was no blossom of fire.
"I think it was lightning," Ace said. "Must have hit a tree.
Come on."
As they pulled out, Ace driving now, Alan's station wagon passed them. In the pouring rain, neither driver noticed the other.
They drove up to Nan's. Ace broke the glass of the door with his elbow and they left the dy***ite and a ticking timer, this one set at 20, just inside, near the cash register stand. As they were leaving, an incredibly bright stroke of lightning flashed, and all the streetlights went out.
"It's the power!" Buster cried happily. "The power's out!
Fantastic! Let's do the Municipal Building! Let's blow it sky-high!"
"Dad, that place is crawling with cops! Didn't you see them?"
"They're chasing their own tails," Buster said impatiently.
"And when these things start to go up, they're going to be chasing them twice as fast. Besides, it's dark now, and we can go in through the courthouse on the other side. The master-key opens that door, too."
"You've got the balls of a tiger, Dad-you know that?"
Buster smiled tightly. "So do you, Ace. So do you."
7
Alan pulled into one of the slant parking spaces in front of Needful Things, turned off the station wagon's engine, and simply sat for a moment, staring at Mr. Gaunt's shop. The sign in the window now read
YOU SAY HELLO I SAY GOODBYE
GOODBYE GOODBYE I DON'T KNOW WHY YOU SAY HELLO I SAY GOODBYE.