Ace," Mr. Gaunt said, rubbing his long-fingered hands together. "Extremely good. And it's going to get even better. I have work for you to do."
"I told you," Ace said. "The Sheriff stole my-" Leland Gaunt was upon him before Ace even saw him move.
Those long, ugly hands seized him by the front of the shirt and lifted him into the air as if he were made of feathers. A startled cry fell out of his mouth. The hands which held hirri were like iron.
Mr. Gaunt lifted him high, and Ace suddenly found himself looking down into that blazing, hellish face with only the haziest idea of how he had gotten there. Even in the extremity of his sudden terror, he noticed that smoke or perhaps it was steam-was coming out of Mr. Gaunt's ears and nostrils. He looked like a human dragon.
"You tell me NOTHING!" Mr. Gaunt screamed up at him. His tongue licked out between those jostling tombstone teeth, and Ace saw it came to a double point, like the tongue of a snake. "I tell you EVERYTHING!
Shut up when you are in the company of your elders and betters, Ace! Shut up and listen! Shut up and listen! SHUT UP AND LISTEN!"
He whirled Ace twice around his head like a carnival wrestler giving his opponent an airplane spin, and threw him against the far wall. Ace's head connected with the plaster. A large fireworks display went off in the center of his brain. When his vision cleared, he saw Leland Gaunt bearing down on him. His face was a horror of eyes and teeth and blowing steam.
"No!" Ace shrieked. "No, Mr. Gaunt, please! NO!"
The hands had become talons, the nails grown long and sharp in a moment's time... or were they that way all along? Ace's mind gibbered. Maybe they were that way all along and you just didn't see it.
They cut through the fabric of Ace's shirt like razors, and Ace was jerked back up into that fuming face.
"Are you ready to listen, Ace?" Mr. Gaunt asked. Hot blurts of steam stung Ace's cheeks and mouth with each word. "Are you ready, or should I just unzip your worthless guts and have done with it?"
"Yes!" he sobbed. "I mean no! I'll listen!"
"Are you going to be a good little errand boy and follow orders?"
"Yes!"
"Do you know what will happen if you don't?"
"Yes! Yes! Yes!"
"You're disgusting, Ace," Mr. Gaunt said. "I like that in a person." He slung Ace against the wall. Ace slid down it into a loose kneeling position, gasping and sobbing. He looked down at the floor.
He was afraid to gaze directly into the monster's face.
"If you should even think of going against my wishes, Ace, I'll see that you get the grand tour of hell. You'll have the Sheriff, don't worry. For the moment, however, he is out of town. Now. Stand up."
Ace got slowly to his feet. His head throbbed; his tee-shirt hung in ribbons.
"Let me ask you something." Mr. Gaunt was urbane and smiling again, not a hair out of place.
"Do you like this little town? Do you love it? Do you keep snapshots of it on the walls of your shitty little shack to remind yourself of its rustic charm on those days when the bee stings and the dog bites?"
"Hell, no," Ace said in an unsteady voice. His voice rose and fell with the pounding of his heart. He made it to his feet only with the greatest effort. His legs felt as if they were made of spaghetti.
He stood with his back to the wall, watching Mr. Gaunt warily.
"Would it appall you if I said I wanted you to blow this shitty little burg right off the face of the map while you wait for the Sheriff to come back?"
"I... I don't know what that word means," Ace said nervously.
"I'm not surprised. But I think you understand what I mean, Ace.
Don't you?"
Ace thought back. He thought back all the way to a time, many years ago, when four snotnosed kids had cheated him and his friends (Ace had had friends back in those days, or at least a reasonable approximation thereof) out of something Ace had wanted. They had caught one of the snotnoses-Gordie LaChance-later on and had beaten the living shit out of him, but it hadn't mattered. These days LaChance was a bigshot writer living in another part of the state, and he probably wiped his ass with ten-dollar bills. Somehow the snotnoses had won, and things