The Dead Zone (44 page)

“I don't want anything.” Sonny Elliman said. “It's all a matter of what you want.”

“I don't understand what you're talking about.” But he was terribly afraid that he did.

“That story in the New Hampshire
Journal
about funny real estate deals,” Sonny said. “You surely did have a lot to say, Mr. Richardson, didn't you? Especially about . . . certain people.”

“I . . .”

“That stuff about the Capital Mall, for instance. Hinting around about kickbacks and payoffs and one hand washing the other. All that
horseshit.”
The fingers tightened on Richardson's neck again, and this time he did moan. But he hadn't been identified in the story, he had just been “an informed source.” How had they known? How had
Greg Stillson
known?

The man behind him began to speak rapidly into Warren Richardson's ear now, his breath warm and ticklish.

“You could get certain people into trouble talking horseshit like that, Mr. Richardson, you know it? People running for public office, let's say. Running for office, it's like playing bridge, you dig it? You're vulnerable. People can sling mud and it sticks, especially these days. Now, there's no trouble yet. I'm happy to tell you that, because if there
was
trouble, you might be sitting here picking your teeth out of your nose instead of having a nice little talk with me.”

In spite of his pounding heart, in spite of his fear, Richardson said: “This . . . this person . . . young man, you're crazy if you think you can protect him. He's played it as fast and loose as a snake-oil salesman in a southern town. Sooner or later . . .”

A thumb slammed into his ear, grinding. The pain was immense, unbelievable. Richardson's head slammed into his window and he cried out. Blindly, he groped for the horn ring.

“You blow that horn, I'll kill you,” the voice whispered.

Richardson let his hands drop. The thumb eased up.

“You ought to use Q-tips in there, man,” the voice said. “I got wax all over my thumb. Pretty gross.”

Warren Richardson began to cry weakly. He was powerless to stop himself. Tears coursed down his fat cheeks. “Please don't hurt me anymore,” he said. “Please don't. Please.”

“It's like I said,” Sonny told him. “It's all a matter of what you want. Your job isn't to worry what someone else might
say about these . . . these certain people. Your job is to watch what comes out of your own mouth. Your job is to think before you talk the next time that guy from the
Journal
comes around. You might think about how easy it is to find out who ‘an informed source' is. Or you might think about what a bummer it would be if your house burned down. Or you might think about how you'd pay for plastic surgery if someone threw some battery acid in your wife's face.”

The man behind Richardson was panting now. He sounded like an animal in a jungle.

“Or you might think, you know, dig it, how easy it would be for someone to come along and pick up your son on his way home from kindergarten.”

“Don't you say that!” Richardson cried hoarsely. “Don't you say that, you slimy bastard!”

“All I'm saying is that you want to think about what you want,” Sonny said. “An election, it's an all-American thing, you know? Especially in a Bicentennial year. Everyone should have a good time. No one has a good time if dumb fucks like you start telling a lot of lies. Numb
jealous
fucks like you.”

The hand went away altogether. The rear door opened. Oh thank God, thank God.

“You just want to think,” Sonny Elliman repeated. “Now do we have an understanding?”

“Yes,” Richardson whispered. “But if you think Gr . . . a certain person can be elected using these tactics, you're badly mistaken.”

“No,” Sonny said. “You're the one who's mistaken. Because everyone's having a good time. Make sure that you're not left out.”

Richardson didn't answer. He sat rigid behind the steering wheel, his neck throbbing, staring at the clock on the Town Office Building as if it were the only sane thing left in his life. It was now almost five of five. The pork chops would be in by now.

The man in the back seat said one more thing and then he was gone, striding away rapidly, his long hair swinging against the collar of his shirt, not looking back. He went around the corner of the building and out of sight.

The last thing he had said to Warren Richardson was: “Q-Tips.”

