Salem's Lot

Chapter Five

BEN (II)

1

On September 25 Ben took dinner with the Nortons again. It was Thursday night, and the meal was traditional-beans and franks. Bill Norton grilled the franks on the outdoor grill, and Ann had had her kidney beans simmering in molasses since nine that morning. They ate at the picnic table and afterward they sat smoking, the four of them, talking desultorily of Boston’s fading pennant chances.

There was a subtle change in the air; it was still pleasant enough, even in shirt sleeves, but there was a glint of ice in it now. Autumn was waiting in the wings, almost in sight. The large and ancient maple in front of Eva Miller’s boardinghouse had already begun to go red.

There had been no change in Ben’s relationship with the Nortons. Susan’s liking for him was frank and clear and natural. And he liked her very much. In Bill he sensed a steadily increasing liking, held in abeyance by the subconscious taboo that affects all fathers when in the presence of men who are there because of their daughters rather than themselves. If you like another man and you are honest, you speak freely, discuss women over beer, shoot the shit about politics. But no matter how deep the potential liking, it is impossible to open up completely to a man who is dangling your daughter’s potential decoration between his legs. Ben reflected that after marriage the possible had become the actual and could you become complete friends with the man who was banging your daughter night after night? There might be a moral there, but Ben doubted it.

Ann Norton continued cool. Susan had told him a little of the Floyd Tibbits situation the night before-of her mother’s assumption that her son-in-law problems had been solved neatly and satisfactorily in that direction. Floyd was a known quantity; he was Steady. Ben Mears, on the other hand, had come out of nowhere and might disappear back there just as quickly, possibly with her daughter’s heart in his pocket. She distrusted the creative male with an instinctive small-town dislike (one that Edward Arlington Robinson or Sherwood Anderson would have recognized at once), and Ben suspected that down deep she had absorbed a maxim: either faggots or bull studs; sometimes homicidal, suicidal, or maniacal; tend to send young girls packages containing their left ears. Ben’s participation in the search for Ralphie Glick seemed to have increased her suspicions rather than allayed them, and he suspected that winning her over was an impossibility. He wondered if she knew of Parkins Gillespie’s visit to his room.

He was chewing these thoughts over lazily when Ann said, ‘Terrible about the Glick boy.’

‘Ralphie? Yes,’ Bill said.

‘No, the older one. He’s dead.’

Ben started. ‘Who? Danny?’

‘He died early yesterday morning.’ She seemed surprised that the men did not know. It had been all the talk.

‘I heard them talking in Milt’s,’ Susan said. Her hand found Ben’s under the table and he took it willingly. ‘How are the Glicks taking it?’

‘The same way I would,’ Ann said simply. ‘They are out of their minds.’

Well they might be, Ben thought. Ten days ago their life had been going about its usual ordained cycle; now their family unit was smashed and in pieces. It gave him a morbid chill.

‘Do you think the other Glick boy will ever show up alive?’ Bill asked Ben.

‘No,’ Ben said. ‘I think he’s dead, too.’

‘Like that thing in Houston two years ago,’ Susan said. ‘If he’s dead, I almost hope they don’t find him. Whoever could do something like that to a little, defenseless boy -’

‘The police are looking around, I guess,’ Ben said. ‘Rounding up known sex offenders and talking to them.’

‘When they find the guy they ought to hang him up by the thumbs,’ Bill Norton said. ‘Badminton, Ben?’

Ben stood. ‘No thanks. Too much like you playing solitaire with me for the dummy. Thanks for the nice meal. I’ve got work to do tonight.’

Ann Norton lifted her eyebrow and said nothing.

Bill stood. ‘How’s that new book coming?’

‘Good,’ Ben said briefly. ‘Would you like to walk down the hill with me and have a soda at Spencer’s, Susan?’

‘Oh, I don’t know,’ Ann interposed swiftly. ‘After Ralphie Glick and all, I’d feel better if-’

‘Momma, I’m a big girl,’ Susan interposed. ‘And there are streetlights all the way up Brock Hill.’

‘I’ll walk you back up, of course,’ Ben said, almost formally. He had left his car at Eva’s. The early evening had been too fine to drive.

‘They’ll be fine,’ Bill said. ‘You worry too much, Mother.’

‘Oh, I suppose I do. Young folks always know best, don’t they?’ She smiled thinly.

‘I’ll just get a jacket,’ Susan murmured to Ben, and turned up the back walk. She was wearing a red play skirt, thigh-high, and she exposed a lot of leg going up the steps to the door. Ben watched, knowing Ann was watching him watch. Her husband was damping the charcoal fire.

‘How long do you intend to stay in the Lot, Ben?’ Ann asked, showing polite interest.

‘Until the book gets written, anyway,’ he said. ‘After that, I can’t say. It’s very lovely in the mornings, and the air tastes good when you breathe it.’ He smiled into her eyes. ‘I may stay longer.’

She smiled back. ‘It gets cold in the winters, Ben. Awfully cold.’

Then Susan was coming back down the steps with a light jacket thrown over her shoulders. ‘Ready? I’m going to have a chocolate. Look out, complexion.’

‘Your complexion will survive,’ he said, and turned to Mr and Mrs Norton. ‘Thank you again.’

‘Anytime,’ Bill said. ‘Come on over with a six-pack tomorrow night, if you want. We’ll make fun of that goddamn Yastrzemski.’

‘That would be fun,’ Ben said, ‘but what’ll we do after the second inning?’

His laughter, hearty and full, followed them around the corner of the house.