“You ort to burn in H!E!L!L! for your slimey skeems to bilk this American Republic,” a typical one read. It had been written on a crumpled sheet of Ramada Inn stationery and was postmarked York, Pennsylvania. “You are nothing but a Con Artist and a dirty rotten cheet. I bless God for that paper that saw thru you. You ort to be ashamed of yourself Sir. The Bible says an ordinary sinner will be cast into the Lake OF F!I!R!E! and be consomed but a F!A!U!L!S!E P!R!O!F!I!T shall burn forever and EVER! Thats you a False Profit who sold your Immortal Soul for a few cheep bucks. So thats the end of my letter and I hope for your sake I never catch you out on the Streets of your Home Town. Signed, A FRIEND (of God not you Sir)!”
Over two dozen letters in this approximate vein came in during the course of about twenty days following the appearance of the Inside View story. Several enterprising souls expressed an interest in joining in with Johnny as partners. “I used to be a magician’s assistant,” one of these latter missives bragged, “and I could trick an old whore out of her g-string. If you’re planning a mentalist gig, you need me in!”
Then the letters dried up, as had the earlier influx of boxes and packages. On a day in late November when he had checked the mailbox and found it empty for the third afternoon in a row, Johnny walked back to the house remembering that Andy Warhol had predicted that a day would come when everyone in America would be famous for fifteen minutes. Apparently his fifteen minutes had come and gone, and no one was any more pleased about it than he was.
But as things turned out, it wasn’t over yet.
4
“Smith?” The telephone voice asked. “John Smith?”
“Yes.” It wasn’t a voice he knew, or a wrong number. That made it something of a puzzle since his father had had the phone unlisted about three months ago. This was December 17, and their tree stood in the corner of the living room, its base firmly wedged into the old tree stand Herb had made when Johnny was just a kid. Outside it was snowing.
“My name is Bannerman. Sheriff George Bannerman, from Castle Rock.” He cleared his throat. “I’ve got a ... well, I suppose you’d say I’ve got a proposal for you.”
“How did you get this number?”
Bannerman cleared his throat again. “Well, I could have gotten it from the phone company, I suppose, it being police business. But actually I got it from a friend of yours. Doctor by the name of Weizak.”
“Sam Weizak gave you my number?”
“That’s right.”
Johnny sat down in the phone nook, utterly perplexed. Now the name Bannerman meant something to him. He had come across the name in a Sunday supplement article only recently. He was the sheriff of Castle County, which was considerably west of Pownal, in the Lakes region. Castle Rock was the county seat, about thirty miles from Norway and twenty from Bridgton.
“Police business?” he repeated.
“Well, I guess you’d say so, ayuh. I was wondering if maybe the two of us could get together for a cup of coffee ...”
“It involves Sam?”
“No. Dr. Weizak has nothing to do with it,” Bannerman said. “He gave me a call and mentioned your name. That was ... oh, a month ago, at least. To be frank, I thought he was nuts. But now we’re just about at our wits’ end.”
“About what? Mr.—Sheriff—Bannerman, I don’t understand what you’re talking about.”
“It’d really be a lot better if we could get together for coffee,” Bannerman said. “Maybe this evening? There’s a place called Jon’s on the main drag in Bridgton. Sort of halfway between your town and mine.”
“No, I’m sorry,” Johnny said. “I’d have to know what it was about. And how come Sam never called me?”
Bannerman sighed. “I guess you’re a man who doesn’t read the papers,” he said.
But that wasn’t true. He had read the papers compulsively since he had regained consciousness, trying to pick up on the things he had missed. And he had seen Bannerman’s name just recently. Sure. Because Bannerman was on a pretty hot seat. He was the man in charge of—
Johnny held the phone away from his ear and looked at it with sudden understanding. He looked at it the way a man might look at a snake he has just realized is poisonous.