“I’m pretty sure. But I’d appreciate it if you never mentioned to Chuck that we talked this way. They’re his secrets I’m telling.” And that’s truer than you’ll ever know.
“All right. And Chuck and his mother and I will talk over the prep schonl idea. In the deantime, this is yours.” He took a plain white business envelope from his back pocket and passed it to Johnny.
“What is it?”
—Open it and see.”
Johnny opened it. Inside the envelope was a cashier’s check for five hundred dollars.
“Oh, hey ...! I can’t take this.”
“You can, and you will. I promised you a bonus if you could perform, and I keep my promises. There’ll be another when you leave.”
“Really, Mr. Chatsworth, I just . . .”
“Shh. I’ll tell you something, Johnny.” He leaned forward. He was smiling a peculiar little smile, and Johnny suddenly felt he could see beneath the pleasant exterior to the man who had made all of this happen—the house, the grounds, the pool, the mills. And, of course, his son’s reading phobia, which could probably be classified a hysterical neurosis.
“It’s been my experience that ninety-five percent of the people who walk the earth are simply inert, Johnny. One percent are saints, and one percent are assholes. The other three percent are the people who do what they say they can do. I’m in that three percent, and so are you. You earned that money. I’ve got people in the mills that take home eleven thousand dollars a year for doing little more than playing with their dicks. But I’m not bitching. I’m a man of the world, and all that means is I understand what powers the world. The fuel mix is one part high-octane to nine parts pure bullshit. You’re no bullshitter. So you put that money in your wallet and next time try to value yourself a little higher.”
“All right,” Johnny said. “I can put it to good use, I won’t lie to you about that.”
“Doctor bills?”
Johnny looked up at Roger Chatsworth, his eyes narrowed.
“I know all about you,” Roger said. “Did you think I wouldn’t check back on the guy I hired to tutor my son?”
“You know about ...”
“You’re supposed to be a psychic of some kind. You helped to solve a murder case in Maine. At least, that’s what the papers say. You had a teaching job lined up for last January, but they dropped you like a hot potato when your name got in the papers.”
“You knew? For how long?”
“I knew before you moved in.”
“And you still hired me?”
“I wanted a tutor, didn’t I? You looked like you might be able to pull it off. I think I showed excellent judgment in engaging your services.”
“Well, thanks,” Johnny said. His voice was hoarse.
“I told you you didn’t have to say that.”
As they talked, Walter Cronkite had finished up with the real news of the day and had gone on to the man-bites-dog stories that sometimes turn up near the end of a newscast. He was saying, “... voters in western New Hampshire have an independent running in the third district this year ...”
“Well, the cash will come in handy,” Johnny said. “That’s . . .”
“Shh. I want to hear this.”
Chatsworth was leaning forward, hands dangling between his knees, a pleasant smile of expectation on his face. Johnny turned to look at the TV.
“... Stillson,” Cronkite said. “This forty-three-year-old insurance and real estate agent is surely running one of the most eccentric races of Campaign ’76, but both the third-district Republican candidate, Harrison Fisher, and his Democratic opponent, David Bowes, are running scared, because the polls have Greg Stillson running comfortably ahead. George Herman has the story.”
“Who’s Stillson?” Johnny asked.
Chatsworth laughed. “Oh. you gotta see this guy, Johnny. He’s as crazy as a rat in a drainpipe. But I do believe the sober-sided electorate of the third district is going to send him to Washington this November. Unless he actually falls down and starts frothing at the mouth. And I wouldn’t completely rule that out.”
Now the TV showed a picture of a handsome young man in a white open-throated shirt. He was speaking to a small crowd from a bunting-hung platform in a supermarket parking lot. The young man was exhorting the crowd. The crowd looked less than thrilled. George Herman voiced over: “This is David Bowes, the Democratic candidate—sacrificial offering, some would say—for the third-district seat in New Hampshire. Bowes expected an uphill fight because New Hampshire’s third district has