Richardson began to shake all over and it was a long time before he could drive. His first clear feeling was
anger—terrible anger. The impulse that came with it was to drive directly to the Capital City police department (housed in the building below the clock) and report what had happened—the threats on his wife and son, the physical abuse—and on whose behalf it had been done.

You might think about how you'd pay for plastic surgery . . . or how easy it would be for someone to come along and pick up your son . . .

But why? Why take the chance? What he had said to that thug was just the plain, unvarnished truth. Everyone in southern New Hampshire real estate knew that Stillson had been running a shell game, reaping short-term profits that would land him in jail, not sooner or later, but sooner or even sooner. His campaign was an exercise in idiocy. And now strong-arm tactics! No one could get away with that for long in America—and especially not in New England.

But let someone else blow the whistle.

Someone with less to lose.

Warren Richardson started his car and went home to his pork chops and said nothing at all. Someone else would surely put a stop to it.

On a day not long after Chuck's first breakthrough, Johnny Smith stood in the bathroom of the guest house, running his Norelco over his cheeks. Looking at himself closeup in a mirror always gave him a weird feeling these days, as if he were looking at an older brother instead of himself. Deep horizontal lines had grooved themselves across his forehead. Two more bracketed his mouth. Strangest of all, there was that streak of white, and the rest of his hair was beginning to go gray. It seemed to have started almost overnight.

He snapped off the razor and went out into the combination kitchen-living room. Lap of luxury, he thought, and smiled a little. Smiling was starting to feel natural again. He turned on
the TV, got a Pepsi out of the fridge, and settled down to watch the news. Roger Chatsworth was due back later in the evening, and tomorrow Johnny would have the distinct pleasure of telling him that his son was beginning to make real progress.

Johnny had been up to see his own father every two weeks or so. He was pleased with Johnny's new job and listened with keen interest as Johnny told him about the Chatsworths, the house in the pleasant college town of Durham, and Chuck's problems. Johnny, in turn, listened as his father told him about the gratis work he was doing at Charlene MacKenzie's house in neighboring New Gloucester.

“Her husband was a helluva doctor but not much of a handyman,” Herb said. Charlene and Vera had been friends before Vera's deepening involvement in the stranger offshoots of fundamentalism. That had separated them. Her husband, a GP, had died of a heart attack in 1973. “Place was practically falling down around that woman's ears,” Herb said. “Least I could do. I go up on Saturdays and she gives me a dinner before I come back home. I have to tell the truth, Johnny, she cooks better than you do.”

“Looks better, too,” Johnny said blandly.

“Sure, she's a fine-looking woman, but it's nothing like
that,
Johnny. Your mother not even in her grave a year . . .”

But Johnny suspected that maybe it
was
something like that, and secretly couldn't have been more pleased. He didn't fancy the idea of his father growing old alone.

On the television, Walter Cronkite was serving up the evening's political news. Now, with the primary season over and the conventions only weeks away, it appeared that Jimmy Carter had the Democratic nomination sewed up. It was Ford who was in a scrap for his political life with Ronald Reagan, the ex-governor of California and ex-host of “GE Theater.” It was close enough to have the reporters counting individual delegates, and in one of her infrequent letters Sarah Hazlett had written: “Walt's got his fingers (and toes!) crossed that Ford gets it. As a candidate for state senate up here, he's already thinking about coattails. And he says that, in Maine at least, Reagan hasn't any.”

While he was short-order cooking in Kittery, Johnny had gotten into the habit of going down to Dover or Portsmouth or any number of smaller surrounding towns in New Hampshire a couple of times a week. All of the candidates for
president were in and out, and it was a unique opportunity to see those who were running closeup and without the nearly regal trappings of authority that might later surround any one of them. It became something of a hobby, although of necessity a short-lived one; when New Hampshire's first-in-the-nation primary was over, the candidates would move on to Florida without a glance back. And of course a few of their number would bury their political ambitions somewhere between Portsmouth and Keene. Never a political creature before—except during the Vietnam era—Johnny became an avid politician-watcher in the healing aftermath of the Castle Rock business—and his own particular talent, affliction, whatever it was, played a part in that, too.

