‘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,’ Banner-man 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.
‘Mr. Smith?’ It squawked tinnily. ‘Hello, Mr. Smith?’
‘I’m here,’ Johnny said putting the phone back to his ear. He was conscious of a dull anger at Sam Weizak, Sam who had told him to keep his head down only this summer, and then had turned around and given this local-yokel sheriff an earful – behind Johnny’s back.
‘It’s that strangling business, isn’t it?’
Bannerman hesitated a long time. Then he said, ‘Could we talk, Mr. Smith?’
‘No. Absolutely not.’ The dull anger had ignited into sudden fury. Fury and something else. He was scared.
‘Mr. Smith, it’s important. Today…’
‘No. I want to be left alone. Besides, don’t you read the goddam inside View? I’m a fake anyway.’
‘Dr. Weizak said…’
‘He had no business saying anything! ‘Johnny shouted. He was shaking all over. ‘Goodbye!’ He slammed the phone into its cradle and got out of the phone nook quickly, as if that would prevent it from ringing again. He could feel a headache beginning in his temples. Dull drill-bits. Maybe I should call his mother out there in California, he thought. Tell her where her little sonny-buns is. Tell her to get in touch. Tit for tat.
Instead he hunted in the address book in the phone-table drawer, found Sam’s office number in Bangor, and called it. As soon as it rang once on the other end he hung up, scared again. Why had Sam done that to him? Goddammit, why?
He found himself looking at the Christmas tree.
Same old decorations. They had dragged them down from the attic again and taken them out of their tissue-paper cradles again and hung them up again, just two evenings ago. It was a funny thing about Christmas decorations. There weren’t many things that remained intact year after year as a person grew up. Not many lines of continuity, not many physical objects that could easily serve both the states of childhood and adulthood. Your kid clothes were handed down or packed off to the Salvation Army; your Donald Duck watch sprung its mainspring; your Red Ryder cowboy boots wore out. The wallet you made in your first camp handicrafts class got replaced by a Lord Buxton, and you traded your red wagon and your bike for more adult toys – a car, a tennis racket, maybe one of those new TV hockey games. There were only a few things you could hang onto. A few books, maybe, or a lucky coin, or a stamp collection that had been preserved and improved upon.