Needful Things by Stephen King

Author:Stephen King
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, azw3
Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton Ltd
Published: 1991-01-01T07:00:00+00:00

and put up

CLOSED COLUMBUS DAY

in its place.

“Why’d you do that?” Ace felt like a man who has stumbled into a wire fence with a moderate electric charge running through it.

“It’s customary for shopkeepers to remove help-wanted signs when they have filled the vacant position,” Mr. Gaunt said, a little severely. “My business in Castle Rock has grown at a very satisfying rate, and I now find I need a strong back and an extra pair of hands. I tire so easily these days.”

“Hey, I don’t—”

“I also need a driver,” Mr. Gaunt said. “Driving is, I believe, your main skill. Your first job, Ace, will be to drive to Boston. I have an automobile parked in a garage there. It will amuse you—it’s a Tucker.”

“A Tucker?” For a moment Ace forgot that he hadn’t come to town to take a stockboy’s job ... or a chauffeur’s either, for that matter. “You mean like in that movie?”

“Not exactly,” Mr. Gaunt said. He walked behind the counter where his old-fashioned cash register stood, produced a key, and unlocked the drawer beneath. He took out two small envelopes. One of them he laid on the counter. The other he held out to Ace. “It’s been modified in some ways. Here. The keys.”

“Hey, now, wait a minute! I told you—”

Mr. Gaunt’s eyes were some strange color Ace could not quite pick up, but when they first darkened and then blazed out at him, Ace felt his knees grow watery again.

“You’re in a jam, Ace, but if you don’t stop behaving like an ostrich with its head stuck in the sand, I believe I am going to lose interest in helping you. Shop assistants are a dime a dozen. I know, believe me. I’ve hired hundreds of them over the years. Perhaps thousands. So stop fucking around and take the keys.”

Ace took the little envelope. As the tips of his fingers touched the tips of Mr. Gaunt’s, that dark, sheeting fire filled his head once more. He moaned.

“You’ll drive your car to the address I give you,” Mr. Gaunt said, “and park it in the space where mine is now stored. I’ll expect you back by midnight at the latest. I think it will actually be a good deal earlier than that.

“My car is much faster than it looks.”

He grinned, revealing all those teeth.

Ace tried again. “Listen, Mr.—”

“Gaunt.”

Ace nodded, his head bobbing up and down like the head of a marionette controlled by a novice puppet-master. “Under other circumstances, I’d take you up on it. You’re ... interesting.” It wasn’t the word he wanted, but it was the best one he could wrap his tongue around for the time being. “But you were right—I am in a jackpot, and if I don’t find a large chunk of cash in the next two weeks—”

“Well, what about the book?” Mr. Gaunt asked. His tone was both amused and reproving. “Isn’t that why you came in?”

“It isn’t what I—”

He discovered he was still holding it in his hand, and looked down at it again.

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