Hogan was suddenly tired of the woman and of Scooter’s Grocery & Roadside Zoo. They were great Chattery Teeth, and Jack would undoubtedly love them, but he had promised — eight at the latest.
‘Never mind,’ he said. ‘It was just an — ‘
‘Them teeth was supposed to go for $15.95, if you c’n believe it,’ Scooter said from behind them. ‘They ain’t just plastic — those’re metal teeth painted white. They could give you a helluva bite if they worked . . . but she dropped ’em on the floor two-three years ago when she was dustm the inside of the case and they’re busted.’
‘Oh,’ Hogan said, disappointed. ‘That’s too bad. I never saw a pair with, you know, feet.’
‘There are lots of ’em like that now,’ Scooter said. ‘They sell ’em at the novelty stores in Vegas and Dry Springs. But I never saw a set as big as those. It was funnier’n hell to watch ’em walk across the floor, snappin like a crocodile. Shame the old lady dropped ’em.’
Scooter glanced at her, but his wife was looking out at the blowing sand. There was an expression on her face which Hogan couldn’t quite decipher — was it sadness, or disgust, or both?
Scooter looked back at Hogan. ‘I could let ’em go for three-fifty, if you wanted ’em. We’re gettin rid of the novelties, anyway. Gonna put rental videotapes in that counter.’ He closed the storeroom door. The bandanna was now pulled down, lying on the dusty front of his shirt. His face was haggard and too thin. Hogan saw what might have been the shadow of serious illness lurking just beneath his desert tan.
‘You could do no such a thing, Scooter!’ the big woman snapped, and turned toward him . . .
almost turned on him.
‘Shutcha head,” Scooter replied. ‘You make my fillins ache.’
‘I told you to get Wolf — ‘
‘Myra, if you want him back there in the storeroom, go get him yourself.’ He began to advance on her, and Hogan was surprised — almost wonder-struck, in fact — when she gave ground.
‘Ain’t nothin but a Minnesota coydog anyway. Three dollars even, friend, and those Chattery Teeth are yours. Throw in another buck and you can take Myra’s Woof, too. If you got five, I’ll deed the whole place to you. Ain’t worth a dogfart since the turnpike went through, anyway.’
The long-haired kid was standing by the door, tearing the top from the pack of cigarettes Hogan had helped buy and watching this small comic opera with an expression of mean amusement. His small gray-green eyes gleamed, flicking back and forth between Scooter and his wife.
‘Hell with you,’ Myra said gruffly, and Hogan realized she was close to tears. ‘If you won’t get my sweet baby, I will.’ She stalked past him, almost striking him with one boulder-sized breast.
Hogan thought it would have knocked the little man flat if it had connected.
‘Look,’ Hogan said, ‘I think I’ll just shove along.’
‘Aw, hell,’ Scooter said. ‘Don’t mind Myra. I got cancer and she’s got the change, and it ain’t my problem she’s havin the most trouble livin with. Take the darn teeth. Bet you got a boy might like ’em. Besides, it’s probably just a cog knocked a little off-track. I bet a man who was handy could get ’em walkin and chompin again.’
He looked around, his expression helpless and musing. Outside, the wind rose to a brief, thin shriek as the kid opened the door and slipped out. He had decided the show was over, apparently.
A cloud of fine grit swirled down the middle aisle, between the canned goods and the dog food.
‘I was pretty handy myself, at one time,’ Scooter confided.
Hogan did not reply for a long moment. He could not think of anything — quite literally not one single thing — to say. He looked down at the Jumbo Chattery Teeth standing on the scratched and cloudy display case, nearly desperate to break the silence (now that Scooter was standing right in front of him, he could see that the man’s eyes were huge and dark, glittering with pain and some heavy dope . . . Darvon, or perhaps morphine), and he spoke the first words that popped into his head: ‘Gee, they don’t look broken.’
