They kept up their exchange of threats and vilification as Grimm dragged Ganger toward the door and nearly backed into Deputy Haws who stood there with one hand on the door and the other on his weapon.
The Ganger boy took one look at the deputy and must have thought he was about to get shot because every last drop of color drained from his face in about one-hundredth of a second and his eyes rolled back into his head and he fainted dead away. I turned around to locate the source of the wet, retching sound behind me and saw Tom Culler emptying his stomach all over the counter.
Deputy Haws said he'd take it from there and dragged the Ganger boy off and Jed Grimm helped load the body into Haws' police car. Then Haws drove off for the Sheriff's office, grinning like the cat that swallowed the canary.
All in all I'm not sure what I learned about Anderson's collective attitude toward John Duffy's return from the nether world, but I did have a hell of an exciting Saturday morning.
I don't think Merle Tippert ever got his syrup.
Brant read through the words on the computer screen and was generally pleased. He had to find a more original metaphor than "the cat that swallowed the canary" but other than that, it was a pretty fair first draft.
He was ready, now, to go have a few words with John Duffy.
***
Madge was certain that something awful was about to happen to her.
She couldn't put her finger on why, but the premonition was there, like when she felt...just felt before anyone in town had the slightest reason to suspect it...that the Mathewson girl was going to run off with Bobby Speers.
"I just had a feeling," Madge would say when others asked her how she'd known that Elaine Mathewson would throw over her steady boyfriend, Herman Johnson, and ride off with Bobby in his red Mustang convertible to Las Vegas. "I guess you could call it a 'premonition' if you wanted to."
Madge had another premonition now.
John had been sober and industrious since his rise, but it made Madge uneasy, like when Jimmy Swaggert cried on television. It wasn't natural. Not that she wanted the old John back, not by a long shot, but deep down she wasn't so sure he was gone. People don't change like that overnight.
He'd said that they had work to do, but he didn't say what it was. He'd busied himself around the house, fixing dripping faucets and the like, but surely that wasn't what he meant. The way he'd said it made it sound more like some kind of mission, but John hadn't breathed a word about anything like that. She wondered what he was waiting for.
It was the waiting and the not knowing that made her nervous. That, and the voice in the back of her head that kept whispering its warning in her ear. She was feeling the premonition as a coldness in her veins when Brant Kettering drove up and tooted his horn.
The toot was a kind of courtesy in Anderson, extended by visitors who hadn't phoned before dropping in. It gave you time to button your pants or get your hands out of the dish water before you had to respond to the knock on the door, and if you didn't want to be home to visitors, it let you quiet down and make yourself invisible until they left.
Madge had often had reason to take advantage of the toot. When she had a bruise she didn't want anyone to see or her eyes were swollen from crying, she'd hear the toot and move quickly to switch off the radio she was listening to and hide in the pantry. They couldn't see her, then, even if they peeked in the windows, but she couldn't see out either and had to stand very quietly so she could hear when the car drove away. One day she'd seen Bernice Tompkins walking her way with a basket of kittens and Madge had a black eye and hid in the pantry and she'd stayed there for forty-five minutes, imagining Bernice circling the house and peering like a spy through every window.
Hiding was Madge's impulse now, but she couldn't say why.
John was working on the back porch banister that'd been wiggly as long as Madge
The Ganger boy took one look at the deputy and must have thought he was about to get shot because every last drop of color drained from his face in about one-hundredth of a second and his eyes rolled back into his head and he fainted dead away. I turned around to locate the source of the wet, retching sound behind me and saw Tom Culler emptying his stomach all over the counter.
Deputy Haws said he'd take it from there and dragged the Ganger boy off and Jed Grimm helped load the body into Haws' police car. Then Haws drove off for the Sheriff's office, grinning like the cat that swallowed the canary.
All in all I'm not sure what I learned about Anderson's collective attitude toward John Duffy's return from the nether world, but I did have a hell of an exciting Saturday morning.
I don't think Merle Tippert ever got his syrup.
Brant read through the words on the computer screen and was generally pleased. He had to find a more original metaphor than "the cat that swallowed the canary" but other than that, it was a pretty fair first draft.
He was ready, now, to go have a few words with John Duffy.
***
Madge was certain that something awful was about to happen to her.
She couldn't put her finger on why, but the premonition was there, like when she felt...just felt before anyone in town had the slightest reason to suspect it...that the Mathewson girl was going to run off with Bobby Speers.
"I just had a feeling," Madge would say when others asked her how she'd known that Elaine Mathewson would throw over her steady boyfriend, Herman Johnson, and ride off with Bobby in his red Mustang convertible to Las Vegas. "I guess you could call it a 'premonition' if you wanted to."
Madge had another premonition now.
John had been sober and industrious since his rise, but it made Madge uneasy, like when Jimmy Swaggert cried on television. It wasn't natural. Not that she wanted the old John back, not by a long shot, but deep down she wasn't so sure he was gone. People don't change like that overnight.
He'd said that they had work to do, but he didn't say what it was. He'd busied himself around the house, fixing dripping faucets and the like, but surely that wasn't what he meant. The way he'd said it made it sound more like some kind of mission, but John hadn't breathed a word about anything like that. She wondered what he was waiting for.
It was the waiting and the not knowing that made her nervous. That, and the voice in the back of her head that kept whispering its warning in her ear. She was feeling the premonition as a coldness in her veins when Brant Kettering drove up and tooted his horn.
The toot was a kind of courtesy in Anderson, extended by visitors who hadn't phoned before dropping in. It gave you time to button your pants or get your hands out of the dish water before you had to respond to the knock on the door, and if you didn't want to be home to visitors, it let you quiet down and make yourself invisible until they left.
Madge had often had reason to take advantage of the toot. When she had a bruise she didn't want anyone to see or her eyes were swollen from crying, she'd hear the toot and move quickly to switch off the radio she was listening to and hide in the pantry. They couldn't see her, then, even if they peeked in the windows, but she couldn't see out either and had to stand very quietly so she could hear when the car drove away. One day she'd seen Bernice Tompkins walking her way with a basket of kittens and Madge had a black eye and hid in the pantry and she'd stayed there for forty-five minutes, imagining Bernice circling the house and peering like a spy through every window.
Hiding was Madge's impulse now, but she couldn't say why.
John was working on the back porch banister that'd been wiggly as long as Madge
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