They separated. Hank went to the back door, his heart thudding heavily in his chest. He had to fumble twice to thread the locking arm through the hasp. This close to the house, the smell of age and wood rot was palpable. All those stories about Hubie Marsten that they had laughed about as kids began to recur, and the chant they had chased the girls with: Watch out, watch out, watch out! Hubie'll get you if you don't. watch . . . OUT -
'Hank?'
He drew in breath sharply, and the other lock dropped out of his hands. He picked it up. 'You oughtta know better than to creep up on a person like that, Did you . . . ?'
'Yeah. Hank, who's gonna go down in that cellar again and put the key ring on the table?'
'I dunno,' Hank Peters said. 'I dunno.'
'Think we better flip for it?'
'Yeah, I guess that's best.'
Royal took out a quarter. 'Call it in the air.' He flicked it.
'Heads.'
Royal caught it, slapped it on his forearm, and exposed it. The eagle gleamed at them dully.
'Jesus,' Hank said miserably. But he took the key ring and the flashlight and opened the bulkhead doors again.
He forced his legs to carry him down the steps, and when he had cleared the roof overhang he shone his light across the visible cellar, which took an L-turn thirty feet further up and went off God knew where. The flashlight beam picked out the table, with a dusty checked tablecloth on it. A rat sat on the table, a huge one, and it did not move when the beam of light struck it. It sat up on its plump haunches and almost seemed to grin.
He walked past the box toward the table. 'Hsst! Rat!'
The rat jumped down and trotted off toward the elbow?-bend further up. Hank's hand was trembling now, and the flashlight beam slipped jerkily from place to place, now picking out a dusty barrel, now a decades-old bureau that had been loaded down here, now a stack of old newspapers, now -
He jerked the flashlight beam back toward the news?papers and sucked in breath as the light fell on something to the left side of them.
A shirt . . . was that a shirt? Bundled up like an old rag. Something behind it that might have been blue jeans. And something that looked like . . .
Something snapped behind him.
He panicked, threw the keys wildly on the table, and turned away, shambling into a run. As he passed the box, he saw what had made the noise. One of the aluminum bands had let go, and now pointed jaggedly toward the low roof, like a finger.
He stumbled up the stairs, slammed the bulkhead behind him (his whole body had crawled into goose flesh; he would not be aware of it until later), snapped the lock on the catch, and ran to the cab of the truck. He was breathing in small, whistling gasps like a hurt dog. He dimly heard Royal asking him what had happened, what was going on down there, and then he threw the truck into drive and screamed out, roaring around the corner of the house on two wheels, digging at the soft earth. He did not slow down until the truck was back on the Brooks Road, speed?ing toward Lawrence Crockett's office in town. And then he began to shake so badly he was afraid he would have to pull over.
'What was down there?' Royal asked. 'What did you see?'
'Nothin',' Hank Peters said, and the word came out in sections divided by his clicking teeth. 'I didn't see nothin' and I never want to see it again.'
6
Larry Crockett was getting ready to shut up shop and go home when there was a perfunctory tap on the door and Hank Peters stepped back in. He still looked scared.
'Forget somethin', Hank?' Larry asked. When they had come back from the Marsten House, both looking like somebody had given their nuts a healthy tweak, he had given them each an extra ten dollars and two six-packs of Black Label and had allowed as how maybe it would be best if none of them said too much about the evening's outing.
'I got to tell you,' Hank said now. 'I can't help it, Larry. I got to.'
'Sure you do,' Larry said. He opened the bottom desk drawer, took out a bottle of Johnnie Walker, and poured them each a knock in a couple of Dixie cups. 'What's on your mind?'
Hank took a mouthful, grimaced, and swallowed it.
'When I took those keys down to put 'em on the table, I seen something. Clothes, it looked like. A shirt and maybe some dungarees. And a sneaker. I think it was a sneaker, Larry.'
Larry shrugged and smiled. 'So?' It seemed to him that a large lump of ice was resting in his chest.
'That little Glick boy was wearin' jeans. That's what it said in the Ledger. Jeans and a red pull-over shirt and sneaks. Larry, what if - '
Larry kept smiling. The smile felt frozen on.
Hank gulped convulsively. 'What if those guys that bought the Marsten House and that store blew up the Glick kid?' There. It was out. He swallowed the rest of the liquid fire in his cup.
Smiling, Larry said, 'Maybe you saw a body, too.'
'No - no. But - '
'That'd be a matter for the police,' Larry Crockett said. He refilled Hank's cup and his hand didn't tremble at all. It was as cold and steady as a rock in a frozen brook. 'And I'd drive you right down to see Parkins. But something like this . . .' He shook his head. 'A lot of nastiness can come up. Things like you and that waitress out to Dell's . . . her name's Jackie, ain't it?'
'What the hell are you talking about?' His face had gone deadly pale.
'And they'd sure as shit find out about that dishonorable discharge of yours. But you do your duty, Hank. Do it as you see it.'
'I didn't see no body,' Hank whispered.
'That's good,' Larry said, smiling. 'And maybe you didn't see any clothes, either. Maybe they were just . . . rags.'
'Rags,' Hank Peters said hollowly.
'Sure, you know those old places. All kinds of junk in em. Maybe you saw some old shirt or something that was torn up for a cleaning rag.'
'Sure,' Hank said. He drained his glass a second time. 'You got a good way of looking at things, Larry.'
Crockett took his wallet out of his back pocket, opened it, and counted five ten-dollar bills out on the desk.
'What's that for?'
'Forgot all about paying you for that Brennan job last month. You should prod me about those things, Hank. You know how I forget things.'
'But you did - '
'Why,' Larry interrupted, smiling, 'you could be sitting right here and telling me something, and I wouldn't re?member a thing about it tomorrow morning. Ain't that a pitiful way to be?'
