road branched ahead. Left branch to Berlin and Ridder’s Mill, right branch to Trimbull and Concord. Johnny turned right.
But it wouldn’t hurt to just shake his hand, would it?
Maybe not. One more politician for his collection. Some people collected stamps, some coins, but Johnny Smith collects handshakes and—
—and admit it. You’ve been looking for a wild card in the deck all along.
The thought shook him so badly that he almost pulled over to the side of the road. He caught a glimpse of himself in the rear-view mirror and it wasn’t the contented, everything-is-resting-easy face he had gotten up with that morning. Now it was the press conference face, and the face of the man who had crawled through the snow of the Castle Rock town common on his hands and knees. The skin was too white, the eyes circled with bruised-looking brown rings, the lines etched too deep.
No. It isn’t true.
But it was. Now that was out, it couldn’t be denied. In the first twenty-three years of his life he had shaken hands with exactly one politician; that was when Ed Muskie had come to talk to his high school government class in 1966. In the last seven months he had shaken hands with over a dozen big names. And hadn’t the thought flashed across the back of his mind as each one struck out his hand—What’s this guy all about? What’s he going to tell me?
Hadn’t he been looking, all along, for the political equivalent of Frank Dodd?
Yes. It was true.
But the fact was, none of them except Carter had told him much of anything, and the feelings that he had gotten from Carter were not particularly alarming. Shaking hands with Carter had not given him that sinking feeling he had gotten just from watching Greg Stillson on TV. He felt as if Stillson might have taken the game of the Laughing Tiger a step further inside the beast-skin, a man, yes.
But inside the man-skin, a beast.
2
Whatever the progression had been, Johnny found himself eating his picnic lunch in the Trimbull town park instead of the Fenway bleachers. He had arrived shortly after noon and had seen a sign on the community notice board announcing the rally at three P.M.
He drifted over to the park, expecting to have the place pretty much to himself so long before the rally was scheduled to begin, but others were already spreading blankets, unlimbering Frisbees, or settling down to their own lunches.
Up front, a number of men were at work on the bandstand. Two of them were decorating the waist-high railings with bunting. Another was on a ladder, hanging colorful crepe streamers from the bandstand’s circular eave. Others were setting up the sound system, and as Johnny had guessed when he watched the CBS newsclip, it was no four-hundred-dollar podium PA set. The speakers were Altec-Lansings, and they were being carefully placed to give surround-sound.
The advance men (but the image that persisted was that of roadies setting up for an Eagles or Geils band concert) went about their work with businesslike precision. The whole thing had a practiced, professional quality to it that jarred with Stillson’s image of the amiable Wild Man of Borneo.
The crowd mostly spanned about twenty years, from mid-teens to midthirties. They were having a good time. Babies toddled around clutching melting Dairy Queens and Slush Puppies. Women chatted together and laughed. Men drank beer from styrofoam cups. A few dogs bounced around, grabbing what there was to be grabbed, and the sun shone benignly down on everyone.
“Test,” one of the men on the bandstand said laconically into the two mikes. “Test-one, test-two . . .” One of the speakers in the park uttered a loud feedback whine, and the guy on the podium motioned that he wanted it moved backward.
This isn’t the way you set up for a political speech and rally, Johnny thought. They’re setting up for alove-feast ... or a group grope.
“Test-one, test-two ... test, test, test.”
They were strapping the big speakers to the trees, Johnny saw. Not nailing them but strapping them. Stillson was an ecology booster, and someone had told his advance men not to hurt so much as one tree in one town park. The operation gave him the feeling of having been honed down to the smallest detail. This was no grab-it-and-run-with-it deal.
Two yellow school buses pulled into the turnaround left of the small (and already full) parking lot. The doors folded open and men and women got out, talking animatedly to