He picked the teeth up. They were metal, all right — too heavy to be anything else — and when he looked through the slightly parted jaws, he was surprised at the size of the mainspring that ran the thing. He supposed it would take one that size to make the teeth not only chatter but walk, as well. What had Scooter said? They could give you a helluva bite if they worked. Hogan gave the thick rubber band an experimental tweak, then stripped it off. He was still looking at the teeth so he wouldn’t have to look into Scooter’s dark, pain-haunted eyes. He grasped the key and at last he risked a look up. He was relieved to see that now the thin man was smiling a little.
‘Do you mind?’ Hogan asked.
‘Not me, pilgrim — let er rip.’
Hogan grinned and turned the key. At first it was all right; there was a series of small, ratcheting clicks, and he could see the mainspring winding up. Then, on the third turn, there was a spronk! noise from inside, and the key simply slid bonelessly around in its hole.
‘See?’
‘Yes,’ Hogan said. He set the teeth down on the counter. They stood there on their unlikely orange feet and did nothing.
Scooter poked the clenched molars on the lefthand side with the tip of one horny finger. The jaws of the teeth opened. One orange foot rose and took a dreamy half-step forward. Then the teeth stopped moving and the whole rig fell sideways. The Chattery Teeth came to rest on the wind-up key, a slanted, disembodied grin out here in the middle of no-man’s-land. After a moment or two, the big teeth came together again with a slow click. That was all.
Hogan, who had never had a premonition in his life, was suddenly filled with a clear certainty that was both eerie and sickening. A year from now, this man will have been eight months in his grave, and if someone exhumed his coffin and pried off the lid, they’d see teeth just like these poking out of his dried-out dead face like an enamel trap.
He glanced up into Scooter’s eyes, glittering like dark gems in tarnished settings, and suddenly it was no longer a question of wanting to get out of here; he had to get out of here.
‘Well,’ he said (hoping frantically that Scooter would not stick out his hand to be shaken),
‘gotta go. Best of luck to you, sir.’
Scooter did put his hand out, but not to be shaken. Instead, he snapped the rubber band back around the Chattery Teeth (Hogan had no idea why, since they didn’t work), set them on their funny cartoon feet, and pushed them across the scratched surface of the counter. ‘Thank you kindly,’ he said. ‘And take these teeth. No charge.’
‘Oh . . . well, thanks, but I couldn’t . . . ‘
‘Sure you can,’ Scooter said. ‘Take ’em and give ’em to your boy. He’ll get a kick out of ’em standin on the shelf in his room even if they don’t work. I know a little about boys. Raised up three of ’em.’
‘How did you know I had a son?’ Hogan asked.
Scooter winked. The gesture was terrifying and pathetic at the same time. ‘Seen it in your face,’ he said. ‘Go on, take ’em.’
The wind gusted again, this time hard enough to make the boards of the building moan. The sand hitting the windows sounded like fine snow. Hogan picked the teeth up by the plastic feet, surprised all over again by how heavy they were.
‘Here.’ Scooter produced a paper bag, almost as wrinkled and crumpled about the edges as his own face, from beneath the counter. ‘Stick ’em in here. That’s a real nice sportcoat you got there.
If you carry them choppers in the pocket, it’ll get pulled out of shape.’
He put the bag on the counter as if he understood how little Hogan wanted to touch him.
‘Thanks,’ Hogan said. He put the Chattery Teeth in the bag and rolled down the top. ‘Jack thanks you, too — he’s my son.’
Scooter smiled, revealing a set of teeth just as false (but nowhere near as large) as the ones in the paper bag. ‘My pleasure, mister. You drive careful until you get out of the blow. You’ll be fine once you get in the foothills.’
‘I know.’ Hogan cleared his throat. ‘Thanks again. I hope you . . . uh . . . recover soon.’
‘That’d be nice,’ Scooter said evenly, ‘but I don’t think it’s in the cards, do you?’