It was dim inside, but not dark. Brian could see that track lighting (a specialty of the Dick Perry Siding and Door Company) had been installed, and a few of the spots mounted on the tracks were lit.
They were trained on a number of glass display cases which were arranged around the large room. The cases were, for the most part, empty. The spots highlighted the few objects which were in the cases.
The floor, which had been bare wood when this was Western Maine Realty and Insurance, had been covered in a rich wall-towall carpet the color of burgundy wine. The walls had been painted eggshell white. A thin light, as white as the walls, filtered in through the soaped display window.
Well, it's a mistake, just the same, Brian thought. He hasn't even got his stock in yet. Whoever put the OPEN sign in the door by mistake left the door unlocked by mistake, too. The polite thing to do in these circumstances would be to close the door again, get on his bike, and ride away.
Yet he was loath to leave. He was, after all, actually seeing the inside of the new store. His mother would talk to him the rest of the afternoon when she heard that. The maddening part was this: he wasn't sure exactly what he was seeing. There were half a dozen (exhibits) items in the display cases, and the spotlights were trained on them-a kind of trial run, probably-but he couldn't tell what they were. He could, however, tell what they weren't: spool beds and moldy crank telephones.
"Hello?" he asked uncertainly, still standing in the doorway.
"Is anybody here?"
He was about to grasp the doorknob and pull the door shut again when a voice replied, "I'm here."A tall figure-what at first seemed to be an impossibly tall figure came through a doorway behind one of the display cases. The doorway was masked with a dark velvet curtain.
Brian felt a momentary and quite monstrous cramp of fear. Then the glow thrown by one of the spots slanted across the man's face, and Brian's fear was allayed. The guy was quite old, and his face was very kind. He looked at Brian with interest and pleasure.
"Your door was unlocked," Brian began, "so I thought-"
"Of course it's unlocked," the tall man said. "I decided to open for a little while this afternoon as a kind of... of preview. And you are my very first customer. Come in, my friend. Enter freely, and leave some of the happiness you bring!"
He smiled and stuck out his hand. The smile was infectious.
Brian felt an instant liking for the proprietor of Needful Things.
He had to step over the threshold and into the shop to clasp the tall man's hand, and he did so without a single qualm. The door swung shut behind him and latched of its own accord. Brian did not notice.
He was too busy noticing that the tall man's eyes were dark blue-exactly the same shade as Miss Sally Ratcliffe's eyes.
They could have been father and daughter.
The tall man's grip was strong and sure, but not painful. All the same, there was something unpleasant about it. Something... smooth. Too hard, somehow.
"I'm pleased to meet you," Brian said.
Those dark-blue eyes fastened on his face like hooded railroad lanterns.
"I am equally pleased to make your acquaintance," the tall man said, and that was how Brian Rusk met the proprietor of Needful Things before anyone else in Castle Rock.
4
"My name is Leland Gaunt," the tall man said, "and you are-?"
"Brian. Brian Rusk."
"Very good, Mr. Rusk. And since you are my first customer, I think I can offer you a very special price on any item that catches your fancy."
"Well, thank you," Brian said, "but I don't really think I could buy anything in a place like this. I don't get my allowance until Friday, and-" He looked doubtfully at the glass display cases again.
"Well, you don't look like you've got all your stock in yet."
Gaunt smiled. His teeth were crooked, and they looked rather yellow in the dim light, but Brian found the smile entirely charming just the same. Once more he found himself almost forced to answer it.
"No," Leland Gaunt said, "no, I don't. The majority of my stock, as you put it-will arrive later this evening. But I still have a few interesting items. Take a look around, young Mr. Rusk. I'd love to have your opinion, if nothing else... and I imagine you have a mother, don't you? Of course you do. A fine young man like yourself is certainly no orphan. Am I right?"
Brian nodded, still smiling. "Sure. Ma's home right now." An idea struck him. "Would you like me to bring her down?" But the moment the proposal was out of his mouth, he was sorry. He didn't want to bring his mother down. Tomorrow, Mr. Leland Gaunt would belong to the whole town. Tomorrow, his Ma and Myra Evans would start pawing him over, along with all the other ladies in Castle Rock. Brian supposed that Mr. Gaunt would have ceased to seem so strange and different by the end of the month, heck, maybe even by the end of the week, but right now he still was, right now he belonged to Brian Rusk and Brian Rusk alone, and Brian wanted to keep it that way.