'Yeah,' Hank whispered. His hand reached out trem?bling and took the bills; stuffed them into the breast pocket of his denim jacket as if anxious to be rid of the touch of them. He got up with such jerky hurriedness that he almost knocked his chair over. 'Listen, I got to go, Larry. I . . . I didn't . . . I got to go.'
'Take the bottle,' Larry invited, but Hank was already going out the door. He didn't pause.
Larry sat back down. He poured himself another drink. His hand still did not tremble. He did not go on shutting up shop. He had another drink, and then another. He thought about deals with the devil. And at last his phone rang. He picked it up. Listened.
'It's taken care of,' Larry Crockett said.
He listened. He hung up. He poured himself another drink.
7
Hank Peters woke up in the early hours of the next morning from a dream of huge rats crawling out of an open grave, a grave which held the green and rotting body of Hubie Marsten, with a frayed length of manila hemp around his neck. Peters Jay propped on his elbows, breathing heavily, naked torso slicked with sweat, and when his wife touched his arm he screamed aloud.
8
Milt Crossen's Agricultural Store was located in the angle formed by the intersection of Jointner Avenue and Rail?road Street, and most of the town's old codgers went there when it rained and the park was uninhabitable. During the long winters, they were a day-by-day fixture.
When Straker drove up in that '39 Packard - or was it a '40? - it was just misting gently, and Milt and Pat Middler were having a desultory conversation about whether Freddy Overlock's girl Judy run off in 1957 or '58. They both agree that she had run off with that Saladmaster salesman from Yarmouth, and they both agreed that he hadn't been worth a pisshole in the snow, nor was she, but beyond that they couldn't get together.
All conversation ceased when Straker walked in.
He looked around at them - Milt and Pat Middler and Joe Crane and Vinnie Upshaw and Clyde Corliss - and smiled humorlessly. 'Good afternoon, gentlemen,' he said.
Milt Crossen stood up, pulling his apron around him almost primly. 'Help you?'
'Very good,' Straker said. 'Attend over at this meat case, please.'
He bought a roast of beef, a dozen prime ribs, some hamburger, and a pound of calves' liver. To this he added some dry goods - flour, sugar, beans - and several loaves of ready-made bread.
His shopping took place in utter silence. The store's babitu6s sat around the large Pearl Kineo stove that Milt's father had converted to range oil, smoked, looked wisely out at the sky, and observed the stranger from the corners of their eyes.
When Milt had finished packing the goods into a large cardboard carton, Straker paid with hard cash - a twenty and a ten. He picked up the carton, tucked it under one arm, and flashed that hard, humorless smile at them again.
'Good day, gentlemen,' he said, and left.
Joe Crane tamped a load of Planter's into his corncob. Clyde Corliss hawked back and spat a mass of phlegm and chewing tobacco into the dented pail beside the stove. Vinnie Upshaw produced his old Top cigarette roller from inside his vest, spilled a line of tobacco into it, and inserted a cigarette paper with arthritis-swelled fingers.
They watched the stranger lift the carton into the trunk. All of them knew that the carton must have weighed thirty pounds with the dry goods, and they had all seen him tuck it under his arm like a feather pillow going out. He went around to the driver's side, got in, and drove off up Jointner Avenue. The car went up the hill, turned left onto the Brooks Road, disappeared, and reappeared from behind the screen of trees a few moments later, now toy-sized with distance. It turned into the Marsten driveway and was lost from sight.
'Peculiar fella,' Vinnie said. He stuck his cigarette in his mouth, plucked a few bits of tobacco from the end of it, and took a kitchen match from his vest pocket.
'Must be one of the ones got that store,' Joe Crane said.
'Marsten House, too,' Vinnie agreed.
Clyde Corliss broke wind.
Pat Middler picked at a callus on his left palm with great interest.
Five minutes passed.
'Do you suppose they'll make a go of it?' Clyde asked no one in particular.
'Might,' Vinnie said. 'They might show up right pert in the summertime. Hard to tell the way things are these days.'
A general murmur, sigh almost, of agreement.
'Strong fella,' Joe said.
'Ayuh,' Vinnie said. 'That was a thirty-nine Packard, and not a spot of rust on her.'
"Twas a forty,' Clyde said.
'The forty didn't have runnin' boards,' Vinnie said. "Twas a thirty-nine.'
'You're wrong on that one,' Clyde said.
Five minutes passed. They saw Milt was examining the twenty Straker had paid with.
'That funny money, Milt?' Pat asked. 'That fella give you some funny money?'
'No; but look.' Milt passed it across the counter and they all stared at it. It was much bigger than an ordinary bill.
Pat held it up to the light, examined it, then turned it over. 'That's a series E twenty, ain't it, Milt?'
'Yep,' Milt said. 'They stopped makin' those forty-five or fifty years back. My guess is that'd be worth some money down to Arcade Coin in Portland.'
Pat handed the bill around and each examined it, holding it up close or far off depending on the flaws in their eyesight. Joe Crane handed it back, and Milt put it under the cash drawer with the personal checks and the coupons.
'Sure is a funny fella,' Clyde mused.
'Ayuh,' Vinnie said, and paused. 'That was a thirty-nine, though. My half brother Vic had one. Was the first car he ever owned. Bought it used, he did, in 1944. Left the oil out of her one mornin' and burned the goddamn pistons right out of her.'
'I believe it was a forty,' Clyde said,' because I remember a fella that used to cane chairs down by Alfred, come right to your house he would, and - '
And so the argument was begun, progressing more in the silences than in the speeches, like a chess game p aye by mail. And the day seemed to stand still and stretch into eternity for them, and Vinnie Upshaw began to make another cigarette with sweet, arthritic slowness.