Salem's Lot

4

Matt did not answer at her knock or yell Come in! as he usually did. Instead, a very careful voice which she hardly recognized said, ‘Who is it?’ very quietly from the other side.

‘Susie Norton, Mr Burke.’

He opened the door and she felt real shock at the change in him. He looked old and haggard. A moment after that, she saw that he was wearing a heavy gold crucifix. There was something so strange and ludicrous about that ornate five-and-dime corpus lying against his checked flannel shirt that she almost laughed-but didn’t.

‘Come in. Where’s Ben?’

She told him and his face grew long. ‘So Floyd Tibbits of all people decides to play wronged lover, is that it? Well, it couldn’t have happened at a more inopportune time. Mike Ryerson was brought back from Portland late this afternoon for burial preparations at Foreman’s. And I suppose our trip up to the Marsten House will have to be put off-’

‘What trip? What’s this about Mike?’

‘Would you like coffee?’ he asked absently.

‘No. I want to find out what’s going on. Ben said you know.’

‘That,’ he said, ‘is a very tall order. Easy for Ben to say I’m to tell you everything. Harder to do. But I will try.’

‘What-’

He held up one hand. ‘One thing first, Susan. You and your mother went down to the new shop the other day.’ Susan’s brow furrowed. ‘Sure. Why?’

‘Can you give me your impressions of the place, and more specifically, of the man who runs it?’

‘Mr Straker?’

‘Yes.’

‘Well, he’s quite charming,’ she said. ‘Courtly might be an even better word. He complimented Glynis Mayberry on her dress and she blushed like a schoolgirl. And asked Mrs Boddin about the bandage on her arm she spilled some hot fat on it, you know. He gave her a recipe for a poultice. Wrote it right down. And when Mabel came in…’ She laughed a bit at the memory.

‘Yes?’

‘He got her a chair,’ Susan said. ‘Not a chair, actually, but a chair. More like a throne. A great carved mahogany thing. He brought it out of the back room all by himself, smiling and chatting with the other ladies all the time. But it must have weighed at least three hundred pounds. He plonked it down in the middle of the floor and escorted Mabel to it. Took her arm, you know. And she was giggling. If you’ve seen Mabel giggling, you’ve seen everything. And he served coffee. Very strong but very good.’

‘Did you like him?’ Matt asked, watching her closely.

‘This is all a part of it, isn’t it?’ she asked.

‘It might be, yes.’

‘All right, then. I’ll give you a woman’s reaction. I did and I didn’t. I was attracted to him in a mildly sexual way, I guess. Older man, very urbane, very charming, very courtly. You know looking at him that he could order from a French menu and know what wine would go with what, not just red or white but the year and even the vineyard. Very definitely not the run of fellow you see around here. But not effeminate in the least. Lithe, like a dancer. And of course there’s something attractive about a man who is so unabashedly bald.’ She smiled a little defensively, knowing there was color in her cheeks, wondering if she had said more than she intended.

‘But then you didn’t,’ Matt said.

She shrugged. ‘That’s harder to put my finger on. I think… I think I sensed a certain contempt under the surface. A cynicism. As if he were playing a certain part, and playing it well, but as if he knew he wouldn’t have to pull out all the stops to fool us. A touch of condescension.’ She looked at him uncertainly. ‘And there seemed to be something a little bit cruel about him. I don’t really know why.’

‘Did anyone buy anything?’

‘Not much, but he didn’t seem to mind. Mom bought a little knickknack shelf from Yugoslavia ‘ and that Mrs Petrie bought a lovely little drop-leaf table, but that was all I saw. He didn’t seem to mind. Just urged people to tell their friends he was open, to come back by and not be strangers. Very Old World charming.’

‘And do you think people were charmed?’

‘By and large, yes,’ Susan said, mentally comparing her mother’s enthusiastic impression of R. T. Straker to her immediate dislike of Ben.

‘You didn’t see his partner?’

‘Mr Barlow? No, he’s in New York, on a buying trip.’

‘Is he?’ Matt said, speaking to himself. ‘I wonder. The elusive Mr Barlow.’

‘Mr Burke, don’t you think you better tell me what all this is about?’

He sighed heavily.

‘I suppose I must try. What you’ve just told me is disturbing. Very disturbing. It all fits so well… ’

‘What? What does?’

‘I have to start,’ he began, ‘with meeting Mike Ryerson in Dell’s tavern last night… which already seems a century ago.’