He shook hands with Morris Udall and Henry Jackson. Fred Harris clapped him on the back. Ronald Reagan gave him a quick and practiced politico's double-pump and said, “Get out to the polls and help us if you can.” Johnny had nodded agreeably enough, seeing no point in disabusing Mr. Reagan of his notion that he was a bona fide New Hampshire voter.

He had chatted with Sarge Shriver just inside the main entrance to the monstrous Newington Mall for nearly fifteen minutes. Shriver, his hair freshly cut and smelling of aftershave and perhaps desperation, was accompanied by a single aide with his pockets stuffed full of leaflets, and a Secret Service man who kept scratching furtively at his acne. Shriver had seemed inordinately pleased to be recognized. A minute or two before Johnny said good-bye, a candidate in search of some local office had approached Shriver and asked him to sign his nominating papers. Shriver had smiled gently.

Johnny had sensed things about all of them, but little of a specific nature. It was as if they had made the act of touching such a ritual thing that their true selves were buried beneath a layer of tough, clear lucite. Although he saw most of them—with the exception of President Ford—Johnny had felt only once that sudden, electrifying snap of knowledge that he associated with Eileen Magown—and, in an entirely different way, with Frank Dodd.

It was a quarter of seven in the morning. Johnny had driven down to Manchester in his old Plymouth. He had worked from ten the evening before until six this morning. He was tired, but the quiet winter dawn had been too good to sleep
through. And he liked Manchester, Manchester with its narrow streets and timeworn brick buildings, the gothic textile mills strung along the river like mid-Victorian beads. He had not been consciously politician-hunting that morning; he thought he would cruise the streets for a while, until they began to get crowded, until the cold and silent spell of February was broken, then go back to Kittery and catch some sacktime.

He turned a corner and there had been three nondescript sedans pulled up in front of a shoe factory in a no-parking zone. Standing by the gate in the cyclone fencing was Jimmy Carter, shaking hands with the men and women going on shift. They were carrying lunch buckets or paper sacks, breathing out white clouds, bundled into heavy coats, their faces still asleep. Carter had a word for each of them. His grin, then not so publicized as it became later, was tireless and fresh. His nose was red with the cold.

Johnny parked half a block down and walked toward the factory gate, his shoes crunching and squeaking on the packed snow. The Secret Service agent with Carter sized him up quickly and then dismissed him—or seemed to.

“I'll vote for anyone who's interested in cutting taxes,” a man in an old ski parka was saying. The parka had a constellation of what looked like battery-acid burns in one sleeve. “The goddam taxes are killing me, I kid you not.”

“Well, we're gonna see about that,” Carter said. “Lookin over the tax situation is gonna be one of our first priorities when I get into the White House.” There was a serene self-confidence in his voice that struck Johnny and made him a little uneasy.

Carter's eyes, bright and almost amazingly blue, shifted to Johnny. “Hi there,” he said.

“Hello, Mr. Carter,” Johnny said. “I don't work here. I was driving by and saw you.”

“Well I'm glad you stopped. I'm running for President.”

“I know.”

Carter put his hand out. Johnny shook it.

Carter began: “I hope you'll . . .” And broke off.

The flash came, a sudden, powerful zap that was like sticking his finger in an electric socket. Carter's eyes sharpened. He and Johnny looked at each other for what seemed a very long time.

The Secret Service guy didn't like it. He moved toward
Carter, and suddenly he was unbuttoning his coat. Somewhere behind them, a million miles behind them, the shoe factory's seven o'clock whistle blew its single long note into the crisp blue morning.

Johnny let go of Carter's hand, but still the two of them looked at each other.

“What the
hell
was that?” Carter asked, very softly.

“You've probably got someplace to go, don't you?” the Secret Service guy said suddenly. He put a hand on Johnny's shoulder. It was a very big hand. “Sure you do.”