Salem's Lot

8

Eva was ironing and watching ‘Dialing for Dollars’ when he came in. The jackpot was currently up to forty-five dollars, and the emcee was picking telephone numbers out of a large glass drum.

‘I heard,’ she said as he opened the refrigerator and got a Coke. ‘Awful. Poor Mike.’

‘It’s too bad.’ He reached into his breast pocket and fished out the crucifix on its fine-link chain.

‘Do they know what-’

‘Not yet,’ Ben said. ‘I’m very tired, Mrs Miller. I think I’ll sleep for a while.’

‘Of course you should. That upstairs room is hot at midday, even this late in the year. Take the one in the downstairs hall if you like. The sheets are fresh.’

‘No, that’s all right. I know all the squeaks in the one upstairs.’

‘Yes, a person does get used to their own,’ she said matter-of-factly. ‘Why in the world did Mr Burke want Ralph’s crucifix?’

Ben paused on his way to the stairs, momentarily at a loss. ‘I think he must have thought Mike Ryerson was a Catholic.’

Eva slipped a new shirt on the end of her ironing board. ‘He should have known better than that. After all, he had Mike in school. All his people were Lutherans.’

Ben had no answer for that. He went upstairs, pulled his clothes off, and got into bed. Sleep came rapidly and heavily. He did not dream.