"Thanks," he said, and stowed the folding bouquet under his watchband for the last time. "If you don't want flowers, how about a quarter for the Coke machine?"
Alan leaned forward and casually plucked a quarter from Sean's nose. The boy grinned.
"Whoops, I forgot-it takes seventy-five cents these days, doesn't it? Inflation. Well, no problem." He pulled a coin from Sean's mouth and discovered a third one in his own ear. By then Sean's smile had faded a little and Alan knew that he had better get down to business quickly. He stacked the three quarters on the low dresser beside the bed. "For when you feel better," he said.
"Thanks, mister."
"You're welcome, Sean."
"Where's my daddy?" Sean asked. His voice was marginally stronger now.
The question struck Alan as odd.
He would have expected Sean to ask first for his mother. The boy was, after all, only seven. "He'll be here soon, Sean."
"I hope so. I want him."
"I know you do." Alan paused and said, "Your mommy will be here soon, too." Sean thought about this, then shook his head slowly and deliberately. The pillowcase made little rustling noises as he did it. "No she won't. She's too busy."
"Too busy to come and see you?" Alan asked. "Yes. She's very busy. Mommy's visiting with The King. That's why I can't go in her room anymore. She shuts the door and puts on her sunglasses and visits with The King."
10
Alan saw Mrs. Rusk responding to the State Police who were questioning her. Her voice slow and disconnected. A pair of sunglasses on the table beside her. She couldn't seem to leave them alone; one hand toyed with them almost constantly. She would draw it back, as if afraid someone would notice, and then, after only a few seconds, her hand would return to them agal'n, seemingly on its own.
At the time he had thought she was either suffering from shock or under the influence of a tranquilizer. Now he wondered. He also wondered if he should ask Sean about Brian or pursue this new avenue. Or were they both the same avenue? "You're not really a magician," Sean said. "You're a policeman, aren't you?"
"Uh-huh."
"Are you a State Policeman with a blue car that goes really fast?"
"No-I'm County Sheriff. Usually I have a brown car with a star on the side, and it does go pretty fast, but tonight I'm driving my old station wagon that I keep forgetting to trade in." Alan grinned. "It goes really slow."
This sparked some interest. "Why aren't you driving your brown policeman car?"
So I wouldn't spook Jill Mislaburski or your brother, Alan thought. I don't know about Jill, but I guess it didn't work so well with Brian.
"I really don't remember," he said. "It's been a long day."
"Are you a Sheriff like in Young Guns?"
"Uh-huh. I guess so. Sort of like that."
"Me and Brian rented that movie and watched it. It was most totally awesome. We wanted to go see Young Guns II when it was at The Magic Lantern in Bridgton last summer but my mom wouldn't let us because it was an R-picture. We ain't allowed to see R-pictures, except sometimes our dad lets us watch them at home on the VCR. Me and Brian really liked Young Guns." Sean paused, and his eyes darkened.
"But that was before Brian got the card."
"What card?" For the first time, a real emotion appeared in Sean's eyes. It was terror. "The baseball card. The great special baseball card."
"Oh?" Alan thought of the Playmate cooler and the baseball cards-traders, Brian had called them-inside. "Brian liked baseball cards, didn't he, Sean?"
"Yes. That was how he got him. I think he must use different things to get different people."
Alan leaned forward. "Who, Sean? Who got him?"
"Brian killed himself I saw him do it. It was in the garage."
"I know. I'm sorry."
"Gross stuff came out of the back of his head. Not just blood.
Stu It was yellow."
Alan could think of nothing to say. His heart was pounding slowly and heavily in his chest, his mouth was as dry as a desert, and he felt sick to his stomach. His son's name clanged in his mind like a funeral bell rung by idiot hands in the middle of the night.
"I wished he didn't," Sean said. His voice was strangely matterof-fact, but now a tear rose in each of his eyes, grew, and spilled down his smooth cheeks. "We won't get to see Young Guns II together when they put it out for VCRS. I'll have to watch it by myself, and it won't be any fun without Brian making all his stupid jokes. I know it won't."
"You loved your brother, didn't you?" Alan said hoarsely. He reached through the hospital bars. Sean Rusk's hand crept into his and then closed tightly upon it. It was hot. And small. Very small.
"Yeah. Brian wanted to pitch for the Red Sox when he grew up. He said he was gonna learn to throw a dead-fish curve, just like Mike Boddicker. Now he never will. He told me not to come any closer or I'd get the mess on me. I cried. I was scared. It wasn't like a movie. It was just our garage."
"I know," Alan said. He remembered Annie's car. The shattered windows. The blood on the seats in big black puddles. That hadn't been like a movie, either. Alan began to cry. "I know, son."
"He asked me to promise, and I did, and I'm going to keep it.
I'll keep that promise all my life."
"What did you promise, son?"
Alan swiped at his face with his free hand, but the tears would not stop. The boy lay before him, his skin almost as white as the pillowcase on which his head rested; the boy had seen his brother commit suicide, had seen the brains hit the garage wall like a fresh wad of snot, and where was his mother? Visiting with The King, he had said. She shuts the door and puts on her sunglasses and visits with The King.
"What did you promise, son?"
"I tried to swear it on Mommy's name, but Brian wouldn't let me.
He said I had to swear on my own name. Because he got her, too. Brian said he gets everyone who swears on anyone else's name.
So I swore on my own name like he wanted, but Brian made the gun go bang anyway." Sean was crying harder now, but he looked earnestly up at Alan through his tears. "It wasn't just blood, Mr.
Sheriff. It was other stuff. Yellow stuff."
Alan squeezed his hand. "I know, Sean. What did your brother want you to promise?"
"Maybe Brian won't go to heaven if I tell."
"Yes he will. I promise. And I'm a Sheriff."
"Do Sheriffs ever break their promises?"
"They never break them when they're made to little kids in the hospital," Alan said. "Sheriffs can't break their promises to kids like that."
"Do they go to hell if they do?"
"Yes," Alan said. "That's right. They go to hell if they do."
"Do you swear Brian will go to heaven even if I tell? Do you swear on your very own name?"
"On my very own name," Alan said.
"Okay," Sean said. "He made me promise I would never go to the new store where he got the great special baseball card. He thought Sandy Koufax was on that card, but that wasn't who it was. it was some other player. It was old and dirty, but I don't think Brian knew that." Sean paused a moment, thinking, and then went on in his eerily calm voice. "He came home one day with mud on his hands.
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?